Lloyd Travis Jarvi

IRON MOUNTAIN — The Bark River man convicted in the near-fatal beating of his ex-wife in August 2022 will spend at least 35 years in prison before he is eligible for parole.

Lloyd Travis Jarvi, 62, was sentenced in Dickinson County Circuit Court after a jury in October found him guilty of assault with the intent to murder, home invasion in the first degree and unlawful driving away of a motor vehicle.

Circuit Court Judge Mary Barglind gave Jarvi 25 to 50 years for assault with intent to murder and 10 to 40 years for home invasion-first degree, to run consecutively. The five to 15 years handed down for unlawful driving away of a motor vehicle will run concurrently with the other charges.

Authorities said Jarvi entered the Breitung Township home of his ex-wife, Marianne Jarvi, while she was sleeping in a downstairs bedroom — with her 26-year-old son asleep upstairs — and repeatedly stuck her in the head, face and body with a weapon. He then took his ex-wife’s cash and car and fled to Wisconsin, where he was arrested three days later.

Marianne Jarvi had numerous injuries including six skull fractures, bleeding in the brain, life-threatening hemorrhaging and bleeding in the liver.

As he did for most of his trial, Jarvi refused to participate in any of the proceedings and was only present from the jail via Zoom. Jarvi stared at the floor during his sentencing and refused to respond to Barglind’s questions.

In her victim’s impact statement, Marianne Jarvi said the attack left her with permanent vision damage and she tires easily, making work and the drive home difficult. She requested her ex-husband receive a life sentence with no possibility of parole or early release so she could feel safe in her own home.

Prosecuting Attorney Lisa Richards asked for a lengthy sentence of at least 25 years, citing the brutality of the attack.

“The doctors in this case were surprised that Marianne (Jarvi) survived. I was the on-call prosecutor during the night that this occurred through the following weekend. I waited for the call with the news that she had passed away,” Richards said. “When she walked into the state police post approximately three weeks later, everyone was stunned — the woman is a fighter.”

Barglind said of the attack, “There have been some cases in my career as a judge and my past career as a prosecuting attorney that have stood out in my mind as being upsetting and disturbing — this is one of them. To try to grasp how one human being could injure another human being in any physical manner is difficult to comprehend but to inflict the type of injuries that Mr. Jarvi inflicted on Ms. Jarvi under these circumstances, there isn’t a word for it. It is incomprehensible.”

Barglind thanked the Michigan State Police, state crime lab and prosecutor’s office for their work on the case. The judge even thanked Lloyd Jarvi’s defense attorney, Daniel Jaspen, for dealing with a difficult and uncooperative client.

Lloyd Jarvi was given credit for 472 days already served. He still faces a habitual offender hearing on Wednesday, Nov. 29 that could affect the length of the sentence.