In a case that has shaken the state of Texas, a 3-year-old Indian American girl has been missing for four days. Sherin Mathews, who lives in Texas in the United States (US) was asked to go out of her home and stand near a tree in the backyard at 3 am on Saturday.
Wesley Mathews, a native of Kerala, was arrested on Saturday evening and was charged for abandoning/endangering the girl child. He was later released on Sunday night on a $250,000 bond.
Sherin, an adopted child of Wesley Mathews and his wife Sini, had reportedly refused to listen to her father, who asked her to drink milk. Fifteen minutes after Sherin walked out of her home, Wesley returned only to find that his daughter was missing.
Four days after the incident, the Richardson Police and the FBI are yet to locate Sherin, a child with special needs, according to The Washington Post.
Richardson police and people from Texas have been on an overdrive trying to find Sherin.
“We are currently looking for a 3-year-old child. Sherin Mathews was last seen by her father outside the family’s backyard in the 900 blk. of Sunningdale. She is approximately 36" tall and weighs about 22 pounds. She suffers from developmental issues and has limited verbal communication skills. She was last seen wearing a pink top, black pajama bottoms and pink flip flops. If anyone has any information on her whereabouts, they are asked to contact us at 972-744-4800”. Richardson police.
Wesley's arrest
Wesley told the police that he had sent the child out of the house at the odd hour. The child, who was malnourished, had to be fed whenever she was awake, say reports.
Photo released by Richardson Police Department/ Courtesy: nydailynews.com
However, Wesley alerted the police only at 8 am, many hours after Sherin went missing. The Washington Post reports that Wesley was under the impression that she would come back on her own, or that he would be able to locate her once the sun was out.
“So that was the frustration [Mathews] was experiencing that night. But of course we’re working to verify all of that," Sgt. Kevin Perlich, a spokesman for the Richardson Police Department was quoted as saying.
During his interview, he mentioned that he saw coyotes (a wolf-like dog) in the alley where he left his daughter, say reports.
Adopted child
According to multiple reports, Wesley and his wife Sini adopted Sherin two years ago from an orphanage in India.
Perlich said that Sherin's mother was not aware that Wesley had asked the girl child to go outside the house, since she was asleep at the time.
In an interview to NBC news, Kevin Perlich said that the delay in reporting the matter to the police "is certainly concerning”. "That does not seem like a normal response that one would do if you have a missing child,” he said.
Many Facebook pages have popped up, with thousands of people sharing posts about the girl. There has been an overwhelming demand the investigate the father’s claims.
Investigation
The Richardson Police conducted a search warrant at Wesley's house. The police team was accompanied by FBI's evidence recovery team.
The police said that the team was conducting numerous searches around the neighborhood and surrounding areas where Sherin was last seen.