Trial for Richardson father accused of killing Sherin Mathews to start Monday

The capital murder trial for Wesley Mathews is scheduled to begin Monday and may finally explain what happened the night Sherin Mathews died.

Wesley Mathews initially told police his 3-year-old adopted daughter was missing after he put her outside Oct. 7, 2017, because she wouldn’t drink her milk.

His story changed after Sherin’s body was found weeks later in a culvert near the family’s Richardson home.

Mathews, 39, faces four felony charges in connection with his daughter’s death. If convicted of capital murder, he will receive an automatic sentence of life without parole.

Sherin was adopted by Wesley and Sini Mathews in the summer of 2016. The child was believed to have special needs and was undernourished.

Prior to her adoption, Sherin was abandoned by her biological parents in Gaya, India, and taken to a local orphanage in Nalanda.

But after the Mathews couple brought the girl to Richardson, they “failed to provide adequate nutrition to Sherin Mathews from Sept. 1, 2016 until the time of her death,” court records show.

Prosecutors are expected to present evidence that Sherin’s adopted parents did not take her to a doctor for multiple bone fractures.

The parents knew about Sherin’s injuries yet neglected to seek proper medical care

A doctor is expected to testify during the trial that Wesley Mathews did not seek medical treatment for a week for Sherin’s broken bones in February 2017. The parents told the doctor Sherin broke her arm during a fall from a couch, court records show.

Fractures to the girl’s shoulders were consistent with yanking or pulling and not with an accidental fall, prosecutors have said during pre-trial hearings.

Doctors also discovered other fractures on Sherin, including to her tibia and femur. Those injuries had not been reported to doctors by the parents.