After 25 years, a family will be reunited with their missing relative thanks to a USA Today article and gumshoe police work.
On Friday, a woman called the Lassen County Sheriff’s Office to say she was sent an article about an unidentified patient in Los Angeles. She believed the man pictured in the article was her brother who was reported missing in 1999 from the rural town of Doyle, the Sheriff’s Office announced in a news release.
The patient was found in South L.A. on April 15 and was being cared for at the St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood. Hospital officials at the time asked for the public’s help to identify the man, who was unable to communicate.
The hospital announced the patient was believed to be in his mid-60s, with gray hair, blue eyes and stood about 6 feet, 1 inch tall, but that they had no other information about him. So they shared a photo of him with the public and asked for help.
On May 9, USA Today published its article with a photo of the man at the top of it. After six months, things came together in a hurry last week.
The woman who called the Lassen County Sheriff’s Office with the tip walked Deputy Derek Kennemore through her story. Kennemore, in turn, reached out to the medical center in Lynwood about their mystery patient, but learned he had been transfered to another Los Angeles medical facility in July. That facility confirmed with Kennemore they had a non-verbal, unidentified person in their care who matched the description.
So as a next step, Kennemore contacted the missing person’s unit at the Los Angeles Police Department, who had a detective fingerprint the patient. The print confirmed the woman’s theory that it was her missing brother and Kennemore called her back with the good news.
Sheriff’s officials withheld the names of the patient and the woman to protect the family’s privacy, but said they will “be reunited soon.”
