BREAKING NEWS : Authorities have confirmed new details surrounding Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-Garcia, 12 tuổi, whose disappearance went unnoticed for nearly a year.
Neighbors recall seeing a small pink backpack left by the stairs in late 2024 — never moved again.
Tonight, investigators are piecing together how that backpack became the silent clue everyone missed…

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A memorial stretches along the front of the abandoned home where the remains of 12 year old Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres Garcia were found in New Britain, Connecticut on October 14th 2025. Credit: Joe Amon | CT Public

The child found dead earlier this month in a plastic container in New Britain hadn’t eaten for weeks prior to her death, was confined and severely abused, but the Department of Children and Families didn’t receive reports of that abuse, according to a timeline of events released by the state agency last week.

Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-García was kept zip-tied in a corner, lying on top of pee pads, and had been denied food in the two weeks before she died, according to court documents. The documents detail some of the evidence likely to be presented in cases against the girl’s mother, aunt, and the mother’s boyfriend in connection with her murder.

Police filed search warrants with the court to access phone records for Karla García, the girl’s mother, and Jackelyn García, the child’s aunt. Allegations about the abuse Torres-García endured before her death are contained in those warrants.

On Oct. 8, New Britain police received a tip that Jonatan Nanita, Karla García’s boyfriend, had picked up a tote in the woods of a cemetery and put it in the back of his vehicle, then drove to an abandoned home on Clark Street and left the tote on the property. The tote was presumed to contain Torres-García’s body, according to the warrants.

The autopsy showed that there were no signs of recent trauma or injuries that caused her death, but she was malnourished. Karla García told police after her arrest that she and Nanita stopped feeding Torres-García for two weeks prior to her death and that they had restrained her in zip ties as punishment when she was “acting bad,” according to the warrants.

After the girl’s death, Nanita put her body in the basement of their Farmington home, but the smell of decay emanating from below was so strong they had to live with friends or at hotels, documents state.

Jackelyn García sent her sister a photo of the girl restrained in zip ties and lying on a pee pad, according to documents. Karla García told her sister that the child died on Sept. 19, 2024, more than a year before her body was found this month.

Karla García said most of her daughter’s punishments were at the direction of Nanita and that she had planned to go on a podcast to share the story of what happened. She wrote notes on her phone about what she planned to say on the podcast before she was arrested.

While DCF had involvement with the family, it doesn’t appear that the agency was aware of the 2024 abuse that ultimately led to Torres-García’s death. The agency said in a statement on Friday that the family had deceived them by having another child impersonate Torres-García in a welfare check on Zoom earlier this year. According to DCF, the family told them the child was being homeschooled and was visiting a relative out of state.

Torres-García’s case is not typical for DCF, which mostly handles neglect complaints.  About 80% of cases come to the agency because of neglect concerns, not abuse.

Connecticut DCF is part of a growing movement among state child welfare agencies to prioritize family unification,  with varying degrees of success. Child removal has been shown to be harmful to kids’ development. Because most interventions deal with neglect rather than abuse, advocates say that the true problem in the overwhelming preponderance of cases is a strained, underfunded system that lacks services and support for families in poverty. Caseworker turnover is high, according to previous interviews with DCF officials. Advocates say families struggle to access services they need such as mental health or addiction treatment, housing and child care.

DCF said in a statement issued last week that they first became involved with the girl’s family when she was born. At the time, Karla García was in a detention center, so the baby was placed with a relative, where she remained until May 2022, when she was 9 years old. That year, her parents sought guardianship of both Torres-García and her younger sibling, which was granted by the court, a decision supported by DCF at the time.

The department then interacted with Torres-García “during a subsequent investigation” in September 2022 involving her younger siblings, but there was not enough evidence to substantiate child abuse or neglect. DCF closed that case in November 2022.

For the following two years, DCF says, it had no involvement with the family, although it notes that Karla García sought and was granted sole custody of Torres-García and a sibling in June 2024.

But in January of this year, allegations were again made against García regarding the treatment of Torres-García’s younger sibling. As DCF checked on the sibling and then attempted to check on Torres-García, her mother told DCF case workers that she was being homeschooled and had gone to visit a relative out of state. In response, “DCF conducted a video call with a person who (the) mother claimed to be Jacqueline.” But police have said they believe that Jacqueline had died months earlier. DCF, apparently satisfied with that call, closed the case in March 2025.

Cases typically come to DCF’s attention when someone reports suspected abuse or neglect. The agency decides whether it merits investigation. These investigations are separate from criminal investigations and require a different burden of proof.

In Torres-García’s case, no one reported her missing, New Britain Mayor Erin Stewart said. After the family’s most recent involvement and despite the severe abuse, no one reported concerns about Torres-García to DCF. Several lawmakers have called for more accountability and transparency from DCF about their involvement with the family.

Republican senators called DCF workers’ actions into question in a Friday statement.

“We need full details of this video call,” the statement from Sen. Jason Perillo, R-Shelton, and Senate Minority Leader Stephen Harding, R-Brookfield. “We need full transparency. This is an example of why essential state employees’ remote work must be constantly reviewed, especially when it involves protecting our most vulnerable residents.”

Some lawmakers have also renewed calls to further regulate homeschooling because, close to the time of her death, Torres-García’s mother reported that her daughter would be homeschooled.

Following news that a Waterbury man who was allegedly locked away by his stepmother for over a decade had been homeschooled, the Office of the Child Advocate released a report that said homeschooling has been used to hide abuse and that Connecticut has little regulation of that system.

Online petitions have also called for more regulation of the system, suggesting periodic welfare checks for homeschooled children, among other measures.

Members of the homeschooling community have pushed back against those suggestions, saying the focus on education is deflecting attention from DCF, which they say should have acted to protect Torres-García.