A 6-year-old boy with disabilities vanished in Texas and federal investigators are searching for two fugitives — his Mexican-American mother and his Indian-American stepfather.
While searching for Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez at his home, police officers stumbled upon an altar with candles and skeleton figurines. They quickly learned Noel’s mother, Cindy Rodriguez, was a follower of the Santa Muerte, a deity that the DEA has come to know as Mexicans’ matron saint of the drug war.
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Police officers also learned Rodriguez, 37, had eight children and she believed Noel, the boy who vanished, was possessed by a demon and she feared that he was so evil that he could hurt his siblings. Rodriguez gave birth to twin girls in October.
“I am incredibly sad to share with you today that the search for Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez is now officially a death investigation,” Everman Chief Craig Spencer said on Thursday.
Rodriguez applied for passports for herself and her seven children in November, but not for Noel, police said. When people took notice of Noel’s absence, police said Rodriguez allegedly told someone that Noel was visiting his biological father who lived in Mexico.
“Investigators learned that near this timeline, Cindy even asked an acquaintance of hers if she could borrow her son for a doctor’s appointment so that she could keep the benefits,” Spencer said.
While searching for Noel, investigators found that the Mexican man who she said was his father said he had never actually met Noel because he was deported. Rodriguez and her husband Arshdeep Singh boarded a flight to Turkey and India on March 23 with the seven kids, police said.
Texas issued an Amber Alert on March 25 and on April 6 announced that they had evidence that indicated that Noel was most likely dead.