I am a parent, and as a proud and loving parent, I can only understand the dread that must grip a mother or father when their child disappears without a trace.
Naturally, children are known for being too curious even in the best of circumstances, and all it takes is for a parent to become distracted by something for even a split second for a young child to become lost or, even worse, get into serious trouble.
On other occasions, it is not the case that a child has wandered away at all; rather, it is the case that they have been taken, either by someone they know or by an entirely new person.
When he was only five years old and had just disappeared from his home in Alabama, the extraordinary case of Julian Hernandez, who was last seen in August of 2002, involved one such incidence. Julian Hernandez went missing in August of 2002.
After getting a note from the boy’s father notifying her that he had taken the boy, the boy’s frightened mother made the complaint that her son was missing.
Nobody, and I mean nobody, could have possibly imagined how this strange story would play out the way that it did.
Reports claim that Julian Hernandez spent his childhood in Ohio with his biological father, Bobby Hernandez, and was unaware that he had been taken from his mother and brought to live with his biological father.
Bobby went so far as to give Julian a new name and adopt a fake identity for himself in order to conceal his true identity more effectively. Throughout this entire time, Julian’s real mother looked for her child with all of her might, but despite the fact that hundreds of possibilities came in, none of them led anywhere.
When Julian started filling out his paperwork for college approximately twelve years later, the story took an unexpected turn that proved to be its most surprising twist to date. When this happened, the young man understood that his social security number did not correspond to the name that was listed on the documents.
Julian sought the assistance of a school counselor so that he could submit his application, but he was still in the dark about the eerie truth of the situation. Julian was confused.
The counselor quickly learned that Julian had been reported as missing by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), as well as the fact that his father had taken him when he was only five years old.
Julian was made aware of the lies he had been living through for the most of his life, as well as the lies that had been told about Julian’s father, who was shortly captured. One cannot even begin to fathom the level of trauma that the young man, who was only a few weeks away from leaving for college and embarking on the formative years of his adult life, was forced to experience.
Even though she had been absent for the majority of Julian’s formative years, his mother was reportedly overjoyed beyond words to have finally found her son. This was the case despite the fact that she had missed out on the majority of his childhood.
In a surprising turn of events, Julian also pleaded with the judge presiding over the case to release his father from jail, stating that although it had been difficult for him to grow up without a mother, he couldn’t bear the thought of losing his father because “taking him away from me is doing the same thing all over again.”
In light of Julian’s plea, Bobby was given a prison term that carries a maximum of four years but no more than fifty-four.
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