Officers search for man who reportedly held wife hostage

MAGNA — Police are searching for a man who they say held his estranged wife in her own home for five days.  He managed to elude officers before SWAT teams arrived.

Officers were called to the house near 80^th West and Molly Drive early this morning after the victim took her child to a hospital.  The woman reportedly told police her husband, Elias Christopher Lorenzo Garcia, showed up to her house, uninvited, on Tuesday.

“It is her house.  That is where she lives.  He does not live here.  She currently has an active protective order against him.  So, he should not have been here in the first place,” according to Unified Police Sergeant Melody Gray.

Garcia reportedly wanted to take the couple’s three-year-old son for Thanksgiving, but, the victim wouldn’t allow it.  Gray says Garcia held the mother and child in the home while beating her during those five days.  Plus, Gray says, “There were threats against her life as well as suicidal threats if she were to try and leave.”

Police say the woman and her child were able to escape this morning.

The victim’s father, Richard Carmichael, says this isn’t the first time Garcia has been violent with his daughter.

“He has made these threats against her, and has carried out those threats, as far as beating her severely,” he says.

Carmichael says he even went to visit his daughter on Saturday but felt something was wrong when she wouldn’t let him past the living room.

“I had my suspicions that he was there.  Also, as I walked by my truck that she’s borrowing, I noticed the passenger’s seat was reclined and that’s the way he usually sits in there,” Carmichael adds.

According to the Deseret News, Garcia was convicted of attempted aggravated assault in 2012.  Plus, he was arrested for entering his estranged wife’s house in April of this year.