Investigators believe a Texas man who reportedly disappeared as a teenager eight years ago was actually living with his mother, and that his mother misled police the whole time.
Rudolph “Rudy” Farias was reported missing on March 7, 2015, by his mother, Janie Santana, after he did not come home from walking his dogs at age 17. Officials confirmed earlier this week that Farias was found alive outside a local church. Soon after Farias was found, however, community members raised questions about whether or not he was ever actually missing, prompting police to take a closer look at the family.
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Police said that in 2015, Farias had returned home the day after he was reported missing on March 7, but Santana continued to claim that her son was gone over the next eight years.
“During the eight-year time frame where he was missing, investigators followed up on many tips, leads, collected evidence proving that Rudy was not missing during the eight-year period,” Houston Police Lt. Christopher Zamora said during a news conference on Thursday. “Many of these facts included contacts and statements with relatives, friends, neighbors, and medical professionals.”
Neighbors claimed that they had seen Farias, now 25, multiple times during the time period in which he was allegedly missing. Both Farias and Santana interacted with police officers over the eight-year span, Zamora said, but the two gave investigators false names and birth dates.
Santana alleged that her nephew “was the person friends and family were seeing coming and going,” rather than Farias, police said. However, neighbors were shown a photo that they say is not Farias and not the boy who had been spending time with them.
The mother had released a statement through the Texas Center for the Missing over the weekend, saying a “good Samaritan” found Farias unresponsive at the church. Santana said that “at this time, he is nonverbal and not able to communicate with us.”
So far, the district attorney’s office has not filed any charges against Santana or Farias for making fictitious reports. Farias is now in contact with adult protective services and “victim services to ensure that he has a method to recover,” Zamora said.
Police would not confirm or deny reports that Farias was sexually abused during the eight-year period. The claims stem from remarks that community activist Quanell X gave reporters on Wednesday. Earlier in the day, police conducted interviews with Santana and Farias at a hotel in Humble, Texas, and Quanell X said Santana asked him to be present for the discussions.
Quanell X told reporters that Farias confided in him that he had been sexually abused and heavily drugged by his mother for years.
“I never heard of a mother doing to a child what this woman did,” Quanell X said. “That boy needs to go to the best drug rehab and best psychological, mental health facility we can find for him. He’s a good kid. That kid was just severely abused.”
Farias allegedly told Quanell X that his mother threatened that he would get in trouble with authorities and she would give him drugs to keep him from leaving.
“She convinced him that he was in trouble for initially running away and that law enforcement wanted to arrest him and put him in jail for running away,” Quanell X said. “She had convinced him that all types of agencies were looking for him to put him in jail.”
Farias allegedly said that he had enough and took his mother’s credit card and left the home. Authorities later found him in Magnolia Park on June 30.
“He said he just got tired of her not respecting his boundaries and he wanted his own life,” Quanell X said. “His exact words were, ‘I was tired of living like a slave.'”
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Zamora said on Thursday that “there were no reports of sexual abuse” based on Farias’s interview with Houston police.
“If there is a disclosure made, we will continue to investigate,” Zamora said. “Currently, the investigation is active and there are new leads coming in, and we will continue to follow those leads.”
