Aunts of Rudy Farias, who police said has not actually been missing for the past eight years, called the decision not to charge they boy’s mother “bulls***” at a news conference.
The police also said on Thursday that Janie Santana, Mr Farias’ mother, filed a missing person’s report for her son on 6 March 2015 but that he actually returned home the following day. An open investigation for the 25-year-old continued until his mother said he had been discovered outside a church in Houston, Texas on 29 June.
Three of Mr Farias’ aunts, Ms Santana’s sisters, held a separate news conference on Thursday, and they did not hold back on how they felt about their sister.
“Janie is a hypothetical liar,” her sister said. “I’m not quite sure, but I’m gonna have to say she knows a lot of people in [Houston Police Department] and that’s why her freaking a** has been covered up.” Ms Santana was reportedly married to a HPD officer until his death in 2014, one year before her son went missing.
“Why in the freaking world did they let her go?” she asked.
“It’s bulls***,” another aunt added.
“For falsifying that he had been kidnapped, which was not true, that he had been taken to Mexico, that he had been spotted in other states,” she continued. “She had people all over the United States looking for him.”
Rudy Farias‘ aunt Sylvia Sanchez Lopez shows an image on a her cellphone, she said Houston Police sent her in a text allegedly showing Farias— ((Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle via AP))
The aunts also contested a photo that Ms Santana gave the media on Monday, depicting Mr Farias at the hospital. His aunts said the photo was actually taken in 2012.
“Rudy is safe. He is with his mother by choice,” the Houston police chief said, adding that Mr Farias has been connected with Adult Protective Services to get help.
The aunts offered support for Mr Farias at their own press conference, sending a message directly to him: “We love you, your aunts, your cousins, we stand behind you and we are right here with you.”
