HOUSTON – Family members of a terminally ill cancer patient who has been missing since Thursday said he has been found.
They confirm Rudy Guerra was found at a hospital in Kingwood. They said he is OK, but it's unclear how he got to Kingwood.
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On Wednesday, Guerra was transferred from Bayshore Hospital in Pasadena to a hospice in northeast Houston for personal care in the final days of his life.
His body ravaged by liver cancer, Guerra’s family believed he was being transferred to a proper facility for his final chapter.
“We thought it was going to be a facility like a nursing home or another hospital, but it ended up being a house,” said Trey Ragone, a nephew of Guerra.
The family said they were informed and provided with materials surrounding his transfer to a Traditions Hospice facility. However, a spokesperson with Traditions Hospice told KPRC2 the company does not own the home and has no contract or association with the facility on Crestview Drive.
KPRC2 learned the company that owns the facility is named Grace Independent Living. We're still working to find out if the facility is licensed.
A Traditions Hospice spokesperson told KPRC2, "Traditions Hospice provides hospice services to its patients at their chosen place of residence, regardless of whether that residence is the patient's personal home, a nursing home, or another type of facility. Patients and their families retain full control over the patient's selection of residence, and Traditions Hospice will provide hospice services to its patients wherever they may choose to reside."
Guerra spent a short stint as a patient at the facility -- less than 24 hours. LaPorcha Kato wasn’t at Grace Independent Living the night Guerra disappeared but told KPRC she talked to him earlier that morning.
“He said, 'Who's making me stay here?' I said 'Nobody is making you stay anywhere,'” Kato said.
"It’s unexplainable. It really is unexplainable. I feel in my heart something is not right,” Ragone said.
Guerra reportedly suffers from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
Houston police say workers told investigators Guerra left around 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, likely through the back door. The family claims staffers told them he climbed out a window.
“If the truth was he just got up and walked off, why wouldn't they just tell us he left? Why say he climbed out a window?” Ragone said.
Texas Equusearch volunteers fanned out across the neighborhood, on a mission to leave no stone unturned. They searched on foot near a bayou and on all-terrain vehicles, combing a field not from the facility where Guerra was last seen.
With Guerra still missing Sunday night, batting terminal cancer and barely able to walk, KPRC 2 Investigates had questions over his disappearance.
A worker said she filed the police report with the family while also admitting the facility only set up shop in the last two weeks.
