Missing Grand Prairie couple case turns into murder investigation

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - The family of a Grand Prairie mother of two says police have provided chilling new details on her death.

Weltzin Garcia and her common-law husband, Alfonso Hernandez, disappeared in early February.

Hernandez' body was found in White Rock Lake in Dallas two weeks after they were reported missing. Crews recovered Garcia's body from Mountain Creek Lake last week.

Garcia's family met with detectives at the Grand Prairie Police Department Thursday.

Dallas police have also been involved in the investigation, and Garcia's sister said it is those investigators who shared with them some disturbing findings.

“Right now, it's so hard to look at [Mountain Creek Lake]. I go by that lake every day. It's just hard, you know, that she was dumped in that lake like nothing,” Atziry Garcia, Weltzin’s twin sister, said.

Atziry is still processing that her twin sister is gone and still processing the news she got this week from Dallas detectives.

“Now we know what happened. Not everything, but at least we know,” Atziry added.

Garcia’s family said Dallas police visited the home where Weltzin Garcia and Afonso Hernandez lived. They were told that investigators found blood, and authorities now believe Weltzin was struck in the face and strangled.

“They say that they found blood in my sister's bedroom. The walls and the floor and the bed,” Atziry said. “It's hard to know now that she was killed there. I mean, I slept in that room right after she went missing.”

It's a disturbing conclusion to an ordeal that began as a missing person's case, with family hopeful both were alive.

For days, crews searched the area around White Rock Lake after a car belonging to Hernandez was found in the area. Eventually, both turned up dead in area lakes.

Dallas and Grand Prairie police are not sharing much publicly about details of the investigation.

Grand Prairie police are now saying that Hernandez' cause of death was by drowning.

Dallas homicide detectives picked up Weltzin's case after officials discovered her body at Mountain Creek Lake, but have now turned the investigation back over to Grand Prairie.

Meanwhile, Atziry now has custody of the couple's two kids, ages 3 and 6. She fears the day she'll explain to them what happened.

“She's my twin sister and it's harder to explain what happened to them. I don't have the words. How could I explain it to them,” Garcia said.

Garcia's family were critical of Grand Prairie police's handling of the case, and wish they would have learned more from them sooner, specifically about evidence involving blood found in the house.