Representative image of crime scene.
Credit: iStock Photo
Houston: The mother of a six-year-old boy who fled to India from the US in March this year has been indicted by a grand jury on several new charges including capital murder.
The search for the dead body of Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez, who has special needs, continues a year after he was last seen in Everman, Texas, in November last year shortly after his twin sisters were born in October 2022, Everman Police Department announced at a news conference on Monday.
Everman Chief of Police, Craig Spencer, said a Tarrant County grand jury indicted Cindy Singh, the boy's mother, on one charge of capital murder, two charges of injury to a child, and one charge of abandoning a child without the intent to return.
Cindy, 37, is believed to be in India with her husband, Arshdeep Singh, and her six other children since March.
Spencer said on Monday that the indictments should help drive the extradition process forward and that his department was working with federal partners to find the boy's mother and stepfather.
Spencer said if the boy's stepfather is also found, he expects to file additional charges against him as well for abandoning and endangering a child, which is a second-degree felony.
“Our hope is that we will be able to work with federal partners and they’ll be able to work with international partners on getting her apprehended and brought back, and get some answers to those questions because we still have unanswered questions,” said Spencer.
The police have been trying to extradite the couple from India since police began investigating an anonymous tip that Noel had been missing since November 2022.
Following a tip last March, Everman Police began looking into Noel's welfare.
Within days of opening the investigation, police learned that Cindy and the rest of the family had suddenly left the country.
Investigators said a day before the family departed, the couple used a credit card to buy one-way airline tickets to India on March 22, 2022, for the boy's stepfather, his mother, and his siblings.
In April, cadaver dogs assisting investigators at the child's home on Wisteria Drive 'alerted' to a discarded rug and topsoil underneath a recently poured porch at the home the family rented.
The 'alert', police said, indicated human remains had been present at some time in the past, however, no physical evidence was found that could be tested and identified.
Investigators said in the spring they believed Noel was deceased after finding no evidence to support claims or rumours that he was either living with family members abroad or had been sold to a woman outside of a local grocery store.
Spencer told reporters his investigators' work was paying off. While Noel was never found, detectives said all roads lead to one conclusion, though the manner and means are unknown to the grand jury.
“That's what they've been working on tirelessly for the past six months is trying to identify any other potential outcomes for this child; all of which have been ruled out, leaving us down to one simple conclusion, that he was murdered,” Spencer said.
Spencer said on Monday that additional searches had taken place over the summer and that the work on the investigation will continue until justice is reached for Noel.
Noel when last seen alive appeared malnourished and unhealthy, Spencer said.
“The last thing I want is to have a 6-year-old boy die at the hands of his mother,” Spencer said. “That's not what I want, but that's the facts that we're faced with here and that's what we're looking at.
Noel was one of 10 children to Cindy. Three siblings reportedly lived with grandparents, while Noel and the others lived with their mother in squalor in a shed in Everman, a suburb of Fort Worth.
Singh, the boy's Indian-origin stepfather, also lived in the filthy shack.
Investigators came to the conclusion that Noel was likely dead after disproving multiple lies regarding his whereabouts told by Cindy.
The lies include that the boy was in Mexico with his biological father or aunt and that he had been sold to a stranger at a local grocery fiesta market parking lot.
“However, thanks to technology interviews, search warrants and the assistance of authorities in Mexico, investigators verified each one of these claims. Throughout the investigation, we learned that Cindy had been known to be abusive and neglectful,' Spencer said.
He said investigators learned through interviews that Cindy referred to Noel as “evil, possessed or having a demon in him” and believed he would harm the twins.
“Relatives and witnesses stated that food and water were often withheld from Noel because Cindy did not like changing Noel's dirty diapers. A relative even witnessed Cindy strike Noel in the face with keys because he drank water,” he said.
Spencer also described his mother as having an “extensive criminal history” and explained she was the subject of a previous investigation by Child Protective Services.