Mesa Police have arrested a couple in connection with a carjacking involving a mother and her seven-year-old daughter on a Wednesday afternoon in Mesa.
According to the Mesa Police Department, the carjacking occurred after the mother listed her car for sale on OfferUp, she met with a potential buyer at Wells Fargo Bank, located near Stapley and McKellips.
The mother was speaking to a person she thought was a potential buyer of the vehicle, career criminal, 29-year-old Joseph Toledo, pointed a gun at her and demanded she give him the vehicle.
The woman ran with her daughter, trying to escape what she thought was going to be the end of her life. Her daughter fell in the parking lot, scraping her knee in the process. Finally, they gained safety in the Wells Fargo Bank, just as the red 2021 Dodge Charger drove out of the parking lot with the gunman and potential buyer in the car.
The woman told Mesa police officers she had never seen the gunman or buyer before, but did have the phone number that was used to inquire about the vehicle. The phone number belonged to Toledo. Officers obtained a location for the phone and responded to Banner Deer Valley Hospital, where they found the stolen vehicle unoccupied.
Using police databases, officers identified several addresses that Joseph Toledo might frequent throughout Phoenix. While stopping by each one, Toledo was eventually located traveling as a passenger in a vehicle. The Phoenix Police Department’s air support team assisted in following Toledo to the Arizona Department of Corrections Rehabilitation & Reentry, where they finally found Toledo checking in with his Parole Officer.
Officers found the “potential buyer,” identified as 23-year-old Iridiane Garcia, in the driver’s seat of a vehicle parked outside and waiting for Toledo. Garcia told officers the keys to the stolen vehicle were in her purse, right along with the gun Toledo used against the victim.
Both Toledo and Garcia were booked into jail for multiple felony charges to include Armed Robbery and Theft of Means of Transportation.