Missing L.B. man with dementia found in Huntington Hospital 

When lightening and thunder struck last Wednesday night, April 21, Patricia and Debbie Hall grew even more worried, knowing how their missing 65-year-old father feared unruly weather and never went out after dark.   

Eddie Fletcher, who suffers from dementia, disappeared the day before, after he was released from the Nassau County Jail in East Meadow and wandered off before Patricia could pick him up.

“We were all crying how we couldn’t believe this was happening,” Patricia recalled.

Debbie described the experience as “very scary. I was wondering every night, Where is he? Where is he sleeping at? Is he OK? Is he safe? I just hoped and prayed that nobody took my dad and murdered him. All types of thoughts were running through my head.”

After a four-day search throughout Nassau County and beyond, with the help of numerous friends and family, Fletcher’s daughters were called to Huntington Hospital to see if a John Doe there who knew a relative’s name was their father. After several false alarms, this man turned out to be Fletcher, resting safe and sound in a hospital bed.

Their search for him, which took them as far as Syosset, had its origins in an open-beer violation ticket Fletcher had been issued by police in 2006. Patricia recalled having settled the matter then, but nevertheless Nassau County police arrested Fletcher on Monday, April 20, at Waldbaum’s in Long Beach, which he frequents to redeem empty bottles, on a warrant for failing to pay the ticket .

The next day, Fletcher was arraigned at First District Court in Hempstead and brought to the jail in East Meadow, where he was due to be released at 6 p.m. But Patricia said he was let out an hour earlier, before she could drive there to pick him up. The family speculates that he probably wandered to a nearby bus stop and got on a bus.

The following morning, 2nd Precinct police came across Fletcher seated beside a garbage can in a park in Farmingdale. Fletcher had no identification on him, and was unable to give them any useful information, so the officers took the unidentified man to Huntington Hospital.