HARRISBURG, Pa. - The teenage daughter of a woman who just revealed she abandoned her family 11 years ago said Thursday the disclosure has angered her and she is not eager to restart their relationship.
Morgan Heist, who learned last week that Brenda Heist had surfaced in the Florida Keys, said the news has made her recall with bitterness the years of mourning she endured when she assumed her mother was dead and feared she'd been killed.
"I ached every birthday, every Christmas," said 19-year-old Morgan Heist, a freshman at a community college outside Philadelphia. "My heart just ached. I wasn't mad at her. I wanted her to be there because I thought something had happened to her. I wish I had never cried."
Brenda Heist's mother, Jean Copenhaver, said Thursday that her daughter "had a real traumatic time" but was doing OK.
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Brenda Heist was released from police custody on Wednesday and is staying with a brother in northern Florida for now, Copenhaver said.
Copenhaver, who lives in Brenham, Texas, said she had spoken with Heist several times since Friday, when the 54-year-old woman turned herself in to police in Florida and was identified as a missing person.
"She just said she thought the family wouldn't want to talk to her because of her leaving," Copenhaver said. "And we all assured her that wasn't the case and we all loved her and wanted to be with her."
Morgan Heist said she's not sympathetic, partly because her mother had a choice, unlike the family she secretly abandoned.
"It's definitely very selfish," Morgan Heist said. "She clearly did not think of me or my brother or my dad at all with that decision. She thought of herself."
Heist told police she made a spur-of-the-moment decision in 2002 to join a group of homeless hitchhikers on their way to Florida, walking out on Morgan, then 8, and her brother, then 12.
Brenda and her husband, Lee, were living together but going through an amicable divorce when she learned she had been denied housing support, police said. She was crying about that in a Lancaster park when three strangers befriended her and offered to let her join them.
Morgan Heist said her parents had agreed to live near each other once they divorced. Brenda Heist had been a bookkeeper at a car dealership.
"Her life was not hard at all," her daughter said.
Brenda Heist told police she slept under bridges and survived at times by scavenging food from restaurant trash and panhandling. But Lititz (Pa.) police Detective John Schofield said Thursday he is looking into reports that have come in suggesting Brenda Heist's time in Florida included much less miserable periods.
"We're getting several calls from people down in Florida that knew her who want to say she's not being truthful with us," Schofield said.
Copenhaver said she has not pressed her daughter about what led her to walk away from her family and live underground for more than a decade. "We haven't gone into that with her," Copenhaver said.
"I ached every birthday, every Christmas. My heart just ached. I wasn't mad at her. I wanted her to be there because I thought something had happened to her. I wish I had never cried."
Morgan Heist, 19-year-old daughter of Brenda Heist
