FORT MYERS, Fla. – A happy update to the story about a reunion in Tampa between a vulnerable adult from Southwest Florida and his family.
Fox 4 was the first to bring you the story of Tyriece Dillard when he disappeared from Fort Myers last week. His family went to get him in Tampa this week after an alert bus driver noticed him on the bus.
“Coming up the stairs, we heard his voice. He was saying ‘God is good’, and we said ‘yep, that's him.’"
Jumping for joy, the family of Tyriece Dillard reunited with him Monday afternoon in Tampa.
Dillard, who is mentally challenged, went missing Friday from his tight-knit community of Harlem Lakes, leaving his loved ones to frantically search hoping for his safe return.
Thankfully, Dillard is back home in Fort Myers, and his aunt saying its indescribable. "So many thoughts and feelings…long as he's safe, he's safe, he's healthy, we’re good.
We’re happy. He's back now, we got a lock on him,” says Deloria Dillard.
Adding she doesn’t know how he reached Tampa. "But the bus driver did say that he got on the bus, and he was with a Caucasian woman, but she doesn't know exactly if they was together, or if she was just assisting him on the bus. We really don’t know, we really don’t know how got there.”
They say the bus driver noticed something was wrong. "The bus driver noticed that they had someone there that been on the bus for a couple of hours, that's just been riding the bus. And she noticed he didn’t know where he was going, and how he got there. So she kind of got worried, and that's when she called the Tampa Police Department.”
And Tyriece is just glad to be back home. "I love God, I love God, yeah. Umm, big family, big family, big family.”
The Dillard Family is thanking everyone who spread the word through social media helping bring their beloved Tyriece home, saying they are forever grateful.
