Grieving relatives of trans woman found dead inside a truck in LA cast doubt on police theory
Emily Garcia (Instagram: Trans Latina Coalition)
Relatives of Emily Garcia, a 25-year-old trans woman found dead inside a truck in Los Angeles in October 2024, have cast doubt on the police investigation’s initial findings.
Garcia was found unresponsive inside the vehicle on October 15, which was parked outside a shelter for women and trans people where she had been temporarily living, the Daily Mail reports.
There was a second person found alongside her – it’s believed that the truck’s tinted windows concealed the deaths for almost two days before a security guard found Garcia’s body.
Authorities investigating her death have attributed it to a suspected drug overdose, as when they looked inside the car they found a white powdery substance resembling fentanyl: a potent synthetic opoid.
However, her relatives remain unconvinced. Garcia’s sister Maria Tuch spoke to the Los Angeles Times about the tragedy, saying that she had started to turn her life around. “She was finding her footing,’ she explained. “She dreamed of being independent and helping our mom get her papers too.”
Tuch described her sister as a loving, spirited individual who radiated positivity, adding that her sister wasn’t known to use drugs and saying that the family is questioning the overdose theory put forward by police.
Emily Garcia had found purpose in doing outreach for the TransLatin@ Coalition, an L.A.-based advocacy group that assists trans immigrants. She was supposed to start a new marketing job a day before her body was found, Tuch said, and the $28 an hour she was going to earn would have helped achieve her goals.
Her mother, Santa Tecum, is also calling for further investigation. “It’s been very hard, I’ve been very, very sad,” she said in a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times speaking through a Spanish interpreter. “Emily would always hug me when she would see me. She was always loving in that manner.”
Garcia also took great pride in her appearance. Her sister said that used to always tell the rest of the family: “I would rather be dead than to show up looking humble.” Tuch said she therefore found it suspicious that Garcia had been found in a pair of sweatpants, clothing that she would not normally wear.
She also told the L.A. Times that her sister had been facing harassment due to the fact she was a trans woman. When Tuch went through Garcia’s phone after her death, she said: “I can see messages where people would tell her, ‘I know that you’re still a man,’ and she would say, ‘No, I am a young lady’.”
“I don’t know if it was revenge or vengeance,” Tuch continued. “She was always very proud, very outspoken to be a transgender woman.”
The Human Rights Campaign have confirmed that at least thirty transgender and gender-expansive people had their lives taken “tragically and inhumanely through violent means,” in the US in 2024, including through intimate partner violence.
The LAPD have confirmed to the Los Angeles Times that Emily Garcia’s case remains open.
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