Mother accused of killing Everman boy Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez appears in court
Cindy Rodriguez-Singh, the Everman mother accused of killing her 6-year-old developmentally disabled son, appeared in a Tarrant County criminal court Thursday morning for an early pre-trial hearing.
Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez hasn’t been seen since late 2022 and is presumed dead, even though his body has never been found. A Tarrant County grand jury indicted Rodriguez-Singh with capital murder of a person under 10 years of age in October 2023.
Rodriguez-Singh, 40, is being held in the Tarrant County Jail on a $10 million bond, according to court records. She was arrested in India and extradited to the United States in August.
At Thursday’s hearing, prosecutor Ashlea Deener received permission from Judge Julie Lugo to photograph the defendant’s tattoos and obtain a swab for DNA testing. The state intends to display the tattoos to the jury during the trial. Rodriguez-Singh was in the courtroom for less than five minutes.
The search for Noel began more than two years ago after a concerned relative from out of town alerted Texas Child Protective Services that the child hadn’t been seen since the previous fall. On March 20, 2023, Everman police showed up at the family’s home on Wisteria Drive for a welfare check.
Rodriguez-Singh told them the boy was with his biological father in Mexico. Investigators spoke with Noel’s father, who told them that wasn’t the case. Federal authorities confirmed there was no record of Noel crossing the border into Mexico.
Police tried to get in touch with Rodriguez-Singh again, but were unsuccessful. An Amber Alert was issued for Noel the morning of March 25, 2023. That night police learned that Rodriguez-Singh, along with her husband and six of her other children, had left the United States for India three days before.
After a two-year international investigation, Rodriguez-Singh was apprehended by FBI agents in India. In September, she was indicted on charges of abandoning a child without intent to return, leaving a child without proper care and two counts of injury to a child, according to court documents.
Authorities haven’t publicly revealed the whereabouts of her husband, Arshdeep Singh, who was charged in U.S. district court with flight to avoid prosecution. It’s also not clear whether Rodriguez-Singh’s other children have been brought back to the U.S.
What happened to Noel is the question that persists. Rodriguez-Singh’s next court date is set for Jan. 15. Attorneys Bob Gill and Eric Nickols have been appointed to represent her.
This story was originally published October 16, 2025 at 6:17 PM.
