California Teen With Autism Who Disappeared Three Years Ago Found Alive In Utah

A California teenager who vanished nearly three years ago was found alive this month sleeping outside a Utah gas station. According to NBC News, Connerjack Oswalt went missing in Clearlake back in September 2019, when he was 16 years old. However, after almost three years the search for him ended earlier this month after the Summit County Sheriff's Office found him outside a gas station in Summit Park. 

Taking to Facebook, the Summit County Sheriff's Office informed that Sheriff's deputies responded to a gas station on the morning of April 9 in the greater Park City area, after a “concerned community member” reported seeing the man sleeping there. The deputies offered the man to sit inside one of their vehicles to warm up and began researching who he was. 

“Through past interactions and the Saturday interaction, it was clear to deputies that the man communicated differently," the sheriff's office said, and also included an autism awareness hashtag on its social media post. 

A dispatcher then started looking through pages on the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children website, following which the authorities found a missing poster for Connerjack Oswalt. The Sheriffs believed that it was the same person they had found shivering at the gas station. When contacted, both Clearlake police and Mr Oswalt's mother confirmed that he was still missing. 

The 19-year-old's mother also told authorities that her son had a distinctive birthmark on his neck, which the deputies found on Mr Oswalt. Immediately, the Oswalt family then drove from Idaho Falls, Idaho, where they had relocated, to Utah to be reunited with him. 

For now, the exact circumstances of Connerjack Oswalt's disappearance and whereabouts over the last three years are under investigation, the police said, as per CBS News. How long Mr Oswalt was in Utah or how he arrived there remains unclear. The authorities stated that they believe that he was a runaway. Meanwhile, social workers knowledgeable about autism took over Mr Oswalt's care after the reunion with his family. His family is hoping to bring him back home soon.