Daena Nicole Gonzalez, the 27-year-old woman accused of killing 18-year-old Jaime Elias Garcia while drunkenly evading police in Weslaco on Saturday, has a history of run-ins with local law enforcement that includes assaulting a public servant, child abandonment, and making a terroristic threat toward another person.
Public records available in Hidalgo County show that prior to Saturday’s fatal incident, Gonzalez had been arrested on four (4) different occasions by several different police departments across the Valley.
Her first arrest dates back to November 30, 2013, when McAllen PD charged her with possession of a controlled substance, specifically a Class PG2A drug which was “a synthetic compound that is a cannabinoid receptor agonist that mimics the pharmaceutical effect of naturally occurring cannabinoids,” or, in layman’s terms, synthetic marijuana. Gonzalez accepted a plea bargain and was subsequently sentenced to four (4) months of probation, 25 hours of community service, and ordered to pay a $100 fine including other fees totaling $417.
Her 2nd arrest occurred a little over two years later in 2016 when Pharr PD booked her for property theft of under $500 when she was found to have stolen a “gray/black two-ton floor jack” from a private citizen named Gilberto Duran several months prior in July 2015. Gonzalez, again, accepted a plea bargain and was subsequently sentenced to 180 days probation,
Her 3rd arrest came just six (6) months later when Pharr PD charged her with resisting arrest, assaulting Pharr police officer Emilio Gonzalez via “striking him with her hand and her foot,” possession of a Class PG2A controlled substance, and the hindering the apprehension or prosecution of a known felon sex offender (which was dismissed without a criminal case being filed). She again took a plea bargain, having all other charges dismissed while receiving four (4) years of probation for her assault on Officer Gonzalez.
Only two (2) months after her four-year probation had ended, Gonzalez again was arrested on a litany of charges which included criminal mischief, making a terroristic threat toward another, specifically, when she “intentionally…damage(d)…(a) vehicle, by kicking it with her feet, throwing items at the windshield and slamming her body on top of it,” and subsequently threatened to “murder” the owner of the vehicle, a private citizen named Sandra Rose Gonzalez. Another two separate charges of abandoning a child were added, however, there are no records of any criminal case filings for these charges. Gonzalez paid a surety bond to be released and all charges in this matter were still pending in court at the time of this writing.
Today in a press conference, Weslaco Police Department chief Joel Rivera announced that Gonzalez has been charged with murder with a bond set at $1 million. In Texas, murder is a first-degree felony where Gonzalez could face anywhere from 5-to 99 years to life in prison.
