In the quiet suburbs of New Britain, Connecticut, where family homes line streets like silent sentinels, a horror story unfolded that has left an entire community reeling. On October 8, 2025, the discovery of a plastic tote bin containing the skeletal remains of an 11-year-old girl behind an abandoned property on Clark Street shattered the illusion of safety. The victim was Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-Garcia, a bright-eyed child whose laughter once echoed through her family’s chaotic world. Now, bodycam footage released by New Britain police on November 7, 2025, captures the raw, tense moments of the arrest of Jonatan Nanita, the 30-year-old man accused of playing a central role in her brutal death. Strapped with charges of murder, conspiracy, and tampering with evidence, Nanita’s takedown—marked by a desperate struggle—lays bare the desperation of a man cornered by his own alleged crimes. But as the video rolls, it doesn’t just show an arrest; it peels back layers of deception, neglect, and unimaginable cruelty that allowed a little girl’s life to fade into oblivion.

The nightmare began long before the bin’s grim unveiling. Jacqueline, affectionately called Mimi by those who loved her, was born into a fractured family in 2014. Her mother, Karla Roselee Garcia, 29, had separated from Mimi’s biological father, identified in warrants only as Torres, years earlier. Torres, who shared custody sporadically, described a loving but turbulent relationship with Karla, marked by arguments over parenting and finances. By 2023, Karla had entered a volatile romance with Nanita, a man with his own troubled history, including prior incarcerations for unrelated offenses. The couple, along with Mimi and her younger sister, bounced between low-income apartments in New Britain and nearby Farmington, their lives a whirlwind of evictions, noise complaints, and whispers of dysfunction.

According to unsealed arrest warrants, the descent into horror accelerated in the fall of 2024. Karla and Nanita, then living in a cramped condo on Wellington Drive in Farmington, allegedly subjected Mimi to a regime of starvation and isolation. Warrants detail how Mimi, upset over learning of her mother’s new pregnancy, argued with Karla. In one version of events Karla later confessed to detectives, the altercation escalated: Mimi pushed her mother, causing both to tumble down the stairs. But as investigators pressed, Karla’s story shifted. She admitted Nanita, enraged, kicked the child in the head and dragged her limp body away. “I never saw her again after that,” Karla reportedly told police, her words hanging like a noose in the interrogation room.

The medical examiner’s report paints an even bleaker picture. Mimi’s emaciated body, weighing just 26 to 27 pounds at death—less than a typical kindergartener—weighed down by layers of abuse. Cause of death: fatal child abuse via starvation. Ribs protruded like brittle branches, her frame a testament to weeks, if not months, of deliberate deprivation. Detectives believe she perished sometime in September 2024, right in the heart of the Farmington condo. Nanita, according to Karla’s account, discovered her unresponsive in bed, panicked, and hauled the body to the basement, stuffing it into a large plastic tote amid boxes of forgotten belongings. The couple, now guardians of a corpse, carried on as if nothing had happened. They moved back to New Britain in March 2025, the bin trailing them like a macabre secret, its odor growing foul enough to force stays in hotels and friends’ homes.

Neighbors in Farmington, oblivious to the basement atrocity, pieced together fragments of concern. Between September 2024 and February 2025, police responded to four noise complaints at the Wellington Drive address—screams piercing the night, heavy thuds, Karla’s voice barking “stop” or “don’t.” Bodycam footage from the December 29, 2024, visit, released on October 29, 2025, captures the eerie normalcy. Two Farmington officers knock, and Karla answers, Nanita hovering behind her like a shadow. “We always get complaints,” Karla sighs, gesturing vaguely. “They’ve been at it since we moved in. We’re actually leaving… back to New Britain because of that.” The officers, chatting amiably, inquire about children. Nanita mentions his 2-year-old son. Silence falls on Mimi and her sister—no flicker of guilt, no mention of the girl decaying feet below. One neighbor later told investigators she’d seen bruises on Mimi’s younger sibling and alerted the Department of Children and Families (DCF), but a welfare check yielded nothing; another child allegedly posed as Mimi, shielding the lie.

