Featured Image Credit: YouTube/Casey Garcia / El Paso Sheriff’s Office
Topics: Crime, True crime, Parenting, Texas
Rhianna Benson
Topics: Crime, True crime, Parenting, Texas
Back in 2021, a Texas mother believed she was proving a vital point about a lack in security when she turned up to her teen daughter's school impersonating her.
Hoping to compile a case proving that the educational facility needed to crack down on who has access to both the school and its students, Casey Garcia, from El Paso, went incognito.
Never did she expect, however, that her undercover project would blown up online and result in her facing criminal proceedings.
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She dyed her hair, dressed in her 13-year-old daughter's clothes, and placed a Covid preventative face mask over her nose and mouth to disguise her identity.
"Do I look like a seventh grader? 'No? Cool, awesome," Casey recorded herself telling viewers in footage which has since gone viral on social media.
The then 30-year-old mother was then seen walking through the hallways of the school, admitted she feels "really scared" about getting caught as she bumps into her 'fellow students'.
The undercover mom then attended a series of her daughter Julie's classes - including physical exercise, with one teacher even calling her by the youngster's name.
Casey's project continued until the final period of the day, when an eagle-eyed teacher finally clocked that she wasn't who she'd claimed to be.
The footage of her entire assessment of Garcia-Enriquez Middle School's security measures was published on YouTube.
"I didn't do this to ruffle any feathers," she later insisted.
"I didn't do this to out the school, because I was never going to say what school district or what school it was, they put that out there themselves."
Casey went on to hit out: "We need better security at our schools, this is what I tried to prove, and I don't mean to be curt but I kind of feel like I proved it."
She added that teachers were more concerned about her playing on her phone than the fact she was a fully-grown woman impersonating her teenage daughter.
The mother-of-one was arrested for criminal trespassing following her online stunt, as well as tampering with government records and an unrelated traffic violation, before later being released on a $7,808 bond.
And since then, parents have wondered whether a now-33-year-old Casey could face further charges following her controversial project.
Well, this week, the Lone Star state mom has, in fact, been found guilty of criminal trespassing, and sentenced to six months of probation in El Paso County criminal court.
She also faces a $700 probated fine and is required to serve 100 hours of community service.
Theresa Caballero - Casey's attorney - this week told press that she was relieved that her client was able to avoid serving jail time.
She added, however: "Clearly, trespassing on school grounds - and nobody was harmed by it - is less harmful than the harm you're trying to avoid, which is a school shooting."