Large searches for 6-year-old Noel canceled this weekend as police focus on data analysis
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The search for missing Everman, Texas, child Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez
Here is what’s known about the investigation and the events that police have pieced together so far.
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Investigators looking for missing 6-year-old Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez said they are canceling plans for large-scale searches this weekend and will focus on data analysis instead.
“The data analysis has led investigators to change that plan, and we are not able to release specific details just yet,” Everman Police Chief Craig Spencer said in a news release Friday.
Spencer said they have collected an “immense amount” of data on the case that’s taking hundreds of man-hours to analyze. While it is analyzed, investigators construct theories to work from. They are also continuing to receive and follow up on tips and other leads.
“Although this process certainly is not as expedient as any of us would like, rest assured that investigators are absolutely committed to this case and doing absolutely everything they can to locate Noel as quickly as we can,” Spencer said.
An Amber Alert was issued for Noel on March 24, four days after authorities received an anonymous tip that the 6-year-old Everman boy was missing and hadn’t been seen since November. The alert was changed to an Endangered Missing Persons alert when officials learned Noel’s mother, stepfather and six siblings had left the country on a flight with a final destination in India.
Spencer announced on April 6 that the search for Noel, who had disabilities including a chronic lung disease and developmental delay, had become a death investigation. But the child’s remains haven’t been found.
On Monday, authorities dug up a concrete patio that Noel’s mother, Cindy Rodriguez-Singh, paid to have built about a month before the family left the country. Cadaver dogs alerted to topsoil under the concrete, leading police to believe Noel’s body may have at one point been inside the shed that used to stand where the patio was built, according to police. Cadaver dogs also alerted to a carpet that was used as the floor of the shed.
In a search warrant filed Monday by investigators prior to digging up the patio, police said they interviewed the contractor who poured the concrete for the patio. He told authorities he helped Noel’s stepfather, Arshdeep Singh, tear down the shed, which had contained arcade machines.
The contractor also said that Rodriguez-Singh told him she wanted the concrete thicker on the east side for a gym, and she seemed in a hurry to get the job done. Rodriguez-Singh paid the contractor $5,000 for the job, according to a copy of the warrant obtained by the Star-Telegram.
The patio was built in the back yard on the property where the family lived on Wisteria Drive. The contractor began prepping the site and bringing in dirt on Feb. 28 and began pouring the concrete on March 3, according to the warrant.
Authorities learned that Arshdeep Singh had thrown away a large piece of carpet, believed to be the carpet from the shed, at his workplace on March 21, the day before the family left the country. Investigators found the green Astroturf-type carpet in the bottom of a large dumpster at Singh’s workplace, M&M Food Store at 100 N. Forest Hill Drive, according to the warrant.
The first cadaver dog that was used on March 31 did not initially alert to the carpet, but on Monday two cadaver dogs with more experience alerted to the smell of decomposing human remains on the carpet, the warrant said.
Police have said that through interviews with witnesses and other evidence such as cellphone data, investigators have disproved stories that Noel’s mother told to explain his disappearance. Those stories included that the boy was with relatives in Mexico and that she had sold him to someone.
Police have obtained warrants for the arrest of the mother and stepfather on charges of abandoning and endangering a child, and authorities are working to extradite the couple back to the U.S.
Noel was in foster care for about 15 months in 2020 and 2021. Noel’s mother regained custody of the boy in late 2021. Charles Parson, who owns the home where Rodriguez-Singh was staying in Everman, told the Star-Telegram that she had lost custody for a while after she crashed into a pole with some of her children in the car. She was convicted of driving while intoxicated in 2020 and received 10 years of probation, according to Tarrant County court records.
Police last week said the evidence has led them conclude that Noel is likely dead. Spencer said that according to police interviews with witnesses, Noel was abused and deprived of food and water by his mother, who told people she thought her son was evil and possessed by a demon who was going to hurt her newborn twin daughters.
This story was originally published April 14, 2023 at 2:01 PM.
