Man last seen at Newport News group home found safe Saturday
VIRGINIA BEACH — A man who went missing on Feb. 9 while being taken to a Newport News group home was found over the weekend.
Antoine Omar Wynn, 36, was found safe just after 6 p.m. Saturday at the Lynnhaven Mall.
“He was picked up by a family member,” wrote Linda Kuehn, spokeswoman for Virginia Beach police, in an email. His sister, Annette Schofield, said in a phone interview Tuesday that Wynn’s caseworker with Jewish Family Service of Tidewater saw him at the mall Saturday.
The caseworker called Schofield and her husband, Preston, who live in Florida. They called Annette and Wynn’s other brother, who still lives in Hampton Roads, and he happened to be at the same mall, Schofield said.
Schofield and her husband are now back in Hampton Roads making sure Wynn has a place to stay. They’re setting him up in Portsmouth, where their family is from.
“He wants to live by himself, so we’re going to put him in a place by himself and just monitor him,” Preston said. Wynn’s family said Tuesday that he seemed “lucid,” and he technically wasn’t missing at all.
“He decided not to stay at the (group home), which was in bad, run-down condition,” Preston said on the phone Tuesday afternoon. “He didn’t want to stay there. He left.”
His family said that while he was unaccounted for, he was on the streets and staying in hotels. Wynn said on the phone Tuesday that he was having dinner at the Lynnhaven Mall the day he was found. “I guess someone was just trying to make sure everything was OK with me,” Wynn said.
On Feb. 12, Newport News police issued a press release saying Wynn had been missing for a few days. Annette Schofield hadn’t known he was missing until she saw news reports about her brother.
His family said he has suffered from mental health issues after a beating in 2005 at Virginia State University, and court documents show that he suffers from schizophrenia.
Eventually, a guardianship over Wynn’s affairs was awarded to Jewish Family Service of Tidewater.
At the time of his disappearance in February, Jewish Family Service of Tidewater was facilitating his transfer from a Virginia Beach facility to a group home in Newport News.
The family was concerned about the guardianship and said no one contacted them prior to it being issued. When asked about Wynn’s case last month, a spokeswoman for Jewish Family Service of Tidewater said she couldn’t comment on specific cases.
She said people are placed under the care of a guardian when they are proven to be “incapacitated” by the circuit court and when no other appropriate friend or family can care for them, and it’s a thorough process.
Court documents show that Wynn receives $783 a month from social services.
The family is glad he’s safe. “My wife, his sister, Annette, been crying nonstop since he was reported missing back in February,” Wynn’s brother-in-law said. “That is the first time I’ve seen a smile on her face.”