‘I watched my son deteriorate.’ Mom of deputy’s killer speaks at his sentencing hearing
In a courtroom, surrounded by the people who knew and loved Stanislaus sheriff’s Deputy Dennis Wallace, the mother of his killer sat alone.
Karen Tavares listened to people call her son David Machado evil, say they hope he rots in prison and speak of the immense pain he has caused them.
When they were done, Tavares raised her hand and asked to give a statement on behalf of Machado, who fatally shot Wallace in the line of duty in 2016.
Tavares said she tried for years to get help for her son, to no avail.
She said that as a boy, Machado was “sweet, smart and inquisitive” and enjoyed watching and helping her cook. But something changed in him when he was in high school. “He seemed to care about nothing,” Tavares said.
Machado went on to have children with his girlfriend and got a job at a construction company, but he lost it during the recession. Tavares said he became deeply depressed about not being able to care for his family.
She said she tried repeatedly to get help for her son. Tavares said that in 2008, she called police when Machado told her he felt like hurting himself or someone else, but she was told by a law enforcement officer that nothing could be done unless Machado actually did so.
Through county behavioral health, Tavares said, she found a psychiatrist who prescribed medicine that began to help Machado, but it was short-lived. The psychiatrist dropped him when Machado’s insurance changed, he lost access to the medicine and he never recovered, Tavares said. Machado began self-medicating with street drugs.
“From 2008 to November 2016, I watched my son deteriorate from an intelligent, responsible young man to a paranoid, delusional, crazy person,” she said.
Tavares told Wallace’s loved ones that she is truly sorry for their loss but that she and Machado’s children had experienced loss as well.
She said her only hope is that Machado continues to get the medication he has received while in custody.
“It is a shame on our society that it had to come to this point for David to get the help he needed,” Tavares said. “I guess the officer who came out in 2008 was correct: Someone had to get hurt before David could be helped.”
Machado shot Wallace at close range in the head and neck at Fox Grove Fishing Access in Hughson on Nov. 13, 2016. The shooting occurred shortly after a dispatcher told Wallace that Machado had been flagged for officer safety concerns and was in possession of a van his mother reported he stole.
After shooting Wallace, Machado fled, carjacked a couple in Ceres and tried to carjack a woman in a small town in Tulare County before he was captured by two officers.
A jury last year found Machado guilty of Wallace’s murder, being a felon in possession of a firearm, two counts of carjacking and attempted carjacking.
But Machado had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity and, following the sanity phase in the trail, the jury found he was sane during the carjackings but jurors could not agree on whether he was sane at the time of the murder. They were split 9-3 in favor of an insanity verdict on the counts of murder and being a felon in possession of a firearm so a mistrial was declared.
A second trial for those counts was scheduled to begin in March but the defense and the prosecution, with the blessing of Wallace’s family, instead settled on a plea agreement. Machado withdrew his insanity plea in exchange for a sentence of 45 years to life in prison. He had been facing a sentence of life without the possibility of parole.
