Calif. couple pleads guilty to murdering teacher after wife’s daughter, 12, testifies against mom, stepdad
Antonio Garcia and Misty Gomez pleaded guilty to the second-degree murder of Geoffrey Bernardi
NEED TO KNOW
- Antonio Garcia and Misty Gomez pleaded guilty to the 2025 murder of teacher Geoffrey Bernardi
- Gomez’s 12-year-old daughter reportedly testified that her mother had confessed to being responsible for Bernardi’s death
- Police said Gomez had been dating Bernardi while she was married to Garcia
A California husband and wife reportedly both pleaded guilty to the murder of a teacher whom the wife had been dating.
Antonio Garcia and Misty Gomez pleaded guilty to second-degree murder on Tuesday, Nov. 3, in connection with the death of Clovis, Calif., teacher Geoffrey Bernardi, according to reports from KFSN, the Fresno Bee and KSEE.
Per KFSN, the guilty pleas came a day after Gomez’s 12-year-old daughter testified against her mother and stepfather.
Bernardi was severely beaten and found in a ditch in Clovis in December 2025, police previously said. He died in the hospital days later.
Clovis police said Bernardi had been dating Gomez while she was married to Garcia.
“The first time he went out with her, he told me, ‘I met the woman I’m going to marry,’” Bernardi’s mother, Erin Adams, told KFSN. “We didn’t know she was already married.”
Following the beating of Bernardi, Garcia and Gomez fled to Mexico, where they were located by U.S. Marshals and arrested in August.
When the couple was extradited to California, Gomez’s two daughters, who were 9 and 12 at the time, were left in Mexico in the immediate aftermath, KFSN reported at the time.
On Monday, Gomez’s older daughter took the witness stand to testify that her mother had confessed that she and Garcia were responsible for Bernardi’s death, the outlets reported.
“[Gomez’s] daughter is the one who really, I think, turned the tide when she told her story,” Adams told KSEE.
The daughter, per KFSN, further testified that Gomez said they were taking her and her sister on a “vacation” to Mexico.
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The outlet reported that Gomez is expected to be sentenced to 15 years to life, while Garcia is expected to receive 16 years to life.
“My family’s been destroyed,” Adams said, per KSEE.
According to his obituary, Bernardi was a theater lover who worked as an experienced stagehand and sound technician, in addition to his work as a teacher in the Clovis Unified School District.
