Police have released the warrants for the mother of an 11-year-old girl who was found dead in a tote outside an abandoned New Britain home earlier this month, the mother’s ex-boyfriend and the girl’s aunt.
The body of 11-year-old Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-Garcia was found in a tote at 80 Clark St. on Oct. 8.
Police said Mimi was severely malnourished, weighed only 26 to 27 pounds, and had likely been dead for around a year before she was found.
Mimi’s mother, Karla Garcia; Garcia’s ex-boyfriend, Jonatan Nanita, with whom she shares three other children; and Garcia’s aunt, Jackelyn Garcia, have all been arrested.

Farmington police

Farmington police
Jonatan Nanita (left), Karla Garcia (middle) and Jackelyn Garcia (right).

According to the warrants, Karla Garcia and Nanita blamed each other for the child’s death.
Mimi’s remains were found in plastic trash bags that were placed inside a 40-gallon tote along with a laundry basket, a comforter and bedsheets, and a white powdery substance appeared to have been poured on the remains in an effort to mask the smell, the warrants reveal.

What Karla Garcia told police

When police spoke to Karla Garcia, she originally told investigators that her daughter was fine and visiting a friend.
When Garcia was told that New Britain police had gone to the Dwight Street address and that they accounted for all her children except for Jacqueline, Garcia repeatedly asked, “what do you mean?” Then said all the children were all at the house when she left and they were supposed to be there, the warrant states.
Police then told Garcia that no one had seen Mimi for more than a year and they believed her body might be the one in the tote.
Garcia denied any knowledge of a tote containing her daughter and denied knowing what happened to Mimi, but said Nanita would know and she had been afraid to tell police because she feared him and was afraid that he would kill her or her children, according to the arrest warrants.
She told police that the last time she saw Mimi was around eight months earlier, when they were living in Farmington, and when Nanita took her, the warrant says.
Later, she admitted that she and her ex-boyfriend had stopped feeding Mimi about two weeks before she died and the child had died in her bed, but she wasn’t sure when, according to the warrants.
Garcia told police that Nanita had moved Mimi’s body to the basement and when the smell became bad, they started staying at hotels and with friends before moving to Tremont Street in New Britain, the warrant states.
When they moved, Nanita transported Mimi’s body in a plastic bin that he had bought a few days earlier, Garcia told police, the warrant states.
During the investigation, police asked Garcia about a photo in which Mimi was seen restrained with zip ties and lying on the floor on a pee pad.
At first, Garcia denied any involvement but later admitted to placing her daughter in zip ties twice when Nanita told her to, the warrant states.
Garcia also told police that Nanita forced her to withhold food from her daughter, but later admitted that she and Nanita mistreated Mimi together because the child was “bad,” didn’t listen, didn’t respect them and struck other children and they stopped feeding her about two weeks before her death, the warrant states.
She told police that she, Nanita and her sister would all treat Mimi the same way and that Jackelyn Garcia had taken the photograph of Mimi as she was restrained, the warrant said.
Karla Garcia has been charged with murder with special circumstances, conspiracy to commit murder with special circumstances, risk of injury to a minor, unlawful restrain in the first degree, intentional cruelty to a child, tampering with evidence and disposal of a dead body.

When people asked about Mimi

In the days, weeks and months after Mimi died, people would ask where she was and the warrants reveal what Karla Garcia would say.
Garcia told police that she would respond to anyone who asked where Mimi was by saying that her daughter ran away or that she was staying with a friend, which Nanita told her to say, according to the warrant.

Another version of how Mimi died

At one point, Garcia presented police with another version of how Mimi died, but police said it wasn’t consistent with the initial findings of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
Garcia told police that she was six months pregnant when she argued with Mimi in October 2024 because her daughter was upset that she was pregnant again, Mimi pushed her down the stairs and they both fell, the warrant said.
She went on to say that Nanita then became upset, kicked Mimi, stomped on her head, picked her up, threw her down a second set of stairs that led to the basement, and that was the last time she saw her daughter, according to the warrant.
Garcia told police that her daughter was bleeding and crying but she didn’t interfere because she was afraid of Nanita.
She said Nanita later told her that he had put Mimi in a bag and placed things over her, according to the warrant.
Garcia told him that Nanita didn’t like Mimi because she was making Garcia depressed and she didn’t like that her mother was pregnant with another of Nanita’s children, according to the warrant.
Nanita denied responsibility for Mimi’s death and said that he never hit the kids, the warrant states.
The arrest warrant says that Garcia’s account that Nanita killed Mimi by stomping on her head and throwing her down the stairs wasn’t consistent with what the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner found. The cause of Mimi’s death has not been determined, they are pending further studies, but she was severely malnourished, according to the arrest warrant.

How police found Mimi’s remains

The warrants also reveal more information about what led police to Mimi’s remains.
Complaints led them to a woman, identified as Nanita’s girlfriend, who had told friends about a tote box that might contain a dead body, according to the arrest warrants.
The woman told police that Nanita, her boyfriend, had picked her up at the end of September, said he needed to pick something up and he drove to a cemetery and picked up a tote, which smelled badly. After thinking about it, she said she believed that the tote might have contained a body and told her friends.

