An Amazing Story: Son Reunites with Parents 32 Years After Kidnapping
John V.
Posted On May 19, 2020
Imagine spending more than 30 years looking and searching for your abducted son. Well, this was reality for a Chinese couple who spent more than three decades searching for their son who was abducted in the late ‘80s were. Today, 30 years later they were reunited with him bringing to a close what local media called one of the county’s “most notorious” missing child cases.
Mao Yin, now 34, was headed home from kindergarten in Xian with his father Mao Zhenjing in 1988 when he said he was thirsty, mom Li Jingzhi told the South China Morning Post.
The older Mao stopped at the entrance of a hotel to get his son some water and briefly looked away, during which time his son was snatched and ultimately sold to a couple who didn’t have children for the equivalent of $840 today, the BBC reported.
Li and her husband dedicated their lives to tracking down their son, and after she quit her job to focus full-time on the search, Li became a frequent face on Chinese television shows, where she’d plead for help, according to the BBC.
The now grown-up Mao Ling said that he’d seen Li talking about her missing son on TV before, but didn’t realize he was the son in question, CNN reported.
The arduous search finally came to a close in early May after Xian police used facial recognition technology to analyze old photos of Mao, according to the Morning Post.
After they created a simulated image of what he might look like now, they compared that photo to those in a national database, and a DNA test finally confirmed that he was, in fact, Li’s son, CNN reported. He was reportedly living more than 600 miles away, and going by the name Gu Ningning.
The overjoyed parents were seen breaking down in tears during the reunion as they pulled their son in for a hug for the first time in more than 30 years.
“I don’t want him to leave me anymore,” Li reportedly said. “I won’t let him leave me anymore.”
The BBC reported that an investigation into his abduction is still ongoing, and that no information has been released about the couple who raised him, though Mao has said he will move to Xian to live with his biological parents.
