The denouement of the disappearance case of a Texas teenager who was reported missing in 2015 and was found unconscious outside a church last week has taken a surprising turn. “He wasn’t missing at all,” Houston police said on Thursday.
17-year-old Rudy Farias was reported missing by his mother on March 7, 2015 after he disappeared a day earlier while walking his two dogs. They were found, but there was no trace of Farias, who suffered from depression and anxiety.
“He returned home the next day,” the police said at a press conference on Thursday. Despite this, his mother insisted that her son had disappeared. The woman, Janie Santana, has not yet been charged with false reporting or providing false names, police said.
The mother had contact with the police over the years. She allegedly claimed that “her cousin was the person friends and family saw come and go,” it said. Police say they spoke to relatives, friends, neighbors and medical professionals to determine that Farias was never missing.
Mother and son were questioned by Houston police on Wednesday. The mother allegedly fled a few hours after her interrogation for fear of being arrested. A neighbor called police after seeing Janie Santana leave her Houston home shortly after midnight, local news channel Khou 11 reports.
Sexual abuse
Local activist Quanell X, leader of the New Black Panther Nation in Houston, then revealed bizarre details about the disappearance case that the twenty-something confided to him. His mother gave him drugs and sexually abused him. She asked him to play daddy, told him to be the husband,” Quanell X tearfully told reporters outside the hospital where Farias was being treated. The now 25-year-old Farias said nothing about sexual assault during his questioning and is safe and of his own choice with his mother, according to the police.
The teenage boy returned home on March 8, 2015, according to Quanell X, after his mother promised to keep it a secret. She punished her son by locking him in a room over and over again, the activist claimed. “She convinced him that the police were looking for him because he had run away and that he would end up in prison for the latter.”
Unconscious
The 29-year-old was found alive on the floor in front of a church in southeastern Houston around 10 p.m. on June 29. “A Good Samaritan saw him lying unconscious in front of the church and immediately alerted the police,” Farias’ mother said in a statement. “My son is receiving the care he needs to overcome his trauma, but at this time he is unable to communicate with us.”
Brooke Taylor
@ABC13Brooke
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