An 89-year-old man with Alzheimer's disease who went missing in Miami-Dade County was found and reunited with loved ones on Friday, October 16. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement issued a statewide Silver Alert for Byron Davalos.
Davalos was the subject of a missing-person report, per the WSVN report on the case. Officers describe him as 5 feet 6 inches tall, weighing 140 pounds, with gray, balding hair and brown eyes. The Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office is leading the search. The agency took over law-enforcement duties in January 2025. A 2018 amendment required counties to elect sheriffs, and Miami-Dade's transition took place in late 2024, as WLRN has reported.
WSVN reported that deputies found Davalos and reunited him with loved ones on Friday, October 16.
Florida's Silver Alert System
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement issued a statewide Silver Alert in the case, Boca Post reported Friday, October 16. Florida's Silver Alert system requires that the missing person be 60 or older with verified cognitive impairment. For cases involving people traveling on foot, regional law-enforcement media broadcasts are used, and highway message signs activate under specified circumstances, according to FDLE criteria. The program traces back to an executive order in October 2008 and was later codified into state statute, specifically to coordinate responses when elderly drivers with cognitive impairment go missing behind the wheel, per FDLE's own account of the plan's history.
Wandering Risks for People With Dementia
Research from the Alzheimer's Association has found that six in ten people living with dementia will wander at least once during the progression of their condition, and that up to half of missing seniors with dementia who are not found within 24 hours suffer serious injury or death, a risk Hoodline has previously detailed in its coverage of Miami-Dade's missing-senior cases.
Davalos's case joins a string of recent Miami-Dade disappearances involving older residents, including a 69-year-old Alzheimer's search earlier this month and the case of an 87-year-old man reported missing since Sunday, both of which drew urgent deputy response in the same county this month.
How to Report Information
The Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office had asked anyone with information about Davalos's whereabouts to contact Deputy M. Eloi at 305-715-3300 or 305-715-3275, or by email at [email protected]. Tips could also be submitted anonymously to Crime Stoppers at 305-471-TIPS (8477). Detectives had not released what Davalos was wearing when he was last seen.
