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Mother of suspect in alleged Magna hostage incident claims son was ‘set up’

Posted at 8:07 PM, Nov 28, 2018
and last updated 2018-11-28 23:27:14-05

MAGNA, Utah — Elias Garcia, a man from Magna, is on the run after being accused of domestic violence and holding his estranged wife and 3-year-old daughter hostage for nearly six days in her Magna home.

Garcia’s Mother, Tessie Rios, told Fox 13 that her son is innocent of these accusations and was the one set up.

“All I know is that my son came knocking on my door, his blood was dry,” Rios said. “My son is the victim, she is not the victim, he is the victim. He could have died then what?”

Rios said her son came to her for help Monday morning following the incident and said that her son was set up and beaten by people his ex-wife knows.

“He got stitches, his forehead, his head his hand, his knee…he was just really bad,” Rios said. “They beat him with a crow bar and pistol whipped him and they beat him up really super bad and so me and his dad rushed him to LDS hospital.”

Fox 13 spoke to Unified Police Department about the claims the family is making. They said that Garcia could help make sense of this case if he would contact police and give them his side of the story.

“He won’t actually come in and talk to us we have no way of verifying that this is actually factual, does he actually have these injuries?” Sgt. Melody Grey with Unified Police said. “If there actually is some validity with this story then obviously we want to pursue that and figure out what really happened here."

Police urge Garcia to speak to authorizes about what he saw and experienced the morning when it all happened.