"My Ex Opened Fire Before Turning on Our Children – My Heart Sunk as I Asked Which One He’d Harmed"

SHE had six broken bones, had been shot five times and suffered a 10-inch gash to her stomach.

But Mariah Gardner, 32, didn’t care about her own agony. She only had one, urgent question: “Where are my babies?”

Mariah Gardner, pictured with her ex Stephen Clare, who killed their daughter Credit: Bauer Media Rosalie and Willow – sick Stephen Clare nearly killed Rosalie and murdered little Willow Credit: Bauer Media

When the answer finally came it was the worst possible news. Her daughter Willow, 11 months, had been stabbed to death… and the murderer was her own dad.

Meanwhile, Rosalie, two, was critically ill, having also been knifed during Stephen Clare’s murderous rampage.

“In that moment, my world was torn apart,” says Mariah, who also has sons, Copeland, 11 and Braylon, 14. “It broke my heart that her own dad had caused them so much pain. He’s a monster.”

She told how she’d made desperate bids to save her children after their dad, who she’d divorced while pregnant with Willow, turned up unexpectedly on April 10, 2023.

While in hospital Mariah says she knew one of her children was dead… she just didn’t know who Credit: Bauer Media Stephen Clare hugs baby Willow – weeks later he would murder her Credit: Bauer Media Stephen Clare faces life without parole after accepting a plea deal Credit: Not known, clear with picture desk Rosalie, pictured in hospital, after being stabbed by her daddy Credit: Bauer Media

She didn’t want to be around him because he’d been stalking her following their split and was becoming something of a “Jekyll and Hyde” character, but felt she couldn’t ban him from seeing his daughters with whom she shared custody.

“So I yelled ‘Daddy’s here!’,” she says. “The girls excitedly came over to him for a hug while I knelt by the bookshelf, putting things away.”

But the situation quickly escalated with Clare “looming over her.”

She remembers: “When I looked up, I was staring down the barrel of a gun. I asked him what he was doing and he said: ‘Get in the car now. I’m going to kill you and every one of your kids.’”

Mariah, who was “petrified”, first attempted to talk to him. “I knew I needed to stay as calm as possible,” she says. “I thought it might be a joke or even a fake gun.”

But he wouldn’t be placated so she tried to wrestle the gun from his grip and then hit him with a vacuum cleaner.

She remembers the terrifying chain of events: “As he stumbled back, I seized my opportunity.

“I ran outside and screamed for help. But while I was sprinting a shot rang through the air. Then I felt a piercing pain in my right leg.”

Clare was shooting at her. But she still continued to run.

As she fell to the pavement, the neighbours came out and reassured her that the were coming.

It should have been the end. But Clare’s next actions sent shockwaves through her.

“As I turned around I saw he was heading back into the house,” she says. “I yelled: ‘Don’t you dare hurt my babies.’”

She managed to get back inside and realised her younger children had vanished. Her older son jumped on Clare’s back.

“I begged: ‘Please, don’t do this,’” she says. “But suddenly, at point-blank range, he fired his gun over and over again at me. I yelled at my son to get away and hide.”

It was at this point she was shot in the face. She describes the pain as “excruciating”. She explains: “Blood was pouring out of me. I thought: ‘I’m going to die.’”

Astonishingly, she managed to crawl outside where she whispered: “Stephen did this.”

As police arrived she urged them to go back into her house in San Antonio, Texas, and look for her children.

“I was put into an ambulance, dizzy but conscious,” she continues. “I told myself: ‘You have to stay alive. For your kids’.”

At hospital she underwent emergency surgery to repair her throat. Afterwards she was put on a ventilator and heavily sedated.

The next day she learnt the partial truth when a nurse told her: “We’re taking you to the same hospital your daughters are at.”

She feared then the worst possible news but forbade anyone from telling her.

“I was in survival mode,” she says. “I couldn’t speak because I was still ventilated but I messaged my dad, John, and asked him not to tell me what happened yet as I needed to focus on becoming stronger.

“But I knew in my heart that one of my children had died – I just didn’t know which one. I think as a mother you can feel it. I could feel a piece of my soul leaving, the light burning out.”

After three days she felt strong enough to find out the answer to the question she was dreading.

She asked her dad: “Which child did he kill?”

Finding out he had murdered Willow was heartbreaking for Mariah.

She says: “I felt like dying. The pain was unbearable. I stayed up crying all night. I just hoped it wouldn’t be real.”

She also learnt he’d seriously hurt Rosalie after stabbing her. Thankfully surgery had been a success and she’d pulled through.

So, while grieving for her youngest daughter and still seriously ill, she travelled in a wheelchair to tend to her surviving daughter.

She learnt that in the aftermath of the rampage her sons ran to a neighbour’s home, while Clare went home where he was arrested.

She continues: “I had to battle through my overwhelming grief to learn how to swallow, eat and talk again. Two weeks on, I was discharged and we held a service for Willow. Saying goodbye just broke my heart. I got some of her ashes put into a pendant so she’d always be with me.”

In April this year, nurse practitioner Stephen Clare, 53, appeared at Bexar County Criminal District Court, Texas, where he was sentenced to life in without the possibility of parole.

He accepted a plea deal and admitted the capital murder of a child under 10 years old, attempted capital murder of a child under 10 years old and aggravated assault with a weapon so he would avoid the death penalty.

Mariah read out her victim impact statement to the court.

“The man who vowed to protect us shot me through the face and left me to die,” she said. “I crawled, bleeding to death, surviving on shock and adrenaline, onto a sidewalk because I wanted my children to be safe.”

Justice was bittersweet. She says: “I was glad that he would never be free. But nothing would bring my precious Willow back. I never got to hear my baby girl talk or take her to her first day at school. It’s been more than three years since that nightmare and the right side of my face is still numb and I still have pain in my right hip.

“I have a long scar on my stomach from the bullet wounds.

“Rosalie also has a large scar and it saddens me that it will always remind her of what her dad did to her.”

But it’s the mental injuries that are harder to heal from.

She says: “I’ve been diagnosed with , anxiety and . I think he saw me and the kids as his possessions. But I refuse to dwell. I’m fighting for better safeguarding for victims of abuse. I won’t let Willow’s death be in vain.”