NATION

Police: Body found Sunday is missing Texas girl Sherin Mathews

The Republic | azcentral.com

This undated photo provided by the Richardson Police Department in Texas shows 3-year-old Sherin Mathews. Police in a Dallas suburb say they found the body of a small child on Oct. 22, 2017, not far from the home of Sherin Mathews, who has been missing since early October 2017.

Sherin Mathews is dead.

The body found Sunday afternoon is the Texas girl who had been missing for more than two weeks, according to the Richardson Police Department.

The department made the tragic announcement Tuesday, hours after it became public that Sherin's father had changed the story of how the little girl went missing on Oct. 7.

The body was found near the family home.

An arrest warrant released by the Richardson Police Department Tuesday says that Sherin Mathew’s father, Wesley Mathews, told police that his daughter choked on her milk.

He said he “physically assisted” Sherin in drinking her milk in the garage when she wouldn’t listen, according to the warrant.

“She was coughing and her breathing slowed,” the warrant reads. “Eventually, Wesley Mathews no longer felt a pulse on the child and believed she had died.”

The 37-year-old then admitted to police that he removed the child’s body from the house, according to the warrant.

The young girl — who has developmental issues and limited verbal communication skills — was last seen wearing a pink top and black pajama bottoms by her adoptive father two weeks ago.

Mathews originally told authorities that he took Sherin outside and told her to stand by a large tree in the backyard at 3 a.m. Oct. 7 to teach her a lesson for not drinking her milk.

When Mathews went outside 15 minutes later to check on the toddler, she was gone.

He alerted authorities to his daughter's disappearance five hours later and told police at the time that coyotes have been spotted in the alley where he left her, according to officers.

In this Sunday, Oct. 22, 2017 photo, signs, flowers and other items collect at a memorial for missing 3-year-old Sherin Mathews at a tree behind her home in Richardson, Texas. Police said they've found the body of a small child on Sunday, not far from the home of Mathews, who's been missing since early this month. Her father, Wesley Mathews, has told authorities he ordered the child to stand next to a tree behind the fence at their home around 3 a.m. on Oct. 7 as punishment for not drinking her milk and she went missing. Police say the body hasn't been positively identified. (Ashley Landis/The Dallas Morning News via AP)

He was arrested and charged with abandoning or endangering a child shortly after Shein’s disappearance. He was released on a $250,000 bond a day later.

Mathews was rearrested and charged with felony injury to a child Monday after telling the Richardson Police Department an "alternate statement of events,” according to the department’s Facebook page.

Mathews is being held on a $1 million bond.