HORRIFYING DISCOVERY 💔: Police confirmed that fingerprints found on a notebook left near the scene matched those of a person noted in a 2023 report. The notebook contained drawings signed “Mimi TG” — belonging to 11-year-old Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-Garcia. Investigators believe it could finally explain the truth that has been hidden for months 👀
This is how a growing memorial on Clark Street for Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-Garcia, 11, looked on Oct. 16, eight days after her remains were found behind the boarded-up house. Police say her mother, Karla Garcia, and her mother’s boyfriend, Jonatan Nanita, are responsible for the girl’s death. Arrest warrants shedding more light on the events leading up to her death were unsealed this week. (Christine Dempsey/Hearst Connecticut Media)
Every time Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-Garcia’s father tried to talk to her, her mother told him the girl was not around, according to a warrant for the woman’s arrest.
Victor Torres became so concerned, it said, he called the state Department of Children and Families to do a wellness check on his daughter, but the agency couldn’t do one because they didn’t have the 11-year-old’s address, the warrant said.
DCF was one of two agencies contacted about problems in Jacqueline’s household before the girl’s decomposing body was found in a plastic storage bin in New Britain on Oct. 8. Police suspect she was starved to death in Farmington about a year ago and her body moved with the family when they relocated in New Britain.
Jacqueline’s mother, Karla Roselee Garcia, 29, and Garcia’s boyfriend, Jonatan Abel Nanita, 30, were arrested this month on charges that include murder with special circumstances. Police say the couple conspired to kill Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-Garcia, who endured “prolonged physical abuse and malnourishment” in their Farmington home last year. While they say Garcia’s sister, Jackelyn Leeann Garcia, 28, participated in the abuse, she is not charged with murder.
The arrest warrants for all three were made available by the Connecticut Judicial Branch on Tuesday morning.
Warrants shedding light on what led to the death of Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-Garcia were unsealed this week. The 11-year-old’s remains were found in a bin behind an abandoned house in New Britain on Oct. 8, 2025. Jacqueline’s mother, Karla Garcia, and her boyfriend, Jonatan Nanita, have been charged with murder. Garcia’s sister, Jackelyn Garcia, faces charges that include cruelty to a child. (Courtesy of the New Britain Police Department)
Signs of trouble
Neighbors said they called DCF and police to report their concerns about the family, and Jacqueline’s younger sister’s school made calls as well, according to the warrant for the arrest of Karla Garcia.
Residents of a Farmington condominium that shared a wall with the family said they routinely heard yelling, swearing and things being thrown around the home, the warrant said.
The neighbors in the Wellington Avenue condo said they called DCF to report possible abuse and neglect of Jacqueline’s younger sister because they often saw the girl taking out the garbage and carrying large, heavy bags of groceries by herself, it said.
“She said this child would also go outside and start the family vehicle, when it was cold outside and was not dressed for the weather,” the warrant said.
The same neighbors called police on Sept. 28, 2024, saying they “could hear loud noises and arguing and a female voice threatening to break someone’s neck,” it said.
On Dec. 29, 2024, after police believe Jacqueline had died, the neighbors called police twice because they “heard someone scream and heard something ‘heavy’ fall,” the warrant said. They heard Garcia yell something like, “Stop” or “Don’t,” the warrant said. The residents also smelled bleach.
A neighbor on the other side of the family’s rented, townhouse-style condo was a teacher at Jacqueline’s younger sister’s former school, and said staff saw bruises on her, according to the warrant.
“DCF had been contacted on several occasions and reports had been filed,” the warrant said.
The resident also said when the family moved in next door, “it was always loud, and she could hear young kids yelling during the night. She stated she routinely smelled weed on her back deck, noting it came from Nanita,” it said.
Victor Torres, Jacqueline’s father, told investigators that Karla Garcia “made it very difficult to see his children.” The problem worsened when he started seeing his current wife and even worse when she became pregnant and they got married, the warrant said.
