Found Alive PA - David Mumie, Hazle Township, 1980

[fourboys]

It’s a weekend a Luzerne County family never imagined. A loved one who went missing over two decades ago and eventually was considered dead is safe and sound at home.

The Mumie family from Hazleton feels like it’s a dream now that David Mumie is back home.
“I never thought I would see him again,” said David’s mother Anna Mumie.

David, who is mentally handicapped, wandered away from his parents’ house along Hollywood Boulevard in Hazle Township 25 years ago.

“It was hard because nobody knew if he was dead or alive,” brother William Mumie said.

The family searched for nearly five years with help from police, but without luck. They thought David was dead.

That was until just this past week.

At Harry’s U-Pull-It in Hazle Township, a normal day of auto parts shopping for William Mumie wasn’t so typical after all. That’s where William ran into his long-lost brother. That gave him a chance to finally close the chapter in his life, which was filled with so many unanswered questions.

“We didn’t buy nothing that day,” said William Mumie. “We’re sitting having coffee and I said ‘That’s my brother. He’s been missing for 20-some years. So I turned around and yelled, ‘Dave!’ He walked over to me and said, ‘I know you. You have a beard now.’ I said, ‘Yeah, you should. I’m your brother.’”

“William was over at the junk yard. He find me,” David said.

“He’s told us all where he had been. Florida, Puerto Rico, Jersey,” Anna Mumie said. “He was working on a garbage truck and this and that.”

David has spent the last few years living with a family in the poconos. Although David told his loved ones he’s been treated well, he plans on moving back home with his mom. Now he can begin catching up with six siblings and a mother who never got to say goodbye to her son.

http://www.wnep.com/Global/story.asp?S=4078005

[Beyond Belief]

Wonderful, heartwarming story just in time for the holidays. Thank you for sharing.

[CyberLaw]

This story just shows that when people "think" that since their missing "loved" ones just totally disappeared and have not called after some time, does not mean that they are long dead.

And you wonder why LE does investigate all missing persons cases as homocides unless of course there are circumstances that lead them to believe that the person is a victim of a crime.

This man has apparently had a decent life for the last 25 years and did not want to call or contact his family for his own reasons...........

[Bobbisangel]

He's been gone for 25 yrs but how old was he when he disappeared? The article doesn't say. I'm left wondering if he was a child when he disappeared and someone took him or if he was old enough to actually leave home but hadn't because of his disability. I guess if he recognized his brother he must have been older when he "wandered away."

It's nice that the family now knows that he has been alive. That must have been hard for them...especially with his disability not knowing one way or the other.

He doesn't say if he left because he wanted to or if he just got lost and took it from there. I'd like to hear the "rest of the story."

[knale]

Yes, I too would like to hear the rest of the story. Seems odd to me that he was so close to home when he was found. After that many years, did he just happen to wander back to this place so near his home?