Two members of a Wisconsin group accused of murder, torturing an 11-year-old boy and kidnapping committed a slew of fraud in Grand Junction, including paying a bond with a bad check, authorities say.
Mesa County District Attorney Pete Hautzinger said he believed that Michael Sisk flouted the law so brazenly, he deserved a prison sentence after his conviction in July for theft.
Instead, a judge sentenced Sisk, 25, to a work-release jail program, and Sisk fled the state along with his girlfriend and accomplice, Candace Clark, 23.
“I wish he’d gone to prison,” Hautzinger said today. “Then maybe he wouldn’t have done what he did in Wisconsin.”
Sisk and Clark were charged Wednesday with being a party to first-degree homicide, hiding a corpse and child abuse.
Facing the same charges are Michaela Clerc, 20, and Felicia Mae Garlin, 15, the sister of the abused boy and daughter of homicide victim Tammie Garlin, who died June 4 and was buried in the backyard of an apartment in Portage, authorities said.
Police initially went to a rental property in search of Clark’s 2-year-old girl, who was kidnapped from her Florida foster home last fall after she and Sisk fled Colorado.
In the past year, members of the group had lived in Colorado, Florida, Maine, Tennessee and Kentucky, making a living through financial fraud using aliases, prosecutors said.
Sisk and Clark wrote several bad checks to rent vehicles and get cash while living in Grand Junction in November and December, authorities say.
Using the alias Candace Farris, Clark wrote a $750 check on the same closed bank account that Sisk had used to write bad checks, the report says.
Clark, Sisk and other group members moved to Wisconsin in February. Tammie Garlin and her two children joined the group the same month.
They tortured the 11-year-old by whipping him, withholding food, scalding him with hot water and pulling his genitals with pliers, according to the police complaint. The group sometimes choked him until he nearly passed out and forced him to sleep naked in his sister’s closet, prosecutors said.
At some point, the group turned on Tammie Garlin, burning her and forcing her into the closet with the boy, the child told authorities.
The complaint said Tammie Garlin and Clerc had been lovers but had separated and that Clerc was upset because she thought Tammie Garlin had cheated on her.
According to the complaint, Felicia Garlin and Clerc had kicked her, then later on June 4 carried her into the bathroom, where Clerc dropped her head on the floor.
Sisk went into the bathroom and shut the door. He reportedly emerged a few minutes later, announcing that Tammie Garlin was dead. Clerc laughed, the complaint said, and they buried her in the backyard.
Police found the 11-year-old sitting on the closet floor with his knees pulled to his chest, his body a mess of cuts, burns and scars. His feet were burned so badly he couldn’t walk.
A judge on Wednesday denied bail for Sisk and Clark. He set bail at $500,000 for the teen and $350,000 for Clerc.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Staff writer Kirk Mitchell can be reached at 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com.
