Richardson dad who let 3-year-old Sherin Mathews die ‘over milk’
gets life in prison

DALLAS, TX  –  A Richardson father was sentenced to life in prison Wednesday for dumping the body of his adopted 3-year-old daughter in a culvert after he says she choked to death on milk.

“This whole thing was about anger and frustration over milk,” lead prosecutor Jason Fine said, arguing that Wesley Mathews had been force-feeding the girl.

Sherin Mathews’ father deleted internet searches, messages before her body was found, prosecutors say

Jurors spent about three hours deliberating the punishment for Mathews, who this week pleaded guilty to injury to a child in the October 2017 death of Sherin Mathews.

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They were unanimous in their decision, which elicited little reaction from the 39-year-old defendant.  Mathews stared straight ahead as the verdict was read and did not look at jurors.

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His wife, Sini Mathews, quickly left the courthouse without commenting on the sentence.  Originally charged with child abandonment, the registered nurse had her case dismissed earlier this year by prosecutors who said they couldn’t prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.

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Before his capital murder trial was to begin Monday, Mathews pleaded guilty to a lesser charge: injury to a child by omission.  On Wednesday, he said he accepted whatever decision the jury came to for his punishment, even if it were a life sentence.

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“I’m more than happy to take it,” he said Wednesday morning.

Life is precisely what prosecutors advocated for in closing arguments.  They argued that Mathews built a public persona of a good father, but ultimately failed to protect Sherin.

Fine accused Mathews of killing the girl and said the father acted out of anger because she wouldn’t finish the milk a doctor had prescribed for her nutrition.  The father wanted to exert power over the girl, Fine said.

“He is a liar,” Fine said.  “He had to be in control.”

Rafael De La Garza, Mathews’ attorney, defended his client against the murder accusation.  He argued prosecutors couldn’t prove Mathews committed murder, otherwise he would have stood trial on that charge.

De La Garza contends that, by pleading guilty, Mathews was accepting responsibility for Sherin’s death, the result of his inaction when the child began to choke.  The attorney fought against the perception that Mathews didn’t care about Sherin, and said his client will live with the consequences of her death for the rest of his life.
“You can see from the videos, you can see from the photos that they loved and adored Sherin,” De La Garza told the jury.

Photos and home videos played for the jury during the trial weren’t enough for Fine, however.  He argued that Mathews showed his true colors with his behavior after Sherin’s death.

“Great guys and great dads, they don’t stick their daughters in trash bags and dump them in sewage drains,” Fine said.

A day before prosecutors and the defense rested their case Wednesday, Mathews took the witness stand Tuesday to describe the night the toddler died.

He told jurors that Sherin choked while drinking milk in the family’s garage but he didn’t call for emergency help or alert his wife — a registered nurse — because he was scared Child Protective Services would get involved.

Crippled by fear, Mathews testified, he put the girl’s body in a culvert, where it was found about two weeks later.

“I could not absorb what had happened.  I could not believe that in a very quick time my child had gone from me,” Mathews said Tuesday.  “I was really, really paralyzed.”

Mathews took the witness stand again Wednesday morning, when Fine grilled him on multiple inconsistencies between the account he told police and his testimony Tuesday.

On Tuesday, Mathews told the jury he brought the girl into the garage to see a new lawnmower to calm her down so she could drink her milk, and that he had played piano to pass the time — two things Fine said he never told police.  Mathews also testified that he gave Sherin CPR, which Fine said also deviated from what he told police.