Goal was to charge Emily Glass with murdering little Lucas. But she killed herself.
A lying, deceptive Emily Glass remains the “sole suspect” in the death of 5-year-old Lucas Hernandez.
Investigators would have tried to pursue a murder charge against her — with the underlying crime being child abuse or endangerment — if she hadn’t shot herself in the head on June 8.
It’s not clear whether Glass might have intentionally or accidentally killed Lucas, the son of her boyfriend.
Those were key points in Friday’s briefing by District Attorney Marc Bennett and Wichita police Capt. Brent Allred. They also shared many more details, they said, so the public would know the extent of their investigation, including how police painstakingly tried to track Glass’ movements around the time she said Lucas disappeared from their home. Investigators drove street after street looking for video that might have shown her white SUV.
They acknowledged to reporters that the case has consumed the community — and investigators. Police working on the case “didn’t sleep,” Allred said. With a case like that, he said, “It impacts us to this day.”
Bennett said he hoped that Lucas’ case “shines a light on child abuse” and the need to report suspicions that children are harmed or neglected. He noted that there is no crime for making a “good faith” call to report possible abuse.
They said the public deserved to know their findings and their thinking about the case, which drew national attention because of how long Lucas had been missing and because of the mysterious circumstances.
Lucas was reported missing Feb. 17. His main caregiver — his father’s live-in girlfriend, Glass — told police that Lucas was gone when she woke from a nap that Saturday evening. A little more than three months later, Glass led a private investigator to Lucas’ severely decomposed body under a rural Harvey County bridge.
The autopsy couldn’t determine a cause of death. There were “no obvious signs of skeletal trauma,” according to a summary Bennett provided to reporters Friday. Because of the decomposition, the soft tissue couldn’t be fully examined.
Allred, the police captain, said Friday that while the search for Lucas’ body continued, “I would have never guessed that” the body would have been where it was eventually found.
The best indication police had of where the body might be came from Glass’ cellphone data indicating she was miles to the south — near 21st and Oliver — from where the body was found. There was no indication she had been farther north in Harvey County, Bennett added.
On June 8, two weeks after Glass led the private detective to Lucas’ body, the 27-year-old shot herself in the head, an autopsy concluded.
Because of her death, Bennett said, there are “certain things we’ll never know. Certain aspects of this, Ms. Glass took with her.”
The officials also said Friday that they’re sure Glass killed herself and that there was never any evidence that Lucas’ father, Jonathan Hernandez, had anything to do with his son’s death.
With the autopsy not able to determine how Lucas died, the goal of prosecutors would have been to determine whether there was enough evidence to charge her with felony murder, Bennett said.
Details of investigation
Allred read from a detailed narrative of how police first became involved when Glass called 911 at 6:21 p.m. Feb. 17 to report that Lucas was missing from their rental home at 655. S. Edgemoor.
Officers asked Glass to detail what occurred since the previous day. She said she laid Lucas down for a nap and that she napped in another room with her 1-year-old daughter. That when she woke up, he was missing, that the back door was slightly ajar and the backyard gate partly open.
Using video collected from a house and a business, officers saw no sign of Lucas walking away or being taken away from the corner house.
And among the new details provided Friday: that investigators determined from phone records that her cellphone was turned off for about one hour that Saturday morning, from 9:36 to 10:43, and that the phone came back on near 21st and Oliver. Surveillance video showed her driving south from that area.
Later, Glass told a North Carolina private investigator retained by Lucas’ father’s family that was the time during which she took Lucas to the remote spot in Harvey County where his body was recovered.
During another interview with police, Glass said Lucas, a prekindergarten student at Wichita’s Beech Elementary, had been sick and had not been to school for about a week.
The day after she reported him missing, about 100 police personnel did a grid search of Chisholm Creek Park, north of 21st and Oliver, but found no evidence.
Glass denied that she had been near 21st and Oliver, despite evidence that she had.
Glass claimed to have met Lucas’ biological mother on Feb. 14, three days before Glass reported him missing. But investigators knew she was lying, Allred said, because they had already confirmed that the mother was in Kansas City at the time.
Glass admitted that she smoked marijuana on Feb. 16 and drove with her daughter to the Olive Garden restaurant on Rock Road, leaving Lucas home alone.
She said she brought a “homeless” man to her house on Feb. 14. When police interviewed the man, he said Glass offered him a ride to her house and said he never saw Lucas at the home.
Police took polygraph tests of Hernandez — Lucas’ father — and Glass.
The father showed “no signs of deception” and didn’t know where Lucas was or what had happened, said the police narrative from which Allred read.
When Glass was asked whether she injured or harmed Lucas or whether she could take police to his location, she answered “No.”
“According to the polygraph examiner,” the narrative says, “both answers showed deception.”
Before each of the last three interviews police had with Glass, they sought advice from the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit.
But on Feb. 21, when investigators tried to question Glass a fifth time, “she no longer wanted to talk,” the narrative says.
After prosecutors charged Glass with one count of misdemeanor child endangerment, alleging she drove her daughter to the restaurant while under the influence of marijuana, a jury acquitted her on May 16.
Changing stories
When she was in jail, inmates contacted police and said Glass gave differing versions of when and how Lucas disappeared.
In the weeks and months after the disappearance, volunteers kept searching parks and open areas for any sign of Lucas.
Finally, on May 24, the private investigator called 911 to say he found Lucas’ decomposed body under a small bridge in Harvey County. The private detective, David Marshburn, said that after spending several hours with Glass that day, she told him that she found Lucas dead and put his body under the bridge. She directed Marshburn to the spot.
Police arrested Glass and booked her into jail on suspicion of felony obstruction. She was released from jail and not charged while police and prosecutors waited for results from the autopsy on Lucas’ body.
Then, in early June, Glass sent text messages to a relative saying “that she had taken everyone on a ‘wild goose chase’ and that the facts were that she found Lucas dead in his room and then drove out and put him under the bridge and no one else was involved,” the narrative says.
On June 8, Glass was found dead at the same house from which Lucas disappeared. Police found an “AR-15 style weapon” at her feet. The gun stock is the kind that can be collapsed so the rifle is 2 to 2.5 feet long.
Glass left three notes in the house before she killed herself, the narrative says. “None of the notes mentioned or described what happened to Lucas.”
Glass instead wrote about property she wanted to go to her daughter, that she regretted not being a better mother and girlfriend. “She also mentioned that she was sorry for failing ‘our’ family,” the police narrative says.
“Evidence shows Mr. Hernandez was not at the residence at the time Ms. Glass took her own life.”
The police narrative concludes by saying that there was never any evidence during the investigation that Lucas’ father “had any knowledge or was in any way complicit in the death of Lucas.”
Phone records showed he was in New Mexico when his son disappeared.
Prior concern
During the news conference, Bennett said he has been asked whether Wichita police had gotten reports concerning Lucas before he went missing.
Bennett noted that on May 16, 2017, a Wichita police officer went to the apartment where Glass and Hernandez lived with Lucas.
According to Bennett’s account, another tenant was concerned that Lucas was abused but gave no details. The officer wasn’t able to reach the person who reported the concern.
The officer saw a bruise on Lucas and documented it.
Glass said Lucas was her stepson and that his father was out of town.
Glass said any bruises on Lucas came from his playing around the house or with other children.
This story was originally published July 20, 2018 at 4:01 PM.