Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Wow, you talking about an amazing story in this episode
of I Tell You Sam what happened?
Speaker 2 (00:05):
So there's this this I can't call him a little
boy anymore, but there was a little boy who got
abducted from California when he was six years old, and
he's now been found alive more than seventy years later,
which is just incredible. I couldn't believe this whole story
when I saw it. And he got abducted when he
in nineteen fifty one, when he was six years old,
(00:25):
and he was basically he was playing in a park
with his brother, and I think his brother was maybe older,
but they were playing and then some woman came up
and like lured him away with candy, which is like
the stereotypical thing, you know, and so lured him away
and ended up taking him all the way to the
(00:47):
East coast, So went from West coast to East coast
and like apparently placed him into a new family and
as if, as if he was just adopted into this family,
and he grew up there and then he went on
and he.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Was his life with his parents, his new parents.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Yeah, it was just his new parents. And back then,
I mean, it's the fifties. I guess, so what resources
gonna six year old possibly have? I guess, you know,
to they don't know, they don't know like how to
contact proper authorities.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
I guess. I mean six is so small.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
So well, what kind of manipulation was going on?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Right? Right at six?
Speaker 1 (01:23):
You've got you know, you've got not saying that you're
you're certainly not fully developed, but you've got your wits
about you pretty much at that age, you know stuff's
going on.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
I tried to kind of think about it because to me,
it's like sit in my head, I feel like six
years old, I would think is old enough to I
don't know, like remember remember your brother, your town, your family, and.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
To like I would never shut up about it. I
would think he must.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Remember what happened, right, he must remember the park. He
must otherwise where would they get the info? So he
did watched it.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
He's not quoted much in the story. It's like his
family member. It's now his niece who ended up finding him.
But so he didn't really speak on it. So I
don't know if there's like that trauma there or what.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
But he went on. I gotta like find he went
to life went.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
To the Marines. He joined the Marines. Yeah, I mean,
had a full life and then and then he's found.
They basically his family back home over you know, all
the way across the country always kept the picture of him,
like throughout their family, there was always a picture of him,
and he was like, you know, he was he was missing,
(02:32):
and they always kept the faith that he was alive.
His mother kept the faith that he was alive. And
she died back in two thousand and five.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Which is like years ago.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
That's the sad parting, you know, because she always wanted
to see him. But in the end he was still alive. Yeah,
I mean, yeah, that made it be a perfect story
if there could be somebody, if he could be reunited,
because she'd be eighty nine, you know, I don't know
how old she'd be, yeah, one hundred years old, ninety
what whatever.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
He ended up being found by his niece, and the
first notion that he might be alive was in twenty
twenty because this this niece took an online DNA test
and it showed that there was a match with the
man who ended up being this man. But she tried
like contacting him, finding and reaching out to him at
the time and didn't have any luck. He didn't respond
in whatever way that she was trying to contact him.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
But she did she know at the time that this
could be the missing uncle or the.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Missing yeah, because the whole family knew that there was
this uncle who went missing and was never seen again,
so she thought maybe that's that person.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
She didn't do it with that intent at first, she
just went on.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
To write check her just for fun when you do
like an ancestry DNA type thing, vodka.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
And then this year she started searching again, but this
time with her daughters too, so they like were looking
and this is it was in the fifties, so a
lot of this stuff wasn't even online. So they went
to like the local library to look at old newspaper
articles that's crazy, and they found one that had picked
sure of her uncle, and that convinced her that she
was kind of on the right track, and she went
(04:04):
to the police there at that same day, and then
they ended up opening up a whole new missing person's case,
and then she ended up getting like the police department
and I think the FBI involved too.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Wow't the time going? So what now he's seventy old.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
He's seventy six at this point.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
I'm sorry, Yeah, because it was seventy six.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Yeah, because he was six years old and it was
seventy years later, which is just crazy. So and they
ended up finding him and and the guy did provide
a DNA sample and her and then like his sister
provided one as well so that they could confirm it.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
But it's just a crazy story. Crazy.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
But his these people that adopted him or whatever you
want to call it, Yeah, weird.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
They're gone, I think, so they aren't mentioned anywhere really
in the.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Right they must be.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Yeah, like if you I mean, if you find him,
like if they're alive.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
I mean, did they know I mean yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Adoption agency they thought they were getting a child, yeah,
I mean, how does that work.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
I mean maybe it was just shady and the other
person's I'd be like, yeah, we have a kid for you,
six years old boy, and they're excited and here comes
a kid I don't know.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Yeah, and I wonder if they abducted this child and
then like told him something like, well, your parents don't
want you, your parents are sending you away, and here's
your new family.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
They want you and love you.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
So I wonder if there's like that kind of manipulation
and that happens because this little boy, I know, I know,
you just don't.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
I'm sure there's something going on, But my golly.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
I just I don't know how else you could convince
a six year old who was like a little.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
To be quiet. Yeah, so long, so you got it,
that must have been washed out of his brain.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Yeah, because I would understand maybe like a three year old.
