Justice System Fails Battered Woman

Her children are grown, her hair has gone gray, she's penniless, homeless and all alone. After a decade in prison in Colorado, Manuela Garcia is on the brink of freedom, such as it is.

The state Board of Parole reviewed the case of the 43-year-old German national last week and while the Department of Corrections released few details, the German Consulate in Los Angeles confirmed that it was notified on Thursday that she is expected to be paroled and deported, probably this month.

"We really don't know what her needs are yet," said Lars Leymann, legal and press consul. "She has no relatives in Germany anymore, but if she goes to Germany, of course we'll be taking care of her."

Manuela was convicted of second-degree murder in the July 1996 death of her husband, retired Army explosives specialist Henry Anthony Garcia, in the couple's Edgewater home. She admitted to killing him with an ax after years of physical, psychological and sexual abuse.

The Colorado Court of Appeals overturned her conviction in 1999, citing flawed jury instructions, and in 2001 the Colorado Supreme Court upheld the appeal and ordered a new trial.

Dave Thomas, then-Jefferson County district attorney, vowed to convict Manuela of murder in a second trial. Determined not to put her three children through that trauma again, Manuela pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 16 years.

While prosecutors portrayed Manuela as a cold-blooded killer who diabolically spiked her husband's beer with Nytol, brutally hacked him to death and then calmly prepared the children's breakfast, witnesses and psychologists told a more complicated story of life in the Garcia home.

Henry Garcia had raped and beaten his wife routinely since he returned from the Gulf War in 1991 with an alcohol problem and an attitude.

Witnesses - including his commanding officer - recalled scenes in which he berated her publicly and threatened her. At one point Manuela contacted a battered women's shelter but returned home out of fear that her husband would make good on his threats to isolate her forever from the children. When her mother sent her money to escape, he stole it.

The Denver Post