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Cleveland case gives hope to families of those still missing

Posted at 5:26 PM, May 07, 2013
and last updated 2013-05-07 17:26:04-04

Virginia Beach, Va. - Hope Curry, a 23-year-old mother, vanished from Virginia Beach on November 13, 2000. Thirteen years have passed without any clues.

“She went to use the payphone, and that is the last anybody heard,” Hope’s friend,Tiffany Limpert says. “I feel like there is no reason to give up because we don`t have answers, so I just continue having hope.”

That's largely the same story for Kim Gonzalez, Sharon Jones, Kathleen Haley, and more than 20 other women who have simply disappeared from Hampton Roads. The stunning news from Cleveland, that long-missing women were found and rescued, has reminded everyone that sometimes the missing do return.

“Crazier things have happened. That`s why I try to not look at it like, she is lost,” Tiffany says.

Tiffany has spent the past year convincing businesses to hang banners to keep Hope's name and face in public. She believes that someday, the person who knows what happened will spill the secret. And what happened in Cleveland lets her consider there's still a chance she'll see Hope again.

“I hope to give her mom an answer. I mean, I would love to see her face. But, I`d love for her mom to rest,” she says.

According to the National Missing Persons Database, there are 163 open cases of missing persons in Virginia.

88 of those cases are missing women, and 25 of those are from Hampton Roads, with the earliest dating back to 1977.

Click here to see the list.