1410: The Lost and Found part 1 (Rudy Farias)

Speaker: Before we begin, if you have little ones around, we do talk about pretty adult topics in this episode. So just be warned. Found alive after eight years. Rudy Farias has been missing since March of 2015. And thank God he's alive. I mean, this is one of them miracles that you don't experience very often. Rudy's family is excited, excited. I mean, they are over the moon. They're excited. But they're also worried. You know, Rudy's not doing well. In pictures released by the family, you could see Rudy has cuts and bruises on his body. As you can imagine, the family is waiting for Rudy to heal. Each year, more than 600, 000 americans go missing. But luckily, the vast majority of missing persons cases are solved pretty quickly and usually within a year. Also, the amount of missing person cases has steadily declined since the 1990s. In this age of smartphones, doorbell cameras, and facial recognition, for a person to just vanish into thin air is actually quite alarming. Today, we are going to talk about one of those cases. This is the story of Rudy Farias. A 17 year old kid from Houston, Texas, who was reported missing in 2015, Rudy Farias went out to walk his two dogs, but never returned home. His mother reported him missing after the dogs were found, but Rudy Farias was nowhere to be found. Was he kidnapped by a stranger? Is he a victim of human trafficking? What if I told you none of the above? Rudy Farias disappearance defies logic and explanation. This past summer on June 29th, 2023, almost a decade after he was last seen, Rudy Farias was found unresponsive outside of a church. There was a person that were trying to wake him up. HPD couldn't wake him up. It was 10 o'clock at night outside of the Immaculate Heart Church when passerbys called Houston police. After police arrived, Rudy Farias was still unresponsive. He was found with cuts and bruises all over his body, even blood in his hair. His mother, Janie Santana, told KTRK News in Houston that she believed that her son had been abused and beaten. Immediately, this story caught fire. Rudy's mom said her son is now receiving the care he needs to overcome his trauma. She said he's currently nonverbal and is not able to communicate with them. But now everyone wanting to know, how did Rudy end up here after eight years? For But, it turns out that Rudy Farias was never lost to begin with. He actually returned home the day after he was reported missing. So what's a real story? What was Rudy Farias doing those eight years everyone thought he was missing? Well, it turns out that Rudy Farias and his mother, Janie Santana, were telling an almost decade long lie to friends, family, community members, and even law enforcement. I'm Javier Leyva, and this is Pretend. Stories about real people pretending to be someone else. So tell me how you stumbled upon this and the Rudy story. Yeah, that's Ivan Gutierrez, better known as IvanGTB on TikTok. Ivan is a social media influencer who jumped on the Rudy Farias story as it was unfolding. So I made like the first video about it saying, wow, this guy's been found. This is awesome. After Ivan became curious about the Farias case, he decided to team up with a local citizen journalist from Houston. Her name is Griselda Castillo. Better known as grizzly hood news. Hey, what's up news piece. We're going to have another live discussion with my boy Ivan GTV. We're going to have some exclusive stuff. We're going to be talking about this Janie stuff, the Rudy Farias. Grizzly's hood news. Bye. Can we take a second here to talk about the citizen journalism on Tik Tok and social media? I mean, Tik Tok is not just about goofy dances anymore. These two social media influencers. Plus, all these other sleuths on these online forums have done more to add context to this case than any local media reporter. It's pretty impressive, and that's why I want to highlight their work here. Here's Ivan Gutierrez again. I was just hanging out one night, it was like 11 o'clock, and I messaged, I saw Grizzlyhoodnews, and I just said, you know what? Let's just reach out to her. Let's see what happens. So I wrote her this little blurb on Facebook. I'm like, hey, you know, I would love to sit down. I know if you came on my live on TikTok, I think it would really help you because a lot of people would follow and stuff like that. Grizzly News reports on everything that happens in her neighborhood. I mean, everything. Southeast Houston. Anyone recognize that Donita? This lady took a leaf blower and some other equipment from a hood newspeep's front door. Be on the lookout folks. Look, somebody's going to recognize her fine like wine, but she's going to be doing time if she keeps up this behavior. She's super hyper focused on one area, so she's in Houston, and she reports on everything. Every car accident, every person that gets robbed. People