A Midland woman who asked for probation after admitting she was drunk when she struck and killed twin 6-year-old girls three years ago was sentenced to 40 years in prison Thursday, the maximum sentence possible.
The jury deliberated an hour before sentencing Angelica Garcia to two, 20-year sentences.
Garcia, 38, pleaded guilty to two counts of intoxication manslaughter Wednesday. Defense attorneys Michael McLeaish and Jason Leach had been hoping that because she pleaded guilty, jurors would place her on probation, as permissible under Texas state law. While prosecutors Greg Barber and Melissa Williams asked the jurors to give her the maximum sentence of 20 years on each count. It was 70th Ector County District Judge Denn Whalen’s decision to run the sentences consecutively.
Aside from probation, Garcia could have received as little as two years prison time on each count. According to the law, Garcia will have to serve at least one half of her sentence before becoming eligible for parole.
According to the evidence presented by the state, Garcia left Toby’s Lounge in the MCM Grande Hotel and Fun Dome drunk on July 3, 2019 and a few minutes later blew through a stop sign, went over a curb and through a barricade without braking. She then hit Mia and Mya Coy, throwing them in the air, before coming to a stop after hitting a portable light stand that moved 35 feet on impact.
McLeaish and Leach asked the jurors for mercy, noting Garcia is remorseful for her actions, has zero criminal history and did not intentionally hurt anyone.
We’ve all made horrible mistakes we’ve regretted and hurt people, Leach said.
“None of us want to be defined by that one moment and Angelica is no different,” Leach said.
Leach, however, asked the jurors not to mistake what he was saying.
“Angelica Garcia is not the victim in this case. What happened to her was sad, unfortunate and maybe heartbreaking, but the tragedy is two 6-year-olds lost their lives on July 3, 2019,” Leach said. “I would submit to you though that the tragedy shattered lives on both sides of the courtroom.”
Leach pleaded with the jurors not to let their emotions turn Garcia into a bad person.
“I submit to you she’s not a bad person. She did a bad thing, a horrible thing,” he said.
McLeaish told the jurors, “The first thing I’d like to state to you is this lady has a conscience. She has a conscience and she grieves for what she’s done, not for herself.”
The veteran defense attorney said the Coys are normal, decent, hard-working people who have had great family support over the last few years and he said the Garcias are the same.
“This could have happened to almost anybody in this courtroom,” McLeaish said.
They aren’t being asked to sentence a pathological killer, a child molester or someone like that, McLeaish said.
“You’re punishing a lady who made a horrible mistake,” he said. “No matter what you do to her she will be in hell for the rest of her life over this, the rest of her life.”
In asking for the maximum sentence, Barber asked them to compare the last long week they’ve had hearing and seeing heartbreaking images with the metaphorical eternity the Coys’ cousin spent on 911, the girls’ parents gave them CPR and waited in the emergency room.
Williams disputed McLeaish’s contention the crash was the result of fate, saying Garcia intentionally drank drink after drink at the bar that night.
She also asked the jury to consider whether they truly believe Garcia showed remorse on the stand. It was her contention that Garcia tried to minimize her actions, pointing out Garcia said she had three drinks, not seven, that she didn’t order her last drink 20 minutes before the crash and that she was confused by lighting.
While Garcia apologized, “All of the ‘I’m sorries’ at the scene can never change the reality,” Williams said.
Pointing at the victims’ side of the courtroom, Williams said she wasn’t asking for the maximum sentence for the Coy family, but because Garcia deserved it. Still, she pointed out, “Those people out there will never have another holiday, another birthday, another Fourth of July…God knows they’ll never have another Fourth of July or fireworks or watermelon.”
Sure, Garcia may be living in hell, but she’s asking to live in hell among the jurors, Williams said. She’s asking to live in the world abiding rules that most everyone follows everyday, she said.
Williams told the jurors they have an opportunity to send a message to those who could take lives on our highways in the future.
Causing gasps in the gallery, Williams quickly flashed side by side pictures of the twins when they were alive with photos of their bruised and battered bodies and loudly said, “You have an opportunity. Take it!”
Earlier Thursday, both sides rested their cases, but not before jurors were subjected to highly emotional testimony from both of her victims’ parents and the defendant herself.
On Thursday morning, Williams led the twins’ parents through the last minutes of their children’s lives as jurors and gallery members sniffled and wiped their eyes.
Garcia sat with her head bowed as Agueda and Raul Coy Jr. took the stand, one after the other.
The twins were born in the middle of the couple’s six children after a high risk pregnancy, Agueda said.
That night they went to the fireworks stand on the north frontage road of Highway 80 and Club Drive to spend time with family members who helped run the stand and to buy fireworks for the girls, who loved tossing “poppers” at other people’s feet to watch their reaction, she said.
Raul testified Agueda, a registered nurse, hadn’t wanted to go because a nephew had suffered burns in a fireworks accident, but he prevailed.
When they arrived, the girls ate watermelon and one of their cousins teased them about getting “cooties” from their shared fork.
The girls were playing tag, the couple testified, when one of their relatives screamed that a car was coming.
Tears streaming down their face, the couple talked about running toward their girls, who were playing tag, and seeing Mia flying through the air.
They both recalled Agueda yelling out to their nephew not to touch Mia, who had landed on her side, but being too late.
The couple spoke about giving Mia CPR, but having no success.
