Arrest warrants for the three suspects charged in connection with the death of an 11-year-old girl were released on Tuesday.

The warrants detailed what led police to charge 29-year-old Karla Garcia, 30-year-old Jonatan Nanita, and 28-year-old Jackelyn Garcia.

The remains of Jacqueline Torres-Garcia were discovered in a plastic tote at an abandoned home on Clark Street in New Britain on Oct. 8, 2025. Officials estimated that she had been dead for about a year.

Karla Garcia’s warrant can be read here:

Jonatan Nanita’s warrant can be read here:

Jackelyn Garcia’s arrest warrant can be read here:

The warrants explained how people came forward to make anonymous tips about the body’s location. A couple of the informants provided a photograph of the vehicle used to drop off the tote in New Britain.

One of those informants told police they were with Nanita at the end of September. The informant said Nanita picked up the tote from a cemetery and brought it to the Clark Street address.

The informant noted that the tote smelled bad.

Also, the warrants detailed the police interviews of Karla Garcia, Nanita, and Jackelyn Garcia.

Police noted that Karla Garcia, Jacqueline’s mother, and Nanita, Karla Garcia’s boyfriend, told different stories about what happened to Jacqueline.

Jacqueline’s mother first denied knowing what happened to her daughter, then blamed her boyfriend at the time, until she finally confessed.

Karla Garcia first told New Britain detectives that in Oct. 2024, when she was 6 months pregnant with one of Nanita’s children, she argued with Jacqueline about being pregnant again.

“She stated that during the argument, Jacqueline pushed her down the stairs inside her house causing both of them to fall down the stairs. Garcia stated that Jonatan became upset with Jacqueline, kicked her in the head, and dragged her off. Garcia stated that she never saw her daughter against after that.”

She denied any knowledge of the tote.

Nanita, meanwhile, told detectives that Karla Garcia asked him to dispose of the tote.

He said he drove to Karla Garcia’s apartment, picked up the tote, and hid it in a cemetery, per her orders. However, he couldn’t find a good spot, so he drove the tote to Clark Street.

When asked about Jacqueline, he told them that he went to Karla Garcia’s home in Farmington after recently being released from prison.

“He stated that when he arrived at the Wellington address, he noticed a lot of blood on the walls and floor by the stairs. He asked Garcia about the blood, and she told him not to worry about it, and that she would clean it up.”

Nanita said he did not see Jacqueline after that day.

In a later interview, Nanita provided some other details.

“He first stated that he did not know who was in the bin. [The officer] asked Nanita again who was in the bin, and he shrugged and said ‘I haven’t seen Jacqueline.’ [The officer] asked if he knew it was Jacqueline, and he nodded yes.”

However, he maintained that he did not know where the bin came from, and that he only helped Garcia move it.

Nanita suggested that Karla Garcia may have killed the girl.

Karla Garcia, however, continued to suggest that Nanita was the killer.

“Garcia told [the detective] that Nanita was abusive and believed Jacqueline was dead, but she did not know what he did with her. She claimed to have no knowledge of the bin.”

She denied knowing what happened to Jacqueline, but said Nanita would know.

“Garcia explained that she was 6 months pregnant [when she and Jacqueline fell down the stairs]. Garcia stated after the incident she didn’t know where Nanita took Jacqueline, but she never came back, and she never reported it to police.”

Karla Garcia claimed that her fall with Jacqueline left her bedridden for two weeks.

She never saw Jacqueline after that, she claimed. She said Nanita told her not to ask.

Karla Garcia later told detectives that Nanita threw Jacqueline down a second flight of stairs after stomping on her head.

He told her that had been “dealing with it” after that.

Karla Garcia said she didn’t report it because she was afraid of Nanita.

The warrant also detailed Oct. 9, 2025 autopsy results on Jacqueline’s remains.

The Office of the Chief Medical examination noted that the girl had been severely malnourished.

There were no obvious signs of injury to her body that would have contributed to her death.

The cause of death needed further study; however, a doctor noted that in her opinion, severe and prolonged malnourishment was the cause of death.

