Father, daughter sentenced to 20 years in prison in death of disabled woman

Saying that several people failed a severely disabled woman who died in March 2013 after being hospitalized with bed sores, feces and bugs covering her body, a judge on Tuesday sentenced her father and sister to 20 years in prison.

State district Judge Robb Catalano said that while he believed that Mike Garvin and Tabby Martinak were responsible for not seeking help for Marci Garvin, he also faults the foster care system and Tarrant County MHMR for leaving Marci in the hands of her mentally ill sister who was overwhelmed with caring for three people.

“They had a role in this,” said Catalano, who called the case probably the most difficult he’s had in his 20 years of working in the courthouse.

“It’s a shame that people in charge of someone like Marci didn’t step in when they had the opportunity to.”

Catalano said he believes an overhaul of those systems is needed.

Prosecutor Michael Jarrett, who had asked the judge to sentence the father and daughter to life in prison, said he was satisfied with the sentence.

“I hope Marci can rest in peace,” said Jarrett.

Garvin, 70, and Martinjak, 47, had pleaded guilty in April to injury to the disabled in Marci’s death on March 11, 2013. They asked Catalano to sentence them. He heard evidence Monday and Tuesday.

Each will have to serve 10 years in prison before becoming eligible for parole.

Marci, 39, was taken to the hospital by ambulance two days before her death. When admitted, witnesses and prosecutors said, Marci had about a dozen fist-sized or larger pressure sores and more than 25 smaller ones. She was covered in feces and bugs; her diaper appeared to have not been changed in weeks.

She died from sepsis, pneumonia, acute renal failure and severe dehydration.

Her father and sister both took the stand Tuesday, the last two witnesses in the sentencing hearing.

When defense attorney Jim Lane asked Garvin who was ultimately responsible for his daughter’s death, Garvin answered, “Me.”

“Because I’m her father and I failed her miserably, just like I failed Tabby,” Garvin said.

A sometimes tearful Garvin told the judge about his many years with the Fort Worth Police Department, including as a homicide detective. He said he took every off-duty job he could to help support his family.

He said he later became an investigator with the Tarrant County district attorney’s office where he was given a choice between working in “checks” or the crimes against children unit. He chose the latter.

“I said I don’t care a thing about working paper stuff. I want to work something that matters,” Garvin testified.

His first case, he said, involved a young boy who lived chained to the floor inside a mobile home, stepped over by his parents as they went in and out of the home. The boy ultimately died.

While he supported the family, Garvin said, his wife, Elaine Garvin, devoted her time to taking care of Marci, who was born deaf with multiple disabilities and mental retardation.

The pediatrician “told us that he knew we loved Marci but she probably wouldn’t live very long so you might as well get ready for that,” Garvin testified. “He told us he didn’t think she’d live past 20.”

Garvin said he didn’t realize until recently that in focusing on Marci’s well-being, his wife didn’t pay enough attention to Martinjak, her daughter from a previous marriage whom Garvin would later adopt.

Garvin described his wife as a forceful woman who advocated for her daughter and later got a job with MHMR helping other parents with special-needs children. He said his wife bought and read the Americans With Disabilities Act from top to bottom, ensuring that the school district took Marci in as the act required.

“She absolutely made a life for Marci,” Garvin said. “I don’t think anybody else would have attempted to do the things she did for Marci.”

But after Elaine Garvin suffered two heart attacks, “that’s when the wheels fell off,” Garvin told the judge.

Garvin said Tabby Martinjak had to care for Marci full-time in addition to her own special needs daughter and Elaine.

Garvin said he concentrated on his wife, after a doctor cautioned that she could die of bleeding in the brain if she fell and hit her head. When he got home from work, he said, he’d simply lie in bed, trying to keep his wife, who by then also had dementia, from getting out of bed.

He said he left Marci’s care to Martinjak.

“I gave her a ticking time bomb and said, ‘Handle it,’ ” Garvin said.

‘Tormenting’ relationship

Martinjak described her relationship with her mother as “tumultuous, stressful, pressured” and “tormenting.”

Elaine Garvin gave all her attention to Marci, leaving her feeling unloved. She began hoarding in the second grade, was raped in 1989, and was left pregnant with a special needs daughter of her own and post-traumatic stress disorder, Martinjak testified.

Martinjak said she began taking care of Marci when her mother went to work for MHMR in the early 2000’s. But Marci became her sole responsibility in 2008 when her mother became too sick to help, she said.

Her husband, who lived in his own apartment and traveled frequently for work, couldn’t help, she testified. Her father’s only role, she said, was that he “occupied the space beside her” mother. Garvin also frequently left every other weekend to visit his elderly mother in Arkansas, including a 20-day visit in January 2013 when his mother died.

The burden of caring for Marci, her daughter and her mother fell on her alone, and overwhelmed her in the last months of Marci’s life, she said.

Although sick, Martinjak testified, her mother insisted on calling the shots for Marci, refusing to let Martinjak take her sister to a doctor without her approval. She said Elaine Garvin became abusive in her dementia, and tried to choke Martinjak with her oxygen tube.

She testified that she told two service provider employees with Southern Concepts that she needed help but they gave her none. She said the employees, Bill Eaton and Dianne Salas, and caseworkers at MHMR were aware of the condition of her house, her overwhelming responsibility, and her mental illness, but did nothing.

The state Department of Family and Protective Services recommended that Eaton and Salas be added to the state’s Employee Misconduct Registry, barring them from employment in any facility or agency regulated by the Department of Aging and Disability Services.

Both appealed but an adminstrative law judge ruled that the pair contributed to Marci’s death by failing to ensure the woman was living in a safe envirnoment and receiving needed services and medical care.

Salas is now on the registry while Eaton has sued for judicial review in a Travis County district court.

Timeline of Marci’s inspiring life and tragic death

‘It was preventable’

When Garvin was asked by his attorney what he would have done as an investigator if he had encountered anyone living as Marci did, Garvin acknowledged that he would have seen to it that someone went to jail and the disabled person went to a hospital.

He never considered placing Marci into a full-care facility because of an investigation he had done involving a state school worker who had sexually assaulted a resident.

“I said ‘To hell with that. I’m not putting my daughter in that kind of damn place,’ ” Garvin said.

Under cross-examination, special prosecutor Michael Jarrett, who handled the case along with Gabrielle Massey, pointed out inconsistencies between Garvin’s courtroom testimony and statements given by Garvin to investigators, including when he had last seen his daughter and his role in her care.

“I was trying to tell the truth. I didn’t intend to falsify anything but obviously I did,” Garvin said.

Jarrett asked Garvin what made his actions different from those of the parents of the dead chained boy. The parents were ultimately sentenced to life in prison.

“They did it intentionally. She hated her boy. She hated him because he was taking all of her attention from her husband,” Garvin said. “I did not hate Marci. I did not intentionally let her die … I did not kill Marci like they killed that boy.”

Before handing down his sentence, Catalano said Garvin’s law enforcement career “cut both ways.”

“Yes, you were a good officer and a good investigator, but with that comes the added responsibility of knowing what the right thing to do is with your own daughter,” Catalano told Garvin.

Catalano said that while Garvin and Martinjak did a good job with Marci for several years when Elaine Garvin was there to help, Garvin’s later decision to later “check out” and Martinjak’s inability to challenge her mother “was all to Marci’s detriment.”

“And it was preventable,” Catalano said. “That’s what so saddening in this case.”

This story was originally published September 15, 2015 at 6:06 PM with the headline "Father, daughter sentenced to 20 years in prison in death of disabled woman."