Sherin Mathews case: Indian-origin father's murder trial starts today

Three-year-old girl's body was found in a culvert two weeks after she went missing

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The capital murder trial for Wesley Mathews, the father of Sherin Mathews, a three-year-old Indian girl whose body was found near their suburban Dallas home less than a year after she was adopted from an Indian orphanage, is scheduled to begin on Monday.

Sherin's adoptive father, 39-year-old Mathews, faces four felony charges in connection with his daughter’s death. If convicted of capital murder, he will receive an automatic sentence of life without parole.

Sherin was adopted by Wesley and Sini Mathews in 2016. The child was believed to have special needs and was undernourished.

Wesley had initially told the police that his daughter had gone missing from outside the house. He had claimed that she was made to stand outside the house at 3am as punishment for not finishing her milk. By the time he went outside to get her inside the house, she had gone missing. Her body was found two weeks later in the culvert.

Later, he told the police that Sherin had died after choking on milk and that he had put her body in the culvert.

The Dallas court record shows that the Mathews couple "failed to provide adequate nutrition to Sherin Mathews from September 1, 2016 until the time of her death."

Prosecutors are expected to present evidence that Sherin’s adopted parents did not take her to a doctor for multiple bone fractures. The parents knew about Sherin’s injuries yet neglected to seek proper medical care.

A criminal child endangerment case against Sherin’s mother, Sini Mathews, was dropped in March 2019 after the district attorney said there was not enough evidence to proceed. If she had been convicted, she would have faced a jail sentence of between two to 20 years.

After the criminal case was dismissed, Sini Mathews said she was looking forward to being reunited with her biological daughter.

The couple gave up parental rights to their biological child in January 2018. The girl was removed from the family's home on October 9, 2017, after Sherin went missing. She remained in foster care for weeks before she was sent to live with Sini Mathews' relatives.