College applications led abducted Vestavia Hills boy to learn true ID after 13 years
By Carol Robinson | crobinson@al.com The Birmingham News
Vestavia Hills, AL
series /series Aka Story Package gallery-preview /gallery-preview Aka Secondary Package
An 18-year-old Cleveland boy lived for the past 13 years not knowing who he really was, and only recently discovered the truth when he began the college application process, authorities said today.
Now Julian Hernandez, a high school senior, must make the decision on how to reconcile what he has always believed to the truth with the new revelation that he is actually from Vestavia Hills and was taken without consent from his mother's home on a summer day in 2002 and whisked away to a new life. "He is 18, he is an adult so its up to him whether he wants to come back,'' said Vestavia Hills police Lt. Johnny Evans at a press conference held this morning. "We can't go get him and bring him back."
His father, 53-year-old Bobby Hernandez, remains jailed in Cuyahoga County. Communications Director Joseph Frolik of the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office said Hernandez is currently charged with one count of tampering with records. This charge stems from Hernandez giving false information to the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles to get a driver's license in 2012, Frolik said. His bond there is set at $250,000.
The ordeal began in August 2002 when authorities say Bobby Hernandez went to the Vestavia Hills home where his son lived with his mother. The two were never married, authorities said, so there was no formal custody agreement but the mother was raising Julian Hernandez. She asked the boy's mother watch him for a short period of time, and when she returned home there was only a note indicating they were gone. She never saw her son again. She reported her son missing on Aug. 28, 2002.
Investigators believed from the start the boy was with his father. He took some of the boy's possessions with him, and withdrew cash from his bank accounts, according to The Charley Project.
Evans said the case has remained open ever since. "We assumed he was going to be local,'' Evans said. "When I received the call Monday and realized he had assumed another identity and was living in Cleveland for 13 years, that was kind of strange."
"Usually we get a lot of these where there are custody papers already drawn up and somebody doesn't bring the child back at the designated time,'' Evans said. "Normally we can contact that person and they bring him. We had no contact information for this person."
Evans said they have received hundreds of leads over the years, from Florida to out of the country and Canada. "We followed up on every one of them and they all came to a dead end,'' he said. "Until I got the call on Monday."
The break in the case came last week. Special Agent Vicki Anderson of the FBI's Cleveland, Ohio Division said they received information on Oct. 30 that a local teenager may be a missing child from Alabama. Federal agents contacted the Vestavia Hills Police Department, as well as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
On Monday, authorities confirmed that the now-18-year-old is Julian Hernandez. "They went and talked to him, and talked to the father, and that's when the identification was made,'' the detective said.
Evans said Julian Hernandez was doing well in school and beginning the college application process. It was during that process a school counselor, using his social security number, discovered the link. "That's when things started to come together,'' Evans said.
Evans said he spoke with the boy's mother several times, and met with her face to face Monday afternoon to confirm her son had been found. Her reaction, he said, was what he would expect it to be. "She's been through so many false claims, chasing leads for 13 years and she was apprehensive but real excited that he was found safe and doing well,'' he said. "I know they have been in contact with each other, but I don't know the extent of that contact."
The mother has not been publicly identified or made any statement yet. A spokesperson for her requested that she be given time to process all that has happened in the past week.
Evans said detectives today are seeking a warrant against Bobby Hernandez in Jefferson County for interference of child custody. No federal charges are expected.
District Attorney Brandon Falls said charges are warranted despite there being no marriage, divorce or legal custody documents. "The statute says lawful custody and that's what we will argue,'' Falls said. "The question will be if what he did is considered lawful custody."
The Vestavia Hills Police Department worked with the FBI's Violent Crime Task Force in Cleveland, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Birmingham Division of the FBI on this case. Vestavia Hills Police Chief Dan Rary thanked all of these agencies for helping find and positively identify Julian Hernandez.
Evans said the mother had never given up, nor had police. "There was still an investigator assigned to the case and they have followed up on every lead that has come in,'' he said.
He said the events of the past several days have been a whirlwind. "To me it was crazy,'' Evans said. "Everything we do normally revolves around negativity. It was great for me to be able to tell a mother, 'Hey, all this time, he's been alive and he's doing well.'"
http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2015/11/college_applications_led_abdic.html#incart_river_home