SAN ANTONIO – A San Antonio man arrested in connection with the death of a 5-year-old boy whose remains were abandoned at the bottom of a Colorado ravine has been extradited back to Bexar County.
Daniel Garcia, 27, was charged with injury to a child and booked into the Bexar County Jail on Sunday, records show. Garcia and the child’s mother, Nickolle Christina Aguilar, 25, had been arrested in late August, after authorities found the remains, and were booked in the Miami-Dade County Jail in Florida.
Garcia’s bond was set at $500,000, according to jail records, and Aguilar is expected to be extradited to San Antonio to face formal charges.
The boy, Domenic Patrick Aguilar-Acevedo, was found dead on Aug. 25 in Fraser County, Colorado, just days after his grandmother told authorities she suspected he died at a San Antonio hotel.
The woman, in an interview with FBI agents in Costa Rica, said that she tracked her daughter down in Costa Rica as she was not able to hear from her grandchildren. She was informed by Aguilar that the boy suffered an “unexplainable death” in late July, the warrant states.
Instead of reporting the boy’s death to authorities, Aguilar said she and Garcia drove to Colorado the next morning with the body and camped 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’s mother reported her daughter’s account to San Antonio police and the FBI.
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.
She told detectives that on July 24 while they were at an extended stay hotel in the 6900 block of Interstate 35 North, Garcia struck the boy with so much force that he bounced off the wall and hit the floor, the affidavit states.
The boy vomited a black and brown liquid after the abuse started in San Antonio, the affidavit states.
The couple left the hotel days before their scheduled departure and did not properly check out, records show.
The affidavit states that surveillance footage from the hotel shows Garcia carrying what appeared to be a lifeless body out of the hotel room.
Aguilar said she didn’t report the abuse because she was “too eager” to be in a relationship with Garcia, records show.
When asked why they didn’t report the boy’s death, she responded that the couple “discussed the possibilities about them losing both custody of their other children.”
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