The 1951 kidnapping of a six-year-old Oakland boy has been solved 73 years later. And miraculously, there is a happy ending.
Luis Armando Albino has been found safe and sound thanks to a devoted cousin who never gave up hope of locating her long-lost relative.
Albino, who is now 79, was abducted by a woman on February 21, 1951, from a West Oakland park where he was playing with his older brother Roger, who was ten years old.
The woman caught his attention and lured him away by deceiving him. She promised to buy him sweets.
Little Luis was then flown to the East Coast, where he was raised by a New York couple as if he were their own son.
Luis’ mother kept hoping that he would one day turn up safe and sound. Tragically, she died in 2005 at the age of 92, never knowing what had happened to her much-missed son.
Luis Armando Albino was abducted by a woman on February 21, 1951, from a West Oakland park where he was playing with his older brother Roger, who was ten.
Luis Albino, 79, right, who was kidnapped from Oakland in 1951, was reunited with his brother Roger, 82, in June before dying in August
The Oakland Bay Bridge connects Oakland to downtown San Francisco
It wasn’t until earlier this year that a breakthrough in the case came, when a curious and persistent cousin of Luis’ used DNA testing and information from newspaper clippings in her quest for the truth.
Her cousin, Alida Alequin, 63, who remained in Oakland, was determined to find her long-lost uncle. With help from local police, the FBI and the Justice Department, she was able to piece together the clues.
According to Oakland police, her efforts “played a vital role in locating her uncle.”
In the time since he was taken from his family, Luis had seemingly lived a full life. He had worked as a firefighter and served in the Marine Corps, including two tours of duty in Vietnam. He had also become a father and grandfather himself.
Alida was able to organize a reunion for the two brothers, Luis and Roger, who are now 83 years old, so that they could meet for the first time in 73 years.
She told Mercury News how her uncle ‘hugged me and said, “Thank you for finding me” and kissed me on the cheek.’
Little Luis was then flown to the East Coast, where he was raised by a couple as if he were their own son.
The reunion was a double success, as Roger had recently been diagnosed with cancer and did not have long to live.
“They grabbed each other and hugged each other really hard and for a long time. They sat down and just talked,” Alida said as the couple reminisced about their past, including their military service and what happened the day of the kidnapping.
Luis saw his brother one more time in July of this year, before Roger passed away a month later in August.
“I think he died happy. He was at peace with himself, knowing that his brother had been found. I was just so happy that I could do this for him and bring him closure and peace,” Alida said.
As for Luis’ mother and Alida’s grandmother, she believes she “would have been very happy, absolutely. She never forgot him. She always said he was alive. She had hope that she would see him. She never gave up that hope.”
“I’m so glad I was able to do this for my mom and (uncle). It was a very happy ending,” she said. “I was always determined to find him, and who knows, with my story out there, it might help other families who are going through the same thing. I would say, don’t give up.”
Luis has not spoken to the media yet, but has some memories of what happened during his kidnapping.
Frustratingly, the adults surrounding him in New York refused to answer questions about the reason for his abduction and were never told what was happening.
The people he thought were his parents have since died.
Luis, one of five siblings, played in the former Jefferson Square Park in West Oakland.
Luis was taken to live with a family on the East Coast, but as a small child he was never told why he was taken from the park that day. The photo shows Times Square in the 1950s
After his abduction, police, military and Coast Guard searched the area and San Francisco Bay.
Brother Roger was interrogated several times and continued to maintain that a woman with a bandana around her head had taken his brother.
The FBI was also called in to assist, but the case was dropped.
Luis’s mother regularly visited the police missing persons office to get news. At first it was daily, then weekly, then monthly. Eventually, her visits became annual. But it seemed that the authorities were no closer to discovering the truth.
“She always had the feeling that he was alive. She took that with her to her grave,” Alida said.
“All that time, the family kept thinking about him,” she continued. “I always knew I had an uncle. We talked about him a lot. My grandmother carried the original article in her purse and she always talked about him. There was always a picture of him hanging in the family home.”
But it was Alida who got the ball rolling when she took an online DNA test for fun in 2020.
The results showed that she had a 22 percent match with Luis, who unbeknownst to her was her uncle. But despite reaching out to him, she never heard from him again.
It wasn’t until later this year that Alida’s own daughters began investigating the case again and looked up Luis’ name online.
Photographs of him found on microfilm in the Oakland Public Library only confirmed that the man they saw was indeed their long-lost uncle.
A new missing person case was created, again involving the FBI and Department of Justice.
Luis was found to live on the East Coast and even provided a DNA sample to confirm his identity.
Investigators went to Alida’s mother’s house (Luis and Roger’s sister) to confirm that Luis had finally been found.
“I knew in my heart it was him and when I got the confirmation I let out a big “YES!”,” Alida said.
“We didn’t start crying until after the investigators left. I grabbed my mother’s hands and said, ‘We found him.’ I was so happy.”
While the missing persons case has now been closed, the FBI says the investigation into the kidnapping is ongoing.
