Autistic Teen Safely Found In Sheepshead Bay After Disappearing From Dyker Heights
The nine-hour search for Daniel Ghabra that began Friday afternoon ended on Saturday when the autistic boy was found unharmed in Sheepshead Bay, four miles away from home.
Like Avonte Oquendo, Ghabra is 14 years old with autism and cannot speak properly. The boy went missing from The Good Day Laundromat on 6214 Eleventh Avenue in Dyker Heights, near where he lives with his mother. But unlike Oquendo, Ghabra was safely found on Saturday.
When the Dyker Heights resident first went missing, police quickly released a photo of the boy, according to CBS Local.
A New York Police Department van drove through the neighborhood the night he went missing, according to the Daily News, with a message from Ghabra’s mom.
On Friday night, his mother’s heartbroken voice called out to Daniel from an NYPD Crime Stoppers van touring the neighborhood.
“Daniel, we are looking for you,” she pleaded. “Please come to Mom.”
Grim-faced cops set up a command post near the laundry Friday night and were looking for surveillance video and checking the nearby Fort Hamilton Parkway/62nd St. subway station for any clues.
Details on what led to his safe recovery in Sheepshead Bay were not immediately available.