Stephen Clare’s guilty plea ended a capital case that began after a 2023 attack on his former family in the San Antonio area.
BEXAR COUNTY, Texas — The criminal case over the killing of 11-month-old Willow Gardner ended with a guilty plea and life sentence, as Stephen Clare admitted to murdering the baby and attacking his ex-wife and their other daughter in a 2023 assault near Alamo Heights.
Clare, 53, was sentenced to life without parole after pleading guilty to capital murder of a child under 10. He also received life sentences for attempted capital murder involving his older daughter, Rosalie, and for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon causing serious bodily injury to his former wife, Mariah Gardner. Prosecutors said the plea agreement bars an appeal, making the punishment final in practical terms and bringing an end to a case that had been moving toward a possible death penalty trial in Bexar County.
The timeline begins before the crime itself. Gardner and Clare met in October 2017, according to earlier reporting, and later built a family that included two daughters together. Rosalie was born in August 2020, and the couple married in June 2021 in a backyard ceremony. Gardner, who also had two sons from an earlier relationship, later described the marriage as increasingly troubling. By late 2022 or early 2023, the couple’s divorce was complete. On April 10, 2023, the split turned into a homicide case. Authorities said Clare came to Gardner’s home and an argument over a gun escalated fast. Investigators said surveillance video showed him chasing Gardner around the house with the firearm. She was shot several times, according to earlier interviews and reporting, and their daughters were stabbed. Willow died. Rosalie and Gardner survived. The two boys escaped through a window and found help at a neighboring home.
By the time Clare returned to court in February 2026, the case had already spent months under the threat of capital punishment. News reports from earlier hearings said prosecutors announced in 2024 that they intended to seek the death penalty. That raised the stakes for every motion and scheduling fight that followed. Yet the final hearing itself was brief compared with the case’s long buildup. Judge Joel Perez called the case in the morning, read out the plea terms and took Clare’s guilty pleas. Local television reporters said Clare wore red jail clothing and kept his head bowed for much of the appearance. Then the hearing shifted from procedure to impact. Gardner told the court the attack was carried out by the man who had promised to protect the family. She said he shot her through the face and left her wounded, forcing her to crawl outside while bleeding heavily. Her statement placed the violence in the plainest possible terms and gave the hearing its central emotional force.
Officials answered the legal question with unusual firmness. First Assistant District Attorney Tamara Strauch said no sentence could restore Willow or erase the suffering left behind, but she said the state had secured a measure of justice. District Attorney Joe Gonzales praised the prosecution team and said Clare could no longer pose a danger to the community. What remains less settled are the broader questions that surrounded the case from the start. Gardner has publicly argued that the danger she faced was not fully recognized before the attack, especially during custody proceedings after the marriage broke down. Newsweek’s 2023 profile of Gardner cast the case as part of a larger fight over how the family court system handles abuse allegations. Those issues were not litigated in the final plea hearing, and the criminal file does not resolve them. But they help explain why the case drew sustained attention beyond the usual crime report.
The sentence structure also matters. Life without parole on the capital murder count ensures Clare will die in prison unless some future outside intervention changes that, which the plea terms appear designed to make difficult. The additional life terms for Rosalie and Gardner underscore that the case was not limited to one charge arising from one victim. Instead, prosecutors treated the event as an attack on the entire family unit inside the home. Because Clare pleaded guilty, there was no jury trial, no public testing of all evidence and no sentencing phase before a panel deciding between life and death. That spared the survivors another round of testimony. It also means the public narrative of the case rests largely on charging papers, court statements, prosecutor summaries and interviews given after the attack rather than on weeks of trial evidence presented in open court.
Gardner’s comments after the hearing showed both relief and exhaustion. She said hearing Clare finally admit guilt was painful, but she also said a permanent prison sentence was enough for her because it meant he would stay in custody for the rest of his life. She spoke not only about punishment, but about memory, saying the family now lives and walks for Willow. That line captured the way the case has been carried in public: as both a prosecution and a family story that did not end when the ambulance left. Clare’s fate is now fixed. The family’s recovery, by Gardner’s own account, is still unfolding.
With no trial ahead and no appeal promised under the plea, the case stands at its legal endpoint while the people left behind continue defining what justice means after Willow Gardner’s death.
Author note: Last updated March 26, 2026.