What Jonatan Nanita said

According to the arrest warrant for Nanita, he approached New Britain investigators while they were canvassing the area of Tremont Street and expressed that he wanted to clear his name and he said he “didn’t do any of this,” according to the warrant.
He was then taken to the New Britain police department.
According to what Nanita told police, he and Karla Garcia had been dating for seven years, had three children together, and they had moved from Farmington to Tremont Street at the beginning of 2025, but Garcia kicked him out in August and he is homeless.
He told police that Garcia had later contacted him and asked him to get rid of the tote that was outside her apartment building near the garage, so he drove to 24 Tremont St. in New Britain with his current girlfriend, Garcia helped load the bin into his truck and he drove it to a nearby cemetery, per Garcia’s instructions, to hide it, the warrant states. But he didn’t find a good location, so he dropped the tote in a backyard on Clark Street.
Police asked Nanita if he knew that Jacqueline was in the bin that he moved and he denied it, but eventually he nodded yes, that he did, according to the warrant.
When they asked him when he last saw Mimi, he said it had been around a year or two, but then said he saw her in January or March of this year, according to the warrant.
He denied Karla Garcia’s account of him kicking Mimi and said he did not know where the bin came from, never opened it and only helped Karla Garcia move it.
He suggested while speaking with police that Karla Garcia might have killed Mimi, according to the warrant.
Nanita was charged with murder with special circumstances, conspiracy to commit murder with special circumstances, risk of injury to a minor and cruelty to a child.

What Mimi’s aunt, Jackelyn Garcia, said

When police spoke with Mimi’s aunt, Jackelyn Garcia, on Oct. 8, she appeared intoxicated and initially said that all the kids were “good,” they had never been in harm’s way and she had seen all of them that day, according to the warrant.
Police spoke with her again on Oct. 9 and she told them she didn’t remember the interview room from the night before.
She then told them she believed she was being interviewed because her niece was found on Clark Street behind an abandoned building, in a bin, the arrest warrant states.
She later told them that the last time she saw her niece was possibly in August 2024.
She said she had asked her sister on one occasion in October 2025 If Nanita had done something to Mimi and Karla started crying and said she didn’t know, the warrants says.
She told police that her niece had been deprived of food and made to stand in the corner, according to the arrest warrant, and her sister and her sister’s then-boyfriend restrained Mimi with zip ties as a punishment.
Later, Jackelyn Garcia admitted to using zip ties on her niece, but said she tried to minimize her involvement and didn’t realize that her niece had died until Oct. 9. 2025, according to the arrest warrant.
She told police that her niece was extremely thin, she was not well cared for and she had seen at least one instance in which Nanita picked Mimi up by her shoulders, took her downstairs and beat her as she cried, according to the warrant.
Jackelyn Garcia told police that she would sneak Mimi food and water and Mimi would drink sink water when she was taken downstairs to wash her face, according to the warrant.
She confirmed that she didn’t call police, an ambulance or report violent behavior to any agency and instead watched the neglect progress, the warrant states.
Jackelyn Garcia has been charged with cruelty to persons, unlawful restraint in the first degree, reckless endangerment in the first degree and four counts of risk of injury.

When Mimi’s father told investigators he last saw his daughter

During the investigation, police spoke with Mimi’s father, Victor Torres, and he told them that his mother had temporary custody of Mimi from right after she was born until she was 8 or 9 years old, then he and Garcia had joint custody in 2021. In 2023, Garcia got full custody and she made it difficult for him to see his children, he said, according to the arrest warrant.
The last time he saw Mimi was at her fifth-grade graduation, on June 10, 2024, he told police.
Each time he asked to speak to Mimi after that, Garcia told him that she wasn’t home, that she was with friends or made another excuse, according to the warrants.
When his other daughter had her fifth-grade graduation on June 9, 2025, Mimi wasn’t there and Garcia told him she was in school, he told police.
At one point, Torres contacted the state Department of Children & Families to conduct a wellness check but he was told they couldn’t make one because they didn’t know where she lived, according to the warrant.
He said he had since been made aware that DCF had done a welfare check on Mimi, but a younger sister of one of Garcia’s friends posed as his daughter, the warrant says.

What neighbors told police

One neighbor of the residence on Wellington Drive reported hearing yelling, swearing and items being thrown in the home that Garcia and Nanita shared and saw a young girl who would often take out the garbage, carry large bags of groceries by herself, go outside and start the family vehicle when it was cold outside, according to the warrant, and a neighbor reported contacting the state Department of Children and Families to report possible abuse and neglect of a girl in the home.

Police response to the family’s home

Farmington police had responded to the Farmington home several times to investigate noise complaints, including on the night of Dec. 29, 2024, and Garcia spoke with police but she did not report Mimi to be missing at the time, the warrant states.

What comes next

Karla Garcia, Jackelyn Garcia and Jonatan Nanita are due in court on Nov. 14.