The morning Patricia Guardado disappeared Oct. 12, 2011 was just like any other Wednesday... around 8:30 a.m., Paty was already out of bed and dressed. Garcia offered to make her lunch, but Patricia said she was already late leaving for her 9 o'clock class. Scheduled to work at the bank that day after school, Patricia was wearing her dress clothes. As she was on the way out the door, Garcia stopped her to admire the woman her daughter had become... "The only thing I remember telling her was: 'What a pretty daughter I have.' She sort of looked embarrassed, and said 'Oh, mom.' She smiled at me, and that was it"...
Police are investigating to see if an attack on a woman at Little Rock's Rave Motion Pictures movie theater on Nov. 20, 2011, is linked to the Guardado murder. That night a little over a month and less than two miles from where Patricia Guardado's car was found a woman was leaving the theater just before 8 p.m. when two Latino men, one of whom police say was Crescencio Duran, (a.k.a. Salbador Carillo) of Little Rock, tried to stun her with an electric stun gun and, according to the original incident report, "attempted to grab her." After she managed to break free and crawl under a car, an accomplice also armed with an electric stun gun jumped out of a nearby car and also came after her, but the woman's screams alerted passersby who came to her aid, and the two assailants sped away. Carillo, who was in the Pulaski County Jail charged with firing a gun from a car in January, was charged in February with robbery in the Rave case. An internal police flier circulated prior to his arrest said he was "wanted for questioning in regards to the homicide of Patricia Guardado"...
Every Wednesday morning, Garcia drives Patricia's Scion to the lot behind the Burger King across from UALR, parks, then sits there for at least an hour in the place where her daughter disappeared. From behind the wheel, she watches the students come and go with their bags and backpacks, so full of hope and promise. "I sit in the car and try to imagine," she said. "I try to retrace her steps. I still ask myself: how in the hell could my daughter disappear at 8:45 in the morning and nobody saw anything? I can't believe it. I don't believe that's possible."