Luis Armando Albino was kidnapped as a toddler from a park in Oakland, Calif., in 1951. Seven a long time later, his niece took a web-based DNA take a look at that led authorities to his house on the East Coast.
Apu Gomes/AFP by way of Getty Images
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Apu Gomes/AFP by way of Getty Images
A boy who was kidnapped from a California park in 1951 has been discovered alive and nicely on the East Coast due to DNA testing and the persistent efforts of his household.
Luis Armando Albino was simply 6 years previous when he was kidnapped from the Oakland park the place he had been taking part in together with his older brother, lured by a lady who promised to purchase him sweet.
Instead, she “transported him out of state and eventually to the East Coast,” the Oakland Police Department (OPD) advised NPR.
State and federal authorities searched extensively for Albino within the wake of his disappearance, however couldn’t discover him or his stays.
All the whereas, his mom, Antonia Albino — who had moved the household from their native Puerto Rico simply the yr earlier than — by no means gave up hope that he was alive.
She visited the police’s lacking individual bureau to press for info nearly day by day at first, then weekly, then month-to-month, and finally yearly, in response to the Mercury News, which first reported the news of his discovery final week.
The household renewed their search 15 years after the kidnapping, when Albino would have been 21, SFGATE reported. They made a number of journeys to Puerto Rico, the place Antonia suspected her son had been taken, however turned up nothing.
“This is a rare situation when a boy disappears and doesn’t eventually show up — alive or dead,” Oakland police Lt. Dominic DiFraia advised The Oakland Tribune in 1966. “I’d give an awful lot to find out why.”
It has taken seven a long time to start to unravel that thriller. Earlier this yr, lengthy after his mom had died and his case had grown chilly, it was Albino’s niece who lastly tracked him down.
DNA checks and newspaper clippings led investigators out east
Alida Alequin, 63, knew she had a lacking uncle as a result of her household talked about it. Her late grandmother at all times stored a newspaper clipping about his abduction in her pockets and displayed his photograph at their household house.
Alequin determined to take a web-based DNA take a look at in 2020 “just for fun,” as she advised the Mercury News.
Among the outcomes was a 22% match with a person she had by no means met. The Oakland resident reached out to him however didn’t hear again or pursue it additional — till earlier this yr, when she watched a documentary that impressed her to resume her search.
Alequin and her daughters searched the person’s title on-line, pored over microfilm of previous Oakland Tribune articles on the public library and have become more and more satisfied that the person from the DNA database was their long-lost relative.
OPD says she contacted their lacking individuals unit in March to alert them in regards to the DNA take a look at outcomes and her uncle's doable identification.
Armed with new leads and expertise, police reopened Albino’s case.
They searched by means of public data of the potential match and picked up DNA samples from Albino’s dwelling siblings, with assist from the California Department of Justice and the FBI.
Police stated investigators have been unsuccessful of their a number of makes an attempt to contact Albino and his household, and finally have been in a position to get FBI particular brokers dispatched to contact him at his residence.
The FBI confirmed to NPR that it assisted Oakland police “by our ability to access … resources across state lines.” Authorities haven't specified the place on the East Coast Albino had been dwelling.
The brokers have been finally in a position to interview Albino and take a DNA pattern.
His statements and genetics confirmed what police name “the best possible outcome”: He was certainly the boy who’d been snatched from the park 73 years earlier.
“We didn't start crying until after the investigators left,” Alequin told Mercury News. “I grabbed my mom's hands and said, ‘We found him.'”
A “family reunion over 70 years in the making”
Details about Albino’s life on the East Coast are comparatively scarce, and police say his case stays underneath investigation. They are asking anybody with info to contact the OPD Missing Persons Unit.
Mercury News says Albino is a retired firefighter and Marine Corps veteran who served two excursions of obligation in Vietnam. He spent most of his life believing he was the “son of another couple,” in response to SFGate.
In June, Albino flew to California to fulfill Alequin and his different family members. Police stated the go to was organized and funded by OPD investigators, FBI Victims Advocates and the California DOJ.
“It was an emotional moment for all parties involved and was a family reunion over 70 years in the making,” they added.
Alequin stated her uncle hugged her, gave her a kiss on the cheek and stated, “Thank you for finding me.”
He has some reminiscence of the kidnapping and his cross-country journey, she added, however had by no means gotten solutions from the adults in his life.
During that journey, Albino reunited together with his brother Roger, who had been with him on that fateful February day.
Alequin stated the 2 “grabbed each other and had a really tight long hug,” then sat and talked in regards to the kidnapping, their navy service and extra.
Their reunion got here at a bittersweet time: Roger died two months later, in August.
“I think he died happily,” Alequin said. “He was at peace with himself, knowing that his brother was found.”
She stated she was glad she may deliver some closure to her mother and uncle and believed her grandmother — who died in 2005 — could be joyful, too.
“And who knows, with my story out there, it could help other families going through the same thing,” Alequin added. “I might say do not hand over.”
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