OCALA, FL (352today.com) – Purple pills, conflicting stories, special sauce and an incident in a neighboring apartment led to an arrest.
Monica Garza, 33, Ocala, was arrested Sept. 3, 2025, and charged with three felony counts of child neglect, without bodily harm. The juveniles had been in the apartment alone, a fire occurred in the adjacent apartment at 4:20 a.m. and the children had been left alone from 2 a.m. to 6:30 a.m. The accused only returned to the apartment when an OPD officer called. Probable cause led to the alleged’s arrest.
An Ocala Police Department detective received a call at 5 a.m. in response to a fire at the Laurel Park Apartments on 11 NW 23rd Ave., with the call being reported to OPD to assist another agency.
The images are of fire damage from the neighboring apartment | Courtesy of Ocala Fire Rescue
A determination had been made to clear the entire building as there was an active fire in an apartment. However, forced entry was required when there was no response. Once entry was made into the dwelling, it was discovered that there were three juveniles inside and no adults.
A Helpful Neighbor
Once the detective arrived on the scene, he made contact with a neighbor, who informed him that he knew the mother of the children only as Monica, informing authorities that the accused drove a small black vehicle and worked for a cleaning service, and provided law enforcement with a phone number.
The neighbor had attempted to contact the accused after the apartments had been cleared, and realized she wasn’t at the location. The neighbor told the detective she sent the alleged a text that was delivered but received no response. The neighbor also shared the accused’s social media profile with authorities, which had been active five hours prior to 6:05 a.m.
It was while engaging the neighbor, the detective heard another officer speaking with someone, saying that they needed to come to the apartment complex, with the detective confirming that the officer had been speaking to the mother of the juveniles. The accused arrived at the location and was placed under arrest.
Looking for Answers
The accused was transported to the OPD Dist. 2 Office, while the victim advocates transported the children to Kimberly’s Center for Child Protection.
Authorities learned the accused is still married to the children’s father, and they had separated in February. The alleged lives alone with the three juveniles in the apartment and was questioned by the detective as to why she wasn’t home. The accused said that she and a friend were starting a hair salon, and she drove to an address in Ocala Park Estates at 2 a.m. to get a $2,000 loan for the business.
The detective than confronted her about the possibility about having a relationship with someone besides the father, eventually admitting she had been seeing someone for the past four months.
When Things Don’t Add up
The children had mentioned about being given a special sauce, with one of them mentioning this wasn’t the first time they had been left alone.
The accused mentioned she had a hard time doing things during the day and sometimes had to run errands at night, admitting to authorities that this past summer, sometimes she would leave the apartment. The alleged claimed that she didn’t give the children medicine to put them to sleep so she could go out. She said sometimes she would give them Melatonin because they had trouble sleeping.
The victim’s advocate called the detective and told him that the children told her that sometimes the accused gives them a purple pill to make them sleep and is dressed up, when they take the sleeping medicine. The detective asked the alleged about the sleeping medicine, and she told him it was children’s Melatonin, and it dissolved in their mouths. The accused said she gave it to the two older children, one or two times a week. She told the detective she didn’t get dressed up when she gave the children the purple pill, explaining she would take a shower at night, and put the clothes on at night because it was the only time she could do so.
