Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - 5-year old tot boy Lucas Hernandez missing now!

Episode Date: March 23, 2018

The search for little Lucas Hernandez continues while stepmom Emily Glass remains in jail on child endangerment charges. Lucas, 5, went missing from his Wichita home in February. Nancy Grace discusses the latest in the case with Kim Martin, whose Missing Pieces Network is helping his family find answers, forensics expert Karen Smith, Juvenile Judge Ashley Willcott, New York psychologist Dr. Chloe Carmichael, and reporter Chuck Roberts. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Guys, I want to tell you, I am so excited and so blessed. Something wonderful is happening. A lot of you have asked, when will you be back on TV? And I've wondered the same thing. Well, it's happening. It's this Thursday night, premiering on A&E, Grace versus Abrams. My sparring buddy, Dan Abrams, and I take on the biggest cases and investigations that our country has ever seen. Thursday night, March 29, 11 p.m.

Please join us. Again, I am so blessed and you've been with me for all these years. Please join me on A&E, March 29, 11 p.m. Thanks, friend. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM Triumph, Channel 132. Happy birthday, dear Lucas. Happy birthday to you. Blow out your candle. Good job, bud.

You're five years old. Tomorrow. That was Lucas' fifth birthday party. As people joined in to say, Happy birthday, baby Lucas. Today, missing Lucas and the desperate search for a five-year-old boy who disappears while stepmom was napping. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. A desperate search launched for a five-year-old tot boy missing from his own home.

We want answers. With me, Kim Martin, leading the effort to find Lucas with Missing Pieces Network. Karen Smith, renowned forensic expert joining us out of the Florida jurisdiction. Ashley Wilcott, juvenile judge and founder of ChildCrimeWatch.com. Dr. Chloe Carmichael, New York psychologist and founder of GoalAttainment.com. And Chuck Roberts, Crime stories, investigative reporter, straight out to Kim Martin. I want to start at day one, hour one,

Kim, uh, between you and Chuck, I hope to cobble together a clear picture of what has happened with Lucas. You start Kim. What's your understanding with the moment that Lucas disappears? The moment he disappeared is actually up for debate, quite honestly. His stepmother, Emily, stated that she took a nap at 3 o'clock.

When she woke up, she contacted the police at 6.14. Hold on. Chuck Roberts wants in. Chuck, news reports have been conflicting, as Kim Martin has pointed out. What's your understanding of the facts, Chuck Roberts, as to when he disappeared, where he disappeared, how, who, what, where, why, when? Give me the nuts and bolts. Well, it's important to remember the family had just moved in there 10 days earlier. It was a rental house in a different part of town so lucas a five-year-old wasn't familiar with anything around there but the mother obviously went to sleep for the exact period of time it's

did you say mother or stepmother the stepmother emily glass a 26 year old woman uh and um she took a nap and when she got up she, she later, much later, told police that Lucas was missing. But she waited a time before she called police. The boy's shoes were still there. His coat was still there. But it's important to remember, it was 64 degrees and sunny. It was unusually warm that day and for the next two or three days. So here's a little boy. You know, his dad is off in New Mexico working. It's an unfamiliar neighborhood. It's unusually warm outside and sunny.

His mom is sleeping in a bedroom. And, you know, he may have gone outside at that point of his own accord. That's one theory. But in any case, she calls police and reports him missing somewhere in the six o'clock hour that evening. I'm trying to take it all in. You hear the happy birthday song being sung to Lucas Hernandez, and then out of nowhere, seemingly, he just disappears. The five-year-old tot goes missing. Wichita, Kansas police say that she, the stepmom, had last seen the boy around 3 p.m. in his bedroom

before she took a shower and laid down for a quick nap. A major search launched for Lucas, described by schoolteachers as, quote, a very sweet boy. Tell me about the search, Kim Martin, from Missing Pieces Network. What was done to try to find Lucas at the outset? The police were there, Wichita police. At one point, they brought SWAT teams in.

Everybody was canvassing the neighborhood. And pretty early on, they had stated that they did not believe that it was an abduction that there was no sign that anyone came into the house and removed lucas you know i hear that i hear that uh kim and um i'm trying to figure out where they're getting that from chuck were there any forced entries any door jimmied any windows anything, anything like that at all, Chuck Roberts? No, there wasn't. And they canvassed, obviously, the neighborhood and no strangers had been seen about. So there's nothing like that that they can follow up on. Well, as we know, that's very powerful proof.

