Interstate Nightmare - Nydia Lopez-Garcia

Episode 15 - Nydia Gomez-Garcia & Jamie Polk Targan 

Nydia Lopez-Garcia took her three children on a trip to Las Vegas in May of 2023. The trip ended in tragedy and led to a complete nightmare scenario for Nydia, her children, and her whole family when Nydia was murdered in a hotel room

With their mother murdered, the children were drawn into the Nevada Child Protective Services system and they were stuck waiting for a family member to come and help them navigate their horrible situation here in the Las Vegas family courts while they mourned their mother.

[Shaun] 

Hi and welcome back to Sins and Survivors, a Las Vegas true crime podcast, where we focus on cases that deal with domestic violence here in the Las Vegas area. 

I’m your host, Shaun, and with me as always, is the one and only John.

[John] 

I am the only John in the room.

[Shaun] 

This week’s case involves a few aspects we haven't discussed before including the bias of the local media here in Las Vegas, the role of strangulation in domestic violence, and how it is often downplayed. 

Some of the details of the case are also similar to another strangulation murder from 2011, so we’re going to talk about that one after Nydia. 

The whole situation for Nydia, her children, and her family is tragic, and it’s made worse by what happened afterward to the children and those Nydia left behind. 

Circumstances seem to have aligned in the worst ways imaginable. 

Some of the aspects of the case are a bit vague but we’ll talk through some statistics that may clarify some of it. 

Do you want to start us off?

[John] 

Sure. 

Nydia Lopez-Garcia brought her children to Las Vegas in May of 2023 for a vacation. Her kids are 7, 14, and 17, and they got a room in the Mandalay Bay, at the south end of the strip. 

Nydia had gotten out of a long-term relationship with a man named Fernando Gomez a year earlier. He has claimed that he was married to Nydia for 14 years, but Nydia’s family has strongly refuted this, saying that Nydia and Fernando were never actually married. They were, however,  together for 14 years and had been separated for about a year as I said.

Fernando is the father of Nydia’s 7-year-old son and her 14-year-old daughter, but not her eldest son. 

[Shaun]

The family is from Mesquite, Texas in the Eastern Dallas suburbs.

Nydia was born in Mesquite on August 27, 1985. When she came to Vegas for a vacation with her kids, she was 37 years old. Nydia’s sister,  Candace Garza, described Nydia as a very capable mother. 

Like a lot of the best moms out there, She said Nydia would underestimate herself, doubting how much she was doing for her kids, but Candace has said that Nydia was a very involved and loving mother, doing things like waking up extra early in the morning to make sure the kids had a hot breakfast before school. 

[John] 

Candace also said that Nydia was working on finding new confidence after her breakup with Fernando, and she described Nydia as “flourishing” in her new freedom from Fernando. 

According to Candace, the relationship had ended about a year before the Vegas vacation, and she stressed how her sister was really embracing this new life without him. 

[Shaun]

Candace has also said that Nydia was the victim of domestic violence and abuse by Fernando. 

We don’t have specific details on a particular incident or incidents, but we searched through court records from Texas to see if we could find out if there is a history of arrests or indictments for domestic violence or related crimes in Fernando’s public record. 

We were able to find that a man with the same name and birthday as Fernando,  was arrested by Dallas police on March 17, 2019, for “assault causing bodily injury to a family member” which is a class A misdemeanor. 

This arrest record doesn’t state who the victim of the assault was, just that it was a “family member”, but it occurred during the time that Fernando and Nydia were together, so it doesn't seem like a stretch or too much speculation to assume that this was Fernando getting arrested for assaulting Nydia, given the assertions of previous domestic violence in the relationship from Candace..

8 Months later, on November 5, 2019, Fernando pleaded No Contest to a Class C misdemeanor and was sentenced to 6 days and a $100 fine, along with having to pay court costs of $229. 

[John] 

It seems strange to me that they let him plead from a class A misdemeanor to a class C misdemeanor because a class C misdemeanor in the Texas Penal Code is just a catch-all for infractions that don't have specific punishments. 

The penal code also says they don't carry jail time. Those are normally things like issuing a bad check or public intoxication. It's too bad there isn't more available on the public record on what led to this plea bargain

[Shaun]

It's also worth mentioning that even if we never found evidence of any arrests or prior criminal history for Fernando, that wouldn’t mean Candace was wrong or fabricated anything. Many times, victims don’t call the police for a variety of reasons as we’ve talked about before. 

Not only that, but not all calls result in arrests, charges, or convictions. We saw in some previous cases that there are times when the police are called, but they choose not to act.

