After a fruitless 25-year search, a California woman found her long-lost brother in a USA TODAY story. But the case may not be the heartwarming reunion it first appeared.

When Marcella Nasseri, a native of northern California, saw a May USA TODAY story asking for readers’ help to identify a nonverbal man at a Los Angeles County hospital, she was shocked. Local law enforcement confirmed that the man was her brother, Thomas Manizak, who vanished in 1999.

But new details uncovered by USA TODAY reveal that Manizak is a registered sex offender, convicted of abusing a child in 1993, a captain with the Lassen County Sheriff’s Department confirmed Wednesday. Manizak spent three years in a county prison for the offense, Capt. Mike Carney said at his office in Susanville, California.

Carney said he was originally told Manizak had been fingerprinted but then learned that never happened and that he was identified using photographs and his sister’s positive identification.

The Los Angeles Police Department either failed or neglected to fingerprint Manizak, which would have helped to identify him, Carney said. But after Manizak’s sister notified his department that the man in Los Angeles was her brother, deputies ran his name through the system and found the 1993 sex offender listing.

“I guess he wasn’t cooperative when they tried to fingerprint him,” Carney said. “We were told that he was unable to walk and was unable to talk, so I don’t know what happened to him.”

Registered sex offender who ‘floated around’

The circumstances surrounding Manizak’s disappearance are still murky. Nasseri says he was last in contact with the family in August 1999.

Six years before he disappeared, Manizak was convicted of lewd and lascivious acts and oral copulation with a child under age 14, which resulted in his name being put on the sex offender registry.

Carney said Manizak was prosecuted in nearby Plumas County, where he served prison time. He then registered as a sex offender in Lassen County, but within a couple of years, he had left town. He failed to register with whatever jurisdiction he moved to, which is a violation of California law, Carney explained.

“He went to Oregon and after that, according to his family, he was just kind of a free soul and he just floated around,” Carney said.

Missing person bulletins show Manizak was last seen in July 1999 when he was 28 years old.

When he disappeared, Manizak was traveling across the country in his van. His last contact with his family was a phone call to his mother in August 1999, Nasseri said.

Because of his diabetes, Manizak could have slipped into a “diabetic coma” if he did not take regular insulin, according to the Doe Network. He qualifies for disability checks but did not pick them up or use his medical card while he was missing.

An avid camper, Manizak picked up hitchhikers, according to the Network, a nonprofit that works with law enforcement to try to identify missing persons. He had camping supplies with him when he disappeared.

Fundraiser raises more than $11,000

On a GoFundMe page posted after her brother was located, Nasseri wrote that he had vanished “with no trace.” Authorities never located his vehicle, she wrote.

The GoFundMe page created by Nasseri was still online as of Wednesday at 4 p.m. local time. It received more than $11,500 in donations after detailing her goal of transferring Manizak from Los Angeles County to a facility in Lassen County. The post’s description also said she wanted to send him a device so he can listen to music.

Interviewed by USA TODAY Wednesday, Nasseri said she has always been her brother’s “protector.” What Manizak did in the 1990s was “sickening and horrible,” she said.

“But at the end of the day, he’s still my brother, and I’m not turning my back on my flesh and blood,” Nasseri said. “I love him and I’ve been looking for 25 years – all the other stuff is outside noise, he’s my brother and I love him.”

The sex offender offense caused “huge heartache” in her family, Nasseri said, which was compounded by Manizak’s disappearance.

Nasseri said she plans to visit her brother as soon as she can leave her home, where she said she has the responsibility of looking after animals.

“When I’m released from that, I’m flying right down there to meet him and I can’t wait,” she said.

Nasseri said she is also working to transfer Manizak to a different medical facility closer to her home around 600 miles from the hospital where he is a patient.

She wrote on the fundraising page that she hoped to buy him used clothing, paper and pencils because he loved to draw, and a listening device with his favorite songs to help his memories resurface but didn’t have enough money.