INDIANAPOLIS — An Indianapolis man has pleaded guilty to gruesomely stabbing his longtime girlfriend to death while being out on bond and GPS monitoring for a separate stabbing he committed in a gas station less than a year before his girlfriend’s murder.

Marcus Garvin pleaded guilty to one count of murder on Friday, just days before his jury trial was scheduled to begin. As part of his plea deal, Garvin will serve 45 years in prison.

Previous reports detail the gruesome murder of Garvin’s longtime girlfriend, 30-year-old Christie Holt, who Garvin was spotted dragging to a wooded area where he attempted to dismember her body next to a creek.

Court documents revealed that Garvin and Holt had been staying at Always Inn on East 21st Street for seven months prior to the July 2021 slaying. Surveillance footage from Always Inn reportedly showed Garvin dragging Holt’s body, wrapped in a sheet, to a wooded area behind the inn.

Police reported that Garvin was attempting to cut off his GPS monitor and flee when officers arrived on scene.

Court records show that Garvin was placed on GPS monitoring just seven months before he murdered Holt. Garvin had been in jail after stabbing someone at a Circle K on Shadeland Avenue after the victim irritated Garvin for taking too long in a restroom.

Despite this violent crime, Garvin’s bail was lowered from an original $30,000 price on freedom to a more affordable $1,500 price tag that came paired with GPS monitoring.

Judge Shatrese Flowers ordered the lower bond, despite objection from the state.

The Bail Project later confirmed that they paid for Garvin’s $1,500 bond. The Bail Project said in a later report that the decision was made in part due to the judge’s lowering of the bond along with interviews with Garvin’s mother and Holt herself.

The Bail Project said Holt vouched for Garvin and said she didn’t believe he would be a danger to himself or others if he was released.

But Garvin was. Just seven months later, he brutally murdered Holt in the Always Inn and left her body to decompose for nearly a week.

“Without question, this is one of those cases where there was a terrible outcome,” the Bail Project wrote in its report, “but as we have discussed throughout this memo, there is risk inherent in the pre-trial release system, and the real question is what we can do to minimize it.”

Despite what Holt told the Bail Project, her loved ones said Holt had been a victim of Garvin’s abuse for years.

“When I say abuse it wasn’t just like he punched her one time,” Felicia Myers said. “He beat her until he felt that he was done.”

Holt’s best friend said she tried to help her escape multiple times, but domestic violence relationships are complex.

“He wouldn’t let go of her, no matter what and I got her away so many times,” Kaitlyn Davidson said. “I wish she would have stayed gone. I wish she would have actually left.”

The court will determine any additional aspects to Garvin’s sentencing at a June 23 sentencing hearing.