Noel Rodríguez-Álvarez, the disabled 6-year-old minor who was reported missing in Texas a week ago, lived in filth in a house where figures of Santa Muerte stand out.
In the house in Everman, of which the Fox network released images this week, an altar with the Mexican effigy can be seen, a cult image that personifies death and is associated with members of cartels such as the Gulf, Juárez and Sinaloa.
In the hut there was also food and personal items scattered around, as well as two beds for more than nine people, including Rodríguez-Álvarez.
The space is located behind the home of 71-year-old Charles Parson.
“I would like to know where it is. I would have already gone looking for him,” Parson told WFAA about the whereabouts of the minor.
“He left in November,” added the old man. “The patio was built less than a month ago, it is three weeks old. So how can they be under the patio?” the man asked.
The resident also revealed that he met Cindy Rodríguez-Singh, the boy’s mother, at a grocery store about a decade ago and offered her two spare rooms because the single mother was having a hard time financially. When the woman established herself in space, Noel had not yet been born.
According to Parson, he was like a grandfather to Noel. The woman has nine other children.
Authorities, including FBI personnel, have been visiting the structure to gather evidence to help locate the minor as well as his mother and siblings.
Authorities issued an AMBER alert to try to find the whereabouts of the minor.
The investigation leans towards the theory of a criminal act against the minor, said Craig Spencer, police chief in Everman.
Investigators believe the 37-year-old mother fled the country with six of her children and their stepfather to India, where she is from.
Previously, social services personnel had visited the woman and asked her about the child. At the time, Rodríguez-Singh said the minor was staying in Mexico with his father.
However, the investigation revealed that Noel’s father never met him and that he was deported from the US before he was born.
The other three children of the woman live with their grandparents.
Noel was born premature at 25 weeks gestation. Police described him as having brown eyes, black hair, weighing 23 kilograms (50 pounds) and 120 centimeters tall (about 4′).
The child suffers from developmental disorders and various physical disabilities, including a chronic lung disease that requires at times the supply of oxygen.