California man who went missing for 25 years found after sister sees his picture in the news

By Karina Tsui and Amanda Musa, CNN

(CNN) — It’s a Thanksgiving miracle for one California family after a man who went missing in 1999 was found 25 years later when his sister saw a photo of him in an online article, authorities said.

The man who has been missing since August of 1999 was found sitting on a curb in Los Angeles earlier this year, according to a GoFundMe page created by the man’s older sister to raise funds for a medical transfer.

“He just VANISHED with no trace. Not even his vehicle was ever located,” the man’s sister said in the GoFundMe post. “All this time I had been looking for unidentified remains. I was delighted to find him alive!”

The woman had contacted the Lassen County Sheriff’s Department on Friday to say that she believed a man featured in an online article was her missing brother, the sheriff’s department said in a Facebook post.

The USA Today article, published in May, was a request for the public to help identify a nonverbal man who was hospitalized in Lynwood, California. The man had been found in South Los Angeles on April 15, according to medical officials cited in the article.

The woman, whose name has not been released by the sheriff’s department to protect family privacy, told Deputy Derek Kennemore that her brother was reported missing in 1999 from Doyle, a small California town about 45 miles northwest of Reno, Nevada. She had not heard from him since.

Kennemore contacted the hospital in the article, only to learn that the man had been transferred to another LA facility in July.

The deputy then reached out for help from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Missing Persons Unit, which was able to fingerprint the hospitalized man and positively identify him as the same person who went missing in 1999, according to the release.

“The family will be reunited soon,” the release said.

The next day, the Nor-Cal Alliance for the Missing, a non-profit that advocates for missing individuals, announced the “long-awaited and miraculous reunion” in a news release.

“After being missing for 25 years, Tommy, a case close to our hearts, has been found and will soon be reunited with his loving family,” the release said.

The organization began working on the man’s case in 2016, according to the release.

In the GoFundMe post, the woman added that she does not have money for supplies needed to take care of her brother who is learning how to walk again and is nonverbal.

“I would like to send him a device to listen to his favorite songs (Sailing, I Want to Know What Love Is, and Time After Time) to help his memory and get some response,” she said.

CNN has reached out to officials in California for more details about the man’s disappearance and how he ended up in the hospital where he remains.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified the law enforcement agency that helped the Lassen County Sheriff’s Office identify the man. It was the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

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