February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Declan Noade, 25, last contacted his family on Sept. 8 and said that he was planning to fly home to Ireland after working for a year in the U.S.
Since then, his family said that they had not heard from him and became increasingly worried as the weeks passed.
Last week, two of Noade’s sisters arrived in New York to look for him and spoke to police officers, consular officials and friends who knew their brother in Maspeth, Queens. They asked the police to open a missing person’s file on their brother, pointing out that they thought his disappearance was unusual and suspicious.
Noade’s sister Tracy McCleery said that the family was delighted that Declan had been found.
“We can all relax a bit now and enjoy Christmas,” she said. “It was a bit of a shock to hear that he had turned up safe and well, but it was a good shock.”
A private detective, Frank McDarby, who was hired by the family, said early last week that some leads were pointing to the Boston area, or possibly Quincy.
Said McDarby: “He was found in Quincy, Mass. He is fine, no problems, absolutely fine. He has a job and it seems when the job opened up, off he went.
“The people who told me that he may be up there had people going up to Quincy, and they went up to an Irish bar and the people there knew him right away. There was no in-depth searching involved at all.”
McCleery said that she had heard the good news “in the early hours of Thursday morning.”
“We got a phone call from two guys who were friends of his,” she said.
Noade was apparently attracted to Quincy because of offers of work, and McCleery confirmed that he was working there.
“We haven’t really talked to him about [going missing],” she said. “He hasn’t said a big lot. He’s very sorry, of course. He had no idea we were so worried. He has to phone his dad later on.”
She added: “It certainly is great to have a happy ending.”