But on the other hand, you have cases like Elizabeth Smart and so many others where the unthinkable does occur. A stranger comes in your home and takes your baby. Listen right now to Kansas Police Officer Charlie Davidson announcing Lucas has vanished. It is with a heavy heart I'm here with you today. Still missing is five-year-old Lucas Fernandez. Lucas was last seen wearing black sweats, white socks, and a gray shirt with a bear on it. Our thoughts and prayers remain with Lucas and Lucas' family as we are diligently investigating the situation. On Friday, February 17th at approximately 615, officers were dispatched to a lost

juvenile call at a residence in the 600 block of South Edgemoor. When they arrived they made contact with a 26 year old female who is the stepmother of Lucas. She reported to officers that she last saw Lucas in his bedroom at approximately 3 p.m. prior to her showering and falling asleep. Officers and K-9 units have diligently checked the home and the neighborhood with no luck of locating Lucas at this time. Currently, Wichita Police Department detectives continue to speak with family and follow up with any leads regarding this unfortunate situation. Additionally, the Federal Bureau of Investigation

has sent in resources as well as their Child Abduction Rapid Deployment Team, their CARD Team, known as the CARD Team, to assist us with this investigation. Also, the Emergency Operation Command Center has been activated. So we are asking the community which has any information regarding this case to please call TIPS in to 316-383-4661. And there will be individuals at our Emergency Operations Command Center to answer those tips.

Photographs of Lucas are posted on the WPD Facebook and Twitter pages. I know many of the community have shown willingness to come and take part in a search party, and we do appreciate the willingness of the citizens to come and help us in this investigation. However, at this point, we're asking citizens to share the information on their social media pages and call the tip line with any information. We do currently have investigators and officers that are continuing to search the area for Lucas. Joining in right now, renowned forensics expert Karen Smith out of the Florida jurisdiction who has studied the case very carefully. Karen, at that juncture, what should police be doing?

The first thing I would do is try to find out who else had a visual on the boy and what time. You want to look at Emily Glass' associates. Who was she hanging out with? Who does she know? You're going to look at cell phone records to find out who she was calling beforehand. And going back to that, you know, not forced entry, forced entry question, the rear door was apparently open. So police would definitely need to do some DNA swabs and fingerprints on that door to rule in and rule out people who have used it. That's just simple forensic tools. And that could establish leads or it could establish that there

was nobody else that came through that door. And, you know, as police said, they don't believe that Lucas just walked out of the house. There was also no Amber Alert. That means that they did not believe there was an abduction. So that's also a large clue. You know, I'm thinking about what they could do. First of all, if he, Lucas, the five-year-old boy, Ashley Wolcott, juvenile judge with me, founder of ChildCrimeWatch.com. Ashley, if he had been in his bedroom, I would assume that they would dust for prints on the door that was left a jar, the back door, the all over his bedroom,

his bed, the bathroom door where he may have been all around the yard. Whatever objects were still out in the yard, whether it was a ball or anything that would suggest he had walked outside. I would also look, Ashley, if anyone else in the neighborhood had surveillance video on their front door that could have seen a car or a boy or a man go by. I mean, in so many cases, we have surveillance video from neighbors that can show a car. And when zoomed in, you can even get a car tag number around the time the child goes missing. We've got like a three hour window from three to six. What else could they be doing,

Ashley? Exactly that. Collecting all of the forensic evidence. They can look for footprints outside of the doors. They can look to see are there any marks on windows or doors where they've apparently been jimmied. And let me suggest this. For the police to say we do not believe this child's been abducted, I would count my money on the fact that there's evidence that it was not an abduction. So I suspect they've already taken all those forensic steps and have eliminated abduction as a possible what happened to this child in this case. And the other thing I would say, Nancy, is, you know, remember investigators, as you well know, they can't give us all the information that they have because it's an ongoing investigation.

So there's more than the public knows about what they found. Wow. For those of you just joining us, we're talking about a five-year-old boy, Lucas Hernandez. Lucas goes missing out of his own home in the Wichita, Kansas area. Not sight nor sound, hide nor hair has been seen of the boy since. Do we know, Chuck Roberts, if there have been any sightings of him? No, and obviously they've scoured all the parks and all the places, public places around, and there's been an appeal for landowners in the area to walk their property and make sure that there's no sign of anybody. So it's been a very, very comprehensive search with volunteer and official teams doing it. EquiSearch has been involved off and on for the last two or three weeks, but really nothing

has turned up that produces any hope that he'll be found alive. What do we know about the stepmother and the father? You know, it gets more and more difficult. Dr. Chloe Carmichael with me, renowned New York psychologist, founder of GoalAttainment.com. Dr. Chloe, the more that families are patched together, you know, God bless them. I had a patched together family myself through my grandmother. The harder it is to ascertain the facts because you've got the mother. Where is she?

