Guinevere Garcia

Case record: Guinevere Garcia

Other details

Guinevere Garcia was also known as Guinevere Falakassa Garcia. She was convicted for the second time of murdering a member of her family. In the later case, she murdered her husband of one month, George Garcia.

The offence

Guinevere Garcia was convicted in connection with the shooting of George Garcia in Bensenville in the early morning hours of July 23, 1991. At the time, he sat in his pickup truck outside his condominium at 920 W. Irving Park Rd., Bensenville. Guinevere Garcia shot him in the front seat of his pickup truck in the parking lot of his condominium at 920 W. Irving Park Rd., Bensenville.

Prosecutors described the killing as planned and carried out with the help of a boyfriend, and the defense described the killing as accidental while she was protecting herself. Those were the versions of George Garcia’s death offered by prosecutors and defense attorneys as a jury began hearing evidence against his wife.

During the trial, prosecutors argued that Guinevere Garcia wanted his possessions and his $15,000 insurance policy. Prosecutor Kathryn Creswell said: "He was crazy about her, but she wanted nothing to do with him except get his possessions and his $15,000 insurance policy," and: "She took a handgun and blew a hole in his chest while they talked and showed no remorse, no tears."

Thomas J. Riggs argued for the defense and said Guinevere Garcia would take the stand and tell "what really went on in the truck, the struggle and how she accidentally shot her husband." Riggs conceded that she initially lied to police about the circumstances of the shooting, but argued: "Many people in similar situations would have done the same thing."

According to police investigators, Guinevere Garcia initially claimed to have no knowledge of the incident. Later the next day, they said, she called from a Chicago tavern and said she had heard her boyfriend, John Gonzales, 28, say he had killed her husband. After further questioning, she admitted firing the shot, according to Bensenville police.

George Garcia’s body was found by a passerby.

Investigation

The evidence presented at her trial in August included that Guinevere Garcia had been drinking for a good part of the day before she and a companion decided to rob Garcia.

A Bensenville police chief, Michael Toomey, said Guinevere Garcia and John Gonzalez encountered George Garcia in the parking lot of the apartment building where he lived at 920 W. Irving Park Rd., Bensenville, and Guinevere Garcia used Gonzalez’s handgun to shoot her husband. Toomey said the shooting appeared to be financially motivated, but he said police had not determined exactly how Garcia expected to benefit from the death.

Investigators interviewed Guinevere Garcia and Gonzalez in the Bensenville police station, and later Tuesday, Guinevere Garcia called police from a tavern at Kedzie Avenue and Grace Street in Chicago and implied she could implicate Gonzalez in the shooting. Officers picked up Guinevere Garcia and Gonzalez at the tavern and brought them to the Bensenville police station, where they were questioned and then charged in the shooting.

Guinevere Garcia and John Gonzalez were being held in the Du Page County Jail in Wheaton at the time of the indictment.

Arrest

Guinevere Garcia and John Gonzalez were charged in connection with the shooting after officers picked them up at the tavern at Kedzie Avenue and Grace Street in Chicago and brought them to the Bensenville police station, where they were questioned and then charged.

Trial

Guinevere Garcia was indicted in Du Page County in connection with the death of her husband. She was charged along with John Gonzalez with murder following the fatal shooting of George Garcia on Tuesday in Bensenville. The indictment was returned by the grand jury and made available afterward.

Guinevere Garcia was also charged with unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon, based on an Illinois law that prohibits people convicted of a felony from possessing a firearm.

George Garcia’s death was described in court as either a planned murder with a boyfriend’s help or an accidental shooting while she protected herself.

Guinevere Garcia’s trial included a sentencing hearing in which Judge John J. Nelligan passed sentence after considering aggravating factors and the mental-condition evidence.

During the sentencing hearing, prosecutors were Assistant Du Page County State’s Attorneys Kathryn Creswell and Michael Wolfe. Creswell asked in arguments earlier in the week: "Is there a shred of humanity left in Guinevere Garcia?" and: "Is there a shred of humanity in a person who would kill a child, her own child . . . and then kill her husband?"

Garcia’s attorney, Thomas J. Riggs, argued that she should be spared the death penalty because of her poor mental condition.

A psychiatrist who interviewed Guinevere Garcia earlier that year testified that her father abandoned the family when she was born and that her mother was an alcoholic who died in a fall from a second floor window when Garcia was 14 months old. The psychiatrist, Dr. Lyle Rossiter, testified that Garcia was raised by her grandparents and said an uncle sexually molested her from the time she was 6 until she was a teenager. Rossiter testified that Garcia suffered from chronic depression and from borderline personality disorder to a degree that was just short of legal insanity.

