Wesley Mathews Transferred To Texas Prison To Serve Life Sentence For Death Of 3-Year-Old Daughter
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - The Dallas County Sheriff's Department confirms Wesley Mathews was transferred from the Dallas County Jail to the custody of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shortly before 1:00 a.m. Thursday.
He now begins his life sentence in the death of his adopted 3-year-old daughter, Sherin.
Before his trial last month, Mathews, 39, of Richardson, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of injury to a child by omission.
The jury sentenced him to life in prison on June 26.
The original report from Mathews claimed the child disappeared, which triggered an Amber Alert. Her body was eventually found inside a culvert near their Richardson home.
As Mathews' story changed, he ultimately stated that she died after choking on milk.
"I tried to gently shake Sherin so she would be out of that spell but nothing was working and in a matter -- pretty soon her head started going different directions and her head came to a still," Mathews said while on the witness stand during his trial. "I truly am sorry. I don't have words to express how sorry I am to these fine officers, these fine people who were full of love and concern for my baby Sherin and they devoted a lot of time and effort and I could have easily stopped that."
Mathews also addressed questions about why he didn't immediately tell his wife, Sini, or police about what happened. He was also frequently asked about the lies he told authorities during the investigation.
Mathews admitted to putting Sherin's body inside a bag and into the culvert. When shown the bag that Sherin was in, Mathews testified it was a "blue" bag rather than a "trash" one, which prosecutors continually called.
He also took issue with the prosecutors saying he "dumped" her body, and he called the culvert "a place to protect her body."