Back in New Britain, the tote became a ticking bomb. Karla enlisted her sister, 28-year-old Jackelyn Garcia, in the cover-up. Warrants allege Jackelyn helped conceal the death, facing charges of cruelty to a minor, unlawful restraint, reckless endangerment, and risk of injury. The sisters, bound by blood and denial, stored the bin in their shared apartment until the stench became unbearable. In early October 2025, with eviction looming, Karla turned to Nanita—now her ex—for disposal. Fresh out of prison on unrelated charges, he drove to the apartment, loaded the bin into his car, and scouted spots: first a cemetery, too exposed; then the overgrown lot behind the derelict Clark Street house, perfect for vanishing evidence.

But secrets have a way of surfacing. On October 8, 2025, two of Nanita’s friends, tipped off by his vague confessions, investigated the site. Peering into the bin, one recoiled at the sight of a small elbow amid desiccated remains. They called 911 immediately, unleashing a torrent. New Britain detectives swarmed, identifying the child via dental records and DNA. Karla and Nanita, not yet arrested, were hauled in for questioning that night. Karla stonewalled at first, denying knowledge. Nanita spun a tale: he’d picked up the bin at Karla’s behest, assuming it held trash, and dumped it without peeking. But cracks formed. Cell phone pings placed Nanita near the site; Facebook IP logs traced his frantic posts seeking advice on “getting rid of stuff.” Torres, Mimi’s father, bombarded with rumors, confirmed his worst fears via a call from his brother: Nanita had allegedly admitted the deed.

The manhunt for Nanita intensified. Warrants issued on October 13, 2025, detailed his evasion: dodging calls, crashing in stolen cars, bouncing between gyms and motels in Waterbury and New Britain. Detectives triangulated his phone to a Middletown vehicle theft ring; a gym break-in led to accomplices who fingered him fleeing in yet another hot ride. Bodycam video from his October 13 arrest, dropped like a grenade on November 7, shows the chaos unfolding in a Waterbury parking lot. Multiple officers converge on Nanita, slouched in the driver’s seat of a battered sedan. “Hands up! Out of the car!” commands echo as he resists, twisting and shoving against the cuffs. A scuffle ensues—grunts, commands to “stop fighting”—before he’s subdued, face pressed to pavement, rights read amid the blur of blue uniforms. The footage, grainy but unflinching, clocks the struggle at under two minutes, a microcosm of the violence that allegedly claimed Mimi’s life. “Due to the nature of the crime and crowds gathering,” one report notes, Karla—arrested simultaneously at home—was cuffed for transport, a precaution against vigilante justice.

In the interrogation rooms that followed, fingers flew. Karla pinned the killing on Nanita’s rage-fueled kick; he countered she’d starved the girl for weeks, finding her cold and still. Both admitted moving the body, concocting the conspiracy. Jackelyn, tearful, confessed to knowing but staying silent, fearing family fallout. Torres, devastated, poured out details to detectives: DCF visits thwarted by lies, his pleas for custody ignored. “I should’ve fought harder,” he lamented in a warrant-affidavit interview, his words a gut-punch to the system.

As November 10, 2025, dawns cold and gray, the trio awaits trial in Torrington Superior Court, bonds set high at $10 million each for Karla and Nanita, $1 million for Jackelyn. New charges against Nanita—tampering and improper disposal—pile on, his court appearance last week a stoic shuffle in orange. Farmington’s condo, now a crime scene husk, stands empty, its basement a vault of lost innocence. Neighbors, once annoyed by noise, now light candles at makeshift memorials in New Britain: teddy bears, photos of Mimi’s gap-toothed smile, signs reading “Justice for Mimi.”

The bodycam videos—arrest takedown, oblivious condo chat—serve as stark bookends to a year of torment. They humanize the monsters, showing Nanita’s defiant squirm, Karla’s casual deflection, yet underscore the inhumanity: a child reduced to whispers and waste. Experts decry the lapses—DCF’s blind spots, police’s near-misses—fueling calls for homeschool oversight reform, as Mimi was pulled from public school under vague pretenses. Torres, channeling grief into advocacy, urges, “No more hidden horrors.”

Mimi Torres-Garcia’s story isn’t just a case file; it’s a siren for the unseen. In Connecticut’s working-class enclaves, where poverty and passion collide, her death exposes the thin veil between survival and savagery. As winter grips New Britain, the Clark Street lot—once a dump site—blooms with flowers, a fragile stand against forgetting. The bodycams roll on in courtrooms and consciousness, demanding: How many more bins hide in basements? How many Mimis fade unheard? Justice, for this girl, begins with remembering—her spark, snuffed too soon, now a beacon in the dark.