John Jefferson
Left: Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez (Everman Police Department). Right: Cindy Rodriguez-Singh (FBI).
Federal authorities have upped the ante in the long-frustrating case of a woman wanted for the disappearance and the presumed death of Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez, her 6-year-old, disabled son.
On Thursday, the Dallas FBI announced they issued an Unlawful Flight to Avoid Prosecution (UFAP) warrant for Cindy Rodriguez-Singh — along with a $25,000 reward for information leading to her capture.
“Cindy Rodriguez Singh is wanted for allegedly murdering her own young son,” Dallas FBI Special Agent in Charge Chad Yarbrough said during a press conference. “I am confident that the combination of publicity, significant reward offering, and the team of experienced investigators assembled by the FBI Fort Worth Resident Agency violent crime squad, Everman Police Department, Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office and Texas DPS-Texas Rangers will lead to her arrest. The community of Everman needs justice for Noel.”
Noel was last seen alive in October 2022.
Since November of that year, various witnesses have relayed various versions of stories to law enforcement — allegedly told by the boy’s mother — purporting to account for his whereabouts.
In March 2023, his entire family fled to India.
Law enforcement previously learned that Rodriguez-Singh boarded an international flight bound for India two days before an Amber Alert was issued about Noel’s disappearance. Also on that flight were the defendant’s six other children and husband, Arshdeep Singh.
Theories that supported the notion the boy was still alive, however, were quickly replaced by the conviction that he had died — somehow — at the hands of his own mother. To date, Noel’s body has yet to be found. Overall, physical evidence in the case has been relatively sparse.
Everman Police Chief Craig Spencer has doggedly addressed the case — since its inception as a criminal matter in late March 2023 — from his position in the small town, a Fort Worth suburb.
During the press conference, the police chief said he was “confident” the reward money offered would “undoubtedly” generate new leads, according to a report by Fort Worth-based NBC affiliate KXAS.
“The work on this case has never stopped. That’s evident today,” Spencer said. “As you can see, we are truly unified with the common goals of seeking justice for Noel and sharing the message that there is no such thing as a throw-away child.”
On March 20, 2023, child protective services agents relayed information that Noel had not been seen in a month. Once officers made contact with the boy’s mother, she said her son had been living with his biological father in Mexico since November 2022. At the time, the mother’s word and provision of the father’s contact information was enough to preclude further investigation, police said.
Three days later, child protective agents followed up with police and said they received additional information from other family members who indicated the boy’s whereabouts were unknown and “expressed significant concern for his welfare,” the police chief said. Officers picked up the case again, eventually locating Noel’s biological father, who said the boy was not, in fact, living with him in Mexico. Rather, the father said, he had been deported before he ever met his son.
Since the Rodriguez-Singh family’s rushed flight out of the country, a steady drip of sad and troubling developments seemingly confirmed the community’s worst-held fears in Everman.
Cindy Rodriguez-Singh’s wanted poster (FBI).
For several months, leads all pointed in one direction: death.
A search warrant alleged that Noel’s mother told his grandmother she had sold him to another woman at a Fiesta Market — a chain of Latin-American grocery stores prevalent throughout North Texas. When announcing that warrant, Spencer said the boy’s mother had, in the days leading to his death, described Noel as “evil, possessed, or having a demon in him.”
Then, investigators alleged Rodriguez-Singh worshipped and idolized a cult-like folk saint who personifies death and is popularly thought to favor the activities of violent drug cartels — citing such claims as “very important” to the case of the missing boy.
Although it had been more or less clear to law enforcement for months that Rodriguez-Singh was behind the boy’s disappearance, grand jurors only formalized those suspicions in October 2023.
On Oct. 30, 2023, Rodriguez-Singh was indicted in Tarrant County on one count of capital murder, two counts of injury to a child, and one count of abandoning a child without intent to return.
Months passed. Eventually, the leads ran out. The UFAP warrant was issued. Still no luck. So, now the FBI is offering incentives.
“He’s a six-year-old child murdered by his mother and anyone who does not have compassion for that and having justice for Noel, hopefully that alone will lead to them calling,” Yarbrough said.
The police chief echoed the gravity of the situation.
“The immediate capture of Cindy Rodriguez Singh is so incredibly important in the interest of justice, the safety of our communities, as well as the safety of the other children in her custody,” Spencer said.
Noel’s one-time foster mother also spoke up about the case this week in an interview with Dallas-based ABC affiliate WFAA.
“Cindy, I think you need to come back, turn yourself in, and face the consequences of what you’ve done,” she told the TV station. “It’s not too late to tell what you know.”
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
Read the full article here