Vanished Teen's Dad Speaks Out After Livestream Solved His Disappearance: ‘He Went Through a Lot' (Exclusive)

Troy Coleman, 17, went missing in May and his father spent weeks looking for him until an online video brought him home

• Troy Coleman, 17, was reported missing in May

• Almost two months later, he walked into an outdoor livestream in Miami, which drew the attention of a viewer who heard about his disappearance

• The teen's father, Weston Coleman, now tells PEOPLE that he is recovering in the hospital: "We all feel a lot better, and we thank everybody”
  

For about six weeks, Weston Coleman was constantly out on the road looking for his 17-year-old son, Troy, who vanished on May 17 after saying he was going to the store.

And then in early July, the boy turned up in Miami after being spotted, by happenstance, in someone’s outdoor live video stream.

“I'm just glad he's alive at this point and now can't believe we found him,” Coleman, 45, of Flint, Michigan, tells PEOPLE.

His son shares that feeling, Coleman says: “He's glad he is alive. We all feel a lot better, and we thank everybody.”

Father and son returned from Miami late last week, Coleman says.

According to his dad, Troy had spent much of his time out on the street — his skin being scorched by the Florida sun; with the exposure so intense that he’s missing some skin on his ears, nose and shoulders and some of his typically brown hair turned white.

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Flint police announced on July 4 that Troy had been found. Since then, he has been recovering in hospitals both in Florida and now in Michigan, his dad says.

Troy’s time away took its toll, Coleman says. While he’s been in “good spirits,” his psychological state is unbalanced and he's acted erratically, and doctors have been looking into his mental health. 

In interviews with PEOPLE, Coleman explained how his son first disappeared — by attempting an unusual trip alone out of the state — and what it was like to search for him and the moment they reunited. 

He’s also been dealing with his own recovery, calling the period of looking for his son a “mental, physical beat-down.”

“Now I'm off my little adrenaline rush from looking for him, and I can't wake up,” he says, adding, “Right now, we're just both recovering from our mission here.”

When Troy Coleman Went Missing

Before his disappearance in May, Troy was sleeping at his grandfather’s house, which is next door to his father’s place. (Coleman says he is Troy’s primary parent.) Troy told his grandfather on the morning of May 17 that he was going to the store. Meanwhile, Troy’s grandfather went fishing with his friends while his dad had a dentist’s appointment.

But Troy never returned.

“I came back two hours later and he wasn't here, and I've been keeping a tight eye on him, so I was like, where'd he go?” Coleman says. “My dad said, ‘Oh, he went to the store.’ He didn't think anything was wrong. Then I immediately knew that something was wrong because I couldn't find him in the neighborhood. So I called the police, the police came over here, made a report, and he didn't come home that night.”

As Coleman learned, based on surveillance footage, Troy first got on one public bus and then rode on another one that took him to a local mall where he hung out all day.

Then on the early morning of May 18, says Coleman, Troy boarded a Greyhound bus bound for Atlanta; his name was never entered into the system when he paid his fare, which is why his family lost track of his whereabouts.

Upon going through Troy’s computer at home, Coleman discovered searches that his son made about Key West, Florida. So he and a friend drove to Key West to look for Troy.

With assistance from local police there, Coleman spent seven days in that city but came up with nothing and returned home to Flint.

He says he looked for Troy every day following the teen’s disappearance, logging numerous days and hours by car. He and his other sons, Trenton and Thomas, and friends also spread the word about Troy while looking for the missing boy in the Flint and Detroit areas.

“I didn't quit looking for him the whole time,” Coleman says. “I know what he went through, and he went through a lot. I mean, a lot of nights, a lot of days.”

Coleman and his family initially thought Troy was dead after a while; he had not previously run away from home. “I drove around for so many days and so many nights looking for him," he says, adding, "I looked for him so hard, I couldn't understand how he could have lived through it with nothing.”

“I was up and down like a rollercoaster,” Coleman adds. “Sometimes you think he's alive, sometimes you think he's dead. It was horrible.”

About 50 days after the disappearance, a person who had earlier heard about Troy’s disappearance came across a livestream from two Twitch users in which Troy walked into the clip. The viewer then alerted Troy’s big brother Trenton, who alerted his family.

“Then I called Miami Beach Police Department," says Coleman. "And then I had Trenton send the video and pictures of Troy to them and then they went on the hunt for him. And then I woke up that afternoon to Flint Township [police] pounding on my door saying that they found him.”

As local TV station WKRC reported, both Lacy and Clix, the Twitch users, didn’t know they were speaking to a missing person during their livestream. In a social media post shared on July 3, Lacy wrote that they learned what was going on only after receiving a message from Troy’s brother.

"Now his family knows he is alive and in Miami," Lacy wrote.

Then in another X post on July 4, Lacy wrote that they were able to make contact with Troy’s loved ones: "The power of the internet is insane thank you guys.”

Coleman tells PEOPLE that he later was told by Troy that when the teen arrived by bus in Atlanta, he got robbed and ended up traveling from there to Miami with no money.

He also says Troy was arrested twice in Miami Beach, Florida, for sleeping in a park after hours and petty theft of food, respectively, and that he refused to give authorities his real name other than that he was John Doe.

Troy originally had about $600 but brought nothing else including clothes, his dad says.

Asked why his son ran away to Florida, Coleman says his son had developed an odd notion about going to find celebrities. Before his disappearance, Troy was at his high school looking up via the computer about how to get to Florida. The searches prompted the school to contact Troy’s family.

“[My dad and I] went and picked him up, brought him home,” Coleman recalls, “and I said, ‘Troy, why are you searching up how to get to Florida?’ And he just simply said, ‘I just never been there before.’ And then when I was talking to him, I said, ‘Troy, why'd you go down to Florida?’ He said, ‘Dad, I was looking for famous people.’ ”

Since returning to Michigan, Troy spent time with his brothers and dad before going to a local hospital, where he continues to receive treatment. The family is hopeful he’ll be better by his 18th birthday, in August.

Coleman says Troy’s health is greatly changed by his time in Florida. But he describes the teenager as a great mechanic who likes working on small engine repairs, adding that his son’s interests include mini-bikes, go-karts, four-wheelers and snowmobiles. Before his disappearance, Troy was finishing up his credits so he could graduate from high school — though he was also dealing with social issues caused by his habit of talking often about his personal religious views.

“He believes what the Bible says, not what we say. God is first with Troy,” Coleman says.

Upon seeing the livestream featuring his son, Coleman says: “I was upset that people were kind of making fun of him, but I was glad that they found him, and that's the most important thing. And I just didn't think those kids understood what he was going through. I wish they would've been a little nicer to him, but at the same time, they helped find him and didn't even know it.”

The father offered thanks to those who helped out in the search for his son and spread the word, including his family members, friends, Michigan and Florida authorities and the livestreamers. He also says that he may have to take Troy to see a doctor when he returns home to Michigan from Florida to make sure a similar episode doesn’t happen again.

After Miami police located Troy, says Coleman, he was taken to a hospital.

Coleman flew down to be reunited with his son in the Miami airport on Saturday.

“We hugged each other and took a picture,” he says, “and I turned around and got right back [to] the terminal and picked the same plane back."

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