from around Houston send her video clips of police officers or crimes, and she posts them back on Facebook. So when Rudy Farias went missing, Grizzly News was all over it. Rudy's mother, Janie Santana, reached out to Grizzly News. Sir, I've been getting bombarded. I mean, the story made it all the way to the New York Post. Yep. To Germany, to Europe, to, uh, uh, China. I mean, the news outlets have been blowing up my phone from all over the world. And then, uh, and then I got a call from, uh, Netflix. It seemed everyone was fascinated by the Rudy Faria's eight year long disappearance and then sudden return, including his mother, Janie Santana. Good morning, America. I even got a call from Lifetime because they wanted to do a movie on it. And I'm like, are you freaking kidding me? I said, I haven't even had my son a week and you guys are talking about wanting to make a movie of his life. What the heck is wrong with you people? Como esta? How's Rudy? So, well, he's not speaking. He'll, like, say a word or two. Like, if I try to hug him, he flinches and he'll kick me with his feet. They said because if he was abused, he's probably used to that, kicking and then, you know, curling up in a ball. And then when you hug him, he thinks that you're actually reaching to hit him. Oh, I just want to hug him. And no, no, like, I just got so many questions like they found them at a church in broad daylight. No, it was like two o'clock in the morning when I got the call. Janie Santana told the Citizen Journalist that her son, Rudy Farias, was acting as though he had been abused, and that she's only had him home for a week. The question on everyone's mind was, where the heck was her son, Rudy Farias, this whole time? He was 17 when he went missing, and now he reappeared at the age of 25. Well, it turns out that what happened in those eight years is long and complicated. So, let's start at the beginning. Here's influencer Ivan Gutierrez again. He actually stopped going to school in ninth grade. There was a truancy case, and then when he went missing, he was 17, so he would have been about a junior, so he wasn't in school like all of high school. Was he homeschooled? No, he wasn't. He was just there. According to reports, Rudy Farias dropped out of high school. Those who knew Rudy say that his life was shattered after his half brother unexpectedly died in a motorcycle accident in 2011. In fact, the night Rudy Farias was found, he was found wearing his deceased brother's necklace. It wasn't just his brother's tragic death. Several other factors could be playing into his mental state. For example, Rudy's mother, Janie Santana, jumped from one marriage to another. I think she had about five or six husbands, so never really had, like, a dad. And his brother, Charlie, was his father figure. And he passed away, and he didn't really have anybody. So tell me, was he pretty close to his brother? Yeah. He always said that he was a father figure. He always says, hey, this was the dad. This was the dad. Rudy's biological father wasn't around much, either. So he was a Houston police officer. In 2015, just months after Rudy disappeared, his father, Rudolfo Farias, shot and killed himself. You see, his father was a police officer, and he was under internal investigation. But his father was involved in a Sort of like ticketing scam. Court records show that Rudy's father made 158, 000 in overtime in the previous three years. You see, back in 2015, three other Houston police officers were charged with falsifying traffic tickets in order to increase their bonus payout. Rudy's father was also being investigated. And the heat was coming on, but he ended up on duty in his patrol car, took his own life. With his own service weapon. By the time 2015 came around, Rudy had lost both his brother and his father. His mother, Janie Santana, told him, Hey, you have to be the man of the house. You have to be the dad. It has to be you now, because now she's lost her son, her oldest son who was about to be in the Marines and took care of the house. She's lost Rudy's dad. Who unalive himself and she's, you know, again, between five and six husbands throughout Rudy's life. There's no telling when the fifth or sixth or fourth left her. So she had nobody. So all these things are building up to the months leading to Rudy's disappearance. But what really happened? We'll break it down. After the break in March of 2015, that's when this whole story starts, right? Yeah, he ran away with his two dogs or went missing. And the next day, which he actually did, that was true the one day. And then he came back the next day. One day, he tells his mom that he's gonna go walk the dog. But when he didn't return, Janie Santana called the police and reported her son missing, even though he had already been back home. The heck is going on here? So the police came and saw that he's not there, and then the next day