According to reports, Rudy Farias, a man from Houston who went missing in 2015 and was found in July 2023, lost his father in an apparent suicide just months before going missing and years after his brother passed away unexpectedly.
Rudolph Farias III worked in the Houston Police Department’s (HPD) traffic enforcement division in 2014 when he committed suicide in his patrol car, according to Chron. Rudolph Farias III’s son, officially named Rudolph “Rudy” Farias IV, was just found safe last week after allegedly being missing for eight years.
On August 19, 2014, the senior Farias committed suicide just hours after being fired for allegedly writing fictitious traffic tickets to earn overtime.
The following day, HPD officers found him in a parking garage behind their jail close to downtown Houston, according to the authorities.
According to the outlet, Farias III was one of four officers charged with fabricating a number of speeding tickets issued by the HPD’s Traffic Enforcement Unit in which the officers appeared to be in two places at once.
An obituary for Farias III lists Romi Marie Farias as his wife of 17 years, with no mention of Rudy’s mother, Janie Santana.
Rudy was a teen when his brother died in a motorcycle accident in 2011.
Farias went missing in early March 2015, citing “depression, PTSD, and anxiety” as well as a history of suicidal ideation in a missing persons report.
Farias, now 25, was discovered last week outside a local church wearing his late brother Charles’ necklace. Police later revealed that he returned home safely just one day after his disappearance in 2015, but his mother hid him and the pair lied to police about their identities.
According to local reports, Houston activist Quanell X claimed Wednesday that Farias told him Santana had drugged, tortured, and sexually abused her son.
“She would ask him to play daddy, and she told him that he had to be the husband.”
Santana has not been charged in connection with her son’s alleged disappearance or treatment, and police have stated that no evidence of sexual abuse has been discovered.
“Rudy is safe,” according to HPD officials on Thursday. “He chose to be with his mother. “He is 25 years old.”
