N.Y.C. police were combing the city for 93-year-old World War II veteran Richard Micheaux (pictured), after he mysteriously disappeared on the morning of July 1, when he took a routine walk to the grocery store in the Hamilton Heights section of Harlem, but police were searching for the elderly gent in the wrong state! Micheaux was found 2,500 miles away from his home in Sin City or Las Vegas, wandering outside the famed Flamingo Hotel still believing he was in New York. It is still a mystery how he got there, though, according to the New York Daily News.
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Micheaux, who served in the Air Force, left his apartment at about 7 a.m. to get a cup of coffee and a newspaper and was supposed to come back home in time to escort his 82-year-old wife to the bank at 9:30 a.m.
The elderly man, however, never made it back to his Convent Avenue residence, where he has resided for 50 years.
According to Micheaux’s 41-year-old son, Gregg, his father is a vibrant and active nonagenarian with a clear mind and absolutely no history of dementia. One of his neighbors told the New York Daily News, “He’s in his 90s, but you would never know it. He’s very active. Every day, rain, snow, whatever, he goes to the store. He’s such a nice man.”
The last time anyone saw Micheaux, he had waved to a group of friends at a local dry cleaners establishment, which was around 9:30 a.m. on the day of his disappearance.
During his absence, Gregg retraced his dad’s familiar steps and also scoured the Harlem area, posting fliers about his father’s disappearance. The younger Micheaux also tried questioning residents in the community to see if anyone spotted his father but came up empty. Gregg, who told the New York Daily News that his father is his best friend and his everything, stated, “All the money in the world couldn’t replace him.”
Police investigators, though, did manage to piece together some information about Micheaux’s disappearance. The former combat vet somehow hopped on a bus from Pittsburgh to Las Vegas; however, what is puzzling to investigators and to Gregg is how Micheaux was able to come up with the money to cover a bus ticket as well as travel to Pittsburgh in the first place.
According to Gregg, a Vegas hospital evaluated Micheaux and found he did not sustain any injuries. Upon reuniting with his father, Gregg said Micheaux looked as if he had aged five years. Now the younger Micheaux will get his dad back home, so that his own family physician, whom he had not seen in two years, can thoroughly examine him.
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