Mentally ill man missing from group home found

A 22-year-old man with severe mental health disorders who went missing last week from a group home in Glendale has been found, officials said Friday.

Authorities discovered Tyler Henson on Nov. 11 in Feathery Park in Anaheim in good condition just two days after he was reported missing from his group home in Glendale. He was reportedly hungry and transported to the nearby Western Medical Center.

“We still don’t know how he got to the park,” said his mother, Marcia Salazar, who made an emotional appeal for help Thursday. “It is so far from Glendale. I tried to ask Tyler and he was kind of confused and he just said he was in the hospital.”

Henson walked barefoot out of the home in the 1800 block of Vassar Avenue shortly after 5 a.m. on Nov. 9 following a confrontation with a staff member over food.

He suffers from mild mental retardation, bipolar intermittent explosive and schizoaffective disorders, and has lived in group homes since he was 14, Salazar said. Some of his behavioral triggers include being denied food and being stared staring at, she added.

Glendale police had reached out to all Southern California transportation providers, hospitals and mental health facilities, spokesman Sgt. Tom Lorenz said, but didn’t get any leads until Thursday night when they received a call from an administrator at Western Medical Center.

-- Megan O’Neil, Times Community News

Twitter: @Megankoneil