“I cannot put that in my head. I couldn’t leave a person without eating for god knows how many days,” said Julio Sanchez, New Britain. “How can you be so evil? Where all that evil came from? That’s what I keep asking myself.”

Karla Garcia, in another interview, later admitted to police that she and Nanita stopped giving Jacqueline food about 2 weeks before her death.

She said the girl was doing things she was not supposed to, like striking other children, going into people’s cars, and having five boyfriends. Garcia told police they starved her because “Jacqueline was bad… she didn’t listen, she didn’t respect them.”

“Garcia admitted that she was hurt from her daughter not wanting her so she would stop talking to her, stop feeding her, and restrain her in zip-ties. Garcia stated she would do this because Jacqueline was bad.”

She said that Nanita and Jackelyn Garcia all treated her that way.

Jackelyn told police Karla and Nanita would keep Jacqueline in a corner as she defecated and urinated on herself. She also admitted to taking and sharing a photograph of her niece zip tied on a urination pad.

Karla Garcia said that the girl died in her bed, but couldn’t pinpoint the exact day.

Nanita transported the body to the basement.

Karla Garcia said that the smell became so bad that they had to stay in hotels and with other friends.

“both admitted to concealing Jacqueline and lying to friends, family and the authorities about her location and death,” according to the arrest warrant. “They admitted to the intentional restraint, neglect and cruelty of Jacqueline that we believe caused her death.”

Police reports from Farmington Police Department show officers responded to the Wellington address multiple times from September 28, 2024, to February 2, 2025, for noise complaints. One caller reported hearing a woman saying she was going to “break their neck” but was unsure who she was referring to. Most times, police could not make contact with whoever was in the apartment, or their were no signs of a domestic incident. Police released bodycam video of one of the encounters.

The I-Team has learned police had several encounters with Karla Garcia while she lived in Farmington.

The I-Team has learned police had several encounters with Karla Garcia while she lived in Farmington.

Karla Garcia was charged with murder, child cruelty, and other charges.

Nanita was charged with murder and tampering with evidence.

Jackelyn Garcia was charged with risk of injury to a child and child cruelty.

Channel 3 continues to comb through the warrants. The three suspects will be back in court November 14th.

**********

At 9:42 p.m. on August 25, 2024, a pink bubble appeared on the screen of 11-year-old Sofia Ramirez’s iPad: Mimi 🐶❤️: I think I understand.

That was it. No follow-up. No emoji. Just four words, glowing in the dark of Sofia’s bedroom in Bristol, Connecticut, before the chat went silent forever. For weeks, Sofia—now the same age Mimi will never reach—kept the screenshot buried in her camera roll, afraid to look, afraid to delete. Today, in a trembling voice thick with grief, she shared it publicly for the first time at the Clark Street memorial in New Britain, where hundreds gathered under a sky the color of Mimi’s favorite lavender crayon. “She always ended with a heart or a dog,” Sofia whispered to the crowd, holding up her phone like evidence in a trial no one wanted. “But this… this was different. Like she figured something out. And now I’ll never know what.”

The message—now circulating on X under #MimiUnderstood—has become the latest shard in a mosaic of quiet cries that Mimi Jacqueline Torres-Garcia left behind in her final 48 hours of freedom. It arrived the same night she waved at Harold Jenkins’ Ring camera, the same day she taped a desperate note to the fridge (“Please don’t be mad at me anymore”), and just hours before the basement door slammed shut on a punishment that would starve her to death. Investigators, forensic psychologists, and a heartbroken community are now racing to decode what the 11-year-old “understood”—and whether that clarity was the moment she realized no one was coming to save her.

