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[SOMBER MUSIC] NARRATOR: Sheila LaBarre is a woman who knows how to get what she wants.
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KEVIN FLYNN: Now, you can imagine older man in his 70s receiving a very naughty photograph
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from a beautiful woman in her 20s. JAMES BOFFETTI: That's what she did. You know, she flirted and she snagged
00:00:29
them in like the black widow. It was a house of horrors. It was-- it was a place of torture.
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KEVIN FLYNN: This ended up being the biggest police search in state history. They couldn't find anything except a pair of human toes.
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JOHN ENCARNACAO: Is there somebody walking around with a limp that is missing some toes, or is that person gone?
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NARRATOR: Were police investigating a missing person case, or a murder, or two murders, or three or more
00:01:04
as they interrogated Sheila LaBarre? [EERIE MUSIC] CAROLYN COUNTIE: Kenny wanted to be like anybody else.
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He wanted to be loved. He wanted to be accepted, and Sheila searched for those that
00:01:56
had problems and she could tell that Kenny had problems in his speaking, in his thinking.
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And that's how she went after him on a sex chat line. JAMES BOFFETTI: She's a pretty smart woman.
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And so she's looking for men who no one's going to miss. I mean, that's sort of the point.
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NARRATOR: February 14, 2006, Valentine's Day. KEVIN FLYNN: Kenny meets Sheila at a fancy bar
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overlooking the ocean, and they have a few drinks. She drank. She was loud. She was obnoxious.
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They move from the bar to the back seat of Sheila's car, where they have sex. NARRATOR: Within days, Sheila LaBarre lured Kenny
00:02:44
out to the farm in Epping. JOHN ENCARNACAO: This place is, you know, it was a little frightening,
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because it was dark. It was kind of dingy. You know, it wasn't really made up very well, dirty.
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CAROLYN COUNTIE: He thought everybody was good. He didn't see any bad in anybody.
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He didn't think anybody could hurt him. And with Sheila, it wasn't a request. It was always a demand, and Kenny bowed down to demands.
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He didn't know how to deal with them. When, you know, our eyes really opened, you know, we started seeing, you know,
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evidence in the form of blood spatter. We located a number of bone fragments and bones,
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both in the house as well as on the property. And a lot of the bone fragments that we found,
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you know, it was tough initially, because those bone fragments were potentially animal bones.
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But at some point, we did-- we were able to confirm some of the bones that we did take were human remains.
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NARRATOR: Officer Encarnacao had been called to the farm, which was home to Sheila LaBarre.
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Many times married, a magnet to a certain type of man. Was she responsible for the disappearance of Kenny Countie?
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CAROLYN COUNTIE: Satan's child. She has no mer-- she-- she doesn't have a soul. She's-- she has no soul.
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She's Satan's child. NARRATOR: There were many ways to view Sheila LaBarre-- a victim, an avenger, a cold-hearted killer of men.
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And nobody knows how many men. Born in 1958, Sheila LaBarre learned how to play the system from an early age.
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JAMES BOFFETTI: If she wanted something, then she would figure out a way to do it.
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She was determined to get what she wanted and would do it whatever way-- so whether it's charm or it's with vile,
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she would-- she would use it. She was a little different. Came across as a little different but friendly
00:04:43
until you crossed her. Sheila LaBarre was involved with quite a few men during her life.
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She has like this odd sex drive. I mean, that's all she seems to know how to do.
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She soothes herself with sex. She was very engaging, very nice, very appropriate
00:05:01
when she needed to be. And then she could turn on a dime and be extremely vicious.
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KEVIN FLYNN: Sheila was born in a very small town in Alabama named Fort Payne. She was the youngest of six kids,
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and Sheila's childhood was very troubled. Her older sister says that Sheila was the--
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the subject of sexual abuse from her father and from other men. BRIAN FREDERICK: Unfortunately, for the men
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who are attracted to LaBarre, she may see them as an extension of her father. Sheila has big dreams.
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She wants to move out of this little town. She wants to become either a model or a country music singer.
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She has some talent. She likes to draw. And so she's looking for a way to get out of her life.
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And one of the ways that many girls do that in a small town is to marry a guy. NARRATOR: The potential husband who
00:06:03
fell into Sheila's sights, a man by the name of John Baxter. KEVIN FLYNN: Sheila was very young at the time.
