Norwegians Identify Mystery Boy

A teen-age boy whose silence since being found half-frozen on a ferry last week puzzled police and captivated the public was identified Friday as a runaway from Berlin.

Police in the southern town of Kristiansand, where the boat docked, said the boy’s mother identified him as her son, 14-year-old Natanael Kieckhoefer, after she saw his picture in a German newspaper Friday.

The boy was found Nov. 15, half-frozen in a lifeboat aboard a passenger ferry traveling from Denmark to Norway. He had refused to say a word during his stay at a child care center. “We are really happy to know where he is,” the boy’s uncle, Andreas Kieckhoefer, said in Berlin. “He’s a real smart boy, but he gives us a lot of worry.”