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Tonight on Dateline. There was a lot of male attention on her. That electric control that Sarah has over men.
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It was explosion after explosion. Extra dangerous. Extra dangerous. I need help for her.
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She told me his sugar dropped and that they were rushing him to the hospital. But you knew it was very bad.
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I just knew. The deputy got a call that there might possibly be foul play. You were just a brand new minted detective.
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Yes. The story just didn't make sense. The deeper you went, the more crazy things you'd find out.
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She's had five husbands. I'm getting a phone call saying your house is on fire. I started fearing for my life.
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She had shot a man. I said, did you kill him? I felt like she was a ticking time bomb.
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Who is this woman? She's an actress. She's always performing. My jaw started dropping.
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What we were finding out was just the tip of the iceberg. A handful of husbands and two dead bodies.
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I mean, we've got to go get her. Is this widow a killer? A team of women fight to uncover the truth.
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I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline. Here's Keith Morrison with The Trouble with Sarah.
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Hello? What's up? Hey, hon. The woman on the phone has been accused of something quite terrible, of many terrible things.
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And now she is urging her daughter, stay on side. I care about what you think. You're my child, but I also thought you were my friend.
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It's going to be complicated. A study in manipulation. I just need to know if you're behind me or not.
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Are you? I don't really know what you're asking me right now. Are you supportive of me or not?
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I don't, Mom, I don't know. The story heading here to some sort of conclusion is dark, certainly.
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These are atomic bomb level of blow-ups, relationship after relationship. And it's also about as slippery and strange as a life story can be.
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The remarkable or disturbing tale of Sarah. I really do believe that there is a women's intuition.
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And I think it takes women sometimes to realize how awful that women can be. 911, where's your emergency?
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Here is how we begin. Though, really, it's the beginning of the end. It was an early afternoon in January, Chambers County, Texas.
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I need help. My husband is diabetic. He's breathing, but he's not responsive. I can't get him to wake up.
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Sarah Hartsfield told 911 she could not revive her husband, Joe. She told me that his sugar dropped and that the EMTs were working on him,
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but every time his sugar started to go up, it would just keep dropping, and that they were rushing him to the hospital.
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This is Joe's sister, Jeannie Hartsfield. But you knew it was very bad. I just knew.
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Jeannie and her mother rushed to the hospital in Baytown, Texas, where Joe was unconscious, in a diabetic coma.
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The doctors and nurses gave him sugar water through an IV, a standard treatment for low blood sugar, but he did not respond.
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Why? Good question. It didn't make sense. Unless... One of the medical staff slipped away and made a phone call
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to the Chambers County Sheriff's Office. A deputy arrived. I'm 440 Yateman of Chambers County Sheriff's Office.
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The deputy's body camera recorded Sarah's explanations that Joe had been so tired after working a night shift
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followed by a morning job interview that when he came home that around 4.30 or 5 o'clock that evening
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she fed him his favorite casserole that she asked him to finish it even though she knew it would spike his blood sugar.
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so she brought him his insulin pens and then stuck close. I don't leave the house
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when he's sleeping because his blood sugar is so erratic sometimes that if I'm not there
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I don't want anything to happen to him. But, Sarah said through her tears she fell asleep on the couch
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because she'd been on pain medication for surgery about two weeks earlier. Mind you, she told the deputy, his blood sugar alarm kept going off.
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So she left a glass of orange juice where he could find it, in case he needed a boost.
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And... You'll probably want to remember that little story about the orange juice.
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Anyway, she said, Joe went back to bed. And later, when she tried to revive him...
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I can't get him to wake up. In a nearby waiting area, the deputy encountered Joe's very anxious mother and sister, Jeannie.
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But this was strange. Sarah wouldn't let them into Joe's hospital room. We drove to that hospital hoping and praying that she would let us in to at least spend a little bit of time with him
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What was that like, being kept away from Joe, from your life? I was, that's hard for me to talk about.
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It was hard. I was angry. Was it the angry family? or maybe the wife's story that didn't sound quite right?
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The deputy called me because I was the on-call detective. Her name is Skylar Rocks,
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and she had been a detective for all of six weeks. Just getting started, really.
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A young female rookie in a man's world? No idea she was about to stumble into the craziest
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and most complex case of hers or anyone's career. the story of Sarah Hartsfield.
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What made you go down those rabbit holes, as you call them? Just because every time I went down a different one,
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there was something else to be found. Oh, yes, there was, as Detective Rocks could soon find out.
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Sarah was good at playing everybody. Five husbands. What happens when a man wants to leave her?
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It's pretty clear. All hell breaks loose. a shooting and fires just roared right to the house
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the smoke just bellowing she was the woman who many believe got away with everything
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until maybe now maybe I said we've got to go get her When Detective Skylar Rocks arrived at the hospital in Baytown, Texas,
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she encountered Joe Hartsfield, barely alive, deep in a diabetic coma, his wife, Sarah, and elsewhere in the building, Joe's family.
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They couldn't have been a very happy bunch when they talked to you. Oh, no, they were not. They were not happy at all.
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They were very upset and angry. It seemed odd, certainly, that Joe's family had been iced out of his room by his own wife, Sarah.
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And Joe's younger sister, Jeannie, was eager to tell the detective all about it.
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And she took me back in this little room, and I spilled it all. The story of Joe.
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Before Sarah, Joe was a divorced father of two and a probation officer, a happy guy,
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lived in a trailer on his mom's property. Joe was a larger-than-life personality.
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Just a fun-loving person to be around. And he loved love, wanted to find a partner.
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Oh, Joe dated constantly. Joe wasn't someone that wanted to be alone. And then along came Sarah.
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She's a very charismatic, you know, just likable person when you first meet her.
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She was a retired military mom of four and, conveniently, getting divorced. She seemed really concerned with helping him, you know, work on his diet, with controlling his diabetes and all that.
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And I told him, I said, Joe, that's a good woman. I said, you hold on to her. And Joe agreed.
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And within a couple of months, they announced they were getting married. But by then, Jeannie worried, how well did he really know this woman?
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After all, there were some concerning things like how angry she'd get at Joe, and so easily, about his chewing tobacco habit, for one thing.
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We'd get text message after text message from her, just ranting about him. It's just the way she would react to things, that's how irate she would get.
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Sarah and Joe bought a house two hours south in Beach City, Texas. He left the job he loved and started a new job at a chemical plant.
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And the woman they had liked so much at first now seemed intent on driving a wedge between Joe and his family.
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You had a big blowout with her at one point, right? I had a couple of them. including the phone call Jeannie refers to as World War III.
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That was when Jeannie confronted Sarah after learning she'd blocked her calls on Joe's phone.
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And she got so mad, I could hear it sounded like her fist or something hit the table.
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I heard footsteps like she was stomping off and she screamed. I mean, at the top of her lungs, you'll never effing see him again.
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And before very long at all, you could tell he was just like almost defeated feeling sometimes, you know.
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In fact, Jeannie said, Joe told her he wanted to leave Sarah. I said, you need to get all of your affairs in order before she even has a clue.
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You know, you need to get a bank account open. You need to get your direct deposit switch to your account, all that stuff.
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And just nine days before he went to the hospital, he did just that. So, Detective Rocks had some questions for Sarah.
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And hours after Joe was admitted to the hospital, Sarah allowed Detective Rocks and her colleagues to take a look around her house,
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where, Sarah told them, she and Joe had no plans to split up. We haven't talked about the moves at all. I don't know if we would say that.
