Edgar Latulip, a developmentally challenged man who went missing in 1986 after walking away from a group home, recently remembered his real name and where he was from after having been missing for 30 years.
According to The Toronto Star, Latulip had been living in St. Catherines, Ontario, just 80 miles from his hometown of Kitchener, when in January he told a social worker that he thought he remembered his real name.
The social worker looked up the name he gave, and found the associated missing persons report from 1986. Latulip then agreed to a DNA test, and it matched that of a family member on file in the region.
Latulip, now 50 years old, is now set to be reunited with his mother and family, who thought he had possibly been the victim of foul play all those years ago.
"This is always at the back of my mind," Silvia Wilson said in a 2014 interview.
"When Edgar disappeared, I became quite sick. I had to take a leave of absence from work. I was near a nervous breakdown."
Alana Holtom of the Waterloo Regional Police said she had spoken to Wilson on Wednesday.
"They are planning to reunite," she said. "You kind of want to see this storybook reuniting thing, but I think they are going to be handling it privately. I’m sure she’s very overwhelmed. She expressed her worry over all this time. So for it to come to this conclusion is remarkable."
The Daily Mail reported that Detective Constable Duane Gingeric was part of the original search team that had looked for Latulip.
"I had hopes that he was out there somewhere. It's satisfying because most of these cases don't turn out this way," he said. "You expect the worst when a person is missing for that period of time."
On Monday, Niagara Regional Police Const. Philip Gavin explained that Latulip, who functions mentally at the level of a child, had once attempted suicide as a young man, and at age 21 walked away from a group home. Latulip is thought to have then boarded a bus to Niagara Falls, and later ended up in St. Catherines, apparently using another name he took up.
"He didn’t have a home at the time. And in and around that time he suffered a fall that resulted in a head injury. That head injury left him lacking memory and his identity," said Gavin.
"I’ve been a police officer for 18 years and this is something I’ve seen on TV but never been a part of. Absolutely, this is quite a rare one."