advertisement
Wesley Mathews, the adoptive father of Sherin Mathews – the three-year-old who was found dead in a Texas culvert in 2017 – has pleaded guilty to a lesser charge in his sentence.
At his trial for murder, which was held on Monday, 24 June, Wesley pleaded guilty on charges of causing injury to the child by omission. This charge comes with a lighter sentence than capital murder and tampering with evidence – the other charges against him.
Wesley, who hails from Kerala, had been charged with capital murder after his special needs adoptive daughter was found dead. If he is convicted under this charge, he faces the possibility of a life sentence without parole.
WHAT WE KNOW
Wesley and his wife Sini, who were natives of Kerala, adopted Sherin from an orphanage in Bihar in July 2016. Sherin disappeared in October 2017, and Wesley initially claimed that he had sent her out in the wee hours of the morning on 6 October that year as punishment for not drinking her milk.
On 22 October 2017, Sherin’s body was recovered from a culvert under a road about a kilometre from the Mathews’ home. The cause of Sherin’s death could not be investigated as the body had decomposed.
Wesley later changed his version, claiming that when he tried to “physically assist” her in drinking milk, and Sherin had choked on the drink. He also admitted that the family had gone out to dinner and left Sherin behind a day before she died.
Wesley was indicted for capital murder by a grand jury and for tampering with evidence.
THE CASE SO FAR
In March earlier this year, Wesley’s wife Sini was released after 15 months in jail this year due to insufficient evidence against her. The charges against her for child endangerment were dropped as well.
Earlier in April, a court document filed by Dallas County Assistant District Attorney Jason Fine had stated that the prosecutors believe that Wesley is likely to have neglected and injured the child before her death.
The document mentioned details of offences, including one that accused Wesley of injuring Sherin on or about 1 February 2017, with or without his wife Sini’s help, and causing the child to sustain multiple fractures in her arms and legs “to the bilateral humerus, femur and tibia."
As Wesley's trial goes on, prosecutors will reportedly attempt to prove that Wesley killed Sherin and then dumped her body in the culvert.
However, they admitted that they will not be able to present the cause of the toddler's death because of how much the body had decomposed by the time she was found.
(This story was first published in The News Minute and has been republished here with due permission.)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)
Published: undefined