In Shauna Tiaffay’s case from last week, her husband didn’t have a criminal record either. It’s very common for these things to be kept private, thought to be family matters, and for many victims of domestic violence, the time they take an action like this can be one of the most dangerous times for them. 

Domestic violence victims often don’t want to escalate a dangerous situation because in many cases they understand their partner’s volatility and are afraid of the repercussions, not only for them, but for their children, and pets too.

[John] 

We know very well that these cycles of abuse can go from a domestic violence incident to an abusive partner asking for and getting forgiveness, only to have the cycle start over. It can't be easy knowing when the right time is to involve the police or get the help they need.

But, back to the Las Vegas Weekend. On May 28, 2023, Fernando Gomez was staying in a room at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, just a block north, and probably a 15-minute walk from the Mandalay Bay.

Multiple reports identified the room at the MGM as Fernando’s hotel room, but Nydia ended up there with him at the MGM, and it isn't clear how that came about. 

Fernando’s account of the weekend frames the weekend as a planned meetup in which he and Nydia had reconnected and were in the process of reconciling, but there is no proof we could find that is the case, and it's important to note that her family very much disputes his version of events.

We would like to point out though that it’s not uncommon for people who are in abusive relationships to go through a cycle with their abuser. When things start to get better, the couple may reconcile, and due to many factors, such as housing, money, kids, etc., people do go back to abusive relationships and “toxic” exes more frequently than most people are aware of.

[Shaun]

It’s a trope, right? You see it in rom coms and hear it in Olivia Rodrigo songs – but it’s a harsh reality to face when it comes to domestic violence where the potential for more severe violence and even homicide keeps growing. According to “Respond”, a Domestic Violence agency in Massachusetts, It takes an average of 7 attempts for a victim to leave their abuser before it sticks and is permanent. 

[John]

Without sufficient financial resources to become independent,  it can take as many as 30 attempts to leave, while if there are financial resources available, it can take as few as 3. 

As we said, we don’t know how or why Nydia ended up in Fernando’s hotel room at the MGM Grand.

On Sunday, May 28, 2023, at approximately 1:30 in the afternoon, police received a call about a possible suicidal person at the MGM Grand. Fernando called a friend and told him he was considering jumping off the MGM Grand to end his life.

When the police arrived at Fernando’s hotel room, they found him with what the police described as self-inflicted stab wounds on his arms and neck, and Nydia unresponsive. They quickly realized she was beyond help, and Nydia was pronounced dead at the scene. 

Fernando’s account of events appears all over the Las Vegas Media reports of the incident and is honestly quite unbelievable, not to mention that it conflicts with the facts we have about what happened.

[Shaun]

In his account, he said that he had gotten into a fight with Nydia and that they “tried to kill each other”. According to the police report, when police arrived he told them “I cut her throat with glass”, and said he passed out after that and didn’t remember what happened.

He also told police that he was guilty of killing her and had “nothing to hide”

He also claimed that Nydia had held the glass to her own throat and told him to cut her. 

[John]

It should come as no surprise that his account conflicts with the coroner’s report. The coroner determined that the cause of Nydia’s death was strangulation and the glass was inserted post-mortem. We have no reason not to believe the coroner but every reason not to believe Fernando, which means that what appears to have happened was that Fernando strangled Nydia, and then stabbed her in the neck with a broken bottle after she was dead. Nothing about his story here is in the least bit credible.

In an interview with CBS News in Texas, Candace, Nydia’s sister stated that Fernando “followed her here, or was here already, I’m uncertain on that, but he found her and he did murder her. 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." 

Candace has said that she does not believe that Nydia went to Vegas knowing that Fernando would be there. 

She also said that she hopes the criminal investigation will provide the answers as to what happened to her sister, and the following is a statement directly from the family’s GoFundMe:

The narrative reported so far by the media in Las Vegas is FALSE. They have only reported what the perpetrator claims happened. Nydia's family will not let her voice be silenced, and the evidence will show that she fought for as long as she could to make it back to her children before succumbing to her injuries. The murderer's statement is not consistent with the brutal crime scene and we will not stand for him attempting to twist the narrative and embarrass her even in death.

From the accounts we have read, it does seem as if news outlets are reporting what Fernando is claiming as if it were fact

[Shaun]

Reading some of those accounts provided by what I would consider to be reputable media sources for Las Vegas, I was stunned and disappointed, but not surprised.

Nydia had no voice at all, and I agree with Candace, that the media was reporting on what Fernando had claimed rather than trying to get to the truth, possibly because it made for a more sensational story.

This is all too common with cases like this. The alleged murderer is the only one left so the media simply goes with his version of events.

