Roy Garcia and Sheila Smith met in 1974 when
Sheila was an SP/4 in the Army working in the 8th Infantry Division finance department in Bad Kreuznach, Germany.
Sheila's real company was the 56th General Hospital where she worked as a medic, but she had been sent to this
division to do allotments and bond for this finance company. Roy Garcia also worked at the 8th Infantry Division
where Sheila had been sent and Sheila was assigned to train Roy. This is how they met. Sheila worked there training Roy and
liked him immediately because he was serious minded and that impressed her. They continued to work together until September
of 1974, when Sheila got out of the Army and moved back to Missouri where she had been born and raised all her life.
Roy and
Sheila continued to write to one another, and when Roy finally got back to the states, he took Sheila to Somerset, Texas to
meet his family. When Roy's leave was over and it was time for him to return to Germany, he asked Sheila to go with him and
she did. They continued to live together in Germany till April of 1975, when they returned to the
states for good. They first traveled to Potosi, Missouri to visit with Sheila's family, but the family was in quarantine at
the time due to Sheila's youngest sister Lori having scarlet fever. Roy and Sheila had already decided to get married while
they were visiting her family, so they went on to take their blood tests. This is how Sheila found out that she was pregnant
with their first child.
Roy and Sheila
were married by a Justice of the Peace in Farmington, Missouri and after a quick 3 day honeymoon there, they traveled
to San Antonio, Texas and then on to Killeen, Texas where Roy was going to be stationed at Fort Hood and where they began
their married life together. On January 2, 1976, Roy and Sheila became the proud parents of a baby girl which they named Elizabeth
Joy Garcia. They continued to live in Killeen, Texas. Elizabeth was a very active child and kept Sheila very busy while Roy
worked during the day. In July of 1976, Sheila worried that their apartment was so close to the swimming pool and was scared
the Elizabeth may wonder to it and drown. Since Sheila could not swim, this just magnified her fears. She decided that her
and Elizabeth would take swimming lessons together. Sheila did learn to swim a little, but Elizabeth was a pro from the beginning
and swam like a fish.
On July 27, 1977, Roy and Sheila became the
parents of their second little girl and they named her Emily Jeanette Garcia. Emily was a very moody child when she was a
baby, but loved people. Roy and Sheila and their daughters lived together in Texas for about 4 years and then decided to divorce.
Elizabeth and Emily lived with Sheila part of the time and Roy part of the time. They also spent summers with their grandparents
Ralph and Peggy Smith in Hopewell, Missouri a lot. The kids seemed to be happy, but as they got older, they sort of became
distant with each other and never found that closeness again.
In January of 1993, Sheila found out that Elizabeth
and Emily were both pregnant. Sheila was not real happy about this since the girls were so young, but she decided that they
should go for a checkup and make sure.
Then on February 12, 1993, Emily was on her
way to the doctors appointment to have a pregnancy test done. She never made her appointment and was never seen or heard from
again. Sheila had reported Emily missing on February 12, 1993, but no one seemed to know anything about Emily's disappearance.
Then on February 25, 1993, a road crew that
was clearing brush from a storm the night before, found the nude body of a young female in Canyon Lake, Texas. It was determined
that the body had only been there for about 8-10 hours before it was found. There were no personal effects or clothing found,
so this young girl was listed as a Jane Doe and buried in a potter's grave in New Braunfels, Texas. The autopsy was done on
Jane Doe, and showed that she was very young and she was 3 months pregnant with a little boy. Police never linked this Jane
Doe to the missing Emily Garcia for over a year, when a friend of Emily's mother Sheila, saw a news segment done on the Jane
Doe on the 1 year anniversary of finding her body and called Sheila to tell her about it. Sheila went to the police to
see if it was Emily. Sheila had taken her girls to be fingerprinted when they were very young and she took Emily's fingerprint
card to the police with her. Once they compared the card to the prints of the Jane Doe, they knew for sure that it was indeed
Emily.
Emily's body was then exhumed and she was buried
as Emily Jeanette Garcia in the Rambie Grove Cemetary in Somerset, Texas in the Garcia plots.
It has now been 13 years for Emily's family
with no answers to who may have done such a horrible thing to her. Emily's mother and aunt work on her case daily and hope
that by telling her story that some day they will finally find the justice that Emily and her unborn baby boy deserve.