YAKIMA, Wash. — Lucian Munguia has been missing since Sept. 10, when he vanished from Sarg Hubbard Park without a trace. Early on in the investigation, on Sept. 13, Yakima
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Early on in the investigation, on Sept. 13, Yakima Police Chief Matt Murray told KAPP-KVEW’s Emily Goodell investigators had found video of the boy leaving on his own.
“What I can tell you is there is video — I’m not gonna talk about where it came from or where it was — that shows Lucian leaving the park in a southeast direction by himself. I can tell you that it is true,” Murray told KAPP-KVEW on Sept. 13.
But our team learned recently from sources close to the investigation that the video didn’t exist. We requested a conversation with Yakima police about that evidence and filed a public records request to try to clear up the confusion.
However, Thursday, shortly after receiving an email notifying us our request had been denied, Murray posted a video statement on social media, saying they had determined there was no video evidence of Lucian leaving the park by himself that day.
KAPP-KVEW’s Emily Goodell contacted YPD again after the chief’s statement on social media and talked with Murray exclusively about what happened. We’ve also now learned how the confusion surrounding the video has been affecting Lucian’s family.
“I was specifically told — somebody said hey, there’s a video with Lucian walking southeast from the park,” Murray said.
However, Murray said once detectives started going back through all the video, they had difficulty finding that video.
“I started hearing, hey, we haven’t seen a video with Lucian in it and that was weeks after the initial case,” Murray said. “So at that point, again, I said okay, get through all video. We have to be absolutely certain.”
“I think what’s happened and that happened even in the course of this information is there’s miscommunication. Nobody’s intentionally hiding any information, nobody’s trying to verify something’s true that’s not true. That just isn’t the case. What we’ve been saying all along, if you look at our press releases, is that we will provide information when we have new information. That’s the intent of our message. If we blew it, I apologize. That’s certainly not our intent. We’re focused on trying to find Lucian and and resolve the case,” Murray said.
Recently, two sources close to the investigation — including one in law enforcement — told us the video of Lucian didn’t exist and that it was a mistake that never got corrected publicly.
“That was a big thing to the community, that we were saying there is no video but the chief of police said that there was a video at the beginning of all this,” Munguia said. “And for him to finally clear it up, that there is no video, it’s just kind of helped bring peace, I guess, to some of the community.”
Munguia said despite the police chief reiterating that they still do not suspect foul play, she believes it’s unlikely that information will stop people from attacking them on social media. However, she said she’s still grateful that the police updated the public.
“There’s a lot about this folks don’t know. There’s a lot of things I can’t share. Whether there’s video of Lucian walking in a park or not really did not change any of what it is we’re working with. And it doesn’t change any the nature of the facts that we’ve been repeating: That there’s no indication of foul play. We have no suspects in this case. We also have no evidence of what happened to Lucian. All of those things are still true,” Murray said.
