Douglas David Lakin was 52 years old when he was last reported seen on April 1, 1981, in Corona, California. He was a male originally connected to Michigan and later Nebraska, and missing-person records described him as 6 feet tall and about 200 pounds, with black hair, brown eyes, and a scar on his abdomen. His case was classified as endangered missing, with reports noting that he may have been suffering from an undetermined mental illness at the time he disappeared. He had been traveling around the United States before his disappearance, but he stayed in contact with relatives and regularly called home to tell them where he was.
Before Lakin vanished, his life had already carried deep hardship and movement. He was born in Portland, Michigan, graduated from Michigan Technological University with a degree in mining engineering, and served in the United States Marines during the Korean War as a Mandarin Chinese translator. After leaving the military, he married, worked with his wife for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in South Dakota, and eventually had seven children. The family later moved to the Omaha, Nebraska, area, but after the death of their youngest son and the end of his marriage, Lakin returned closer to family in Michigan and worked part-time in property surveying and construction. Around 1980, he began traveling throughout the country, still maintaining enough contact that his family could follow his movements from a distance.
His final known contact came from the Corona area in Riverside County, California, during Easter weekend in April 1981. Reports state that he called his family in Michigan and asked them to wire money so he could return home. After that call, he was not heard from again under his known name. For his family, the silence that followed was especially painful because the last known communication suggested he was trying to get back to them, not disappear permanently. One of his daughters searched actively for him for years, and reports noted that there was no activity on his Social Security number after 1981. In 2001, after two decades without contact and with no objections from relatives, he was declared deceased in Nebraska, and his family later held a memorial service for him.
The later resolution of the case appears to have come through a connection between Lakin and an unidentified decedent case in Los Angeles County. Online case discussion about the unidentified man reported that the decedent was found on April 25, 1981, in Inglewood, California, after admitting himself to Daniel Freeman Hospital under the name "Douglas Larkin." The discussion cited NamUs and Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner information describing a man who had apparent self-inflicted stab wounds and was later found deceased in a hospital restroom. The unidentified case listed a man estimated to be 38 to 48 years old, 5 feet 11 inches tall, about 170 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes, which did not perfectly match Lakin's missing-person profile but was close enough, along with the similar name and timing, to draw attention as a possible match.
In February 2026, a person posting publicly as Mary Lakin stated that the FBI had confirmed the identification of her father, Douglas D. Lakin, and that his remains had been recovered on April 25, 1981. She wrote that the family finally had closure after nearly 45 years of searching. The thread was later marked as "Found Deceased," and another post noted that his NamUs missing-person page had been removed, consistent with the case no longer being listed as an active missing-person matter. While the public online record remains limited on all official investigative details, the available information indicates that Douglas Lakin was found deceased and that the identification brought long-delayed answers to his family. In overview, Lakin's case began as the disappearance of a vulnerable 52-year-old man trying to return home from Corona, California; it remained unresolved for decades as his daughter and family searched for him; and it ultimately appears to have been resolved through the identification of remains recovered in California shortly after his last known contact.
Last Seen: Apr 01, 1981
