Luis Armando Albino was a six-year-old boy when he was abducted in West Oakland, California in 1951. Per the Los Angeles Times, Albino was playing in a park with his older brother, Roger, when the abduction occurred. Albino was lured away by a woman who promised to give him candy if he followed her. He was then flown to the East Coast where a couple raised him as their son.
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70 years later, Albino's family finally managed to find him through his 63-year-old niece, Alida Alequin. According to Alequin, Albino's family never stopped looking for him. His mother, Antonia, hoped to be reunited with him before her death in 2005. She kept newspaper clippings of news about his kidnapping, as well as a photo of Albino she kept in the living room.
"She always had hope that he would come home," Alequin confirmed to the outlet. Back in 2020, Alequin took a DNA test, resulting in a 22% match to who she would discover to be her uncle. "I started to name all my mom's siblings, and when I got to the youngest, Luis, the baby, I paused in the middle of the sentence. [Alequin] 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,'" Alequin recalled.
A 6-Year-Old Boy Is Found Alive 70 Years After His Abduction
Alequin and her daughters got to work, frantically searching the internet for any sign of Albino. Finally, they found a picture of him and took their findings to the authorities. With the help of the police, Alequin found Albino and had him take a DNA test. "It was a lot of long tight hugs and tears, and then we sat down and we just talked," Alequin remembered.
Roger, Albino's brother, bonded with him over their shared experiences in the military. Unfortunately, Roger would pass away shortly after being reunited with Albino. Albino had questions about his abduction, vaguely recalling the circumstances. But at the time, none of the adults in his life were willing to give him any concrete answers.
"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," Alequin concluded. "I would say, don't give up."
