Left: Fernando Gomez (via Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department). Right: Nydia Lopez-Garcia with her children (via GoFundMe).
Three children from Texas are in legal limbo after their mother was allegedly murdered while on vacation in Las Vegas.
Nydia Lopez-Garcia, 37, of Mesquite, Texas, was killed in the MGM Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip on May 28. According to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, her ex-husband Fernando Gomez, 42, “killed his ex-wife and then injured himself before calling police.”
According to local NBC affiliate KSNV, LVMPD documents indicate that Gomez had called 911 saying his wife was dead in their hotel room.
“I cut her throat with glass,” Gomez reportedly told police when they arrived. Officials described the room as in disarray, with Lopez-Garcia having suffered several wounds.
Gomez, who was treated for self-inflicted wounds, reportedly told police he and his ex-wife had split up last year after 14 years of marriage. He said they had recently reconnected and decided to spend the weekend together in Las Vegas and that they were fighting when he killed her with a piece of glass.
“He stated that he was guilty of killing her and had nothing to hide,” police wrote in their report, according to KSNV.
Lopez-Garcia’s three children, who had reportedly accompanied their mom to Las Vegas from the Lone Star State, were staying at a different hotel at the time, KSNV also reported.
They were taken into custody by Child Protective Services, and they have since been released to the custody of her sister, Candace Garza, who flew from Texas.
“Her ex followed her here, or was here … I’m uncertain on that, but he found her, and he did murder her,” Garza told CBS News Texas. “The children were in a different hotel room. My sister did fight to get back to the children. It was a brutal murder due to domestic violence.”
Garza told CBS that the children have not been cleared to leave the state due to jurisdictional issues — and because Gomez still has parental rights.
“They were released to me, but we’re not allowed to leave Clark County until the jurisdiction details get sorted out between Las Vegas and Dallas,” Garza said, adding that communication between agencies from the two states hasn’t been great.
“I’m told that the judges in Las Vegas need to communicate with the judges in Texas, and they have to transfer jurisdiction,” she told CBS. “A Texas CPS worker tells me that they haven’t been in touch with the judges here. I think it’s just the legal system, and it’s just not designed to handle these sorts of situations.”
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Garza said she hasn’t been able to work for weeks and will not be able to continue to cover all the bills involved, including the kids’ expenses and her sister’s funeral costs.
“It’s the most difficult, challenging that I’ve ever dealt with in my entire life,” she said. “Your sister is taken from you in a brutal murder, there’s orphans that can’t go home.”
“They’re not even allowed to go to their mother’s funeral,” she added. “We’re trying to delay her funeral so we can get them home to attend, and time is running out. They’re grieving with just one person instead of a family supporting them, surrounding them with love.”
Family law experts say that the children’s situation presents unique considerations that may not exist if the alleged crime had occurred in their home state.
“Typically, both state law and child-protective agencies require that any person into whose custody a child is placed undergo some kind of background check,” says Law&Crime legal analyst Elura Nanos, who is not involved in the case. “When that person resides out of state, it can mean lengthy delays that in turn can result in children being placed into emergency foster care with strangers on a temporary basis.”
Nanos, a former prosecuting attorney for New York’s Administration for Children’s Services, says that state agencies are particularly careful when alleged criminal activity has occurred.
“When a parent is unfit or unable to care for a child due to pending criminal charges, the state is usually even more cautious about turning the child over to a relative,” Nanos says. “Cases that involve parents with pending criminal charges often draw media scrutiny, so those are the cases in which child-protective agencies will typically conduct comprehensive background investigations before placing children.”
Officials from Clark County did not immediately respond to Law&Crime’s request for an update on the situation.
A GoFundMe has been set up to help the family with expenses.
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