[John]

The fact that it was the murder of a tourist, and in an especially grisly fashion probably contributed to the story being sensationalized, and being picked up by news outlets that might not normally cover something like this. 

When I read the first of these types of articles, I was struck by a couple of things. First, they all seemed to share the same set of talking points, and I’m intentionally not calling them facts because there’s no corroborating evidence of the details outside of the account Fernando gave to the police. 

I’d expect that from what I consider to be a non-credible news source, they might sensationalize something like this, leaning into the assertion that they were here on some secret getaway together and it ended in murder, but I wouldn’t expect that from a local network news website, but unfortunately that’s what we got.

[Shaun]

I also noticed that a lot of the local media outlets only published one story about the day of the murder, and had no follow-up reporting, even though Nydia’s kids were stuck here for almost 2 months in limbo. 

To get an update on what was happening with her children, we had to rely on news outlets based in Texas.

Locals here will tell you that Vegas media stifles reporting about crime, especially murders, that happen near or on the strip. The theory is that it hurts tourism to report on those crimes.

We don’t subscribe to that kind of conspiratorial thinking, but Nydia’s kids were here for almost 2 months, and Candace could have used our community's support. 

it’s very disappointing to see that only a single article about Nydia appears in the Review-Journal, which is our largest paper. 

In my experience, Las Vegas is ready to rally to help people in need, and I wish that our local media had looked a little beyond the sensational story and the lies the accused murderer was spinning, and focused on the people most affected by her murder - Nydia’s children and her sister. 

I have not found any retractions or corrections that have been published even after the coroner’s report came back, refuting Fernando’s account of what happened.

[John]

Like I said before though, we have to deal with the facts. The coroner determined that Nydia died from strangulation, and that is something that appears to be missing from much of the reporting. 

I agree with you that it’s disappointing that we haven't seen any sort of follow-up with those findings. 

[Shaun] 

I want to make sure we talk about the elephant in the room here, which is strangulation

It’s pertinent to Nydia’s murder, but also, unfortunately to many domestic violence homicides. 

Strangulation is a major indicator of the risk of homicide in domestic violence cases, and women who are strangled have a 750% higher likelihood of being murdered. 

Strangulation, or maybe what some people might call choking, is where a person puts their hands around your neck or puts pressure on your neck or chest so that either you can’t breathe or blood can’t flow to your brain and you pass out. 

Do you mind sharing a little bit about your experience in Jiu-Jitsu and the role of chokeholds in that context? 

[John]

Sure. 

Jiu-Jitsu in case any of our listeners aren't aware is a martial art that has its roots in Japan, but more recently in Brazil. It's similar to Judo which you might know from the Olympics, but Jiu-Jitsu, or what I’d call it, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu or BJJ is more focused on the ground fighting aspect. The goal is to get your opponent to submit due to a variety of things like joint locks, arm bars, foot locks, and often, various flavors of chokes. When one of those things happens, the person being choked, or arm bared or whatever, will tap, indicating they know it's over.

It's not at all uncommon for someone being choked not to tap in time resulting in them going limp and unconscious. I’ve never been choked out myself (I'm happy to tap when it's obvious someone has me) but I’ve seen people get choked out and end up limp and unconscious on the floor. Of COURSE in BJJ, if this happened, you let go immediately. You do NOT continue choking someone who has gone unconscious for exactly the reasons you’re about to talk about.

But every time, when they wake up they have short-term memory loss. They often don't know exactly where they are, and certainly don't remember rolling on the mat just a few moments earlier.

One of the common chokes you'll see is called a rear naked choke or a mata leao, which is done from behind and is a choke that cuts off the blood supply to your brain, like an off switch. It takes almost no strength at all if done right, and the person being choked can be unconscious in just a few seconds. It’s hard to believe how fast it is until you’ve seen it.

[Shaun] 

Strangulation for an abuser is about control. They are demonstrating that they have the power to kill that victim at any moment, that the victim’s life is in their hands.

Often victims don’t remember passing out because as you said going under like that affects your short-term memory of the event. It’s like no time has passed at all for them. 

And since it requires such little pressure - it doesn’t always leave any marks, which can be challenging for investigators, according to the Training Institute of Strangulation Prevention.

Only half of the victims who are strangled show physical signs that they have been strangled or choked, and of those only 15% had injuries that could be photographed. This of course makes it challenging for prosecutors to bring charges against someone for a strangulation that doesn't kill someone. 

This is terrifying since strangulation is so dangerous and is a huge indication that abuse is going to become deadly. 

