Harry, Meghan journey to Uvalde to visit shooting victim’s family
Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, and Prince Harry paid a special visit to a Uvalde family this weekend.
John Martinez, the nephew of Irma Garcia, one of two teachers killed alongside 19 children during the May 24, 2022, massacre, said on social media that the royal couple came to his house to celebrate his mother’s birthday.
“Meghan Markle singing my mom Happy Birthday was the cutest most adorable thing ever,” he wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “She even bought her a cake.”
Martinez posted a series of photos from the visit as well as a video that shows Markle holding a cake and singing Happy Birthday surrounded by other family members.
This isn’t Markle’s first trip to the Texas town. She made an unannounced visit to Uvalde two days after the shooting and was seen placing flowers at a makeshift memorial in front of the county courthouse. She has kept in touch with Garcia’s family since the tragedy, going “out of her way” to check in, according to previous posts from Martinez.
Garcia was 48 when she died and had been a teacher for nearly 23 years. Her husband, Joe Garcia, died two days later of an apparent heart attack. Irma and Joe had been married for 24 years and had four children.
On Saturday, Martinez posted a photo of two of the children smiling with Markle, accompanied by the caption, “Meghan Markle with Irma and Joe’s girls, they loved every moment, practically besties.”
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex arrived in Texas last week for the South by Southwest conference in Austin. Markle spoke on the International Women’s Day panel, discussing a range of topics including the toxicity of social media.
The couple stopped by Uvalde for a local event celebrating the opening of a new playground. Their foundation, Archewell, partnered with the city and the nonprofit Kaboom in 2022 to build the new play space, Harpers Bazaar reported.
The royal visit comes just days after a packed Uvalde City Council meeting where a consultant presented the findings of an independent investigation into the local police response to the shooting. The investigator, Jesse Prado, said local officers were not to blame for the confused law enforcement response, leading to angry responses from family members of the victims.