Missing 5-year-old Lucas Hernandez had accused his stepmom of abuse, relative says

A great-grandmother of a 5-year-old Wichita boy – missing for four days and the subject of a massive investigation – said the boy once told her that his stepmother kicked him and dragged him across a room.

When Jeannie Houchin, the great-grandmother of Lucas Hernandez, asked Lucas’ stepmother and father in person about the allegation, they denied that he was abused, Houchin told The Eagle.

Houchin’s daughter has told The Eagle that she reported concerns that Lucas was being abused to the Kansas state child protection agency. But the agency won’t comment.

Efforts to contact both the father and the stepmother were unsuccessful.

Separately, Wichita Municipal Court records show that the stepmother – who police say reported Lucas missing – was found guilty of misdemeanor disorderly conduct-brawling/fighting over an incident in April 2016 at a south Wichita apartment complex where the family previously lived. She was arrested and accused of the same kind crime in late 2014, but the charge was dismissed.

Earlier this week, Wichita police searched for Lucas at Harrison Park. The park is across the street from the apartment complex at 1157 S. Webb, where the family lived. Lucas is a student at Beech Elementary, not quite a mile south of the apartment complex.

The family recently moved 3 miles west to a rental house in the 600 block of South Edgemoor. It was there that the 26-year-old stepmother called police around 6:15 p.m. Saturday to report that she last saw Lucas around 3 that afternoon in his bedroom, that she had taken a shower and fallen asleep, then realized he was missing.

Police have said they don’t think the boy was abducted.

The boy’s 33-year-old father has custody of him and works out of town a lot, relatives say. Police wouldn’t say whether the father was out of town when his son disappeared, but they have never described him as being around when his son was reported missing.

The FBI is assisting police with the investigation. About 100 law enforcement personnel at any one time are working on the case, police spokesman Officer Charley Davidson has said.

Police and detectives have gone door to door at the apartment complex and near the rental home where Lucas was reporting missing. They have searched around the rental home and in parks in north Wichita, 5 miles from the home. Searches have involved specially trained police dogs, drones and officers on foot, horseback and on ATVs. They have used grids to systematically search.

Houchin, the great-grandmother, lives in New Mexico, and she says she helped care for Lucas during times when his father was working and the boy and his family visited.

Houchin said Lucas had told her long before he disappeared that he did not like his stepmother. When Houchin asked why, she said, he replied: “She’s mean to me.”

When she questioned him, Houchin said, the boy said, “She is too.”

The boy said his stepmother threw water in his face in a living room and kicked him and dragged him across a room, Houchin said.

She said she hasn’t been able to see Lucas for about a year.

Houchin’s daughter, Sally Rasmussen, said she called the Kansas Department for Children and Families last spring to report concerns that Lucas was being abused. That was the second time she had called the child protection agency, Rasmussen said. She said she emailed to DCF pictures of Lucas with bruises on his bottom and what appeared to be hand marks on his arms and face, “like he’d been slapped.”

Houchin provided The Eagle a copy of a letter DCF sent to Rasmussen in response to Rasmussen’s report on May 16, 2017, “concerning child abuse or neglect.” The letter said that Rasmussen’s report was “assigned for investigation.”

But Houchin said she later concluded that DCF had taken no more action. Houchin said she was disappointed. So she sent a letter to DCF on June 14, 2017. Houchin gave The Eagle a copy of her letter to the state agency.

It says: “Lucas told me several times that (his stepmother) did not like him and that she was mean to him. I talked to (Lucas’ father) with (the stepmother) present and of course she said it was not true,” the letter says.

“We had people in the profession look at those pictures” that were sent to DCF, and they agreed “the bruises were consistent with abuse. I don’t know how you can’t see that,” she said in the letter.

The letter added, “Because (the father) and (stepmother) think that I was the one who turned in a report, I can no longer see Lucas which breaks my heart.”

The letter ended: “I can only pray that no further harm comes to him.”

According to Sedgwick County jail records, the stepmother and father were booked into the jail nearly two years ago over suspicion of disorderly conduct-brawling/fighting. At the time of the incident, around 2:30 a.m. on April 4, 2016, the couple were living in a unit at the South Webb apartment complex.

Wichita Municipal Court records show that the stepmother, identified as Emily A. Glass, was found guilty on Aug. 2, 2016, of disorderly conduct-brawling/fighting for the incident at the apartment that April. The victim’s name had been blacked out in the copy provided to The Eagle.

As part of her sentence, Glass was put on non-reporting probation for a year.

Lucas’ father is identified in the court record as Jonathan A. Hernandez. The disorderly conduct charge against him – in the same incident for which his wife was found guilty – was dismissed, records show. The name of the alleged victim in his case also was blacked out.

Court records show that Glass also was arrested on suspicion of disorderly conduct-brawling/fighting in December 2014 at an apartment at 1770 S. Rock. But that charge against her was dismissed.

This story was originally published February 21, 2018 at 3:12 PM with the headline "Missing 5-year-old Lucas Hernandez had accused his stepmom of abuse, relative says."