A man who was abducted while playing in a California park in 1951 as a six-year-old was found more than seventy years later thanks to an online ancestry test, old photographs and newspaper clippings.
The Bay Area News Group reported Friday that Luis Armando Albino’s niece in Oakland – with the assistance of police, the FBI and the Department of Justice – has located her uncle living on the U.S. 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, who found Albino and reunited him with his California family in June.
On February 21, 1951, a woman lured the six-year-old albino out of the park in West Oakland where he was playing with his older brother and promised him in Spanish that she would buy him candy.
Instead, the woman kidnapped the boy, who was born in Puerto Rico, and flew him to the East Coast, where he ended up with a couple who raised him as their own son, the news group reported. Officials and family members did not say where on the East Coast he lives.
Albino was missing for more than 70 years, but he was always in his family’s hearts and his photo hung in relatives’ homes, his niece said. His mother died in 2005, but she never gave up hope that her son was alive.
Oakland police acknowledged that Alequin’s efforts “played a critical role in finding her uncle” and that “the outcome of this story is what we strive for.”
In an interview with the news group, she said her uncle “hugged her and said, ‘Thank you for finding me,’ and gave me a kiss on the cheek.”
Articles in the Oakland Tribune from the time reported that police, soldiers from a local military base, the Coast Guard and other city employees were involved in a large-scale search for the missing boy. The articles also said that San Francisco Bay and other waterways were searched. His brother, Roger Albino, was questioned several times by investigators but stuck to his statement that a woman wearing a headscarf took his brother.
The first suspicion that her uncle might still be alive came in 2020 when she took a DNA test online “just for fun,” Alequin said. It showed a 22 percent match with a man who eventually turned out to be her uncle. A further search at that time did not yield any answers or a response from him, she said.
Earlier this year, she and her daughters began searching again. During a visit to the Oakland Public Library, she looked at microfilms of Tribune articles – including one with a picture of Luis and Roger – which convinced her she was on the right track. She went to the Oakland Police Department that same day.
Investigators eventually agreed that the new lead was significant, and a new missing person case was opened. Oakland police said last week that the missing person case was closed, but they and the FBI believed the kidnapping investigation was ongoing.
Luis was on the east coast and provided a DNA sample, as did his sister, Alequin’s mother.
On June 20, Alequin said, investigators went to her mother’s house and told them both that their uncle had been found.
“We only started crying when the investigators left,” Alequin said. “I took my mother’s hands and said, ‘We found him.’ I was beside myself with joy.”
On June 24, with assistance from the FBI, Luis came to Oakland with members of his family and met with Alequin, her mother, and other relatives. The next day, Alequin drove her mother and her new uncle to Roger’s house in Stanislaus County, California.
“They grabbed each other and hugged each other for a long time and really tightly. They sat down and just talked,” she said, talking about the day of the kidnapping, her military service and much more.
Luis returned to the east coast, but came back for three weeks in July. It was the last time he saw Roger, who died in August.
Alequin said her uncle did not want to speak to the media.
“I was always determined to find him and who knows, maybe my story will help other families going through the same thing,” said Alequin. “I would say don’t give up.”
