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Formal Charges For Adoptive Parents Of Texas 3-Year-Old Found Dead

DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - A Dallas County grand jury has indicted the adoptive parents of Sherin Mathews for her death.

On Friday, Wesley Mathews was indicted by the grand jury for capital murder, also injury to a child and child endangerment. His wife, Sini Matthews, was indicted for endangering (abandoning) a child.

The charge effectively holds both responsible for the October 7 death of their 3-year-old daughter Sherin.

An autopsy was unable to pinpoint exactly how the little girl died. "Homicidal violence" or death at the hands of another person was the ruling the Dallas County Medical Examiner's Office gave for toddler's death.

Dallas County District Attorney Faith Johnson says after reviewing the autopsy report in Sherin's death they determined they would seek a capital murder charge.

Johnson says they haven't decided if they will seek the death penalty for Wesley Mathews.

Wesley Mathews initially told police the toddler died when she choked while drinking a glass of milk.

Wesley-Mathews-Mugshot
Wesley Mathews Mugshot via Dallas County Sheriff's Department

Richardson detective's testified during a hearing in December that Wesley Mathews told officers he was force-feeding Sherin, who was underweight, with milk from a bottle in the early morning hours when she choked.

Mathews said he held his daughter as she died, then placed her body in the back of his car with a bag of garbage, drove to a shopping center where he disposed of the garbage, then to a culvert where he hid her body. The little girl's body was found there two weeks later.

Sini Mathews
Sini Mathews

The charge Sini Mathews is now facing stem from police accusations that the woman left Sherin home alone for more than an hour while she, her husband and the couple's 4-year-old biological child, went to dinner in Garland.

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