“I would just hug her and kiss her,” says Starnes, clutching tightly an eighth-grade graduation photo of her girl, Yasmin Acree. The 15-year-old went missing from her bedroom in Austin on Jan. 15, 2008, before her freshman portrait could be taken. Her sudden absence was out of character, and Starnes was stunned.
Starnes, who adopted Acree, who also is Starnes’ niece, and Acree’s brother, Damarcus, when the girl was 8, has thought a lot about a reunion. Before any jubilant gatherings with family members, or shopping trips for new clothes, or therapy sessions she knows Acree would need, she imagines going somewhere quiet together, a time for the two to begin catching up on the five years they lost.
We were close, very close,” Starnes said.