Human remains found in search for 6-year-old Everman boy Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez
Human remains, not yet officially identified, were found this week in an Everman backyard during the investigation of the disappearance and presumed death of 6-year-old Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez.
Authorities including Everman police, the FBI and the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office announced the major development in the case at a news conference at 11:30 a.m. Thursday.
The human remains will undergo forensic examination at the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office to make an identification, Everman Police Chief Al Brooks said.
“Today I want to begin by acknowledging the weight of this moment for our community, for those who have followed this case since its beginning and most importantly for the memory of little Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez,” Brooks said.
“What you’re seeing today is the result of a years-long investigation where very diligent investigators refused to give up on Noel,” the chief said. “I am profoundly grateful for the assistance that we have received from the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office and the FBI.”
Noel was last seen in the fall of 2022 and was reported missing months later in March 2023. Although the child’s body had not been found at the time, his mother, Cindy Rodriguez-Singh, was indicted in 2023 on a capital murder charge.
Tarrant County District Attorney Phil Sorrells also thanked the FBI and said that this week’s excavation of the yard of the home where the child’s family lived would not have been possible without the resources provided by federal investigators.
“Today marks an important step toward the pursuit of justice for Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez,” Sorrells said. “... Our focus remains on the successful prosecution of Cindy Rodriguez. We owe it to Noel. We owe it to our community to seek justice in this case, and we are determined to do just that.”
At the request of the DA’s office, this week investigators with the FBI and local law enforcement agencies have been digging up the backyard at the home where Noel lived with his family in the 3700 block of Wisteria Drive in Everman.
About 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, crews began to focus their search on an area near where a concrete patio was ripped up in a previous search for Noel, according to aerial video footage from a KDFW-TV helicopter. Crews shifted folding canopies to cover the area as more law enforcement resources, including crime-scene investigators, began to arrive at the house.
About 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, a white van backed down the driveway. A KXAS-TV reporter saw several investigators carrying a large tarp and loading it into the back of that van, when then drove to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office.
On Wednesday night, the district attorney’s office confirmed that the search had turned up new evidence.
In 2023, a cadaver dog alerted to topsoil near where the patio had been built in the home’s backyard, but as authorities dug deeper, the dog stopped picking up the scent, law enforcement sources said. Noel and his family lived mostly in a converted shed behind the home. A piece of an outdoor rug recovered in 2023 was also sent to an FBI lab for analysis.
Noel, who had physical and intellectual disabilities, was last seen in October 2022. Rodriguez-Singh was arrested in New Delhi, India, in August 2025 after being listed on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. With her husband and six of her other children, she flew from Dallas-Fort Worth to India when police began searching for Noel in 2023.
Everman police have described Rodriguez-Singh as an abusive parent who deprived Noel of food and water because she did not like changing his diaper. At least once she struck him with a set of keys because he drank water, police said. Rodriguez-Singh called Noel evil and a demon, police have said.
Last month, Rodriguez-Singh was found incompetent to stand trial in the death of her son.
Rodriguez-Singh was ordered to be admitted to a maximum security unit at a state hospital in an effort to restore her competency to stand trial in the future, officials have said. She remains in the Tarrant County Jail while waiting for space to open at a hospital.
Sorrells, the district attorney, said Thursday that prosecutors believe Rodriguez-Singh will regain competency in the foreseeable future. “So she will stand trial for this,” he said.
Defendants’ needs vary, and any diagnosis made by the psychologist who examined Rodriguez-Singh on March 26 has not been made public because the resulting psychiatric evaluation report was filed under seal. The psychologist determined either that Rodriguez-Singh does not have sufficient ability to consult with her attorney with a reasonable degree of rational understanding or that she does not have a rational and factual understanding of the proceedings.
Competency restoration attempts usually involve medication management and counseling, according to two criminal defense attorneys familiar with competency matters.
The new resident at the family’s former home, Amber Duffins, told KDFW that she had no idea the home was connected to an active federal investigation when she moved in over a year ago. Authorities gave Duffins, who has a young child, advance notice of the planned digging so that she and her family could stay in a hotel.
“Part of me doesn’t want a baby to be back there, and part of me does just so he can have the closure and everybody else who’s been following this case since it first happened,” Duffins said on Wednesday. “But I just hope that the baby gets the closure.”
The shed where Noel and his family lived is now unoccupied and just serves as a shed, Duffins said.
This story was originally published May 14, 2026 at 11:07 AM.
