Thanks to determined family members, a man who was abducted as a child while playing in an Oakland, California, park in 1951 was found living on the East Coast after he'd been missing for over seven decades.
According to The Bay Area News Group, Luis Armando Albino was six when he was playing with his older brother Roger on February 21, 1951, at Jefferson Square Park, which was located on what is now Martin Luther King Jr. Way.
Luis was lured by a woman who promised the Puerto Rico-born boy in Spanish that she would offer him candy. Instead, she abducted him and brought him to an undisclosed location on the East Coast where he was raised by a couple as their own.
Luis' niece, 63-year-old Alida Alequin, managed to find her long-lost uncle and reunite him with his family in California in June.
She said her newfound uncle had grown up to eventually become a father, grandfather, retired firefighter, and Marine Corps veteran who served in Vietnam.
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Oakland police recognized that Alequin’s efforts “played an integral role in finding her uncle” and that “the outcome of this story is what we strive for.”
In 2020, Alequin said she took an online DNA test "just for fun," which yielded results indicating a 22% match with the man who wound up being her uncle. However, further research didn't result in any responses from him.
It wasn't until 2024 that she made significant headway. Alequin and her daughters visited the Oakland Public Library and discovered a photo of Luis and Roger after looking through microfilm of Tribune articles.
Alequin recalled:
"My daughter found a lot of pictures of this man, and we started comparing."
"The resemblance was so strong; how much he looked like my other uncles. And then another picture where he looked so much like my grandmother, that one gave me chills, and I said ‘there’s something here.'"
She immediately took her findings to the Oakland police, which led to the opening of a new missing persons case.
After his whereabouts were discovered, Luis and his sister, Alequin’s mom, provided a DNA sample. The family said his sample was then compared with the DNA of Alelquin's mother and her uncle Roger, and confirmed it was Luis.
Last week, Oakland police stated that the case has now been closed, but added that they and the FBI were considering the kidnapping a still-open investigation.
Although the Albino sibling's mother died in 2005, she reportedly never gave up hope that Luis was still alive somewhere.
Alequin said of her late grandmother:
"I think she's happy, honestly, she was there guiding me too."
"It's just the way everything worked out, it's unbelievable."
On June 24, with the assistance of the FBI, Luis visited Oakland with members of his family and met with Alequin, her mother, and other relatives.
The next day, Alequin drove her mother and Luis to his older brother Roger’s home in Stanislaus County, California.
"We didn’t start crying until after the investigators left," Alequin recalled. "I grabbed my mom’s hands and said, ‘We found him.’ I was ecstatic."
"They grabbed each other and had a really tight, long hug. They sat down and just talked."
Luis went back to the East Coast but returned for a three-week visit in July. They had planned to make up for decades of lost time.
Unfortunately, it would be the last time Luis saw his big brother. Roger died in August, roughly a month after they last saw each other.
Alequin shared a special message for those who may be going through a similar ordeal dealing with missing loved ones.
"I was always determined to find him, and who knows, with my story out there, it could help other families going through the same thing," Alequin said of her inspiring determination. "I would say, don’t give up."
