The final words spoken by a missing nuclear official have now come to light as investigators continue searching for him and several other individuals linked to classified information.
Authorities in New Mexico say 49-year-old Steven Garcia disappeared on August 28, 2025 — just one day before his birthday — following an emotional argument with his wife, Valerie.
In April, an anonymous source told the Daily Mail that Garcia was a government contractor at the Kansas City National Security Campus, or KCNSC, a major Albuquerque facility with an important role in US national defense.
The source also said there were concerns Garcia’s disappearance could be tied to an ongoing FBI investigation involving a series of missing or dead scientists, nuclear lab employees, and former military officials connected to sensitive national security sites and classified material.
Newly obtained police reports, cited by the Daily Mail, add further detail to the case, saying Garcia’s wife told investigators she planned to leave him because of continuing problems in their marriage and no longer wanted to try to repair the relationship.
According to the Albuquerque Police Department, Valerie said Steven became upset and told her: “Well, if I can’t have you, I will go somewhere else.”
Those were the last words Garcia uttered before security cameras in the couple’s home caught the nuclear lab worker taking a handgun and a bottle of water and leaving the residence on foot.
Valerie also told police that the gun was registered in her name and that her husband had stolen it when he disappeared. The Daily Mail has reached out to Valerie for comment.
Steven Garcia (Pictured) was last seen on August 28, 2025. A source has revealed to the Daily Mail that Garcia worked as a government contractor at a key nuclear weapons facility
Garcia allegedly served as a property custodian at KCNSC’s New Mexico facility, giving him a top security clearance and broad access to the entire site’s nuclear secrets.
The source told the Daily Mail that Garcia worked at ‘a very high-level, overseeing position for all the assets. Tens, maybe hundreds of millions of dollars in equipment and assets, some of which are not classified, others would be classified.’
On the day of his disappearance, Garcia was seen walking out of his home on Cattail Court SW in a green camouflage shirt and shorts just after 9am local time.
The newly obtained report revealed that the allegedly stolen handgun was a revolver that was kept inside a gun case that was last seen tucked under Garcia’s arm.
The government contractor left behind his car, keys, wallet and both of his phones inside his home, leaving no way of tracking his whereabouts digitally.
Those circumstances were nearly identical to the three other disappearances in New Mexico over the last year involving individuals with ties to nuclear research facilities and top-secret information.
‘It’s a little strange that these people just keep disappearing. I mean, he literally just walked off into the desert with a firearm and a bottle of water and that was it,’ the source told the Daily Mail, comparing it to the disappearance of retired Air Force General William Neil McCasland.
McCasland, 68, who also lived in Albuquerque, vanished after leaving his home on February 27, 2026, with no phone, wearable devices or his prescription glasses. The Air Force veteran was only carrying a .38-caliber revolver.
Pictured: The Albuquerque complex of the Kansas City National Security Campus
Steven Garcia (Pictured) was last seen leaving his New Mexico home with a handgun and no phone, keys or wallet
Two other individuals with a connection to US nuclear facilities disappeared just months before Garcia in 2025.
Anthony Chavez and Melissa Casias both worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), one of the nation’s most important nuclear research sites.
Chavez, 79, worked at the lab until his retirement in 2017, although his role there has not been made clear. He was last seen walking out of his home in Los Alamos on May 4, 2025.
Casias, 53 at the time of her disappearance on June 26, 2025, was an active administrative assistant at the facility.
She left both of her phones, her keys and identification behind in her Taos residence while her husband and daughter were at work.
Casias’s body was discovered in New Mexico’s Carson National Forest on May 28, next to a handgun, which her daughter said did not belong to the nuclear lab employee.
A cause of death still has not been released by New Mexico State Police, however, former FBI agents and a private investigator have claimed, without evidence, that the death appeared to be a suicide.
In Garcia’s case, his wife told police that he did not have any history of mental health issues or had ever disappeared from their home before.
‘Valerie said that Steven had never left the residence like this in the past and never directly said that he wanted to hurt or kill himself and did not have any plan,’ the police report revealed.
‘Valerie did not disclose Steven having any behavioral health issues or any drug or alcohol abuse reference to his government job.’
William Neil McCasland, 68, was last seen around 11am on February 27 near Quail Run Court NE in Albuquerque, the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office said
Anthony Chavez (Left) and Melissa Casias (Right) were both employees at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Both disappeared within weeks of each other in 2025
The FBI is reportedly still investigating these disappearances and deaths throughout the US in recent years, at the direction of the White House.
The agency has not provided an update in the case despite President Trump claiming answers would come in mid-May.
The president also claimed that many of the cases members of Congress fear are tied a larger foreign intelligence plot against US national security were more likely ‘coincidences.’
Trump said in April: ‘Some of them that we looked at were very sad cases, in some cases, some were sick, some left this earth self-inflicted, some had other things. So far, we’re finding that there’s not much of a connection. We’re going to be doing a full report and it’s very serious.’
Meanwhile, former FBI Assistant Director Chris Swecker told the Daily Mail there is still enough evidence to suspect foul play in several of the disappearances and deaths.
Swecker said: ‘I think there’s enough of a pattern, even if it’s a small group, I think there’s a smaller group of missing people that warrant an investigation by the FBI, which is the lead agency in counter-espionage, counterintelligence. I would be looking for that, unless we show something points to another direction.’
