Father of missing 3-year-old girl arrested after changing story

Sherin Mathews, 3. Photo / AP

The father of a missing 3-year-old has been arrested and charged after he changed his story about her disappearance, Texas police said.

Wesley Mathews provided "an alternate statement of events" about his daughter Sherin to detectives hours after the body of a small child was found, Richardson police said.

Mathews had claimed she went missing after he sent her alone into an alley when she wouldn't drink her milk. Authorities did not provide details of Mathews' new statement.

He has been charged with injury to a child, which is punishable by life or from five to 99 years in prison.

Earlier, police said they have "most likely" found the body of Sherin Mathews.

Officers and search dogs discovered a small child's body in a culvert near Spring Valley and Bowser roads, less than 1.5km from the Mathews' home in a suburb north of Dallas. Sherin disappeared on October 7.

A police spokesman told reporters that investigators have no reason to believe that the body belongs to another missing child. They are awaiting positive identification and for an autopsy to determine what killed the child. Investigators have notified Sherin's parents.

Mathews had been arrested on child abandonment and endangerment charges the same day that Sherin went missing but was released on bail.

Sherin's 4-year-old sister has been taken into custody by child protective services and placed in foster care.

Sherin's disappearance has transfixed the Dallas area. Her father originally told investigators that he looked outside 15 minutes after he sent Sherin into the alley but she was gone, according to police affidavits.

Not yet too worried, the father said, he then did a load of laundry, according to the affidavit. He waited until after sunrise before he reported the disappearance to police.

Police said Sherin's mother was asleep during the incident and has not been charged.

Mathews and his wife adopted Sherin about two years ago from an orphanage in India.