A missing boy from Alabama was found earlier this week, 13 years after he went missing. Julian Hernandez, a now 18 year old boy living in Ohio, was applying to colleges like any other normal high school senior, but what he learned changed his life forever and made the life he was living a lie.
Like any college application Julian put his social security number into the form, but unlike anybody else, the number his father gave him could not be verified, so he took his problem to the school counselor. With some digging, both the counselor and Julian found a little boy matching his description on The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children Database. With this information and with what came next, changed his life.
In August of 2002, Julian’s mother told the police that her 5 year old’s father had taken the child to preschool, but the pair never returned back at the house. The police department had determined the boys father had withdrawn cash from his bank accounts, and fled with Julian and some of Julian’s possessions.
Julian’s mother and father were not married and the crime was classified as a non-custodial abduction. Over the past 13 years, there have been leads all over the United States and Canada, but they all have lead to dead ends. When Julian’s mother received the news earlier this week about her son being found, she was thrilled but apprehensive because of all of the false alarms.
Julian was living with his father Bobby Hernandez, 53, in Ohio where he provided false information about him and his son. He was using the alias Jonathan Mangina and had Julian using the alias Jay Mangina unknowingly. A neighbor said that they had only been living in Cleveland for the last 3-5 years and police are trying to find out where they were before that.