The views and opinions expressed in Cold and Missing are exclusively those of the hosts.
All parties mentioned are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Cold and Missing also contains adult themes and languages and is intended for a mature
audience.
Listener discretion is advised.
Welcome back everyone.
Welcome to Cold and Missing.
If this is your first time here, I am at...no, I'm not Ali.
I'm Eli Sulkowski, your co-host.
And I'm Ali McLaughlin.
So we're doing things a little bit differently this week.
This week I had the opportunity to speak with Tito J. Garcia Quintanilla's wife.
Her name is Faith.
And Tito is missing and has been missing for about four months now.
So Faith and I were able to have a discussion about their life, what Tito's like.
She's a really incredible woman.
She's badass.
Like, that's the one word I could really use to describe her.
She's really incredible.
And I'm so excited to share this interview with you.
So it's going to come out in two parts.
Yeah, I'm also...I'll be...well, like everyone else usually.
I know I learned the night before, morning before what the episode will be about.
But yeah, I could very briefly...when I walked by the studio room, I could hear your two
voices talking to each other.
But that's all I really heard.
I will learn in real time along with all of you, like all the awesome things about Tito
that I've heard about just a little bit.
Yeah, so the interview will come out in two episodes today.
They are both out now as you're listening to this.
So this is the first part of the interview.
And then part two is obviously the second part of the interview.
But yeah, I hope you enjoy.
And then next week, we'll be bringing you this case again, but we'll be back to our
regular format.
So we'll be going through the timeline a little bit more in depth, and I'll provide some background
information to some things that Faith and I talked about.
But...
Yeah, and I will probably have some questions that also come up for you listeners out there.
So hopefully, I'll be able to ask the questions you want answers to.
If there's anything that you're not clear about, you know.
Yeah.
I'm excited for that portion.
Yeah, absolutely.
So that will be coming out next week.
But yeah, here's part one of my interview with Faith.
I was just wondering if you could tell me a little bit about Tito.
How did y'all meet?
So we actually met in Louisiana.
I lived really close to the coast in a town called Hackberry, Louisiana.
And he was actually living in a town called Suffolk, Louisiana.
And they're not actually that far apart.
So a hurricane had come through.
I usually remember the name, but I can't think of it right offhand right now for some reason.
It'll hit me later or tonight sometime.
Oh, Hurricane Rita.
I told you.
Hurricane Rita.
And I had left because we were required to leave.
I had came back to where my home was to find out that my home was there, but it had actually
flooded over the complete top of it.
And the water had subsided.
So everything had been moved around and you could see on the inside where the mud line
was.
So everything was basically covered with mud.
And as hurricanes do, they change trajectory.
So it was kind of like, oh, it's not gonna hit us.
Okay, now you've got 30 minutes to pack up your stuff and get out.
So you're trying in a panic to remember the things that you need to leave with.
My biggest complication was I had a horse, so I didn't want to leave him.
So that was taking most of my time to hook a trailer up, get him into a trailer.
Of course, Brenley was not born at this time and my other children were older and out of
the house.
And then I had a garage where I had stored things.
So I had left, but when I came back, of course, I was going through things and I entered the
garage and I had a hope chest.
And when I looked at that hope chest, I realized that my kids' baby books were in there, their
baby blankets, all of these things that had such important memories for me.
So it was very overwhelming, but I opened it up, their baby books were ruined, but their
baby blankets were full of mud.
And I thought, maybe I can take these, maybe I can wash them and save them.
So I had loaded those things up in the vehicle and I had drove into sulfur to a laundry mat
and went in to try to wash these things.
And there was a group of guys in there and they were all Hispanic and I was washing those
things.
And Tito was in this group.
He didn't speak any English and I knew exactly no Spanish.
And I'm putting things in the washing machine and he's leaning on his hand with his elbow
on the machine.
And he's leaning over there and he's raising his eyebrows up and down.
At you?
Yeah, at me and he's smiling.
And I just look at him and I'm thinking to myself, look, I don't have time for this.
You just need to go on about your business.
Move along.
I've got way too much here to deal with.
Well, my mom and dad came down a few weeks later to try to help me sort things out.
And of course, as things went along, we found other things that we thought we could wash
and save.
And of course, there he was at the laundry mat.
