Rudy Farias: Texas man ‘missing’ for 8 years was home the whole time, police say

globalnews.ca:

Rudolph (Rudy) Farias IV, the teen who went “missing” in Houston, Texas, eight years ago, was actually at home the entire time, according to local police.At a press conference on Thursday, representatives from the Houston Police Department responded to reporter questions about Farias. They said Farias returned to his mother’s home one day after he went “missing” in 2015, and has been there ever since.The press conference was held amid growing confusion surrounding the case.

The day prior, Quanell X, an activist and leader of Houston’s New Black Panther Nation, said he spoke with Farias separately and claimed he was “severely abused” and drugged by his mother, who had hidden him in her home.Police in Houston have disputed some of these claims and say their investigation is still ongoing. At no point did police corroborate or support X’s account of events or the results of the interview.Farias, who was 17 years old when he was reported missing, was found last week, lying in front of a church in southeast Houston, where he was wounded and unresponsive.

At the time, Farias’s mother told reporters her son was nonverbal.X told reporters on Wednesday that he and a police detective spoke to Farias alone without his mother.“I heard horrific things from that young man,” X said of his conversation with Farias, now 25. He said Farias was “mentally tortured” and made to live in a “house of hell.”X told reporters Farias had for years been physically and sexually abused by his mother, Janie Santana, who also forced Farias to take hallucinogenic drugs.