Indian woman harassed after false ID in Sherin Mathews case

Team Udayavani, Oct 31, 2017, 3:27 PM IST

Houston: An Indian-origin woman, whose name closely resembles to that of Sherin Mathews’s mom, has received a barrage of unwanted attention on social media in a case of mistaken identity after the 3-year-old Indian girl was found dead.

Sherin, who went missing on October 7, was found dead in a culvert under a road about 1 km from her home in suburban Dallas on October 22. Sherin was adopted by the Indian-American couple, Wesley Mathews and Sini Mathews, from an orphanage in India last year.

Ash Mathew’s connection to this tragic story is a little different. Ash is married to a woman by the name of Sini Mathew. That name closely resembles that of Sini Mathews, who happens to be Sherin’s mom, local TV Station WFAA reported.

Ash’s wife Sini Mathew has received huge unwanted attention after being falsely identified as the mother of Sherin. Wrongly circulated photo of Ash’s family identified them as the toddler’s parents, the report said.”When they posted the picture, that was the worst part,” Ash told WFAA.

“People were sending friendship requests for her (Sini) because they think it’s her. We keep deleting them, but they keep coming,” he added. Mathew’s wife has changed her name and privacy settings on social media, but it has not stopped the questions from rolling in.

“Why are you staying quiet? Why are we not saying anything? How can that man do that?” are some of the questions posted to them, Mathew said. Wesley Mathews, 37, the Indian-American foster father of Sherin, has been charged with first-degree felony injury to a child due to a conflicting statement to police.

He had previously claimed that Sherin went missing after he sent her outside their home at around 3 am on October 7 as punishment for not drinking her milk. He said that 15 minutes later, she was gone, and later claimed that coyotes had been seen in the very area where he had sent his daughter.

Later, Wesley voluntarily told the police that his daughter choked while drinking milk and he removed her body from the house as he “believed she had died”. The girl’s body was discovered on October 22 in a culvert.