New Haven police officers were able to help a man who had been missing for more than two decades reunite with his family.
A man wearing a button down shirt and tweed overcoat walked into the New Haven Police Station on Saturday morning to turn himself in for an outstanding warrant.
When officers ran the man's name, John, a "strange hit" came up from North Carolina with instructions to call a phone number but no other details, police said.
After calling the number, that was now out of service, police made several inquiries to North Carolina law enforcement agencies, but results as to why the man thought he had a warrant were futile.
Officers told John he was good to go and gave him information to homeless shelters in the area.
"It was strange," Lt. Brendan Housey said. "Most people who turn themselves in only to find they're not wanted walk away elated. This was different. He was trying to convince me he was a wanted man."
While John was trying to convince officers in New Haven that they had made a mistake, an officer more than 50 miles away in Putnam County, New York, noticed the New Haven officer's query.
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The officer at the Kent Police Department knew the man's name and his family, who he knew had been looking for their lost relative for 22 years. He immediately called John's mother in Carmel, New York, to tell her that her son may have been found.
On Monday, John's mother called New Haven police looking for her son. Police realized the undecipherable hit from North Carolina was John's missing person notification or an unconfirmed warrant. Police staked out local shelters, looking for John after his mother's phone call.
The next day, John's mother, his two sisters, his brother and cousin piled into an SUV to New Haven. Upon arriving, his mother described her son as a Grateful Dead fan, or a "Deadhead", spending years following the jam band from concert to concert. The family thought John's alleged involvement with a marijuana grow operation in North Carolina was why he went into hiding in 1994.
After giving police the most recent photo the family had of John, the group decided to head back to Hudson Highlands without the reunion they had hoped for. John's brother had asked police if he could have a still image printed from the detention center's surveillance camera before they left.
A short time after, police searching for John finally found the man walking on the sidewalk near the Grand Avenue Emmanuel Baptist Shelter.
"Am I in trouble?" John asked, raising his hands, when the officers drove up alongside of him.
On of the detectives gave John the photo they had gotten from his mother earlier. John took the photo, looked at it before folding the photo and holding it tightly against his chest.
Police drove John back to the station and the lieuntant called the family who had only been on the road for about 20 minutes. The family turned around immediately and headed back to the New Haven police station.
In what cops said was no time at all, the white SUV pulled up across the street and police stopped traffic on Union Avenue to let John's elderly mother walk across the street to see her son for the first time in decades.
"You look like my mom," John said to his oldest sister, Liz, before turning to his mother. "You look like my grandmother," he said
John had a lot of questions to ask his family, including an inquiry about his father.
"He passed," his mother said.
After chatting for some time, John said he needed to get back to the shelter before 4 p.m. or he would have no place to sleep. His family refused, and instead, insisted he come home with them.
New Haven officers watched with tears in their eyes as the SUV drove off.
