Texas police on Sunday said that they have "most likely" found the body of the missing three-year-old Indian girl Sherin Mathews, whose father claims that he had sent her alone into an alley as a punishment for not drinking her milk.
Reports state that police officers and search dogs found a child's body in a culvert near Spring Valley and Bowser roads on Sunday morning. The area is less than a mile from the Mathews' home. The child was reported missing earlier this month, on October 7.
A Texas police spokesperson said that investigators do not have a reason yet to believe that the body belongs to any other missing child. They are currently waiting for positive identification and an autopsy to determining what resulted in the child's death.
Reports state that the investigators have notified Sherin's parents of the body.
Sherin's father, Wesley Mathews, was arrested on charges of child abandonment and endangerment after Sherin was reported missing. Mathews has since been released on bail. CBS 11 reported that the missing child's father has ceased to cooperate with the detectives, although he has not been charged with any additional crime yet.
Mathews was required to surrender his passport and wear an electronic monitoring bracelet as part of his bail condition, so that authorities can keep an eye on his whereabouts, Dallas Morning News reported.
Reports state that Sherin's four-year-old sister has been taken into custody by child protective services and placed in foster care.
According to police affidavits, Sherin's father told investigators that he searched for her after he sent her outside into the alley but she was nowhere to be found. The affidavit mentioned that the father was not too worried and did a load of laundry and waited until after sunrise to report her disappearance to police.
A spokesperson for the Richardson Police Department, Sgt. Kevin Perlich said that Mathews and his wife, Sini, adopted Sherin nearly two years ago from an orphanage in India.
Agents of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and detectives combed Mathew's house this week and announced that someone had left in the family's SUV at around 4 am on the day the child disappeared, and came back within an hour. Sherin's mother has not been charged as she was asleep when the incident occurred, according to police.
