Photo: Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office; Miami Dade County Corrections
A tragic case of child abuse reached a grim conclusion as a mother and her ex-boyfriend were found guilty in connection with the brutal death of her 5-year-old son, Domenic Patrick Aguilar-Acevedo. The boy’s body was discovered in a remote Colorado ravine in 2021, marking the end of a horrifying series of events that led to the boy’s death.
On Tuesday, August 6, Nickolle Aguilar, 28, was sentenced to 15 years in prison after accepting a plea deal in exchange for testifying against her former boyfriend, Daniel Garcia. According to the Bexar County Criminal District Attorney’s Office, Aguilar pleaded guilty to charges of injury to a child with serious bodily injury by omission.
“A parent’s responsibility is to protect her child, but Domenic’s mother said and did nothing as she watched her child die of abuse at the hands of her boyfriend,” District Attorney Joe Gonzales stated, as reported by PEOPLE. Aguilar’s failure to intervene or seek medical care for her son during the repeated abuse proved fatal.
Daniel Garcia, 29, is scheduled for sentencing on Wednesday, August 14, facing a similar charge to Aguilar’s. Prosecutors declined to specify the exact charge, though it is believed to involve injury to a child resulting in death. Previously, Garcia had been charged with murder, but a jury downgraded the charge after deliberations in May. Garcia’s public defender, Steven Gilmore, did not respond to requests for comment.
The horrifying events leading to Domenic’s death began on July 24, 2021, when the couple was living at The WoodSpring Suites, an extended-stay hotel in San Antonio, Texas. According to court documents, Garcia struck Domenic with such force that the boy was thrown against a wall and then bounced off before hitting the floor. Aguilar later recounted how her son vomited afterward, and Garcia allegedly cleaned him up before telling her that Domenic had died.
In the early hours of July 25, surveillance footage captured Garcia carrying what appeared to be Domenic’s lifeless body out of the hotel room. The couple, who had reserved the room until July 29, left early without checking out and drove nearly 1,000 miles to Fraser County, Colorado. There, they disposed of Domenic’s body in a remote location near Rocky Mountain State Park.
The couple then fled to Costa Rica, but Aguilar’s mother, concerned about Domenic’s whereabouts, tracked them down and contacted the FBI. Law enforcement eventually recovered the boy’s body from a deep ravine, where he had been exposed to the elements for almost a month.
Court documents revealed that Domenic had suffered ongoing physical abuse at the hands of Garcia, with Aguilar witnessing multiple attacks in the weeks leading up to his death. Despite recognizing the severity of the situation, she chose not to intervene, later admitting she was “too eager to be in a relationship with a man.”
Both Aguilar and Garcia were arrested separately in Florida later that August. The case stands as a tragic reminder of the responsibility parents have to protect their children, and the devastating consequences when that duty is abandoned.
