Teen with autism who had been missing for three years found outside a store in Utah

A teenager from California who has Autism Spectrum Disorder has been found in Utah, almost three years after he had gone missing. Connerjack Oswalt disappeared when he was 16 years old in Northern California. He has now turned 19 and was first spotted in Park City, Utah by police officials. He was pushing a shopping cart and officials say that he did not show any signs of aggressive or criminal behavior, reports TMZ. Officers did not question him as they did not see him as a threat of any kind.

Oswalt was diagnosed with autism in 2014 and has "a history of running away," according to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. He went missing on September 28, 2019, reports SFGate. He went missing in May of the same year when his mother took away his phone, he fled his house in Clearlake with only his cat. Oswalt was again spotted in Utah last and authorities received a tip that he was camping outside of Jeremy's Store, a convenience store by a gas station near the I-80.

Authorities rushed towards the location and found him cold and shivering. Officers approached the 19-year-old in front of the business and asked if he wanted to sit in the car to warm up after a chilly night, according to body camera footage. He refused to provide the cops his name in the car, but he did allow deputies to scan his finger, which revealed that he had a warrant out of Nevada, reports KSTU. "There’s something more, this individual being resistant, reluctant to communicate," Sheriff Justin Martinez said.

The cops decided to search the database of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. His name showed up after a lot of searching and the deputies then contacted his relatives, who had relocated to Idaho from California. Gerald Flint, Connerjack's stepfather, drove from Idaho Falls, Idaho, to Park City, Utah, right away. They were reunited with their child after imagining the worst-case scenarios for three years. Martinex spoke of this moment of reunion, "There wasn’t a dry eye in the room. They’ve been reunited with this individual they haven’t seen for three years when he was 16. He’s now 19.”

Oswald's mother said, "We searched all over California, we had the missing centers of America, we had the Polly Klaas Foundation and the DOJ." Flint said, "We've had a lot of false hope over the last two-and-a-half years." The family is now reunited and Oswalt is safely back home in Idaho.