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But said Sarah she and Joe did plan to divorce themselves from his family We do have an estranged relationship as of yesterday because Joe and I made the decision together to sever ties for a while
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and kind of go low contact, no contact. She said that his mother was overbearing and she overstepped her place.
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She has attachment issues and a very unhealthy, codependent relationship with her kids.
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While she was in Sarah's bedroom, the detective noted what was on the bedside table.
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We found approximately 8 to 10 insulin pins. Are any of them used, is what I'm asking.
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Oh, yeah, they're all used. Had Joe given himself all of that insulin? And when did he do that?
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though she hadn't been a detective for long rox's gut told her something was fishy about her
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conversations with sarah she would have little spurts of where she would crumple her face and
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act as if she was sad for like 15 seconds and then go back to this casual conversation everybody
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has different responses to trauma but typically the response isn't that bizarre to where it's
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like we're casual then we're not and then we're casual and then we're not did you get the sense
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that she was telling you the truth about things at all? I didn't really know if she was lying or not.
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I think that Sarah is actually pretty smart and she's well-spoken. And I couldn't really tell that she was lying per se,
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but I could tell that the things that she was saying just didn't make sense. But when Detective Rocks took her suspicions
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to her direct supervisors at the sheriff's department, let it go, they told her.
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There wasn't enough evidence and that I could be beating a dead horse, so to say.
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Uh-huh. And I respectfully disagreed. I'm like, you know, y'all weren't there. Like, you didn't get to read the room like I got to, and I just, I disagree.
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Like, there's, this is not okay. So why would you push back against senior officers?
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What gave you the confidence to do that? I mean, in law enforcement, we all kind of have type A personalities, so to speak, right?
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but at the end of the day it's my name that's going to be on it it's my name as the lead investigator
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and so I wouldn't let somebody else persuade me to stop an investigation that has my name on it
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just as well 11 days after Joe was brought to the hospital Sarah here in the red sweatshirt
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gave the signal disconnect life support and Joe Hartsfield was gone and Detective Rocks
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dug in all the way to the wildest case anyone around these parts had ever seen. All four of my tires were flat.
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Laundry detergent and the gas tank of my car. A few people, they had seen her out there doing it.
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It was frustrating. Detective Skylar Rocks was inexperienced, yes, but something about this Sarah person bothered her more than it did her supervisors.
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So, Detective 101, she went to a law enforcement database and plugged in the name Sarah Hartsfield.
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And what do you know? There was a bunch of different aliases that had popped up.
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Not aliases, really, just a whole lot of marriages. Five, including Joe. And trouble?
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Oh, yes, from the very start. She was born Sarah Smith in 1975 to a dirt poor family in rural Missouri.
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But poor was only the half of it. Tell me what you learned about her upbringing.
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Was she one of those people who was abused as a kid and that led her down these terrible paths?
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Yes, she did have a rough upbringing. A younger brother was found dead, hanged by a dog leash from a stair rail.
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The police looked into it, decided it was an accident. As for Sarah? There was the sexual abuse that was alleged when Sarah was three.
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Sarah's mom kicked the dad out of the house, filed for divorce. And then, when she remarried, Sarah accused her stepdad of molesting her too.
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There was a trial. Her stepdad was acquitted. Then, when Sarah was 11, she was sent to foster care.
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Her mother brought into child services and basically dumped off and said, I can't handle her.
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Foster parents Barbara Stewart and her husband Steve were loving and very patient.
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We were very close. She fit into the entire family, and everybody in our family accepted her.
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Even though, as they soon discovered... Did she tell a lot of stories that weren't necessarily true?
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If it were to her advantage. Yeah. Sneaking around, telling tall tales and breaking the rules
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seemed to be Sarah's specialties, as Detective Rocks discovered. In high school, Titus Knirchold was a sitting duck for Sarah's methods.
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She was this real sweet, nice person. Foster dad Steve walked Sarah down the aisle
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when she married Titus right out of high school, just 18 years old. A month after the wedding, as they had planned, Titus joined the army.
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But it wasn't long before Sarah was off with another guy, maybe more than one. Then Titus returned from service.
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I actually had several people come up to me and tell me they were having affairs with her.
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Which put an end to that marriage. And good riddance thought Titus I figured I was out of it I don have to worry about her anymore We are divorced Game over But that only true if your opponent leaves the field
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Titus's new girlfriend, Angela, whom he later married, said strange things began to happen
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as soon as she and Titus started dating. All four of my tires were flat. Laundry
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detergent in the gas tank of my car. The few people, they had seen her out there doing it.
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But every time they'd call police. She would always get it turned back where it was our fault.
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Somehow it persuaded the police that you were at fault and not her. Right. Yes. Then Angela said
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she caught Sarah in the act. There was gasoline splashed all over the front of the house.
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and I see her leaving the vicinity. Wow. And at that point I was like, she was going to set that house on fire.
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We went to the police, told them the story, and they said, well, it's either arson or it's not.
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Apparently there's no such thing as attempted arson. Titus said Sarah denied everything
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and she was never arrested or charged. She did, however, get married again to one of Titus' friends.
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And then at 22, she joined the army. I'm like, well, good. That'll be good for you.
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And after I got off the phone, I thought, hmm, you're going to know what the rules are now.
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And somehow Sarah seemed to be reformed, though her husband wasn't so happy when she met a fellow soldier named Chris Donahue.
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He was a couple years younger than her. And I think he was one of those guys that was just very innocent and trusting.
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And then the next thing you know, she's pregnant. Soon, their daughter Ashley was born, and husband number two was gone,
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and Chris became husband number three. A year later, they had a son, Ryan. Her early years with Chris were perhaps Sarah's most stable.
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That's what her friend Hannah Williamson saw when they were both stationed at Fort Hood.
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You say that she kept an impeccable house? A beautiful home. She could have been an interior designer.
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She could have been an architect. She could have been a landscape artist. She just was good at everything.
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Detective Rocks talked to the kids, of course. Sarah's daughter Ashley said, from the time she was little,
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that perfection of her mother's was always on display. The neighbors would compliment her and my dad as parents
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because they always saw all of us outside working together in the yard. So I think they thought that we were nice kids with a great family.
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Whenever we had people over, she'd go crazy in the kitchen. And Sarah's son, Ryan.
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She was really good at it. Thanksgiving, she'd go nuts. Christmas, she'd go nuts.
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There's decorations everywhere. In time, Sarah and Chris had two more children, girls.
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But then she and Chris were both deployed to Iraq during the big troop surge in 2007.
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And while they were gone, Ashley and Ryan were sent to stay with foster mom Barbara,
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who heard how the perfect family was maybe not so perfect after all. They didn't really say anything about missing their mom.
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She would get mad at me because she was very adamant that they line up like little soldiers and say,
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yes ma'am, no ma'am, yes sir, no sir. And I said, you know what, I'm grandma and they don't have to act like this in this house.
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They're kids. When Sarah's deployment was over, her return would be no happy homecoming for the kids.
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No. More like a horror movie. I felt like she was a taking time bomb. Detective Skylar Rocks was in deep.
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The suspicious death of Jo Hartsfield is what got her started, but it was the life of Sarah that grabbed hold of her now.
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Maybe in that troubled history, she'd discover the reason Jo was dead. And what was she finding?
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Well, curiouser and curiouser. I think that people were scared of her, honestly.