There is some good news though. Nevada recently passed two new laws relating to strangulation, 

Assembly Bills 257 and 276 provide that individuals who have experienced strangulation can receive exams free of charge and secondly, the exams can be conducted via telehealth, since in Nevada we have a shortage of individuals who are experts in this area, and Nevada does have large rural areas where traveling to a hospital or clinic creates a barrier for someone who’s just been through hell and they don’t need to drive hundreds of miles or wait around in a hospital for hours to get the care they need. 

This is the same for sexual assault exams as well. 

Nevada is now one of only four states currently providing free strangulation exams. 

Nydia was murdered just a few weeks before these bills were passed. 

[John]

As we mentioned, Fernando was arrested on Sunday, May 23rd, and was charged with open murder. 

Here in Nevada, when a district attorney handles homicide cases, they often file an "open murder" indictment. 

This broad accusation encompasses not just 1st and 2nd-degree murder charges but can also include allegations of both voluntary and involuntary manslaughter.

Fernando is currently being held without bail in the Clark County Detention Center, and as of now, his trial is set to begin on April 15, 2024. 

Some of the minutes of the court proceedings leading up to the trial indicate that Fernando has been offered a plea deal, but we’ll provide updates on this when we know more

[Shaun]

There are also some minutes from preliminary hearings that indicate that the DA was concerned about the trial being drawn out too much, because of the children, who are also victims in this case.

Remember, there is still the outstanding question of Fernando’s custody of Nydia’s 7-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter, so unless a court rules otherwise, they could be compelled to visit the person who allegedly murdered their mother in jail.

At first, Nydia’s three children were taken by Clark County CPS, because they had no guardian to care for them, but thankfully Candace got on a plane immediately to Las Vegas to assume custody of the children.

However, due to issues of jurisdiction, she was told she couldn’t take them back to Texas. She had to stay in Clark County while the matter was resolved with Dallas-based CPS and the courts. According to Candace, the communication between the two jurisdictions was very poor. And the children were in a holding pattern in Clark County for several months. 

Nydia’s oldest boy was returned to the custody of his biological father, but the younger two were forced to stay in Las Vegas. 

[John]

This added to the horrible trauma they had experienced. 

They were even unable to leave to attend their mom’s funeral, which happened in June before they were able to come home.

As Candace pointed out, it also meant that they had no comfort from their own beds, their extended families, aunts, uncles, cousins, or pets. 

Because custody was just granted to Candace on a temporary and emergency basis, she was unable to add the children to her health insurance, so getting them access to the mental health care they needed wasn't possible. 

The kids lived for weeks in a Las Vegas hotel room with their aunt Candace, who was unable to work and get paid, but was still incurring expenses of the hotel, caring for the kids, and also not only paying the bills for her own house, but covering the expenses for Nydia’s home in Texas as well, and of course Nydia’s funeral expenses. 

According to the Family’s GoFuneMe, on July 18, 2023, the children were finally able to return to Mesquite, Texas, but for some reason, they were barred from returning to their home. Reunited with their family, they could attempt to put the pieces of their lives back together and move forward. 

As with all defendants, Fernando is innocent until proven guilty

[Shaun]

Nydia’s funeral mass was held on June 27, 2023. According to Nydia’s obituary, “Nydia will always be remembered as a loving mother who was fiercely devoted to her family. She gave selflessly, often putting others before herself. She was a proud parishioner of the Catholic Church and was honored to share her faith with her children”

Like so many individuals who lose someone to domestic violence, Candace has stated how critical it is for people to have access to resources and to seek out help. She was quoted in the Dallas Morning News as saying 

“Even if you’re ashamed, even if you feel like people are judging you, it’s not worth risking your life, Reach out, call someone. You’re the most vulnerable after you’ve left, so that’s the time you really need to surround yourself around loved ones.”

[John] 

Within the next few months, we hope to have an update on this case whether it ultimately goes to trial or if Fernando ends up accepting a plea deal. We are thinking of the children who are so horribly affected by this tragedy – losing their mom but also the horrific reality of the circumstances of her death. 

Shaun and I are going to continue this conversation with our bonus content, Swing Shift. 

[Shaun]

We are so grateful they have loving people in their lives like Candace, who would do anything for them.

Just to echo some of Candace’s statements, and a reminder that you can find links to domestic violence resources in our show notes and on our website. 

[John]

Before we go, we’d like to tell you about one more case that has a lot of similarities to Nydia’s murder. Jaime Polk Tangan was murdered in Henderson in 2011

The circumstances of what happened to her and how it was handled by the media are very similar. 

[Shaun]

I almost didn’t want to cover this case because despite our best efforts to research and find out more about Jamie -- we know almost nothing about her, but she was a beloved daughter and her life mattered. 

