Investigators looking for missing 6-year-old Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez said they are canceling plans for large-scale searches this weekend and will focus on data analysis instead.
“The data analysis has led investigators to change that plan, and we are not able to release specific details just yet,” Everman Police Chief Craig Spencer said in a news release Friday.
Spencer said they have collected an “immense amount” of data on the case that’s taking hundreds of man-hours to analyze. While it is analyzed, investigators construct theories to work from. They are also continuing to receive and follow up on tips and other leads.
“Although this process certainly is not as expedient as any of us would like, rest assured that investigators are absolutely committed to this case and doing absolutely everything they can to locate Noel as quickly as we can,” Spencer said.
An Amber Alert was issued for Noel on March 24 after authorities received an anonymous tip that the 6-year-old Everman boy was missing and hadn’t been seen since November. The alert was changed to an Endangered Missing Persons alert when officials learned Noel’s mother, stepfather and six siblings had left the country on a flight with a final destination in India.
Spencer announced on April 6 that the search for Noel had become a death investigation, though the child’s remains haven’t been found.
On Monday, authorities dug up a concrete patio that Noel’s mother, Cindy Rodriguez-Singh, paid to have built about a month before the family left the country. Cadaver dogs alerted to topsoil under the concrete, leading police to believe Noel’s body may have at one point been inside the shed that used to stand where the patio was built, according to police. Cadaver dogs also alerted to a carpet that was used as the floor of the shed.
In a search warrant filed Monday by investigators prior to digging up the patio, police said they interviewed the contractor who poured the concrete for the patio. He told authorities he helped Noel’s stepfather, Arshdeep Singh, tear down the shed.
The contractor also said that Rodriguez-Singh told him she wanted the concrete thicker on the east side for a gym, and she seemed in a hurry to get the job done. Rodriguez-Singh paid the contractor $5,000 for the job, according to a copy of the warrant obtained by Mister Truth.
Authorities learned that Arshdeep Singh had thrown away a large piece of carpet, believed to be the carpet from the shed, at his workplace a day before the family left the country. Investigators found the green Astroturf-type carpet in the bottom of a large dumpster at Singh’s workplace, according to the warrant.
The first cadaver dog that was used did not initially alert to the carpet, but on Monday two cadaver dogs with more experience alerted to the smell of human remains on the carpet, the warrant said.