Without comment, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals today rejected a petition for discretionary review filed by Wesley Mathews of Richardson.
Mathews pleaded guilty to a charge of injury to a child by omission for the Oct. 7, 2017 murder of his three year old adopted daughter Sherin Mathews. A jury sentenced Mathews to life in prison.
"This is one of those causes that just haunts you forever," said Jason Fine, the lead prosecutor on the case. "Certainly glad that, at least for Mr. Mathews, that he will spending, what I believe will be, the rest of his life in prison for this."
The case captivated the public and swung wildly as Mathews' stories about the possible fate of the girl changed.
The first hint of trouble came when Mathews reported the girl was missing after he left her outside the family's home around 3 a.m., as punishment for not drinking her milk, he said. He then waited five hours to contact authorities. Mathews then led Richardson Police on a wild goose chase knowing where her body was the entire time. At one point Mathews suggested that it was possible coyotes had carried the girl off. But the story changed two weeks later after the decomposed body of the child was found in a culvert, not far from the family home.
Both Mathews and his wife Sini Mathews were arrested on charges related to the death. Prosecutors later dropped their case against Mrs. Mathews.
The Richardson man ultimately admitted to a charge of injury to a child charge and testified during his sentencing hearing.
At one point during his testimony, Mathews commented it wasn't fair he was alive while Sherin is dead.
F Fine pounced on the statement asking if Mathews would just take a life sentence, Mathews responded by saying it was up to the jury and he would take what they gave him.
Mathews testified that his daughter Sherin choked on milk, and despite his efforts to save her, she died. Instead of calling police, however, he panicked and says he was overtaken by fear that CPS would destroy his family, so he put Sherin's body in a bag and drove until he found a culvert to put her body in.
During cross-examination of Mathews, Fine told the defendant, "you told investigators Sherin's death was a mistake but by your own words, you caused the death of your daughter and put her lifeless body in a trash bag and disposed of her. I don't call that a mistake, I call it murder."
Later in closing arguments, Fine told jurors, "Sherin's little body was so badly decomposed, due to the actions of this defendant, the medical examiner could not determine an official cause of death which could have dramatically changed the way we were able to prosecute this case."
In the appeal, Mathews claimed the testimony of a nurse, who showed emotion during the sentencing hearing had an undo influence on the jury. And although he wasn't surprised that the Court of Criminal Appeals declined to hear the case, Mathews' appellate attorney, Michael Casillas, still believes that was a credible issue.
"It was one of the saddest, most troubling cases I've had to deal with in almost 30 years," Casillas said. "I do think that there were legitimate legal issues and I'm disillusioned at the way the legal issues got addressed."
