‘He lived for his kids’: Family mourns Kansas City, Kansas, man killed in crime spree
.jpg "Isidro Garcia-Jimenez “lived for his kids,” his wife, Viviana said. Garcia-Jimenez 42, a father of three, was fatally shot last week in Kansas City, Kansas.")
One of Isidro Garcia-Jimenez’s goals in life was saving up enough money so he could help his family move to the United States. His mother lives in Guadalajara, Mexico, along with his siblings. None of them had ever been to the U.S., not in the 20 years since Garcia-Jimenez decided to move to Kansas City, Kansas.
But this week, Garcia-Jimenez’s mother will fly in. Her first visit will be for the funeral of her son, who was fatally shot outside of his home during an Oct. 27 crime spree.
Garcia-Jimenez was 42.
An Independence woman faces 12 felony charges including second-degree murder.
“He had a lot of plans for the first time (his mother) would be here,” said his wife Viviana Garcia, 37.
Garcia-Jimenez hoped to help his mom open a small shop in the U.S. In Mexico, his mother worked at a “Tianguis” which is an open-air market that is open on certain days. He did not want his mom to stop selling things when she moved here. So Garcia-Jimenez always made sure he saved as much money as possible, wanting to help everyone he could.
“He always thought ahead, he was three to 10 steps ahead of everything,” Garcia said. “That’s why he kept me out of the bank accounts.”
The family started a GoFundMe in hopes of raising money to help pay for his funeral and support his children. Garcia-Jimenez, his family members described in an interview Tuesday night, was the most caring person they knew, often letting people borrow money and telling them, “Pay me back when you can.”
When his younger brother, Adrian Garcia, fell ill with COVID-19 recently, Garcia-Jimenez drove over to his house with a pot of soup. He had been cautious throughout the pandemic, so he left the meal on the front doorstep.
“I’m not going inside,” Adrian Garcia, 32 recalled his brother telling him. “And when you get better, bring me back my pot.”
A charming and funny guy
Viviana met Garcia-Jimenez when he was 23 and she was 18. They were neighbors, living in the Skyline apartment in Kansas City, Kansas. He noticed she wore a Burger King uniform most of the time because she was always working. She noticed he had gold highlights in his dark brown hair, which confused her.
He tried asking her out on a date several times, but she turned him down, often telling him she was too busy. That did not stop him.
One day, Garcia-Jimenez drove around Burger Kings in the Kansas City, Kansas, area until he found her. He asked for a burger with no ketchup, but his order was messed up and his burger was covered in ketchup. He ate it anyway. Then he asked Garcia out once again.
She finally said yes.
“He was a very charming and very funny guy,” Garcia said.
She did not know Garcia-Jimenez had a son from a previous relationship who lived in Mexico when they first met. But he often showed her pictures of his son, Jean Garcia, and loved talking about him. That impressed Garcia because she wanted to have a lot of kids. They had two of their own and then brought Jean over from Mexico to live with them.
Once they started a family, every Sunday was family movie night, with Garcia-Jimenez often going to Redbox to rent a new movie. Watching movies was among his favorite activities.
Fishing was another one of his hobbies. Garcia-Jimenez did not fish when he lived in Mexico — he picked it up once he moved to Kansas City. He knew all the great fishing holes, and sometimes did not care if they were on private or public property.
Garcia-Jimenez never kept the fish. He always released them back into the water.
Lived for his children
When he was 9 years old, Garcia-Jimenez’s father died. He promised himself that all of his kids would be named after his father. The first name of his three kids starts with “J” because his father’s name was Juan.
There is Jean, the oldest who Garcia-Jimenez had when he was a teenager from a previous relationship in Mexico. And there’s the two children he had with Garcia: Johan, 15, and Jianna-Rose, 3, his only daughter, named after his sister, Rosalyn, who was killed more than three years ago.
“He lived for his kids,” Garcia said. “He worked 24/7 just for his kids.”
Garcia-Jimenez often refused vacations, instead letting Garcia take the kids on trips. They often got into small arguments — she would tell him he needs to go on those vacations so his kids had those memories for later in life.
No, he would tell her. They need to have financial security when they are older. He wanted to make sure his kids were wealthy and that they would be able to pass down the wealth to their kids.
“We’ll make memories when we’re older,” Garcia remembered him telling her.
He was a general manager at Advance Auto Parts, and performed other small jobs, like fixing cars and flipping houses. His biggest goal was to buy a house for all three of his kids. Each house would have a small guest house, Garcia-Jimenez said, where he and Garcia could stay.
For Garcia, one of the hardest things from the day Garcia was killed was telling her children. When she told Johan that Garcia-Jimenez had been killed, he asked a question she could not answer: Why?
“We don’t know,” Garcia told him. “We’re not sure what happened.”
On that first night, Jianna-Rose could not sleep, she stayed up most of the night crying. It was not until Garcia played home videos of Garcia-Jimenez that she finally fell asleep. In the days since, Jianna-Rose called Garcia-Jimenez from her phone.
She remembers Garcia-Jimenez when she looks at their daughter, from her mannerisms to doing cartwheels in the living room, which Garcia-Jimenez taught her.
Garcia-Jimenez had already planned for Jianna-Rose’s quinceañera, a Latin-American tradition of celebrating a girl’s 15th birthday as her entering womanhood. Garcia did not want a quinceañera. She viewed it as disrespectful, the idea of giving her away her daughter.
But she’s going to have one for Jianna-Rose.
“It hurts me to know that we’re going to have one,” Garcia said, “and she’s not going to be able to dance with him.”
This story was originally published November 3, 2021 at 1:58 PM.