You've got the father. Where is he? You got the stepmother. You got the boyfriend. You got the half siblings, the teen brother, the this, the that, the one in college, the one from the first marriage. I mean, it gets, the that, the one in college, the one from the first marriage. I mean, it gets, I'm happy.

Everybody's blending so beautifully. But as far as a crime analyst goes, you got a lot of avenues to chase down trying to find this boy. And frankly, that's what I'm worried about. Who could have taken him? Why? Was it the bio mom? Was it an angry aunt? Was it this?

Was it that? The movers, they just moved 10 days before. Did a mover see him and want to molest him? I don't know. So help me figure out where's the mother? Where's the father? What do I know about this stepmother? Dr. Chloe, help me out. And isn't it true, Dr. Chloe, that moving is one of the top five most stressful things that happens in a life?

I mean, I move so many times I can't even count. Maybe that's why I'm jacked up all the time. But it's very stressful. And they had just moved. They probably still had boxes full of stuff sitting around, Chloe. Yes, Nancy, you're absolutely right. Of course, moving is one of the top five stressors in life. And it poses an emotional stress because we're, you know, uprooting ourselves, unfortunately, for things like this possibly to

happen if it were, you know, truly just that the parents were absent-minded here. On the other hand, as you were saying, Nancy, that with blended families, issues of anger, alliances, and possessiveness between the family members as they negotiate and struggle to understand where the loyalty lies. Sometimes that can kick up some extremely volatile emotions. So and as well moving itself, you know, you're going through all the old photos and the memories and things like that. In many ways, it can set off a quite a psychological storm. A psychological storm that's just ringing through my head. Ashley, I don't want to sound callous, okay? My family's blended, okay?

But it's just very hard on detectives and crime analysts to chase down everybody connected to a missing child when it gets so complicated. Then you find out there's an ex-girlfriend, the ex-wife. Where is she? Are there kids in college, siblings? Is there a crazy aunt? Is there a child molester uncle? I mean, it just goes on and on and on, and people sit back and throw stones at the cops. I mean, they're trying, Ashley, back me up on this. time for that very reason, because the law enforcement has to pay attention to every tiny detail.

They have to follow every lead because you never know when one of the little details is going to be the one that breaks the case. And Nancy, I don't know if you remember, I'm sure you do, the case. I think you mentioned it on your show with the glass eyeball and the way to identify a victim was because of that. Right. Julie Love. You never know what lead or what little tiny piece of evidence is going to tie it all together so they can actually determine who committed the crime. Let me tell you something about that. It was even more attenuated. We're talking about a case I mentioned, I think yesterday that happened in Atlanta when I was still prosecuting felonies in inner city Atlanta during that 10 year span.

And, um, uh, gorgeous young kindergarten teacher. I think she taught like dance and movement or something like that in kindergarten, Julie love. That was actually her name. Julie Love. And she had been out jogging and a car was following her. So she did what I've done many times. You pretend you're going up a driveway to your house, which is, of course, not your house. Well, somehow this gang in the car figured out, hey, that's not her house. I don't know how they knew it.

And they waited. They hid and they waited until she came back down the driveway and started jogging again, then abducted her. They beat her mercilessly, assaulted her horribly, and then murdered her. All that was left of her body near a dumpster was a glass eyeball. I think ultimately they found some bones that had been scattered by animals. But catch this, Ashley. At the outset, I went to the elected DA, who was like a grandfather to me, and he said, you know, you've got to go after the boyfriend.

And I'm like, no. And I had never seen him. I mean it could just defy common sense he said it's just not enough he wouldn't even explain it to me okay so I was way down low on the totem pole barking at his heels about an arrest so he didn't and it always perplexed me why he didn't go after the boyfriend. Well, he was right, because about, I guess it was a year, two years later, a woman calls and said she had been beaten up, and she was afraid for her life from her boyfriend. And P.S., a couple of years ago, he murdered that kindergarten teacher. That's how the case broke. So they speak to this beating victim.