And then as it went along, I kept noticing he was always at the laundry mat when I was
at the laundry mat.
Interesting.
Yeah.
And he's still always doing this little eyebrow thing.
And my mama's like elbow and she's like, look over there, Faith.
He's so cute.
Look at his curly hair.
I'm like, mama, look, I don't have a home.
I'm living in the FEMA trailer.
I just don't have time for this.
My mama's like, oh, he is so cute though.
Look at it.
I said, mama, he probably don't speak a word of English.
I don't have time for this.
My mom and dad ended up leaving.
And of course, I was still going to the laundry mat because I was buying clothes, you know,
and I had to wash.
He was always there.
Always.
Like he was living at this place.
And I was sitting in a chair and he goes and picks up this magazine.
And I couldn't tell you what it was, but it had women like in these fancy long dresses,
you know, and he comes and sits by me and he opens it up and he points to this lady
in this real fancy dress.
And he points to me and he points to the lady in the dress and he smiles.
And I just shook my head and started laughing.
And I was laughing because I don't own a dress.
I've never wore pantyhose.
I don't wear heels.
I mean, I rodeoed.
Right.
You know.
So I have cowboys, blue jeans, wear a cowboy hat, these kinds of things.
Well, the guy, one guy in the group spoke English.
So he would kind of like try to help us communicate a little.
And eventually, I mean, Tito still didn't speak much English and I didn't speak any
Spanish, but somehow we communicated.
I don't know how that actually worked, but I've heard other people say it also.
So we started walking out from the laundromat, walking over to the restaurant and eating.
And then, you know, he asked the guy to ask me to go to where they stayed to eat, you
know, and it just progressed.
Yeah.
And then we were living together.
So it was the eyebrow thing, you know.
And then every once in a while, he would do this little quick, you know, like how they
do that little quick kiss, like, you know.
But he smeared that on stick.
Let me tell you.
Yeah.
People say, how do you meet?
And I said, in the laundromat.
And he just looked at me like, that's so romantic.
It really is.
It's like a rom-com, you know, like that's how they all start, like these unsuspecting
places.
Yeah, it does.
Can you tell me, like, what's the typical day, like with the two of you?
When we lived here in the United States, you know, a typical day was like a typical normal
family, you know.
He had a job.
I had a job.
We had Brinley, you know.
He was just a baby.
He would get up, you know.
We would all eat together.
He would go to work, you know.
I'd make him lunch.
And when he was off of work, he would come home and we would have dinner together.
Our life was good because when all of this happened, we were starting a great life, a
great house, great furniture.
He had a good job.
I mean, I had a great job and was working for a great doctor.
You know, everything was going perfectly, you know.
Yeah.
Until he got caught driving and got put into the detention center.
You're building this beautiful life together in Louisiana still?
Yes, ma'am.
And then he gets pulled over just for like a traffic violation?
The guy said he didn't put his blinker on.
Right.
Well, he called me when the policeman pulled him over.
And I went there and met him and the policeman was telling me that he did not put his blinker
on.
And I can't argue with him.
And, you know, he's like, does he have a driver's license?
And I'm like, no, sir.
You know.
Does he have any papers?
I'm like, no, sir.
Does he have a passport?
Yes.
Is it a United States passport?
No.
And I'm like, look, please.
Right.
You know, please.
I mean, we live in a small town.
You know, just, you know, please just let him go this one time.
He called and they put him in the local jail.
And then, of course, they called, I guess, Border Patrol.
I don't know who they call.
Right.
I guess Border Patrol.
So I went home and waited for the phone call to know exactly where they took him.
So once I got the call from him, I knew where he was.
I went as soon as I could for a visitation.
And, of course, like I said, Brenley was still very small.
Right.
Brenley was around a year old when we moved to Honduras.
We talked about different things, you know.
And I was like, look, I love you.
I love our family.
But we can't do this.
You know, this is not a life for us.
So we, I mean, I basically gave him an ultimatum.
The ultimatum was we sell everything we have.
We move to Honduras and find, you know, we're going to talk to an immigration lawyer before we move.
Find out what your punishment is, and then we'll start the legal process correctly.
Or, you know, you can try to come back over here, but we're just not going to be a family.
I don't want our son to be coming to a detention center and think that his father is some type of horrible criminal.
Right.