Garcia always had an excuse every time he asked to see Jacqueline, it said; he was often told she was at a friend’s house.
The last time he saw her was on June 10, 2024, at her fifth-grade graduation, Torres told investigators. A year later, in June, when he attended her younger sister’s fifth-grade graduation, Jacqueline was not there and when he asked where she was, he was told Jacqueline was in school, according to the warrant.
When Garcia moved from Farmington to Tremont Street in New Britain, she did not give him the address at first and would meet him in her car on a side street, it said.
Torres told police “he grew so concerned that he contacted DCF to do a wellness check but was told they could not because he did not know where she lived.”
DCF said it cannot comment on its response because of its internal review of how the case was handled.
“This is an unspeakable tragedy and one that has impacted Jacqueline’s family, friends, and her entire community,” said Ken Mysogland, a DCF spokesperson. “We have previously provided three statements in regard to our involvement with her family and at this time we have no further comment.”
Farmington police said they responded to four calls about the home – two in the same night – but there were never any signs of fighting or violence. In two cases, on Sept. 28, 2024, and on Feb. 2, 2025, no one answered the family’s door for police.
On Dec. 29, 2024, the family had calmed down by the time the officer arrived, so the neighbors told the police not to bother them. And later that night, a woman, apparently Karla Garcia, told police she is in her last trimester “and was just frustrated,” according to the police report obtained by CT Insider.
On Sunday, Oct. 5, after the family’s March move to Tremont Street in New Britain and after Torres found out their address, he brought McDonalds to the apartment and asked to visit his daughters, he told investigators. Garcia told him Jacqueline was at her friend’s house, and the two argued, but she allowed Jacqueline’s young sister to eat with her father, according to the warrant.
Garcia let him take her to the Westfarms mall to buy shoes, but Garcia followed them and, after they spent some time in the mall, she took her home.
Three days later, on Oct. 8, Jacqueline’s body was found in a 40-gallon “tote,” or storage container, behind a boarded-up house in New Britain.
‘Severe and prolonged malnourishment’
The autopsy showed there was no sign of trauma to the body that would have contributed to the person’s death, according to the warrant.
The remains were found in plastic trash bags wrapped in a comforter and bed sheets. The bedding linens had been in a laundry basket, which had been placed in the container, the warrant said. The body belonged to an adolescent female, and it was folded at the waist, in a fetal position; it lacked fat and weighed about 27 pounds, it said.
Medical examiners found a white, powdery substance on the person, which they suspected may have been poured after death to preserve the body and mask the smell, the warrant said.
Dr. Melissa Pasquale-Styles found that the condition of the corpse was due to “severe malnourishment, not decomposition,” it said.
In Pasquale-Styles’ “preliminary professional opinion,” the warrant stated, “Jacqueline died of severe and prolonged malnourishment.”
They identified the person as Jacqueline by comparing post-mortem X-rays to X-rays in medical records at the Hospital for Central Connecticut, it said.
Zip ties and starvation as punishment, warrants say
Jackelyn Garcia appeared to be under the influence of alcohol or drugs when she was first interviewed by police and urinated in her pants during questioning, according to the warrant for her arrest.
During a second interview conducted the next day, Jackelyn Garcia admitted to police that her sister Karla and Nanita had withheld food from Jacqueline for a long period of time and that the child was “skinny” the last time she saw her in August 2024, the warrant said.
Jackelyn Garcia moved out a few weeks later and went to prison for a child abuse conviction in December 2024, the warrant said. During that time, she didn’t see her niece but asked about her, the warrant said.
Karla Garcia told her that Jacqueline was living with “a friend,” the warrant said. She never saw Jacqueline alive again after she moved out in August 2024 and admitted to police that she witnessed her sister and Nanita abusing the girl but never told authorities, according to the warrant.
In at least one instance, Jackelyn Garcia said Nanita “physically beat” Jacqueline and that the child often was restrained with zip ties and made to stand in a corner while being “deprived of food and water,” the arrest warrant for Jackelyn Garcia said. She also told investigators that the 11-year-old would be “beaten” when she urinated or defecated on herself while tied up, it said.
