Stepmother of 5 yr old Lucas Hernandez jailed after child's remains found

HARVEY COUNTY, Kan. (KAKE) -

The stepmother of [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], a 5-year-old boy who she reported missing in February, has been jailed after the child's remains were found in Harvey County.

Emily Glass, 27, was booked into the Sedgwick County Jail at 10:34 p.m. Thursday for interference with law enforcement.

Authorities gathered Thursday afternoon in the 9700 block of South Woodlawn. That's east of the town of Sedgwick. A call came in at 6:30 p.m. from Sedgwick Police to Harvey County officers reporting they found the body of a small person under a bridge in the area and needed assistance.

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When officers arrived  to the scene, they located a body they say is "unidentifiable." The body is reported to be severely decomposed and shows signs of having been there for a significant amount of time.

The grandmother of Lucas Hernandez confirmed that the body found under the bridge was her grandson. 
District Attorney Mark Bennett says that Emily Glass was in that area hours before a private investigator and Harvey County officers arrived at the scene.

Lucas was reported missing on February 17th, 2018. His stepmother, Emily Glass reported him missing, telling police that she fell asleep while watching him and when she woke up, Lucas was nowhere to be found.

Shortly after his disappearance, family members voiced concern in the months leading up to his disappearance stating that Lucas showed signs of abuse and multiple calls had been made to DCF. A neighbor who lived in the same apartment complex as Lucas told KAKE news that he had seen the boy a few days prior to his disappearance with bruises and seemed "extremely malnourished".

Glass was arrested four days after she reported Lucas missing, for [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] charges related to her 1-year-old daughter. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] of those charges on May 17.

Glass was never arrested in connection with Lucas' disappearance but did remain a person of interest in the case.

Lucas' father, Jonathan Hernandez was arrested for battery on May 10 in an unrelated case. Both Glass and Hernandez deny any involvement in the boy's disappearance.

For the last three months, local and national search groups have worked to find Lucas Hernandez. The disappearance of Lucas gained local and national attention as teams such as EquuSearch and Missing Pieces Network helped in the search for Lucas. 

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The stepmother is going to be released from jail already.

Video and angry realtime comments here:

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It looks like the stepmother has committed suicide.

This case has been covered by Peter Hyatt previously and he indicated her for deception

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A sad case but at least he was found and can be given a decent and dignified burial.


From fox news

BBM

A Wichita, Kansas woman, who helped locate the decomposing body of her ex-boyfriend's son, was found dead Friday morning with a gunshot wound to her head along with three suicide notes and a rifle at her feet, according to police.

Emily Glass, 27, was a person of interest in the death of 5-year-old Lucas Hernandez after she led a private investigator to his decaying body under a bridge at the end of last month.

Glass’s former boyfriend, Jonathan Hernandez, called police around 1:40 a.m. after he found her body inside his home, saying she killed herself, Wichita Police Officer Charley Davidson said during a press conference.

But the official cause of death will be determined by the coroner’s office.

In February, when Glass reported Lucas missing, Hernandez was not at home and Lucas’ mother, Jamie Taylor-Orr was not living in Wichita at the time. While Hernandez was absent for weeks at a time for work, Glass would watch her daughter and Lucas together. She told police she last saw him playing in his bedroom before she took a shower and fell asleep.

On May 24, Glass led David Marshburn, a private investigator hired by Lucas’ father, to the boy’s decomposing remains under a bridge covered with debris about 20 miles north of Wichita.

It’s unclear if an autopsy and toxicology examination will determine how Lucas died because of the decomposed state of the body.

Police arrested Glass on suspicion of lying to authorities but she was freed as a person of interest in the ongoing case.

Hernandez said he no longer believes or supports Glass and was a “bit confused by” her release from jail in an interview for the podcast “Crime Stories with Nancy Grace” that aired Monday.

He also told Grace that Glass revealed to the investigator she panicked after she found Lucas dead in his bed one evening or morning, along with a recording of Glass in a shaky voice: “I can't do jail. I can't!”

Hernandez and Taylor-Orr said Glass “chose to end her own life” in a statement to the Wichita Eagle.

She added: "This is not the ending we would have chosen for Emily. She was the only person on this earth who could tell us what the last moments of our child's life were like. We wanted answers and we still want justice. Our hope is that the truth will still come out, that there will be answers to the many questions we have."

In an unrelated case, Glass was acquitted of child endangerment in which the prosecution accused Glass of smoking marijuana and driving her daughter to a restaurant one day before Lucas went missing.

In that case, documents revealed that Lucas was frequently seen with bruises and cuts, and once with black eyes. Officials were told at least twice that Lucas was being abused and the documents reportedly detail the boy's dysfunctional and violent family life.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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As a matter of interest and because i am a suspicious Hobs i would be interested to know if the suicide notes were confirmed as being written by her as in language and handwriting and also what the 911 call was like when her body was found,

If, as claimed, she found him dead in bed and panicked, what happened the night before, or even the day before?
Given the revelation of repeated cuts and bruising and that officials were allegedly told twice that Lucas was being abused, why was nothing done , or seems to have been done?
Will they now be investigating the former boyfriend?

There are still many unanswered questions.