Houston: The Indian-American foster father of Indian toddler Sherin, was sentenced to life by a Dallas judge on Wednesday (June 26) for the tragic death of the three-year-old in 2017, in a case that attracted international attention.
Wesley Mathews, 39, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of injury to a child in Sherin's death. He was originally charged with capital murder by authorities in the US state of Texas.
The 12-member jury deliberated Wednesday afternoon for about three hours before coming to a unanimous decision to give Mathews a life sentence in the death of his adopted daughter, Sherin. He will be eligible for parole after 30 years' imprisonment.
Prosecutors argued that Mathews, hailing from Kerala, killed Sherin in October 2017. She was adopted by Mathews, who claimed that Sherin accidentally choked to death on milk, and his wife Sini from an orphanage in Bihar in 2016.
Defence attorney Rafael De La Garza argued that Mathews was a good father who panicked when his daughter choked and did not call for help.
He argued that prosecutors could not prove that Mathews killed his child and said he was only guilty of not calling 911, the emergency helpline.
Police charged Sherin's foster mother Sini, a registered nurse, with child abandonment in November 2017, after her husband told officials the couple left the toddler alone the night of her death while they went to dinner with their biological daughter.
Sini's case was dismissed in March this year after prosecutors said they could not prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.
Sini sat in the courtroom during closing arguments on Wednesday. After the judge read the sentence, she quickly left the courtroom. She and Wesley were both arrested after Sherin's body was found. The couple later lost custody of their biological daughter.
The toddler's death attracted the attention of the Indian government and the then foreign minister Sushma Swaraj took keen interest in the case and also instructed the Indian mission in Houston to make sure that Sherin received justice. India further tightened the adoption process after the tragic death.
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