As I recall it, I hope I have the facts correct. They speak to her, and she starts talking. And they piece it together, who this person, this alleged victim was. That's all they had to go on. They go to the area where she said the body was disposed, and sure enough, they find the glass eyeball. That's how I recall it worked. Now, that's been a long time ago, and that's how I recall the facts,

but that's how attenuated it is sometimes when a case is solved. And then the whole thing of course cracked wide open and the district attorney was right and i was wrong so you're right you never know when you're chasing down all these alleys and you come up with nothing where to turn next so to you kim martin missing pieces network you've been on the case from the get-go. Where is the mom? Are we sure the dad was in the bio, mom? Are we sure the dad's in Mexico, New Mexico at the time? And what do we know about the stepmom? That's a loaded question, Kim. Lucas's father left for work in New Mexico on the 9th. He scheduled, he works 20 days on and 10 days off.

A lot of early reports said that he was working in Texas, which he did last year, but he had recently switched to working in New Mexico. He works on an oil rig. He does something with an oil rig. Oh, yes, I recall that now. You're right, and that's true. One of my best girlfriends, who happens to be a defense lawyer, family, a lot of them are on the oil rigs. And, you know, they're gone for long periods of time. Yeah. Okay. So that explains that satisfies my

question about the father. Because yes, they're telling me he's out of town but i naturally want to know oh really where how long why can you verify it okay so that's verified now tell me about the bio mom and the stepmom what do we know the biological mother was let's see the last time she was actually in kansas was january 1st she lived in oklahoma and I've been in touch with her as well. She's devastated. She is in Wichita now and has been since five o'clock the next day after he went missing. Kim, let me stop you right there, you poor thing. Yeah, I asked you a question and just jump right in. But what you're saying, when I have to go out of town, Kim, I'm miserable. I act, I'm away from the twins. I actually, believe it or not, can't eat. I am miserable. I'm worried. It's always for work. I'm trying to focus on work and nothing else, but I'm worried. I'm worried sick about them. And maybe it's my line

of business, but I mean, I actually physically cannot eat and I can, Oh dear Lord in heaven. It's just making me feel ill. I just had to go to New York this past week to work on my, uh, new A&E show. I'm so blessed to have with Dan Abrams. And I thought I was going to get snowed in. And I was at the airport sitting on the floor just praying, please let me get one of the twins are missing. And I'm in another state, sitting on the floor at an airport. I mean, I just, it's upsetting to even imagine that scenario. You've answered my question, Kim, about the mom being in another state how is she oh dear lord in heaven kim how is the mom doing she's not doing well i'll be honest um as you can imagine

exactly like you said nancy in a case like this where there's so many players blame is being thrown rumors Rumors are being thrown. And, you know, the backlash that has come to her, you know, everyone is suspecting someone. So it's been really bad, tough on the family. They've had to step back from the searching because people are harassing them, threatening them. You know, and at this point, I'm just trying to mediate.

You know, let's find lucas then we can blame whoever what do you mean people are harassing them and threatening them oh yeah well why everyone thinks that such and so did it for this reason or this reason it becomes so ridiculous everyone's off topic the topic is finding lucas i don't care who did it, blaming who did what, when that comes afterwards. Right now, there's a little boy out there, quite honestly, on the side of the road somewhere. Oh, just thinking about what that mom went through. So I've cleared. I really do hate to say it like this, Ashley World Cup, but I'll just put it out there. You've cleared the top two suspects, the mom and the dad.

Because when a kid, a child goes missing, you look immediately at the nuclear family. Then you look at aunts, uncles, grandparents who had a bone to pick with the way the child was raised or this or that. Then you look at the neighbors in the neighborhood. But let me think about the neighbors in the neighborhood. But let me think about the neighbors in the neighborhood for a moment. Karen Smith, you're the forensic expert. Another first thing, there's so many first things to do, is to look up all the sex predators in the neighborhood. They don't even have to be child sex predators, just sex predators. And how do you go about doing that, Karen Smith? How do you find

out if there's a sex predator in your zip code? Well, police are going to have lists of who lives where. They're going to have to have check-in points. Some of them are still going to be on probation and parole. They're going to have to check in with all of those people as well and do knock-and-talks, as simple as knock-and-talks. Where were you? What were you doing? Give me your timeline. We may have to get a warrant for your cell phone. All of those questions are going to have to be asked and answered by every single one of the people. And we're talking about not just the neighborhood. Sex predators aren't limited to just blocks. They go where they want to go when they want to go there. So this is going to be it widens the net so far

for police and it's going to stretch their reserves. It's going to stretch their, you know, they're going to be exhausted, but they have to follow every single lead with these people. Well, you know, with me, of course, in the background, you can't hear him. Alan Duke, Alan, jump in. I mean, you can go to our website, crimeonline.com and put in how i find my uh sex predators in my zip code uh i mean if you go to google and put find sex predator by zip code tons of sex offender registries pop up you've got the u.s department of justice you've got us crime online free sex offender registry neighborhood watch sex offender registry i mean it goes on and You've got us, Crime Online, Free Sex Offender Registry, Neighborhood Watch Sex Offender Registry. I mean, it goes on and on and on.

