Lost for 73 Years: A DNA Test Reunited This Long-Lost Tío with His Family
Luis Armando Albino was only six years old when he was abducted from a park in Oakland, California, in 1951. After 73 years, he reunited with his family after they found him living on the East Coast.
Luis’s brother, Roger, told authorities at the time that he saw his brother being led away from the park by a woman wearing a bandana who promised to buy him candy. That was the last time that Roger saw Luis.
It is all thanks to a persistent niece who knew she had a missing uncle and an online DNA test she did for fun. That’s right. Once again, online DNA tests uncover secrets and help people find them.
The search for the missing uncle
Alida Alequin always knew about her missing uncle because of the family’s stories. Her grandmother, Luis’s mother, kept a photo of him in the house and never gave up hope of finding her son.
After decades of holding out hope, Luis’s mother died in 2005. Fifteen years later, in 2020, Alequin took the DNA test and got her first clue about her missing uncle when she found a 22 percent match to someone she didn’t know.
That serendipitous DNA match set the course for a miraculous family reunion.
The family initially began their search shortly after the disappearance. After some time, the case went cold. Luis’s mother restarted her search in earnest 15 years after he went missing when he would have been 21. Despite the efforts, no leads materialized, and the search once again went cold.
New evidence reopened the case
In 2024, Alequin resumed her own investigation into her uncle’s disappearance. She poured over microfilm of Oakland Tribune articles until she found a photo of her missing uncle with his brother, Roger. With the photo and DNA match, Alequin went to the Oakland Police Department and shared what she had found.
According to CNN, the evidence that Alequin and her daughters were able to provide to law enforcement was enough for them to reopen the case.
Alequin’s information did the trick. On June 20, local law enforcement and the FBI officially closed the missing person’s case after tracking down Luis. However, the kidnapping case remains open.
“We didn’t start crying until after the investigators left,” Alequin said, according to CNN. “I grabbed my mom’s hands and said, ‘We found him.’ I was ecstatic.”
The investigation found out that Luis was flown to the East Coast after he was kidnapped and raised by a couple as if he were their own child.
A family reunion just in time for Luis Armando Albino
On June 24, with the help of the FBI, Luis and Roger finally reconnected in California for a visit. The reunion was filled with conversation and tears while the two brothers embraced.
Following the first reunion, Luis came back to California for three weeks and spent time with his brother Roger reconnecting for the last time. Roger died in August after reconnecting with his missing brother after 73 years of wondering what had happened to him.