he shows back up and she says, Hey, you know what? I like all the attention. I like all this. I'm just gonna keep quiet. Now, we don't know Janie's motivation, but for people like Ivan Gutierrez, who are following this story, they think that Janie Santana turned her son's missing case report into a money grab. She starts reaching out to people for fundraisers, flyers, and then starts this weird, I don't know if she started this before he went missing, but this multiple Facebook profiles and where she would comment on different stuff saying, Oh, my poor boy is missing when he really wasn't, or still telling people, please look for Rudy or telling other people that also had real missing children. Oh, I know what you're going through. I understand. And befriending them. It was a terrible beginning for her. It's actually hard to know exactly how much money Janie raised from GoFundMe since she's now been permanently banned from the crowdfunding site. But the last screenshot shows that she collected more than 2, 000. But get this, the goal was to raise 75, 000. If she knew that her son was back home and she's still collecting money, it starts painting a picture of somebody who, who has very strange motivations, right? Yes. Yes. Yeah. How did Rudy's family react to his disappearance? Everyone that we have talked to and everyone that, that Grizzy has interviewed and everything, they all believed he was missing. Every single person, even his grandmother, his aunts, everybody was a hundred percent and they went full fledged with, Hey, we got to find him. We got to look for him. Flyers, search parties, everything. So there was nobody that ever suspected that Janie was doing this in the beginning. Until it starts getting, he starts getting older and the story, you know, little holes in it, she starts getting sloppy and people start to be like, wait, that, no, this isn't adding up. Eventually the story about Rudy's disappearance started to phase out every now and then there would be a report of a sighting, but nothing really came of it. It makes you wonder, was Rudy Farias in on it too? Did he ever go out in public? How did he avoid being detected? But most importantly, why go through all this in the first place? Let's fast forward eight years to the summer of 2023, when the Houston Police Department got a report of a person sleeping outside of a church. So there was a, I think it was a mother and a daughter. They drove by and called Houston PD and said there's a woman, you know, passed out in front of the church. And so Houston PD responds and finds him laying there. Now, Everybody was questioning, well, how did Janie know there was something on him that had her name and phone number on it? And that's how they got in contact with her. So they called her and she starts heading over there. There's another woman named Nikki Garza, which is a friend then of Janie's. Now she knows what she's done. She's not her friend anymore. And she is also letting Rudy live with her right now while everything gets settled. Let's talk about Nikki Garza, the woman who's looking out for Rudy Farias. Because Nikki Garza says that she already knew Rudy wasn't missing. According to reports from Grizzly News, Janie Santana, Rudy's mom, told her friend Nikki a story as to why she was keeping Rudy hidden. And Nikki says that she believed it. She told Nikki that back in 2018 or 2019, that the reason Rudy's father killed himself was because he was involved in the cartel. And that now the cartel was looking for her son Rudy. This is what Janie told her friend, Nikki. I found him. I've taken him off all the missing person registries and everything, so he's not missing anymore, but I can't really go public with it and tell the, tell everybody because the cartel is looking for him. So Nikki bought it the whole time. She had no reason. She didn't think she needed to go tell other people that that Rudy was found because all the fundraiser and everything happened like before in the beginning, you know, the 2015, 2016. And she thought, Hey, awesome. But she started to pick up that, Hey, Rudy is, he needs to, you know, You know, she's hiding him a week before Rudy Farias resurfaced on the church steps. He actually ran away from home, took his mom's car, wrecked it and abandoned it for a week straight. He asked people, Hey, where, where am I at? How do I get here? How do I get there? Walking in circles every day until finally that night he said, you know what? This looked like the safest place for me to be and just collapsed right there on the stairs of the church. Wow. Today, we're discussing facts related to 25 year old Rudy Farias, who was reported missing on March 7, 2015. He was 17 years old when his mother reported him missing. This is audio from a Houston PD press conference after Rudy resurfaced. Currently, the investigation is active and there are new leads coming in. We'll continue