Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-Garcia, the 12-year-old Connecticut girl whose body was discovered in a plastic container near an abandoned building last month, died of starvation likely a year before she found, according to the state’s medical examiner.
Mimi’s official cause of death was ruled as fatal child abuse with starvation and her manner of death as homicide, the Connecticut Office of the Chief Medical Examiner confirmed to WVIT this week.
Mimi’s mother, Karla Garcia; Garcia’s ex-boyfriend, Jonatan Nanita; and Mimi’s aunt Jackelyn Garcia have all been held in her death since police first found the girl’s remains.
Bond was set at $5 million each for the former couple and $1 million for Jackelyn Garcia. All three are due back in court Friday.
Mimi’s body was found on Oct. 8 near a vacant, condemned building on Clark Street in New Britain. The medical examiner determined the remains belonged to “an adolescent female” and publicly confirmed Mimi’s identity after notifying her father and stepmother.
Authorities said the girl had been severely malnourished, weighing just 26 or 27 pounds. They estimated she’d been dead for a year and her body stashed in the basement of the family’s former home in Farmington before being dropped off at the condemned property.
Karla Garcia, Jackelyn Garcia, and Nanita at first tried to blame each other and absolve themselves, but eventually the trio “admitted to intentional restraint, neglect and cruelty,” WTNH reported, citing the arrest warrants.
Karla Garcia and Nanita have been charged with murder with special circumstances, conspiracy to commit murder, risk of injury to a minor, cruelty to a child, tampering with physical evidence and disposal of a dead body. Karla also faces a charge of unlawful restraint in the first degree.
Jackelyn Garcia is accused of intentional cruelty, unlawful restraint in the first degree and risk of injury to a child.
With News Wire Services
