Father meets daughter after 40 years

WASHINGTON:��It was truly a happy Father's Day for 63-year-old Al Annunziata who came face to face with his 40-year-old daughter he never knew he had.

����������� Annunziata and Jyll Justamond had an emotional first meeting on June 11.

����������� "I'm never going to let you go, ever," ABC News quoted Annunziata as telling his daughter during the meeting.

����������� Justamond of Littleton, Colorado, said that she found Annunziata after tracking him down on Facebook on April 3 -- her 40th birthday.

����������� She started searching for her biological father years after learning that people she thought were her parents were actually her grandparents.

����������� "My biological mother was 18 when she had me and for whatever the reason, felt that she wasn't capable or old enough to raise me," Justamond said.

����������� "She asked her stepfather and mother to raise me and I didn't know I wasn't their child. I found out when I was 10. It turns out that the person I thought was my half-sister was actually my mom," she said.

����������� Justamond said she approached her biological mother, Linda to ask about her father.

����������� "She told me it could be this guy Al and she said, 'When I met him, he was bartending at this bar called Neary's and it was essentially a one night stand. A first name and the bar he worked in -- that was all I had to go on. That, and he was Italian."

����������� In April, Justamond posted in a Facebook group dedicated to natives of Palisades Park, New Jersey, where the bar Neary's was located in the 1970s.

����������� One user asked her to speak with Don Neary, the owner of the former bar.

����������� "I said, 'I know this is crazy, but do you happen to know a guy named Al that worked or you in 1976, 1977?'" Justamond asked. "He said, 'Oh, you mean Al Annunziata.'"

����������� Justamond found and reached out to Annunziata on Facebook.

����������� Justamond and Annunziata exchanged messages via Facebook and on April 24, Annunziata took a paternity test. The results were 99.9966 probability that he is Justamond's biological father.

����������� Annunziata said he and his daughter have a lot in common and the pair are already close.

����������� The father-daughter duo now plan to spend Christmas together in Las Vegas, where Justamond will meet her aunt. (AGENCIES)