Missing Uber/Lyft driver Joshua Thiede found alive, friends say
LOS ANGELES -- Missing Uber and Lyft driver Joshua Thiede has been found alive, reports CBS Los Angeles. Two of Thiede's friends texted the station saying he's in Good Samaritan Hospital in Downtown Los Angeles.
Friends tell the station that Thiede has been out of it. They believe he may have been drugged in recent days and that he's been at the hospital for at least a few days.
Earlier Monday, police found Thiede's car and towed it away.
The LAPD says the Nissan Altima was found around 12:30 p.m., but investigators aren't saying how.
Thiede, 29, had been missing since Feb. 12.
His mother, in Ohio, says his last phone call was to 911 last Monday around 11 a.m., but the call disconnected before a dispatcher could pick up.
Monday morning, a resident of the Koreatown section of L.A. noticed Theide's car parked near his home. It had a parking ticket on the windshield.
Police arrived around 3:30 Monday afternoon, CBS L.A. says.
"When the alarm was blaring, I looked out. I saw about seven or eight police officers, somewhere in that number, doing an investigation, with a bloodhound in the car. The bloodhound went in. The bloodhound went out. And then the bloodhound walked around a bit," said witness Ross Stracke.
The car was "a major piece of the puzzle that was missing," said friend Kevin Young. "I'm sure the LAPD, they've towed the car away now. I'm sure they'll be able get some sort of information from that."