A California teenager returned home to find his mother bloodied, unrecognizable, and left soiled on the floor after his father beat her through the night while drunk, authorities said.
Roy Anthony Lopez, 37, of Morgan Hill, drove Jasmyne Garcia, 34, to Good Samaritan Hospital in San Jose on Saturday morning and admitted to killing her, according to an affidavit. Hospital staff discovered Garcia inside Lopez’s car in the parking lot, gravely injured and beyond help.
The couple’s 14-year-old son had fled the house hours earlier after his intoxicated father attacked him too, a detective wrote. The teen told police that Lopez “grabbed him by the neck, and slammed his head against the bed multiple times” when he asked permission to ride bikes with a friend.
Three young children were present during the violence that followed. The 6-year-old told authorities what he witnessed after his older brother escaped: “Daddy got mad,” the child said. He added that he “hid under the bed” while his dad continued to punch his mom in the face.
The teenager returned around 8 p.m. To a scene of destruction. He “observed blood throughout the residence, holes in the walls, water throughout the kitchen,” authorities said in the affidavit. His mother was alive but in catastrophic condition.
She was “awake but unable to speak, groaning in pain, and suffering from severe facial injuries,” the document stated.
The son gave a devastating description of what he found. “[The teen] stated her eyes were swollen, her face appeared inflamed, and she was unrecognizable,” the affidavit read. He also reported that his mother had defecated on herself and could not stand.
Lopez allegedly left Garcia on the floor with her injuries through the night. He did not drive her to the hospital until the next morning, after he had sobered up.
The Santa Clara County Department of Family and Children’s Services took the three children into custody on Saturday. The family includes the 14-year-old, the 6-year-old who hid under the bed, and a 3-year-old sibling.
Garcia’s loved ones have started raising funds for her family through GoFundMe. They described her as a “devoted mother” whose children “were her world, and the love she had for them was immeasurable.” The campaign added: “Her greatest joy was being their mom.”
The tribute emphasized how widely she was cherished beyond her immediate family. “She was a beloved daughter, a proud daddy’s girl, a sister to one but truly a sister to so many. She was the kind of person who made people feel loved and welcomed, and her presence touched more lives than she may have ever realized,” the description continued.
Lopez now faces charges of murder and child endangerment in connection with the killing.
The case emerged from a domestic violence assault that escalated across an entire evening while three children remained in the home, with the youngest hiding in terror and the oldest fleeing for his own safety before discovering his mother’s near-fatal condition upon return.
Lopez is expected to face prosecution in Santa Clara County.