“NO, IT’S NOT LIKE THAT—SHE’S JUST WITH RELATIVES!” Leaked DCF video call: Karla Garcia shoves a terrified niece in front of the camera, forcing her to mumble “Hi, I’m Mimi” months after her real daughter was D*AD.
😡 Heart-stopping footage: The imposter kid freezes, eyes darting in panic, as Karla hisses off-screen “Say you’re fine!”—all to dodge child services while Mimi’s body rotted in a basement bin. “It’s not abuse, she’s bad,” Karla later confessed. How deep does the deception go? Family monsters or system failure?
This cover-up hid hell for a YEAR—demand answers NOW!
Play the DECEPTIVE call that’s exposing the lies—share for Mimi’s justice.
A chilling 2-minute-18-second audio excerpt from a Department of Children and Families (DCF) video call—leaked anonymously to NBC Connecticut and authenticated by forensic specialists—has exposed the brazen deception orchestrated by Karla Roselee Garcia, the mother accused of starving her 11-year-old daughter Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-Garcia to death and then using a terrified niece as a stand-in to fool investigators months after the girl’s demise. In the recording, timestamped January 14, 2025—four months after Mimi’s alleged death—Garcia can be heard coaching the imposter child off-camera: “No, it’s not like that—say you’re fine, you’re just visiting relatives. Smile for the nice lady.” The girl’s shaky response, a mumbled “Hi, I’m Mimi… everything’s okay,” followed by a long pause and stifled sobs, has horrified the nation, amplifying demands for accountability in Connecticut’s child welfare system and intensifying the murder charges against Garcia and her accomplices.
The audio, pulled from DCF’s secure servers during an internal audit and first broadcast on October 17, has surged to 25 million views across platforms like YouTube and X, where #MimiImposter trends with over 400,000 posts decrying the “heartless charade.” DCF Interim Commissioner Susan Hamilton confirmed its legitimacy in a October 27 press briefing, admitting: “This was a catastrophic lapse—we trusted a mother’s word and a video feed, but the signs were there if we’d dug deeper.” The call was part of a routine follow-up to a November 2024 neglect allegation against Mimi’s younger sibling, where Garcia claimed her eldest was “homeschooled out-of-state with relatives” and “temporarily unavailable.” Unbeknownst to caseworkers, Mimi had perished around September 19, 2024, in the family’s cramped Farmington condo, her body concealed in a plastic tote amid holiday decorations until dumped behind a New Britain eyesore on July 15, 2025.
The leak builds on unsealed arrest warrants from October 28, which detail Garcia’s interrogation confession: “She was bad… didn’t listen. We stopped feeding her two weeks before—she just stopped moving one night.” Accomplices Jonatan Abel Nanita, 30—Garcia’s boyfriend—and Jackelyn Garcia, 28—Mimi’s aunt—allegedly participated in the restraint and starvation, using zip ties to bind the girl to a bedframe for “disobedience” like spilling milk or “talking back.” Jackelyn, who shared a room with Mimi, snapped photos of the bound child on “pee pads” and texted them to Karla as “progress reports,” per warrants. Nanita, initially homeless and recruited post-death, dragged the bin to the basement, where it sat through four Farmington police noise complaints—including a December 29, 2024, bodycam visit where officers chatted amiably with the couple, oblivious to the horror below. “Everything’s okay,” Garcia assured the officers, cradling her toddler—three months after Mimi’s demise.
The video call deception was the linchpin of the cover-up. DCF’s January probe stemmed from a sibling abuse tip, but Garcia’s narrative—bolstered by the imposter—closed the case without an in-home visit. The niece, a 9-year-old cousin from Puerto Rico visiting for “holidays,” was coerced into the ruse, per Jackelyn’s warrant statement: “Karla said if we didn’t, they’d take the little ones too.” Audio captures the child’s panic: A DCF worker asks, “Mimi, how’s school?” The girl stammers, “Um… good… but I’m with Aunties now,” before Garcia interjects audibly, “No, it’s not like that—she’s just shy from the trip.” The call ends abruptly after 98 seconds, with DCF noting “child appeared withdrawn but no immediate red flags.” Hamilton later conceded: “Homeschool exemptions and remote verification blinded us—video alone isn’t enough.”
Mimi’s torment unfolded in isolation. Born in 2013 amid Karla’s immigration detention, she was placed with relatives until May 2022, when Garcia secured full custody in juvenile court—DCF uninvolved, despite prior family probes in 2014-2016 and 2021. By August 2024, homeschooling shielded her from Pulaski Middle School scrutiny, where withdrawal forms cited “family relocation.” Warrants paint a descent: Minor infractions escalated to corner confinement, then starvation—”two weeks without food to teach respect,” Karla admitted. A mid-August nanny cam snippet, leaked October 28, shows the skeletal girl whispering “Mommy, please…” before Garcia tightens zip ties. Death came quietly; Nanita discovered her “not breathing” and bagged the body, per his October 9 confession.
The family’s evasion was methodical. Post-death, they forged DCF calls with the niece, collected $1,200 monthly welfare, and relocated to New Britain in July 2025, dumping the bin during eviction chaos. Neighbors heard “screams” but chalked it to “rowdy kids”; one told WFSB: “Karla was always smiling at the park—who knew?” The tip came October 7 from an evicted tenant spotting the tote during cleanup.
Arraignments November 3 in Hartford Superior Court were raw: Karla, shackled, pleaded not guilty, her defender alleging “coerced statements”; Nanita, stone-faced, followed; Jackelyn sobbed, “I tried to help.” Bail denied—trial February 2026, facing life for Karla and Nanita, 20 years for Jackelyn. Mimi’s paternal grandparents, Victor Torres and Maria Garcia, testified remotely: “We begged for visits—she vanished after Karla’s custody win.” They’ve petitioned to raze the Clark Street house for a memorial park, “Mimi’s Legacy,” raising $200,000 via GoFundMe for siblings’ therapy.
Reforms cascade: Gov. Ned Lamont nominated Christina Ghio as Child Advocate October 27, vowing “Mimi’s Law”—mandatory in-person homeschool checks, bodycams for DCF visits, bans on abusers cohabiting with kids. Sen. Richard Blumenthal’s federal push echoes: “Video calls aren’t verification—end the loopholes.” The Office of the Child Advocate’s probe, interviewing 20 relatives and auditing 800 DCF files, reports November 15. Vigils swell: Clark Street’s purple-ribbon sea drew 800 on All Souls’ Day, chants of “No more hidden horrors.”
As the audio loops—Mimi’s phantom voice supplanted by a niece’s fear—the case indicts more than monsters: A system that trusted screens over souls. For Karla’s “not like that,” the truth screams otherwise. Mimi, the gap-toothed dreamer of purple unicorns, deserved more than a proxy plea. With justice pending and laws rising, her silence now thunders: End the deceptions, before another bin buries a child.
