Fort Worth man gets life without parole for killing estranged wife as 2 kids slept nearby

A Fort Worth man whose lengthy criminal history included threatening family members has been sentenced to life without parole for killing his estranged wife in 2017 while their two children slept in a nearby room.

Shalen Gardner, 37, pleaded guilty on Friday to capital murder in the strangulation death of Elanceia “Lana” Gardner.

The kids found their mother dead around 8:30 a.m. on Nov. 2, 2017.

Gardner sexually assaulted and strangled his wife at their Fairmount Avenue duplex, authorities said.

He and his wife were separated and planning to divorce at the time of Lana’s murder.

“We welcomed you into our family as one of our own,” Lana’s mother, Neia Roland-Hill, wrote in a letter to Gardner which was read during the allocution Monday morning. “We accepted you as a family member.”

“You decided to take away the very person who made life worth living,” the mother’s letter said. “She loved you even when you were unlovable.” Now the children, who found their mother’s body before school that day in 2017, “will never forget how you took their mother’s life.”

Even so, “God has taken over and we live wonderful lives,” the letter stated, adding that not a day goes by that the children don’t miss their mother. “You may have taken their mother away, but you can never steal their joy, their spirit, their future or happiness or their hope.”

Initially, Gardner told detectives that he had spent the night on the porch because his wife had company and wouldn’t let him in.

Gardner told homicide detectives that he had texted his wife about 2:30 a.m. while sitting on the front porch of her duplex apartment.

He said he wanted to see if he could come inside to charge his ankle monitor, according to an arrest warrant affidavit written by homicide Detective Chris Brashear and obtained by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in 2017.

Gardner had been ordered to wear an ankle monitor in April 2017 after repeatedly violating his probation for unlawful carrying of a weapon.

But evidence uncovered by homicide investigators — including data from Gardner’s ankle monitor — told a different story, according to the affidavit.

Gardner’s ankle monitor showed numerous GPS hits coming from inside the house between 12:50 and 7 a.m.

“This GPS information contradicts Shalen Gardner’s statement that he never went inside the house ... which is the time that Elanceia Gardner was murdered,” Brashear wrote.

Investigators noted that Gardner had fresh scratches on his body, including near his right eye, and that his eyeglasses were damaged as if he’d been in a fight.

Gardner had a lengthy criminal history that included threatening family members, abusing the family’s dog, violating his parole, and unlawfully possessing a handgun.

In the animal case, he killed the family’s pet pit bull with a hammer, according to Tarrant County criminal court records.

Tarrant County Assistant Criminal District Attorneys Allenna Bangs and Emily Kirby handled the case and plea.

“Intimate Partner Violence is never limited to a single victim; the families of those suffering are so often left behind to pick up the pieces,” Bangs said in a Monday news release. “Sentences like this are a reflection of how serious the Tarrant County community and the CDA’s office pursue IPV predators.”

This report contains information from the Star-Telegram’s archives.