In the early morning hours of January 5, 2026, the life of 48-year-old Lakisha Washington came to a tragic end in a vacant home in east Fort Worth, Texas. A construction worker, arriving to begin his workday at a house in the 6400 block of Normandy Road, made a grim discovery. Around 8:00 a.m., he entered the empty residence and heard a moan, leading him to a bedroom where he found Washington gravely injured.
She had sustained a gunshot wound to the head and was rushed to John Peter Smith Hospital. Despite medical efforts, she was pronounced dead the following day. The Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office officially ruled her death a homicide.
The Fort Worth Police Department launched an investigation that quickly pieced together the events leading to Washington's death. Detectives learned that in the hours before the shooting, Washington had been with 21-year-old Juan Garcia. The two had reportedly met at a local motel before proceeding to the vacant house on Normandy Road. Surveillance footage from the area proved crucial to the investigation, capturing a white Ford Focus, later identified as Garcia's vehicle, arriving near the vacant house around 6:03 a.m. The footage showed two individuals, believed to be Washington and Garcia, walking toward the house shortly after. About an hour later, at approximately 7:23 a.m., the video showed Garcia leaving the house alone.
Investigators located Garcia's vehicle in a Family Dollar parking lot less than a mile from the crime scene just a few hours after Washington was found. On January 7, police conducted a traffic stop on a vehicle in which Garcia was a passenger, and he agreed to speak with detectives. During questioning, Garcia denied harming Washington, claiming she was alive when he departed. However, the evidence compiled by law enforcement told a different story.
Forensic analysis of a. 45 caliber cartridge casing found near Washington's body, along with a distorted bullet discovered in a wig lying next to her, provided a significant break in the case. Detectives found images and videos on Garcia's cellphone of him posing with a pistol consistent with the type used in the shooting. GPS data from a video recorded on New Year's Eve led investigators to a park where they found shell casings that matched the one from the crime scene. Based on this evidence, Juan Garcia was arrested on January 13 and charged with the murder of Lakisha Washington. He was booked into the Tarrant County jail with his bail set at $250,000.
