Months before a 3-year-old Texas girl was found dead in a street level culvert pipe, allegedly at the hands of her adoptive parents, Children’s Protective Services opened an investigation after the little girl ended up in the hospital with injuries.
According to a recently released CPS report, little Sherin Mathews’ adoptive parents, Wesley and Sini Mathews, took the child to the hospital in March 2017 with numerous injuries. Sini Mathews claimed the little girl fell and injured herself at a playground. Wesley Mathews said she hurt herself on monkey bars. A physician who specializes in child abuse, however, told authorities that the injuries looked to be physical abuse, not an accident.
“A subsequent report was received the following week that the deceased child had been appearing in public for the last year (unknown exact time frame), with various injuries, including a black eye, a broken arm, and then a broken leg. It was unknown exactly how the deceased child sustained those injuries,” court documents read.
Dr. Suzanne Dakil, who testified during a custody for the parents’ biological daughter, is the one who contacted CPS after she noticed injuries on Sherin that matched what she thought looked like abuse.
“I tried, actually, very hard to find another good explanation, and I didn’t have one.”
Sherin Mathews CPS report by Leigh Egan on Scribd
Court documents indicate that CPS found “insufficient evidence” for abuse and subsequently didn’t file to remove the girl from her Richardson home. Six months later, Sherin was dead.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, Wesley Mathews, 37, initially claimed his daughter, Sherin, disappeared a little after 3 a.m. on October 7 after he put her outside to stand by a tree for reportedly refusing to drink her milk.
Authorities arrested Mathews and charged him with one felony count of injury to a child after he changed his story on what happened to the child and said Sherin choked to death on milk.
“Wesley Mathews said she wouldn’t listen to him. Eventually, the 3-year-old girl began to drink her milk. Wesley Mathews then physically assisted the 3-year-old girl in drinking the milk,” the arrest affidavit states.
The affidavit also stated that Mathews said that Sherin began choking on the milk and shortly after, her breathing stopped. Mathews allegedly said he then removed the little girl’s lifeless body from their home off of Sunningdale Road in Richardson.
On October 24, According to the Richardson Police Department, the medical examiner’s office positively identified a child’s body as Sherin after authorities found her body in a culvert not too far from her home. Court documents read she died from “homicidal violence,” but since it had been two weeks since her death, her remains were in the advanced stage of decomposition. In turn, although the coroner identified Sherin died from violence, the specific type of violence could not be identified.
During his grand jury indictment, however, prosecutors alleged that Wesley Mathews used a deadly weapon to kill Sherin.
Both parents were arrested and remain behind bars.
According to police, the parents were seen at a restaurant together with their biological daughter on October 6. Sherin was not with them, prompting the child endangerment charge against Sini Mathews.
Wesley Mathews faces the death penalty if convicted. He’s charged with felony murder, tampering with evidence, and felony child endangerment.
[Feature Photo: Sherin Mathews/Handout]