to follow those leads. We do take all allegations seriously and any new information or facts that we receive will be investigated. Thank you for your time. Appreciate it. However, the police stopped short of making any arrests. Reporters pressed on police on the fact that Rudy Farias was only 17 years old at the time when all this happened. Here's a fact, he's a grown man, 20, listen to what I'm saying, if you want me to, want me to answer, you know, no, he was an adult, 17 years old, that's an adult in the state of Texas. Okay. All right, so I'm a little confused about this part because in Texas from everything I've read, you're not legally an adult until you turn 18. At least that's what I'm seeing online. However, a 17 year old facing criminal charges can be tried as an adult. So Texas folks, help me out here. Am I getting this wrong? Why is police saying that a 17 year old is an adult when everything I'm reading says that the legal age is 18? So now he's at the church doorsteps. So the police called Janie. Nikki's husband calls her and says, Hey, this is where she's going. You need to beat her over there. And it, because it was only, it was very close to Nikki's house. So Nikki beats Janie there, and so while she's talking to Rudy, she's telling him like, Hey. You've got it. You've got to tell them it just doesn't make sense. Why would police call this random woman Nikki before calling Rudy's mom? It doesn't make sense, but we'll, we'll go with it for now. At this point, Nikki says that she knew that what Janie was doing was unethical. She started to figure out that this cartel story might be a coverup. So Nicky tried to convince Rudy to tell the cops the truth. No fake names, none of his mother's cover ups. And Nicky was finally like, No, you've got to get your life back. You've got to tell them who you are. And so together, they tell the police officers right there, He's Rudy Farias. He's been missing for eight years. And this is him. And that's when Janie rolls up. And it's so upset. So upset at Nikki because she knows that Nikki told them who he is and apparently Rudy goes running to her because remember he's been brainwashed For eight years and so he runs to her and she pushes him away from her You know say I'm trying to make a scene of oh, I can't believe you scared me like that Because at this point remember the police know he's Rudy Farias Know he's been missing for eight years So if she if he just runs up to her and she's oh you ran away a week ago You Then that blows the whole case up. So she has to act, Oh my gosh, I haven't seen you in eight years. And so pushes him a little bit and says, where have you been? Oh, my boy's home. Yada, yada, yada. And just puts on a big scene for the police officers, you know, the police officers see that all the sores on his feet, he looks like he's been beaten up. Cause I remember he's been walking out in the woods or out, out in the city. For a week straight, he's done, had no home, no shelter, no anything. So he's in pretty rough shape and he looks like he's been beaten and bruised and everything. And so the officers offer him, Hey, we're going to call an ambulance to get you taken care of. I filed a police report with Houston PD to see what really happened that night. According to people familiar with the case, Janie stepped in. She didn't want Rudy to get in that ambulance. And she got Rudy to admit that he didn't want to go to the hospital either. It's reported that Janie eventually did take Rudy to the hospital that night, but not immediately. It's almost like Janie, the mom, is this cult leader who has this cult like grip on her son. And when you're in it, you don't know that you're in it, right? So like, Everyone around you is, whoa, why is this kid going back to his mom? But it makes sense, right? Yeah. So this becomes a story the day after, right? It says, Oh, kid who was missing for eight years is found. Cool. Usually when you see them missing, they're gone. Something terrible happens to them, but no, he was missing for eight years and he was found in the same city that he went missing. That's insane. And then they, the police are fine. And they're like, Hey. We should ask him where's he been, who's he been with? What has happened? 'cause for eight years you had to be involved in something to stay alive. Next time, um, pretend we're going to hear from Rudy Fatia himself. Would you say that you and your mom have a, a normal son, mother relationship? Not after all of that. Not after everything she did. You can listen to part two of the Lost and Found right now on Patreon or on Pretend Plus. Remember on Pretend Plus and on Apple Podcasts, you can listen to episodes ad free, early, before anybody else. But if not, stay tuned because Part 2 will be out next week. This episode was written by me and Audrey Gibbs, and it was edited by the talented Puneeth Shenoy, with the Podcast Pundits.