Missing man identified from random picture of homeless in the cold.

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Every now and then a family member just walks out the door and disappears. Some of the more famous cases are Edgar Allan Poe and Agatha Christie. I quoted Poe’s story below. Christie disappeared for 11 days and assumed a new name and personality. Had she not been recognized who knows how long she might have been lost.

Nick Simmons story is a classic case. He just disappears and ends up on the streets a week later. Something snapped in his mind. He could have been lost for years if he hadn’t been recognized from this random photo.

This is different from a person that deliberately leaves. Like a dad that abandons his family. That is planned and there is a specific new life he wants to create. People who leave on purpose usually don’t end up on the street.

Photo in USA TODAY leads family to missing N.Y. man

Nicholas A. Simmons, 20, was last seen leaving his home in Greece, a suburb of Rochester, on New Year’s Day. Family members began a search for him by contacting local news media and posting on Facebook.

In a strange twist, family members told local police they saw a man in a photograph published by USA TODAY in Sunday’s Democrat and Chronicle who looked like Simmons.

“It was pure dumb luck how all this happened,” Greece police Sgt. David Mancuso, the lead investigator, told the Associated Press. “It’s truly a miracle.”

To comprehend the odds of something like this happening, consider that Simmons’ photo had been selected by USA TODAY from the Associated Press wire, which carries thousands of photos at any given time and often offers news outlets that subscribe to the service several different images of the same event to illustrate news stories.

In this case, the Associated Press wire moved 126 photos depicting frigid conditions from across the country. Three of them were of Simmons, but only in one of them could his face been clearly seen.

On September 27, 1849, Poe left Richmond, Virginia, on his way home to New York. No reliable evidence exists about Poe’s whereabouts until a week later on October 3, when he was found delirious on the streets of Baltimore. He was taken to the Washington College Hospital, where he died at 5 a.m. on Sunday, October 7.