The Dallas County District Attorney's Office said in a statement that it's dropping the charge against 36-year-old Sini Mathews, a Dallas-area woman who's been in jail for more than a year following the death of her 3-year-old daughter whose body was found in a culvert, for lack of evidence.
Mathews was detained on Friday at the Dallas County Jail on a $ 250,000 bail but was released later that day.
Mathews' husband Wesley Mathews reported to the police in October 2017 that their daughter Sherin Mathews was missing. The body was found about two weeks later in a culvert near their home in Richardson.
The mother faces a number of charges, including skilled murder, and is held on a $ 1 million bond.
Heath Harris, a lawyer for Sini Mathews, said he heard Thursday night that there may be a turning point in the case.
At the beginning of last year, the couple lost their parental rights to their biological daughter. Sherin was adopted from an Indian orphanage.
Prosecutors refused to specify the factors that led them to abandon Sini Mathews.
Richardson's police said in a statement that a grand jury had heard the evidence and chose to accuse Mathews, and although she was in jail, she had held several hearings to reduce her bail but she had finally failed.
The owner of the Mother Teresa Orphanage and Children's Home had previously disputed that Sherin was malnourished.
