Patriot Brief

• Karla Garcia and her boyfriend face fraud charges tied to SNAP benefits after a child’s death.

• Investigators say benefits were collected months after the child allegedly died of starvation.

• Authorities say false household and residency claims led to thousands in improper payments.

There are stories that make you angry, and then there are stories that make you stop for a second because your brain doesn’t want to fully process what you just read. This is the second kind. A child is dead — not from an accident, not from illness, but from prolonged abuse and starvation — and the adults responsible allegedly kept cashing government benefits tied to her existence like nothing had changed.

According to investigators, the fraud wasn’t a paperwork mistake or a missed checkbox. It was repeated, deliberate, and signed off on multiple times, even after the child had been dead for months. That’s not confusion. That’s intent. While the state was being told a household hadn’t changed, a little girl’s body was hidden, and her name kept generating benefits.

This matters because cases like this poison public trust in systems meant to help people who genuinely need it. SNAP exists to feed families, not to bankroll abusers or reward deception. When people talk about fraud as “rare” or “overblown,” they’re ignoring cases exactly like this — where the fraud is small compared to the cruelty but still part of the same moral collapse.

What makes it worse is how preventable this all feels in hindsight. Multiple renewals. Multiple forms. Multiple chances to tell the truth. None taken. The charges now piling up aren’t piling on — they’re documenting a pattern. And no amount of courtroom procedure is ever going to balance what that child went through before anyone bothered to notice she was gone.

From Western Journal:

A Connecticut mother and her boyfriend, who are charged in the killing of a child, are now facing additional criminal counts tied to alleged food stamp fraud.

Investigators say the pair continued collecting food stamp benefits after the girl had been murdered, in part by starvation.

According to a report from WFSB, Karla Garcia and her boyfriend, Jonatan Nanita, were charged in New Britain court with multiple fraud-related offenses connected to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Garcia is the mother of Jacqueline “Mimi” Torres-Garcia, whose death was ruled a homicide.

Department of Social Services investigators said Garcia had been receiving SNAP benefits for her household since October 2020.

Those benefits were still active at the time of Garcia’s arrest for her daughter’s murder.

Police later contacted DSS, which found Garcia had continued receiving benefits for Jacqueline and her four other children.

Investigators determined Jacqueline likely died in September 2024, months before SNAP renewal paperwork was submitted.

In January 2025, and again in August 2025, Garcia allegedly failed to report that Jacqueline was no longer part of the household, as she had died.

She also failed to disclose that Nanita was living with her.

DSS found Nanita had been receiving his own SNAP benefits beginning in October 2024 while claiming he was homeless.

DSS determined Garcia’s household would have received fewer benefits from January through October 2025 if accurate information had been provided.

Investigators said both Garcia and Nanita signed paperwork acknowledging they could go to jail for providing false statements.

DSS concluded that Nanita improperly received $2,886 in SNAP benefits and that Garcia was aware of it.

Receipts and surveillance allegedly showed both defendants using Nanita’s EBT card, sometimes without him present.

Garcia now faces charges including conspiracy to commit first-degree larceny and two counts of giving false statements.

Nanita is charged with first-degree larceny and two counts of making false statements.

A separate report from WSAW detailed the homicide investigation and its grim findings.

Police said an anonymous tip in October 2025 led to the discovery of Jacqueline’s remains in a container outside an abandoned home.

The medical examiner ruled her death a homicide caused by deadly child abuse with starvation.

Both Garcia and Nanita were arrested, and Garcia later told police her daughter had died in September 2024.

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