RETURNED

Boy Who Vanished on Family Vacation 6 Years Ago Found Alive

Alex Batty was just 11 when he disappeared.

A British boy who never returned home after a family vacation to Spain has been found after six years, reports say. Alex Batty was only 11 years old when he went on the trip with his mother, Melanie, and grandfather, David, in 2017. Batty’s grandmother and legal guardian, Susan Caruana, said the following year that she feared the adults had abducted Alex because they disagreed with Susan’s “lifestyle” and “belief systems.” On Thursday, the La Dépêche du Midi newspaper reported that a 17-year-old teenager had been picked up by a truck driver in France on Tuesday and that the boy had claimed he was Alex Batty, with Toulouse’s public prosecutor confirming his identity. The newspaper separately reported that Batty, his mother, and grandfather had lived among a “traveling spiritual community” which the teen decided to flee last week, hiking for several days on mountain trails before being picked up by the trucker.