Missing Texas boy feared dead

Houston: A missing 6-year-old boy from Texas, whose parents fled to India from the US and face felony charges of abandoning and endangering their child, is believed to be dead, a top police official has said.

Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez, who has special needs, was last seen in November shortly after his twin sisters were born in October last year. Everman Police Chief Craig Spencer said on Thursday that the search for the missing boy is now a death investigation and they are attempting to locate and recover his body. "We currently have active felony warrants for the arrest of the mother Cindy Rodriguez Singh and Arshdeep Singh for abandoning and endangering a child, which is a second-degree felony," Spencer said at a press conference.

"We want these fugitives ar rested and extradited to the United States so that we can seek answers for the disappearance of Noel," he said.

Noel was one of ten children to Cindy, 37.

Three siblings reportedly lived with grandparents, while Noel and the others lived with their mother in squalor in a shed in Everman, a suburb of Fort Worth. Singh, the boy's Indian-origin stepfather, also lived in the filthy shack.

The search for Noel began after the Texas Department of Family Services asked on March 20 that police in Everman conduct a welfare check, Everman police have said.