by Bill Knowles & E.E. Mullens
WALSENBURG — Gage Gleason, who was 12-years-old at the time he shot Amy Garcia at a residence near Silver Mountain in Huerfano County in the last week of 2018, was sentenced to five years in the Colorado Department of Youth Corrections during a sentencing hearing in district court last week.
The youthful offender’s sentence will include a parole period as well that was described as one that will offer therapy to the young teen. He was credited with the 959 days, or 2.6 years, he’s already spent in confinement. This makes his total time in corrections close to 8 years.
After deliberation on June 14, 2021, Gage Gleason had pled guity to murder in the second degree, an F2 felony.
By law the state must release him from any confinement or parole when he turns 21.
Gleason, along with his father, Heith Gleason, were arrested and charged with Garcia’s murder. Heith Gleason entered a guilty plea to a charge of second degree in June of 2019. Under the conditions of the plea bargain agreement, the elder Gleason was ordered confined to the Colorado Department of Corrections for 42 years, with 180 days of pretrial confinement credit. At the time of his sentencing, Heith Gleason apologized to his dead victim and her family and to his son, Gage, who he said at the time “had nothing to do with the killing.”
The state did not believe that and built a case based in part on earwitness testimony that said the younger Gleason was the first person to exit the mobile home and confront Garcia who was in her car attempting to leave the property. The earwitness, who was at the scene during the killing and the immediate aftermath of the crime said he heard a gunshot after the boy left the residence. It was the earwitness who notified authorities of the shooting and burning of the victim inside her car. He told investigators Heath Gleason exited the modular home after his son, and was also armed with a rifle, and the witness heard a number of additional gunshots.
During the sentencing hearing, Adriana Garcia, the daughter of Amy Garcia, and Judy Garcia Navarro, the mother of Amy Garcia, read statements into the record of the court.
Adriana Garcia, in her statement wrote that “My mom was not just a case number. She is not someone who deserved what happened to her…A person that deserves justice. Someone who shouldn’t be forgotten about so simply.”
“My mother loved Gage. She worried about him often.”
Adriana Garcia addressed the issue of why her mother went out to Heith Gleason’s residence in December 2018. “My mother was going out there to get her vehicle and come home. She called my brothers moments before she was murdered to tell them she loved them, and she was sorry. She blamed herself for the heinous acts these guys were about to commit. She was brutally murdered, shot and burned…”
“Gage and his father took her life without a care in the world. I do believe it is only fair they face the consequences of their actions. They wanted to earn their ‘man cards’ so I think it’s fair they face what they deserve as the ‘men’ they are.”
The crime was a heinous one committed in the heat of jealousy on Heith Gleason’s part even though Gage Gleason, at 12-years-old, was, according to the witness, the first one to pull a trigger. The victim’s car was doused with a combustible material and set on fire with her body inside. Huerfano County and state investigators also felt that the fire was fed for a while in an attempt to destroy the evidence and body.
Both Heith Gleason and Gage Gleason fled to New Mexico where they were picked up by New Mexico State Police later the same day the crime was reported.
The statement the Garcia family sent to the judge was also read into the record. It was Judy Garcia Navarro, the mother of Amy Garcia, who read this statement.
She said in the statement that the court should “…give Gage the maximum allowable sentence under Colorado law. A reduction in sentence for the heinous crime Gage has committed is not justice for Amy.”
“We further request that Gage’s sentence require him to undergo therapy while incarcerated and that upon release he be given a maximum parole term that includes the condition that he must continue therapy. And, if the law allows, we further request that a requirement to Gage’s release be that his family must undergo therapy in order to support Gage.”
During the hearing, the defense argued that the real monster was Heith Gleason, Gage’s father. Gage’s mother called Heith a psychopath.
Heith had gone to Texas to his parents’ house where Gage was living and took his son with him, moving to Colorado. Following that move Amy Garcia was murdered.
The hearing took about an hour.
Following the sentencing the World Journal caught up with Amy Garcia’s family and asked them if they were satisfied with the sentence. Did they feel that justice had been served?
Judy Garcia Navarro said the family wasn’t satisfied and they felt that justice had not been served. She blamed that on Colorado law which is lacking any legislation that deals with violent juvenile crime. “(Colorado courts) aren’t set up to deal with violent juvenile offenders. In today’s setting violent crime is on the rise. What we see here is out of balance.”
