In November 2015, police in the Chinese city of Hangzhou were checking an internet cafe when they discovered a 24-year-old woman using a fake ID. Under questioning, she revealed that she was Xiao Yan, a teenager who had vanished from her family home in eastern China a decade earlier. For ten years, she had drifted between cities, sleeping in internet cafes and bathhouses, surviving on donations from people who watched her play the multiplayer video game Crossfire and occasionally working as a cashier. Xiao had left at the age of 14 following an intense argument with her parents.
She reportedly told police that she had asked her father for money and been refused, with her parents accusing her of lying, so she decided to run away for good. Investigators finned her 1,000 yuan for using the fake ID, roughly 130 US dollars, and contacted her parents. Her mother, who said she had never changed her phone number in the hope that her daughter would one day call, stated that she would never scold her again. Xiao had been presumed dead, and her parents had even removed her from their household registration.
She was reunited with her family, though it remains unclear whether she chose to return to live with them, and no further updates on the case have surfaced. In June 1987, 21-month-old Germaine Man was last seen by his mother in Toronto, Canada. The couple had separated the year before. During a scheduled visit on June 24, his father, Alan Man, kidnapped the boy.
When he failed to return the child, Germaine’s mother reported him missing. Man used fake birth certificates and other documentation to disappear, adopting the name Haley Duza and claiming that both he and Germaine were born in Texas and had moved to Vernon, Connecticut. Germaine grew up believing his mother had died in childbirth. The case was investigated by several US agencies, including the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the US Marshals Service, and the Department of Homeland Security, as well as Canadian law enforcement.
For decades, the boy’s whereabouts remained unknown. In August 2018, investigators began interviewing Man’s friends and relatives, who suggested he had fled to Connecticut. Later that month, a forensic specialist working for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children compared a photo of Man from before the disappearance with one from a 2015 driver’s license issued under the name Duza. The expert concluded they were likely the same person.
On October 26, 2018, Man was arrested in Vernon, Connecticut. His documents had been flagged as fake when he submitted them in an application for a rental unit in federally subsidized housing. He was not living with Germaine at the time, but investigators located the young man safe. Germaine told authorities what his father had always told him: that his mother had died after his birth.
Upon learning her son had been found, his mother told reporters that hearing the words “your son is alive” was breathtaking. The pair were reunited days later. Man was charged with making false statements to obtain HUD housing and in 2019 was sentenced to 18 months in prison for illegally obtaining US government benefits. Steven Carter, a 34-year-old software salesman, always knew he was adopted.
His parents had been upfront about it throughout his life. He knew he had been adopted from a foster home in Honolulu, Hawaii when he was about four. But as he grew older, he wondered about his biological parents and had questions about his birth certificate. It had been created a year after his birth and listed him as half Hawaiian, despite the fact that blond-haired, blue-eyed Steven did not resemble a native Hawaiian.
In 2011, Steven decided to browse the website missingkids. com out of curiosity. He scoured photos of children reported missing from Hawaii over the past 34 years and came across a composite image of a missing baby that bore an uncanny resemblance to him. His first thought, he recalled, was “Oh my god, that’s me.
” The baby was Markx Panama Barnes, five months old when he disappeared. They shared the same birthplace, and their birthdays were one day apart. Steven sent the image to his adopted mother, Victoria, who recognized him immediately but said it couldn’t be him: they had adopted him at four, which would have been impossible if he were reported missing at six months. Still curious, Steven contacted the Honolulu police, who arranged a DNA test.
A year later, testing confirmed that Steven Carter was Markx Panama Barnes. The mystery did not end there. He learned that his biological mother, Charlotte Moriati, had vanished with him in 1977, changing his name, birthday, and the race of his father. Three weeks after they disappeared, his biological father reported them missing.
Steven ended up in an orphanage while his mother was placed in a psychiatric hospital. Police never located him there, because he had been given a false name and no one knew he was a missing child. His adopted mother told ABC News that Charlotte was found in a house where she didn’t belong, and police found her with the baby. Once in a mental health facility, she gave a false name for herself and the child, and provided a date of birth one day off the real one.
Charlotte later left the hospital and disappeared. She remains missing to this day. Steven made contact with his biological father, Mark Barnes, who was living in northern California. Barnes told the media that when Steven introduced himself over the phone, he was thunderstruck, and the two spent an hour trying to catch up on 32 years.
Mark explained that Steven’s mother had often left with the child but always returned, and although he never stopped looking, he wished he had reported them missing sooner. He said not one day went by without Steven in his thoughts. The two exchanged calls and letters for years, but Mark suffered from substance abuse issues, which made a stable relationship difficult. He passed away in 2023, and the two never met in person.
Steven learned from his aunts that his mother was a free spirit, and he believed she went to East Asia for a fresh start, where she eventually died. Abdul Aziz Khan, known as Aziz, was seven years old when his mother, Rabia Khaled, took him from their home in Atlanta, Georgia on November 7, 2017. His parents had separated in 2014 and shared custody. After the separation, Khaled moved from New Orleans to Atlanta for a job, and the two appeared to be co-parenting peacefully.
But the custody battle in Louisiana grew increasingly difficult. Khaled stopped cooperating with court directives and made allegations against Aziz’s father that were dismissed by law enforcement. Douglas County Sheriff Darren Weekly later said that when it appeared the father was going to get full custody, the mother left with the child. In November 2017, Khaled sold her vehicle, and her new husband, Elliot Blake Bourgeois, sold his as well.
The pair disappeared shortly afterward with Aziz. Two years later, a felony warrant was issued for Khaled for kidnapping her son. US marshals joined the case as investigators in Louisiana struggled. In 2022, the case was featured on Unsolved Mysteries.
For years, nothing was known of Aziz’s whereabouts. On February 23, 2025, law enforcement was dispatched to a home in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, to investigate a burglary in progress. The owner of a vacant house that was up for sale had reported seeing several people entering the property illegally on surveillance cameras. Police found a parked car in the driveway with two young children inside.
A man and woman exited the home and claimed to be associates of the realtor, but investigators found inconsistencies in their story. The couple were very nervous, and their identifications turned out to be fake. Five hours later, a fingerprint scanner identified the woman as Rabia Khaled. The older child in the car was established to be Aziz, now 14 years old.
Khaled and Bourgeois were arrested on charges including second-degree kidnapping, forgery, identity theft, trespassing, and providing false information to authorities. Their bond was set at $1 million each. Investigators stated they did not know how long the couple had been in the state or how they arrived. It remained unclear whether the second child was the couple’s biological child.
Officials believed both children had been coached on how to respond to law enforcement, as they immediately called for Khaled and Bourgeois when approached. The circumstances of Aziz’s life in Colorado, including whether he attended school or used a false name, were not disclosed, though authorities noted that both children appeared healthy and in good condition. Several documents were found in the vehicle and were under investigation.
The case remained ongoing, with authorities asking anyone with information about Aziz’s whereabouts over the previous seven years to come forward.