Right, Alan? Yes, and the most official may be the U.S. Department of Justice. They've got the National Sex Offender website that we will link to in the story that goes with this podcast. There is a group called Lucas Warriors, a group of citizens that have heeded the call to search for missing Lucas, and they formed in hopes of finding him. They are doing all they can, the Lucas Warriors. Won't you join us in the search for Lucas Hernandez, this five-year-old little boy going missing out of his home. I want to go on to the stepmother. What do we know about her? Is she actually, Chuck Roberts, is she married to the dad?

Is she the girlfriend? Does she have children? What do we know about her? She is the live-in girlfriend. They've been together for a little bit more than a year. And she and the bio mother. So I don't know that I would call that as and the bio so i don't know that i would call that as hold on i don't know that i would call that a stepmother no no i mean hold on let me

ask ash ash wilcott juvenile judge child crime watch.com a year slung up together i don't know that i'd call that a stepmother no i mean that I mean, that's just a smell test right here, but I would not call a girlfriend a stepmother. Yeah. And it really bothers me, the devil's in the details. And so while I get that maybe some people say, oh, it's a stepmom, that's a significant difference. Is there a commitment there where they've chosen to get married and raise their children together? Or is it just a girlfriend? I mean, there is a difference, not only legally, but how you may treat children and how you may interact. You know, to Dr. Chloe Carmichael, New York psychologist, goalattainment.com. Dr. Chloe, people say, is marriage any different than living together,

being boyfriend, girlfriend? I would say no, not really for me anyway, until children enter the picture. And then it's a whole nother ballgame game on. It's like an endurance test, really. It really is. I mean, in the morning, it's like, who can feed the guinea pigs? Who can lay out the clothes? Who can make this? Who can do that?

Who can get them in the car? Blah, blah. It's just, it like nasa precision timing and you know you got to have a partner who's committed i mean sure i can do it on my own i do it on my own all the time but when you're in a relationship and you're and you have children that's a a whole other level of commitment. And let me tell you something. It takes a very special person to be in a committed relationship when children are involved, Dr. Chloe. It certainly does, Nancy.

And it takes a very special person to be committed to somebody else's children. So, of course, in psychology, we have all kinds of books and therapies about the process of being a step parent. It's not something that should be done easily or lightly by anybody. And absolutely Nancy when people live together it's one thing but when they get married of course there's a symbolic sense of coming together as one in your flesh and blood that you're coming together as one and that already exists blood, that you're coming together as one. And that already exists, of course, when you have a child. It actually is your own flesh and blood. So there's a lot of complicated dynamics there that as a parent, when you have another

person in the home who is not actually committed to the future of those children the same way that you are, things can get really messy. And so I'm glad you're bringing attention to that, that families and blended families, they have some extra work to do in making sure that those allegiances are clear because kids need that. We are talking right now about the stepmom, as she is called. It sounds more like a living girlfriend to me. Emily Glass, 26 years old.

Lucas Hernandez, five years old, goes missing while she is taking a nap. She told cops she took a shower and lay down to take a nap and when she woke up, no Lucas. No signs of a break-in, nothing stolen from the home, but the back door was open. Now, what do we know about her as an individual out to kim martin missing pieces network what do we know i know she's very attractive she's um a young lady that had been living with the dad what else do we know about her background she has two older children that she does not have custody of she doesn't actually have even joint legal custody, which in Kansas is rather rare from what I understand.

And they also, she and Jonathan, Lucas's father, also have a one-year-old daughter. Okay, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait. She's got two children that are older than Lucas. Yes. How old are they? Do we know? I don't know right off. Well, they could be six. They could still be very young and be older than him. He's only five.

Exactly. So where are they? They live with their father, their biological father. Okay. And they're with the bio dad. Yes. So they're alive. They're being taken biological father. Okay. And they're with the bio dad. Yes. So they're alive. They're being taken care of. Yes. Then there's Lucas, the five-year-old.

