‘It’s heartbreaking,’ Everman community mourn Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez
Flower spinners in different shades of blue, Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez’s favorite color, rotated Thursday afternoon at a temporary memorial honoring him at Everman Memorial Park.
Community members stopped by the memorial at 501 N. Race St. with flowers, balloons and stuffed animals to pay their respects. Siblings Luna, a fourth grader, and Evan, a first grader, wanted to do something different for Noel.
The siblings wrote a letter to the school requesting to give their awards to Noel on the last day of school, Principal Ronna Montgomery said. That is when Montogomery decided that Noel should be receiving his own “Forever Bulldog” award.
“We are here to honor a precious little boy, although many of us did not know him personally, his loss is felt by all of us,” Montgomery said, presenting a certificate at the memorial, just as she would have done at a school ceremony.”
The memorial is open daily from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. and will remain in place until Noel is buried at his final resting place, according to the City of Everman.
The human remains found on May 13 in the backyard of the Everman home where the missing 6-year-old lived were positively identified, using dental records, as belonging to the child, according to the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office,
FBI agents and local authorities searched the area for three days. Noel hadn’t been seen alive since October 2022, the DA’s office has said.
Noel’s mother, 41-year-old Cindy Rodriguez-Singh, was arrested in India last summer. Last month, Rodriguez-Singh was found incompetent to stand trial on a capital murder charge in her son’s death, and she will be sent to a state mental health facility until her competency is restored.
A special tribute
Her children wanted to do something more than just bring him a small toy or flowers, Lluvia Martinez said. “For them, receiving an award is like their best day of the night because they feel like superheroes and the round of applause makes them feel alive” — they wanted to bring a little bit of this happiness to Noel, she said.
No kid deserves to be an angel at such an early age, “that light is not supposed to be taken out, so it’s really heartbreaking,” she said.
Even though years have passed, Martinez said “you still think maybe they are hiding him somewhere and he will appear and whenever you realize he will no longer come back, it breaks your heart, it really does.”
Wendy Ratcliff, 67, who has grandchildren Noel’s age, wanted to come to the memorial to honor him and pray for the community, “because the family obviously didn’t care about him,” she said.
“If you don’t want your children, there’s plenty of people that will take them,” Ratcliff said. “So I just find it heartbreaking that we’ve ended like this.”
Ratcliff said the only thing that brings her peace is knowing Noel is safe in God’s arms. “He wasn’t safe where he was, and someone I’ll never forget, even though I did not know him. I know he’s in Jesus’ arms right now — pain-free and running like a little boy should.”
Don Hickman, 87, who has lived in Everman for more than five decades, said while the community searched for answers, he hoped Noel would be found in India before his remains were discovered.
“Rest in peace, sorry for your demise you didn’t deserve that,” Hickman said.
This story was originally published May 24, 2026 at 3:37 PM.