Police Search for Lost Boy, Then Learn Sick Dad Just Thought He Was Missing

It was the kind of compelling urban nightmare that sends shivers down the spines of every police officer in Hollywood: A 10-year-old boy, homeless and retarded, was lost, wandering out there somewhere among the pimps, transients and thugs who inhabit the blighted movie capital.

Only after a night and a morning of searching--during which officers combed the streets and alleys and sought help from every shelter operator, homeless person and teen-age runaway they could find--did police discover that the boy was safe with his mother in West Virginia.

The boy’s father--homeless, sick and disoriented--had sparked the search by mistakenly thinking his son was missing.

Police reported Wednesday morning that they were looking for Mark Pilato, with the mental capacity of a 5-year-old, who had recently come to Hollywood after his mother had died in San Diego. He was living in the bushes next to Hollywood High School with his father and a small group of homeless people.

The father, Salvatore Pilato, had collapsed on Hollywood Boulevard Tuesday evening, police said. An ambulance and the police were called and the boy, apparently skittish around people in uniform, fled. Salvatore Pilato awoke in the ambulance and cried out for his son, then fled the hospital in search of the boy before authorities could question him.

On Wednesday afternoon, police found Salvatore Pilato at a center for people suffering from AIDS, Detective Rick Papke, head of the Juvenile Unit at the Los Angeles Police Department’s Hollywood Division, said. Delirious and seriously ill--from precisely what had not yet been determined--he had made the story up about his missing son, Papke said.

Police said the man had truly believed his son to be missing, and will not face charges of making a false report.