Authorities believe a child missing from a Fort Worth suburb may be in danger.
Officials issued an Amber Alert for 6-year-old Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez on March 25. This Amber Alert was dropped later that day, and an Endangered Missing Persons Alert was issued for the child, according to the Daily Beast.
The young boy has a number of disabilities, including chronic lung disease.
Everman police said at a news conference that Noel’s mother, Cindy Rodriguez-Singh, who reportedly had custody of the child, had an “extensive criminal history involving alcohol-related offenses” and had allegedly been avoiding contact with law enforcement.
“Child Protective Investigations (CPI) informed us that they had attempted to make contact with the mother of the child and had learned that she had taken the children from school and had not returned to school that day. That’s when the concern began,” said Everman Police Chief Craig Spence at the news conference.
Law enforcement officers previously conducted a wellness check on the family home. The mother told officers that Noel had been living in Mexico with his biological father since November 2022.
However, CPI apparently discovered that the father in Mexico had not even met his son, as he had been deported before the child’s birth.
CPI officials were unsuccessful in contacting the mother again and were unable to determine if Rodriguez-Alvarez was in the custody of another family member, prompting the Amber Alert and a subsequent arrest warrant for Rodriguez-Singh to be issued.
Police said that the initial Amber Alert was discontinued and the Endangered Missing Persons Alert was issued after discovering that the child’s immediate family, including the mother, stepfather, and six other children, had apparently boarded a flight to Istanbul on March 23. Noel’s name was reportedly not with his family’s names on the list of passengers.
A vehicle allegedly belonging to the family was found abandoned at DFW International Airport, according to CBS News.
Police could not confirm whether Turkey was the family’s final destination.
Spencer described this case as one of the “strangest” he has worked on, adding that the department’s goal was to ensure the child’s welfare.
“We have a six-year-old disabled boy who cannot be accounted for, is missing, and the mother is not willing to cooperate with investigators to simply assure that the child is safe, and we are desperately seeking the public’s help,” Spencer said at the press conference.