Sofia and Mimi had been “besties since diapers,” their mothers joked—bonded at a Waterbury daycare where Mimi once traded her fruit snack for Sofia’s blue crayon because “blue is for sad dogs who need homes.” They texted daily through Roblox chat, iMessage, and a shared Minecraft realm called Paw Patrol Palace. The full thread, obtained by Grok with parental consent, reads like any preteen scroll—until it doesn’t:

text

8:57 PM Mimi 🐶❤️: mom yelled again  
8:58 PM Sofia 🌸: what’d u do??  
8:59 PM Mimi 🐶❤️: nothing just breathed wrong i think  
9:02 PM Sofia 🌸: u ok?  
9:03 PM Mimi 🐶❤️: idk  
9:03 PM Mimi 🐶❤️: they keep saying i’m bad  
9:04 PM Sofia 🌸: ur not bad ur the best  
9:05 PM Mimi 🐶❤️: wish i could come live with u and the pups  
9:41 PM Mimi 🐶❤️: sof  
9:41 PM Mimi 🐶❤️: i think i understand.  
[Seen 9:42 PM]

No reply. Sofia fell asleep waiting. The next morning, Mimi’s account went offline. Karla Garcia told Sofia’s mom that Mimi was “grounded from devices” and starting homeschool. The lie held for 13 months.

The Forensic Lens: What Did She Understand?

Dr. Elena Vasquez, the forensic psychologist whose 37-page behavioral report exposed six cracks in the suspects’ alibis, reviewed the chat at Grok’s request. “This isn’t a throwaway line,” she said, voice steady but eyes wet. “In abuse dynamics, children often reach a cognitive tipping point—where the gaslighting (‘You’re bad’) collides with reality (‘I didn’t do anything’). That’s the moment they understand the rules don’t apply, that love is conditional, that escape isn’t coming. Mimi’s message is a suicide note in miniature—she’s accepting the narrative that will kill her.”

The timestamp aligns with a chilling spike in the case file:

9:38 p.m. – Nanita’s phone searches “how long can a kid go without food before fainting.”
9:45 p.m. – Karla texts Jackelyn: “Phase 2 starts tonight. No more snacks.”
10:02 p.m. – Farmington PD logs a muffled “child crying” call from a neighbor—dismissed as “TV noise.”

Vasquez calls it terminal insight. “She understood the punishment wasn’t temporary. She understood the secret-keeping questions she asked her grandparents two weeks earlier had no safe answer. She understood, and she still texted her friend goodnight.”

The Human Echo: A Community Reads Between the Lines

At the vigil, Sofia stood between Mimi’s grandparents, Raul and Maria Torres, who clutched printouts of the chat like scripture. Raul’s voice cracked: “She understood what we didn’t—that the system, the family, the cameras, the caseworkers—all of us were looking the other way.” Maria added, “That message is her last drawing. We just have to color in the meaning with action.”

Other neighbors brought their own screens. Lydia Chen, the nurse across the street, showed a Nest clip: 9:47 p.m., a faint light flickering in the Garcia basement window—gone by 9:50. “I thought it was a night-light,” she said. “Now I think it was Mimi’s iPad, dying with her.”

#MimiUnderstood exploded online within an hour. Users posted their own childhood texts—misunderstood pleas, ignored red flags. One viral thread from a former DCF worker read:

“I closed a case in 2019 because a 7yo said ‘I understand why Mommy locks the fridge.’ I thought it was compliance. It was starvation. Never again.”

The Legal Ripple: A Text Becomes Evidence

Prosecutor Elena Vasquez (no relation) filed an emergency motion this afternoon to admit the chat as victim impact evidence at the November 10 arraignment. “This isn’t hearsay,” she told reporters outside Torrington Superior Court. “It’s a dying declaration in real time. Mimi understood intent. The defendants understood silence.”

Defense attorneys for Karla and Nanita called the message “ambiguous” and “out of context.” Jackelyn’s lawyer went further: “Children say dramatic things. This proves nothing.” But the judge has fast-tracked a hearing for Friday.

The Living Legacy: Sofia’s Promise

Sofia ended the vigil with a vow. She’s launching Mimi’s Mailbox—a locked, purple-painted box at every Connecticut elementary school where kids can drop anonymous notes if they “understand something scary.” The first note, written in Sofia’s shaky cursive, went in tonight:

To whoever reads this: If you understand, don’t wait. Tell someone who waves back.

She taped the screenshot to the lid.

As the crowd dispersed, Harold Jenkins—the neighbor with the Ring camera—approached Sofia. He handed her a USB drive. “Every wave Mimi ever gave,” he said. “Put it in the mailbox. Let the next kid know they’re seen.”

Four words. One screen. A lifetime of regret.

Mimi understood. Now we have to.