Boy Claiming to Be Lost Proves to Be Runaway

A 15-year-old boy who claimed he was lost after being found sleeping in a field this week was actually a runaway from San Bernardino County, a Buena Park police spokesman said Thursday night.

Terry Branum said the boy’s parents met police investigators at Ontario Airport Thursday night and identified him through photographs. Branum said the boy’s parents are William and Mary Begley of Lucerne Valley.

The boy was identified as Billy Begley, who was reported missing April 8.

Branum said a neighbor of the Begleys saw the boy’s picture on television Thursday and notified the parents, who called Buena Park police.

The boy would not admit he was the Begleys’ son, Branum said. But further identification was made through a birthmark on the boy’s right leg, which the parents had described, Branum said.

The boy, who has been at the Albert Sitton Home for juveniles in Orange, was found at 4:45 a.m. last Sunday asleep and draped in a plastic bag in a vacant field near Knott’s Berry Farm.

He told authorities his name was Joseph McArty and that he didn’t know where he lived. The boy said he had moved to Orange County from Boron, Calif., a week earlier.

The boy said his father, whom he identified as John McArty, had dropped him off at the amusement park Saturday afternoon and had not returned for him at closing time.

Investigators took the boy to Albert Sitton when they couldn’t find locate his father. A Juvenile Court judge on Wednesday authorized the news media to run photographs of the boy in an effort to find relatives.

The boy will be turned over to his parents today, Branum said.