Texas Boy Missing Amid Disturbing Living Conditions and Mysterious Family Disappearance (Photo : Everman Emergency Services)
A six-year-old Texas boy, Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez, who has been missing for almost a week, was reportedly living in a squalid shed featuring a death altar before his disappearance. Dallas' Fox station obtained video footage revealing the appalling conditions of the shack, where the boy lived with eight other people.
Located in Everman, Texas, the shed contained an altar dedicated to Santa Muerte, or Saint Death, a female cult figure representing death in Mexico. Despite the Catholic Church's denunciation of the figure, Santa Muerte has gained popularity, especially among members of the Gulf, Sinaloa, and Juarez drug cartels, according to the DEA.
FBI investigators have been assisting local authorities in the small town south of Fort Worth, collecting documents and other evidence from the site. An Amber Alert was issued for Noel on Saturday after family members informed the police and child protective services that they had not seen the boy, who has physical and developmental challenges, for several months. His mother is believed to have left the country.
Everman Police Chief Craig Spencer told WFAA that the boy "was born at 25 weeks and therefore, has a lot of physical disabilities and developmental disorders." He also mentioned Noel's social disorder and chronic lung disease, which occasionally necessitated the use of oxygen.
When initially contacted by the police and child protective services, Noel's mother, Cindy Rodriguez-Singh, claimed he was in Mexico with his biological father. However, it later emerged that the boy's father had never met him, having been deported from the US before his birth.
Authorities discovered that Noel's siblings had been taken out of school, and before they could locate Rodriguez-Singh again, she and her husband had flown to Turkey with six of her children, ultimately heading to India. Noel was not on the flight, according to Everman police.
Charles Parson, 71, owns the property where the shed is located. He met Rodriguez-Singh at a grocery store nearly ten years ago and provided her with two rooms in his home when she was a struggling single mother. She later moved into the shed as her family expanded to ten children, three of whom now live with their grandparents.
Parson, who regards himself as Noel's godfather, is confident that the boy's mother did not harm him and that he is still alive. An arrest warrant has been issued for Rodriguez-Singh, who will face charges for making false reports to a police officer about a missing person and for violating her probation in an unrelated case. Police describe her as having an "extensive criminal history" and being the subject of a previous Child Protective Services investigation.
