Wesley Matthews sentenced to life jail for the death of adopted daughter, Sherin Matthews after the Richardson, Texas man claims she choked on milk.
A Texas father who claims his 3-year-old adopted daughter choked on milk before he saying he ‘panicked’ and placed her body in a culvert was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday.
Wesley Mathews, 39, of Richardson had been charged with capital murder before pleading guilty to a lesser charge of injury to a child by omission on Monday. A jury in Dallas County deliberated for three hours before sentencing the man to life in jail CBS DFW reported.
Mathews had claimed that daughter Sherin Matthews, adopted from an orphanage in India, was startled one night in October 2017 when she was drinking milk, causing her to choke. The father testified that her body went limp and that he was unable to resuscitate her.
Matthews for reasons not immediately understood, did not tell his wife, who was a registered nurse, or call 911 because he feared the involvement of child welfare authorities.
‘I could not absorb what had happened,’ Mathews said. ‘I could not believe that in a very quick time my child had gone from me.’
Sherin Matthews adopted father feared CPS:
Mathews testified that Sherin’s doctors told him that his daughter needed milk to gain weight, and he was afraid that doctors would contact Child Protective Services if her health didn’t improve.
‘We’ve already been called out once by CPS and CPS investigated us for four months,’ he said. ‘Doctor can say the parents are not feeding the child enough, so basically it falls on us.’
Sherin’s body was found two weeks after he placed it in the culvert in Richardson, Texas., October, 2017. At one point Matthews claimed his adopted daughter ‘vanishing’ in the middle of the night.
‘Mathews then led Richardson Police on a wild goose chase knowing where the child’s body was the entire time,’ the Dallas DA’s office said.
In addition to claiming that Mathews gave conflicting accounts about what happened, prosecutors say he showed no remorse. Additionally, a medical examiner testified that it is unlikely that a child can die from choking on milk.
‘Sherin’s little body was so badly decomposed, due to the actions of this defendant, the medical examiner could not determine an official cause of death, which could have dramatically changed the way we were able to prosecute this case,’ prosecutor Jason Fine said in court this week, according to CNN.
Which is to wonder- perhaps that may have been the father’s intent all along?
Mathews had said that Sherin had developmental disabilities and was malnourished. Wife Sini Mathews was initially charged with child abandonment but it was dropped due to a lack of evidence.
But it gets grimmer.
The couple lost their parental rights to their biological daughter last year.
It remained unclear how the Matthews were ever able to adopt Sherin in the first place.