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She was about, I think, 18 or 19 years old when she married John. He was a lineman for the county, and he was recently divorced
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and had a young daughter named Wendy. Wendy says that when John would go off to work
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and Sheila had to play house mom, that Sheila would give her something to drink.
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It might have been brandy. It might have been NyQuil, and that she would put Wendy in the closet to kind
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of keep her out of the way. Well, that kind of treatment did not sit well with John.
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When he found out that that's what Sheila was doing, she-- he basically said, you're out of here.
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So that was a pretty quick relationship. Sheila's second husband was a guy by the name of Ronnie Jennings.
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He worked at a restaurant in town, and Sheila fell hard for him. But their relationship was pretty tumultuous.
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She takes out her frustrations on Ronnie. She's abusive to him, and he decides that he doesn't want to be in the relationship anymore.
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This crushes Sheila. NARRATOR: What happened next would have a profound effect on Sheila?
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She overdosed on some medication. She got into a car accident. She went to a medical center.
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KEVIN FLYNN: While Sheila was in the hospital, she had gone into a coma. She had these apparitions.
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KEVIN FLYNN: She had recovered. But when she came back, she told everybody that she
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had died and gone to Heaven. She came back as an angel. And I mean, it's-- it's--
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it's-- it's pretty bizarre stuff. God had sent her back as an avenging angel. NARRATOR: What did Sheila believe she was avenging?
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And how would this supposedly divine mission play out in the rest of her life? Yet again, Sheila was on the hunt for a man.
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JAMES BOFFETTI: Sheila met Dr. LaBarre through a personal ad. I think it was in a newspaper.
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KEVIN FLYNN: He was a widower. He lived on a horse farm in rural New Hampshire. He was very lonely after losing his wife
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and-- and wanted companionship. And Sheila really wanted to leave the small town in Alabama
00:08:26
that she had been living in. She responded to this Lonely Hearts ad by sending a nude photo of herself.
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Now you can imagine Dr. LaBarre, older man in his 70s, receiving a very naughty photograph
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from a beautiful woman in her 20s. Wilfred LaBarre was much older. We don't know much about their intimacy
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within the relationship. But in my opinion, he probably filled the role of a father figure for her.
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JAMES BOFFETTI: We found photographs that I think maybe Dr. LaBarre had taken of her posing,
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you know, in kind of a provocative way. But very-- she's very, very attractive. I think that that was something that appealed to him.
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This farm was-- was quite remote. It was off of a side street for about a mile. KEVIN FLYNN: You know, it wasn't the kind of farm
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where you were growing potatoes and you had to do a lot of hard labor. He just loved horses, and they would just sort of roam
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around the pasture land. JAMES BOFFETTI: He was a chiropractor with a successful practice in Hampton
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that he had this big piece of property here in Epping. And I think she liked all that.
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They actually never married. She was considered a common law-- that's what she considered herself.
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KEVIN FLYNN: She started to take over his chiropractic business. She became the office manager and basically ran off
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all of the other employees that were-- you know, who could see through her. She separated Dr. LaBarre from his--
00:10:00
his grown kids. Basically, she worked to isolate Dr. LaBarre and to take over his life and his property.
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NARRATOR: In the process, Sheila LaBarre was developing something of a reputation in the local town
00:10:14
of Epping, New Hampshire. KEVIN FLYNN: Sheila is a beautiful woman. She immediately gets attention in town
00:10:20
for wearing tight clothes. In fact, people around town gave her a nickname. They called her "Shelia the Peeler."
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They were always hoping that she would maybe flash a little this or show a little bit of that.
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And she got that reputation because, well, she had no problem coming to the door for deliverymen
00:10:38
wearing almost nothing. JAMES BOFFETTI: Neighbors would say that they wouldn't go near her.
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They wouldn't approach her, because she was so-- she could be so volatile. NARRATOR: By now, Sheila had taken complete control
00:10:51
of Bill LaBarre's life. He'd signed over power of attorney to her, and she was running everything.
00:10:58
But things in the LaBarre's relationship were about to take a bizarre turn with the arrival on the scene of a man called Wayne Ennis.
00:11:06
Wayne Ennis is a migrant farm worker. He's looking for odd jobs, and he finds himself at Dr.
00:11:12
LaBarre's chiropractic office. And he's doing some work, and that's where he catches Sheila's eye.
