California man missing for 25 years to reunite with family after sister spotted him in USA Today article

A man who was reported missing 25 years ago has been found and will be reunited with his family after his sister saw a photo of her long-lost brother in a newspaper article, California officials said this week. 

The Lassen County Sheriff’s Office said the woman called them on Friday, and told Sheriff’s Deputy Derek Kennemore that she had been sent a USA Today article from May that asked readers for help identifying a non-verbal, hospitalized man in a Los Angeles hospital. The woman told Kennemore she believed this man was her brother, who had been reported missing in 1999 and had not been heard from since. 

Kennemore contacted the hospital and was told the man had been transferred to another facility in July. The second hospital confirmed to Kennemore that they had a “non-verbal, unidentified man in their care that matched the description of the missing person,” police said. 

Kennemore then contacted the Los Angeles Police Department’s Missing Persons Unit. A detective went to the hospital to fingerprint the man. That process allowed the LAPD to positively identify the man as the one reported missing in 1999. 

Kennemore then recontacted the woman to tell her about the positive identification. Neither the man nor his sister is being identified for privacy reasons.

The family is set to be reunited soon, the Lassen County Sheriff’s Office said, and the missing persons case has been closed.