The investigation into the disappearance of 6-year-old Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez is transitioning to a death investigation Thursday as police say the missing boy is likely deceased.
Everman Chief of Police C.W. Spencer said during a news conference investigators have ruled out other possibilities about what may have happened to the boy and that the totality of the circumstances and evidence found so far has directed them to the "very unfortunate, unimaginable and devasting conclusion that Noel is likely deceased."
I'm incredibly saddened to share with you today that the search for Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez is now officially a death investigation. That means Noel will no longer be considered an endangered missing person.
C.W. Spencer, Everman Chief of Police
Spencer said investigators have worked to establish a timeline leading up to the boy's disappearance.
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The chief said the boy's last recorded medical appointment was on July 21, 2022, for speech therapy. Subsequent appointments were missed and resulted in a warning letter from the Texas Department of State Health Services threatening that Noel's government-funded benefits could be cut off if he continued to miss appointments with doctors.
Investigators learned the boy's mother, Cindy Singh, told a friend Noel had covid and asked if she could borrow her son for a doctor's appointment so that she could keep the benefits.
The last time police said they can definitively say the boy was seen alive was in October 2022, after the birth of his twin siblings. Spencer said it's not clear if that was in the hospital or a week or so after they returned home. Noel was described as appearing unhealthy and malnourished.
Investigators learned in the days leading up to the birth of her twins that she had referred to Noel as "evil," "possessed," or "having a demon in him." Cindy believed that Noel was going to harm the newborn twins, Spencer said.
On Nov. 1 and Nov. 2, 2022, Cindy obtained passport photos and applied for passports for all the children living with her except for Noel. Spencer said the boy's mother began trying to explain the boy's absence in mid-November by saying he was with family in Mexico, his father or an aunt, or that he was sold to a woman at a grocery store.
Spencer said investigators have been able to disprove each of those stories, as well as rumors that he was given to family members.
The chief said the boy's mother had been known by relatives to be abusive and neglectful to her son and that food and water were often withheld because she didn't like changing his dirty diapers.
Spencer previously said officers were asked to check on the boy and performed a welfare check at the family's rented home on March 20 and was told by the boy's mother that he was in Mexico with his father. Officers returned to the family's home two days later, after learning Noel was not with his father in Mexico, and 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.
Spencer said Thursday some organized searches to find the boy's body have already begun in areas near the home and will continue in the coming days, but he did not have specific locations to share.
A vigil is being planned for 8:30 p.m. Monday, April 10 outside the Everman Civic Center.
This story will be updated.
