Texas Man Believed Missing Since 2015 Was Found Next Day: Police

HOUSTON, TX — Rudy Farias, the 25-year-old Houston man who was supposedly missing for eight years, was actually found just a day after being reported missing in March 2015, but his mother deceived police and was adamant her son was missing the entire time, police said at a news conference Thursday.

Statements from relatives, friends, neighbors, and medical professionals proved that Farias had been accounted for over the past eight years, officials said. Farias and his mother, Janie Santana, also had contact with Houston police officers over the years in encounters where both he and his mother gave fake names, officials said.

Police said a week ago that Farias was found after they received a call about a person lying on the ground in front of a southeast Houston church. The story received attention in news stories that said Farias had been missing since March 2015 before finally being found around 10 p.m. June 29 outside the church.

However, investigators who interviewed Farias and his family on Wednesday determined that he returned home a day after he was reported missing eight years ago, officials said.

Despite this, officials said that Santana remained adamant that her son was still missing, alleging that her nephew was the person friends and family saw coming and going from her home. Asked whether Farias was a victim in the case, Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said the investigation was ongoing.

The district attorney has currently declined to bring charges in the case. Investigators have reached out to adult protective services and the department's victim services is working to ensure that Farias has a "method now to recover," officials said.

According to a Texas Equusearch Facebook post shared at the time of Farias' supposed disappearance in 2015, then-17-year-old Rudolph "Rudy" Farias IV was last seen near Tidwell and Park Drive on the evening of March 6, 2015.

The organization said that at the time Farias went missing he was walking his two dogs, which were later found.

In the years following, there were several possible sightings of Farias, according to a private investigator hired by the teen′s mother a few months after he went missing. They included one sighting in 2018 that police responded to, but the investigation remained open as a missing person case.

Upon police announcing they'd found her son, Santana released a statement saying, he “is receiving the care he needs to overcome his trauma, but at this time, he is nonverbal and not able to communicate with us.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.