A shoe carried by Edgar Aberilla was found near Lowe’s parking lot
www.cascadiadaily.com
A shoe carried by the missing 72-year-old Filipino man with dementia was found Sunday, July 23 by members of a search party near a Lowe’s parking lot in Bellingham.
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The shoe that was found was not the one Aberilla was wearing. Aberilla left the house only carrying a small plastic bag filled with shoes, a crossbody bag and an Xbox game in hand.
Tullius was setting up a table and tent for the search Sunday when she noticed a canvas shoe lying in a patch of grass between two parking lots. After a close look, she knew it was one of the shoes her father carried with him the day he disappeared, so Tullius said she called Bellingham police.
A Bellingham officer and a Whatcom County search-and-rescue dog arrived to inspect the shoe, Tullius said. After letting the dog get a scent from it, Bellingham PD collected some hair found inside the shoe. A DNA mouth swab of Tullius was taken to see if it would match the hair. The search dog was unable to trace the scent of the shoe, she said.
Tullius had recently requested help through a Facebook group dedicated to finding Aberilla after two weeks of searching by friends and family yielded nothing.
The six-hour search drew close to 19 people, including two Burlington police detectives, and covered a two-and-a-half-mile radius from where Aberilla was last seen.
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Tullius said Sunday’s efforts were a success because a clue was found, and the search now seems centralized so that Burlington and Bellingham officers can have direct communication.
“Now that everyone is here, they are actually talking to each other,” she said. Previously, she told Cascadia Daily News she was frustrated with the lack of collaboration between the two departments.
Law enforcement officers from two jurisdictions had canvassed several areas where Aberilla was last spotted and have reviewed surveillance videos.
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Tullius hopes more footage of her father surfaces to get a better idea of his movements.
“From [Lowe’s] we don’t know where exactly my dad went or if he took another ride with some random person,” Tullius said. “If the police discover more footage of where my dad went after he was dropped off, then maybe we will know where to proceed.”
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