Body of missing 5-year-old boy found after months of searching

A severely decomposed body that is believed to be that of Lucas Hernandez, the 5-year-old boy who was reported missing by his stepmother on February 17, was found.

According to KAKE, Emely Glass, Hernandez’s stepmother, told the police that the last time he had seen the boy was in his bedroom. Then, she allegedly took a shower and went to sleep. When she woke up, Hernandez was nowhere to be seen.

Shortly after the disappearance, family members revealed that Hernandez showed signs of abuse and that the Department of Children and Families had been called multiple times.

A neighbor told KAKE that Hernandez had bruises and seemed ‘extremely malnourished’ only a couple of days before he was reported missing by Glass.

Four days later, Glass was arrested for child endangerment charges related to her 1-year-old daughter. However, she was acquitted of those charges almost a month later.

Kansas.com reported that Hernandez’s maternal grandmother, Robin Taylor, said she ‘was told unofficially’ that her grandson’s body had been found on May 24 near 96th Street and Oliver Road.

Harvey County Sheriff Chad Gay added that a searcher found the body under a bridge on a gravel road and then contacted Wichita police. It had been placed in such way that it would not have been visible from the street.

The first aspect that officers noticed when they arrived at the scene was that the body was ‘unidentifiable’ and that, due to its decomposition, it must have been there for a significant amount of time.

KAKE pointed out that Taylor, however, identified and confirmed that the body found under the bridge was Hernandez.

District Attorney Mark Bennett said that Glass was in the area hours before a private investigator and Harvey County officers arrived at the scene. She was then booked into the Sedgwick County Jail for one count of interference with law enforcement and obstruction.