Father of Indian Girl Who Died in Texas Faces Capital Murder Charge

The adoptive father of three-year-old Indian girl, Sherin Mathews, who was found dead in a culvert in Texas was charged with capital murder by a grand jury on Jan. 12, the Dallas District Attorney said in a statement. Wesley Mathews was earlier charged with causing injury to a child.

Dallas County District Attorney Faith Johnson said Wesley’s charge is punishable either by life imprisonment or the sentence. The District Attorney’s office has not decided if they will seek death sentence. India’s Consul General Anupam Ray was present at the press conference in which Johnson made the announcements.

“We can’t go into details, but based on that autopsy report, we were able to determine that we can seek capital murder for this case,” Johnson said. Wesley is also facing charges for abandoning a child and evidence tampering.

Mathews is accused of causing his daughter’s death using a deadly weapon “by a manner and means unknown to the grand jury.”

“We have some information in terms of what might have happened, but we are still investigating,” Johnson said.

It was recently revealed that Sherin died from “homicidal violence”.

An earlier autopsy had revealed that she had multiple broken bones in different stages of healing, which happened after she was adopted from India and brought to the United States.

Mathews was arrested in October 2017 for causing endangerment to a child. He changed his statement multiple times after Sherin was reported missing until her body was found. Initially, when he reported to the police that Sherin was missing he said he made her stand outside early in the morning for not drinking milk and that coyotes were spotted in the area. He was later arrested after he said that she choked when he forced her to drink milk. He told the police that he removed Sherin’s body from their home, and took it out along with trash, after she choked to death.

The couple, Wesley and Sini, have another daughter who is 4-year-old, whom they were barred from meeting or getting custody of.

As a result of this case, India has suspended international adoption agency, Holt, for negligence.