Tivasha Logan

Case record: Tivasha Logan

Tivasha Logan was sentenced to life in prison without parole on July 11, 2012 after a jury found her guilty of first-degree murder and aggravated manslaughter of a child in the death of her 5-month-old daughter, Chauntasia Gardner.

Chauntasia Gardner was born prematurely and weighed about 2 pounds and 11 ounces at birth. Investigative reports and court testimony described her as severely emaciated at death, with an autopsy weight of 6 pounds. The case involved Logan feeding the infant watered-down formula and not providing sufficient food.

Timeline

• May 11, 2009 — Chauntasia Gardner was born prematurely at Lakeland Regional Medical Center with a birth weight of approximately 2 pounds and 11 ounces.
• July 29, 2009 — Chauntasia Gardner was discharged from Lakeland Regional Medical Center weighing about 7 pounds and 8 ounces; she had been in the hospital until her weight climbed to nearly 7 pounds.
• Nov. 1, 2009 — Chauntasia Gardner was found dead in the morning at her family's home on Sunshine Drive in Lakeland; emergency services were contacted.
• Nov. 2, 2009 — Polk County Sheriff’s Office detectives arrested 25-year-old Tivasha Logan and 27-year-old Chauncey Gardner, charging them with felony murder and aggravated child abuse.
• June 19, 2012 — Prosecutors rested their case against Logan.
• June 21, 2012 — A jury found Logan guilty of first-degree murder and aggravated manslaughter of a child after deliberations.
• July 11, 2012 — Circuit Judge Donald Jacobsen imposed a life sentence without parole; the stayed manslaughter sentence remained stayed indefinitely.

Background

Chauntasia Gardner was Logan’s infant daughter. The case described Logan and Chauncey Gardner as the baby’s parents. Logan and Gardner had children in common including a 4-year-old boy and two girls aged 3 years and 2 years. Logan also had two additional children at the Sunshine Drive residence, a 10-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl.

Detectives and witnesses described the home on Sunshine Drive in Lakeland as having food available for the adults and other children, while only a single partially filled can of baby formula was found in the home at the time of the response. Logan received Medicaid and Social Security Income and food stamps and participated in the Women, Infants & Children program.

The offence

Logan was accused of starving her infant daughter to death by not providing sufficient food and by feeding watered-down infant formula.

Investigative reports and testimony described formula being mixed with an improper ratio of powdered formula to water. Logan and Chauncey Gardner told detectives they mixed 1 ½ ounces of water with a ½ ounce of formula, so the baby received about one-third of the recommended amount of formula at each feeding. Another account described the mixture as a 3-1 ratio rather than the label instructed equal parts, and prosecutors treated the conduct as aggravated child abuse that supported first-degree murder under Florida felony murder principles.

The case involved the baby’s dramatic weight loss. The baby was described as supposed to weigh about 14 pounds, while an autopsy listed her weight at 6 pounds. Witness and testimony described visible emaciation including sunken eyes, visible spine, ribs and jaw bones, and skin wrinkled and dry from dehydration.

Logan told detectives she did notice Chauntasia was losing weight but did not take the baby to the hospital because she feared authorities would take away her five other children. Logan told detectives she decided to wait for a scheduled pediatrician appointment rather than go to an emergency room, and the baby died about a day before that appointment. A 911 call transcript was described as including a dispatcher instructing Logan on how to tell Gardner to perform CPR.

Investigation

The investigation included interviews and statements by Logan. Detectives questioned Logan about when she first noticed her daughter was “deathly skinny” and about what she told Chauntasia’s grandmother regarding the baby’s weight.

Vonda Stewart, Chauntasia’s grandmother, told detectives that she urged Logan to take the baby to a doctor after the baby looked skinny about two weeks before her death. Stewart also told detectives that Logan said the baby weighed 8 pounds at a recent doctor visit. When confronted by detectives, Logan said she lied to Stewart and admitted she had noticed the baby losing a lot of weight about two weeks prior.

During an interview described in court coverage, Logan said she did not notice her daughter was losing weight until days before her death, and detectives later pressed her to explain discrepancies between what Stewart recalled and what Logan said.

The investigation included recorded statements of Logan to detectives on the day the case was being tried, including Logan’s account of noticing weight loss and her fear of going to jail or losing her other children.

Arrest

On November 2, 2009, Polk County Sheriff’s Office detectives arrested 25-year-old Tivasha Logan and her boyfriend, 27-year-old Chauncey Gardner, at 2710 Sunshine Drive North, Lakeland. Detectives believed the baby was starved to death.

Deputies responded to the residence at 6:02 a.m. on Sunday, November 1, 2009 after receiving a call for assistance regarding a 5-month-old baby who wasn’t breathing. Emergency Medical Services were present, and EMS pronounced the baby dead at 6:11 a.m. Both Logan and Gardner were being held without bond.

The arrest charging information described Logan and Gardner as charged with:

• Felony Murder (Willful Kill-Murder While Engaged in Certain Felony)
• Aggravated Child Abuse

Trial

During the trial, the prosecution argued Logan was criminally responsible for allowing her 5-month-old daughter to starve to death in 2009 after watering down the baby’s formula. The jury was described as deliberating seven hours on June 21, 2012.

