They say a mother knows, Rebecca House said today, and for 26 years she’s never felt that her daughter is dead.

Melissa Diane McGuinn, House’s only daughter, disappeared 26 years ago today at 7 months old.

A roommate of House’s had taken the baby outside the Lamberton Street home they shared and came back without the child just minutes later.

At first, Wanda Faye Reed had said a man had knocked her down and taken Melissa. Then she said she had given the baby to a man in a car. Finally, she claimed she had thrown the infant into the icy Delaware River a short distance away.

Reed suffered from a mental disability, and her versions of what happened have always been in doubt. Despite intense searches on land and water in 1988, no trace of Melissa has ever been found. Yet 26 years later both House and the New Jersey State Police want to find out what happened to her.

“I believe someone has her, and someone has gone to extremes to keep her identity from her,” House said today as she stood behind her old home.

Today, House traveled from Conway, Ark., where she lives now, to Trenton, returning to the city for the first time since 1988. She brought along handouts bearing a photo of Melissa when she was a baby alongside a rendering of how she would appear now, done by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

Coming back to Trenton was not easy.

“I’m numb,” she said this afternoon. “And not because of the cold.”

Before she even reached the front steps of her old home today, House was in tears.

“This is the last place my baby was with me,” she said.

No one answered the door today, and House walked through the neighborhood that’s changed a lot since she lived there.

Now 45, House was 19 and went by the name Rebecca McGuinn. She lived in the house with her then-husband, Robert McGuinn, Reed, and Reed’s common-law husband, Robert Ashley.

On the morning of March 6, 1988, House was up in her bedroom and wanted to smoke a cigarette. Reed offered to take the baby downstairs. House agreed, she said today, having no idea Reed was going to take Melissa outside.

By the time she finished her cigarette — no more than 10 minutes later — Reed was back. House said she asked if Melissa was with Reed.

“Wanda walks in and says, ‘No, she’s gone,’” House said.

The distraught mother ran outside immediately but the child was nowhere to be found.

Somebody called police, and House was taken to headquarters for an interview, where police had to restrain her when she attempted to kill Reed.

“I tried with the stapler, and it took six of ’em to pull me off her,” House said. “And I weighed 98 pounds at the time.”

LACK OF EVIDENCE

Reed was arrested two days after Melissa’s disappearance and charged with kidnapping.

But the lack of physical evidence along with the woman’s mental state led prosecutors to drop the charge in December 1989.

She now lives in Louisiana, with a mental capacity still described by authorities as that of a young child.

During a party the night before at the neighbor’s house, House noticed that Reed was upset when Melissa got more attention than Reed’s 2-month-old son Jimmy.

“The whole thing was over jealousy,” House said today. “That’s how I felt.”

Reed’s claim that she sold Melissa for $200 worth of drugs is hard for House to believe, only because she does not believe Reed had the intelligence to understand a simple business transaction. House said there is no reason to think Melissa had died and been abandoned by Reed.

“She was a healthy, 16-pound baby girl that had nothing wrong with her whatever,” House said.

GETTING THE WORD OUT

In Trenton today, House spread her fliers around the Lamberton Street neighborhood where she used to live in her desperate search for anyone who might remember a detail that could solve the mystery of her only daughter.

“She’ll be 27 this year, and I’d like to know something,” House said.

So do State Police Detective Paul Sciortino and Sgt. Wanda Stojanov. Both of them agree with House and believe Melissa is still alive, and they want to find out what happened to her.

“We haven’t given up,” said Stojanov, who was assigned the case in 2008 when the State Police took it on.

Stojanov is now the assistant unit head at Missing Persons, and the case is being handled by Sciortino.

“There’s no official theory or idea — there’s so many possibilities, to be honest with you,” Sciortino said today.

Since few formal interviews were done by Trenton police at the time of Melissa’s disappearance, State Police are speaking to people who were around at the time of Melissa’s disappearance.

Today, both Sciortino and Stojanov interviewed Larry Via, a friend of the McGuinns’ who was sleeping on the couch that morning.

He and his son drove up to Trenton with House.

It was the first time House had met with investigators since 2011, when a lie detector test by the State Police cleared her of any involvement in her daughter's disappearance. It put to rest what House characterized as an ugly rumor that had been around for years.

Time has thinned the number of people with whom investigators can speak.

Robert McGuinn died in 2008. The Trenton detective who led the investigation also is dead.

The State Police hope to have luck seeking out Melissa herself.

SEEKING DNA SAMPLE

A Times story from two years ago brought forward a possible match for Melissa in Iowa, an adopted girl of the right age who has no birth certificate. Sciortino says the State Police are seeking a DNA sample from her.

Another woman who came forward who lives in the Netherlands was tested by the University of North Texas and found not to be McGuinn, Sciortino said.

Including Melissa, House has four children. Her eldest son Robert, who will be 26 in November, lives in Texas. Her sons Joshua, 23, and Lujac, 20, work as oil riggers in Arkansas and are always nearby. On her left wrist, House has a black bracelet and a red bracelet to keep them close.

“All I have to do is touch it, and I know they’re with me,” House said.

On her right wrist, she wears a charm bracelet, pink and silver, with a mother’s inscription on it.

“That represents Melissa,” House said, flipping the bracelet so the dangling heart on the piece of jewelry rests on her wrist. “She’s my only daughter.”

Contact Alex Zdan at azdan@njtimes.com or (609) 989-5705.

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