East County family found

Just one day after the "Have you seen us?" story went live on The Observer's website, the mystery has been solved.

David Dillard, an East County resident who found a plastic bin filled with old family photos, received a phone call from a man pictured in most of the photos — Mark Corradino.

Corradino had seen the story, which was published Oct. 21, and is meeting with Dillard today to retrieve his family's keepsakes of family vacations, school parades, holiday memories and other times captured on film.

Dillard had contacted Florida Highway Patrol, the schools Corradino's children attended and he tried other avenues but couldn't connect with the family.

"This hard work paid off," Dillard said.

Stay tuned for an update on how the photos landed on Portal Crossing in Lakewood Ranch two months ago.

Contact Amanda Sebastiano at [email protected].