A Missing Teenager From California Was Found In Utah
He vanished three years ago
The teen must have spent a cold winter in Utah
Most people cannot imagine the pain of losing a child. Death can take children at a young age, which is devastating. When a child goes missing, there is pain of a different kind. Not knowing if the child is dead or alive would be extremely difficult. It must be a constant worry for the parents about how the child is doing or where he might be.
Three years ago, a teenager with autism vanished from Clearlake, California. He had been missing for all that time, but he was just found alive in Utah. The boy was 16 years old when he went missing in September 2019. He had been reported missing to the police.
Clearlake is a town in Lake County, north of San Francisco. The town is named for the lake in the area which is called Clear Lake. The family apparently lived there and later relocated to Idaho after their son went missing.
Summit County in Utah is where Park City is located. It is an area which has become a popular tourist destination for skiing. It is usually very cold in the winter. That is where the boy was found.
Minyvonne Burke had a story for NBC News titled: “California teen with autism who vanished 3 years ago is found alive in Utah.”
A teenager who vanished nearly three years ago in California was found alive outside of a gas station in Utah last week, authorities said.
The search for him ended earlier this month after the Summit County Sheriff’s Office found him outside of Jeremy’s Store in Summit Park.
“It boggles all of our minds,” Lt. Andrew Wright with the Summit County Sheriff’s Office said Friday. “It’s just a really miraculous discovery if you will.”
Residents in that area of Summit County had been calling the sheriff’s office for several weeks. There were reports of a homeless person pushing a cart. Since the area does not get a lot of transients because of the high elevation and cold weather, it was not normal to see a homeless person.
Police officers had made contact with the young man and offered to help him find shelter. He would not give his name and refused help.
A person called the sheriff’s office to report a man sleeping outside of a gas station. Since he was cold when deputies arrived, he was allowed to warm up in the police car. The officers scanned his fingerprint and got a hit for an arrest warrant from Nevada although his name was spelled wrong.
After doing more digging, the officers found a missing person poster in the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children database. They then confirmed that the boy was still missing. It was thought that he might have been a runaway.
His family drove from Idaho Falls to Utah to be reunited with their son.
There were no details about how he had arrived in Utah. The Nevada arrest indicates that he had somehow traveled East from California to Utah.
Three years is a long time to be living on the streets and moving from state to state. It is not known how the boy’s autism may have affected his experiences. His family must undoubtedly be extremely relieved that he has been found.
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