Luis Armando Albino was 6 years old when he was abducted from a park in West Oakland where he had been playing with his older brother in 1951. Now, more than 70 years later, Albino has been found.
The Mercury News reported this week that Albino’s niece in Oakland, using DNA testing and newspaper clippings — and with assistance from police, the FBI and the Justice Department — found her uncle living on the East Coast.
Albino is a retired firefighter and Marine Corps veteran who served two tours of duty in Vietnam, and himself a father and grandfather, according to the newspaper.
Albino and five of his siblings, brought by their mother from Puerto Rico, had just moved to Oakland the summer before his abduction in February of 1951.
He was playing with his 10-year-old brother, Roger, at Jefferson Square Park at Seventh Street and what is now Martin Luther King Jr. Way near the family’s home when a woman lured him away by promising to buy him candy, according to the Mercury News. She then flew him to the East Coast where he eventually ended up with a couple who raised him as their son.
In June, Albino reunited with his family in California, his niece Alida Alequin, a 63-year-old Oakland resident, told the Bay Area newspaper. Alequin recounted her family’s experience and her search for Albino. She said that Albino’s mother, Antonia, had always thought about Albino up until her death in 2005.
“She always felt he was alive,” Alequin told the Mercury News. “She took that with her to her grave.”
In 2020 Alequin took a DNA test for fun, and it resulted in a 22% match with the man who eventually turned out to be her uncle. She didn’t find answers immediately, but renewing the search earlier this year she and her daughters found pictures that made them sure the man they were looking at was their missing uncle.
She brought the information to Oakland authorities, who agreed to look into the lead. With the help of law enforcement, Alequin persisted in her search and her uncle was eventually located on the East Coast.
He provided a DNA sample that proved his identity.
Alequin told the Mercury News that her uncle had some memories of the abduction and his trip to the East Coast, but when he questioned adults in his life, they did not give him answers. Albino’s brother, Roger, died shortly after they reunited this summer.