Police find body in Texas, likely of missing Indian girl
HOUSTON: Police in Richardson, Texas, have found a body they suspect could be that of Sherin Mathews, the three-year-old adoptive daughter of an IndianAmerican family who went missing from outside her house on October 7.
Authorities are waiting for the medical examiner to identify the body and ascertain the cause of death on Monday, an official told Hindustan Times on phone.
“The indications are that it is most likely her, however, we have not had positive ID. So until we have a positive identification we are not going to say it is Sherin,” Sgt Kevin Perlich told Dallas News, a local publication.
“As the investigation continued to unfold, more and more stuff came to (the) surface and we followed up on that,” Perlich said. “It led to the search of that area with canines, and that’s how we came across the body.”
The body was found in a culvert with the help of search dogs.
Police have said the girl was sent out of the house at 3 am by her father, Wesley Mathews, as punishment for not finishing her milk. She was made to stand in an alley where coyotes (wolf-like wild dogs native to North America) had been seen before, Dallas New reported.
When Mathews went back for her 15 minutes later, she was not there. Police were finally called at 8 am, and Mathews was arrested later that day and charged with endangering the life of a child.
The couple from Kerala had adopted Sherin from an orphanage in Nalanda, Bihar, in 2016. Police have said the girl, who was physically underdeveloped.