Court documents reveal years of family squabbles over the custody of an 12-year-old Connecticut girl who was found dead on an abandoned property last week.
Jacqueline Torres’s mother, Karla Garcia, and her boyfriend, Jonatan Nanita, have been charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder, and Garcia’s sister, Jackelyn Garcia, is charged with tampering with evidence, as CrimeOnline reported. Karla Garcia also faces charges of cruelty to children.
Police believe Jacqueline Torres was killed last fall.
The court documents obtained by WVIT say that Torres lived with her paternal grandmother, Patricia Delgado, for most of her life, but in 2022, Karla Garcia was awarded custody.
“DCF (the state Department of Children and Families) took her away from me. I felt they forced me to hand over the girl and I went to court and they told me that the grandmother no longer had any rights to take or even see the child,” Delgado said in the court documents, adding that Garcia was preventing the family from seeing or speaking with the child.
The following year, Jacqueline’s father, Victor Torres, took Garcia to court, claiming that she wasn’t honoring a custody arrangement they had.
“I want to see my children weekend like agreed when given joint custody. Or any day for that matter,” Torres wrote.
Following that court filing, Garcia filed for full custody, which was granted in June 2024. Police say Jacqueline was murdered just a few months later.
Police found the body last week when they were called to investigate a report of suspicious behavior. They found a large container along the fence line in the backyard of the abandoned home. Inside was Torres’s body in an advanced stage of decomposition.
Police said during a news conference that they were told of someone dropping things off — including the storage bin where the remains were found.
The Garcias and Nanita are due in court on November 14.
For the latest true crime and justice news, subscribe to the ‘Crime Stories with Nancy Grace’ podcast.
[Featured image: Jacqueline Torres/handout]