Jackelyn Garcia’s own children had been taken from her and adopted, she told police, according to the warrant.
Jackelyn Garcia admitted to police that she hadn’t seen her niece in months and was told that she was living with “friends,” the warrants said. Karla Garcia and Nanita both blamed each other for the child’s death but Jackelyn Garcia also told police that she had witnessed the two abuse and starve the child, the warrant for her arrest said.
Karla Garcia admitted she had restrained Jacqueline in zip ties as punishment “when she was acting bad,” according to a search warrant; she told police that most of the punishments were at Nanita’s direction. She also told them she and Nanita had stopped feeding the girl for about two weeks before her death, the search warrant stated. Police determined that the girl likely died in fall 2024.
Karla Garcia, 29, of New Britain, stands at her arraignment next to Assistant Public Defender Stephanie O’Neil at Litchfield Judicial District Courthouse in Torrington, Conn., Tuesday, October 14, 2025. Garcia is charged with murder with special circumstances and other charges in the death of her daughter, Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-Garcia. Arrest warrants shedding light on what happened to the girl were unsealed this week. (Dave Zajac/Hearst Connecticut Media)
When that happened, Karla Garcia told police, Nanita took the body downstairs to the basement “but she wasn’t sure what he did with it,” the search warrant said. At one point, the odor from the decaying body was so strong, they had to leave the rented condo and stay with friends or at hotels, it said.
Jonatan Nanita stands at his arraignment next to Public Defender James Longwell at Litchfield Judicial District Courthouse in Torrington, Conn., Tuesday, October 14, 2025. Nanita is charged with murder with special circumstances and other charges in the death of Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-Garcia, 11. Arrest warrants with detail about what led up to the girl’s death were made public when the warrant for his and his conspirators’ arrests were made public this week. (Dave Zajac/Hearst Connecticut Media)
The family moved the body when they relocated in March to New Britain, the city where they lived before the August 2024 move to Farmington.
Girl’s death kept a secret, police say
Jacqueline wasn’t missed in school because when Karla Garcia informed the New Britain school district of the planned move to Farmington, she added that she would be homeschooling the girl, police and school officials said. No one reported her missing, officials said in a news conference.
When a worker from DCF tried to meet with Jacqueline for a wellness check in January, the family said she was out of town and set up a video call – with a child who posed as the 11-year-old, the agency said.
This is the Farmington condominium complex where police believe Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-Garcia died and was kept in the basement until her family moved to New Britain. They took the remains with them, police say, where they were eventually dumped. (Christine Dempsey/Hearst Connecticut Media)
In an interview, Jacqueline’s younger sister, and the daughter of Karla Garcia and Victor Torres, did not say anything about abuse in the home, Karla Garcia’s arrest warrant said; she also “did not acknowledge the existence of her older sister Jacqueline Torres Garcia, only her younger half-siblings.”
Box with girl’s remains ‘smelled bad’
Police learned what may have preceded the gruesome discovery of the remains from two people who are friends with another one of Nanita’s girlfriends, according to the warrant for Karla Garcia’s arrest.
Two complainants told New Britain police that Jonatan “JoJo” Nanita picked her up at the end of September and told her he needed to pick something up.
“She remembered Nanita driving to a cemetery, picking up a tote, putting the tote in the trunk of his Acura, then driving to 80 Clark St., where Nanita removed the tote from the trunk and placed it at that location. She remembered that the tote smelled bad.”
After thinking about it, the woman came to conclusion that the tote may have contained a body and told her friends, the warrant said.
Differing accounts, changing stories
When police first talked to Karla Garcia and Nanita, they gave different accounts of what happened, the warrant said, and Garcia changed her story as well.
Karla Garcia originally told New Britain detectives that her daughter was fine and visiting a friend.
