MOUNT PLEASANT, MI — After an emotional and harrowing account from the mother of a 13-year-old girl raped and killed in June, a judge sentenced 41-year-old Isaiah G. “Zeek” Gardenhire to prison for 75 to 120 years.
Isabella County Circuit Judge Mark H. Duthie handed down the sentence Tuesday, Nov. 9, during a hearing Gardenhire attended via Zoom broadcast.
In the live video feed from jail, the ex-convict both watched while clutching jail cell bars and paced while listening to the mother.
Her victim impact statement revealed chilling details about the early morning hours of Sunday, June 6, when prosecutors say Gardenhire’s 45-hour rampage began when he raped both her and her daughter, Adrie A. Dembowski, whom he also killed at their Union Township home.
Others were terrorized and victimized by Gardenhire during the crime spree that ended when he surrendered to authorities the following day, prosecutors say.
The mother’s statement revealed she was seven months pregnant when she was raped, that Gardenhire knew the family, and that he threatened to terrorize her three youngest daughters — ages 2, 5, and 9 — as well as “our unborn child.”
The mother did not elaborate on the nature of Gardenhire’s earlier connection with the family, and it’s unclear if she meant Gardenhire was the father of the unborn child. Officials with the Isabella County Prosecutor’s Office did not provide details when MLive attempted to seek clarity.
The sentencing returns Gardenhire to the prison system where he served two prior sentences.
He was released from his last stint in October 2020, eight months before the crimes that landed him back in prison this time. When those crimes were committed from June 6-7, Gardenhire was free on bond after being accused of sex crimes nine days earlier.
As for the crimes that resulted in Gardenhire’s latest sentence: He pleaded no contest in September to single counts of second-degree murder, assault with a dangerous weapon, and unlawful imprisonment.
By pleading no contest as opposed to guilty, Gardenhire did not orally admit to having committed any crimes.
During Tuesday’s sentencing, though, he expressed remorse.
“I regret it,” Gardenhire said. “Adrie was a good child. She didn’t deserve what happened to her; neither did my other victims. I don’t expect forgiveness.”
While sentencing Gardenhire to between 75 and 120 years in prison, Duthie described the case as “the worst I’ve seen” during a 37-year career as both a judge and prosecutor.
“The only way you could characterize it: it was flat-out evil,” Duthie said. “The defendant deserves no consideration from the court. He needs to spend the rest of his life behind bars.”
‘The devastating choice’
During her statement, Adrie’s mother described suffering “unimaginable pain, suffering, sorrow and guilt” since her oldest daughter’s death.
“What makes this even more horrific is that Isaiah had a bond with all of my children,” the mother said. “Making TikToks or having prank wars; every holiday, birthday, vacation, long summer days spent making memories in the sun was our favorite thing to do as a family. Isaiah killed all my daughters that night because they will never be the same.”
The mother talked about how Adrie’s siblings continue to struggle with the loss.
“‘Didn’t God know how much I’d miss her, mama?’” the mother recalled one of her daughter’s saying following Adrie’s death.
The mother described the evening she said Gardenhire raped her, including her struggle to stay quiet to avoid waking up one of Adrie’s sisters “who slept peacefully, only a few feet away.”
“Walking into the room, standing over her, showing me how you were going to slit her throat if she made one noise,” the mother said. “I knew you were going to kill me while you were doing painful and tortuous acts to me. I was only thinking, ‘How do I escape with my 2-, 5-, 9-, and 13-year-old,’ because I knew they were not going to be able to escape you.”
The mother described Gardenhire smiling as he was “talking about cutting our unborn child out of my body while my four daughters watched.”
She described struggling with Gardenhire and yelling for help while failing to attract the attention of neighbors. She said she eventually escaped Gardenhire.
“Isaiah chases me to the neighbors, and I heard Adrie yell, ‘Mom,’ and I knew she was alive,” the mother said. “I continued to run to the headlights across the street to call the cops, and in those seconds, Isaiah made the devastating choice to turn back to that house. And, in those split seconds it took the cops to have my house surrounded, Isaiah made the choice to do what he did to Adrie. Only Isaiah will ever know why.”
Officials said, when they arrived at the mother’s home, they discovered Adrie suffering from stab wounds. Though officers attempted to save the teenager’s life, she died.
During the mother’s statement, Gardenhire at times paced back and forth, sometimes walking out of the live feed’s camera frame.
At one point, he appeared to retrieve food from his cell, then chew on it as he watched the hearing from between two steel bars.
A life of crime
Isabella County Prosecutor David Barberi said Gardenhire fled the scene June 6 before police arrived, hiding in a vacant unit at the nearby Jamestown Apartments.
He took two residents hostage in an occupied unit and repeatedly sexually assaulted one of those residents, a woman.
Gardenhire robbed the residents of money and stole their 2014 Ford Fusion, officials said. With a large-scale law enforcement manhunt underway, he drove the vehicle to Flint Township, where he surrendered to police on June 7.
During his arraignment the next day, Gardenhire behaved erratically, interrupting proceedings, guffawing, and flipping off the presiding judge.
Gardenhire was court-ordered to undergo an evaluation at the Center for Forensic Psychiatry in Ypsilanti, where staff were to assess his competency to stand trial. Isabella County Circuit Court Judge Sara Spencer-Noggel in September ruled Gardenhire was competent.
While Gardenhire was in custody on the Isabella County charges in August, authorities in Ingham County charged him with two counts of open murder, three counts of felony firearm, and single counts of felon in possession of a firearm and carrying a dangerous weapon with unlawful intent.
The charges were related to the killings of Harley T. Owens, 39, and Kelsey Coon-Lennon, 29.
Owens’ and Coon-Lennon’s bodies were discovered May 1 at a residence in Lansing when police responded to reports of gunfire. Charging documents indicated the crimes happened between April 28 and May 1.
Community Outreach Coordinator Scott Hughes of the Ingham County Prosecutor’s Office told MLive that Lansing police investigators identified Gardenhire as a suspect, but would not elaborate.
Authorities have not divulged a motive for Owens’ and Coon-Lennon’s killings.
Nine days before Adrie’s slaying, Gardenhire on May 28 was charged in Mason County with second-degree criminal sexual conduct with a victim 13 or younger. That crime allegedly occurred in May 2015.
A judge dismissed the case in July.
Gardenhire previously served at least two prison stints on convictions of second-degree home invasion and felon in possession of a firearm, crimes committed in Mason County in 2014 and Ingham County in 2004, respectively.
The Michigan Department of Corrections discharged him in October 2020.
Gardenhire also served probation for convictions of attempted felonious assault and attempting to assault a jail employee in Isabella County in 2000.
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