The views and opinions expressed in Cold and Missing are exclusively those of the hosts. All parties mentioned are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Cold and Missing also contains adult themes and languages and is intended for a mature audience. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome back everyone. Welcome back. Happy to have you here. Last week we did something a little bit different in case you missed it.
If you did miss it, now would be a good time to go back and listen to episode 16 and 17. It's not necessarily required listening. You'll be able to follow along today. We highly encourage you to go back and listen to it. In those two episodes, I had the chance to sit down and have an interview with Faith, who is the wife of Tito J. Garcia-Key Tania, who is the case that we're covering today again. Faith is an incredible woman, an amazing storyteller. She's so captivating and charming.
It was so easy to talk to her. I said it last week and I'll say it again, she's a badass, a complete badass. Really recommend listening to those episodes and just getting to know Faith and Tito a little bit more. Yeah. So without further ado. What do you got for me? Today we're talking about Tito J. Garcia-Key Tania. He's 45 years old, but his birthday is actually this week on December 14th, so he'll turn 46 this week. Happy birthday, man. His last known contact was August 19th, 2022.
It is believed that he was in Webb County, Texas, which is right on the border of Mexico. So just a little bit of background about Tito. Tito is an incredible family man. That is overwhelmingly what I learned through my interview with Faith is that he loves his family, loves his wife, loves his son. The family, we'll get into this in the story, but they lived in Honduras for a number of years.
And while they were there, Tito built a zip line for their son out of a little car booster seat in their yard, just so this five-year-old can zip along the trees. Hell yeah, that's awesome. And made an indoor pool for him to swim in. Wow, incredible. Can you imagine being five? Yes. That's big me energy. I cannot wait to do those things as a parent. Yeah, one of the things that Faith said was him and their son, Brenly, they were always up to something.
They were always doing something up to something, walking around. They had this big property in Honduras at the base of a mountain and just walking around their property, getting into this, getting into that. Projects. Little projects. Little projects. Yeah, I got tons of them. Little things to do, yeah. Faith calls Tito her MacGyver because he can fix anything. She said, you give him a roll of toilet paper, he'll make a rocket ship out of it. Just really crafty, really handy, really smart.
Crafty guy. Yeah, like an inventor of things. That's kind of like the image I got. An incredibly hard worker. He's very romantic. I'll tell the story about how him and Faith met because it's so cute. It's so cute, but definitely romantic, definitely deeply in love with his wife. He is 5'5", about 150 pounds, but he has a 32-inch waist. He has black hair, brown eyes, and he does wear glasses, but it is possible that he has lost them over the course of the events of everything.
He could have glasses. He could not have glasses. We'll post pictures of him with and without them. Well, I've seen pictures of him now, but I thought he was... People always say this about me too. Oh, I thought you were so much taller, but we're the same height and weight. Crazy. Yeah. He does look really tall in his pictures. This is how Tito and Faith met. Oh, yes. September 2005, Hurricane Rita hits the town where Faith is living in Louisiana.
Because of the way the hurricane was coming through, she didn't have a lot of time to know that she was evacuating, and she had a horse that she had to hook up and get ready to go, so she wasn't able to take those precious memories with her. When she came back, the water had completely flooded her home. Her home was completely submerged in water, so everything was covered in mud. When she returned home, she was able to find some material things, like fabric material, like baby blankets.
She said her grandmother's quilts, things like that, that she thought, maybe I can wash them to get the mud, the dirt, and just all the hurricane out of it. She goes to the town where Tito's living to go to the laundromat, and he's there with his friends hanging out, chilling. He's leaning against a washing machine, and is making eyes at Faith, and raising his eyebrows. Yeah, he's trying to figure, he's like, what's up? Yeah, he's like, what's up? She was like, later, I don't have time.
My home was just in a hurricane. I'm trying to save precious memories. You're cute and all, but bye. Anyway, she keeps returning to this laundromat, because she's living in a FEMA trailer while she's recovering from the hurricane. She just has to go there to do her laundry weekly. Tito's there with his friends, hanging out. Eventually, she's there with her mom one day. Her mom's like, oh, he's so cute. Look at him looking at you. She's like, tell her mom. I don't have time.
