By Alex Ager
HOUSTON (Scripps News) — A Texas teen who disappeared eight years ago in Houston has been found alive and safe, authorities say.
Rudolph “Rudy” Farias IV vanished on March 6, 2015, when he was 17. The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, or NamUs, said he had been walking his two dogs when he disappeared. The dogs were later found, but Farias was not.
A missing poster for Rudolph “Rudy” Farias IV is shown during the Missing Person Day event at City Hall Sunday, Jan. 31, 2016, in Houston. Farias, who went missing as a teenager in 2015 after last being seen walking his dogs in Houston has been found alive, his family and police said Monday, July 3, 2023. (TexasEquuSearch/Courtesy of Houston Chronicle via AP)
On Saturday, the Texas Center for the Missing announced Farias had been “located safe” — about eight miles from where he had lived in Houston — and was recovering in a hospital.
The now 25-year-old’s mother told Houston news station KTRK someone called 911 after finding her son unresponsive outside of a church on Thursday, June 29. He had cuts, bruises and blood in his hair, she said.
Now recovering in the hospital, Farias will only say a few words and goes into a fetal position when spoken to, his mother told the news station.
Police haven’t officially commented on Farias’ whereabouts during the years in which he was missing.
Houston police said they plan to speak with Farias and his family Wednesday, reported The Associated Press.
After his disappearance in 2015, Farias’ family thought he may have been taken and sold for human trafficking.
Amid search efforts that year, Texas EquuSearch noted Farias was asthmatic but didn’t have his inhaler. It also noted he could have been disoriented due to not taking his medication for depression, PTSD and anxiety and that he had attempted suicide in the past.
Houston police said they received a phone call in Sept. 2018 from Farias’ family saying he was living behind a family member’s home, KHOU reported, but police didn’t find him after a search.
This story was originally published by Scripps News, an E.W. Scripps Company.
