SAN ANTONIO – A San Antonio mother and her boyfriend have been charged in the death of a five-year-old boy whose remains are believed to have been found at the bottom of a ravine in Colorado earlier this week, court records obtained by the KSAT 12 Defenders show.
Daniel Garcia, 26, and the boy’s mother, Nickolle Christina Aguilar, 25, both face a felony charge of injury to a child causing serious bodily injury-death.
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Last week, San Antonio police received information from the FBI that a grandmother claimed her five-year-old grandson, Domenic Patrick Aguilar-Acevedo had died at a northeast San Antonio hotel around July 25, records show.
The woman, in an interview with FBI agents in Costa Rica, said that she tracked her daughter down in the Central American country and was informed by Aguilar that Domenic had suffered an “unexplainable death,” the warrant states.
Instead of reporting the boy’s death to authorities in San Antonio, Aguilar and Garcia drove to Colorado the next morning with the body and camped in a public camping area near the Rocky Mountain State Park, records show.
The couple then buried Domenic’s body in a remote location near the campsite and fled by car to Mexico and eventually on to Costa Rica.
Aguilar confirmed the details her mother provided to authorities in Costa Rica and said that she and Garcia did not seek medical help for her child after he had become ill, records show.
An SAPD detective was able to obtain surveillance video from the hotel, an extended stay in the 6900 block of Interstate 35 North, that showed Garcia carrying what appeared to be a lifeless body out of the room and down a stairway, according to the warrant.
WARNING: GRAPHIC DETAILS BELOW
The couple left the hotel without properly checking out, records show.
RELATED: Sources: Search for remains in rural Colorado linked to San Antonio murder investigation
The SAPD detective traveled to Colorado on Wednesday, and after meeting up with the Aguilar and the grandmother, human remains were located during a search in Grand County, Colorado, near the town of Fraser, records show.
Results of an autopsy performed by the Larimer County Medical Examiner’s Office are pending, however, trauma was found on the remains and the body was in the same clothing Domenic was seen wearing in the hotel surveillance video, the warrant states.
During an interview with the SAPD detective on Thursday, Aguilar said she had witnessed the victim suffer “extensive physical abuse” by Garcia for several weeks.
She told the detective that on July 24, Garcia struck Domenic so hard that he bounced off of a wall and then landed on the floor.
Domenic at one point vomited a black and brown liquid substance after the physical abuse had started in San Antonio.
A source familiar with the investigation said Saturday that both Garcia and Aguilar were in custody in Florida.
A suspect matching Garcia’s name and birthdate, who was wanted on an out-of-state fugitive warrant, was listed on the Miami-Dade County Jail website as having been booked Friday.
SAPD’s media services office did not respond to a request for comment Saturday afternoon.
Both suspects will likely be extradited to San Antonio to face formal charges here.