Known as Miss Nevada 2004, Elizabeth Hunterton finally has plans to meet her biological mother. Their reuniting comes 44 years after two pilots found the former as a baby alone in an airport.
Hunterton has documented the arduous search for her parents on TikTok. The former beauty queen recently told People that she and her mother first connected in 2020 and have been establishing comfortability since. In January of this year, the estranged women bravely had their first phone conversation.
The 44-year-old is bringing her husband and relatives along to meet her mom this month. She said the group is coming together “in a neutral territory” to mind the fragility of the women reuniting. Heading into the moment, Hunterton said she’s feeling mixed emotions of happiness, excitement, and fear.
“They rented a house,” she explained. “So that way, if either of us just needs space, if we need to go for a walk or we need to just go someplace and not be around people, we can do that.”
“[My husband] knows that we’re closing a loop here or maybe opening another one,” she continued. “Who knows?”
What Is Elizabeth Hunterton’s Story?
The former beauty queen was raised in Reno in a white household. She traced back her biological dad in 2018, but he’d passed away the year she was crowned Miss Nevada.
Throughout her identity and familial search journey, Hunterton learned that her late father was Black and her mother was Japanese. Moreover, the mother shared in an email that Hunterton’s airport abandonment was unintentional. She told the 44-year-old that she’d actually entrusted a friend to drop off the baby at an adoption agency.
“When I found out that she had left you at the airport, I didn’t handle it well,” the mother reportedly wrote Hunterton. “And so, she was shocked. She didn’t know I was left at the airport until eight months later.”
“I didn’t have the physical, emotional, mental, or financial capability to care for you in the way that you deserved,” the mother added.
Hunterton refers to herself as a “former Baby Jane Doe” on TikTok. In her “Biological Mother Search” series, she candidly shares her story, discovery process, and feelings. In a May 2 post, she explained that investigators called her case “the perfect abandonment.” She said her origins were nearly impossible to trace. Her only details were being a mixed-race baby at an airport in 1980 which classified her as someone who could’ve been born anywhere, conceived by anybody.
“I never thought in a million years I’d find my biological parents, but I did. I found them both. Finding my biological mother was a long shot. But at least we had witness descriptions,” she noted.
