Boy abducted in Oakland more than 70 years ago found living on East Coast

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 first 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 his niece, Alida Alequin, a 63-year-old Oakland resident who found Albino and reunited him with his family.

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 1951.

He was playing with his 10-year-old brother, Roger, at Jefferson Square Park at 7th 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 coverage by the Oakland Tribune at the time. She then flew him to the East Coast, where he eventually ended up with a couple who raised him as their son, Alequin said.

In June, Albino reunited with his family in California. 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 kept a newspaper clipping of the article about his kidnapping in her wallet, and a photo of Albino hung in the living room, Alequin said.

“She always had hope that he would come home,” Alequin told The Times.

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 long-lost uncle. But she didn’t realize immediately that it could be him.

Earlier this year while reminiscing about the family with her daughters, Alequin had a spark of inspiration: “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. I 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.’ ”

She said that evening she and her daughters “started searching the internet like crazy.” They found pictures that made them sure the man they were looking at was their missing uncle.

Alequin took 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.

When Albino reunited with his family in California, “it was a lot of long tight hugs and tears, and then we sat down and we just talked,” Alequin said.

Albino and his brother Roger, who had been there the day he was kidnapped, bonded over their experience in the military, Roger having been an Air Force veteran. They spoke about their childhood, and their lives after the abduction, she said.

Alequin said 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 wants to keep some of his experiences private and didn’t want to speak to the media, she said.

Albino’s brother, Roger, died shortly after they reunited this summer. Albino is planning another visit to California next year, Alequin said.