Then she said Nanita had kicked Jacqueline in the head in October 2024 after Jacqueline pushed Karla – who was six months pregnant — down the stairs during an argument, the warrant stated; the argument started because Jacqueline was upset her mother was pregnant again, she told police. Karla Garcia had two daughters with Victor Torres and three children with Nanita.
“Garcia stated that she never saw her daughter again after that,” the warrant said, and she denied any knowledge of a tote containing her daughter.
Nanita, who said he was homeless after Garcia kicked him out of the home, told New Britain detectives that Garcia contacted him and asked him to dispose of the tote that was outside her apartment building near the garbage, the warrant said.
He drove to her apartment on Tremont Street with his new girlfriend, placed the tote in his truck, and drove to a nearby cemetery to hide the tote, according to the warrant.
“He did not find a good location, so he drove the tote to Clark Street and dropped the tote in the backyard,” it said.
When detectives asked him about Jacqueline, he told them he went to Garcia’s home in Farmington after he was released from prison and noticed a lot of blood on the walls and floor by the stairs. He asked Garcia about it, and she told him not to worry about it, that she would clean it up.
The next day, he said, everything was cleaned, and when he asked about Jacqueline, she told him not to worry about it. Nanita told detectives he did not see Jacqueline after that day.
Karla Garcia and Nanita were arrested on more than a half-dozen charges each. Besides murder, each is charged with conspiracy to commit murder with special circumstances, tampering with physical evidence and improper disposal of a dead body. Each also is charged with risk of injury to a child, first-degree unlawful restraint and intentional cruelty to a child.
Jackelyn Garcia, who told police she moved to New Haven in September 2024, according to the search warrant, was arrested solely on the last three charges: intentional cruelty to a child, first-degree unlawful restraint and risk of injury, police said.
Suspects’ criminal pasts
All three people have criminal histories that include violence, records show.
Karla Garcia was convicted of third-degree assault after she repeatedly punched a woman in the face in 2018, arrest records show; Nanita was convicted of first-degree reckless endangerment and interfering with an officer/resisting arrest when he nearly dragged an officer while fleeing a 2020 traffic stop.
And just last year, Jackelyn Garcia was convicted of risk of injury to a child, records show. She served eight months of an 18-month sentence after she and a man were found responsible for numerous injuries to a toddler in their care in New Britain in 2021 and 2022, according to a warrant for her arrest.
Jackelyn Garcia, 28, of New Britain, stands at her arraignment next to Assistant Public Defender Stephanie O’Neil at Litchfield Judicial District Courthouse in Torrington, Conn., Tuesday, October 14, 2025. Garcia was arrested on cruelty to persons under 19 years of age and other charges related to the death of her niece, Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-Garcia. Arrest warrants shedding light on what happened to the girl were released this week. (Dave Zajac/Hearst Connecticut Media)
The baby’s broken bones were in various stages of healing: The child had a skull fracture, hemorrhages of her right eye, bruises to her jawbone and forehead, fractures to her left femur – one of which was starting to heal – fractures to her ribs that were 7-11 weeks old, and arm fractures that were 2-4 weeks old, according to the warrant for Jackelyn Garcia’s 2023 arrest.
Jackelyn Garcia served eight of an 18-month sentence and was in a transitional supervision program at the time of her latest arrest, said a spokesperson for the state Department of Correction.
Her sister Karla was her sponsor, the search warrant said.
The air in New Britain still carries the weight of unspeakable loss, where purple ribbons flutter like fragile hopes against the autumn chill. In the wake of 11-year-old Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-Garcia’s tragic death, a fresh wave of heartbreak has crashed over the community: revelations from her closest school confidante and a haunting note scrawled in her cherished sketchbook. As investigators sift through the remnants of Mimi’s short life—zip-tied in a basement, starved for weeks, her body hidden in a plastic bin for nearly a year—these intimate disclosures paint a portrait of a child crying out in silence. Her best friend, tearfully recounting hushed confessions of “feeling scared at night,” and the three-letter enigma closing Mimi’s final drawing, now under forensic scrutiny, underscore a torment that begged for intervention. In a case already exposing systemic failures, these echoes from the grave demand: How many signs were there, and why were they ignored?