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For starters, the inside story of Sarah as mother who, said her children, was rarely warm and cuddly.
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I felt like she was a ticking time bomb. To the neighbors, Sarah projected perfection.
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To her children... The biggest rule we had was, you know, what happens in the house stays in the house.
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Ashley talked about different abuses that she endured from Sarah as a child. And Ryan just seemed to be really apprehensive.
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He asked me if anything he said to me was going to get back to her. It's easy to understand why.
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If we did something that had upset her, like it was kind of zero to 100. Big temper.
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Yeah. Whenever you got in trouble, she'd let you know. And it was, it was something that the whole house knew.
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You know, when the other person's getting hit in the other room, you could hear every hit through the house because it would echo.
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Ryan said the worst beating he took was after he broke a wall hook in a house they were renting.
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She had the belt in her hand, she was just swinging. After a while, she throws the belt to the side
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and she just starts punching me in the face. I had bruises from my whole face down
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and from my shoulders to my ankles and I missed school for a whole week. How old were you when that happened?
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I'd say like, I'd say 10. She's hit me in the face multiple times before as a child, also as a teenager.
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There was a time that was so bad, I told her I was going to call CPS. That would be Child Protective Services.
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And she said if I was going to call CPS, she was going to give me a reason to call CPS.
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And she continued beating me for what felt like hours, and I was covered in bruises.
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Did you complain to CPS? No, because I was too scared of what would happen. but CPS did get called
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and police showed up at the door one day after school and here is the report about that visit
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from the Bell County Sheriff's Office it says a father of one of Ashley's friends called them
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saying Ashley was beaten pretty bad, had a black eye looked like her fingers were possibly broken
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and had quit lacerations all over her back and I was like oh my gosh my mom could get in trouble
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and then she would use it against me. You didn't see the police as a savior. You saw them as getting you in trouble even more.
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Yes. I was very upset that they came to the house. So much so, Ashley said she lied.
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And sure enough, the report quoted Ashley telling deputies her black eye was an accident.
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The report concluded with, there is no evidence of ongoing abuse. Sarah told us she never beat any of her children.
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But Barbara Stewart said she heard about this incident and others. The kids were threatened.
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They better not say anything. They better not admit any of this happened. And family services would always believe her.
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She would always talk her way out of it. Ashley said her dad, Chris, seemed powerless with Sarah.
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There was only so much he could do. because if he stood up for us, she would get very, very angry at him.
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I think he wanted to do anything to make it work and keep his family together. And he really did try, and she just made it difficult.
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Whatever was going on behind closed doors, it didn't stop Sarah from continuing her pursuit of what looked like perfection.
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In 2014, Sarah and Chris bought an impressive big custom-built place on the lake,
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not far from Fort Hood. But money was tight. And then, just three months after buying their home,
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Sarah got a call from her brother Cody. Their grandmother had died, leaving behind a house and 325 acres of prime farmland.
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And so Sarah rushed off to Missouri to see about an inheritance. And what actually happened?
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Let's just say the detective found it very curious indeed. though curious is not the word Sarah's brother would have used.
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I mean, the fast you snap your hand, it just roared right to the house. The smoke just bellowing.
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You can't watch Sarah's long-suffering older brother, Cody Lee Smith, amble about his land in Missouri,
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and not be reminded of Job, living alone in a single wide, no car, no internet, The family farm, long gone.
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Wasn't always like this. Cody had done so well, despite his messed up family, until the day his grandmother passed away.
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It was August 2014. There was a funeral, of course. And Sarah came, like some dark, prodigal child.
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She stayed a night at the house with us. A couple days later, she wanted to kind of look through things.
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and I said, well, the will doesn't have you in it. No surprise, really. After all, Cody and his wife Mary and Nancy
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had been tending to Cody's grandmother and her farm for years. But Sarah wasn't happy at all.
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It just became more or less a screaming match. She said she was going to fight me for the house and the land and everything
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because she owed $200,000 on her place wherever she was living at the time. Sarah up and left after that,
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but Cody said she came back with help. The next thing I know, they've got trucks and trailers,
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and they're hauling everything, and then looking on her laptop to see how much it was worth.
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Ashley was there, too. My mom cleared out a lot of things. And she felt entitled to it.
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She did. She felt entitled to a lot of things. And I told my wife, so, well, I don't know what to do about it, really.
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I mean, I'm just going to let her have what she wants to have, and maybe then she'll let us alone.
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Wishful thinking? I would say it was about 2 o'clock in the morning. When I got up, I smelled smoke.
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The house was on fire, flames spreading rapidly across the wood floors. It just roared right through the house, the smoke just bellowing.
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I couldn't see my hand in front of my face, honestly. All I could do was crawl out the door.
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And I ran down to my brother's place. I woke him up, grabbed him up, and up to the house we came.
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Because his brother's 8-year-old son, Xander, had been sleeping over. and Cody hadn't been able to find him in the smoke.
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My brother dove in the house and somehow grabbed a hold of something that he thought was him and grabbed him and jerked him
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and out he came. They rushed Xander off to the hospital suffering from smoke inhalation and minor burns.
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He recovered. But the house Cody had just inherited was a total loss. We were right there watching the house go.
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Nothing else we could do. We got to watch everything we had go in a matter of just hours Cody was on Detective Rocks long list of people to talk to after Joe death
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He said that he believed it was Sarah from the beginning. Sarah had just came and got all the stuff she wanted out of the house, and now the house is on fire.
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He said that he called Sarah and was like, you didn't kill me or Xander, and he said that Sarah's response was, why is Xander in the house?
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Not, what are you talking about? Not, I would never try to kill you, you know? Strange, thought Detective Rocks.
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Sarah denied any involvement, of course. She denied to the fire investigators, she denied to the police, she denied to everybody.
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The sheriff's department said the cause of the fire was undetermined. The fire department found the same thing, though the fire marshal did find something noteworthy.
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The fire marshal observed poison ivy on the back of the house where the fire started,
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and a couple days later went to interview Sarah and reported that she had poison ivy rash on her face.
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But Sarah was never charged with anything. And despite all the local suspicions about Sarah and the fire,
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she stuck around for a bit. For this guy, Brian Altus, an old childhood chum of Sarah's,
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they reconnected during her grandmother's funeral. That's how Brian's two-year rollercoaster ride with Sarah began.
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Sarah told her husband Chris that her frequent trips to Missouri were necessary to deal with her grandmother's stuff, and all perfectly innocent.
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But she told Brian something quite different. She informed me that she and Chris were going to get divorced.
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Brian fell hard. There was something irresistible about that woman. What did you love about her back then?
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She has the way of making you feel really important. Like you matter. Was she attractive? Was she good in bed? Was she enticing?
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She was very attractive. Yes to pretty much about everything I think you just said.
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So she could persuade you that up was down and down was up? Oh yeah. And I firmly believe she could kill somebody right in front of a police officer
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and make him believe that she did not do it. You might want to remember that. Brian was as happy as he had ever been, and as miserable.
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There's no way you can be this person that everybody loves to be around to be downright mean and hateful in a matter of seconds.
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Basically the devil's daughter, if you ask me. Things got contentious between them.
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They filed for restraining orders against each other. Then, Sarah showed him a positive pregnancy test.
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And I'm like, nah, this ain't legit. Still, Brian agreed to meet with Sarah at his house just to talk.
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And I said, let's go do our own test together so that I can see for sure that you're pregnant.
