(Image via nypost.com. Luis (right) reunited with his older brother Roger (left))

Volunteer Writer: Aliyah Santana 

Email: asantana5@umassd.edu 

A young boy was abducted from an Oakland, California park at the age of six, and now, more than seven decades later, he was found alive.

Approximately 840,000 children go missing in the U.S. per year. 

In 1951, Luis and his brother, Roger, were playing in a park near their home when a Hispanic woman lured away Luis.

His older brother, only ten at the time, was the only witness of the crime. He said that Luis left the park with a woman who wore a bandana, promising to take him to the candy store. 

She put Luis on a plane and flew him across the country to the East Coast, where he lived as the child of a couple who raised him as their own. The identity of this couple is still currently unknown. 

Albino was born in Puerto Rico, and his family had only moved to California mere months before his abduction in the winter of 1951. He had four other siblings, and life in California was challenging. Their mother, Antonia, worked two jobs, day and night. 

The search for Luis was extensive. State and federal authorities searched for Luis, or at least his remains, and found nothing, “This is a rare situation when a body disappears and doesn’t eventually show up, alive or dead,” Oakland Police Lieutenant Dominic Difraia, one of the head investigators of the case, told The Oakland Tribune in 1966. 

A picture of young Luis was hung in their home, and their mother never left home without the newspaper clipping first announcing the kidnapping in her wallet. 

Luis’ mother never gave up hope – in the beginning, she made daily visits that slowly dwindled to weekly, then monthly, then yearly, as the case grew colder and colder. Each time, she got the disappointing head shake that no new information had been found. 

Unfortunately, Antonia passed away in 2005.

Luis lived on the East Coast, believing these people were his parents. He served two tours in the Vietnam War as a Marine Corps veteran. 

He worked the rest of his life as a firefighter. He is a grandfather and was happily married. Information about Luis’s life on the East Coast is limited due to the case still being under investigation. 

Over seventy years later, Luis’ niece, Alida Alquine, 63, took an online DNA test in 2020. She had a 22% match to a man she didn’t know. 

Over the years, she had heard about her missing uncle but had never thought much of it till then. 

In 2020, the police reached out to Alquine but never heard back and did not pursue it further. It wasn’t until the family reached out to the missing persons unit that the Oakland Police Department began their search again.

The police collected DNA samples from Albino’s siblings and searched public records for potential matches. The police attempted many times to reach Albino but were unsuccessful.

Eventually, they were able to interview and take his DNA sample. 

His genetics confirmed he was the best possible match and confirmed he was the young boy who was stolen that day in February, 73 years before.

He reunited with his sister, niece, and brother Roger, who was the last to see him all those years ago. 

All information about Luis’ life is a bit uncertain. It is unknown if he lived with the woman who kidnapped him, if he had the same name his whole life, or if he knew he had family searching for him all these years. Luis has not spoken out publicly about his experiences, and his family says he probably never will. 

Kidnapping is a heinous crime that inflicts pain not only on the victim but also on their loved ones. 

The Albino family endured years of anguish and uncertainty. Such acts disrupt lives, shatter families, and highlight the urgent need for stronger measures to prevent and address these crimes.