American boy abducted from park found alive 70 years later

In 1951, a six-year-old boy was abducted from an Oakland park, leaving his family searching for answers. Those answers have finally arrived.

Luis Armando Albino, right, was reunited with his older brother Roger after more than 70 years – just before Roger died last month.

On a February day in 1951, a boy aged six called Luis Armando ­Albino was playing in an Oakland park with his older brother. A woman wearing a bandana ­approached the boy and told him, in Spanish, that if he came with her she would buy him sweets.

He was being kidnapped. Albino vanished, seemingly without a trace, leaving his distraught family searching for answers. Those answers have finally arrived, with Albino’s surviving loved ones tracking him down to the US east coast, where he had been living for more than 70 years. He had been raised by a couple as their own.

Albino was traced by his niece using an online DNA test and in June enjoyed an emotional ­reunion with his brother Roger, who was with him on the day of the abduction.

“They grabbed each other and had a really tight, long hug. They sat down and just talked,” Alida Alequin, Albino’s niece, told The Mercury News.

The kidnapped boy’s family had never given up hope. Antonia, Albino’s mother, kept a newspaper clipping about the ­abduction in her wallet and a picture of him hung in the living room. She died in 2005, however, without learning what happened to her son.

Luis Armando Albino when he was six.

In 2020 Alequin, 63, took an online DNA test and was ­intrigued by her findings. The ­results showed a 22 per cent match with a stranger. She tried to get in touch with the man but got no reply. She gave up the search but returned to it this year and visited a library in Oakland to research old newspaper articles about the kidnapping.

She was reminiscing about the family with her daughters when she recalled her missing uncle. “I started to name all my mum’s siblings, and when I got to the youngest, Luis, the baby, I paused in the middle of the sentence,” Alequin told the Los Angeles Times. “I can’t explain what I felt but I said, ‘I don’t think this person I found on Ancestry was some half-brother like I first thought. I think he was the brother that was kidnapped.’ ”

Convinced that the mystery man who shared her DNA was her uncle, she went to the police. ­Investigators opened a new missing persons case.

Albino was traced to the east coast and a DNA test confirmed that he was the brother of ­Alequin’s mother. Detectives informed the family in June that ­Albino had been found.

“In my heart I knew it was him, and when I got the confirmation, I let out a big ‘Yes!’ ” Alequin said.

“We didn’t start crying until after the investigators left.

“I grabbed my mum’s hands and said, ‘We found him.’ I was ecstatic.”

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

Officials and Albino’s family have not given further detail on where he lives on the east coast and the circumstances around his abduction remain shrouded in mystery. The criminal investigation is still open.

Albino does not want to speak to the media, according to his niece, although he does have some memories of being taken across the US.

Albino and his brother, Roger, who died last month, bonded over their shared military experience. Albino is a Marine Corps veteran who served in Vietnam.

“I think he died happily,” ­Alequin said of Roger. “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.”

Alequin hopes her family’s story can inspire others. “I was ­always determined to find him and, who knows, with my story out there, it could help other families going through the same thing,” she said. “I would say, don’t give up.”

THE TIMES