Judge Nelligan said: "One can only roughly imagine the terror of that child, held in that position by her own mother." He also said: "Under the law, the defendant is legally responsible for her actions. No one else is at fault for her action." He noted the four arsons, the murders of her child and husband, and her failure to express remorse for any of the crimes, and said: "What more aggravating factors could there be?"

Because the murder conviction was Garcia’s second, Nelligan was restricted to giving her the death penalty or natural life without parole.

Sentencing

Guinevere Garcia was sentenced to death on October 9, 1992. She became the first woman to be sentenced to death in Du Page County after a hearing Friday.

The death sentence was imposed in the shooting of George Garcia in Bensenville.

After the death sentence, her sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

Appeals

The material indicated that her sentence was commuted to life imprisonment after being sentenced to death.

Outcome

Guinevere Garcia was released on parole in March 1991 after serving a 20-year prison sentence.

Background

Guinevere Garcia previously served a prison sentence for murdering her 11-month-old daughter on Aug. 8, 1977 by placing a plastic bag over the infant's head, and for setting four fires in Chicago apartment buildings.

At the time of her daughter's death, Guinevere Garcia was 18 and was on supervision for a prostitution conviction. The incident occurred just after she argued with a boyfriend. At the time, authorities accepted her claim that the baby accidentally suffocated while playing with the plastic bag.

Almost four years later to the day, she confessed to Chicago police officer George Graham and to Terry Chiganos, then a Cook County prosecutor and now a defense attorney, that she killed the child because she feared her grandparents would have her declared an unfit mother and get custody of the child.

She was also convicted of two fires in 1980 and two more in 1981. Those fires occurred around the anniversary of the baby's death. Three of the fires were in Chicago apartments where she was living, and one was in her grandparents’ apartment in Chicago.

In 1977, authorities said Fire Department paramedics took the girl, Sara Swan, to Ravenswood Hospital, where doctors tried to revive her but failed, according to accounts given by authorities at the time.

In 1981, Garcia was charged with the murder of the infant and with four counts of arson for setting fires in three Northwest Side Chicago apartment buildings. Two of those fires occurred in the building where she lived in the month following her baby’s death, and the other two fires were in buildings where she lived near the time of the third and fourth anniversaries of the death.

In 1981, Garcia told police investigating the arsons that she could lead them to the grave of a prostitute who had been killed by her pimp, according to authorities. She took police to a cemetery plot in the southwest suburbs, but when investigators checked cemetery records, they discovered that the plot was occupied by Garcia’s deceased daughter. Following an investigation, she admitted killing her daughter and setting the fires.

Guinevere Garcia pleaded guilty in 1982 in Cook County Circuit Court to her daughter’s death and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. She was released on parole in March.

People involved

Guinevere Garcia was convicted in the 1991 case of murdering her husband, George Garcia.

John Gonzalez was her companion in deciding to rob Garcia. He had pleaded guilty to attempted armed robbery of the victim and was sentenced to 7 years in prison. He acknowledged driving Guinevere Garcia to the parking lot. He was expected to testify as a prosecution witness later in the week.

Michael Toomey was the Bensenville Police Chief who discussed the financial motivation and the shooting circumstances.

Kathryn Creswell was an Assistant Du Page County State’s Attorney who argued for the death penalty and made the quoted statements at arguments earlier in the week.

Michael Wolfe was an Assistant Du Page County State’s Attorney who sought the death penalty.

Thomas J. Riggs was Garcia’s attorney in the sentencing proceedings and argued against the death penalty due to poor mental condition.

Judge John J. Nelligan passed sentence.

Dr. Lyle Rossiter was the psychiatrist who testified during the sentencing hearing.

George Graham was a Chicago police officer whom Garcia confessed to.

Terry Chiganos was then a Cook County prosecutor and now a defense attorney who received Garcia’s confession.

Sara Swan was Guinevere Garcia’s daughter who was murdered on Aug. 8, 1977.

George Garcia was 60 years old at the time of his death.

Guinevere Garcia was 33 at the time of the first-woman-to-be-sentenced-to-death hearing in Du Page County, and Guinevere Garcia was described in other portions of the material as 32.

John Gonzales was 28 in the material.