A 6-year-old northern California boy kidnapped in 1951 has been found living on the East Coast, where he reportedly raised a family of his own and retired as a firefighter after serving in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam War.
“Thank you for finding me,” Luis Armando Albino told his 63-year-old niece Alida Alequin, who tracked him down with the help of an online ancestry kit, old newspapers and local and federal law enforcement officials.
According to the Mercury News, a woman promising candy abducted Albino from an Oakland park where he was playing with his older brother Roger — who died in August — on Feb. 21, 1951. The boys’ mom died in 2005.
Alequin came to suspect her uncle was still alive after a DNA test taken in 2020 showed a 22% match with Albino, whom she was unable to contact. In early 2024, Alequin and her daughters continued searching for Albino by perusing old news articles at the Oakland Public Library. That research yielded evidence compelling enough to pique the interest of local police, which led to the involvement of U.S. Justice Department and the FBI.