Daughter says she lied to police about providing false alibi for man accused of killing 81-year-old

The daughter of a Nevada man on trial for allegedly strangling an 81-year-old Newport Beach man now says she lied to detectives about providing her father a fake alibi for the night of the slaying.

The new testimony by Anthony Thomas Garcia’s adult daughter appears to bolster the claim by his defense attorney that Garcia wasn’t even in the state when Abelardo Lopez Estacion was killed on Apr. 11, 2015.

But the sudden change of Samantha Garcia’s story – which stands in stark contrast to her previous interviews with police and testimony under oath in earlier court hearings – led a prosecutor to question whether the daughter is now lying in order to protect her father.

Deputy District Attorney Whitney Bokosky alleges that Garcia drove from Carson City to Newport Beach, entered a home while Estacion was asleep and then struck, smothered and strangled Estacion before driving back to Nevada.

During testimony on Wednesday and Thursday, Garcia’s daughter, Samantha Garcia, acknowledged that she previously told detectives that her father had left his cell phone with her in Carson City the night of the killing so that she could carry out a fake text conversation between the two of them to provide him an alibi. She also admitted to telling the same story under oath during a preliminary hearing where a judge decided there was enough evidence for the case to proceed to trial.

The daughter now says that story was a lie, denying that she had her father’s phone in her possession the night of Estacion’s death, and saying she met with her father in Carson City after midnight. If Garcia had carried out the killing, he would have had to have been either in Newport Beach or in transit to or from the city at that time.

Under questioning by the prosecutor, the daughter said she felt pressured by detectives, and said she responded by giving them what she believed they wanted to hear.

“They kept telling me he did this,” Samantha Garcia said. “They kept telling me I was going to go to jail. I didn’t want to go to jail.”

“So to stay out of jail you came up with a lie that implicates both your father and you in a crime?” the prosecutor asked.

“Yes,” the daughter replied. “I just wanted to go home.”

Anthony Garcia, 61, is accused of killing Estacion for financial gain. Bokosky, during the opening of the trial, told jurors that prior to Estacion’s death, Garcia had told others that he wanted to kill Estacion.

Garcia’s attorney, Alisha Montoro, countered that no fingerprints, eyewitnesses or surveillance video ties Garcia – whom she described as a non-violent family man – to the scene of Estacion’s killing.

Much of the testimony in the trial has focused on an ugly fight over the estate of Estacion’s wife, Dortha Lamb, who was dying of terminal cancer and suffering from dementia at the time of Estacion’s alleged slaying. Garcia’s ex-girlfriend, who is also the mother of one of Garcia’s children, is a granddaughter of Lamb.

A self-made woman who owned a home in Newport Beach and valuable rental properties in San Clemente and Costa Mesa, Lamb had lived with Estacion for more than 20 years, marrying him shortly before his death.

Lamb’s trust had been amended so that if she died before Estacion the Newport Beach home would go to Lamb’s daughter, the rental properties to Estacion. But Lamb’s family believed Estacion was abusing Lamb, and had taken her away from Estacion.

Hours before Estacion was killed, a judge delayed a decision on a temporary restraining order that would have prevented Estacion from contacting Lamb and kicked him out of the Newport Beach home.

If convicted, Garcia faces life in prison without the possibility of parole.