Mimi’s story, unearthed through unsealed warrants and family admissions, is one of calculated cruelty masked by everyday normalcy. Born January 15, 2013, she spent her early years shuttling between unstable homes. Her mother, Karla Garcia, 29, was imprisoned shortly after birth, leading to temporary custody with paternal relatives under the watchful eye of Connecticut’s Department of Children and Families (DCF). Intermittent DCF probes from 2014 to 2021 focused on siblings, with no substantiated abuse flags for Mimi. By 2022, Garcia and father Victor Torres regained guardianship, a move DCF backed after assessments. Mimi blossomed in New Britain public schools, her fifth-grade teachers at Slade Middle School recalling a “sparkly-eyed artist” who doodled unicorns and dreamed of veterinary adventures. But shadows encroached. Custody shifted fully to Garcia in 2024, coinciding with the family’s move to Farmington—and the onset of horrors detailed in affidavits: restraints, isolation, and deliberate starvation as “punishment” for perceived thefts.
The withdrawal from school on August 26, 2024—the first day of sixth grade—sealed her isolation. Garcia’s email notice cited homeschooling, a loophole in Connecticut’s lax laws requiring no oversight. “Hello, I am contacting you today because I would like to homeschool my child for the upcoming school year thank you have a great day!” it read innocently. No curriculum checks, no attendance logs. Mimi vanished from the grid, her absence unremarked amid the system’s silos. Victor Torres, sensing unease, missed her at a June 2025 sibling graduation; Garcia brushed it off as “school.” His DCF wellness plea faltered without an address. Then, in January 2025, a fabricated video call: Garcia paraded a friend’s daughter as Mimi, duping caseworkers probing sibling allegations. DCF closed the file, blind to the basement truth.
Her remains surfaced October 8, 2025, in a Clark Street backyard bin, skeletal and wrapped in blankets, dental records confirming identity. Garcia confessed to police: Mimi perished in late September 2024, zip-tied to a bedframe on pee pads, denied food for 14 days. Boyfriend Jonatan Abel Nanita, 30, allegedly enforced the bonds and relocated the body to the basement, then a cemetery plot, before dumping it in New Britain. Aunt Jackelyn Torres, 28—a prior convicted abuser—faced charges for aiding the restraint. All three, held on $5 million bonds, plead not guilty; trials loom in 2026.
Amid this grim timeline, the emotional gut-punch arrived October 28: interviews with Mimi’s best friend, 11-year-old Sofia Ramirez (name changed for privacy), a fellow Slade fifth-grader. Speaking haltingly to WFSB reporters outside the school, Sofia clutched a faded friendship bracelet—Mimi’s handiwork—and whispered, “She told me she felt scared at night. Like, really scared. Said there were noises downstairs, and her mom yelled a lot. I said tell a teacher, but she got quiet and changed the subject. We were gonna be vets together… now she’s gone.” Sofia’s account, corroborated by a teacher who noted Mimi’s withdrawn demeanor in spring 2024, hints at abuse predating the homeschool pivot. “Mimi drew me a picture once, of a girl hiding under a bed with monsters outside,” Sofia added, tears streaming. “She said it was just a story, but her eyes… they weren’t laughing.”