00:33:02
And she wouldn't do it. They stood outside and argued until Sarah agreed to leave for good.
00:33:09
But she made one last request. Can I use the bathroom before I leave? I'm like, sure, no problem.
00:33:15
Finally, she came out. She went her way. I went down to the local bar in town. 20 to 40 minutes later, I'm getting a phone call from the local police station saying,
00:33:27
your house is on fire. Firefighters got there untied to prevent Brian's home from burning to the ground.
00:33:33
But there was still plenty of destruction. The fire was in my bedroom. Pretty much where most of the damage was, but it got so hot so quick and so much smoke.
00:33:43
My wife's was basically a gut job. Brian said Sarah called to say she was sorry to hear what happened
00:33:50
and suggested one of his relatives must have started the fire. And she told us she had nothing to do with it.
00:33:56
But to Detective Rocks, it seemed that flames followed Sarah wherever she went. There was the house fire for Cody Smith's house where he was inside of the residence at the time.
00:34:10
There was Titus's house being covered in gasoline. There was Brian Altus's bedroom caught on fire.
00:34:17
Every time I turned a different direction, there was something else. And the detective was beginning to believe that when Sarah wasn't happy, people around her were bound to suffer.
00:34:27
I just don't think Sarah is OK with not having the things that Sarah wants. Yeah, I'll betray you, you can't betray me.
00:34:35
Right. Anyway, she was out of Brian's life, finally. And what did she leave him with?
00:34:42
No, not a child, but perspective. You know, everybody joked about the fire, you know, how I was lucky to survive that.
00:34:50
But I think I really, truly did dodge a bullet. The next fella Sarah set her eyes on wouldn't be so lucky.
00:35:02
By the summer of 2016, Brian Altus was in Sarah's rearview mirror. But was Sarah lonely?
00:35:21
Not for long. She'd met a new man. A solar panel contractor for the Army named David Bragg.
00:35:30
Doris Swart is David's mother. She walked in the room. He turned around and saw her and went, wow.
00:35:39
And from that moment on, he was spellbound. Mind you, Sarah was actually still married to Chris Donahue.
00:35:48
But he was in Korea, so David Bragg was sleeping over. For years Chris had suspected Sarah was running around on him And now Ashley 17 years old at the time got a message to her dad told him what was going on in his own bedroom
00:36:05
My dad got permission to come back to the States from his boss, and I basically helped him catch her cheating on him.
00:36:13
Which wasn't easy, because with David there, Sarah had begun locking the bedroom door at night.
00:36:21
I went home one day while she wasn't at work, and I changed her doorknob so that my dad had a key.
00:36:26
And I hid it under a rock outside. Where Chris found it. And then he went inside to his bedroom
00:36:33
and made a shocking discovery in his bed. They were in bed together and she's made a whole bunch of excuses about it,
00:36:42
didn't know what to say. What could she say? Chris didn't stick around to hear it anyway.
00:36:49
He returned to Korea. And then like three days later, She claimed she had a brain tumor.
00:36:53
A brain tumor? All of a sudden, she gets so sick and she can't be around my sisters.
00:36:58
Why? Sarah claimed, bizarrely, that her kids could be harmed by radiation from her treatment.
00:37:06
So she skedaddled for two months, left Ashley in charge. So she wasn't staying at home, but I know that she was with David.
00:37:13
She was always with David. Of course, Ashley was right. David and Sarah went on vacation and stopped in to see David's mother, who liked Sarah.
00:37:24
She was extremely charming. She was a beautiful woman and carried herself very well, and she was gracious.
00:37:34
I thought he found a wonderful woman. David's adopted brother, Daniel Bragg, hoped that Sarah would be a keeper.
00:37:41
I actually met Sarah over FaceTime one time. Just a normal, happy lady, and my brother loved her, and we trusted him.
00:37:51
Early 2017, about a year into their romance, work had David on the move. 1,200 miles north to a tiny hamlet called Garfield, Minnesota.
00:38:03
What was supposed to happen was that she was supposed to come up there and live,
00:38:06
you know, happily ever after, of course. They would share their lives in an old white farmhouse they found.
00:38:13
Sarah's youngest three kids there with them part of the time. Sarah's friend Hannah heard about it.
00:38:20
I did. Look, it was an amazing, gorgeous property. Sarah and David got engaged, and though Sarah was still officially married to Chris,
00:38:30
she lived with David in the old farmhouse as he restored the place himself. But it wasn't long before Doris heard from Sarah that David wasn't working fast enough.
00:38:41
And what she did to speed him up? Well, Doris worried about that. She gave him Ritalin to get him more energy.
00:38:50
And he started using energy drinks. And then he couldn't sleep at night because he was taking Ritalin.
00:38:58
And then she gave him Ambien so he could sleep at night. And by then, Doris had been seeing some other troubling behaviors from Sarah.
00:39:08
She would scream at her children, threaten her children. She would scream at David.
00:39:14
But David didn't seem to mind. In fact, he tried harder to please her. At least that's how his father, Carl Bragg, and stepmother Laura saw it.
00:39:24
I wondered whether he would be somebody who would always try to see the good side in people,
00:39:29
even if maybe other people didn't. Absolutely. Yes. That he was always trying to make things right in a relationship.
00:39:39
He'd had failed relationships, and he kept trying to give this woman chances because he didn't want another failed relationship.
00:39:50
Then finally David seemed to wake up to the reality of life with Sarah, and... I knew that David was making plans to leave her.
00:40:00
The last time I saw him, he kind of wanted out. And then one spring day in May 2018...
00:40:07
She withdrew the gun, and she pointed back behind herself, and she fired emptying all of the rounds.
00:40:26
Detective Skylar Rocks had been trying to piece together what happened to Joe Hartsfield,
00:40:35
even though some of her more experienced colleagues thought she was chasing a crime that didn't exist.
00:40:41
But Rocks was uncovering Sarah's half-buried secrets. The deeper you went into these, the more crazy things you'd find out, right?
00:40:51
Yes. Like the disturbing story of the fate of David Bragg, Sarah's lover, fiancé, and in the end, victim?
00:41:04
Here's the story as Sarah told it to her friend Hannah. David and herself had been fighting, and so she put the two girls in the car and said,
00:41:14
we're leaving back to Texas. When she was about to leave, she realized she had two guns in her car,
00:41:20
so she decided to bring them back to the house. Hannah thought it was odd that Sarah said she put the guns in the pockets of her knit sweater.
00:41:29
They're very heavy. Anyway, Sarah told Hannah she went inside, saw David, and pulled out one of the guns for protection.
00:41:37
And somehow they came together and they wrestled over the gun, and he was able to get it away from her.
00:41:45
Then, Sarah told Hannah, David fired at her. She hit the ground quote unquote When she hit the ground that when the other gun in the sweater pocket hit the ground also And she remembered that she had a second gun So she withdrew the gun and she pointed back behind herself and she fired emptying all of the rounds
00:42:10
Without even looking back there. She just pointed it back behind her from the ground and fired.
00:42:17
Here's what she told her son, Ryan. As she's coming down the stairs, she dropped in place and had her arm over the railing and fired that way.
00:42:28
So just picture yourself crouched down, arm over the railing and just shooting blindly.
00:42:35
Later, Sarah told officials, he was still coming towards me. My only chance at surviving that moment was to fire at him.
00:42:44
Baloney, said Ryan. She hit him center mass. Like, there's no way. The story couldn't be true.
