Twenty-five years later, a family will be reunited with their missing relatives, thanks to a USA Today article and the hard work of police.
On Friday, a woman called the Lassen County Sheriff’s Office to say she had been sent an article about an unidentified patient in Los Angeles. She believed the man in the article was her brother, who was reported missing in the rural town of Doyle in 1999, the sheriff’s office said in a news release.
The patient was discovered in South Los Angeles on April 15 and was being treated at St. Francis Medical Center in Lynnwood. Hospital officials at the time asked for the public’s help in identifying the man, who was unable to speak.
The hospital said the patient appeared to be in his mid-60s, with gray hair, blue eyes and about 6 feet 1 inch tall, but had no other information. So the company shared his photo with the public and asked for help.
On May 9, USA Today published an article with a photo of the man. It’s been six months, and things came together last week.
The woman called the Lassen County Sheriff’s Office and told Deputy Derek Kennemore her story. Dr. Kennemore contacted Linwood Medical Center about the mystery patient, but learned in July that he had been transferred to another medical facility in Los Angeles. The facility confirmed to Kennemore that a nonverbal, unidentified person matching the description was in its care.
Kennemore then contacted the Los Angeles Police Department’s Missing Persons Unit, and a detective took the patient’s fingerprints. The print confirmed the woman’s hunch that it was her missing brother, and Kennemore called her back with 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.”
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