The Rudolph Farias mystery — alive after an 8-year disappearance from a life darkened by depression and tragedy
Texas Center for the Missing
- Rudolph "Rudy" Farias of Houston was 17 when he left home to walk his two dogs, then vanished.
- Eight years later, Farias was found outside a church, covered in old bruises and unable to speak.
- Before he vanished, his police officer father and "best friend" brother suffered untimely deaths.
Eight years ago, a 17-year-old named Rudolph Farias IV took his two dogs for a walk in his Houston neighborhood. First one dog, then the second, returned to the family home, but "Rudy," as he was known, had vanished.
Farias, now 25, was found again only recently, collapsed outside a church, his thin, frail body bloodied and covered in old bruises.
"It's him!!! It's our Rudy," family members wrote on Facebook last week, calling his return a miracle. "He's been found and he's alive and in the hospital right now."
Farias remains too traumatized to speak, they wrote on Facebook. For now, the best clues to his remarkable story remain the original news accounts from his disappearance in 2015.
Those accounts reveal that before he disappeared, Farias suffered from depression and anxiety after suffering great losses in his life.
Both his father and the brother who was his best friend had recently died untimely deaths.
His father, a Houston Police officer, committed suicide in 2014, at age 51, in the wake of an internal affairs ticket-rigging investigation, The Houston Chronicle reported at the time.
Rudolph Farias III, a 21-year police veteran, shot himself in his police vehicle while still in uniform, just hours after he and three other officers were ordered to turn in their badges, CBS News reported at the time.
Sometime after losing his father to suicide, Farias lost his older brother to a motorcycle accident, Brenda Paradise, a private investigator, told Dateline in a 2015 story about the missing teen.
Farias and his mother were two of the first people to reach the accident scene, Paradise told NBC News.
"He's just had so much thrown at him the past few years," the private investigator said.
"He watched his best friend die right in front of him," she added. "His brother was his best friend in the world. He's just gone through so much more than anyone his age ever should."
The Texas Center for the Missing confirmed last week that Farias has been found.
—TX Center 4 Missing (@TXCenter) July 2, 2023
In posting about his remarkable reappearance, the Farias family did not reveal his location.
"They say it's for his protection and safety," the post said of hospital personnel. But the family described his condition in detail.
Farias is spending much of his time curled in a fetal position in his hospital bed, his family at his side. He has little memory, and is barely able to speak.
"He flinches if you try to touch him or hug him, thinking we are going to strike him," the post said.
"He thinks his name is Julio Torres and he's 14. The doctors said not to correct him, to just go with it for now until he can begin to receive further treatment, to begin healing and recovery."
Physically, "Rudy is in pretty bad shape," the family's post said.
"He has cuts, soft tissue tumors, small hole openings and swelling on the soles of his feet, along with bruising, old and new buts/scrapes on his body, old dry blood on his head and hair."
He's clearly "been through hell," the family post said. "God only knows what he has endured during his time away from home."