And I don't want to be looking over my shoulder every time we do something or waiting on that call that they have caught you and you're in the detention center.
And then we have to figure out once again, what are we going to do?
And I don't want you trekking across countries.
So that's basically, you know, he was deported back to Honduras, and that's when we made the decision that we were going to sell our house, our furniture, everything.
I was quitting my job and I was breaking the news to my mother and we were moving to Honduras.
So I called my mom and I told her what we were going to do.
And she came down and I mean, she understood.
You know, I was worried about her because my dad had just died.
But my mom was like, well, if anybody can do it and live over there, it would be you.
No one else I know.
But I mean, it was difficult because I mean, we had this new life that we were starting.
And now I was fixing to be jumping off into the deep end of a whole other new life.
So, I mean, basically I sold everything.
There was a few boxes of other things that I had kept like albums.
My first husband had passed away while we were still married.
So I had things from that marriage that I wanted to keep.
So my mom boxed up a few of those things and she brought them back to Tennessee.
I actually left with three suitcases.
Clothes that Tito had.
The other suitcase had clothes and a few toys for Brenley.
And the other suitcase had my clothes.
That was it. That's all we brought.
Wow.
We went to the airport and we flew out.
And when we arrived in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, Tito was there to pick us up.
How was it to be reunited again?
Awesome.
Yeah.
And you?
Because we knew we were going to be a family.
Yeah, of course.
There was no more worrying about that.
And I had talked to an immigration lawyer and his punishment was supposed to be 10 years.
That wasn't going to be so bad.
10 years was going to go by fast.
It was going to be perfect because Brenley would now be only 10, close to 11 years old.
We could come back.
Brenley would still have enough time to get a good education.
You know, learn the things that he needed to learn.
He would have all the things that he should have as an American.
Have everything available to him and not be really that behind in anything.
But have the two cultures, him get to enjoy his other culture.
And me get to learn about where he comes from.
I mean, it was exciting.
You know?
Yeah.
The best thing for me was we were going to be a family.
I was going to get to be a part of his family.
You all lived in Honduras for 10 years, right?
13.
How?
Close to 13.
Yeah.
How was living in Honduras for those 13 years?
There were a lot of difficult times.
And it wasn't because of our marriage or us being a family unit.
It was difficult because it was like being thrown back in the Western time,
but having some times like living here.
Yeah.
It was interesting because there was a lot of things that were so different.
When we got there, we stayed with his mother at first.
She has a two-room house.
Tito's family is very, very poor.
He has 11 brothers and sisters.
She has one room with I don't know how many beds are in there,
but that's where everyone sleeps.
And then she has another room.
It's where she cooks, where the fire is and everything.
There's no indoor bathroom, no indoor shower.
There's just pitless with water.
Water only comes every three days.
To be honest, I was thinking I wasn't embarrassed for him or anything like that.
My feelings did not change because he was poor.
I just didn't want my face to show shock.
Yeah.
I didn't want him to feel bad about the situation that he lived in.
But I was just thinking there's no washer, there's no dryer,
there's no hot water, there's no shower.
Where do I brush my teeth?
Where am I supposed to go to the bathroom?
I mean, there was like all these questions just whirling around in my head.
But we stayed there for a couple of weeks,
and it was really hard because I still didn't know very much
Spanish because Tito had learned English.
So we were communicating that way.
And I just kind of muddled through the things.
He helped me.
Baby, look, this is where we brush our teeth.
This is how the toilet thing works outside.
It was very strenuous and it was very shocking.
So we kind of tried to figure out where we were going to stay,
what we were going to do.
And we thought, well, we'll go to one of the bigger cities
because I would be able to find a job,
probably doing something because I speak English.
We moved close to the ocean in rainy season and found out that it floods.
Bad.
We were in an apartment, and we would have to park like six blocks away,
and we would have to carry stuff on our head.
And the water would be up to our hips.
Wow.
And I told him, I said, I love you, but this is not going to work for me.
So we decided to go back to where his mom was.
And I said, look, I said, we just need to make a decision.
We're going to be here for 10 years.
We're going to have to get some kind of stability for Brenley and me and you.
And we built ourselves a little two-bedroom, two-bathroom house there.
And one of his brothers helped us on and off a little bit.
And we bought a truck, and we bought a motorcycle, and we bought a dog.