Agueda, sobbing, spoke about the guilt she still feels because, until someone asked her about Mya, her entire focus had been on Mia.
Raul testified he had simply assumed Mya had escaped the car, until his sister went to look for her and brought her to him, legs purple.
“Her face was blue and her lips,” Agueda sobbed. “I questioned myself. Do I stop working on Mia to work on Mya?”
She kept performing CPR on Mia while Raul, who had just completed CPR training two weeks prior, went to work on Mya.
“Before I started, I hugged her. I hugged Mya and I told her that I loved her and I kept working on her and asking God not to take my daughters,” Raul sobbed.
Agueda jumped in the front of the ambulance after the girls were loaded and Raul took off for the hospital with relatives, beating them there.
“It seemed like an eternity,” Agueda said about the ride.
Raul testified that during the entire drive to the hospital he was pleading with God not to take his daughters, that he couldn’t lose his daughters.
Raul spoke about screaming at hospital staff upon his arrival, demanding to know where they were. When they arrived, he couldn’t get anywhere near them and Agueda testified about how hard it was not being allowed to be with them, despite her training.
The wait at the hospital seemed interminable, too and then the doctors came out to tell them the twins hadn’t made it, the couple testified.
He kind of knew it was going to be bad news, but when one of the doctors told them, Raul said “I looked in his eyes and I asked him ‘Are you sure you’re talking about my daughters?’ He said he was sorry and I just couldn’t believe it.”
They broke the news to the crowd of friends and family that had gathered and then asked to see their girls, Raul said.
“That was the hardest thing I’ve ever seen, all those tubes in my daughters, motionless, not breathing,” he said.
He didn’t want to leave them there and eventually, they were asked to leave, Raul said.
“How do you go home?” he sobbed.
“We wanted to bring our babies home, knowing they wouldn’t come back, that we’d never hear them again,” Agueda also said, her voice choked up with emotion.
The couple both described the bonds the twins shared as special and amazing and they said the girls loved to brighten up everyone’s day.
They never met a stranger and they were “nothing but smiles and giggles and hugs,” Raul said.
“They were beautiful girls,” he said.
Under questioning from McLeaish, jurors learned a little bit about Garcia, who also cried throughout her testimony. She said she’s been with her husband, Cornell Hunt, for 20 years and they have two children. At the time of the crash, the Midland resident was working for One Source Resource, but she was fired afterward. The Odessa High School graduate currently works as a janitor for a Baptist Church, she said.
On July 3, she had arranged to meet at Toby’s Lounge to spend time with a friend who had flown in from out of town that she hadn’t seen in several months.
Garcia, whose voice quivered throughout her time on the stand, said she remembers the details of the night up until the crash well, but doesn’t remember much of the aftermath.
She insisted that despite the fact witnesses testified she drank seven cherry vodkas that night and she told officers she had four, she, in fact, drank three.
Jurors heard evidence Garcia’s blood alcohol level was 0.10. The legal limit in Texas is 0.08.
She decided to take the frontage road home because there were people in front of her getting onto Highway 80, she said. She also thought the frontage road went all the way through until a light at Faudree Road.
As she approached Club Drive, Garcia said she became confused because she saw a “really bright light” and thought it must be coming from the highway. In her peripheral vision, Garcia said she thought the metal Conex containers and fireworks stand were buildings, she testified.
She told McLeaish she never saw the barricade at the end of the road and insisted she “absolutely” did not fall asleep just prior to the crash.
Garcia testified that since July 3, 2019, she’s spent a total of 41 days in jail. The rest of the time she’s been trying to pay $700 a month for a GPS ankle monitor and an alcohol ankle monitor that allow her to remain out of custody. Although she’s behind in the payments to the county, she said she has obeyed all of the county’s pretrial release rules.
Garcia insisted she would continue to follow all of the rules if placed on probation.
McLeaish then asked her why she has kept her head down during the trial.
“Because I’m scared of people,” she said.
“Are you embarrassed?”
“Yeah,” she said.
“Are you ashamed?”
“Yeah,” she said.
When Williams began to cross-examine Garcia, they immediately butted heads.
“Are you trying to tell this jury that the crash happened because of the lights?” Williams asked.
“I’m taking responsibility,” Garcia said.
Williams asked the same question three times and Garcia repeated her answer.
Finally, Williams asked Whalen to direct Garcia to answer the question.
Garcia then responded, “No. I’m taking responsibility.”
Garcia denied getting on the frontage road because she knew she was drunk and insisted she only had three drinks that night.
While the waitress may have set down several more cherry vodkas that night, she didn’t drink them, Garcia said.
“I wasn’t the only one drinking cherry vodkas, ma’am,” Garcia said.
She also insisted that if jurors watched the video closely, they’d only see her drink three.
When questioned how she can remember how much she had to drink, but little of what she told the authorities that night, Garcia said she hit her head on the steering wheel that night and was in shock.
Williams asked her if she was sure it wasn’t because she was drunk.
“I’m taking responsibility,” Garcia said. “I shouldn’t have drank and drove.”
Williams then grilled Garcia about her hopes of being placed on probation.
“Do you think 41 days in jail is all of the time you should do for killing these two children? Williams asked.
“I’ll accept whatever they give me,” Garcia said, still crying.
Williams asked her again if she thought she deserved something other than prison.
“If they choose that, I’m OK with that,” Garcia said.
Under re-direct, she told McLeaish she would accept whatever the jury gives her.
