FORT WORTH – Police in North Texas searching for a missing 6-year-old boy believe human remains were in the shed at the family home at one point.
In a news release on Tuesday, Everman police said they are continuing to search for Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez near the home and in wooded areas.
Recommended Videos
They discovered that the boy’s stepfather had removed a large carpet that was used as the base in a makeshift shed, police said. He took it to the dumpster before he and the boy’s family fled to India on March 22, police said.
The makeshift shed was located where the backyard patio currently sits. Investigators removed the entire patio to search for remains.
The patio concrete was removed and digging efforts began. Police said dogs alerted them to certain spots in the topsoil but not to soil under the patio, so the digging stopped.
Police said they still believe that humans remain were once in the shed.
“This has led investigators to believe that at some point in time, there were human remains contained within the shed, prior to the installation of the patio,” the release states. “Although this search revealed minimal physical evidence, it has certainly provided additional guidance for investigators.”
The boy’s mother, Cindy Rodriguez-Singh, and her husband, Arshdeep Singh, have given conflicting reports on the disappearance of the boy.
He was last seen around the time when his mother gave birth to two twin girls in October, Everman police have said.
Investigators believe the boy is dead.
Everman police Chief Craig Spencer previously said that the boy was described as “appearing unhealthy and malnourished” before he disappeared. On March 31, his parents were charged with abandoning and endangering a child.
They are believed to have flown to India on March 22 along with six children. Two days earlier, police had been asked by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to do a welfare check on the children at the couple’s home. During that visit, Rodriguez-Singh told officers that Noel was staying with family in Mexico.
Spencer said that Rodriguez-Singh “has been known by relatives to be abusive and neglectful to Noel.”
Also, he said, investigators learned through interviews that Rodriguez-Singh had referred to Noel as “evil, possessed or having a demon in him” and believed he’d harm the twins.
Police have said that Noel suffered from numerous physical and developmental challenges.
“Relatives and witnesses stated that food and water were often withheld from Noel because Cindy did not like changing Noel’s dirty diapers,” Spencer said. “A relative even witnessed Cindy strike Noel in the face with keys because he drank water.”
Spencer said that on Nov. 1, 2022, Rodriguez-Singh got passport photos for all of the children living with her except for Noel. And then, the next day, she applied for passports for herself and all of the children except for Noel.
Spencer said that in November, Rodriguez-Singh began to try to explain Noel’s absence with “various stories,” including that he was either with his biological father or aunt in Mexico, or that she’d sold him to a woman in a grocery store parking lot. Spencer said that investigators have looked into all of those stories and none were true.
Read more: