Texas Authorities Search for Missing Endangered 6-Year-Old Whose Family Fled the Country

A 6-year-old Texas boy is missing, some family members say they haven’t seen him since November, and his mother and other family members apparently boarded a flight to Turkey earlier this week.

Everman Police Chief Craig Spencer said that Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez has severe health problems and investigators are concerned he’s not getting the care he needs, according to WFAA.

“He was born at 25 weeks and therefore has a lot of physical disabilities and developmental disorders,” Spencer said. “He suffers from social disorder … and has chronic lung disease, which has required him to be on oxygen at certain points of time.”

Spencer told WFAA that Texas Child Protective Investigations (CPI) contacted his department on Monday after family members told them they hadn’t seen little Noel since November. Police responded to the home and spoke with the mother, 37-year-old Cindy Rodriguez-Singh, who told them that Noel had been with his biological father in Mexico since November.

“At that time, there were no indications present to the officers that would warrant any further investigation,” Spencer said. Police passed the information to CPI.

Noel’s father never met his son

But on Thursday, CPI contacted police again, saying they’d found Noel’s father in Mexico, who told them he didn’t have the boy and that he’d never even met him because he was deported before Noel was born. US Department of Homeland Security records corroborated the father’s story, Spencer said.

Police tried to reach Rodriguez-Singh and were unable to do so. “It appeared to the CPI investigator that the mother was intentionally avoiding authorities,” Spencer said. “This prompted an investigation into the child’s whereabouts.”

Investigators checked into the school where Rodriguez-Singh’s other children attended, only to learn that they were absent and that their mother had asked about unenrolling them.

Police issued a warrant for her arrest, charging her with false reports about a missing mperson and a probation violation for a crime unrelated to Noel’s disappearance. At about midnight on Saturday, police issued an Amber Alert, and multiple agencies set out to find Rodriguez-Singh, her husband, and six other children — 5-month-old twins, and 7-, 8-, 9-, and 11-year-olds.

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Family flees to Turkey

Then, investigators learned that the family had gotten on a flight to Istanbul, Turkey, on Thursday — and that Noel was not listed as a passenger on the flight.

The Amber Alert was discontinued and replaced with an Endangered Missing Persons Alert.