And you're telling me she has a one-year-old little girl with Lucas's father. Correct. Where was the one-year-old girl at the time Lucas goes missing? We believe she was napping with Emily. So her biological child is okay lucas goes missing lucas has brown hair and brown eyes he's only four feet tall he only weighs 60 pounds actually nancy not to go ahead this is interesting i think that when the report was made that he was missing emily said he was four feet tall and 60 pounds it's actually closer to 40 pounds if 40 pounds he likely weighs 38 to 40 pounds please correct me see i mean it that see

that right there that means something to me it does i'm not i'm just a jd i'm certainly not an md but ashley wilcott i'm trying to remember what lucy and john david weighed when they were five if you're four feet tall you should weigh more than 38 pounds you sure should red flag red flag red flag a she didn't know the weight of her own child. And B, she might have purposely lied because 38 pounds is small. That's a small child at that height. as Ashley Wilcott is pointing out, or the child was extremely malnourished. Hey, Kim Martin, correct me anytime you want to, because I want the facts correctly out there. Okay. So, Lucas, brown hair, brown eyes, and once you see his face,

you're going to fall in love with this little boy, and you're going to understand why we went so desperately to find him. Four feet tall, we're now weighing probably under 40 pounds, And you're going to understand why we want so desperately to find him. Four feet tall, we now weighing probably under 40 pounds, wearing black sweats, white socks, a gray shirt with a bear on it. I'm confused about something. I'm looking at a photo. Does he actually have a bruise on his face, Chuck Roberts? Yes, and I'm not sure that police have eliminated that as a direct connection to his disappearance. But don't forget that family members in New Mexico say that Emily Glass had thrown water in his face,

that Lucas told them that she had kicked him and dragged him across the room and that his stepmom was, quote, mean to me. So there's certainly that aspect. Oh, okay. You're just giving me chills on my arms right now. It's reminding me of all the cases I prosecuted with child victims that could not really articulate what had been done to them and they would say things like they're mean to me. I want you to listen to Lucas's great aunt, Sally Rasmussen. It's not, and because I was a CPS investigator myself, you know, I just feel helpless. She was sent photos of Lucas last

bruises on his face and n she called protective ser I've been hearing for mont being abused. She only go the father and son came t work. She says she and an more signs that the child another report was filed

investigated and had a fr signs that the child was hurt, and so another report was filed in that state and they investigated and had a forensic interview and all that kind of stuff and sent them. I guess the police didn't think there was enough evidence. When I first found out he was missing, I was suspicious and then worried. The child's great grandmother

says Lucas once told her. His stepmom kicked dragged him across the room, and that she reported her concerns to Child Protection. I don't understand. To Kim Martin, didn't the dad know about this? Yes, there's been some confusion about that. It actually appears probably four or five different people reported suspected abuse from the maternal mother's side of the family and the paternal side of the family. So this is Lucas's father's family reporting the abuse also um i don't want to speak for jonathan but

he believes and has stated that it's unfounded that emily did not well why is there a bruise in one of these photos nancy there are 16 photos that i've seen and some of them they'll break your heart you know all over his body his arms his back his uh rear end his legs you know i don't know it seems to me that with some they were conflicted stories about jurisdictional issues and one department would say no you need to contact this department and you know and all i know is that lucas said emily hurts me he did not call her mom stepmom he called her emily karen smith with me forensics expert and i want to follow up on what you do to verify if a child has been mistreated abused and beaten but i'll tell you a funny story. I remember one night, Ashley,

I came home from HLN. I got home at about a quarter of 10. Lucy, who should have been asleep, was crying that her dad had spanked her. Well, of course, I threw a fit because i don't didn't want them to be spanked unless it was absolutely necessary he said nancy i've never spanked her in my whole life i spanked her with two fingers on her arm well of course ashley don't tell the children but you know i have the whole place tricked out with cameras and alarms and you touch the screen and it goes off blah blah well you know i sat up after i got lucy calmed down and in bed and asleep and i sat up and rewound the whole thing sure enough she went over to john david as he's sitting there watching whatever on pbs wild crats those brothers that play with animals.

She comes up to him with a wooden block and hits him. I mean, rears back and hits him in the head with the block. Okay. For no reason. So John David, I'm watching the video. I can't hear it. I can only see it. Falls over like screaming, I'm sure, like kicking and writhing.