Eventually, he came up to her with a magazine, with all these women, and really fancy dresses, and she laughed, because she was like, I don't own a dress. I don't wear dresses. I rodeo. He was pointing to the women in these gowns, and pointing to her, and being like, you're beautiful. You are like these women in these magazines. At the time that they met, do they speak the same language? No. She doesn't speak any Spanish. This is extra cute. Extra cute, right? He's like, hey. Yeah, exactly.
Wow. Yeah, she doesn't speak any Spanish. He doesn't speak hardly any English, but one of his friends does speak English, and is able to translate. Oh, the wingman coming through. The wingman. He's like, what's up? I got you. Yeah, he's like, I got you. It just kind of starts from there. They sit in the laundromat, and even though they didn't speak the same language, or a lot of the same language. But they did. They did. But they did.
Exactly. And it's like, I've heard this from couples where they don't speak the same language, but they're able to understand each other and communicate. The heart has its own language. So it just progressed from there. They were talking to each other in the laundromat. They started walking out of the laundromat, going to places to eat nearby. Eventually, he invited her to where he lived to eat, and it just went from there.
So they're married, and they are building a really beautiful life together in Louisiana. They build a new house together. They get all this new furniture. They have their son at this time. Brenly. Brenly, yeah, when they're living in Louisiana. And then when Brenly's still a baby, really young, before he's maybe a year old or right around then, Tito gets pulled over while he's driving. And Tito, at this time, does not have a driver's license because he's not a citizen.
So you can't get a driver's license if you're not a US citizen. Tito gets pulled over. And the police say at the time he's pulled over because he forgot to use his blinker when changing lanes or making a turn or something. But it's like a blinking violation, specifically. OK. My reaction, exactly. I was like, OK. Which normally is a warning, like, hey, is your blinker working? Like you didn't use it. But then this turns into a big old mess for this family. Yeah, of course it does.
Yeah. So he calls Faith because he's getting pulled over. And she shows up. And she says, I can't argue with the police, which you can't. Her husband is kind of at their mercy at this point. So the police ask, does he have a driver's license? No. Does he have an ID? Does he have a passport? Yes. Is an American passport? No. So he ends up getting arrested and ultimately goes to the detention center from this very small interaction with the police. What year is it at the time?
I actually can't recall off the top of my head. But I believe Obama was in office. So it's like during the Obama administration, just as a reference for where we are immigration law-wise. I believe in the interview we say what year it is. So Tito is in the detention center. And ultimately, he ends up getting deported back to his home country of Honduras. And during this time, Faith meets with an immigration lawyer and says, what are our options here?
How do we get him here with no more issues, no more trouble, no more looking over our shoulders? How do we get him here legally? They say that his punishment, Tito's punishment, for being in the country longer than he was allowed to be, so like being in the country illegally, was that he was banned from entering the US for 10 years. And this is a pretty common ban, actually. It comes down to three-year bans and 10-year bans, typically, for this kind of thing.
And it really is as simple as overstaying your visa in the United States. So however long your visa is, if you stay one day over, that starts a three-year ban kind of automatically. And then if you're 180 days or maybe 181 days, that's when the 10-year ban kicks in. That was going to be Tito's punishment, essentially, is that if he wants to apply for citizenship, apply for his green card, he would have to go to Honduras for 10 years.
And then they could start the process to legally apply for his green card. But he would have to be out of the United States to do that. So Tito and Faith make the decision, like, okay, you're going to Honduras. I'm coming too. Brenley's coming too. And 10 years is nothing. We just had our son. He's around one years old at this point. We'll get a chance to live in Honduras. Faith will get to see where Tito comes from.
Their son will get to experience the culture of living in Honduras and get to have that experience. You know, Brenley can come back and he will be able to continue in school and eventually go on to college without missing a beat. So that's their plan. And that's what they do. They go to Honduras. They build a life there. Like I mentioned earlier, they have this house on family land at the base of a mountain. And Faith works teaching English, which makes really good money there.
So Tito is able to stay home and not only care for Brenley, but care for his mother and care for the family and be able to do projects at the houses and fix the houses and just make their lives more comfortable overall.
