A Texas man reported missing as a teen 8 years ago has been at home with his mom all along, police say

Originally Published: 06 JUL 23 13:22 ET

By Michelle Krupa and Dakin Andone, CNN

(CNN) — A Texas man reported missing eight years ago as a teen actually returned home a day later and has been there all along with his mother, who deceived police by giving fake names and insisting he was gone in the years before his discovery last week at a Houston church, city police said Thursday.

Rudolph “Rudy” Farias IV, 25, returned home March 8, 2015, one day after he was reported missing, Lt. Christopher Zamora said in a news conference. While Houston officers had interacted since then with Farias and his mother, both provided fake names and dates of birth, misleading officers, he said.

His mother “continued to deceive police by remaining adamant that Rudy was still missing,” he said.

Farias is now back home with his mother, police said Thursday.

The district attorney “has declined any charges at this time for making fictitious reports and failure to ID,” Zamora said, adding, “The investigation is active, and there are new leads coming in. We’ll continue to follow those leads.”

Thursday’s update by Houston Police comes a week after authorities said Farias was found sleeping in front of an east Houston church – and more than eight years after he purportedly went missing on March 6, 2015, according to a flyer from the Texas Center for the Missing. The then-17-year-old vanished while walking his two dogs in northwest Houston, CNN affiliate KHOU reported.

Nearly 360,000 reports of missing children were made to the FBI in 2022, a figure that may include duplicates, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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