Local News in Brief : Tustin : Missing Alzheimer’s Victim, Family Reunited

An Alzheimer’s disease victim who had been missing for two days was returned to his Tustin home Wednesday after a woman recognized him from news reports and notified police.

Louis F. Rosa, 63, was disoriented but in good condition when he was picked up by police in Fullerton, according to Tustin Police Lt. Frank Semelsberger. Rosa was spotted by Vivienne Maloy of Anaheim as she walked to the post office on Commonwealth Street in Fullerton at about 10:30 a.m. Wednesday. Maloy recognized Rosa as the missing man she had read about in the newspaper that morning.

“She saw the man was carrying a brown jacket and wearing a light blue floral print shirt,” Semelsberger said. “She then remembered the article she had read and remembered the floral shirt worn by the missing man and thought, ‘Ah, that might be the guy.’ ”

Maloy alerted Fullerton police, who brought Rosa to the station. He was later reunited with his family in Tustin, where he lives with his sister.

Rosa disappeared from his home at about 2:30 p.m. Monday after he and his sister returned from a vacation. He and his sister had argued because he insisted that he lived somewhere else. The sister went inside to call other relatives for help, and Rosa wandered away, according to police.

Rosa, a former boxer, had a similar experience in 1986, when he was missing for four months. That time he was identified by a transient in Santa Monica.