Missing boy's dad would welcome stepmom home if she can win release from jail
The father of a missing Wichita boy says he would welcome his wife home if she can win release from jail.
Jonathan Hernandez’s wife, Emily Glass, is seeking a lower bond so she can go home.
Glass is being held in jail on a $50,000 bond, charged with a misdemeanor — endangering the couple’s 1-year-old daughter. Before she was charged, police announced that she had also been arrested on suspicion of endangering her missing 5-year-old stepson, Lucas Hernandez. Prosecutors charged her only with endangering her daughter.
In a phone interview with The Eagle on Monday — the 23rd day that his son, Lucas, has been missing — Jonathan Hernandez said: “I am standing by her until either some other information comes out or something about the case breaks. If it involves her, obviously it would be different. Obviously, my thoughts would be changing if she was implicated in any way involving Lucas.”
Still, he said, “Everybody has to be innocent until they’re proven guilty.”
There shouldn’t be a lynch-mob mentality against his wife, he said.
“I realize it’s frustrating for the public not to know” what happened to Lucas, he said.
He added he remains hopeful that his son will be found OK.
If his wife can obtain a lower bond and get out of jail, it would benefit her and their children — their daughter and Lucas, Hernandez said.
“I’m sure we have a lot of things to do personally between her and me” if she gets released, he said.
Glass is asking a judge to change her bond so she can be released from jail and have contact with her family and other children.
“Defendant does not pose a threat or harm to the community,” her attorney contended in a court document filed in Sedgwick County District Court on Friday.
Wichita police and the FBI have been conducting a criminal investigation of the boy’s disappearance. Police, volunteers and a national group have assisted in looking for Lucas.
Glass’s attorney says that the stepmother’s $50,000 bond is too high.
Glass has been held in the Sedgwick County Jail since Feb. 21 on a charge of misdemeanor child endangerment. The charge alleges that she endangered her 1-year-old daughter.
Glass told police that she last saw Lucas in the bedroom of their rental home on South Edgemoor about 3 p.m. Feb. 17. She said she took a shower and a nap that day, then called police around 6:15 p.m. after she realized he was missing.
In the court document filed Friday, her attorney, Julia Leth-Perez, says Glass “allegedly endangered her minor child” but that the “facts and circumstances do not support the current bond amount. A similarly situated Defendant would not likely receive the same bond.”
Glass is a stay-at-home parent and can’t afford “this substantial bail amount,” Leth-Perez says in the document.
Glass isn’t at risk of fleeing and doesn’t pose a threat to the community or to her child, who has been placed in state custody, Leth-Perez said. Glass needs to be involved in her child’s pending child-in-need-of care case, her attorney said.
Glass’s current bond prohibits her from contact with three people identified in the court document as “JAH, LH and MH.” Those match the initials of her husband, her missing stepson and her daughter, the attorney wrote. Glass is asking to be able to have contact with them, the court document says.
She also wants to have her bond conditions changed so that she can “have incidental contact with any other minor children with whom she might have come in contact with” as part of the child-in-need-of-care case.
A court hearing on Glass’s requests is set for 1:30 p.m. Wednesday.
This story was originally published March 12, 2018 at 4:04 PM with the headline "Missing boy's dad would welcome stepmom home if she can win release from jail."