And again, I really recommend going back, if you haven't already, to listen to the interview with Faith as she describes her culture shock of going from living in America to living in Honduras and what that was like for her because it's really an incredible experience and not when you hear about that often. So again, Faith is really cool and a really great storyteller. Ten years is going by. COVID hits. And COVID was terrible everywhere.
But again, like it mentioned in the interview, it was really bad in Honduras. It was really, really bad. People were dying outside of hospitals. There was a lockdown that was so severe that you could only leave one day a week depending on the number at the end of your ID. And Tito and Faith, their numbers weren't the same. So they couldn't go out together at all. It was one at a time. But ultimately, as borders start opening up again, Faith and Brenley decide to come back.
They've been in Honduras for over 10 years. They lived there for about 13 years ultimately. So they say, okay, it's time. We have done the 10 years. COVID is lifting. The borders are opening up. Let's get back to the USA and start the process to get you here. So that's what they do.
Faith and Brenley come back and they meet with a lawyer who ultimately has bad news that because Trump was in office, Tito was now permanently banned from entering the US because he had been deported too many times before. So now he was permanently banned from my understanding. And immigration law is so complicated. Even when you try to do things by the books, quote unquote, like Faith and Tito did here, they tried to do the process the legal way, which is always an argument I hear.
But it's like, it doesn't work. The system is completely broken. But I think that's the design is that it's just like, it's completely bungled all around for everyone. Yeah. It's impossible. So they learn this news and it's devastating. Faith wants to go back to Honduras so they can all be a family again. Her goal is to be a family and to her, the safest way is to go back to Honduras. And Tito's goal is also to be a family in this.
But he gets dead set on coming to the US because he really wants his son to have good education and a chance at making more than... Five dollars a day. Five dollars for 12 hours of work. Yeah. Have a chance at a better life, which both are right. Nobody's wrong in this, but they both are kind of dead set. And in the interview, Faith said to me, if I had gone to Honduras, he would have said, okay, well, I'll meet you back in the US then because that's where I'm headed. There was no stopping him.
He was very dead set on it. And this was really the first time they disagreed so severely in their marriage. That leads us into the summer of this year, June of 2022. Do you want to say something about that quickly? And this was because I had the chance to listen to the interview and I was thinking to myself, putting myself in Tito's shoes. And this is only from my own experience and how I navigate the world.
But when you are told no over and over and over again, and your pick and choose button gets turned up to high, and that's how you exist. It's like when you turn a button up on any sort of machine and it's stuck and it's turned up really high and you know it's not supposed to be on this setting for this long.
So when you live on that setting and you're doing everything right, when you're a good person and you're doing everything that you're supposed to be doing and you're following the rules and people are still telling you no, and you're turned all the way up to that point, something in you breaks.
I don't mean in a negative way, but I feel pushed up against that no all the time as a trans person and have reached a point in my life at now 34 where I refuse to be told no that immediately resonated with me. So all of that brings us to the summer, June of 2022. He left Honduras and began traveling to the border of Mexico and the United States. And he called Faith and was just like, I'm in Guatemala. And she was like, what are you doing in Guatemala? And he was like, I said I was coming.
So he begins the trip of traveling through all these countries to get to the border, which takes him to the end of June to get there. So it takes him about a month to do all the traveling. And Tito calls Faith and says that he's at the border and she needs to wire him money so that way he can pay a coyote and get some things that he needs and cross the border. And Faith said it so beautifully of like, she was in it now. She was part of this. She had no option. What was she going to do?
Leave him there? Faith does everything that she's asked and Tito is waiting for his turn to cross. And so he doesn't know exactly when he's going. Faith doesn't know exactly when he's going. But eventually he'll go and he makes it across the river and into America. But on this attempt, he is ultimately chased by border patrol. So the group scatters. And Tito, in this process, he loses his backpack that had all of his food, all of his water, like his necessities. And he's out in the desert.
