Lucas Hernandez Update: Trial begins for ‘stepmom,’ the last person to see missing little boy before he vanished

A trial for Emily Glass, the stepmother of missing Lucas Hernandez, started on Tuesday in a Sedwick County, Kansas, courtroom. Glass stands accused of child endangerment.

KSN reports that although prosecutors allege Glass, 25, was arrested after smoking marijuana in home off of South Edgemoor before driving to a nearby Olive Garden with her toddler daughter, the defense told the jury that they would not hear any evidence that Glass took any illegal drugs, including marijuana. The prosecution argued that they had proof that showed Glass “consistently” smoked marijuana on February 16 before driving herself and her daughter to the restaurant.

Court documents indicate that during one of several interviews with authorities after her 5-year-old stepson Lucas disappeared, Glass admitted to officers that she smoked marijuana in her garage while taking care of her 1-year-old daughter and Lucas. The little boy disappeared on February 17, a day after Glass allegedly left him home alone to go to the restaurant. She claimed that at the time, Lucas was feeling sick and was sleeping, and she didn’t want to wake him up.

Authorities arrested Glass in late February and charged her with two misdemeanor counts of child endangerment, one for Lucas and one for the toddler girl. Authorities later dropped the child endangerment charge for Lucas, but held Glass behind bars on $50,000 bail for the other endangerment charge.

RELATED Reading: Lucas Hernandez Update: Horrid reports of child abuse revealed in new court doc as little boy remains missing for over a month

The presiding judge told jurors to ignore anything they’ve heard about Lucas, aside what will be said during the trial. This little boy’s disappearance became high-profile shortly after he disappeared.

Detective Shoemaker took the stand today and testified that he brought up the topic of marijuana to Glass. He said he obtained phone records of her cellphone which apparently had reference to marijuana. The defense asked Shoemaker if marijuana was present in Glass’ system. Shoemaker replied that they had written and verbal statements from the defendant only. When the defense asked Shoemaker if law enforcement could have asked for Glass to submit to a drug test, he acknowledged that they could have.

In turn, the defense argued that were no hair follicles, saliva, or any other kind of evidence that would show Glass actually smoked marijuana on the day in question.

The prosecution played a surveillance video of Glass admitting to officers that she indeed “smoked weed” to help with pain.

As CrimeOnline previously reported, since the day Lucas Hernandez disappeared on February 17, Glass has been in the hot seat, given that she was the last person to see the boy. While sitting in jail on a child endangerment charge in late February, she opened to a local Wichita reporter about Lucas’ disappearance, publicly for the first time.

FactFinder12 Investigator Devon Fasbinder spoke with Glass, 26, on Wednesday afternoon, in hopes of getting information that would help find the boy, whose been since missing for 11 days. Glass previously told police she took a shower and then a nap at around 3 p.m. on the day in question. She said when she woke up, the back door of the family home in Wichita was open and Lucas was nowhere in sight. He’s still missing.

When Fasbinder asked Glass if she hurt Lucas in any way, she denied it and said she would never harm him and has no idea where he is.

“I did not. I would never hurt my son…..He’s like a son, you know? I may not have given birth to him, but he’s my baby boy. I take care of him every day, you know?”

Shortly after Lucas’ disappearance, the boy’s great aunt, Sherry Rasmussen, handed over photos of him to KAKE News, which showed numerous bruises on various parts of his body. Rasmussen said the bruises were likely from physical abuse, and that she reported it to the Department of Children’s Services, yet nothing was ever done to protect Lucas.

Glass said that the bruises were not from abuse, but instead, the results of Lucas playing too roughly and being a little boy.

“There’s been times he’s being a boy and playing with older brothers and his cousins. He gets bruises. He has had some falls,” Glass explained.

“A majority of the time when he had gotten hurt and ended up with bruises, he wasn’t under my care,” she continued. “Because I would send him off with my cousins and there’s older boys there and he’s a very little, small boy and he could get hurt easily and when he’s playing with older boys who are like 10 years old, even though we’d say hey Lucas be careful. We had to tell him all the time you know, be careful.”

Glass also said she isn’t concerned with the people who think she hurt Lucas. She claimed it was “on them” and the only thing she is concerned about is finding the child. She also explained that two strangers stood outside her home a few days before Lucas disappeared, which she “kept thinking about” after Lucas disappeared.

She said she didn’t know the people and when she offered them assistance, they acted offended. In turn, she reportedly took a photo of the pair send sent it to Johnathan Hernandez, Lucas’ father.

“I keep thinking and I keep thinking what could have happened, you know. And I keep thinking back to these two people that were outside of my house a few days prior. A black man and white woman….I went out there to be like hey is everything okay? Do you need to come inside? Are you stranded? They were just like, no and just like looked at me like I offended them or something.”

Authorities couldn’t verify any details involving the photo since the investigation is still ongoing.

Check back with CrimeOnline for additional updates.

[Feature Photo: Lucas Hernandez/Family Handout]