Documents reveal additional details of abuse, neglect in New Britain murder case

New court documents reveal disturbing details about the reported abuse suffered by 11-year-old Jacqueline Torres-Garcia before her death in 2024.

NEW BRITAIN, Conn. — New documents released by the State of Connecticut Superior Court Monday reveal additional and sometimes gruesome details in the case of an 11-year-old whose remains were discovered behind an abandoned building earlier this month.

Karla Garcia, Jackelyn Garcia, and Jonatan Nanita were all arrested on Oct. 13th and charged in the death of 11-year-old Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-Garcia. Police said the investigation revealed that Jacqueline likely suffered from prolonged abuse and neglect before her death in the fall of 2024.

In affidavits filed with the court seeking warrants to search the suspects’ cell phones, police outline further details which came up as part of their initial interviews with both Karla and Jackelyn.

Editor’s Note: The details described below may be difficult for some to read.

In one, Jackelyn Garcia told police that she witnessed abuse and neglect when she lived with her sister Karla and Karla’s boyfriend Jonatan “on-and-off” between June and August of 2024. She reportedly described “patterns of abuse and neglect … to include [Jacqueline] being confined to a corner of a room, being restrained in zip ties, and not being fed.”

Jackelyn said that when she left the home in August 2024, she ‘knew she [Torres-Garcia] was going to die.”

In the affidavit, Jackelyn said that following her release from jail on Aug. 15, 2025, she again stayed with her sister, Karla, who was acting as her sponsor. On Oct. 8, 2025, Jackelyn told police she found the child’s body and that Karla told her she had died on Sept. 19, 2024.

A separate affidavit outlines the police interview with Karla, where they said she admitted to the use of zip ties as punishment for bad behavior and to withholding food. According to the document, Karla told police that she and Nanita stopped feeding Jacqueline for approximately two weeks before she died.

Karla also told police that Nanita “brought the body downstairs” but that she “didn’t know what he did with it.” The body remained in the basement of their Farmington home for several months and Karla told police that the smell “was so strong, they had to leave their residence in Farmington and stay with friends or in hotels.”

Karla went on to tell police that she knew that Nanita had transferred the body to a tote — or storage container — and had move it along with the family when they relocated to New Britain.

Details of the investigation released by the police following the Oct. 13th arrests revealed that an anonymous caller alerted investigators to a potential body in a storage container left behind a known abandoned property in New Britain. Subsequent investigation identified the remains as those of Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-Garcia.

In addition to the details surrounding Jacqueline’s death, documents show that Karla also reportedly told police that she had notes about those details saved to her phone, as she was planning to go on a podcast prior to her arrest to share her story.

Jaqueline’s family had a history with the Connecticut Department of Children and Families, as outlined in a timeline released by the agency last week. In that timeline, DCF says that its investigators had not been called out on Jacqueline’s behalf since 2022. The agency had been called out for an investigation on behalf of a younger sibling earlier this year and was told that Jacqueline was staying with family, whom the investigator spoke with on the phone.

New Britain Public Schools issued a statement last week clarifying that Jacqueline had been pulled from the school system in August 2024 and was listed as being homeschooled.