00:42:54
No. Even Hannah, loyal Hannah, knew that. She tried to convince me because she should know I also have gun experience, weapon experience, and this is unbelievable.
00:43:07
Then Sarah told her something that Hannah absolutely believed about the local police.
00:43:14
Sarah told me herself. They never once suspected foul play. No. She bragged that she rode in the front seat of the police car to the police station.
00:43:24
They didn't investigate anything. Well, as you have said, she was an engaging person.
00:43:29
Incredibly, incredibly engaging. Oh, there was an investigation. It involved the Douglas County Sheriff, the county prosecutor, and even state law enforcement.
00:43:41
It went on for months. And then the prosecutor's office released a statement that there was some ballistic evidence to support Sarah's version.
00:43:51
Self-defense. Case closed. Even David Bragg's mother, Doris, who is devastated by the loss of her son,
00:44:00
believed Sarah. It seemed that way to us at the time that that would make sense because guns were involved.
00:44:08
It was a shaky relationship. So it all did seem reasonable. But David's brother Daniel didn't think it was reasonable at all.
00:44:21
He was sure the investigators got played by Sarah. They just kind of swept it under the rug.
00:44:27
They didn't prosecute it. They didn't do anything with it except take her word for it.
00:44:32
What did you make of that shooting when you examined the evidence? There's a lot of inconsistencies.
00:44:38
There's a lot of things that I think should be investigated further. Maybe the Minnesota detective should have talked to Ashley,
00:44:46
who could have told them how her mother reacted, when a man didn't want her anymore.
00:44:51
She got really sad and upset about my dad because my dad had started talking to somebody.
00:44:57
She hated that. I think that she was playing house with David at home, but then, like, still trying to get with my dad behind David's back.
00:45:04
Oof, complicated. She and complicated go along very well. Days before the shooting, said Ashley, she was with her mom in Texas when Sarah packed up to return to the farmhouse.
00:45:17
She told me if anything happens, when I go back to Minnesota and I have to defend myself, call this person and tell them to come pick up the girls.
00:45:26
And I was just like, why? And I told her, I was like, Mom, I don't think anything's going to happen like that.
00:45:31
And she was like, well, if it does, she's like, call them and tell them to come pick up the girls.
00:45:36
And I was like, okay. And then I get a call a couple days later, and I was like, whoa.
00:45:41
That call, a couple of days later, was how Ashley learned that David was dead. In your heart of hearts, what do you think happened in there?
00:45:49
I personally think that she provoked a fight, and she thought that she would be able to get my dad back.
00:45:54
He would want her back if David was no longer in the picture. Except Chris didn't want her back.
00:46:01
Their divorce was nearly final. But maybe David was in the way for quite a different reason.
00:46:08
A tall, handsome stranger of a reason. The propane delivery guy with a catchy nickname, the Gas Man.
00:46:17
This gas man came down her long driveway in the country, and she just fell in love with him on sight.
00:46:33
David Bragg was dead. But Sarah was very much alive and full of plans. For one thing, it was the old white farmhouse in Minnesota that still needed fixing.
00:46:49
Sure, she shot fiancé David inside it, but plans are plans. And now she had a new man who was happy to help.
00:46:57
This gas man came down her long driveway in the country, And she just fell in love with him on sight.
00:47:06
That love at first sight meeting happened, by the way, months before she shot David Bragg.
00:47:11
And the gas man happened to be another David, David George. So Sarah called him George.
00:47:19
David Bragg's mother, who maintained a relationship with Sarah, actually met him.
00:47:25
David George told me he was blown away when he met her. He had never seen such a beautiful woman.
00:47:34
A year after she shot David Bragg, George became husband number four. Young Ryan liked him, mostly.
00:47:43
He really cared about us. He tried helping us every way he could. I think his only flaw, it doesn't make him a bad guy,
00:47:52
is the fact that, you know, my mom was his wife, and even when she's wrong, he sides with her.
00:47:59
Thank you. which is something to keep in mind when you hear what happened next. But first, to bring you up to date,
00:48:06
husband number three Chris had remarried two to a woman named Heather. They moved to Arizona and they were very happy.
00:48:14
Except for one big problem. Chris and Sarah had a custody agreement for their two youngest daughters.
00:48:22
But Sarah wasn't honoring it. According to Chris, she refused for years to let him get anywhere near the girls.
00:48:29
And then one day, one of those girls, Hannah, named for Sarah's friend Hannah, told Ashley she needed to talk.
00:48:38
She's like, I can't tell you. She's like, George told me not to say anything. I was like, I'm not going to run back to mom or tell her that you said anything.
00:48:44
And so she tells me, and she like whispers it to me. The secret was unbelievable.
00:48:51
And Ashley knew she could not let it remain secret. What did Hannah tell you? What's going to happen?
00:48:59
George had told her that my mom wouldn't let George back in the house until he killed Heather.
00:49:06
Chris's new wife. He was supposed to knock on the door, Heather was supposed to answer, and then he was supposed to shoot her.
00:49:12
He didn't want to do it, and my mom kept pressuring him to do it. What was it like to hear that?
00:49:17
It honestly made me sick. Ashley got her dad on the phone. How did your dad react to what you told him?
00:49:24
I think it really, really stressed him out. His main concern was making sure his wife was safe.
00:49:30
The urgency intensified for Chris and Heather once Chris realized he'd already been face to face with David George, Sarah's current husband, and the would-be hitman, as you can see for yourself.
00:49:44
This delivery man on doorbell video at the Donahue residence? That is David George, who had traveled all the way from Minnesota to the Donahue place in Arizona.
00:49:55
Yes, hello. Yeah, okay. Some flowers for on use. The flowers were addressed to Chris's wife,
00:50:02
Heather. Okay, perfect. But then, something curious. No car or anything? Was there a hint of nervousness in the delivery
00:50:12
man's voice? Um, let me check and see if I got it. Okay, thank you. The mysterious delivery man
00:50:19
never returned. So what happened after all of this? David George wouldn't do it, right?
00:50:25
What happened after that to their relationship? He wasn't allowed back in the house.
00:50:30
Though Sarah offered her friend Hannah a whole other reason for dumping George. She kicked him out because of an online cellular phone affair he was having with another woman.
00:50:43
I see. It wasn't anything to do with this just insanely unbelievable story, conspiracy story about a hit.
00:50:54
And Sarah told her she wasn't only mad at George, she was mad at Ashley, too. This is all per Sarah's narrative.
00:51:01
Ashley, of course, wanting to do anything to destroy Sarah's happiness and joy and chance at a good life,
00:51:08
Ashley calls the FBI and Ashley reports the entire story of the attempted hit. But no, it was actually Chris who called the FBI.
00:51:21
And then they spoke to David George. David George admits to the FBI what he was doing.
00:51:26
David George does. But then George recanted. Why do you think he changed his mind and said it was all a lie?
00:51:36
That electric control that Sarah has over men. With that, the FBI's investigation had a huge hole,
00:51:45
and the United States attorney refused to prosecute. So the case fell apart. But not before Chris went to family court and got a protective order barring Sarah from getting near him or their two youngest children.
00:51:59
And that, said Ashley, that seemed to send her mother right over the edge. Of course, she lost her mind on him when she lost custody of my sisters.
00:52:10
David George declined our request for an on-camera interview, but he told us he never had any intention of killing anyone.
00:52:18
In any case, Sarah was done with George, but it wasn't like she was a nun, after all.
