Washington & Atlanta, Oct 14 (IANS & NRI Pulse Staff): It has been almost a week since three-year-old Sherin Mathews went missing in Richardson, Texas after her father told her to stand outside their home in the middle of the night as punishment for not drinking her milk. Now police are saying one of the family cars was missing the very morning Sherin disappeared.
“We have information that the Mathews’ 2013 maroon Acura MDX SUV was absent from their residents on Sunningdale between the hours of 4 a.m. to 5 a.m. on Saturday October 7th,” Richardson Police Department said in a Facebook post Thursday. “We are asking for residents and business owners within an area where this vehicle could have traveled within that hour to review and preserve any video possibly containing this vehicle.”
“We would like to thank those who have provided tips and video up to this point,” another post said. “We are diligently working our way through all of the material. We continue to request businesses and residents within a 30-minute drive of the 900 block of Sunningdale to check your video systems to see if there is any footage that may have captured a 2013 maroon Acura MDX SUV on Saturday, October 7th, between 4AM and 5AM. It is important this check be conducted before a system overwrite may take place.”
Sherin Mathews was last seen by her father Wesley outside the family’s backyard in the 900 block of Sunningdale. The girl went missing around 3 a.m. on Saturday after her father told her to stand by a tree near an alley outside their home in Dallas as punishment for not finishing her milk, Sgt. Kevin Perlich told Chron.com on Monday morning.
When Wesley Mathews went to check on his daughter roughly 15 minutes later, she was gone. Wesley told police he went out to search for her on his own but returned home when he couldn’t find her. He finally notified police of her disappearance at 8:12 a.m. Sherin’s mother, Sini Mathews, was reportedly sleeping when she vanished.
Perlich said that his response was “concerning”, adding, “that does not seem like a normal response that one would do if you have a missing child”.
He was arrested on a charge of abandoning or endangering a child on Saturday and was released on bond on Sunday, Perlich said.
Mathews told investigators that coyotes had been seen in the alley, but investigators said there was no indication that one might have dragged the girl away.
Investigators confiscated three vehicles, cellphones and laptops from the family to aid the investigation. Sherin Mathews’s older sister was placed in protective custody on Monday as the investigation continued, NBC News reported.
According to a police statement, Sherin suffered from developmental issues and had limited verbal communication skills. She was last seen wearing a pink top, black pajama bottoms and pink flip flops. The Matthews family adopted the girl from an orphanage in India two years ago.
