The medical examiner ruled Sherin, who was from India, died from homicidal violence but did not release additional details, CNN affiliate KTVT reported. “ Based on the autopsy report we were able to determine we could seek capital murder in this case,” Johnson said Friday. 

Mathews previously was charged with injury to a child, a first-degree felony punishable with a maximum 99 years in prison,police in the Dallas suburb of Richardson said. 

Friday’s indictment adds abandoning a child and tampering with evidence, second-degree allegations punishable by two to 20 years in prison. 

The girl’s adoptive mother, Sini Mathews, 35, faces one count of abandoning a child.  That stems from the couple’s decision to leave the girl at home on October 6 while they went out to dinner with their biological child, according to the indictment. 

CNN reached out to attorneys for the couple for comment, but received no reply. 

Attorney David Kleckner said in November at a hearing about custody of the couple’s biological child that Wesley Mathews is “a good father, a loving man and loves his family.” 

Sini Mathews has maintained her innocence, KTVT has reported. 

Father’s later story to police

Mathews had initially told authorities he made Sherin stand outside because she wouldn’t drink her milk, and she disappeared. 

In a second interview about two weeks after Sherin went missing, the father gave a different account.  He told a detective that he had been trying to get Sherin to drink her milk in the garage, and she wouldn’t listen to him, the affidavit states.  She then began drinking the milk. 

“Wesley Mathews then physically assisted the 3-year-old in drinking the milk,” last year’s affidavit states. “ The 3-year-old began to choke.  She was coughing and her breathing slowed.  Eventually Wesley Mathews no longer felt a pulse on the child and believed she had died.” 

The father said he removed the body from the home, the affidavit says. 

Wesley Mathews was jailed on $1 million bond last fall.  Johnson said she would seek a higher amount.