A Texas woman who fled the country after the disappearance of her 6-year-old son has been arrested in India after more than two years on the lam and returned to the United States to face murder charges, the FBI said Thursday.
The woman, Cindy Rodriguez Singh, 40, had been placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list in July. In late 2023, she was charged with murder in Tarrant County, Texas, in connection with the disappearance of her son, Noel Alvarez, who is presumed dead but whose body has never been found.
The mystery surrounding Noel’s disappearance has gripped Everman, Texas, a green suburb of modest ranch houses outside Fort Worth where he lived with his mother. A playground has been opened there in his honor.
The boy was last seen alive in October 2022, the FBI said. Rodriguez Singh told law enforcement officials who visited the family’s home in March 2023 for a welfare check interview that Noel was living with his biological father in Mexico.
Two days later, Rodriguez Singh boarded a flight to India with her husband, Arshdeep Singh, and six children, according to the FBI.
Kash Patel, the FBI director, said on social media that the authorities did not believe Rodriguez Singh had been back to the United States since then. The arrest was made in coordination with Indian law enforcement agencies and Interpol, he said.
The Indian authorities located Rodriguez Singh, and the FBI transferred her to the United States, where she is now in custody at the Tarrant County jail, according to a statement released Thursday by the FBI’s Dallas office. Rodriguez Singh could not be reached for comment, and it was unclear if she had a lawyer.
“The return of Cindy Rodriguez Singh from India is a new chapter in the search for answers in the disappearance of Noel Alvarez,” said R. Joseph Rothrock, the special agent in charge of the FBI office in Dallas. “It proves once again that justice has no borders,” he added, thanking the authorities in New Delhi for their cooperation in arresting the fugitive.
Rodriguez Singh now faces a federal charge of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, in addition to the state charge for killing her young son.
“We’re very satisfied she’s been taken into custody,” said Al Brooks, the Everman chief of police.
Patel said Rodriguez Singh was the fourth person on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list to be arrested in the past seven months.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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