And David goes over i can see him standing there talking to lucy takes her arm her right arm he gets two fingers the index finger and the forefinger he spanks her off the wrist with two fingers and then she starts falling in the floor crying and screaming that's the indignity of the two-finger spank on the wrist. Okay. So he was right, and Lucy was exaggerating. Can you imagine that? And they were about this age. They were about five years old or maybe a little bit younger.

But you know, Ashley, I was up until 1 o'clock in the morning trying to figure out how to rewind the video. And spy on David because if he had spanked that child the way she said, he would have been out on the sidewalk with a tin cup in his hand begging for 10 cents for a cup of coffee. Good luck, brother. But I don't understand why when the child says she did this to me and he's got bruises. Why was she still allowed in the house? I don't understand that, Ashley. And I'm only laughing because I know you're twins. And the funny thing to me is kids will

really act out like that when their feelings have gotten hurt. And so she wasn't physically hurt, but it hurt her feelings. Probably she got in trouble with dad having said that there's the difference bruises so let's talk about for instance in the state of georgia you can use corporal punishment so a parent can spank their child there's no law against it here's what i see every now all the studies say it gets you nowhere right i don't don't agree. I got nowhere even using time out. I felt like I was in time out because I had to guard the door for Pete's sake. But go ahead, Ash. Right.

But my point in that is that there is a difference when you leave marks or bruises and you cannot do that. That's called child abuse. So for a child to say she hurts me is one thing. When you've got repeated bruises on a child, that's a completely different story. It takes a great deal of force, an intentional force to cause many types of bruises. And so I will say this, two words for you, system failed. The system failed this child for there to be multiple reports, multiple bruises, them arguing about jurisdiction.

Who cares? They failed this child. They did. Karen Smith, forensics expert. When a child turns up with bruises and says, Emily is mean to me, how do you verify it? What do you do, Karen? The first thing that you do is police and child protective services are supposed to work in conjunction with one another. You look at the child, you take off their shirt, you know, you pull down their pants if you have to, and you look at where these bruises are located. Are they old? Are they new? If you have a combination of those, you can bet that that child has been going through abuse for some time. And like you said, this system failed this child. He should have been removed from that household. The other child likely should have been removed from that household until they found out what was going on, who was doing the abuse, how long it had been going on, what they were using, if there were patterns to the bruises, were there

hand marks or was it an object that they were using? These are all questions that should have been answered long before Lucas Hernandez disappeared. Take a listen to the latest development. This is Kansas Deputy Police Chief Gavin Seeler. This case is now considered a criminal investigation. Investigators have arrested a 26-year-old female on two counts of child endangerment. Charges are related to new information gathered during this investigation. Officers and investigators have been working on this case nonstop since 6-15 Saturday evening. We have collected information through countless interviews, follow-ups on leads, and examining evidence. This evidence, I'm sorry, this incident has touched many in our community. I know that there are

many more questions as a result of this. However, this continues to be a criminal investigation and we cannot go into further details. The search for Lucas is ongoing and we are still asking public for assistance. We continue to provide every resource that we have available to find Lucas. This is our priority. If you have any information on his whereabouts, please call this tip line number is three one six three eight three four six six one as a result of this investigation to we would also like to thank you there those other agencies that have been assisting us over the past few days those are the FBI KBI the district attorney's office, and the county sheriff's office. That's all I've got at this point.

The 26-year-old, is that the stepmother? That is the stepmother. Emily Glass? It is a 26-year-old female. Endangering the child, would that be endangering Lucas? There are two children involved in this. Two separate counts are two separate children? There's two separate counts are two separate children one of those children is Lucas yes is that her daughter. Uh, I would

go into that. Do you consider at this point that his disappearance is likely going to be a homicide? This point in time? We hope not. We hope that we are able to find Lucas and that he is alive. Where are you guys searching now? Uh, this investigation will continue on. As far as specific locations, there's various locations that we're looking at. I won't name any specific locations. Can you elaborate on the nature of endangering the child? Like, was it leaving the child alone, or the nature of it?

I won't get into the investigation. I'm in charge. When was she arrested? She was arrested about 7. One more question. What information, and I guess when did you guys get that information that turned this into a criminal investigation? This has been a result of, as I mentioned, we started at 6.15 on this three days ago, four days ago.

And so as a result of all the interviews and throughout the investigation and stuff and talking with people, evidence that was collected and things, that's when we turned it into a different investigation as well. Have you guys been able to verify her account of what happened in terms of her being the last person to see him? Again, that's all part of the investigation. I don't want to get into details of it, okay? And so I won't discuss that part of it. It is possible there could be more charges.

