Rudy Farias’ mother has said she expects to be arrested after her son was reportedly “found” eight years after he was reported missing.
Mr Farias, 25, was discovered outside a church in Houston, Texas on 29 June after he reportedly went missing in 2015, his mother Janie Santana told reporters this week.
Her account has been thrown into doubt after a counsellor who interviewed Mr Farias with Houston Police Department officers told reporters he had been sexually and physically abused, and kept hidden by his mother the whole time.
In a video clip obtained by KPRC 2, Ms Santana tells neighbours that she is expecting to be arrested.
“When he first went missing, he didn't report it to the police,” Ms Santana said as she got out of her car at her home on Wednesday.
“And they are trying to say that he might have done some crimes. Which he didn't. And now they want to arrest me. Because they said I was hiding him.”
Since Mr Farias’ bizarre “discovery” was announced earlier this week, family and neighbours have come forward to say that they were aware of his presence at his mother’s home.
AT 6: Neighbors shared this video of a conversation with Rudy Farias’ mom last night. She talks about police wanting to arrest her for hiding her son. I spoke w/ Rudy’s cousin who called police in 2018 after family saw him at his moms house. @KPRC2 https://t.co/2PKNJi6z9q pic.twitter.com/GDCVsYkeEu
— KPRC 2 Corley Peel (@KPRC2Corley) July 5, 2023
His cousin Cassandra Lopez told KPRC 2 that the family “knew in their hearts” that Mr Farias wasn’t really missing.
She told the Houston area news station their grandmother had spoken to him regularly.
“She would just say, I saw Rudy. You know, he came to check on me and we said hello and we had a little conversation,” Ms Lopez said.
She told the news site that family were desperate to hear from him.
“I mean, half of his life is — almost a quarter of his life — has already been taken away,” said Lopez.
“That's just not right. He didn't deserve, nobody deserves that.”
A missing person poster for Rudy Farias, who was found earlier this week
Neighbours also said they had seen Mr Farias several times over the years that he was supposed to have been missing.
Police interviewed Mr Farias on Wednesday with a prominent Houston activist and counsellor Quanell X.
Mr Quanell X told reporters that once Mr Farias was separated from his mother he detailed concerning allegations.
The counsellor claimed that Mr Farias said his mother sexually and physically abused him, forced him to take hallucinogenic mushrooms and kept him hidden in the home during the time she claimed he was missing and publicly pleaded for his safe return.
Community activist Quanell X leads Rudy Farias out of a police meeting on Wednesday— (ABC13)
“I heard horrific things from that young man, and I didn’t want him to see me shedding tears but I couldn’t hold [them] back,” Mr Quanell X told reporters on Wednesday, according to FOX 26 Houston. “No child should ever be treated like that by their own mother.”
The Houston Police Department said detectives from their missing persons unit had interviewed Mr Farias and his mother on Wednesday. They are due to hold a press conference at 11am local time (12pm EST).
“While there are reports of some of the content of the interviews being released, our detectives are not in a position at this time to discuss specifics,” Houston PD said in a statement on Wednesday.
