A retired San Diego County sheriff's deputy missing for four years was examined and released last week by a Southern California hospital that was not told he's a missing person.
Kiersten Carlin is now searching Downey for her 69-year-old father, Larry Everett Starks.
He was living in Florida when he went off his schizophrenia medicine and disappeared in December 2007.
The Los Angeles Times says Starks showed up at a Downey restaurant on Jan. 5 and he was taken to a hospital. Starks said he was a retired deputy looking for his daughter, but he didn't have contact information.
Carlin lives 28 miles away in Tustin.
The San Diego department confirmed Starks was a retired deputy, but the hospital staff wasn't told he was a missing person.
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