KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Paula Davis was a 21-year-old young wife and mother in August 1987. One day Davis was having pizza with her younger sister and planning a trip to a Bon Jovi concert. The next day, the Kansas City, Mo., woman was gone.

"We got a call something happened to Paula," Davis' younger sister Stephanie Clack said.

That phone call and it changed the lives of Clack and her family. Her older sister was gone -- she'd vanished, it seemed. It was a friend of Davis who alerted the family to her disappearance, but when police talked with her, she had little to tell them.

"She believes she got into a semi truck and never returned," Kansas City police Sgt. Mike Lang said.

The family immediately went to Davis' apartment and found her driver's license, wallet and keys. The family filed a missing persons report and called every missing-person organization they could think of. The days turned into weeks and then into years. The family kept looking, but came up empty at every turn

"We just always hoped she was going to come back to us," Clack said. "We missed out on 22 years with her."

In 2005 Davis' mother passed away suddenly, never knowing what had happened to her oldest daughter.

In October, Davis' aunt called and suggested they watch a show called "The Forgotten," starring Christian Slater. The show is about a group of volunteers who help identify Jane and John Does when law enforcement has exhausted all leads. During every episode, a public service announcement is aired promoting the National Missing and Unidentified Missing Persons System.

The Department of Justice came up with the idea of a database to try to solve missing persons and unidentified decedent cases. In 2005, Namus.gov was launched.

The morning after watching "The Forgotten," Clack and her sister Alice decided to give NAMUS a shot.

"They wanted to know the sex, female, race, white," Clack said.

The last entry asked for was a state. They entered Missouri, held their breaths and waited. The search came up empty.

"We were sad," Clack said.

They decided to try their NAMUS search one more time and left off Missouri and this time 10 profiles popped up. The sisters got to the very last entry on the page and suddenly said something looked familiar.

"When I opened it and seen tattoos on there and I turned to my sister, and knew at that time we had found her," Clack said.

The entry featured a body of a young woman whose body found just outside Dayton, Ohio, on Interstate 70. She had been strangled.

The family contacted law enforcement in Ohio, who saw a picture of the woman in the morgue. In December, DNA confirmed what the family said they already knew: The body found in Ohio was their sister Paula, and she had been there all those years.

"They found her 14 hours after she went missing on Aug. 9, 1987," Clack said.

In a potter's field with others whose identities are unknown, Davis was buried with no headstone, just a plot number: Jane Doe No. 3.

"We've never forgot about her, that's the hardest," Clack said. "We always held out hope she was alive."

The story of Davis and her family's quest to find her after more than two decades made it back to the cast and crew of "The Forgotten." Slater talked about the case on a recent appearance of the "Lopez Tonight" on TBS.

When Slater and the crew heard the family was having a tough time coming up with the thousands of dollars it was going to cost to bring Davis home, they dug into their own pockets to help.

"We are going to be bringing her back sooner than we thought," Clack said.

The Davis family is speaking out, not only to thank those who have helped, but to share their story with others who have a missing loved one as a reminder to never stop hoping and searching.

"She'd be happy and tell all of us she loves us," Clack said. "I know one of these days we will be with her."

Police have reopened the homicide investigation into Paula Davis' killing. In the meantime, her family has set up the Paula E. Davis Beverly Memorial Fund. All the money raised will go to help other families as they search for their own missing person. Those wanting to donate can do so at any U.S. Bank.