A Fort Davis woman was arrested Friday on warrants accusing her of criminally negligent homicide and injury to a child, seven months after her 5-year-old son died at their home. Margarita Modesto De Tavarez was taken into custody without incident and transported to a jail in a neighboring county, according to authorities.
The Jeff Davis County Sheriff's Office said in a media release that a deputy executed two arrest warrants against Tavarez in Fort Davis on Thursday, charging her with criminally negligent homicide and injury to a child. The arrest stems from the January 1 death of her son, Gabriel Modesto Tavarez, who died at their Fort Davis home at age 5, according to an obituary published by the Big Bend Sentinel. Gabriel was born in December 2020 in Odessa and had been living in Fort Davis prior to his death, per the same account.
The sheriff's office has released minimal narrative detail about the specific actions or omissions that led to the charges. The medical or circumstantial cause of Gabriel's death, whether Child Protective Services or other state agencies were involved, and what bail amount or court schedule has been set for Tavarez all remain open questions as of this reporting.
How the Arrest Unfolded in a Town of 2,000
The deputy who arrested Tavarez was working under Operation Stonegarden, a federal grant program administered by FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security that reimburses local border-region law enforcement agencies for overtime pay and equipment tied to patrol operations, according to FEMA. The program has funded other recent felony warrant work in the same small community — deputies used Stonegarden hours in July to arrest another Fort Davis resident on domestic violence charges without incident, as reported by NewsWest9.
Fort Davis is the county seat of Jeff Davis County, a remote West Texas jurisdiction with a population of roughly 2,000 people and the highest-elevation town in the state. Because Jeff Davis County has no active inmate housing facility of its own, Tavarez was transported to the Hudspeth County Jail in Sierra Blanca, a regional detention facility that routinely receives detainees from surrounding counties without dedicated jail capacity. The county has contracted with Hudspeth County to house arrested inmates since at least 2023, according to Jeff Davis County Commissioners Court minutes. It is a pattern with precedent — in March 2022, a former Valentine teacher arrested in Fort Davis on felony child pornography charges was similarly transferred to the Sierra Blanca facility.
Charges Carry Steep Potential Penalties
Under Texas Penal Code Section 19.05, criminally negligent homicide is a state jail felony punishable by 180 days to two years in a state jail facility and a fine of up to $10,000, according to FindLaw. Texas Penal Code Section 22.04, which governs injury to a child, allows for a range of felony classifications depending on intent and injury severity, with the most serious cases carrying penalties of up to 99 years or life in prison, per the Texas Constitution and Statutes.
Tavarez has not been convicted of any crime, and Texas law affords all defendants a presumption of innocence until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Prosecutors will bear the burden of proving every element of both the homicide and child injury charges, according to the Law Office of Mike Howard. The sheriff's office media release itself noted that individuals are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.
