A boy kidnapped more than seven decades ago from a California park was found alive and well as a senior citizen, reunited with surviving loved ones after his niece found him across the country through her own DNA research, police said Monday.
Luis Albino was only 6 when he was taken on Feb. 2, 1951, from Jefferson Park Playground in Oakland “by an unknown female who transported him out of state and eventually to the East Coast,” police said in a statement.
The immediate search for Albino was fruitless and the case went cold for seven decades.
But then, earlier this year, Albino’s niece went back to Oakland police and told officers “that her online DNA test results matched an individual believed to be her uncle,” police said.
FBI agents, at the behest of Oakland police, interviewed Albino at his home in the East Coast and took a DNA sample. His genetic material was a match to two surviving siblings in California, proving Albino was the boy taken in 1951, police said.
The FBI, California Department of Justice and Oakland police arranged and paid for Albino to reunite with his long-lost family on June 24 of this year.
“It was an emotional moment for all parties involved and was a family reunion over 70 years in the making,” police said.
The Oakland Police Department statement didn’t make clear who officers believed took Albino from that park seven decades ago, nor did it identify who raised him.
It was a bittersweet reunion for the man’s California kin.
Albino’s 92-year-old mother died in 2005 never knowing the fate of her kidnapped son, the Bay Area News Group reported.
Albino was able to meet and spend time this summer with his brother Roger, who was with him at the park the day the was kidnapped in 1951. Roger died in August.
“I think he died happily,” said 63-year-old Alida Alequin, the niece who alerted police to her 22% DNA match to Albino. “He was at peace with himself, knowing that his brother was found. I was just so happy I was able to do this for him and bring him closure and peace.”
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