Janie Santana, the mother of Rudy Farias, a Texan man who was long assumed to be missing, has openly acknowledged her expectation of being apprehended for hiding him. Her admission comes as a cousin reveals that she even contacted the police five years ago to inform them that he was still living at home.
Late Tuesday, Janie Santana was captured on video calmly conversing with neighbors outside her residence in Houston, discussing her 25-year-old son who was discovered severely injured and unresponsive near a church last week, more than eight years after he was reported missing.
She insinuated that she was being unfairly blamed for her son’s situation. He was only 17 years old when he was officially declared missing in March 2015, and she has faced accusations of mistreatment towards him.
“When he first went missing, he didn’t report it to the police. And they’re trying to say he might have done some crimes — which he didn’t,” the mom told her neighbors in the clip obtained by KPRC 2 without elaborating on the accusations.
“And now, they want to arrest me because they said I was hiding him,” she said.
Community activist Quanell X has alleged that the mom kept her son trapped while abusing him, making him “play daddy.”
On Wednesday evening, Houston police confirmed that they had engaged in a conversation with Farias and his mother regarding the case, but no further details were provided regarding the content of their discussion.
According to a cousin of Farias, the family was aware that he had been residing at home and had even reported this to the police.
“We always in our hearts knew that he wasn’t really missing,” Cassandra Lopez told the outlet of her family’s “shock” at his supposed reappearance.
Lopez said she called 911 in 2018 to report that her cousin was at home.
That coincides with a date police said they got such a tip, which they responded to but never found Farias.
The cousin said their grandmother also reported regularly speaking to Farias, whom neighbors knew as Dolph.
“She would just say, ‘I saw Rudy — he came to check on me and we said hello and had a little conversation.’ She never went into detail, but she would say she saw him,” Lopez recalled.
Despite her 911 call, law enforcement officers were unable to locate him, as she confirmed. Farias was discovered in an unresponsive state outside a church on the previous Thursday, displaying visible cuts and bruises.
Quanell, the activist involved in the case, asserted that Farias had sustained injuries while attempting to evade his mother’s abuse by stealing her car and subsequently crashing it.
Houston police assured the public that they would provide a further update on the case later on Thursday.