The foster mother of 3-year-old Indian girl Sherin Mathews found dead in a culvert in Dallas has been arrested and charged with child abandonment, with police alleging that the Indian-American couple left the toddler in the kitchen alone and went out for dinner.
Sini Ann Mathews and husband Wesley Mathews went out for dinner with their 3-year-old biological daughter October 6, the night before Sherin was reported missing by her adoptive father.
Sherin’s adoptive father, Wesley has already been arrested and charged with injury to a child, a felony charge. He is now in jail with a $1 million bond. The crime is punishable with up to 99 years in prison.
The couple from Kerala, allegedly left Sherin alone
in the kitchen because she refused to drink her milk, police in Richardson, Texas said on Thursday.
The 35-year-old mother was arrested on Thursday when she turned herself in at the Richardson City Jail, escorted by her attorney.
She is being held on a charge of abandoning or endangering a child, a state jail felony. Bail has been set at $2,50,000, police said.
Sini, a nurse who works at Children’s Medical Center Dallas, could face different or additional charges, Perlich said on the case which has been widely reported in the international media.
Sini appeared before a family court judge on Monday to attempt to regain custody of her biological daughter, who had been moved into foster care after Sherin’s death.
The toddler is expected to be moved at some point out of foster care to live with an extended family member in Houston. A state jail felony in Texas is an offense that is punishable by confinement in a state jail facility from six months up to two years. “This all stems from this ongoing investigation with Sherin. It’s sort of a culmination of everything we’ve got so far,” police Sergeant Kevin Perlich said.
“It was our decision that now was an appropriate time to make an arrest,” the Dallas Morning Post quoted him as saying. Detectives determined Wesley and Sini went to a restaurant in Garland with their biological daughter, leaving Sherin home alone,
placing her in “imminent danger of death, bodily injury, or physical or mental impairment,” according to the arrest warrant affidavit.
Cellphone records show both parents’ phones were at the restaurant that evening. A receipt showed only one child’s meal had been purchased, the affidavit stated. The waiter also confirmed that only one child was at the meal.