The Man Who Found Himself

In January 2016, a man in St. Catharines, Ontario, had a meeting with his social worker. He was 50 years old at the time and had suffered from some developmental delays, but he had made a life for himself regardless — with support from government agencies, both financially and otherwise. The check-in with the social worker wasn’t anything out of the ordinary; these meetings were part of his support system — but this meeting was a bit different than the rest. The man, whose name hasn’t been reported, told the social worker that an unfamiliar name had popped into his head a few times recently.: “Edgar Latulip.” He didn’t know who Latulip was, but it seemed familiar.

His social worker ran a quick Google search. What she found was sitting right in front of her.

Edgar Latulip grew up in Kitchener, Ontario, about an hour and a half away from St. Catharines. But no one had heard from him in nearly three decades. In September 1986, a 21-year-old Latulip disappeared. He had grown up with developmental delays; as the Guardian reported, he “was living in a group home” and “functioned at the cognitive level of a child.” A few days prior to his disappearance, he had tried to take his own life. He was hospitalized immediately thereafter and the last time his mother, Sylvia Wilson, saw him, was in his hospital room. While no one knew why Latulip left the hospital or where he went, almost everyone assumed that the outcome was likely a bad one.

Two and a half decades later, Latulip was still considered a missing person. His profile was part of a 2014 story in The Waterloo Region Record, a local paper that covers Kitchener. And the story wasn’t optimistic about where he ended up. Police openly wondered if he had made his way to Niagara Falls to again attempt to take his own life, noting that (and apologies, this is a bit graphic), “many bodies have disappeared into that cavernous natural wonder that straddles the border between Canada and the United States, where remains can be trapped underwater for decades.” His mother had a similarly dark take on her son’s fate: “[she] believes her son may have been abused because of his mental illness, accidentally killed and his body hidden.” Either way, there was little hope of Latulip — or his remains — ever turning up again. Missing persons rarely, if ever, become un-missing after that many years.

When the social worker Googled the name, though, that changed. She, on her client’s behalf, “contacted local authorities,” per the Washington Post and “after a voluntary DNA exam, police were able to confirm his identity.” The man she was helping was Latilup himself.

It’s unclear what happened after he left the hospital. According to another article in the Record, “Police say Latulip took a bus from Kitchener to Niagara Falls in September 1986. Shortly after he arrived, it’s believed he suffered a head injury that left him with no memory of who he was — causing him to eventually take on a new name and identity, and begin living a new life in St. Catharines.” How he got his memory back is also unclear, as is why it took so long.

But to then 76-year-old Sylvia Wilson, none of that was important. Her son was safe, alive, and in good health. After thirty years, in February 2016, against all odds, the two were reunited.

Bonus fact: Most missing persons cases are solved, and solved quickly — and in general (the above being a clear exception), the faster police can get involved, the more likely the person will be located. One of the biggest barriers to success if a pervasive and untrue myth that authorities won’t even open a case unless the person has been missing for a full day. As Child Find of America notes, if you’re trying to locate a missing child (and this applies to adults as well), “before doing anything else, contact your local police immediately. You might have heard that you need to wait 24 hours before reporting a missing person, but the waiting period is a myth. In fact, taking action within the first 48 hours is crucial to bringing a missing child home.” Authorities across the board say the same — it’s important to act quickly, and in no jurisdiction is there a 24-hour waiting period.

From the Archives: The Missing Person Living in Savannah: He knew where he was, but he didn’t know why he was there.