Lori Beckwith doesn’t know where her son has been for the last three weeks, and she may never know.
But when she saw him Wednesday night, for the first time since he disappeared on Nov. 17, she said he had warm boots and clothing — things he did not have when he went missing.
“To the person — or people — who gave him layers of warm clothing, boots and food: you kept him alive," she wrote in a Facebook post. “I will never forget it.”
Her son, August Beckwith, 29, is on the autism spectrum and is not verbal. He went missing near the University of Utah while “experiencing a severe mental health crisis and psychosis,” according to a missing person poster from the university’s public safety department.
According to the department, he had no coat, no cellphone and no money.
From that day until yesterday, Lori Beckwith had no idea where her son was. She said she lives a few hours away, and spent most nights in her truck, to stay close to where she thought he might be.
Wednesday evening, someone saw him at the Apollo Burger in Taylorsville, and asked officers to perform a welfare check, according to Aaron Cheshire with the Taylorsville Police Department.
Cheshire said officers identified August Beckwith using a fingerprint scanner, and told his family that they had found him.
“He was moving through various parts of the Salt Lake Valley, and that he managed to survive in extremely cold conditions,” Lori Beckwith wrote on her Facebook post. “What we do know is that he received small acts of kindness along the way that helped keep him alive.”
Throughout the search, Lori Beckwith wrote, people experiencing homelessness consistently tried to help, sharing sightings and showing “a level of compassion that was deeply moving.”
“It is almost certain that people who have very little themselves stepped forward to help him survive,” she added.
In the past, she said, her son has given money, which he earned driving for food delivery apps, to people experiencing homelessness. Then, she added, “when he needed it most, they took care of him.”
When Lori Beckwith got the phone call Wednesday telling her that her son was alive, she said it felt unreal. He is safe, she said, though exhausted. Now, she wrote, she plans to focus on helping him recover from the trauma of his ordeal.