There is possibility of more charges, correct. To Chuck Roberts, Crime Stories investigative reporter. Chuck, what led to her arrest? Why? Well, the day before Lucas disappeared, she took her daughter, her one-year-old daughter, to Olive Garden and left Lucas at home. And she later admitted... What? And she later admitted to her step... to her father, boyfriend, Jonathan, that she paused to smoke a couple of bowls of marijuana before she went to Olive Garden. She claimed that she left Lucas home because he'd been sick and she didn't want to wake him up. And that raised, you know,

suspicions and police arrested her for child endangerment, two counts, one for Lucas and one presumably for her own one-year-old daughter. Wow. Okay, what we know right now is that this stepmother, as she calls herself, Emily Glass, has requested a bond reduction. A bond reduction. Kim Martin, Missing Pieces Network. What do we do now? Right now, quite honestly, in my opinion, we have to find Lucas. 99% sure that it would likely be a recovery effort at this point, sadly.

But I don't think that they can make a charge or that anyone is going to pay for doing this until we find Lucas. And the area out there, you know, I'm not from Kansas, but it is vast, it's rural, and it's a lot of private property. So that's why we really need private landowners to go search. You know, we've got teams out there behind the scenes that people don't know about searching. We have Lucas Warrior searching, and it's just a lot of land to cover. When you say a recovery, what do you mean by that? Seems to me that all indications at this point are that, sadly, it kills me to say this, that Lucas is not alive. I've been studying the affidavit that has been released.

You all know that the so-called stepmother, Emily Glass, reports five-year-old Lucas missing, saying that she was taking a nap. Now, according to this probable cause affidavit, she also tells police the day before she made the report, she smoked marijuana. She had been cleaning the family home. It's located there near Lincoln and Edgemore. And that she went into the garage and smoked a few bowls, her words not mine, of marijuana. That she got hungry.

And she and her one-year-old daughter, only identified as M.H., drove to Olive Garden, as Chuck Roberts told us, for dinner, leaving Lucas behind. There's no other visual on Lucas that day, to my understanding. I don't know how long he had really been missing well actually what now kim the landlord of their rental home um saw lucas peeking through the window at 5 30 p.m that day on the 16th the day that she went to olive garden okay got that i got i'm glad you told me that because it's another piece of the puzzle i was referring to the day that he actually went missing, but that helps me create a timeline. Do you know of a visual of the day that he is claimed to have gone missing? None.

The last visual is at 530. Okay, so she's at home alone after a couple of bowls of marijuana, going to Olive Garden with her daughter, leaving him there at 38 pounds, and the landlord sees him at 5.30 p.m. peeking out the window. I don't know if the stepmother was there or not. This court document says the stepmom consented to a search of her phone where police found text on Facebook Messenger between her and her, I guess you say, husband, Jonathan Hernandez. Police say the message stated Glass was going to smoke a couple of bowls of marijuana

and go to Olive Garden using a gift card he had sent her. It goes on to say she made two phone calls, Feb 16 in the afternoon around 4.30 and 5.40. The phone calls were made from the area of Central and Rock, near where Olive Garden is. Part of that document was redacted. We couldn't see everything. Do we have any reason, Kim Martin, to believe the boy made it through the night? In my opinion, no. What do you think happened, Kim?

This is difficult to say. This is just my opinion from putting, you know, things together. I would guess that Emily came home. Lucas made some comment about the landlord. And, you know, she had just gone through custody hearings and everything and lost additional custody of her older children, visitation, and just in the move. And she's the primary caregiver. I hate to say she snapped, but I think she did. I think she laughed out at him, and he had been sick for two or three weeks, and I think it killed him.

Guys, we are looking for Lucas Hernandez. With me, Kim Martin, Missing Pieces Network, Karen Smith, Forensics Expert, Ashley Wilcott, Juvenile Judge, Dr. Chloe Carmichael, New York Psychologist, and Chuck Roberts, Investigative Reporter. The tip line 316-267-2111 or 316-268-4407. Also at this time, I want to remind you that our longtime friend and colleague, Joseph Scott Morgan, needs us. Joe Scott Morgan,

professor of forensics and longtime Crime Online contributor, entire home and all of his possessions out by tornadoes in Alabama. Please go to CrimeOnline.com, read his story. A GoFummy page has been created for him, and if you can, please give. No amount is too small. He is our friend and he needs us now. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.