We met with Mr. Alba and told him our story of how our son never returned to his apartment after visiting home on April 3, 2003. He left no notes, told nobody anything (he had 2 roommates), just disappeared. Mr. Alba said he usually didn't do these kind of searches, but something pulled him towards this case and he said he would do it.
We had a clue to go on through our son's cell phone that he was somewhere in Canada. Mr. Alba went there and a very short time gave us some good news that he had found him safe and well, but needed some time before talking to us. Mr. Alba encouraged our son to call us even if he didn't want to come home, just so we knew he was ok. It was a few days after Mr. Alba had returned home that we heard from our son and that he wanted to come home.
If not for Mr. Alba, our son might have taken a different way out and our story wouldn't be a happy one. But it did turn for the best and Mr. Alba deserves more than any award you could give him. Words alone can't say enough or how I feel about him and what he did for us.
Sincerely,
Cheryl Gassler
After an extensive search . . .Gil Alba traveled to Canada and found the college student alive in Quebec. The student returned home safely on time for Father's Day.
Gil & L.J. in Quebec City, Canada
Off to college this Fall - never to return?
For once, a missing student case ends happily.
by E. W. Count
Lessons learned, private investigator Gil Alba suggests, for kids, parents, schools.
For PI Gil Alba, the image never fades -- a college kid’s corpse being dragged from murky waters. Too many calls from distraught parents and a file full of tragic news items have convinced the former NYPD first grade detective that missing college student cases have bad endings. Or even worse, perhaps, end in mystery, never resolved, for families living a long nightmare.
“You’re the only live one,” he’s told L.J., the 19-year-old sophomore who was missing from Penn State for over a month before Alba found him.
The story of L.J.'s return unscathed, the investigator hopes, may encourage other stressed young people to seek pressure- and anger-management tools more effective than flight –- and less likely to result in tragedy.
Do college kids go missing in droves? No. But that’s no comfort to parents of those who do. Even unaware of statistics that say the two leading causes of death for college students are homicide and suicide, a missing student’s family members are quickly overcome by dread.
Thirty-four days after the Pennsylvania microbiology major’s flight, Alba’s tracking techniques –- and, yes, a detective’s sixth sense –- guided his rental car into the Canadian shopping mall where L.J. had taken to playing computer games till closing time. The PI then spent time with the kid off and on for two days, offering him a sounding board . . . and the option to return home. L.J. made it back in time for Father's Day.
Alba, a father of three, says the missing students’ parents who come to him, “are desperate, and they basically feel no one [neither school officials nor police] is listening or helping.” He insists that parents themselves be part of the solution, even part of the investigation. In this account, we'll see how he involved L.J.’s parents in the investigative work; why this strategy in Alba’s cases restores a family’s sense of control, channels the anguish.
In his NYPD Major Case Squad days, working homicides, bank robberies and drug-related kidnappings, Detective Alba loved the challenge of putting together a puzzle -- and the bonus of helping out a victim. That’s what kept him in the NYPD eight years past the 20-and-out mark. When a Dominican mother from a cocaine infested Manhattan neighborhood begged police, in the late ‘90s, to find her grown son, Alba put in long off-duty hours on the case. The missing 22-year old had been kidnapped and killed by rivals from a notorious drug cartel.
Today, in his fifth year as a licensed private investigator with everything on his plate from corporate consulting to murder, Alba’s motivations have hardly changed. But, he's disturbed by every case of a college kid gone missing -- frequently without a trace -- and empathetic with the parents’ torment.
Alba has seen all the possible bad endings for missing students. Homicide, suicide, open-ended mystery. Luckily for LJ, who quietly drove away from school one April day, the only demons he met up with on his month-long international odyssey were his personal ones. But, “If not for [Alba],” who knows where he would have gone or what he would have done,” wrote L.J.’s mother. Students, families and schools all have lessons to learn from the story of her son’s disappearance and rescue.
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E. W. Count is the author of Cop Talk: True Detective Stories from the NYPD (hardcover, Simon & Schuster Pocket Books). Gil Alba has been featured on Americas Most Wanted, 48 Hours, MSNBC aired one hour special, Fox News, CNN, New York and national TV news shows in NYC feature stories, and on Court TV.