Inset: Mariah and Rosalie Gardner appear for an interview after the attack (KSAT/YouTube). Background: Stephen Clare appears in Bexar County, Texas, court (KSAT/YouTube).Â
A Texas man will spend the rest of his life behind bars for the “horrific” murder of his 11-month-old daughter and attack on his other daughter and ex-wife.
Stephen Clare, 53, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the “brutal capital murder” of Willow Gardner, the Bexar County District Attorney”s Office announced this week.
He also was ordered to serve life in prison for the attempted capital murder of his then-2-year-old daughter, Rosalie Gardner, and the aggravated assault with a deadly weapon causing serious bodily injury to his former wife, then-29-year-old Mariah Gardner.
The defendant pleaded guilty to the charges on Friday before his sentencing, with the DA’s office noting that, under their plea agreement, he “will spend the remainder of his life in prison with no opportunity to appeal.”
First Assistant District Attorney Tamara Strauch said that while “no sentence can ever restore or erase the suffering endured from the loss of Willow,” they have “achieved a measure of justice, and I know the family is eternally grateful.”
Clare and Gardner, who has two sons from a prior relationship, met in October 2017, Newsweek reported. The couple’s relationship deepened: In August 2020, Rosalie was born, and in June 2021, the couple married in a backyard ceremony.
But Clare’s behavior increasingly concerned Gardner, she told the outlet.
“It was as though he had two separate personalities,” she said. “He had the ugly personality that caused arguments, said horrible things and was controlling, but he had a sweet side, too.”
Court records show that in February 2022, Gardner filed for divorce. Not long after, Willow was born.
A divorce decree was finalized in December 2022, but Clare was granted shared custody of their two daughters. Gardner detailed that there were troubling circumstances present at the time.
“About six months before the attack, he’d been stalking me and driving past my house at least 20 times per day. I would go somewhere without the girls, and he’d say that someone saw me,” she told Newsweek. “He mentioned that, if he had to line all our children up in front of a firing squad, he’d only save Rosalie. He’d previously kicked me out of the house when I was 36 weeks pregnant with Willow, and he’d ‘joke’ that he’d kidnap me. He said dark things about himself, too.”
On April 10, 2023, Clare reportedly showed up angry at Gardner’s San Antonio home.
Surveillance footage showed Clare chasing Gardner around the house, according to local NBC affiliate WOAI and proceeded to shoot her multiple times before stabbing his two daughters. Gardner’s two sons managed to escape unharmed through a window and found safety at a neighbor’s home.
First responders were called to the home and later testified about what they saw.
“I applied pressure to help her, and I spoke to her to keep her breathing just to let her know that she’s not alone,” San Antonio Police Officer Veronica Butler said amid tears about Gardner, per courtroom footage taken by San Antonio-based ABC affiliate KSAT. “I really thought she was gonna die in my arms.”
But Gardner did not die.
She and Rosalie were brought to the hospital, and they both reportedly underwent multiple surgeries.
“Rosalie had her initial surgery to kind of put everything back inside of her,” Gardner told KSAT. “There was a lot of swelling and things like that.”
Gardner added that she had “five or six broken bones, seven gunshot wounds, about a 10-inch incision on my abdomen.” She and Rosalie, though, were expected to make full recoveries.
Clare was arrested after the attack about a mile and a half from the home. At a court hearing last November, a Texas Department of Family and Protective Services worker reportedly testified that Clare told her he could not remember anything from the day of the attack.
Gardner has dedicated a lot of her time since her daughter’s death to spreading awareness about domestic violence.
