Above: Sherin Mathews

What had to happen finally did. Wesley Mathews, the Indian-American adoptive father of murdered three-year old child Sherin (adopted from an adopting agency in India) has been charged with murder.

It has been finally adjudged by the police in Richardson, Texas, where Wesley and his wife Sini (both originating from Kerala) lived with their children, including Sherin, that this was not a case of  accidental death but of premeditated murder and also of trying to tamper with evidence.

Agencies have quoted Dallas County District Attorney Faith Johnson as telling the media: “We can’t go into details, but based on that autopsy report, we were able to determine that we can seek capital murder (sic) for this case.

“The evidence is still unfolding in this case. We don’t want anything to jeopardize this case. We think that we have a great case, we plan to pursue this case vigorously, and we don’t want anything to hamper it in any kind of way,” Johnson was quoted as saying.

The chargesheet against 37-year-old Wesley also says that he has also been charged with abandoning a child, endangering her life as well as tampering with evidence.

Sini is also in police custody, being held on a $100,000 bond and has been charged with child endangerment and abandoning. Wesley had admitted that the family, including their biological child, had gone out to dinner, leaving Sherin alone at home.

The murder, as it always was evident, was a vile act of carelessness and intent. The charge means that Wesley, if convicted, could get the electric chair or, at least, life imprisonment without parole.

The mystery started when Sherin was reported missing on October 7. A huge search operation was organised but she remained untraceable till search dogs found her body under a culvert near her home on October 22.

While the accused talked, their versions varied wildly. Wesley had told the police that Sherin had been missing after she was reprimanded and put out of the house at 3 am. She was supposedly asked her to stand outside the house near a tree at that hour of the night.

Wesley had changed this story after Sherin’s body was found and said that the child had died as she had choked on her milk.

—India Legal Bureau