This confession dovetails with the sketchbook revelation, seized from the Farmington condo during a October 10 search. The worn spiral-bound notebook, adorned with sticker unicorns and puppy doodles, brimmed with Mimi’s vibrant world: pastel landscapes, sibling portraits, dreams scribbled in loopy cursive. But the final pages darkened. Forensic specialists from the Connecticut State Police Lab, per a Hartford Courant report, are analyzing a loose-leaf insert dated “Sept 2024″—days before her death. The drawing: a wilted flower wilting in shadow, captioned “Me when lights out.” Beneath, in trembling pencil: “It hurts. Can’t tell. Help?” The closing line, isolated and underlined thrice: three stark letters, “GOD.” Investigators speculate it as a plea—”God, help”—or raw despair, perhaps “SOS” aborted mid-scrawl. Handwriting matches Mimi’s; ink analysis dates it to early September. “This isn’t just evidence; it’s her voice,” State’s Attorney Sharmese Walcott stated October 29. “It humanizes the horror, shows she knew she was trapped.”
These artifacts amplify the chorus of missed signals. Earlier leads—a delivery driver’s dusk sighting of a pink-hoodied girl by a white SUV on Myrtle Street September 19, 2024—suggest mobility in her final hours, with 240+ CCTV hours under review. Torres’s pleas, school flags on post-withdrawal “absences,” DCF’s video farce—all unanswered. “Scared at night” echoes the warrants’ basement isolation, where Nanita allegedly patrolled, enforcing silence. Sofia’s words, shared at a Clark Street vigil attended by 300, ignited sobs: “She was my bestie. Why didn’t anyone listen?”
The community, raw and resolute, channels grief into fury. The Clark Street memorial swells: teddy bears, drawings mirroring Mimi’s style, purple lanterns (her favorite hue) glowing till dawn. Sofia placed a sketchbook page there October 29: two girls with stethoscopes, labeled “Vet Pals Forever.” Vigils swell, with chants of “Hear the Whispers” blending prayers and policy demands. On X, #MimiSpeaks trends, users sharing anonymized child-confession stories: “My daughter said she was ‘scared of dark men’—we fled. Mimi couldn’t.” Petitions for “Mimi’s Law” hit 75,000 signatures, mandating annual homeschool welfare visits, DCF AI-flagged alerts for behavioral shifts, and abuser registries barring cohabitation. Governor Ned Lamont, nominating Child Advocate Christina Ghio October 27, cited the sketchbook: “A child’s note to God shouldn’t be her last resort.”
DCF’s review, launched October 15, now probes verification lapses, with Interim Commissioner Susan Hamilton admitting, “Video alone failed us; in-person mandates must follow.” Critics, including Rep. Corey Paris, decry resource strains: “One worker juggles 20 cases; tech and training gaps let cries like Mimi’s fade.” Homeschool advocates like Joyanna Priest caution against overreach but concede: “Isolation bred this monster—oversight saves lives.” The Office of the Child Advocate’s probe, expanded October 29, incorporates Sofia’s testimony and note forensics, eyeing body cams and cross-agency databases.
Legally, ripples spread. Prosecutors amended charges October 28, adding evidence tampering for the cover-up, including the bin’s relocation. Garcia’s interrogation chillingly detailed: “She stopped breathing… Jonatan handled it.” Nanita shrugged off the body query; Torres, the aunt, invoked silence. Victor Torres, at arraignments October 14, clutched a sketchbook facsimile: “My girl left me ‘I love Dad’ on page 12. Now ‘GOD’? It breaks me.” He petitions for sibling custody, vowing, “No more blind spots.”
Yet beyond indictments, Mimi endures in memory’s light. Sofia, through counselors, plans a school art drive: “Draw what scares you—then draw help coming.” Friends recall her giggles over cartoons, sticker swaps, bedtime stories of brave animals. The sketchbook, post-analysis, heads to the family for a memorial vault. “Those three letters? They’re her heavenward SOS,” a lab tech anonymously told NBC. “We owe her answers on earth.”
This revelation isn’t mere footnote; it’s indictment and ignition. Mimi’s “scared at night,” her “GOD,” were beacons in the basement dark—unheeded by a system that prized procedure over pleas. As frames flicker in CCTV rooms and pencils sharpen for reform bills, her voice demands awakening. For Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-Garcia, the nights are eternal. But for tomorrow’s children, whispering fears to friends or pages, may these echoes shatter the silence forever.