And this is end of July. This is such a hot place to be. Yeah. It's like very quickly a dangerous situation, the fact that he doesn't have water and the fact that he doesn't know where he is really in the desert. So Faith is able to get his coordinates from his phone and she actually calls border patrol and says, my husband is at these coordinates. He needs help. So they go out there and get them. They have the vehicles to go into the desert and they have all the stuff. Well, yeah.
On foot, it's treacherous. But in a car, it's maybe a couple of miles down the desert. So border patrol does find him and pick him up. And a few hours later, he calls Faith and he's in Mexico. He's been deported back to Mexico within a few hours. And this is from Title 42, which is another Trump enacted law. So basically because of COVID, anybody coming to the border could immediately be deported without being arrested and processed and all of that. Could just be immediately deported to Mexico.
And Mexico had agreed to accept not only people from Mexico, but also Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, and more recently Venezuela. And it's come into the news a lot more recently, this Title 42, because people are getting deported to a country they're not from, which is what happened to Tito in this instance. What the fuck, man? Like I just... It's so fucked up. It's so broken. It's so fucked up and broken. And I asked Faith and Tito didn't know anybody in Mexico. This shit is right.
These are human. Human beings. We do this to human beings. Even if you're someone who has that job, how do you... But Faith is ultimately relieved when Tito calls because she's like, it's done. He's going to go home. I'm going to go back to Honduras. I'm going to go back home. We're going to be a family again. It's done. But Tito is dead set. He said, I've made it this far. I've done this much. I'm coming. So get ready because I'm coming. I'm going to go again. I'm doing this again.
So he tries to cross again. And this is where we ultimately lose contact with Tito is on the second crossing. And this happens end of July, beginning of August, 2022. It is not recommended that you cross during this time. I've been doing a lot of research on crossing the border. And July is a slower month actually because it is so hot. And again, Tito has been on this journey since June. So he's not eating regularly. I'm sure he's very dehydrated, not sleeping well.
He's really exhausted physically, I imagine at this point. So August, he begins to cross again. And it's not clear, but it seems like it's through the same route as he did last time with the ultimate plan of ending up in San Antonio, Texas, where Faith was going to pick him up from there. That was the ultimate goal was to get to San Antonio. So at one point, Tito calls Faith and says that he's so tired and that he can't do it anymore. Like he can't walk. He can't move.
Like he's reaching the end of his ropes. He says they're about four hours away from where someone can pick them up. So that's where like a car can get to them. They're four hours away from that point. But if she's willing to pay $10,000, they'll send a car to him and he can rest there. They'll send the car the next day. And Faith... She says, okay, I'll borrow it from my mom. Yeah. Do it. Tell them to bring the car. So the next day, he calls. I believe this is August 19th.
He calls and she's expecting him to say, I'm in San Antonio. But nobody sent the car. Nobody came for him. So he's there alone and he has been waiting, no pickup. The battery on his phone is dying. So he says what he's going to try to do is use Google Maps to try to get somewhere to where Faith can pick him up. And she needs to get in the car and start driving because she's far. She's in Tennessee. So she's like a good long while away. So she's got hours on the road to go.
So she gets in the car and heads out and he begins walking. So about eight hours after Faith has been on the road, approximately in there, she gets a video call from Tito. And she says he's almost unrecognizable from dehydration and sunburn and the bags under his eyes. He is very sick and exhausted. And he says that he's resting under a bridge and that's where Faith needs to come get him. And she's like, does he know how many roads there are in Texas?
And I get anything, any kind of road name, a mile marker, anything to know where you're at. And he hangs up and says he's going to try to walk to find something and he'll call back because again, his battery's low. So he doesn't have a lot of... He can't stay on the phone with her. He has tried to send his location via Google Maps and WhatsApp. He's tried doing that and it would not come through. Every time Faith received it, it was just like a pin in a blanket. A blank spot.
So she really doesn't have anything to go off of. But he calls back and he has tried to walk and he says he can't do it. He can't move. He can't walk. And he says he's so sorry. He can see the road, but he can't see where the cars would come in and out of. He just sees a clip of a road. That's how I took that. He tells her he can't see anything, but then he says he can see a gate that has gargoyles on it. And he says this in Spanish to her, gargoyles.