00:52:26
Sarah then began a series of relationships through online dating. The first, the band of her dreams.
00:52:34
Sarah told Hannah that Ashley destroyed that one, too, when she sent an article about David Bragg's death to the ex-wife of the man,
00:52:43
and he dropped her. Smart man. Then the next relationship after him ended with her giving him alcohol to consume until he passed out.
00:52:52
So she could call the police, have them show up, see guns in his possession, because she had found out he had a record and was not able to be in the vicinity of guns.
00:53:04
Got him arrested. Got him arrested. Anna thought Sarah had lost it. And I actually said, no men, stop with the men.
00:53:14
If only Sarah had taken her advice. But no, she went out looking for the next love of her life,
00:53:23
and found him. His name, of course, was Joe Hartsfield. It wasn't long before Detective Rocks realized Joe Hartsfield had no idea what he was getting into when he met Sarah.
00:53:49
He didn't even know the basics. Did Joseph know he was husband number five? No he did not Hmm There a lot he didn know about that woman Yes Would Joe have been scared away by Sarah past Impossible to know now
00:54:07
Detective Rocks, meanwhile, was still trying to take it all in. I reached a point where I just stopped being shocked.
00:54:14
But she found that every turn led to another story about Sarah's past. Like the thing that happened to Sarah's father in 2005.
00:54:22
Remember, he was accused of molesting Sarah years earlier when she was very young.
00:54:28
She told me that she was going to go get him and bring him home. I said, this is the guy that you've hated all your life and you've talked about so terribly.
00:54:36
Well, somebody has to. But what happened once he got to Sarah's place? He was at our house for like two or three days and he died right in front of me.
00:54:46
He died right in front of you? Yeah. She had given him his medicine. Like he had a liquid medicine to take and like he grabbed his chest like this and just died.
00:54:57
Like, yeah. Ashley was six at the time and the only witness. An ambulance came, but there was nothing to be done.
00:55:08
Sarah told us her father died of natural causes and that he was given medication prescribed to him and nothing else.
00:55:16
But nowhere in the long list of Sarah's alleged misdeeds were any charges or convictions.
00:55:23
And it would stay that way, thought Detective Skyler Rocks, if she couldn't nail down this one case.
00:55:30
Joe's case. And at some point, I had to tell myself that I had to quit digging and focus on Joseph
00:55:35
because Joseph is my victim. At that point, it wasn't a murder investigation. Not yet.
00:55:42
Joe was still being kept alive at the hospital. So Detective Rocks went about figuring out what Sarah was doing in the hours leading up to Joe's health crisis.
00:55:52
After talking to Sarah for the first time, I knew that the story just didn't make sense.
00:56:00
Like her claim that she herself was medicated heavily. And that's why she didn't notice Joe's symptoms.
00:56:08
I was asleep on the couch. That asleep on the couch thing didn't add up to Detective Rocks.
00:56:15
Nor did this story she told about leaving a glass of orange juice on the kitchen counter for Joe.
00:56:22
Did you find that glass? There was a glass of orange juice on the counter. However, the orange juice at the bottom of the glass was dried out.
00:56:32
And it also had like black specks of mold in it. but there is a difference between thinking someone is lying and proving it she needed someone high up
00:56:44
to believe her i'd never met her before but i saw the look on her face she found district attorney
00:56:52
cheryl leake henry and told her how joe was barely alive how the hospital staff was suspicious he'd
00:56:59
had too much insulin in his body and how Sarah was keeping his family away from him. The more she
00:57:05
started talking, the more, you know, my jaw started dropping. And finally I said, you've got a case.
00:57:12
And so Detective Rocks returned to the hospital on January 12th, five days after Joe first got
00:57:18
there and found Sarah in Joe's room. I told her, you know, Sarah, I have some bad news for you.
00:57:24
and she's like okay what is it and i said i'm gonna need your phone and she says oh crap like that
00:57:33
and then she says so here's the question i don't have to give you this without a warrant right
00:57:39
and i said i do have a warrant but sarah did not want to part with her phone you could tell the
00:57:46
wheels in her head were turning she was trying to process like what is going on and she had told me
00:57:52
that she was in the middle of typing a Facebook post to update everybody of Joseph's condition,
00:57:57
and she asked if she could go ahead and post the Facebook post. What was she telling people had happened to Joe?
00:58:03
That he had a stroke. A stroke would mean no foul play, except the medical record was clear.
00:58:11
Joe did not have a stroke. And then the phone data came in. And remember Sarah's story?
00:58:18
she was asleep on post-operative medication and couldn't do more than put an occasional glass of
00:58:23
OJ on the counter for Joe? Well, well. She was not asleep from five o'clock in the morning until
00:58:29
1 p.m. When she said she was. Correct. Sarah was busy, though her browsing data had been deleted.
00:58:39
There were cookies that proved she was on her USAA banking app, that she was on Facebook, that
00:58:44
she was on Realtor.com, that she was on ZipRecruiter. She even ordered a grocery delivery during that time.
00:58:55
And soon after Joe went into diabetic shock, Sarah changed his phone settings and made herself
00:59:01
the beneficiary of his digital legacy. In the event of Joseph's death, she would have all rights to his Apple iCloud, Apple
00:59:12
ID, all of his Apple devices. Sarah texted her daughter that Joe snored so much she had to sleep on the couch and
00:59:22
attached a recording as proof. But that also puts the cell phone in her hand while she's receiving a notification that
00:59:32
her husband's blood sugar is low every five minutes. Every five minutes during that entire time.
00:59:37
Yes. I believe it was 124 notifications that she received. Received them and didn't act on them all that time.
00:59:43
Yep. So now the detective had some evidence. She wasn't imagining things after all.
00:59:50
That's when everybody was like, okay, okay, okay, you might have been right. Like this might be a little weird It was not a minute too soon said the DA We gotten some information that she was talking to a realtor about putting her house on the market So we were afraid that she was going to flee
01:00:20
The Chambers County DA called in the grand jury. to make the case against Sarah before she could up and leave.
01:00:29
And finally, after so many years of accusations, this time would be different. We got an indictment early February, and Sarah was arrested on February 3rd, 2023.
01:00:41
It was 19 days after Joe died, and the day after Sarah's 48th birthday. Were you at the arrest?
01:00:49
Yes, I arrested her. What was that like? She wasn't confused. Was the arrest just in time?
01:00:56
It seemed like. One thing that stood out to me is the love seat in her bedroom had been cleaned off,
01:01:02
and it had a suitcase on it with her belongings packed in it. Sarah Hartsfield wouldn't be needing that where she was heading now.
01:01:11
Clothing is provided. She was booked into the Chambers County Jail, and as quick as she could, she called her daughter, Ashley.
01:01:20
I was getting my hair done and I saw that I was getting a call and it said prison slash jail.
01:01:27
And she answered and I was like, what did you do? And what'd she say? She said, they arrested me. And I was like, for what? And she said, murder.
01:01:36
Later that night, like it really, it really was just heavy on me. I came to the realization that I had to accept that something was really wrong.
01:01:45
Then news spread to the mother who lost her son, who no longer believed he was killed in self-defense.
01:01:52
I was so upset that she had killed another man when she could have gone to prison for killing our son,
01:02:00
and no one else would have died. To the boyfriend who said he'd dodged a bullet.
01:02:06
I was like, f*** yeah, about time. The first husband who felt the same way. Were you surprised?
