The mother of a 6-year-old Texas boy who hasn't been seen since 2022 has been arrested on a capital murder charge, the FBI said Wednesday.
Cindy Rodriguez Singh is accused of killing her 6-year-old son, Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez, FBI Director Kash Patel said on X.
Singh, who had been on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, is charged with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution and capital murder of a person under 10 years old, Patel said.
Police in Everman, Texas, near Fort Worth, said that on March 20, 2023, the Texas Department of Family Services asked them to conduct a welfare check. At that time, Singh “provided what we now know as misinformation that Noel was staying with family in Mexico,” then-Police Chief Craig Spencer said.
On March 22 of that year, Singh, her husband and six children flew to India, but Noel wasn’t with them, police said.
Singh had told investigators that the boy was with his biological father in Mexico, but police determined that wasn’t the case, Spencer said. Other stories included that the child had been sold, which police disproved as well, he said.
Also raising suspicions in what was then a missing persons case was a newly poured concrete porch where the family had been staying.
Police concluded that the boy was most likely dead, and in October 2023 Singh was charged with a state count of capital murder.
The U.S. District Court in Tarrant County, where Everman is, also issued an arrest warrant on a federal count of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, the FBI said.
Patel did not say in his announcement how Singh was arrested or where, but he noted that after Singh went to India, she never returned to the United States. He thanked law enforcement partners in India and the FBI in New York and Dallas.
The Indian Ministry of External Affairs declined to comment.
Online federal court records did not list any attorney for Singh on Wednesday.
Noel's body hasn’t been found.
