The child was very disfigured. You’re not going to post an unflattering picture of a child for everybody to see.
This is what attorney Rafael De La Gaza, representing Wesley Mathews, told media persons on Tuesday, 6 December. The attorney was talking about the three-year-old Indian-American girl child Sherin Mathews, whose body was recovered from a culvert near her home in Texas two months ago.
Her adoptive parents Wesley Mathews and Sini Mathews are facing charges of causing felony injury to Sherin, and abandoning and endangering the child.
The court was hearing a case related to the custody of the Mathews’ biological daughter, who is currently placed with a family member in Houston.
While the court said that Child Protective Services (CPS) was not required to assist the Mathews family in regaining the custody of their biological daughter, the hearing threw open unsettling information about the Mathews’ relationship with their adopted daughter.
CPS investigator Kelly Mitchell, who testified in court, spoke about the time when she visited the Mathews’ household on 9 October to remove the biological daughter. Sini Mathews remained “eerily calm” and was “unemotional” when the CPS showed up, NBC 5 reported the investigator as saying.
Mitchell also told the court that while she had noticed photographs of the couple’s biological daughter in the living room, there were no photographs of Sherin, and thought “the couple had a different connection with Sherin than they had with their biological daughter.”
Injuries on Sherin’s Body
Testifying in court, a doctor said Sherin had a series of broken bones and injuries in various stages of healing.
Prosecution pressed Sini about the previous CPS involvement, alleging Sherin earlier had a broken femur, elbow and tibia, but she did not confirm the allegations.
The prosecution called to the stand a pediatrician and child abuse expert, Susan Dakil of Referral and Evaluation of At Risk Children Clinic, who testified that the injuries were visible in various X-ray scans taken in September 2016 and February 2017. Dakil said the scans suggest the injuries were inflicted after Sherin was adopted from India.
The pattern of injuries led Dakil to believe that Sherin was injured on separate occasions, but she could not say when they occurred. The doctor filed a report with Child Protective Services after seeing the X-rays, the report said.
Sherin’s parents had then told the doctor that the September injury was caused after the couple’s elder daughter pushed Sherin off the couch. The February injury, Sini had maintained, was caused when Sherin slipped on a slide, and Sini had to grab the child.
Dakil testified that she became involved with the Mathews family in February 2017 when Sherin was hospitalised, and was then diagnosed with "failure to thrive," meaning she fell below the normal growth curve.
The Richardson Police Department and the FBI continue to investigate the toddler's death. The cause of death has not yet been determined by the medical examiner's office.
What Happened the Day Sherin Was Reported Missing
According to Richardson Police’s Detective Jules Farmer, Sini told police that she woke up at around 5 am on 7 October, and found her husband Wesley sitting at the breakfast table. He had “a weird look on his face,” Sini told the police, adding that she had noticed Sherin was not in her crib and asked Wesley where the child was.
After Wesley was re-arrested following the recovery of Sherin's body from the culvert, he told the police that he became frustrated that the child was not drinking her milk. He then forced her to drink the milk, and she choked.
“Wesley Removed Sherin’s Body Along With a Bag of Trash”
Detective Farmer testified in court that Wesley was holding Sherin when she died and stroked her because she was feeling cold. Later, Wesley wrapped her in a blanket and drove to the culvert where he placed the body.
Farmer also said Sherin's body was “stiff and cold” when Wesley decided to dispose of the body.
“He put Sherin in the back of the car with a sack of trash and went to a shopping center nearby,” Farmer was quoted as saying by fox4news.com.
Went to a shopping center where he disposed of the trash, and then drove around a little more until he put Sherin in the culvert where we found her body.Detective Farmer
Farmer also said that Wesley called the non-emergency number, and not 911, to report Sherin's missing, as he had heard the emergency number wasn't working that day.
(with inputs from PTI and The News Minute.)
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