Children of woman charged with murdering beloved California educator stuck in Mexico

The children of a woman arrested for murder are stuck in Mexico.

U.S. Marshals arrested 32-year-old Misty Gomez and her husband, 40-year-old Antonio Garcia, south of the border on Wednesday. The two were then booked into the Fresno County Jail Monday evening.

Authorities found that Gomez fled there with her daughters after detectives identified her as a person of interest in the murder of Geoff Bernardi, who was attacked last December in Clovis, California.

This new discovery comes as Clovis Police continue to investigate Bernardi's murder, who taught career technical education with the Clovis Unified School District.

Both Gomez and Garcia are accused of the killing and are already back in California.

They were extradited to the U.S. last week and booked into the Santa Rita Jail in Alameda County early Saturday morning, before they were transported to the downtown jail in Fresno Monday.

Bernardi's mother, Erin Adams, told our sister station KFSN on Sunday that Gomez was dating Bernardi when he was killed.

Adams says Bernardi didn't know Gomez was married.

The families of Gomez's daughters say the girls are in the custody of the Desarrollo Integral de la Familia (National System for Integral Family Development), or DIF, in Michoacan.

The DIF is Mexico's equivalent to Child Protective Services.

The girls have different fathers, and both families are desperate to have them home.

Officials say 9-year-old Skye Mason and 12-year-old Castiel Hernandez, both of Dinuba, were each reported missing by their families in April.

The families say Gomez took them there without telling either girl's father.

Skye's grandmother and Castiel's father both describe Gomez as extremely conniving.

"She's very manipulative. She's a pretty evil person. She's used men -- more men than I can imagine," said Carol Mason, Skye's grandmother.

Regardless, both families say they never thought Gomez was capable of murder.

Monday, KFSN obtained the criminal complaint filed against Gomez and Garcia.

It states the pair "did unlawfully, and with malice aforethought, murder Geoffrey Scott Bernardi."

"I cried," said Castiel's father, Herbert Dominguez, about the moment he learned about Bernardi's murder. "And I don't even know him."

Both families say they're scared and angry over the murder, but right now their focus is on getting Castiel and Skye home.

"We just want them back. And we're just given the runaround, saying they have to have all this testing done. Then we were told they were going to fly back, and we could go to the airport and pick them up in San Francisco or L.A., and then they told us, 'No, you can't,'" said Carol Mason.

KFSN spoke with a retired U.S. Marshal to understand why DIF is holding the girls.

"I can certainly understand the sense of urgency on the families' behalf. You know, I would be the same way. There's no doubt about it. However, it's not like they can just grab the children and bring them back. We need to make sure that all the i's are dotted, the t's are crossed, and it's being done correctly," said Robert Almonte, former U.S. Marshal for the Western District of Texas.

Almonte says even once the girls are back stateside, they will likely need to be evaluated here before they are released to their families.

Meanwhile, back in Fresno, the District Attorney's office says Gomez and Garcia should make their first court appearance for arraignment Tuesday.