HOUSTON – Hiding in plain sight. That is what detectives said Rudy Farias was doing for eight years. His mother, is accused of never telling police where her son was, letting everyone believe he was a missing person.
“There is a lot of people that put their heart and their soul and their time and their efforts into getting answers when I feel like we’ve been duped by her the entire time,” said Brenda Paradise.
Paradise was a private investigator on the case, working with the non-profit “We Help the Missing.” She said volunteers searched through wooded areas, exhausting efforts trying to find Farias. He was reported missing after never returning from walking his two dogs on March 6, 2015. Houston Police Department said he returned home two days later.
“Some of those resources we have to pay out of our own pockets for. As volunteers we’re willing to do that for families of the missing and that’s part of the heartbreak in all this that so many resources were just misused,” said Paradise.
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Paradise said Farias’ mother’s stories never seemed to add up. She shared with KPRC 2 some of her audio notes she recorded from 2015.
“I’m lost with this one as to whether someone has him hidden somewhere, or whether maybe his mom was involved,” said Paradise on her audio message.
Eventually, search efforts were stopped. Farias continued living his life, but as someone else that neighbors knew as “Dolph.”
“We would sit and talk about jobs, I was like my job is hiring I can get you on and he was like I like my job I get paid under the table,” said neighbor, A.J. Boone.
Farias’ mother even made a GoFundMe page to help with search efforts for her son. It raised more than $2,000. KPRC 2 reached out to GoFundMe after police revealed he was never a missing person.
“GoFundMe has zero tolerance for the misuse of our platform and cooperates with law enforcement investigations of those accused of wrongdoing. The fundraiser has been removed from the platform and the beneficiary has been banned from using GoFundMe for any future fundraisers,” said GoFundMe’s spokesperson.
“I feel like it still doesn’t add up,” said Paradise.
Farias may no longer be hiding, but details about the past eight years remain a mystery.
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