And that's how Faith knew that he was very sure of it. This wasn't a hallucination because if he had said it in English, she would have assumed he was hallucinating from dehydration. But because he said it in Spanish, she knew that's really what he's seeing is a gargoyle. So Tito ultimately says his battery is low and he says, I love you. And then a couple seconds later, he says, I'm scared and the phone shuts off.
And according to his NamUs case, this was at 8, 11 PM, this last communication with him on August 19th. So Faith is still on the road. And when the phone cuts off, she assumes that he has turned it off because his battery is low, but the phone never turns back on again and hasn't that we know of. But Faith keeps the phone bill paid. So that way, if anybody finds it, if they can get it on, she'll know. So she gets into the area, Tito's last known whereabouts were Webb County, Texas.
So she's driving off the road, going under every bridge, driving every road she can, trying to find this gate with a gargoyle on it and ultimately can't find it. And she's panicked. She's been on the road for a very long time and she has her son with her and she doesn't know what to do. So she turns around and she goes home. And it's not like, I think what immediately people think is like, why didn't you ask anyone else for help? But she cannot. Because he will be deported again. Or worse.
I just like, I think that that's worth saying. Is that like, literally, this woman has done everything that she can do. There's no resources for her. There's none. Yeah. She turns around and goes home and listening to Faith in this interview, like every time I listen to it, I cry. Like her talking about this part of how this was like the hardest thing she's had to do. Wondering if Tito could see their car and like know that she was right there and like could see her driving away.
I'm going to start crying if I think about it too much. Yeah. It's something that, that's a thought that should never have to pass through anyone's mind. Never. And the fact that it does. That she has to feel that every moment of every day is violently unfair. Yeah. And the days after August 19th, there's no contact from Tito and Faith is in hysterics over like what to do. Like very scared about everything.
And you know, she had received calls from Tito with other, from other numbers besides his. So you know, she called those, called every number she could think of. The coyotes, this, that, the other, you know, the where she wired them. Yeah. Exactly. So a few days later, she heads back to Webb County to officially file a missing persons report and when she mentioned the gate, they say, Oh, well it's not gargoyles, but it's a bat. We know a gate like that.
This is actually a state park and it's called, I'm going to butcher this, but it's Chacon Park or bat park in Webb County. But the gate to it, and we'll include pictures of this on our Instagram, but from far away, it would look like a gargoyle because it's a big bat over the entrance of this gate and with its wings spread. So like, yeah, if you didn't know what you were looking at was specifically a bat, like you would think. So he was like gargoyles?
Yeah. Well, and also like gates, like I would think a gargoyle is going to be on a gate before a bat, but they drive out to the bridge that's out there or bridges out there and search, but there's no sign of Tito and there hasn't been any sign of Tito since that phone call on August 19th. There is a possibility that he was seen in Wisconsin.
Somebody was 90% sure that they saw him, which again, if you think you see somebody who is missing like in this day and age when we all have a cell phone in our pocket, try to get a picture, try to get a video, like be sneaky if you must, but it's so helpful to the family to be able to see a picture and kind of ultimately rule out like, yes, this is a good lead or no, that's not them. The woman who saw him in Wisconsin was about 90% sure that it was him and he was wearing a construction shirt.
So Faith right now thinks that Tito could possibly be the victim of human trafficking in forced labor via construction, which when I did my research on this, LexisNexis, which is like a business research firm, they figured that out of all the jobs in construction, all the workers, around 7% of them are actually victims of human trafficking. So construction is actually like a very big industry for human trafficking. Holy shit.
So that is a possible clue for Tito that he could be possibly the victim of human trafficking and work in construction right now. If you think you see Tito, again, please try to get a picture of him, but call 911 is what Faith is requesting people do. And his case is out of Webb County and his case number is 2022001524. And you can call the Webb County Sheriff at 956-523-4500. And again, just report him.
This is a missing person and any information you can, what he's wearing, where you're at, what he's doing, all of that is really helpful. And again, you can reach out to Faith on her social media that she has to raise awareness for Tito. We're going to include those in our show link. So you can also reach out to her and send tips there as well. But that is the case of Tito and he is still missing.
