‘Boggles all of our minds:’ Autistic teen found in Utah after having gone missing 3 years ago

An autistic teenager who went missing three years ago was located by police in Salt Lake City this week, with authorities just happening to stumble across the young man outside of a local convenience store.

Connerjack Oswalt went missing in September of 2019 in Clearlake, California, a community more than 700 miles west of Salt Lake City.

Earlier this spring, residents of Salt Lake-area suburb Summit Park began calling authorities to report a homeless man in the area, a rare sight in the high-altitude, often-bitterly cold region. 

Police were eventually able to scan the man’s fingerprints while letting him warm up in a police vehicle; a search led them to Oswalt’s entry in the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The 19-year-old man’s mother subsequently confirmed that he was still missing. 

Oswalt’s family promptly traveled to Summit Park to reunite with him. 

“It boggles all of our minds,” Summit County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Andrew Wright told NBC News this week. “It’s just a really miraculous discovery if you will.”