All of this is so scary to even think about,
but I would I could maybe understand a three year
old who doesn't maybe communicate as well or understand in
the world as well. Like by six, I feel like
you're a little bit more yappy, and you know more
about the world around you. But the only thing I
could maybe think of is like if he was maybe
just recently had turned six, think about like a five
(06:11):
year old. I could see maybe a five year old
being more impressionable. Once you hit six, seven, eight, it's
like you're you're you're a little bit more aware of
your world.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
So we sit and we look at the world today.
My mom always said this too. You know, all the
creepy stuff going on and everything else with online and
this that and the other thing. Yeah, and she's like,
you know, my mother was very much a realist, very
positive person at the same time, but she was also
very you know, very real about things, very very pragmatic.
And she's like, honey, this has been going on, yeah,
longer than I've been alive, longer than my great great grandparents.
(06:42):
I mean, it's just it's always been this kind of crap.
She'd say the exact same thing. I don't know if
it's to this degree that it is today with everything,
but we also are so exposed to it with you know,
everything that we see online, but these freaks have been
out there, yeah, prowling, right.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Cool that we got the technology now that you can
solve things like that like that. I applaud the niece
who obviously heard the stories of this and really went
after it, even giving it up for a little bit
and going back. I mean, it is so cool. That's
when I really like the technology that we do have.
And it's used in a good way.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
For sure, for sure, because like in the fifties, there
just wasn't these resources, Like if you weren't paying attention
to the news from the other side of the country,
you'd never it would never even occur to you.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
I could see.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
I don't know anything about the family that ended up
taking them, but they're thousands of miles away, and the
odds of them even being aware that they had a
child who's somebody else's right are very, very low. And
again I don't know what was going on here.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Being alive and finding out yea awful. You'd feel terrible
and how inflicted you'd feel. You built a life with this,
you know, depending on what the relationship was like.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Yeah, right, right, but you built a.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Life of someone and then to find out that it
was all fraudulent if you truly were completely you know,
shaded from the whole thing.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Yeah, well yeah, and you just don't know it.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
It's amazing, I mean, the good out of it. Though
he found family, family found.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Him, Yes, yes, so there is that closure.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
I still I think still about his poor mom passing
away before knowing that he was out there.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
But she never gave up hope and she was right,
she was.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Right in the end. In this episode of I Tell You.
Get more on the iHeartRadio app. Also, please rate, review, subscribe,
download and share. Thank you.
Wow, you talking about an amazing story in this episode
of I Tell You Sam what happened?
Speaker 2 (00:05):
So there's this this I can't call him a little
boy anymore, but there was a little boy who got
abducted from California when he was six years old, and
he's now been found alive more than seventy years later,
which is just incredible. I couldn't believe this whole story
when I saw it. And he got abducted when he
in nineteen fifty one, when he was six years old,
(00:25):
and he was basically he was playing in a park
with his brother, and I think his brother was maybe older,
but they were playing and then some woman came up
and like lured him away with candy, which is like
the stereotypical thing, you know, and so lured him away
and ended up taking him all the way to the
(00:47):
East coast, So went from West coast to East coast
and like apparently placed him into a new family and
as if, as if he was just adopted into this family,
and he grew up there and then he went on
and he.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Was his life with his parents, his new parents.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Yeah, it was just his new parents. And back then,
I mean, it's the fifties. I guess, so what resources
gonna six year old possibly have? I guess, you know,
to they don't know, they don't know like how to
contact proper authorities.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
I guess. I mean six is so small.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
So well, what kind of manipulation was going on?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Right? Right at six?
Speaker 1 (01:23):
You've got you know, you've got not saying that you're
you're certainly not fully developed, but you've got your wits
about you pretty much at that age, you know stuff's
going on.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
I tried to kind of think about it because to me,
it's like sit in my head, I feel like six
years old, I would think is old enough to I
don't know, like remember remember your brother, your town, your family, and.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
To like I would never shut up about it. I
would think he must.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Remember what happened, right, he must remember the park. He
must otherwise where would they get the info? So he
did watched it.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
He's not quoted much in the story. It's like his
family member. It's now his niece who ended up finding him.
But so he didn't really speak on it. So I
don't know if there's like that trauma there or what.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
But he went on. I gotta like find he went
to life went.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
To the Marines. He joined the Marines. Yeah, I mean,
had a full life and then and then he's found.
They basically his family back home over you know, all
the way across the country always kept the picture of him,
like throughout their family, there was always a picture of him,
and he was like, you know, he was he was missing,
(02:32):
and they always kept the faith that he was alive.
