A MONSTER dad has been caged for life for killing his three-year-old daughter – then trying to claim she’d choked to death on milk after her body was found stuffed down a drain.
Texan man Wesley Mathews, 39, was accused of treating his adopted, special needs toddler, Sherin, like “rubbish” as her remains had been shoved into a blue plastic bag.
Mathews was initially charged with capital murder but pleaded guilty on Monday to a lesser charge of injury to a child by omission.
After deliberating for more than three hours, a Dallas County jury sentenced him to life in prison in the 2017 death of Sherin, whom he claimed choked on milk before he panicked and placed her body in a culvert.
Mathews had told investigators that Sherin had developmental disabilities and was malnourished.
He described a special diet regimen in which she had to often eat in order to gain weight.
Mathews testified that the little girl was startled late one night in October 2017 when he raised his voice while she was drinking milk for nourishment, causing her to choke on the drink.
Her body went limp and he panicked when he was unable to resuscitate her, he testified.
But he didn’t alert his wife, a registered nurse, or call 911 because he was afraid child welfare authorities would become involved.
Mathews said: “I could not absorb what had happened. I could not believe that in a very quick time my child had gone from me.”
He placed his daughter’s body in a plastic bag and drove it to a culvert not far from their Richardson home where he left it, according to prosecutors and police.
Her body was found by searchers about two weeks later.
Good dads don’t dump their daughter in sewage drains.
Jason Fine, Dallas County prosecutor
An autopsy determined she had died from homicidal violence.
Mathews initially told police Sherin disappeared after he punished her by sending her out in the night to stand by a tree near the home.
Jason Fine, a Dallas County prosecutor, accused Mathews of treating his daughter like rubbish, asking him: “Is this the exact type of bag you put Sherin in?”
After he confirmed the plastic bag was similar to the one used, Fine asked, “what do you call this?”
Mathews replied: “It’s a blue bag.”
The prosecutor continued: “This is a blue bag? What do you put in it? What do you put in this bag generally besides your daughter?”
Mathews said: “I never used it before.”
Asking the jury to hand down a life sentence to Mathews, Fine said: “Good dads don’t dump their daughter in sewage drains.”
Defence lawyer Rafael De La Garza asked jurors to impose a lesser punishment because the child’s death was the result of inaction by her father.
The prosecution was unable to call any witness who ever saw Mathews mistreat his daughter, De La Garza added.
Prosecutors told jurors, however, that Mathews had lied about how his daughter died, gave conflicting accounts of what transpired and had shown no remorse over the death of his daughter, who was adopted from an orphanage in India.
The claim that the toddler choked on milk could not be believed because a medical examiner testified that it was unlikely a child could die in such a way, prosecutors said.
They also argued with Mathews over several of Sherin’s prior injuries, reports Fox 4.
Doctors testified that she suffered five broken bones after she had been adopted – which Mathews argued was not true.
The prosecutor also discussed his statements about Sherin’s body being dumped in a drain.
He had said that he sat there for a while, with her remains, hoping a snake would bite and kill him.
Mathews admitted that he should have gone to seek help, but he was too tired at the time.
His wife, Sini Mathews, was initially charged with child abandonment but prosecutors later dropped it for lack of evidence.
The couple early last year lost their parental rights to their biological daughter, aged four.
The owner of the now-closed Mother Teresa Orphanage and Children’s Home in the Indian city of Nalanda previously disputed that Sherin was malnourished.
Babita Kumari said Sherin squinted in one eye but otherwise had nothing wrong with her when she was adopted from the orphanage in June 2016.
Mathews – who showed no emotion when the verdict was read – will be eligible for parole after 30 years’ imprisonment.
