The mother of a 4-year-old Washington state boy found dead along Interstate 5 on Thursday has been charged with his murder.
Janet Garcia has been charged first and second degree murder and assault of a child, the Everett Police Department said.
Ariel Garcia was last seen in Everett on Wednesday at about 7 a.m., as CrimeOnline reported. and reported missing “under suspicious circumstances” by a relative that afternoon. A body was found along the highway in Pierce County just before 6 p.m., and that body was confirmed to belong to the 4-year-old boy. The Snohomish County Medical Examiner’s Office is expected to determine the cause and manner of death next week.
Janet Garcia was already charged with making false statements about the boy’s whereabouts after she was initially arrested on Wednesday just hours after the boy’s disappearance. She was found with blood on her shirt and shoes and reportedly told police that Ariel had fallen out bed and hit his head that morning.
She also told a convoluted story about going to a hospital but not wanting to wait to be seen, then dropping her son off with a friend in Seattle she contacted via Facebook and immediately deleting the friend’s phone number and her own Facebook account before leaving her car behind and taking a bus to Ridgefield, about two hours from Everett and Seattle.
But investigators found her car a few blocks from where Garcia was located in Ridgefield, and surveillance footage showed the car arriving and woman who looked like Garcia getting out and walking away.
An arrest affidavit filed in Clark County, where Ridgefield is located, also said that the resident of an apartment where Garcia and her son were staying in Everett came home Wednesday morning and found both of them gone and a “substantial” amount of blood in the apartment.
Additionally, Ariel’s grandmother filed for emergency guardianship of the boy on Monday, citing Janet Garcia’s erratic behavior.
Garcia is being held without bond in Snohomish County jail and will be arraigned Sunday afternoon, according to jail records.
