Boy kidnapped from California park in 1951 found more than 70 years later

A little boy who was kidnapped by a stranger has been found safe and sound — more than 70 years after his abduction.

Luis Armando Albino was just six when he was lured from a California park in 1951 by a woman who promised to buy him candy at a nearby store. He had been playing with his oldest brother, Roger, at the time.

An extensive search was launched for the boy, but he was never found. Eventually, the trail went cold and his family was left to deal with the painful aftermath.

However, that all changed in 2020 when his niece took an online ancestry test “just for fun” and the results turned up a 22 per cent match with a senior living on the opposite coast.

Alida Alequin, 63, told The Mercury News in San Jose that she scoured the internet and old newspaper clippings and archives for several years before taking the results of the DNA test to the police in June of this year. Investigators with the Oakland police agreed it was a significant lead.

Albino was tracked down by police and provided a new DNA sample, which was matched to Alequin’s mother (Albino’s sister).

It was a strong match and Alequin said she and her mother were relieved and overwhelmed with emotion when they found out.

“I grabbed my mom’s hands and said, ‘We found him.’ I was ecstatic,” she told The Mercury News.

Shortly after, Albino and some of his relatives were brought by the FBI to Oakland to meet his long-lost family. Although his mother died in 2005, he was able to meet his brother, the last person to see him.

For the more than 70 years Albino remained missing, he was always in the hearts of his family and his photo hung at relatives’ houses, his niece said. Before she died, his mother never gave up hope that her son was alive, and Alequin told the LA