FULLERTON : Missing Immigrant Reunited With Kin

An 80-year-old Romanian immigrant who had been reported missing over the weekend was reunited with his family Monday after he was found in Downey, police said.

Ion Muresan, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease and cannot speak English, became lost Saturday morning after riding away from his home here on a bicycle, said his grandson, Paul Muresan.

On Sunday, a Downey police officer who found a disoriented elderly man remembered reading a news article about the missing man and called Fullerton authorities, Fullerton Police Sgt. Ron Gillett said.

Gillett told the family the good news Monday and said they could pick up Ion Muresan at the Martin Luther King Jr.-Drew Medical Center in Los Angeles, where he had spent the night. Doctors said he was in good condition.

“He looked great,” Paul Muresan, 32, said. “He was just happy to see us. He recognized my grandmother right away. He knew he got lost. He told us he had given up hope.”

The family had looked for the man all day Saturday, Easter Sunday and early Monday.

“We got home and got a phone call that they located a man who can’t speak English and pretty much having the same description,” Paul Muresan said.

The grandfather told his family that he might have fallen off his bike somewhere in Buena Park but did not know how he arrived in Downey.

“He’s gotten lost for a few hours before but never overnight,” Paul Muresan said. “Everybody was crying. We had four cars looking for him all the time. Thank God he’s OK.”