A call came in to Summit County dispatch early Saturday before the sun came out: Someone was sleeping near a convenience store in Jeremy Ranch, the caller said, and they looked cold.
Hours later, according to the Summit County Sheriff’s Office, the 19-year-old was recuperating at a hospital and deputies were showing photos of the teen to his stepfather while his mother listened by speakerphone.
Footage from cameras worn by Sheriff’s deputies show the stepfather’s surprise and comments from the teen’s mother, Suzanne Flint.
“Our sweetheart’s alive. Oh my God,” Flint said. “Babe, can you go get him please?”
Sheriff’s Lt. Andrew Wright said Connerjack Oswalt had been missing since September 2019. Oswalt’s family, which had moved in the meantime from California to Idaho, hadn’t seen him since.
Wright said the Sheriff’s Office had been getting calls about the teen for two or three weeks. He’d been spotted at different spots in the Wasatch Back, from Kimball Junction to the Deer Creek Reservoir, generally pushing a shopping cart of his belongings.
But the weather had turned cold, and when deputies encountered him at the Jeremy Store on Saturday, Oswalt said his shopping cart had been stolen.
Wright said deputies noticed Oswalt “communicated differently” when they’d approached him previously. But he wasn’t committing any crimes and consistently refused help. Wright said the teen’s mother told deputies Oswalt had been diagnosed with autism.
When deputies invited him to warm up in their patrol car Saturday, they scanned his fingerprint to try to figure out who he was. It matched a February warrant from Nevada that spelled Oswalt’s name incorrectly.
Later, Wright said, deputies scrolled through 16 pages of flyers of missing children before stumbling on a match. That led them to Oswalt’s family.
Wright said he didn't know what the teen has been doing in the two-and-a-half years he was missing.
“Where has he been? Where have his steps taken him?" Wright said. "How many times has law enforcement contacted him, and he's just been wandering around the country?"
Wright said Oswalt was admitted to a hospital and his stepfather had visited him there. The county’s Mobile Crisis Outreach Team has offered resources to the family, Wright said, including social workers and counseling.
