Parents Keep Missing Daughter’s Cage Exactly How She Left It When She Escaped

CANTON, OH—Still holding out hope and not wishing to disturb the many memories the space held for them, local parents Gil and Madelyn Hurcomb confirmed Wednesday that it comforted them to keep their missing daughter’s cage exactly how she left it when she escaped three years ago. “If our precious Lizzie ever returns, we want her to be able to return to her familiar 2-by-5-foot steel enclosure and feel as if she never broke free,” said a visibly distraught Madelyn Hurcomb, admitting that she knew visitors to her home probably found it odd when they walked past the cage, peeked through its bars, and noticed that she continued to keep her daughter’s water dish topped up and her feeding trough filled with rotting scraps. “I still pray every day we’ll recapture her, and I just can’t imagine getting rid of all the bloodstains and claw marks that have been there since she was a little girl. I can’t even bring myself to change out the newspapers.” Though everything else remains the same, Gil Hurcomb told reporters he had recently convinced his wife to let him put new manacles and leg irons in the cage, so that if their daughter ever did return, she would never, ever get away again.