Hand-cuffed and in shackles, his head hanging down, unwilling to make any eye-contact with the entourage of media persons waiting outside, 37-year-old Wesley Mathews walked in silence as he was being transferred to the Lew Sterrett Justice Center on Wednesday.
This was Wesley's first public appearance after he was re-arrested on Monday afternoon, on charges of felony injury to the child.
The Richardson police transferred Wesley - the adoptee father of Sherin Mathews who was found dead on Sunday- to the centre, where he will be under the custody of the Dallas County Sheriff's department, said police in an official release.
NBC 5 reports that Wesley has been placed under suicide watch.
A day after the missing 3-year-old girl's body was found in a culvert near their home in Texas, her father Wesley was re-arrested. This was after he changed his earlier statement to the police that Sherin disappeared minutes after he sent her out of home at 3 am on October 7, as punishment for not drinking her milk.
In his changed statement, Wesley said that Sherin choked on her milk while he was trying to make her drink the milk in the garage. After she began coughing and her breathing stopped, Wesley believed that the child had died and said that he then proceeded to remove the body from the home.
Meanwhile, the American media reported an official press release issued by the attorneys of Sherin's mother Sini Mathews. In the statement, attorneys Mitchell R Nolte and Gregg Gibs said that Sini had cooperated with the police during the investigation.
However, since Wesley has turned himself to the police and told them what happened to the child, "we see no need for Mrs Mathews to endure further police interrogation."
The attorneys claimed that Sini had nothing to do with Sherin's death or the removal of her body from their house.