Texas mother of missing 6-year-old Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez indicted for murder

The mother of a missing 6-year-old boy who is presumed dead has been indicted for murder by a Texas grand jury one year after someone last saw Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez alive.

It's been six months since Cindy Rodriguez-Singh boarded an international flight, shortly before an Amber Alert for Noel went out, but she now faces charges of capital murder, two counts of injury to a child, and one count of abandoning without the intent to return in the disappearance of Noel, who police say she severely abused and neglected.

"These indictments will significantly support our effort to apprehend and extradite Cindy back to the United States," Everman Police Chief Craig Spencer said at a press conference on Monday.

Rodriguez-Singh left her Everman home in Tarrant County, around 10 miles south of Fort Worth, for India with her husband and other children days before an Amber Alert went out for Noel on March 26. Spencer said authorities are working with the U.S. Marshals Service, the Department of Homeland Security, and the FBI to detain and extradite Rodriguez-Singh from India.

Noel, who has serious disabilities including chronic lung disease and requires oxygen treatment, was last seen the final week of October 2022 at a hospital when his mother gave birth to twins. Witnesses told authorities he appeared "unhealthy and malnourished," Spencer said.

More:Snake caught in Halloween decoration with half-eaten lizard rescued by wildlife officials

Everman police 'may not ever find a body'

Shortly before the family left the country for India on a one-way Turkish Airways flight, Rodriguez-Singh spent their entire tax return on the rushed construction of a new patio for a home they did not own, according to police. The contractor she hired told police Rodriguez-Singh requested the patio to be thicker in one area.

Rodriguez-Singh's husband Arshdeep Singh also reportedly disposed of a carpet in an outdoor dumpster the day before the family's hurried departure, despite leaving trash around the house, according to investigators. A police dog trained to sniff out human remains alerted police to both the carpet and the new patio.

Spencer said that although investigators would continue efforts to locate Noel, failure to find him would not stop charges against his mother from moving forward.

"The reality is that there are times, there are situations where we may not ever find a body," he said. "That doesn't preclude the D.A.'s office from being able to push this case forward and get a murder conviction on the case."

More:Evacuations abound as Highland Fire in California is fueled by Santa Ana winds

Missing boy subjected to severe abuse

Witnesses told police that Rodriguez-Singh subjected Noel to severe abuse, including withholding food and water from him because she did not want to change his diapers. She regularly struck him in the face with keys when he tried to drink water, Spencer said.

Noel was never enrolled in school. He began to miss his doctor's appointments in July of 2022, and Rodriguez-Singh later asked an acquaintance to "borrow" their child for a doctor's appointment, according to police.

Rodriguez-Singh told different people conflicting stories about what happened to Noel, including that the boy was with his biological father in Mexico. She also said she "sold" him to a woman in a Fiesta Mart supermarket parking lot, but Spencer said there is no evidence to support that story.

Spencer also accused Singh of stealing $10,000 from his employer shortly before the family left the country. Police will push to charge him in the case if they uncover additional information implicating him in Noel's disappearance, he added.

Everman Mayor Ray Richardson announced at the press conference that the city would name an all-inclusive playground designed for children with disabilities after Noel in the coming weeks.

"Not a day goes by that somebody does not ask about Noel, or the missing little boy from Everman," he said. "No child should ever have to go through the abuse and neglect that Noel went through."

Conviction could be easier in 'no body' case

A failure by authorities to locate Noel's body would not necessarily weaken law enforcement's case against Rodriguez-Singh, according to Tad DiBiase, a former assistant U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., and leading expert in "no body" murder cases.

"'No body' murder cases that go to trial have about an 87% conviction rate, which is high, because a normal murder case across the country has about a 70% conviction rate," DiBiase told USA TODAY.

Since a smaller body is more easily disposed of, an outcome in which a body is not found is far more likely in cases with child victims, DiBiase said.

In Noel's disappearance and in other cases involving missing children, the responsibility for reporting the child missing falls squarely on the parents. So investigators generally turn in that direction first.

"In a 'no body' murder case involving a child, the most likely suspect is of course the parents, because they are the ones with the most ready access to the child," DiBiase said. "And of course when the suspects are the parents, there are many fewer people sending out alerts."

DiBiase said Rodriguez-Singh's indictment for capital murder, in which she faces a possible death sentence, is "very rare" among the "no body" cases he tracks.

"In the almost 600 cases that I've collected that have gone to trial, there's really probably only 35 or so where there's been a successful capital conviction," he said.

For one, DiBiase said, murder convicts aren't charged with the death penalty often. Jurors on the case might also think, "Yeah, they committed the murder. But is there still some thought, because we don't have the body, that maybe it didn't happen?"

Cybele Mayes-Osterman is a breaking news reporter for USA Today. Reach her on email at cmayesosterman@usatoday.com. Follow her on X @CybeleMO.