HOUSTON, Texas — For the first time, Rudy Farias, the young man police say agreed with his mother's lie about being missing for eight years, spoke about why he complied.
Farias says that for eight long years, his mother would brainwash him, convincing him that he would be in trouble if he didn't follow through on her nearly decade-long lies.
“He never locked me or handcuffed me or anything like that,” said Farias. “I had free will to leave. It was like brainwashing me. It kept confusing me, the way he manipulated me into saying, ‘You will be arrested.'”
In 2015, Farias was reported missing when he was 17 years old after his mother, Janie Santana, told police that her son had never come home from outing. Eight years later, Farias was found outside the church on June 29. According to Houston police investigators, Farias returned the day after he went missing, and the two have been deceiving police and the public ever since.
The Houston police made sure to show that Farias was an adult at the time. She says she may have grown up, but felt she had to listen to her mother, the only family she felt she really had or could trust.
“He locked me in there, mentally,” said Farias. “He was my only parent, the only person I really had other than my brother. When I lost my brother, I had no one to teach me how to live, or to have belief or belief in myself. So I depended on my mother all my life.”
Farias' father was an officer in the Houston Police Department but committed suicide in 2014. However, they were never close, and Farias' half-brother took on the role of a father figure. In 2011, his half-brother died in a motorbike accident. His death is detrimental to Farias and his mother.
“After he died, I could no longer love myself,” said Farias. “I can't have a father figure. You know, he's my brother, but I never had a father.”
For eight years, Farias admits that he rarely leaves the house, apart from going to work with his mother. He said an officer once pulled him over while driving his mother's car but said he was using a fake name. According to Farias, he was isolated, even when family members came.
“I have to listen to my family happy and cheerful behind the door, and I'll be like, ‘I want my family. I want people. I just want communication,'” says Farias. “It's like I'm living in prison. It's like I've lived in prison my whole life. I just want to be free. I want to have my own job. I just want to live my life. I just want to love someone, have someone else who really loves me. I struggle to understand my emotions.”
Quannel X activist created serious allegations last week, said Farias told him and the detectives that his mother sexually abused him. Farias said his words twisted. She said that although the mother-daughter line was violated, she was not sexually assaulted.
“I used to sometimes have to sleep in his bed,” said Farias. “His boundaries would push or make me uncomfortable, and I'd say ‘Stop,' and he'd say, ‘Why? Why? Why? I didn't do anything wrong.'”
ABC13 got back to Quanell X, who said that based on the information and details of his conversation with Farias, he considered what he said to her to be sexual harassment.
The Harris Coutny District Attorney's Office has dismissed the charges and requested further investigation. HPD chief Troy Finner said police were completing their investigation and would not say whether they believed Farias was the victim.
When Brooke Taylor of ABC13 asked Farias if she considered herself a victim, she said, “It's heavy.”
“I just want to live my life. I want to have a family, a car, a house. I just want to live my life and be happy,” he said.