01:02:12
that she was arrested? I was. She's gotten away with so much stuff, but she never, ever got caught.
01:02:21
And of course, Joe's sister. I was so happy. Happy and emotional. I mean, just both of them at the same time.
01:02:30
But Sarah told us it was all a big mistake. She wrote from the jail that she is a 20-year combat veteran of the Army
01:02:39
who had a top-secret security clearance, that she's completely innocent, has always loved her husband Joseph,
01:02:45
and is devastated at the loss of him. She would have to wait two and a half years to get that message to a jury.
01:02:52
And while she waited... I care about what you think. You're my child, but I also thought you were my friend.
01:03:01
Sarah applied her particular form of pressure on daughter Ashley, who, despite the abuse, still had some contact with her mother.
01:03:09
I just need to know if you're behind me or not. Or are you? I don't really know what you're asking me right now.
01:03:20
Are you supportive of me or not? Do you believe I didn't do anything to her show?
01:03:27
I don't, Mom, I don't know. And then, finally, September 30th, 2025, Bible in hand,
01:03:36
Sarah walked into court. where she would face prosecutor Mallory Vargas, another woman in law enforcement
01:03:44
who believed she saw Sarah for who she truly was. The defendant's deceptions, clever little half-truths,
01:03:53
her performance, it can get over on some people. She's really convincing if you don't look too closely,
01:04:01
if you don't ask too many questions or make her angry. And Sarah was furious with poor Joe because he wanted to leave her.
01:04:10
What happens when a man wants to leave her? It's pretty clear. All hell breaks loose.
01:04:16
Never mind if she had already tried to end the relationship. She can end it, they just can't end it.
01:04:23
Right. And, lucky for the prosecutor, Texas has a rule allowing the use of habitual bad acts as evidence in a trial.
01:04:32
I was surprised that the judge allowed her prior acts, and I was so thankful that they did.
01:04:43
Doris, David Bragg's mother, testified that Sarah knew David wanted to end their relationship before she shot him.
01:04:51
Oh, and that story she told about a gunfight with David? That didn't make sense, said Doris.
01:04:57
If David wanted to shoot at her, she would have been dead. He was an excellent shot.
01:05:04
Doris also testified about Sarah letting her in on a secret. She told me that when her grandmother died, she had burned the house down so that her brother could not have it.
01:05:16
That brother, Cody, also testified about the fire. Brian testified about the fire at his house.
01:05:23
Titus testified about the house he said she doused with gasoline. Chris, her third husband, testified about the alleged plot to kill his new wife.
01:05:33
There was a pattern. They all told stories of tumultuous relationships with Sarah
01:05:39
that ended with her inflicting pain. And then there were her children. Did you watch her as she watched them as they talked about her?
01:05:50
Yeah she had a lot of contempt for them and for the girls especially Emma her youngest testified that she heard about her mother alleged plot to kill her father new wife but was too scared of her to tell anyone Her daughter Hannah who was 13
01:06:08
when David Bragg died, said she saw her mother heading straight for a confrontation with David
01:06:14
with her gun cocked and ready. Then there was Joe. He was getting out. He was leaving her. He was so
01:06:23
close. So close. But the prosecutor said Sarah was not going to let that happen, even though
01:06:31
Sarah wanted out too. Ashley testified her mother said Joe had put them in debt,
01:06:37
so much so she wanted to leave, but couldn't. I was so tired of hearing about Joe and everything
01:06:43
he does wrong and how she was so over her marriage. Over enough to kill her husband,
01:06:51
said Vargas. The last witness for the prosecution was Detective Skylar Rocks, who told the jury Sarah's story didn't add up. Sarah did not seem under the influence of
01:07:03
painkillers when she talked to deputies. There was no way Sarah was sleeping when she said she was.
01:07:09
Her phone showed otherwise. She had taken anywhere between nine and 174 steps every single hour of
01:07:17
that time. And Joe's blood sugar plummeted so low on January 6th, the day before she called 911,
01:07:24
that his Dexcom monitor didn't even give a reading. Then the prosecutor argued that Sarah
01:07:31
planned the whole thing. First, she drugged him. Joe had benzodiazepines in his system that weren't
01:07:37
prescribed to him. As well as Benadryl and restless leg syndrome medication, which Sarah said she gave
01:07:44
to Joe. All three of those caused drowsiness. Yet Joe, who never took pills, not even for a headache,
01:07:52
didn't have restless leg syndrome. So when Sarah fed Joe his favorite meal his last night at home,
01:07:59
was it spiked? Is that how she got him to take all that medicine that Joe Hartsfield wouldn't
01:08:05
have taken on his own? Then, said the prosecutor, Sarah injected her husband with the insulin that
01:08:12
would eventually kill him. I can't tell you if she put the needle in him herself or if she grabs his hand and uses
01:08:24
his own hand while he's drugged by her drugs when he's unconscious and she uses his own
01:08:32
hand to do it. I can't tell you that. And there's a reason I can't tell you that.
01:08:38
Because murderers hide how they murder people generally. And then, once Joe was in the hospital, still on life support, Sarah left this voicemail for Ashley, telling her in a way only Sarah could.
01:08:51
Don't help the investigators. Hey, honey, I know you're sleeping. I'm sorry. I'm not trying to call wake you up.
01:08:58
If anyone contacts you from Chambers County, which is the county I would have, please decline to comment only because this is not looking like,
01:09:11
it's just not looking so procedural anymore. Not procedural. The case of Sarah Hartsfield was a sweeping tale of misbehavior leading finally to murder.
01:09:25
But her defense team had a plan. Did you have people sitting around the courtroom or something?
01:09:30
I did. I always do. A rural courtroom in southeast Texas became the site of Sarah Hartsfield's very own warped family reunion.
01:09:54
Such a history. All of which was very interesting, said the defense, but it had nothing to do with Joe Hartsfield's death.
01:10:04
Have you ever seen a case like this before? No, I certainly have not seen a case like this that was so complex.
01:10:12
Case Darwin was Sarah's defense attorney. How could Darwin possibly defend a woman charged with murder and accused of decades of bad acts?
01:10:22
arsons, plural, a murder plot, shooting David Bragg, etc., etc. Only way he could, said Attorney Darwin.
01:10:31
All of that was simply a distraction. I think you called those extraneous acts smoke and mirrors.
01:10:38
I probably did. To me, the state was focusing on everything but the incident itself
01:10:45
because it was nearly impossible to prove how Joe died. Prosecutors had accused Sarah of drugging Joe and killing him with his own insulin.
01:10:57
But at the end of the day, there wasn't proof of that. Because the prosecution's case had been missing one crucial thing, said Darwin.
01:11:07
The medical examiner had found what Joe died of, an insulin overdose, but never how.
01:11:14
His death was never ruled a homicide. Undetermined, said the ME's report. I've never seen a homicide with an ME report where it comes back as undetermined.
01:11:27
And the defense insisted it wasn't Sarah who gave her husband the fatal dose of insulin.
01:11:32
It was most likely Joe himself. But the police had blinders on. Detective Rocks never considered that Joe did this to himself.
01:11:43
That wasn't investigated. Period. Joe suffered from very severe medical issues. Sure.
01:11:49
And also the state even admitted that they couldn't prove how insulin was administered to Joe.
01:11:58
He could have possibly. had done that to himself accidentally and had an overdose of some sort.
