Police are searching for a three-year-old girl who went missing after her dad sent her outside in the middle of the night to punish her for not drinking milk.
Sherin Mathews was last seen standing outside alone in the middle of the night by her father, Wesley Mathews, outside their Texas home.
Mathews told police he took his daughter outside and told her to stand by a tree to discipline her for refusing to finish her glass of milk and when he returned 15 minutes later, she was gone.
Mathews, 37, didn’t call the police for another five hours and when they finally arrived, he said coyotes had recently been spotted close to the spot Sherin was last seen and the backyard lead to railway tracks.
“Why was the last sighting at 3 o’clock and the parents not call us until after 8 a.m., that’s the question we want answered,” Richardson police spokesman Sgt. Kevin Perlich told the Dallas Morning News.
Mathews was arrested on charges of abandoning endangering a child and released on a $250,000 bond, officials said.
Mathews’ other daughter, who is four-years-old, was removed from the family home on Monday by Texas Child Protective Services.
The Mathews adopted the missing girl from an Indian orphanage nearly two years ago, according to one of their neighbours, and the older sister is their biological child.
Police fear Sherin is in grave and immediate danger and described her as having developmental issues and “limited verbal communication skills”.
The police are yet to have any leads on the missing girl’s location despite going from door-to-door around her neighbourhood and surrounding areas.
