Farmington police released body camera footage from a noise complaint that led officers to the condo where Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres’ mother and the mother’s boyfriend were living while authorities believe the young girl’s body stored in the basement.
The footage from the two officers who responded to the Wellington Drive condo on Dec. 29, 2024, was the only interaction police had with the couple in connection with multiple noise complaints, according to Lt. Kyle A. Noddin of the Farmington Police Department.
Police received four noise complaints between September 2024 and February 2025 about the condo where 29-year-old Karla Garcia and her boyfriend, 30-year-old Jonatan Nanita, were living, Noddin said. The interaction officers had with the couple in December was the only time police responded to the unit prior to the investigation into Jacqueline’s death, according to Noddin.
In the videos from the officers’ body camera footage, both policemen could be seen approaching the condo unit where one of them knocks on the door. He then rings the doorbell as a second officer appears to be looking to see if anyone is inside, the footage shows. After the officer knocks a few more times, Garcia can be seen coming to the door about 1½ minutes after the initial knock.
The officer asks if everything is OK and says police received a call about “a lot of noise” coming from the unit.
“They’re always calling,” Garcia says. “Everything’s good though.”
When asked if anyone else was home, Garcia tells the officer “just the babies and my boyfriend.” She then yells down to Nanita, who she appears to indicate was in the basement, after the officer asks to speak with him.
“He’s coming up,” Garcia says at one point.
“They just want to make sure everything’s OK,” she tells Nanita, the footage shows.
When asked again if everything is OK, Karla Garcia tells the officer “Yeah, I’m just pregnant. Just moods. You know?”
Holding a 3-year-old child, Nanita comes to the foyer a few seconds later and tells the officer Garcia often has mood swings and that he tries to calm her down, the footage shows. The officer then takes the couple’s names and birthdays before they chat about the thin walls in the complex and previous noise complaints, the footage shows. The couple tells the officer they are soon moving to New Britain.
“We’re actually moving because of that,” Garcia says.
The primary officer then appears to check their names with dispatchers as the second officer asks if they have any problems with other neighbors, the footage shows. Garcia tells the officer “just next door.”
The officer then asks if the couple have any other children and Nanita responds that he also has a son who just turned 2. Neither of them mention Jacqueline or her sister.
When asked where they are moving, Karla Garcia tells the officer they are going back to New Britain.
“It’s better over there because we don’t have no complaints at all,” she says, the footage shows.
Seconds later, the officer who was speaking with dispatchers says the police are all set and will be leaving. As the officers are leaving, Nanita and Garcia apologize several times and Nanita wishes them “happy holidays,” the footage shows. The entire exchange lasts less than four minutes.
The release of the footage comes after the arrest warrants supporting the charges against Nanita, Garcia and her sister, 28-year-old Jackelyn Garcia, were unsealed. Police have accused Nanita and Karla Garcia of killing Jacqueline, who was 11 years old when she is believed to have died. Jackelyn Garcia has been accused of participating in the abuse authorities believe the girl suffered before her death.
During multiple interviews after Jacqueline’s body was found on Oct. 8 outside a boarded up home in Clark Street in New Britain, Karla Garcia told investigators she believes Nanita put Jacqueline’s body in the basement of their Farmington condo and that it started to smell so bad they had to stay at hotels or with friends, the warrant affidavits said. The couple moved to New Britain in March and were living on Tremont Street where neighbors who spoke to investigators after the remains were discovered told them they would often smell a foul odor either coming from the area where the family kept their garbage bins or from an Acura the family used, the warrant affidavits said.
Nanita told police Karla Garcia kicked him out of their home in August and that she had asked him to move the storage tote where Jacqueline’s body was being kept at their home in New Britain, according to the warrant affidavits. He initially said he did not know what was in the bin before allegedly admitting it was Jacqueline’s remains, police wrote.
A woman who told authorities she was Nanita’s new girlfriend said she was with him in late September when he allegedly picked up the tote from a cemetery and brought it to Clark Street, police wrote in the affidavits. She alleged that the bin “smelled bad” and that, after thinking about it, she told some friends that the bin may have contained a body, according to the warrant affidavit. The friends ultimately contacted authorities, which led investigators to finding Jacqueline’s remains.
When authorities opened the 40-gallon tote they found a laundry basket and bedding as well as Jacqueline’s body curled up in the fetal position, the warrant affidavits said. Police indicated that the remains had some kind of powder poured on them that smelled strongly of ammonia.
The medical examiner found that the body lost its fluids, which pooled at the bottom of the bin, and that her remains only weighed about 27 pounds, according to the warrant affidavits. The doctor performing the autopsy believed the body was in that condition because of severe malnourishment and not the advanced state of decomposition it was in, police wrote.
During their interviews, Karla and Jackelyn Garcia — who lived off-and-on with the couple — allegedly admitted that they, along with Nanita, would often zip tie Jacqueline and deny her food as a form of punishment for periods so long that she would urinate and defecate on herself, according to the warrant affidavits. Karla Garcia allegedly confessed that she didn’t feed her at all in the two weeks before she died in September 2024, the warrant affidavits said.
During their interviews, investigators wrote that Karla Garcia and Nanita each tried to deflect blame to the other for Jacqueline’s death, according to the warrant affidavits.
Nanita and Karla Garcia have been charged with murder with special circumstances, conspiracy to commit murder, intentional cruelty to a child and other charges.
Jackelyn Garcia faces charges of intentional cruelty to a child under 19 years old, first-degree unlawful restraint and risk of injury to a minor.
All three suspects remain held on bond while their cases are pending in Superior Court in Torrington.