Alleged Tennessee Fugitive Arrested in Hellertown

A Hellertown police officer early Tuesday found a girl reported missing from her Tennessee home since Thursday (Feb. 9). She was with a 19-year-old man, also from Tennessee, outside the on Main Street.

The man, Aaron Charles Garcia, of Johnson City was being held in Northampton County Prison as an alleged fugitive from justice. He is scheduled to have an extradition hearing Friday in Northampton County Court on a charge filed in Tennessee of contributing to the delinquency of a child, according to court records.

The charge was brought by police in Elizabethton, which is not far from Johnson City in the northeastern part of the state near Interstate 81.

In the court records, Hellertown Patrolman John Donato said he was in his patrol car around 12:22am when he saw a 2000 silver Pontiac Grand Am with a Tenneseee license plate in the diner parking lot. The car was cold and the windows were fogged.

Donato said he checked on the safety of the occupants because of the cold temperatures outside. He discovered Garcia and his “juvenile female” passenger. Donato then learned Garcia and the girl were reported missing and was later told by Elizabethton police to hold Garcia so that he could be extradited back to Tennesssee.

A warrant faxed by Elizabethton police said they got involved in the girl’s case when she was reported missing at 6:24pm Thursday. The warrant said the girl was in the parking lot of a Super Walmart with her mother when the girl said she needed to go back into the store to use the restroom.

After 20 minutes, the girl had not returned. The mother then went inside the store and did not find her. Police said they came to believe during their investigation that the girl left with Garcia.

Garcia was arraigned early Tuesday by on-duty District Judge Jackie Taschner of Palmer Township. He was committed to the county prison in lieu of $15,000 bail.