Democracy Dies in Darkness

She hadn’t seen her brother in 25 years. Then she saw him in the news.

A man who went missing 25 years ago was identified after his sister saw his photo in a news article, the Lassen County Sheriff’s Office said.

3 min
A news article from May helped identify a patient in a California hospital as a man who was reported missing in 1999. (Alastair Pike/AFP/Getty Images)
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The headline posed a question to its readers: “Can you help?”

It topped a USA Today article on May 9 about a patient in a California hospital whom staff had not been able to identify. He had been found in Los Angeles County in April and was unable to speak or otherwise communicate information about himself, the hospital said in a news release asking for the public’s help. The USA Today article included information from the hospital on the man’s age and appearance along with a photo.