Kriti Mehrotra
When Lorraine Garcia suddenly vanished without a trace left behind in the fall of 2021, it honestly shocked the entirety of South Carolina to its core due to the intricate circumstances involved. After all, as carefully explored in Netflix’s ‘Missing: Dead or Alive,’ her son Anthony “Tony” Garcia was insinuated to have a hand in the matter, just for the 61-year-old to soon be found safe and sound. So now, if you simply wish to learn more about the latter — his background, his personal experiences, his issues, as well as his current standing — we have got the necessary details for you.
Who is Anthony “Tony” Garcia?
Although Richland County native Tony reportedly used to be a very kind, fun-loving, and caring individual at one point in time, everything changed when he joined the military in the mid-2000s. That’s because he quickly went from a laid-back, happy-go-lucky youngster who’d never met a stranger to a paranoid soldier whose self-preservation instincts triumphed all else, per the series. “He was in Iraq for 2½-3 years,” his ex-wife Lamanda Moore revealed. “They used him to kick in doors when they’d go in and clear buildings. While stationed… their Stryker was hit with a [bomb].”
Therefore, by the time Tony returned home, he ostensibly had a wild look in his eyes and could not go a single day without consuming alcohol or drugs in the hopes of forgetting Iraq’s horrors. That’s when the deep-rooted paranoia and PTSD purportedly set in, making him so unsure of everyone’s intentions he freaked out over the littlest things before physically, violently lashing out. This, along with his unwillingness to speak out regarding his trauma or seek professional help, is apparently the reason Lamanda ultimately packed her bags, took their kids, and left him for good.
Though it appears as if Tony did open up about his time in the infantry once — he told his mother every detail he could prior to their relationship turning sour in the worst ways imaginable. “He talked to me one time, and I held him,” Lorraine said in the documentary series. “And I held him, and I held him, and I held him. That was the first time, and that was the last time he talked about it.” As for their bond, it began wavering instead of growing stronger as his threats, violence, as well as imposition then evolved to such an extent she became afraid of his very presence, driving her to run.
The fact Tony never reported his mother missing, stripped their shared home of any personal belongings, and burned quite a lot of her things in secret are just some of the reasons detectives intensely questioned him once they learned of her vanishing two months after the fact, in November 2021. The punch holes in the wall, the smell of bleach, his unwillingness to provide straightforward answers, his failure to concede he’d also rented a storage unit for her stuff, and his selling their place through Facebook Marketplace despite having no power of attorney didn’t help his case either.
Where is Anthony “Tony” Garcia Now?
Therefore, in mid-November 2021, Tony was arrested on charges of using a computer to commit a crime, forgery, and false pretense — all financial crimes related to the attempted property sale. Though before any legal matters could proceed, Lorraine was found alive and well miles away from home; she conceded she’d disappeared on her own accord “to start over, just so I can have peace… in my mind and my heart. I don’t want to go back… I have to start taking care of me. My son, he did things to me he has never done. I don’t deserve that… Right before I left, I was getting scared.”
Nevertheless, Lorraine insisted she did not wish to press any charges against her son despite everything because she still held a lot of love for him in her heart; she was scared, but he was her own. Coming to Tony’s current standing, from what we can tell, it appears as if he continues to reside in Columbia, South Carolina, to this day, where he prefers to remain well away from the limelight. In other words, the details of his recent personal as well as professional experiences are unfortunately unclear as of writing — yet his Facebook friend list does insinuate his romantic relationship with Shakayla Morant is going strong even today.
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