Background: The 100 block of North Main Street in Telford, Pennsylvania (Google Maps). Insets (from left to right): Darwin David Espinal-Del Cid and Maria Bernarda Popol Garcia (Bucks County District Attorney’s Office).
When a man’s girlfriend said she was going to leave him, he slit her throat, “stuffed her into a closet,” and left her to choke to death on her own blood, according to Pennsylvania authorities.
Darwin David Espinal-Del Cid, 27, has been charged with criminal homicide in the death of 23-year-old Maria Bernarda Popol Garcia, the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office announced. The defendant also faces charges of possession of an instrument of crime, theft by unlawful taking, theft by deception, and abuse of a corpse.
Love true crime? Sign up for our newsletter, The Law&Crime Docket, to get the latest real-life crime stories delivered right to your inbox.
On March 6, Popol Garcia had “told a co-worker she was moving out” from where she lived with the defendant, and she “began transporting her belongings to a new apartment.”
Just before midnight, Espinal-Del Cid and Popol Garcia were inside a rideshare vehicle “having an argument,” Bucks County District Attorney Joe Khan said at a press conference. She had “decided to break up with him and told him that.”
The couple headed back to the apartment they shared — located on the 100 block of North Main Street in Telford, Pennsylvania, “where she was going to gather her things,” the DA added.
At some point during the night, the defendant allegedly “took a sharp object” and stabbed the victim in the neck. He then threw her in a closet, wrapped her in a blanket or a towel and put clothes on top of her and “left her to die, choking on her own blood.”
“In the early hours of March 7, neighbors reported a loud argument inside the apartment,” per the DA’s office. This was the last time the victim was known to be alive.
Espinal-Del Cid then left the scene, taking the murder weapon, $400 in cash, and the victim’s cellphone, according to authorities. He fled south in the U.S. and then flew on a one-way flight to Honduras, where he was from.
The defendant also apparently used Popol Garcia’s phone and “impersonated” her, trying to make her loved ones believe she was still alive. “His ruse worked for at least a few days, throwing people off of his scent, luring people into the idea that Maria was actually still around until eventually on her birthday, on March 13th, Maria’s parents filed a missing persons report,” Khan stated.
Within a day of the report being filed, someone in the building where the defendant and victim lived went into the apartment and made the “horrible discovery,” authorities said.
After months of investigation, with help from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office said authorities in Honduras arrested Espinal-Del Cid. He is in the process of being extradited to Pennsylvania.
Popol Garcia “moved to the United States from Guatemala for a better life and worked as a server at a local Latin American restaurant and grocery in Telford,” authorities said. “Friends and co-workers remembered her as a bright, gentle spirit with a kind heart.”
Telford, Pennsylvania, is a small borough about 35 miles northwest of Philadelphia.
The post Man learning girlfriend is leaving him slits her throat and stuffs her in the closet to choke on her own blood: Authorities first appeared on Law & Crime.
