Missing Anaheim Man Taken by Marshals Found Safe

ANAHEIM —  An 84-year-old man was found wandering on the Vernon rail platform Saturday night at least 27 hours after authorities arrested him at his apartment, took him to court in Westminster, then released him--without a ride home.

The man’s frantic son, Joe Chapie, said his father, John Eugene Chapie, who was picked up for failing to appear on a drunk-driving charge, has diminished mental capacities and may have Alzheimer’s disease.

“How was he supposed to get home from the court?” said Joe Chapie, 57, who by coincidence had flown to Orange County on Friday night from his Seattle home to persuade his father to move to Washington. “It’s not right.”

Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority officers said John Chapie was unable to tell them anything but his name when they found him just before 7 p.m. Saturday.

“He was confused and didn’t know where he was,” said Danny Salazar, a transit authority dispatcher. “He didn’t remember his address or his phone number.”

Orange County Marshal’s Capt. John Fuller said John Chapie was released from Municipal Court in Westminster between 3 and 4 p.m. Friday by the deputy marshal in charge of the holding cell after a judge had heard his case and fined him.

“This didn’t come across as some guy who was drooling out of the corner of his mouth,” Fuller said. “He came across as a guy who was feisty and fully capable of taking care of himself.”

Fuller said four deputy marshals arrested John Chapie about 7 a.m. Friday on a $3,500 warrant issued after he did not appear in court. A deputy marshal already had visited the house within the last few weeks to urge John Chapie to take care of the warrant, Fuller said. The deputies decided to take John Chapie directly to Municipal Court in Westminster, instead of booking him into the Orange County Jail, because of his age, Fuller said.

“We were trying to be helpful,” Fuller said. “That was our accommodation. We took him to the court personally.”

Fuller said that when John Chapie was picked up, the deputy marshals asked him a series of questions to ascertain his mental capabilities. He was able to respond correctly to all the questions.

The deputy marshals “just thought they had an older gentleman that was refusing to take care of business,” Fuller said.

Joe Chapie said he doubts his father could have given authorities his Social Security number or birth date.

“I just don’t believe it,” said Joe Chapie, adding that his father was unable to write checks, follow directions or remember that he had called a friend on the phone just moments after doing so. “He’s not functional.”

He said that his father had learned to disguise his failing memory by saying “little key things . . . to make it seem like he has it all together.”

Joe Chapie said he found out that his father had been arrested after his Anaheim neighbors called his wife in Seattle to report that four deputy marshals had led him away in handcuffs.

“He must have not shown up for the court hearing because his faculties are diminished,” said Joe Chapie, who said he has been trying for three years to persuade his father to move in with him.

“He won’t let us take care of him,” he said. “Maybe he’s afraid we’ll put him in a nursing home.”

Joe Chapie spent Friday night and most of Saturday calling everyone from the Anaheim police to the Orange County Jail looking for his father.

“How can you not leave a card or something in the house to alert people to where he’d been taken?” Joe Chapie said. “I can’t believe what I went through to find out what happened.”

Fuller said it would be impossible for the marshal’s office to provide rides home for the thousands of people it books.

“It’s easy to Monday-morning quarterback,” he said. The deputy marshals “had determined that [John Chapie] could do the same thing for himself that a 65-year-old could do [or] that a 45-year-old could do.”

Joe Chapie said he was just glad his father had been found and hoped to take him home to Seattle for good on Tuesday.