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NARRATOR: In fact, he doesn't just catch her eye. In spite of her continuing relationship with Wilfred,
00:11:24
Sheila now married Wayne Ennis, her third husband. What was so strange is that Sheila brings
00:11:32
Wayne Ennis to the horse farm, and the three of them now, Dr. LaBarre, Sheila, and her new husband Wayne
00:11:40
are all living together on this farm. Even when she was married to Wayne Ennis, Sheila kept her last name LaBarre.
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I think it was a reminder that she would have power over Dr. LaBarre. Sheila has wrestled power of attorney from Dr. LaBarre,
00:12:00
so she stands to inherit anything if something befalls the doctor. And now, she's intimating to Wayne Ennis
00:12:08
that he needs to do something to hasten Dr. LaBarre's death. Wayne is very troubled by this.
00:12:14
So he goes to Dr. LaBarre and tells him what Sheila is planning, and he's fearful
00:12:21
as well for his own safety. Dr. LaBarre then drove Wayne to a bus station, got him on a bus, and he got out of town.
00:12:29
And Sheila never saw him again. I think that he provided her with a sense of stability.
00:12:39
Even though it was a difficult relationship, I think he was able to keep her in check in some ways.
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When he died, I think she really began to slip into this course of conduct that was extremely self-destructive.
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After Wilfred LaBarre's death, there's no structure in her life. She seems to deteriorate.
00:13:01
She's smoking marijuana on a daily basis. She basically falls to pot. This intense hypersexuality that's combined with all
00:13:12
this violence and aggression-- this-- it got-- it just sort of got out of control.
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[EERIE MUSIC] NARRATOR: Alone on Dr. LaBarre's remote horse farm in rural New Hampshire, Sheila began trawling
00:13:32
sex chat lines for men. KEVIN FLYNN: She finds a guy named James Brackett. She brings him to the farm, and James,
00:13:40
at first, does the kinds of things that any farmhand would do. He's taking care of the horses.
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He's helping out with other chores, but Sheila sees him as a boy toy. If you were somebody who was kind of lost in the world,
00:13:54
didn't have a home, didn't have a place to lay your head, and this woman comes up and offers you a job,
00:14:00
and a place to stay, and food, you know, I can see why people would get ensnared by that sort of--
00:14:09
of approach. Not only did he take care of the animals and do all the heavy lifting around the place,
00:14:16
but they had a sexual relationship. Sheila knows how to get what she wants out of a man.
00:14:23
But she is also cruel, and that is one of the things that she demonstrates with James Brackett.
00:14:29
She strikes him in the face with a scrubbing brush. She one time chased him off the property
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and fired a shot over his head. She even chased him into a horse trailer that was in the barn,
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and she chased him with an ax and tried to chop her way through the trailer, where he is huddled up inside.
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NARRATOR: In desperation, James Brackett finally got back in touch with his family and found
00:14:57
a way to escape from the farm. He said that he really felt lucky to be safe. In fact, he has a vanity license plate on his truck,
00:15:06
and it says, "I am alive." That's what she did. You know, she flirted and she snagged
00:15:12
them in like the black widow. She tore you down. She spit you out. KEVIN FLYNN: Michael Deloge is sort of a lost soul.
00:15:25
He sees himself as a songwriter, as a poet. He had been married and had a kid, but that relationship fell apart.
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He got into drugs and alcohol, and he found himself many miles from home. He was a guy that was down on his luck, that probably
00:15:45
was struggling with life. And she wanted him initially to-- to help with some chores around her farm.
00:15:54
The prospect of staying in a homeless shelter or going with this woman to a farm,
00:16:02
where he could get a nice warm bed, a steady job and sex-- well, that's a very easy decision to make.
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Sheila talks him into believing things about himself and about his family. Sheila convinces Mike that growing up
00:16:21
he was sexually abused and that he is a pedophile. This whole routine of-- of talking about pedophilia with these guys
00:16:31
and accusing them that that somehow sexually aroused her. It was part of this-- this extremely perverse sexual game
00:16:40
that she played, and that became her excuse to abuse him, to physically abuse him.
00:16:47
The neighbors describe an incident in the winter, where coming down the wooden path from the horse farm,
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they saw a man stumbling and bleeding from the head. It was Michael Deloge. And he just walked right past a neighbor
00:17:05
and said one word, "Sheila." NARRATOR: As quickly as he'd appeared on the farm, Michael Deloge disappeared.
