Sherin Mathews

Case background and investigation

Sherin Mathews was born in Bihar, India, in 2014 and was adopted in 2016 by Wesley and Sini Mathews of Richardson, Texas, according to Wikipedia. Early on October 7, 2017, Wesley Mathews reported her missing to police at about 8 a.m.

He initially told police that he had made the three-year-old stand outside near an alley at around 3 a.m. as punishment for not drinking her milk, and that she was gone when he checked about 15 minutes later, according to Wikipedia and American Kahani. A search followed, and on October 22, 2017, her body was found in a culvert near the family's home. Wesley Mathews then gave a different account, saying she had choked while he was making her drink milk, and that he had put her body in a bag and left it in the culvert.

According to Wikipedia, the Dallas County medical examiner ruled the death a homicide caused by homicidal violence and found injuries in various stages of healing, including broken bones. NBC DFW reported that decomposition prevented a more specific cause of death from being determined. Wesley Mathews was charged with capital murder. Sini Mathews was arrested in November 2017 on a child abandonment charge; that charge was dismissed in March 2019, according to Wikipedia and NBC DFW.

At his June 2019 trial in Dallas County, Wesley Mathews pleaded guilty to the lesser offense of injury to a child, while maintaining that the death was an accident. On June 26, 2019, after deliberating for about three hours, a jury sentenced him to life in prison, CBS News Texas reported; he becomes eligible for parole after 30 years. A motion for a new trial was denied in September 2019.

Mathews appealed, arguing among other things that evidence was wrongly admitted and that the life sentence was unconstitutional. According to American Kahani, a Texas appellate court upheld the conviction and sentence in January 2021.