His mother kept the faith that he was alive. And
she died back in two thousand and five.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Which is like years ago.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
That's the sad parting, you know, because she always wanted
to see him. But in the end he was still alive. Yeah,
I mean, yeah, that made it be a perfect story
if there could be somebody, if he could be reunited,
because she'd be eighty nine, you know, I don't know
how old she'd be, yeah, one hundred years old, ninety
what whatever.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
He ended up being found by his niece, and the
first notion that he might be alive was in twenty
twenty because this this niece took an online DNA test
and it showed that there was a match with the
man who ended up being this man. But she tried
like contacting him, finding and reaching out to him at
the time and didn't have any luck. He didn't respond
in whatever way that she was trying to contact him.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
But she did she know at the time that this
could be the missing uncle or the.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Missing yeah, because the whole family knew that there was
this uncle who went missing and was never seen again,
so she thought maybe that's that person.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
She didn't do it with that intent at first, she
just went on.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
To write check her just for fun when you do
like an ancestry DNA type thing, vodka.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
And then this year she started searching again, but this
time with her daughters too, so they like were looking
and this is it was in the fifties, so a
lot of this stuff wasn't even online. So they went
to like the local library to look at old newspaper
articles that's crazy, and they found one that had picked
sure of her uncle, and that convinced her that she
was kind of on the right track, and she went
(04:04):
to the police there at that same day, and then
they ended up opening up a whole new missing person's case,
and then she ended up getting like the police department
and I think the FBI involved too.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Wow't the time going? So what now he's seventy old.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
He's seventy six at this point.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
I'm sorry, Yeah, because it was seventy six.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Yeah, because he was six years old and it was
seventy years later, which is just crazy. So and they
ended up finding him and and the guy did provide
a DNA sample and her and then like his sister
provided one as well so that they could confirm it.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
But it's just a crazy story. Crazy.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
But his these people that adopted him or whatever you
want to call it, Yeah, weird.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
They're gone, I think, so they aren't mentioned anywhere really
in the.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Right they must be.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Yeah, like if you I mean, if you find him,
like if they're alive.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
I mean, did they know I mean yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Adoption agency they thought they were getting a child, yeah,
I mean, how does that work.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
I mean maybe it was just shady and the other
person's I'd be like, yeah, we have a kid for you,
six years old boy, and they're excited and here comes
a kid I don't know.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Yeah, and I wonder if they abducted this child and
then like told him something like, well, your parents don't
want you, your parents are sending you away, and here's
your new family.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
They want you and love you.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
So I wonder if there's like that kind of manipulation
and that happens because this little boy, I know, I know,
you just don't.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
I'm sure there's something going on, But my golly.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
I just I don't know how else you could convince
a six year old who was like a little.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
To be quiet. Yeah, so long, so you got it,
that must have been washed out of his brain.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Yeah, because I would understand maybe like a three year old.
All of this is so scary to even think about,
but I would I could maybe understand a three year
old who doesn't maybe communicate as well or understand in
the world as well. Like by six, I feel like
you're a little bit more yappy, and you know more
about the world around you. But the only thing I
could maybe think of is like if he was maybe
just recently had turned six, think about like a five
(06:11):
year old. I could see maybe a five year old
being more impressionable. Once you hit six, seven, eight, it's
like you're you're you're a little bit more aware of
your world.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
So we sit and we look at the world today.
My mom always said this too. You know, all the
creepy stuff going on and everything else with online and
this that and the other thing. Yeah, and she's like,
you know, my mother was very much a realist, very
positive person at the same time, but she was also
very you know, very real about things, very very pragmatic.
And she's like, honey, this has been going on, yeah,
longer than I've been alive, longer than my great great grandparents.
(06:42):
I mean, it's just it's always been this kind of crap.
She'd say the exact same thing. I don't know if
it's to this degree that it is today with everything,
but we also are so exposed to it with you know,
everything that we see online, but these freaks have been
out there, yeah, prowling, right.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Cool that we got the technology now that you can
solve things like that like that. I applaud the niece
who obviously heard the stories of this and really went
after it, even giving it up for a little bit
and going back. I mean, it is so cool. That's
when I really like the technology that we do have.
And it's used in a good way.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
For sure, for sure, because like in the fifties, there
just wasn't these resources, Like if you weren't paying attention
to the news from the other side of the country,
you'd never it would never even occur to you.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
I could see.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
I don't know anything about the family that ended up
taking them, but they're thousands of miles away, and the
odds of them even being aware that they had a
child who's somebody else's right are very, very low. And
again I don't know what was going on here.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Being alive and finding out yea awful. You'd feel terrible
and how inflicted you'd feel. You built a life with this,
you know, depending on what the relationship was like.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Yeah, right, right, but you built a.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Life of someone and then to find out that it
was all fraudulent if you truly were completely you know,
shaded from the whole thing.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Yeah, well yeah, and you just don't know it.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
It's amazing, I mean, the good out of it. Though
he found family, family found.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Him, Yes, yes, so there is that closure.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
I still I think still about his poor mom passing
away before knowing that he was out there.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
But she never gave up hope and she was right,
she was.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Right in the end. In this episode of I Tell You.
Get more on the iHeartRadio app. Also, please rate, review, subscribe,
download and share. Thank you.
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