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Lawyer: Mom's act cry for help, not murder try

The woman accused of trying to kill her sons says she had asked authorities for help but was rebuffed.

By MOISES MENDOZA
Published June 21, 2006

Krystal Garza was desperate on May 30. Her lawyer says she didn't know where to turn or what to do.

Everyone agrees that she snapped.

Now the disagreement. Prosecutors say Garza tried to kill her 14-year-old twin sons that day by poisoning them with carbon monoxide while parked on a Homosassa road.

But defense attorney Kenneth Foote says Garza would never have hurt Jacob and Jeremy. She was just crying out for help.

"The windows of the car weren't sealed. She was driving around town like that. All of them were taken for tests and there was zero carbon monoxide in them," Foote said during an interview this week. "If you really wanted to kill your kids, you wouldn't want anyone to see you."

Garza, 37, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of attempted first-degree murder. She is being held without bail at the Citrus County jail.

The boys are living with their father, who is Garza's ex-husband, in Texas for the time being. It's not clear who's caring for the 5-year-old twin girls Garza had with boyfriend, Darrin Layton.

Foote paints the picture of a woman abandoned by a cruel social services system, one that gave her little more than partial medical coverage, diapers, wheelchairs and wipes to care for her boys, who were so severely disabled that they couldn't walk or use the toilet by themselves. The boys, who have cerebral palsy, can speak one word at a time and can barely say when they were hurt.

"As the facts start coming out, it will become clear that this wasn't anywhere near what the state attorney has charged her," Foote said.

On May 30, Garza called her ex-husband, Enrique Henry Garza, in Texas, and told him he would never see her or the kids again.

Then, authorities say, Krystal Garza strapped the twin boys into her gray Oldsmobile. She snaked a hose from the exhaust pipe and into one of the car's open windows. The hose kept flopping out so she put it back in the exhaust pipe again.

Enrique Garza called authorities from Texas. A passer-by in Homosassa also called. Deputies tracked down the woman and arrested her.

But was she really trying to kill the boys?

Krystal Garza had to care for them essentially on her own, Foote said. Her boyfriend, Layton, flitted in and out of their lives. When the two had relationship problems, he would leave, and Garza was left to care for the 5-year-olds girls and the two boys.

Layton, through his parents, has repeatedly declined interview requests from the Times.

Enrique Garza ignored her and was thousands of dollars behind on his child support payments, said Foote, whose office is in Pasco County.

And, Foote said, Krystal Garza had been asking authorities for professional help for years - a place to take her boys after school, a nurse to help her care for them, better medical coverage, anything. But she was rebuffed.

Her only bright spot was the boys' school, CREST. But in May 2005, Jeremy broke his leg at school. Nobody noticed until he came home with a pallid face and a bulge in his leg. Garza took him to the doctor.

School administrators said they didn't know when or where Jeremy broke his leg.

Garza's confidence in the school plummeted. She felt like she had nowhere to turn.

And, Foote said, when Jeremy fell down a wheelchair ramp at CREST twice this year , Garza felt even more isolated. She couldn't take the pressure anymore.

"This is like a volcano erupting," Foote said. "It takes some time to blow."

Enrique Garza, a 41-year-old construction worker, doesn't deny that the Florida and Texas governments say he owes thousands in child support. But Garza said he had been sending his former wife more than $400 a month through a mutual arrangement. The courts never registered the payments, he said.

He said he never saw Krystal's breakdown coming. Not during their nine years of mostly happy marriage. Not when she decided she wanted to be closer to her family in Florida and they got divorced in 2000.

Not even after she left a desperate message on his voice mail about 1 p.m. May 30, sputtering that she had been scammed and she needed to talk to him.

Garza says he found out later from Darrin Layton what she meant.

Krystal got a letter in the mail crowing that she had won thousands. After she sent several hundred dollars to claim the prize, she got her check, she deposited it, and it cleared.

But soon afterward, bank officials realized it was phony. Krystal owed the money back, Enrique Garza said.

At 5:45 p.m., Krystal called again. This time, her former husband was there to take the call.

"She said to come get her and the boys, and I said that I couldn't because I had some jobs to take care of now, but I would come on Saturday," Garza said.

Krystal hung up on him. "Then she called and said I'd never see her or the boys again," Garza said.

The people who thought they knew Krystal Garza are left to wonder how this happened. Or what really happened.

"She was an excellent mother," said CREST principal Keith Posta. "She would do anything for her kids. We were shocked."

Moises Mendoza can be reached at mmendoza@sptimes.com or 860-7337.

[Last modified June 20, 2006, 22:41:19]