Labels:
News,
Stupid People Piss Me Off,
WTF
I generally don't watch the news, or read about it online. There's just a lot of bad shit in the world and I'd rather not obsess over every bit of it (which I tend to do). But sometimes something is brought to my attention and I just can't get away from it.
In August 2009, Katie Tagle broke up with her boyfriend Stephen Garcia after he allegedly punched her in the face and knocked her out. The two had a son together, Wyatt, who was about 4 months old at the time. In December, Garcia found out Tagle was seeing someone else and freaked out. Since then Garcia continued to threaten the lives both Tagle and her son.
Tagle tried to get a restraining order against him after receiving emails and text messages from Garcia stating he was going to harm Tagle, and/or kill himself and his son. But they were denied.
From Hi-Desert Star:
On Dec. 15, Tagle asked for an emergency restraining order against Garcia, telling Judge Debra Harris in a Joshua Tree courtroom that Garcia had threatened Wyatt.
“He had sent me text messages before that if his son was around certain people … that he would kill him,” Tagle told the judge, according to transcripts of the hearing.
“And that if I wasn’t where I was supposed to be, he’d find me and kill me.”
“What about the threat to shoot you, where did that occur, to hunt you down and shoot you with a gun?” the judge asked.
“That was in a text message, Tagle replied.
When Harris asked for copies of the text messages, Tagle said she had no way of printing them out and her phone was shut off.
The judge denied the emergency order and set a hearing.
Garcia ‘doesn’t pose a threat’
At that hearing, on Jan. 12, Tagle went before Judge David Mazurek in the Joshua Tree courthouse to show cause for a restraining order.
“…On Dec. 31, we were doing our exchange, and he proposed to me, and I said no. He got angry and stole my phone and pushed me down. I made a police report about that,” Tagle told the judge, according to a transcript.
Garcia told the judge the report was “falsely made up.”
Mazurek denied Tagle the restraining order.
“If I grant the restraining order, how do you think that’s going to help with respect to you two being able to raise Wyatt together or work together to make sure Wyatt grows up happy and healthy?” the judge asked, according to the transcripts.
So Garcia has threatened his ex and his child, but the judge wants them to work together to make sure Wyatt grows up happy and healthy. Ok then.
The day after the hearing in Mazurek’s courtroom, Garcia sent a text message telling Tagle to check her e-mail. In it was an anonymous message containing a story called “Necessary Evil.”
The story describes in detail Tagle’s and Garcia’s relationship, from their fights over his video-game addiction, to their breakup, to her new relationship and his failed proposal.
In the end, the story has two endings. In “Happy Ending,” the female character returns to the man.
In “Tragic Ending,” the character takes his son to a lake, puts him to sleep with Benadryl and the baby dies. “He will have a better life with you then (sic) we can give him here,” the man tells God before taking his own life.
Tagle called 9-1-1 after reading the story, and the responding deputy immediately went to the courthouse and obtained an emergency restraining order for her, signed by Mazurek.
However, in Victorville court Jan. 14, Judge Robert Lemkau would not uphold the restraining order and ordered Tagle to immediately give Wyatt to Garcia, as it was the day his scheduled visitation was to begin.
The judge reads this "story" where Garcia basically says "if you don't come back to me I'll kill myself and our son" and DENIES THE RESTRAINING ORDER??? And then demands Tagle give the baby to him to take home? Because that makes ALL KINDS OF SENSE. Especially since the ending is not a happy one.
Via
CBSNews.com:
The bodies of the 25-year-old Garcia, of Pinon Hills, Calif. and his son, Wyatt, were found early Sunday on an isolated dirt trail in the San Bernardino Mountains.
The discovery came after authorities learned that Garcia had taken the boy during a court-ordered visit and threatened to kill him and commit suicide.
But even worse?
Pictures were uploaded (I refuse to post the picture here) to Garcia's Facebook account showing him and his son sleeping, along with what appears to be a suicide note. This was just hours after the court hearing.
According to Tagle's father, the judge basically accused her of lying.
Transcripts from that hearing are not yet available, but family and friends who were in the court that day with Tagle said the judge appeared not to have read the evidence she presented, including the “Necessary Evil” story and the emergency restraining order obtained by a sheriff’s deputy.
“Just from the very beginning, he didn’t want to listen,” said Rick Tagle, who was in the courtroom. “He started out by saying, ‘One of you is lying and I think it’s you,’ and pointing at Katie.”
The judge also allegedly warned Tagle there would be consequences for lying.
Lemkau did not respond to an e-mail request for comment; the county does not provide judges’ office telephone numbers.
The following Sunday, when Garcia missed his arranged custody transfer with Tagle, she had to call a deputy to get Wyatt back from Garcia’s house.
Friends say discouraged and frightened by her last appearance in court, she did not seek another restraining order or custody change.
“She was afraid she would go before the judge who called her a liar,” her sister said.
I wonder how he'll live with himself now, knowing he handed that 9 month old baby a death sentence?
This story saddens and sickens me. Not only the loss of such an innocent life, but that the justice system failed so miserably.
It also saddens me because I know there are women out there who
do lie about domestic abuse, or exaggerate situations to manipulate things in their favor.
Sometimes the world sickens me.