And we had our home there.
Yeah.
And it's still there.
We still have it.
My brother-in-law feeds our dogs since Tito's not there.
You know, when he decided to come over here, it's my home.
I call it my home as well as I call this my home.
Of course.
You know, I mean, the first year I probably cried a whole lot.
The second year wasn't as bad.
As each year passed, things got easier.
You know, I was homesick a lot at first.
It was just different things, you know.
I felt stupid, you know, because I didn't know how to wash clothes.
You know, I didn't know how to cook on a fire.
There was all these little bitty things that I didn't understand how to do.
You know, like, you don't have, like, just a big grocery store there.
You have to go to the market.
You got to go to this other shop to buy a tube of toothpaste.
And then you got to walk another block to find, you know, a roll of toilet paper.
Right.
I mean, you know, there was just a, there was a lot of differences.
But once, you know, once you were used to them, it was fine.
You know, first the people called me, you know, the lady that couldn't get,
couldn't marry an American.
You know.
Then I was like, the lady married to the Honduran.
And then I was the lady with the white kid.
You know.
And then finally I was just, I was a, what I ended up doing was I taught
English to first graders.
Oh, beautiful.
That's what I did as my profession there.
And of course I made really good money.
And for Tito to work, it was like $5 for 12 hours of working.
Wow.
And I was like, you're just not doing this.
I mean, this is crazy.
You're not going to work yourself to death.
So, you know, I would tell him, I say, look, you go help your mom with
whatever she needs.
You know, like if she needs to have something done to the house, you can do
those things to help her.
I called him McGyver.
You know.
I mean, I would tell him like you could give him a toilet paper roll and he
could turn it into like a rocket.
You know the booster seats that kids sit in?
Yes.
So one day in the hammock on the porch and I can see him and my son over
there between like we have a little area that we had, we had a goat and we
locked it up at night in a little area.
And I see him and my son over there.
And they've got a piece of rope and I'm thinking, oh my God, what are they
doing now?
Because they were always doing something.
Yeah.
And I look over there and he has this booster seat and he has rigged it up
with rope and I don't know what other kind of junk he had.
And he has made him between that and the tree that's halfway across our
yard, a zip line.
Oh.
He takes and pushes him and he just slides down this thing.
He's like five.
And he has made him a zip line.
And they zip line all day long.
I'm sure he, I can imagine being five and like having my own zip line.
Like that sounds so much fun.
Yeah.
He made him an indoor pool.
He built like this little thing, got a bamboo and put a little made, you
know, the leaf that they use over there to the roof.
And we had gone to San Pedro Sula to visit family and they had one of those
little like blow up pools made out of plastic.
He takes that, he puts it in there and he goes to the river because, you
know, we only get water every three days.
Right.
And he's made all these jugs and pours water in there and he's made him an
indoor pool.
Wow.
Incredible.
I mean, that's just the type of man that he is.
Yeah.
You know.
I see some kind of flower his mama has.
I come back and he's dug up this big old section and he's like put center
blocks around it so our dog, Orange, don't get in there and dig it up.
And he's made me a whole little flower area.
Oh, that's so fun.
I mean, it wasn't a money thing.
It was just like doing things, you know, that made you happy.
Yeah.
It was like, you know, the love languages.
Like he was always showing like his love through like gifts and service and
things like that.
Right.
Because he never had money.
That was how he did things.
Wow.
You know, he would say like at my birthday, baby, I'm not got nothing.
I said, yeah, you do.
You got a lot to give me.
Yeah.
You know.
Wow.
Yeah, I can tell by these stories how much he loves you and he loves your
son.
Like that's so beautiful.
Wow.
Thank you so much for sharing those stories.
So that's part one of the interview with Faith.
I hope you are coming to love Tito as much as I have through her stories.
She's a great storyteller.
Part two is out now.
So go ahead.
Keep listening.
It'll just roll on in.
Let's do it.
So just keep going.
I'm listening with y'all.
So let's go.
Yeah.
And while you're here and your podcast app, if you could give us a rating, like
and subscribe so that way you get all the updates as they come out.
If you follow us on Instagram, we're going to be posting lots of photos of Tito
provided by Faith.
So yeah, make sure you're following us there and enjoy part two that's coming
up here now.