00:17:13
It was time for Sheila LaBarre to find a new man to control. He would be Kenneth Countie.
00:17:19
His mother, Carolyn. His childhood wasn't good. It wasn't good. He had a learning disability, so he was a little slower
00:17:28
than the rest of his peers. And, you know, that would lead to trouble. He was-- Kenny was a very trusting guy,
00:17:35
but he was looking for his way in the world. NARRATOR: Carolyn had suffered serious injuries
00:17:39
in a car accident when Kenny was a young boy. CAROLYN COUNTIE: Oh, I was in a deep coma,
00:17:43
they say, for 45 days, but the doctor told me in and out for almost a year. I don't remember anything.
00:17:53
So Kenny really didn't have much of a childhood, because by the time I came out of the coma,
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I had to keep going back and forth to the hospital. NARRATOR: Shuffled between various homes
00:18:02
while his mother recuperated, Kenny found it hard to get on with other children.
00:18:07
CAROLYN COUNTIE: When it came time for sports, Kenny aced it, but he had problems with his friends
00:18:13
because he didn't speak properly. So they would tease him and taunt him. NARRATOR: As he reached adulthood,
00:18:19
Carolyn did her best to look out for her son. And then out of the blue, Kenny announced
00:18:24
he was planning to fulfill a childhood dream and join the army. CAROLYN COUNTIE: And I couldn't believe
00:18:30
he was going to do this, and I said, no, no, honey, you don't want to do this. And he said, no, Ma.
00:18:34
I'm going to. Kenny goes to basic training, and the family doesn't see him for several weeks until there's--
00:18:40
there's a weekend where they can come and visit while he's-- he's still in training.
00:18:45
And I'm looking around, and I couldn't find Kenny. So I went up to a soldier, and I tapped him and I said--
00:18:53
I said, do you know Kenneth Countie? I said, I'm looking for Kenneth Countie. I'm his mother.
00:18:58
And he looked at me and said, Ma, it's me. I didn't even recognize him. He had muscle.
00:19:04
He was handsome. And he stood proud. He was just-- I could see the life in his eyes.
00:19:13
NARRATOR: Days before the family were due to return for Kenny's graduation parade, terrible news.
00:19:18
She got a telephone call from the-- the unit commander saying that Kenny wasn't going to graduate.
00:19:25
And the day of graduation, my son was directing traffic. And at that point, I looked in his eyes, and they were dead.
00:19:36
They were dead. His self-esteem, anything he had was gone. It just all got taken away.
00:19:45
His world collapsed. And there was nothing I could do to pick him up, nothing. NARRATOR: And worse was to come for Caroline Countie.
00:19:58
CAROLYN COUNTIE: I got a phone call from the police saying that my son tried to commit suicide.
00:20:03
Kenny took some pills, and they took him to the hospital. So Kenny says, oh, by the way, I met--
00:20:19
I have a girlfriend. So Brian says, you do? And he said, yeah, yeah, he said, she's rich.
00:20:26
She has a big farm. She has a beautiful car, and she's 47 years old. So Brian looked and he said, what.
00:20:36
He said, Kenny, no. You don't want to be with a 47-year-old. There's ulterior motives there.
00:20:42
No, no. And Kenny looked, and he said, no. He said, you know, she loves me, and I love her.
00:20:55
And my son Brian said, you just met her. The pattern begins again. Sheila begins by trying to cut Kenny off from his family.
00:21:03
But Kenny's relationship with his mother is very different. They're very close, and they do check in every day.
00:21:09
So when Kenny is not returning mom's phone calls, that's a red flag. I was getting in touch with all the police departments
00:21:17
that I could possibly get a hold of. NARRATOR: Kenny had moved to Epping. After one of Mrs. Countie's calls,
00:21:23
they decide to visit Sheila LaBarre on the farm. KEVIN FLYNN: You know, interesting thing
00:21:27
about the Epping police department is that they would deal with Sheila quite a bit--
00:21:31
everything from marijuana charges to speeding to disturbing the peace to arguments with different neighbors and whatnot.
00:21:40
She says, he can't come to the door. He's taking a bath. They insist, and so Kenny comes to the door.
00:21:46
He's wearing a towel. He's wet. But he seems to be OK. And remember they can see his physical state.
