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Man indicted for 2018 shooting death of 16-year-old girl

Sydney_Garcia-Tovar .jpg
Posted at 1:34 PM, Mar 29, 2023
and last updated 2023-03-29 18:58:13-04

FAIRFIELD TWP., Ohio — An 18-year-old man has been indicted for the 2018 murder of 16-year-old Sydney Garcia-Tovar.

According to court documents, 18-year-old Jordan A. Spain was indicted by a grand jury on one count of murder and two counts of felonious assault. He was arrested in September 2022 on those charges. Police said Spain was 14-years-old at the time of the shooting.

Spain is scheduled for an arraignment on April 11, court documents show.

In April 2021, 22-year-old Markeylnd Townsend was also charged with murder and felonious assault for his involvementin Garcia-Tovar's death.

Fairfield Township police said Garcia-Tovar was in the wrong place at the wrong time on July 23, 2018, when bullets began flying. Fairfield Township police sergeant Brandon McCroskey said Garcia-Tovar was with a group of people outside the Tyler's Creek apartments on Wildbranch Road that day.

As she was leaving, McCroskey said bullets hit Garcia-Tovar's car, striking her in the back of the head and hitting a man in her passenger seat; the man survived, but Garcia-Tovar died in the hospital the next day.

“Sydney did not deserve to die from being there and being involved in that situation,” McCroskey said after Garcia-Tovar's murder. “She was a victim. It is a tragedy all the way around.”

Garcia-Tovar’s family said she was an ROTC cadet at Hamilton High School who had hopes of one day becoming a Marine.

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