{"id":31633,"date":"2025-11-07T08:42:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T08:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/31633\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T08:42:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T08:42:14","slug":"texas-woman-found-chained-in-backyard-of-austin-home-after-allegedly-being-held-captive-by-five-suspects-for-months","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/31633\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas woman found chained in backyard of Austin home after allegedly being held captive by five suspects for months"},"content":{"rendered":"

A half-naked woman was allegedly tortured and chained up in the backyard of a Texas home for months \u2014 leading to the arrest of five people who allegedly starved and shot at the defenseless victim with BB guns.<\/p>\n

The Austin Police Department responded to a home on the south side of the city around 9 a.m. Oct. 30 after a 911 call was made regarding a woman screaming for help and handcuffed to metal exercise equipment in the backyard, according to Austin officials.<\/a><\/p>\n

Officers arrived to find the unnamed woman suffering from severe injuries, naked from the waist down, and shackled to a punching bag stand.<\/p>\n

A half-naked woman was found allegedly tortured and chained up in the backyard of an Austin, Texas, home on Oct. 30. Google maps<\/p>\n

The first responders quickly attempted to free the woman, but \u201cdue to the conditions of the restraints,\u201d they had to call in the Austin Fire Department to bring special equipment to cut through the metal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe woman showed signs of physical distress and had visible injuries consistent with prolonged restraint,\u201d police said.<\/p>\n

As they worked to free the woman, five adults inside the home noticed what was happening and tried to flee, but were immediately caught and detained. <\/p>\n

Police also found two small children living at the home who were placed in the care of Child Protective Services.<\/p>\n

The suspects \u2014 Michelle Garcia, 51, Crystal Garcia, 21, Mache Carney, 32, Juan Pablo Castro, 30, and Maynard Lefevers, 21 \u2014 had allegedly held the victim captive for months, police said.<\/p>\n

Suspect Michelle Garcia, 51. Austin Police Dept.<\/p>\n

Suspect Juan Pablo Castro, 30. Austin Police Dept.<\/p>\n

The victim told investigators that she\u2019d been friends with Michelle Garcia, but stated that \u201cat some point, they [the group] decided they no longer liked her,\u201d and the five decided to keep her as a captive, according to an affidavit obtained by the\u00a0Austin American-Statesman<\/a>.<\/p>\n

She said she was forced to live outside for weeks and beaten whenever she tried to flee. It\u2019s unclear when the victim was taken captive and exactly how long she was held.<\/p>\n

Detectives said the woman was fed just one plate of food a day and shackled to a metal exercise stand \u2014 sometimes with both wrists locked behind her.<\/p>\n

Suspect Crystal Garcia, 21. Austin Police Dept.<\/p>\n

Michelle Garcia allegedly told investigators she limited the woman to one meal a day because she thought the victim had gotten \u201cchunky.\u201d <\/p>\n

However, investigators said the woman appeared severely malnourished.<\/p>\n

The victim also said that the night before being found, her pants slipped down and she \u201cgot in trouble.\u201d She was then shot with a BB gun, cuffed to a backyard stand and left there half-naked overnight as \u201cpunishment\u201d while temperatures plunged into the 40s, the affidavit revealed.<\/p>\n

During her captivity, she sustained extensive injuries, including open wounds, severe swelling of the wrists, loss of tissue from her hands and feet, widespread scarring from BB gun pellets, and significant facial trauma.<\/p>\n

After she was transported to a local hospital, doctors determined her injuries matched weeks of torture and restraint. Scans also found a BB was lodged in her right eye.<\/p>\n

Castro allegedly told police he shot the woman with an electric rifle-style BB gun because he \u201cdidn\u2019t want to touch her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Suspect Maynard Lefevers, 21. Austin Police Dept.<\/p>\n

Suspect Mache Carney, 32. Austin Police Dept.<\/p>\n

He also allegedly admitted that when he would get home from work, he would grab the BB gun from his closet and \u201cchase her around the yard,\u201d expressing that he \u201cf\u2013king hates her,\u201d according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n

One of the children found at the home \u2014 a 4-year-old boy identified as Castro\u2019s son \u2014 said his dad shot the woman whenever she was \u201cbad,\u201d and that his mom, Carney, usually stood by and watched.<\/p>\n

All five suspects were arrested and charged with aggravated kidnapping, aggravated assault, injury to the elderly or disabled, and unlawful restraint.\u00a0They are all locked up at the Travis County Jail on $305,000 bail.<\/p>\n

Carney and Michelle Garcia return to court on Nov. 18 and 21, while Crystal Garcia, Castro and Lefevers are set to appear on Dec. 15.<\/p>\n

The case remains under investigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A half-naked woman was allegedly tortured and chained up in the backyard of a Texas home for months…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[19169,303,7372,9,11,10,1777,19170,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-31633","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-captive","9":"tag-crime","10":"tag-kidnappings","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-news","14":"tag-texas","15":"tag-torture","16":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}