Logan’s attorney, Stephen Fisher, told jurors that Logan never meant to harm her child. Fisher also argued Logan’s actions did not rise to the legal threshold of “knowing” or “willful” abuse and described Logan as having mild mental retardation and limited intellectual ability. Fisher argued Logan decided to wait for the scheduled doctor appointment and did not realize her child was deathly ill. He said Logan did not understand the child was dying and described Logan’s perception as having “time to wait for the doctor.”

Logan’s lawyer, Stephen Fisher, told jurors during closing arguments: "In her perception, she had time to wait for the doctor."

Logan’s attorney, Stephen Fisher, told jurors during opening statements: "She made the (doctor's) appointment because she recognized something was wrong with the child,"

Assistant State Attorney Paul Wallace argued Logan was guilty of first-degree murder because her actions amounted to aggravated child abuse and also argued Logan was guilty of aggravated manslaughter of a child, describing her conduct as showing a “reckless disregard of human life.”

Assistant State Attorney Paul Wallace said: "It's a very slow process in losing that weight."

Assistant State Attorney Paul Wallace said: "Chauntasia didn't make it that long."

Assistant State Attorney Paul Wallace told jurors: "It's a very slow process in losing that weight," he said.

Jury deliberations began at 1:40 p.m. and continued until 8:30 p.m., and the jury returned verdicts finding Logan guilty of first-degree murder and aggravated manslaughter of a child.

The case included discussion of autopsy findings and photographs, and Wallace argued that the dramatic fluctuation in weight did not happen overnight. Photographs of the baby while alive were shown to jurors along with autopsy photos taken of her emaciated corpse.

Logan told jurors she decided not to take the witness stand and testify.

Sentencing

At sentencing, Circuit Judge Donald Jacobsen asked Logan whether she wanted to say anything before he imposed her punishment. Logan was described as sniffling softly with tears in her eyes and shaking her head slightly.

Logan’s lawyer, Stephen Fisher, said: "She loved her child, and her death was the last thing she wanted," Fisher said.

The judge stated he did not have discretion beyond life imprisonment for the murder conviction. Under Florida law, the judge was not permitted to impose a separate sentence against Logan for aggravated manslaughter of a child when the murder and manslaughter verdicts involved the same death.

The manslaughter guilty verdict was described as remaining “stayed indefinitely.” The judge denied a defense request for a new trial.

Logan was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Appeals

No appeal details were included in the provided material.

Outcome

A jury found Tivasha Logan guilty of first-degree murder and aggravated manslaughter of a child involving the same death of her 5-month-old daughter, Chauntasia Gardner. She received life in prison without parole on July 11, 2012. The aggravated manslaughter sentence remained stayed indefinitely.

Aftermath

Chauncey Gardner continued to face similar charges including first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse, and coverage stated that his trial would be held at a later date. He was described as being held without bail in the Polk County Jail at the time of trial coverage about Logan.

At the time of the earlier custody decision described, Circuit Judge Michael Hunter ruled that Logan would remain without bond after testimony that included photographs taken by Dr. Stephen Nelson, chief medical examiner for the Bartow-based 10th Judicial Circuit, before conducting an autopsy. Nelson testified that the baby barely weighed 6 pounds when she died and described her appearance in photographs.

Dr. Stephen Nelson said: "Essentially, she looks like a child from Biafra,"

Circuit Judge Michael Hunter said: "She looks like a person out of Africa or a concentration camp," and "I can't comprehend how any reasonable, intelligent person cannot look at this child, or a child that looked like this one did, and not see that the child is starving to death."

The case also included a statement from Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd that the child had been “tortured for days on end until she finally died from starvation.”

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said: "It is mind-boggling,"

and

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said: "I've done this job my entire adult life, and I've seen a lot of violence against children and babies, but I can't ever remember seeing one starve to death. This child was tortured for days on end until she finally died from starvation."

Additionally, the material included a statement from Logan that she did not notice wrongdoing until days before her death and that she did not tell detectives the truth about noticing weight loss because she did not want to go to jail.

Logan said in a transcript of the recording: "Someone is gonna expect that I did something wrong to her," and "Me and my boyfriend was the last ones with her."

Logan said in a transcript of the recording: "Someone is gonna expect that I did something wrong to her."

Other details

• One investigative account described that on November 1, 2009 the family had no water shortage and that the home was within walking distance of two churches and a mile from the nearest grocery store.
• The material described that investigators found a $674 Social Security check received on Nov. 1 specifically for the infant.
• In addition to the formula feeding issues, the material described that Logan told detectives she tried several times to get an appointment but could not because none would accept her Medicaid; it also included that her mother, Vonda Stewart, said she confronted Logan about weight loss two weeks before the baby died.
• A pediatrician’s reaction to the baby’s weight was described, including the statement: "Oh, my God, 6 pounds?" and that "Six pounds would be way, way, way below the third percentile," followed by "It's not even on the curve."
• The material included that doctors are required to report suspected abuse and neglect, while DCF spokeswoman Carrie Hoeppner said the department first tries to provide support rather than remove children in every circumstance.