CINCINNATI (AP) ­— An Indiana woman who had been searching for her mother for decades found a family she hadn’t seen in 25 years after the older woman’s death made headlines when she was run over by a Cincinnati police cruiser as she slept, homeless, in a park.

The Cincinnati Enquirer reports Monday that Robin Burton of Jeffersonville, Ind., renewed an online search for her mother, Joann Burton, about two weeks ago. She found an Enquirer report about the 48-year-old woman’s death last summer, and she and her brother have since been reunited with two brothers, a sister and family members they haven’t seen since they were children.

Burton was about 7 when she entered foster care and Hamilton County children’s services visits with her mother ended. Her brother, Ricky McDonald of Dallas, was about 2.

When Burton, now 32, found the report about her mother, and saw the accompanying photo, she said, “That’s my mom. That’s her. I know it. . … Oh m y God, I found my mom. I found my mom.”

McDonald, 27, said he has also looked for his mother, ever since he had Internet access.

“I’m so excited,” he told the Enquirer. “I just can’t believe all this. I’m so ready to get back to Cincinnati to see my family.”

Burton said social workers removed her and her brother from their mother’s care after the woman had a fight with someone. She said her mother told her “I’m going to come back for you. I’m coming back to get you.”

Burton eventually was placed in a foster home in Ironton in southern Ohio, at about 13, where she finished high school and had her first child. Her brother was adopted in Cincinnati when he was about 3 and left that home when he was 16 to live with his sister.

Burton said she was close to her last foster mother, and named her daughter after her, but chose not to be adopted because she wanted to keep her name in case her mother tried to track her down.

After reading her mother’ s obituary, Burton found an aunt, Emma Burton Ford, who told the Enquirer the family had searched for the two children “forever.” She put them in touch with their younger siblings.

“We all stayed on the phone ‘til like 2 o’clock in the morning,” Burton said. “We kept on saying, ‘This is weird, this is weird.’ That’s all I’ve been thinking, just ‘wow.’”

Burton and her brother said they plan to attend a July family reunion in Cincinnati, and she wants to visit her mother’s grave.

“It is sad that my mother’s gone,” she said. “But maybe a good thing will come out of it. I’m trying to start a family for my kids so they’ll be able to visit and know where they came from. “.