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Adair
Javier GARCIA
Classification: Mass murderer
Characteristics:
Parricide
- Arson
Number of victims: 5
Date of murders:
February 19, 2002
Date of arrest:
Same day
Date of birth: 1972
Victims profile: Brenda, 10,
Jonathan, 6, Vanessa, 6, Cecelia, 4, and Anthony, 2(five of his children)
Method of murder: Asphyxiation (lighting a charcoal grill inside his
home and closing all the doors and windows)
Location: Los Angeles, California, USA
Status: Sentenced to life in prison on June 8, 2005
On February 19, 2002, a man in the Los
Angeles neighborhood of Pico Rivera killed five of his children by
lighting a charcoal grill in their living room and filling the home with
deadly carbon monoxide fumes.
Prosecutors said
murder charges will be sought against Adair Garcia, 30, because
investigators are "absolutely certain" that he intended to
asphyxiate his six children -- ages 2 to 10 -- and himself. The sixth
child and himself, a 9-year-old girl, remain hospitalized.
The children's distraught
mother, Adriana Ibeth Arreola, had to be restrained by deputies when she
arrived at the scene.
She had been living at
another location for about a week because of recent domestic discord.
Found dead at the scene were
Brenda, 10, Jonathan, 6, and Anthony, 2, the coroner's office said.
Cecelia, 4, and Vanessa, 6, died later at a hospital.
Paramedics were called to
the neatly kept two-bedroom home in a middle-class neighborhood when the
children's grandmother, who had come to baby-sit, saw smoke coming out
of the house.
Father
Found Guilty of Killing Five Kids
Jurors
found Adair Javier Garcia guilty of five counts of first-degree murder
and one count of attempted murder.
March 29, 2005
NORWALK —
A jury in Norwalk has convicted a man of killing five of his children by
lighting a charcoal grill inside his home and closing all the doors and
windows.
Jurors
began deliberations yesterday and today found Adair Javier Garcia guilty
of five counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder.
The
murder charges also carried special circumstance allegations of multiple
murder, murder by poisoning and lying in wait, which makes Garcia
eligible for the death penalty.
The
penalty phase will begin Monday.
Five of
Garcia's children were killed in February 2002 as they slept in the
family's Pico Rivera home. The children, ages three- to ten, died from
asphyxiation from the carbon monoxide built up inside the house from the
burning grill. Garcia and his then-nine-year-old daughter survived.
Police
initially thought the grill was used to heat the house but became
suspicious when they found several working space heaters in the home.
Prosecutors said Garcia sought revenge against his wife who had recently
left him and wanted to kill himself and his six children.
Man found guilty of
killing five kids, eligible for death penalty
SignOnSanDiego.com
March 29, 2005
NORWALK – A jury on Tuesday convicted a man of
killing five of his children by lighting a charcoal grill inside his
home and closing all the doors and windows.
Jurors, who began deliberations on Monday, found
Adair Javier Garcia guilty of five counts of first-degree murder and one
count of attempted murder.
The murder charges also carried special circumstance
allegations of multiple murder, murder by poisoning and lying in wait,
which makes Garcia eligible for the death penalty.
The penalty phase will begin Monday.
Five of Garcia's children were killed in February 2002 as they slept in
the family's Pico Rivera home. The children, ages 3 to 10, died from
asphyxiation from the carbon monoxide built up inside the house from the
burning grill. Garcia, 33, and his then-9-year-old daughter survived.
Police initially thought the grill was used to heat
the house but became suspicious when they found several working space
heaters in the home.
Prosecutors said Garcia sought revenge against his
wife who had recently left him and wanted to kill himself and his six
children.
During the trial, prosecutors presented a video of
Garcia saying goodbye to his wife.
"I love you. I'm of sound mind and I know what I'm
doing," Garcia said to the video camera. "I just want to let you know
this is the only option available. You've broken me. You don't care, so
I don't care. ... What I'm about to commit is the most cowardly, selfish
act possible."
Prosecutors said Garcia had the
children say goodbye to their mother in another taped segment.
A psychiatrist, who examined Garcia and testified for
the defense, said the defendant suffered from depression and had
delusions that he and his family could fly to Peter Pan's Neverland.
Prosecutors disputed that contention, saying that
Garcia's actions showed premeditation.
"Do you know that 95 percent of what he says to his
wife (on the tape) is about what she's done to him?" Deputy District
Attorney Victor Rodriguez asked of the jurors.
Defense attorney Jill Thomas described her client as
a "man overwhelmed" and argued that Garcia could not have committed
premeditated murder.
Father Goes to Prison for Life for Murdering Five of His Six Children
Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office
June 8, 2005
NORWALK –A 34-year-old Pico
Rivera father was ordered today to spend the remainder of his life in
prison for the murders of five of his six children three years ago, the
District Attorney’s office announced.
Deputy District Attorney Victor Rodriquez said Adair Javier Garcia’s
sentence, recommended by a jury in April, was imposed by Norwalk
Superior Court Judge John A. Torribio. Torribio presided over Garcia’s
trial earlier this year.
A jury on March 29 convicted Garcia of five counts of first-degree
murder and one count of attempted murder. Jurors found true the special
circumstances of murder by poison, lying in wait and multiple murder.
They also determined the surviving child suffered great bodily injury.
The District Attorney’s office sought the death penalty. “We believed
that this was an appropriate case,” Rodriguez said. After hearing
evidence at a penalty phase, the jury on April 18 recommended a sentence
of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The children were asphyxiated in their sleep on Feb. 19, 2002, by fumes
from a charcoal grill that Garcia left burning. Brenda Garcia, 10, and
siblings Jonathan, 7; Anthony, 2; Cecilia, 4; and Vanessa, 6, perished.
Garcia and his then 9-year-old daughter survived the fumes, but were
hospitalized.
Garcia and his wife had separated a short time before the murders. He
and the children stayed at the family home.
Before the children went to bed the night they died, Garcia tape
recorded each of them telling their mother what they did that day. He
then taped a separate message to his estranged wife.
The children’s maternal grandmother found the injured, dying and dead
when she went to the home to babysit the next morning.
Adair Javier Garcia appears
for his arraignment in a Whittier, Calif.
courtroom in this Feb. 26,
2002 file photo.
Adair Javier Garcia at
sentencing.
Los Angeles County Sheriffs Deputy Andres Cantu watches over the house
where carbon monoxide fumes killed five children February 20, 2002 in
the Los Angeles area community of Pico Rivera.
