money Family of missing Texas 6-year-old left on international flight before Amber Alert issued
The hunt for a 6-year-old Texas boy at the center of an Amber Alert issued over the weekend continued Tuesday, days after his family boarded an international flight without him, police said.
Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez went missing in November from his home in Everman, the Texas Department of Public Safety is reporting. Everman, population 2,100 people, is in Tarrant County about 10 miles south of Fort Worth.
An Amber Alert for Noel was issued just after midnight Saturday morning and replaced with an Endangered Missing Persons alert about 9 p.m. Saturday, the Everman Police Department reported.
The boy's family left the U.S. on a Turkish Airways flight without him, two days before the Amber Alert was issued, police said.
Noel, who has serious disabilities including a chronic lung disease, requires medical treatment and occasional oxygen treatment, law enforcement said.
Pickup truck found; family could have traveled to India
During a Monday press conference, Everman Police Chief Craig Spencer said investigators found a 2012 Chevrolet pickup truck that belongs to Noel’s mother, 37-year-old Cindy Rodriguez-Singh, at the Dallas Fort Worth Airport, where the family departed on a flight to Turkey last week. The SUV was taken to a secure holding area and searched.
Inside, Spencer said, police found a travel visa for one of Rodriguez-Singh’s other six children. Spencer added the visa was obtained a day after authorities conducted a welfare check and indicated family members may have traveled to India after a stop in Turkey.
"We have reason to believe that the family has traveled back to India," Spencer said.
Police search home
Police said Monday they were conducting a secondary search at the home where the family lives. Authorities used cadaver dogs during Monday's search of the residence as well as the yard and inside the family’s home – a large converted shed in the yard behind another house.
Spencer said the shed is one-room space in which all nine people in the family lived.
He said a man lives in the main house, has been cooperative with the investigation and gave authorities permission to search the property.
Spencer said detectives have no reason to believe Noel is dead but brought the cadaver dog out “to cover all our bases.”
So far no criminal charges have been filed in the case.
Anyone with information about the boy's disappearance is asked to call police.
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Natalie Neysa Alund covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach her at nalund@usatoday.com and follow her on Twitter @nataliealund.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Noel Rodriguez-Alvarez: Family of missing Texas boy left on flight