01:12:05
The detective hadn't collected the insulin pens. And, the defense said, Joe was terrible at managing his blood sugar.
01:12:14
Twice in the prior year, he'd gone to the hospital overnight for being so high. He practically came close to killing himself.
01:12:24
Darwin hoped the jury would see Sarah, the law-abiding Army veteran, Not Sarah the murderer.
01:12:32
She did have a successful military career. She was an upstanding citizen. And for all these extraneous offenses, she wasn't arrested even for one of them.
01:12:45
Question was, would the jury buy that version of Sarah? Attorney Darwin had some help in that area.
01:12:52
Her name is Lynn Marie Garcy. She was a court-appointed private investigator working for Sarah, part of her team.
01:13:00
Did you have people sitting around the courtroom or something? I did. I always do.
01:13:04
I like to get the feelers of what the general public is saying. And one of her jobs was to watch how the jury and the gallery responded to Sarah.
01:13:15
You never know who I'm going to have or where they're going to be or where they're sitting.
01:13:20
But they like to sit in trials and watch things. Sure. And these silent observers were telling Lynn Marie that Sarah's behavior in court from day one wasn't helping.
01:13:32
Bringing that Bible in that first day, I looked at her and I said, no. Yes, I am. I said, no.
01:13:40
I said, that's nothing more than a prop. And I said, people are going to read right through you.
01:13:44
And the defense cared a great deal about what a certain 12 people thought. I watched that jury real intent because I'm a people watcher.
01:13:53
So I study behaviors and motions and things like that. That jury hated her from day one.
01:14:01
Interesting. What was it, do you think, that set them off? I think her arrogance and I think her facial remarks.
01:14:08
On the last day of testimony, after listening to the prosecution's 34 witnesses,
01:14:14
Sarah walked into the courthouse ready to testify herself. She had, I think, five or six pages of questions that she was determined that Mr. Darwin was
01:14:26
going to ask her. But Lynn Marie thanks to her spies in the audience was sure of one thing Sarah would not be able to win over the jury by testifying so Lynn Marie gave Sarah some advice I told her you never listened to one dadgum thing that I told you
01:14:42
but this is one time you better open your ears and shut your mouth. If you think you're going to get on that witness stand and it's going to be an hour or maybe two hours,
01:14:51
you got another thing coming, I said, because Mallory Fix and Rip, you and no rear end.
01:14:54
Mallory Vargas, the prosecutor, that is. So, Sarah, back down. and agreed not to testify.
01:15:03
Instead, attorney Darwin reminded the jury of the rule about reasonable doubt. There still is no evidence, literally none, that Sarah administered insulin.
01:15:19
The record is replete with doubt. Render a verdict of not guilty. Thank you. The jury of the case.
01:15:27
and everyone in Sarah's orbit waited. Waiting, as they say, is the hardest part,
01:15:48
especially during jury deliberations. You put this decision in 12 random people's hands
01:15:55
and you're hoping for the best, you know? Luckily, for those anticipating the verdict in the case of Sarah Hartsfield, the wait was not very long at all.
01:16:07
How long were they out? I think right around an hour. Did they have lunch in that hour as well?
01:16:14
They did. They did. Mrs. Hartsfield, if you would stand at this time. The jury find the defendant, Sarah Hartsfield, guilty of the offensive murder as alleged in the indictment.
01:16:26
guilty. I kind of felt a little weak to my knees. I was just thanking God that this is over.
01:16:35
And over on the defense side, P.I. Lynn Marie Garcy wasn't disappointed. In fact, she breathed a sigh of relief.
01:16:44
If she'd been acquitted... She'd burn my house down. That was the first thought that went through my mind.
01:16:50
Although she wasn't that worried about Sarah coming after her. I mean, I carry a pew-pew, so it don't bother me.
01:16:57
You carry a what? Pew-pew. Sorry. The case of Texas v Sarah Jean Hartsfield still had one more step In Texas the punishment phase is its own mini The jury would hear testimony and decide Sarah sentence
01:17:20
That's why Sarah's three daughters took the stand again, to tell the jury how much they'd suffered.
01:17:31
I think it was important for them to see how tightly woven her kids were to her violence and to her stories and to her lies.
01:17:44
She got upset with me through a glass bowl towards my face and a knife that stuck into the wall.
01:17:50
I fell to the ground and she started hitting me. The jury had the option of sentencing Sarah to anything from 5 to 99 years behind bars,
01:17:59
or the maximum life. In her final argument, the prosecutor said there was really only one choice.
01:18:06
She is unfit to be around the rest of us. The only justice you're going to see is life.
01:18:15
And the jury listened. We, the jury, having found the defendant guilty of murder,
01:18:23
assessed for punishment at confinement in the institutional division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for life.
01:18:29
The punishment that she was given, life in prison, does that seem like the right one to you or what?
01:18:39
I've had mixed feelings about that. In the very beginning, I would have loved for her to have been put to death.
01:18:48
Yeah. But then having met her kids, you know, and regardless of what she did to them, that's still their mother.
01:18:57
and I wouldn't wish that on them. So I'm happy. I'm happy. I feel like justice was served.
01:19:09
At a press conference after the sentencing, District Attorney Leake Henry had a message
01:19:14
for law enforcement and other jurisdictions across the country. I hope now that we have done all the work for you.
01:19:22
You will seek justice for the many other victims of this psychopath. We learned that the Douglas County, Minnesota Sheriff's Office
01:19:30
has reopened the David Bragg shooting case, though his mother isn't holding her breath.
01:19:37
I don't believe that Douglas County in Minnesota will actually investigate the case Maybe they will I don give them much credit to do that And there another death in Minnesota authorities are looking into Remember Sarah fourth husband David George Before he
01:19:59
met Sarah, he was in a 25-year relationship with a woman named Rebecca. Not long after Sarah met
01:20:05
George, Rebecca suddenly died. George told us Rebecca died of a heart valve problem.
01:20:12
Oh, and seven months later, the house he'd shared with Rebecca burned down. George said he and Sarah were out of state at the time.
01:20:22
After Sarah was arrested for Joe's murder, the Todd County Sheriff's Office reopened investigations
01:20:27
into both Rebecca's death and the fire. Sarah hasn't talked to us since the trial.
01:20:35
What hopes do you have that other investigations will produce more charges, and does it matter now that she's been sentenced to life?
01:20:42
I do think it matters. Those families deserve justice, too. And Skylar Rocks has reason to be optimistic.
01:20:51
She hit a home run her first time at bat. Strange and unlikely journey, and there you are,
01:20:57
right out of the gate of your career. I wonder if you'll ever run into one like that again.
01:21:02
I doubt it. I feel like this is a once-in-a-lifetime case. Or maybe it just took a particular team of women
01:21:10
to look at one case differently. A lot of female serial killers and female predators
01:21:19
go under their radar because law enforcement was predominantly male. Sarah is good at manipulating men.
01:21:29
I think there being a female detective, a female ADA, and a female district attorney,
01:21:35
we didn't feel the same way as a guy would, you know? So what made the difference?
01:21:43
I think it was a huge factor. It was all women. Because they know how it works. That's right.
01:21:51
You can't fool us. That's all for this edition of Dateline. And check out our Talking Dateline podcast,
01:22:02
which will go behind the scenes of tonight's episode. Available Wednesday in the Dateline feed,
01:22:08
wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you again next Friday at 9, 8 central.
01:22:14
I'm Lester Holt. For all of us at NBC News, good night.