Again, just if you haven't had the opportunity to listen to my interview with Faith, I really, really encourage you to go back and listen to it because Faith was very vulnerable with me and very honest with me. And I think that kind of courage should be rewarded. And I think the best reward would be Tito coming home. So I reached out to Faith to ask if there was anything that she wanted included this week that maybe she didn't get to mention last week.
And she just said that they still have not heard from him and his birthday is coming up this week. And Christmas is really hard and that her and her son have agreed on a compromise because she couldn't face doing a big tree and all that. So they have a small ceramic tree that was her grandmother's up as the Christmas decorations. But we want Tito home for sure.
So again, please contact the Webb County Sheriff at 956-523-4500 or contact Faith directly with your tip via social media, which are in our show notes. And that's it. That's all I have. Since this was kind of a unique opportunity, I jotted down a unique opportunity, meaning that I get to talk a little bit more about this case instead of just having my reactions. So my first response to listening to Faith speak and hearing about Tito was that I put myself in their position.
And I think that that's a really natural response. And I immediately started editing and filling in what I would have done and almost just a few seconds after had the realization of you don't know what you would do. You don't know. And I think that we're trained to be critical, but Faith is experiencing a level of fear that most people will never experience in their lifetime. You know, she doesn't know where Tito is.
I kept trying to imagine something that I can't because I've never experienced it. And hopefully never will. So this is a situation that cannot be criticized. And there's a level of bravery that I wanted to commend Faith for because it's really vulnerable to step out and tell your story, not only because of what you're going through, but because it slides that hyper critical lens over your life for people to look through.
So it's really brave for her to step out and trust in that community support. You know, yeah, badass. I echo that 100%. I also wanted to say that they seem to love each other in a way that it's written about. Totally. You know? And I feel that way with you. So I just like Tito and I are very lucky guys to be loved by people like you and Faith. And that's it for me. Thanks for letting me share. I care a lot about this family and I think a lot of other people will too now.
And I'd really love to see him come home. Me too. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for sharing. That was all really beautiful. But yeah, next week we're going to have a little bit of another kind of different episode. We're going to be doing a big update episode. So we promise we're not straying from the regular form. Yeah, it's just it's the end of the year and a couple of things have, as listeners know, have changed in cases that we've covered. Definitely.
So we wanted to bring you a big update episode. So we want to cover everything that has happened in Delphi. There has been some movement on the charges against Richard Allen, who is accused of murdering Abby Williams and Libby German in Delphi, Indiana. So we have the documents of the arrest warrant. So we're going to go over that and just like some details that have come out.
Yeah. And then in the past few days, Betty Roth, who we covered two weeks ago as a cold case, somebody has been arrested in her murder. We announced it on our Instagram or we announced it. We posted about it on our Instagram. So we want to bring you the information on Betty and the arrest that's been made there, which is so cool. Yeah. Yeah. So that'll be coming at you next week. But if you want updates on the case, make sure you're subscribed so you'll get the first news.
You'll get it right in your phone when you wake up on Monday morning. Extra, extra. Exactly. Yeah. And while you're subscribing to us in your podcast app, go ahead and rate and review us. We appreciate it all so much. Please follow us on Instagram. We're going to be posting photos of Tito, photos from the cases, all the cases that we've mentioned.
They're all up there, but we post a lot of pictures that can be shared to just get more eyes looking for not only Tito, but everybody that we've covered that's missing in this case or missing on our podcast. And then also, the end of the year, maybe you're feeling generous. It's the time of giving. Maybe you want to tip your favorite podcast or one of your new favorite podcasts, which maybe is us, who have been missing. Hopefully.
In our link in the bio on Instagram, you can buy us a coffee, which is really simple, easy process. It's basically a tip of $5 or more if you're feeling so generous. And it just helps us keep putting money into this podcast and keep doing these stories that matter so much to me and so much to y'all, which it's crazy looking back on this past year. Can't wait to talk about it more. But, um... So proud of you, baby. Thanks, babe. That's all I have. So... Okay. I think you covered it, boss.
Yeah. Have a good week, y'all. Stay safe. Have a good week. Stay safe. Bye!