Portage Defendant Blames Boyfriend; Florida to Scrutinize Lapse in Reporting Child Gone

Jun 23, 02:07 PM

Current Headlines: By TOM HELD and TOM KERTSCHER

Portage - One of the four people charged with torturing an 11- year-old boy and killing his mother said in a jailhouse interview Friday night that her boyfriend and co-defendant was virtually a dictator in the Portage home they shared, and she claimed the boy should be behind bars, too.

Her interview came hours after the secretary of the Florida Department of Children and Families said it was "unconscionable" that child welfare workers in his state had allowed four months to lapse before alerting police that Candace Clark had taken her 2- year-old girl from a foster mother - setting in motion the grim chain of events that led to the Portage nightmare.

Clark claimed the boy deserved to be in juvenile detention because he hit and bit her, and beat his mother, 36-year-old Tammie Garlin, whose body was found buried behind a Portage home last week. In the 20-minute interview at the Columbia County Jail, the 23-year- old Clark also denied killing Garlin, saying several times: "I am not a monster."

"The truth is I didn't kill (Garlin) and I didn't bury her in the yard," Clark said.

However, at another point, referring to the heinous crimes she and the other three defendants are charged with, Clark said: "No one's innocent in this."

She described her boyfriend and co-defendant, 25-year-old Michael Sisk, as the ringleader of the Portage rental home they shared with Clark's three children; 20-year-old co-defendant Michaela Clerc; Garlin; Garlin's 11-year-old son; and Garlin's 15-year-old daughter, Felicia Garlin, who is also charged with her mother's murder and her brother's abuse.

Clark said she called Portage police on several occasions to report disturbances but never reported crimes committed against herself.

"If I did, I would die, and so would my kids," she said.

The interview and the Florida press conference are the latest elements in a twisted and convoluted tale of shifting romances, stolen identities, fraud, and ultimately pathological violence.

This week, Clark, Sisk, Clerc and Felicia Garlin were charged with first-degree intentional homicide, abuse of a child, mutilation, hiding a corpse, false imprisonment, aggravated battery, three other felonies and a misdemeanor. The three adults also are each charged with a 10th felony, contributing to the delinquency of a child.

'I am terribly unhappy'

Those charges stem from the discoveries police made June 14 when they sought Candace Clark at the Portage home on allegations that she had kidnapped her daughter, Courtney, from her foster placement in Florida.

The charges reveal that in the months after she was allegedly abducted by her mother, Courtney Alisa Clark was exposed to horrific events: the torture of the 11-year-old boy and the murder of his mother.

Authorities discovered Tammie Garlin's body buried in the backyard of the home June 15. A preliminary autopsy showed she was strangled, according to the Columbia County medical examiner.

Police found her 11-year-old son in a closet. According to court records, the boy reported that he had been bound, placed in a bathtub and scalded with water. Burns had mummified his hands and scarred his feet to the point where he could not walk.

His own mother had participated in the abuse, which included whippings, according to the court records.

He was taken to the University of Wisconsin Hospital for treatment.

Whether the mother's life would have been saved - or the boy's body spared mistreatment - with more diligent action by Florida child protection workers is pure speculation, but the Florida human services director, Bob Butterworth, said the grim chain of events gleaned to date angered him.

"I am terribly unhappy," Butterworth said.

Butterworth said that a preliminary report on what went wrong will be issued early next week, and that necessary changes in policies and procedures will be made.

Butterworth's department has joined a Florida newspaper in seeking to make public the records of Courtney Clark's time in the child protective system.

What is known from available records and news accounts is that Courtney Clark was placed, by judge's order, in the care of Cynthia Martell in Sorrento Fla., in July 2006.

Ragtag 'family' forms

Martell's daughter is Michaela Clerc, who began a lesbian affair with Tammie Garlin in 2000, when Clerc was 13. Martell approved of the relationship, according to reports in the Portage Daily Register.

Martell told the paper that the romance foundered however, sometime in 2006, and Clerc then met Candace Clark in an Internet chat room. They started a relationship that ultimately brought all three women - Garlin, Clerc and Clark - to share a home in Sanford, Fla.

The group included Garlin's two children - Felicia and the 11- year-old boy - and Clark's two daughters, both under 2 years old. Adding to the mix, Clark was pregnant.

While living with Clerc and Garlin, Candace Clark maintained a relationship with her boyfriend from Kentucky, Sisk, with a penchant for fraud and identity theft, according to court records. Both Clark and Sisk had spent time in Colorado jails.

Last fall, Sisk walked away from a jail in Mesa County, Colo., where he was serving time with work release privileges. At the same time, Clark retrieved 2-year-old Courtney from Martell. The girl had been taken from Clark while Clark was in custody.

In the jail interview Friday, Clark claimed Clerc's parents had actually dropped off her daughter, Courtney, with her because they couldn't afford to care for her anymore.

Authorities have tracked the path of the group - Clerc, Clark, Sisk, Garlin and the children - to Maine, and then to Wisconsin in January. They stayed in motels in Janesville, Lake Delton and Wisconsin Dells before renting the home in Portage.

Tracing financial information led authorities to Sisk, who had rented the house in Portage under a false name.

Jim Vachon, a detective in the Lake County (Florida) Sheriff's Department, and Melissa Remy, an analyst in the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, received certificates of merit for their work in leading Portage police to the house and the children last week.

"We do know all the children are safe," Butterworth said. "If it had not been for the work of these two people, I wonder what would have happened. There's no doubt what would have happened to the 11- year-old."

The three other children, including Courtney Clark, are in the care of the Columbia County Department of Health and Human Services. Their eventual placement has not been determined.

The adults - Sisk, Clark and Clerc - are being held in the Columbia County Jail, along with Felicia Mae Garlin, the 15-year- old accused of helping to kill her mother.

Clark said she was in solitary confinement at the jail and that none of her family had visited her. She is the only one of the four people charged to grant interviews.

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