Jamie was born on May 26, 1982, and was from West Covina, California. 

There was grand jury testimony that she had a very slight build, being only 5’3” and weighing only 82 pounds.  

She was 29 years old when she was murdered on June 29, 2011.

We haven’t been able to find even one photo of her, aside from her grave marker in Covina, California, which reads - beloved daughter in our hearts forever. 

[John]

According to reporting in the Las Vegas Sun, Jamie went to James Mitchell Hill’s apartment on Monday, June 27, 2011. 

On Wednesday, June 29, Hill, who was 50 years old at the time, called 911. He claimed that Jamie was a sex worker he had hired and that she had died. 

Officers arrived at Hill’s condo, and they found Jamie deceased in a bedroom, and she’d been dead for at least a day. He told detectives that he thought about just dumping her body but instead, he called 911. 

He tried to claim that he had accidentally killed Jamie during sex by choking her, but according to the police, the evidence didn’t support that claim. During the investigation of the scene, police observed what they believed to be a blue ribbon tied around her neck. 

Hill said he was drunk when Jamie arrived and when he woke up and found her dead,  he tried a few different methods to try to kill himself but had failed. 

He had cuts and scratches on his body that were observed by detectives, but didn’t have an explanation for those either, he just said that he didn’t do them to himself. He was then arrested and charged with 1 count of murder with a deadly weapon and 1 count of sexual assault. 

[Shaun]

During the Grand Jury testimony, the medical examiner testified that Jamie had died from strangulation, likely by the use of a ligature. She also had multiple contusions, bruises, scrapes, and scratches on her body. 

She had marks on her neck and throat, internal hemorrhaging from the strangulation, and a ligature mark on her neck. Because of all this, he determined her cause of death was strangulation. 

The homicide detective testified to the Grand Jury that James Hill worked as a freezer manager at a grocery store, but he admitted that he had earned a degree in respiratory therapy.  

The officers were able to confirm while talking to him that he knew the signs of someone being in respiratory distress and that he had observed that going on with Jamie, even using technical terms to describe what he had observed -- that her face was cyanotic -- meaning she was turning blue or purple. He changed his story a few times, but he said at one point he noticed she was blue in the face, but he went to sleep and that he woke up in the morning to find her dead. 

[John]

The homicide detective also provided additional evidence of what was found at the scene. The item they originally thought was a blue ribbon, turned out to be painter's tape.  The detective testified that the residue from the tape was found on Jamie’s face, around her mouth, her neck, the back of her head, and in her hair. 

This evidence refuted any of Hill's claims that he had made to the police that he had choked her during sex with her consent and that it was an accident that she had died. 

According to the Las Vegas Sun, the police included in their report that Hill’s ex-wife told police that he would "drink alcohol and then become aggressive and sexually abusive ... At one point he had choked her." 

Hill pleaded guilty to murder in the second degree and to sexually motivated coercion. On May 23, 2012, he was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole. 

He’s currently incarcerated at the Northern Nevada Correctional Center in Carson City, where he’ll be eligible for parole in June 2024. 

If he is ever granted parole, when he is released he will be required to be under supervision for the rest of his life and will be required to register as a sex offender. 

[Shaun]

As I said, I wanted to talk about Jamie because her life mattered, even if her local paper and our local papers didn’t include any other information about her. 

As Candace said about Nydia, I didn’t want Jamie’s case to be just about what James Hill had to say about her. I don’t want his to be the only point of view or to have the power to embarrass Jamie after her death

Jamie’s case connects to Nydia’s in two key ways. Neither of these women were from Las Vegas, but that doesn’t mean the press should ignore them. Right now, Fernando is making a lot of claims about what happened between him and Nydia that day, just as James Hill tried to claim various things about what happened with Jamie. 

The evidence that came out during the investigation of that case indicated that Hill was lying, and I have every hope that the investigation into Nydia’s murder will turn up additional evidence that will result in justice being served in this case. 

[John]

It’s important to keep in mind that strangulation is a huge red flag for when domestic violence is going to turn deadly. It’s different in Jamie’s case because we have that statement from Hill’s ex-wife that he had choked HER previously. Domestic violence is a pattern and these patterns of violence can play out across relationships. It’s good he’s locked up because he is dangerous. 

[Shaun]

Yes, and if you are finding yourself in an abusive relationship please remember to reach out to resources for support and assistance. 

I recently learned that you can reach the DV hotline via text by texting START to 88788.

Again that’s START to 88788. We’ll add this to our list of resources.

Thanks as always for listening and sharing this episode and that new resource with a friend because

What happens here happens everywhere.