A 71-year-old Pasadena man with Alzheimer’s disease was found dead today in Los Angeles, two days after he was reported missing and three days after being arrested on suspicion of DUI and released from jail, authorities said.
Pasadena police said there “does not appear to be any obvious signs of foul play” in the death of Gerald Masao Sakamoto, who was last seen alive near downtown Los Angeles.
The Pasadena Police Department had circulated his photo over the weekend, and sought public help to find him. Early this afternoon, police reported that he had been found dead, and his family had been notified.
An autopsy was pending.
Sakamoto’s wife Jane told reporters that her husband had been arrested by California Highway Patrol officers about 3 a.m. Friday for driving the wrong way on a freeway in the San Gabriel Valley — exactly where was not immediately known.
He had been involved in accident, according to ABC7. Additional details were not immediately forthcoming from the CHP and it’s unclear if a breath or blood test was administered to determine the man’s blood-alcohol content.
Sakamoto was booked into the Inmate Reception Center in downtown Los Angeles at 8:02 a.m. Friday and was released at 7:36 p.m., according to the sheriff’s department.
His body was found in a nearby maintenance yard.
Sakamoto’s family says he had no money and no cell phone.
The sheriff’s department issued a statement saying that all individuals “being released from our custody are offered the opportunity to stay in custody up to 16 hours, or until daylight hours, to arrange transportation or to contact service providers.”
Sakamoto “declined the accommodation,” according to the statement. “In addition, any individual requesting or showing signs of needing special assistance are contacted and addressed by IRC’s Special Needs Desk. Our records indicate that Mr. Sakamoto was not identified as requiring special needs or assistance during his time at IRC.”
Jason Sakamoto, the septuagenarian’s son, told reporters his father would “still be alive if they would have taken it seriously.”
The fatality was reminiscent of the death of 24-year-old Mitrice Richardson, whose skeletal remains were found in a remote canyon in August 2010 nearly a year after she had been released from the sheriff’s Lost Hills/Malibu station.
She had been arrested at a Malibu restaurant the night of Sept. 16, 2009, for failing to pay her bill. She was released from the sheriff’s station early the next morning without her car, telephone or purse.
Her parents sued the county, claiming deputies should not have released their daughter into the night, given her mental state.
The young woman may have been manic at the time of her arrest. A diary recovered from her car, which had been seized because deputies found some marijuana in it, suggested that she may have gone without sleep for as many as five days before her arrest.
–City News Service