Left: Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez (Everman Police Department). Right: Cindy Rodriguez-Singh (FBI).
A hard-sought Texas fugitive has been brought to justice after years on the run, FBI Director Kash Patel announced on Wednesday.
Cindy Rodriguez Singh, 40, is the mother of Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez, a 6-year-old disabled boy from the Fort Worth suburb of Everman, who disappeared without a trace in the fall of 2022. The child, who was last seen alive in October of that year, has long been presumed dead.
“Singh is wanted on state charges of killing her six-year-old son,” Patel said in a post on X (formerly Twitter). “She will face charges of Unlawful Flight to Avoid Prosecution and Capital Murder of a person under 10 years of age.”
The apprehension comes less than one month after Singh was added to the FBI”s “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list – becoming the 537th person to ever earn that ignominious distinction.
Patel did not say when or where the long-gone defendant was finally arrested. Singh has widely been presumed to be hiding out somewhere abroad, most likely India, due to the publicly known details of her family’s international departure back in March 2023.
The FBI director did say, however, that authorities believe the accused “has not been back to the United States since” the flight to India.
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Since November 2022, various witnesses told law enforcement versions of stories — always sourced to Noel’s mother — purporting to account for the beloved and troubled little boy’s whereabouts. Those accounts and concerns put the Singh family on law enforcement radar. But charges were not filed until much later.
Then the family left the country.
Law enforcement learned Rodriguez-Singh boarded an international flight with a layover in Turkey, with India as the final destination, just two days before an Amber Alert was issued about Noel’s disappearance. Joining the defendant on that flight were her six other children and current husband, Arshdeep Singh, authorities say.
Several theories – such as human trafficking – supported the notion that the boy was still alive; however, those avenues of inquiry were quickly discarded and replaced by the conviction that he was killed by his mother.
Noel’s body has yet to be found. The cause of his presumed death is not ripe for discussion; a potential motive is similarly elusive – though occult-oriented explanations may feature in a criminal trial. Overall, physical evidence in the case has been nil to nonexistent – at least in terms of what has been shared up to the point of Singh’s capture.
Noel suffered from a host of ailments that required attention and patience. He had not been seen for months by the extended family at the time law enforcement became involved. When initially contacted by police about her vanished son, Rodriguez-Singh said the child had been living with his biological father in Mexico since November 2022. Detectives later learned that was not true; the boy’s father had been deported before he ever had a chance to meet his son.
Eventually, all signs pointed to intentional homicide.
Cindy Rodriguez Singh’s wanted poster – as amended after her arrest (FBI).
“Singh was charged in October 2023 in the District Court of Tarrant County, Fort Worth, Texas, and in November [2023], authorities issued a federal arrest warrant for the charge of Unlawful Flight to Avoid Prosecution,” Patel noted on Wednesday.
Singh was also indicted on one count of abandoning a child without intent to return by Lone Star State law enforcement, Law&Crime previously reported.
Everman Police Chief Craig Spencer has, for years, doggedly pursued the now international case that originated in the small town, located roughly 12 miles due south of Fort Worth.
The police chief praised Singh’s inclusion on the FBI’s list at the time, in comments to Law&Crime.
“Noel deserves justice,” he said. “His story deserves resolution.”
With her arrest, the FBI has started that process.
Singh’s apprehension also marks the fourth person on the “10 Most Wanted” list to be arrested in the past seven months, Patel said.
