Niece locates her uncle Luis Armando Albino living on other side of the country after search sparked when she took online DNA test ‘just for fun’

A man who was abducted as a six-year-old while playing in a California park in 1951 has been found more than seven decades later thanks to the help of an online ancestry test, old photos and newspaper clippings.

The Bay Area News Group reported on Friday that Luis Armando Albino’s niece in Oakland – with assistance from police, the FBI and the justice department – located her uncle living on the US east coast.

Albino, a father and grandfather, is a retired firefighter and Marine Corps veteran who served in Vietnam, according to his niece, 63-year-old Alida Alequin. She found Albino and reunited him with his California family in June.

On 21 February 1951 a woman lured the six-year-old Albino from the park in West Oakland, where he had been playing with his older brother, and promised him in Spanish that she would buy him candy.

  • @norimee
    101•3 months ago

    Oakland police acknowledged that Alequin’s efforts “played an integral role in finding her uncle” and that “the outcome of this story is what we strive for”.

    That’s a really weird statement. Oaklands police strives for no leads and a cold case for 70 years, leaving the mother in uncertainty until her death and then the family finding the missing person themselves?

    I mean its great, that he was found well and alive, but if that is what your police strives for… the bar is like underground.

      • @[email protected]
        21•3 months ago

        It’s like 1-2% for pretty much any crime. They’re basically there because you need a police report to make an insurance claim.

      • @[email protected]English
        2•3 months ago

        Cops aren’t good at this.

        They’re not magically omniscient, if that’s what you mean. You’ve set a really high bar for American cops, who are continually accused of being violent and stupid.

    • Flying Squid
      23•3 months ago

      It’s not all that weird when you remember that ACAB.

      • @pyre
        4•3 months ago

        it probably helps that it’s the albino family.

    • @[email protected]
      1•3 months ago

      keep in mind this case was only solved because the neice did a DNA ancestry test and found a nearest match. If police wanted this data, they either would have needed to ask said family to turn in DNA (which id imagine back then, wasnt a service at this scale) or to give them 100% access to DNA data of every citizen, which I doubt anyone wants.

      • @norimee
        2•3 months ago

        I’m not criticising that police couldn’t find him themselves. My issue is with the statement, that this is an outcome they “strive” for as if finding him after 70 years (SEVENTY) was an ideal outcome in a child abduction case. As if this was the most they aim for.