A mother has been reunited with her son 21 years after he was abducted

A child who was reportedly abducted by his father in 1995 has been reunited with his mother.

A press release issued by the San Bernardino County District Attorney's Office reveals that the first meeting in 20 years between Steve Hernandez, now 22, and mother Maria Mancia occurred on Thursday morning.

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Senior Investigator Karen Cragg with the Child Abduction Unit says that Mancia and the father, Valentin Hernandez, were "...having problems in their relationship at the time of Steve's abduction. The mother went to work one day, only to return home to an empty residence with the father and child gone."

Investigators continued to pursue the case and they got a tip early this year that Steve was in Puebla, Mexico.

Cragg admits, "We weren't positive we located the right person. So we used a ruse and told Steve we were conducting an investigation related to the disappearance of his father."

A DNA test eventually confirmed that the man investigators had met was, in fact, the person they had been looking for.

Cragg says that they "...contacted the mother and she was overcome with emotion and very thankful."

The father, on the other hand, is thought to have died.

KABC is reporting that the young man, who is a legal U.S. citizen, would like to attend law school in the United States.