The mother of a missing Everman boy reportedly told family members she sold him to a woman at a grocery store while telling police the boy was in Mexico with his father, according to a search warrant obtained by NBC 5. Police, meanwhile, have said there's no evidence the boy's been trafficked.
Last month Everman Police began looking for 6-year-old Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez after family members said they'd not seen him since November 2022 and expressed concern about his well-being. Noel, police said, has several diagnosed medical illnesses and is in need of specific medical care.
Police officers visited the family's rented home, a converted shed on the back of a residential property on Wisteria Drive, on March 20 and talked with his mother, Cindy Singh, who told police that Noel was with his biological father in Mexico. The boy's father, identified by police as Mariano Alvarez Contreras, later talked with police and told them he'd been deported before the boy was born and that he'd never seen him in person and had never taken custody of him.
In a search warrant obtained by NBC 5 on Tuesday, in which the boy's name has been redacted, Cindy's brother Cantarino Rodriguez said she told her mother that she sold the boy at a Fiesta Market to an unknown woman and that the woman threatened to notify Child Protective Services if she tried to get him back. In the search warrant, police said no other information was provided about the supposed buyer and there were no details on when the alleged transaction occurred.
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Everman Chief of Police Craig Spencer said during a news conference on March 27 that there were rumors in the community that the child had been sold but that they had found no evidence that suggested he'd been trafficked. Spencer added that they were considering all possibilities after investigators found no evidence to suggest Noel had been harmed or that a crime had occurred.
"I want to be very clear when I say this, very, very clear. This is a rumor that we've heard and we have no evidence to support this rumor," Spencer said of the rumor that the boy had been sold.
Spencer said officers returned to the family's home two days after the initial welfare check, after learning Noel was not with his father in Mexico, to follow up on the boy's whereabouts. It was then, the chief said, officers learned Cindy and her husband had left for India with her six other children and that Noel was not with them.
On March 31, Spencer said both Cindy and her husband, Arshdeep Singh, had been charged with felony abandoning or endangering a child and that his department could now work with federal partners to locate and extradite the couple back to the United States.
Everman Police said Tuesday they are "still working very hard to find Noel" and that though they had no major updates the case is "incredibly active."
"The best thing everyone can do to help is to share his photo and encourage anyone with information to call 817-293-2923 or email tips@evermantx.net," Everman Police said.