00:21:54
He's, you know, almost naked. And that's why it's so troubling. NARRATOR: Troubling because less than two weeks later,
00:22:01
police had another very different encounter with Sheila LaBarre and Kenny Countie.
00:22:07
They got a report that there was a woman in Walmart taking pictures and that she had somebody in a wheelchair.
00:22:14
His hands were all cut up. One of them was immobile. His head was down. He was ashen in color.
00:22:19
Despite the fact that he looked like he was in distress, there was nothing for the officers to do.
00:22:26
He wasn't a minor. They couldn't take him into protective custody. CAROLYN COUNTIE: They asked Kenny if he was all right.
00:22:32
His head was hanging. He was drawn. And she told him to shut the F up. At that point, the police should have taken him.
00:22:41
They didn't. They watched her take him to the car and lift him from-- from the wheelchair into the car.
00:22:52
They watched. NARRATOR: Things had come to a head for Carolyn at a Sunday get-together for the family.
00:22:58
CAROLYN COUNTIE: Kenny never showed up-- that wasn't-- that wasn't Kenny. Kenny always showed up.
00:23:05
He was always 45 to an hour early. So when Kenny didn't show up, and I called his phone,
00:23:12
and he didn't answer, I knew. I knew. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat. I couldn't do anything.
00:23:20
I sat in a corner, and I just sat in a corner vegetating. As a mother, what do you do?
00:23:30
What do you do? Your-- your child's gone. What do you do? You have nobody to turn to.
00:23:38
NARRATOR: Desperate for help or information, Caroline once again turned to the Epping police,
00:23:43
begging them to make a welfare visit to the LaBarre farm. Trying to put her mind at rest, they phoned Sheila
00:23:49
and asked where Kenny was. Sheila says, he left, and I can prove it. And I can tell you why he left.
00:23:57
And so she plays over the telephone a tape recording that she made of Kenny. It was just--
00:24:13
it was just horrendous. I was dumbfounded. At that time, when I heard that tape I didn't want to see him anymore.
00:24:27
I didn't want to talk to him, because I didn't realize what Sheila was all about until I heard his voice.
00:24:35
And his voice became-- she did all the talking. His voice became "yes," "no." And it was very robotic.
00:24:45
But Sheila did all the talking. She was very nasty, and she was telling him what I did to him.
00:24:52
And what he did to me, and it was very, very graphic. NARRATOR: It was the same routine Sheila had used
00:24:58
before with Michael Deloge. KEVIN FLYNN: On the tape, the officer could hear Kenny becoming weaker.
00:25:05
And at one point, he heard Kenny vomit. And then he thought he heard Kenny faint, because Sheila
00:25:12
was saying, get up. You can't fake fainting. Officers, the next day, went to Sheila's farm
00:25:18
to look for Kenny. And she's angry that the cops were there on the property, but she lets them come into the house
00:25:25
and see that Kenny is not there. NARRATOR: Kenny might not have been, but there was plenty more to alarm the officers.
00:25:31
They had no warrant though and left. A young man was missing. His older lover was playing sadistic recordings
00:25:39
down the phone to police. Just what could officers expect to find when they returned to the farm?
00:25:52
In previous run-ins with Sheila LaBarre, police officers had come up against a seductive
00:25:57
side of her character. KEVIN FLYNN: Sheila was so provocative, she would come on to them.
00:26:02
She would flirt with them in really inappropriate ways that they felt they needed a second officer there
00:26:08
to be a witness that nothing inappropriate happened. JOHN ENCARNACAO: I was involved in the Sheila Barr case
00:26:14
from the onset when a search warrant was obtained for the residence at the LaBarre farm.
00:26:20
I was one of the primary responders, who processed the crime scene there. She was certainly unique, you know, and you look at her--
00:26:32
master manipulator, cunning, but yet gentle. She comes across with empathy, you know, apathetic at times,
00:26:41
but she can turn her personality very quickly. When they got there, Sheila was not home, so they
00:26:48
walked around a little bit. It was really a large piece of property, and you know, we didn't really understand
00:26:57
how big it was until we were able to get out and walk around. KEVIN FLYNN: And they found a burn barrel.
00:27:04
There was a fire going inside. So they went over and took a look inside. We knew that there was a missing individual.
00:27:12
KEVIN FLYNN: And what they found in there was a human bone, and on the knob of the bone was some human flesh.
00:27:23
So now, they are very worried about what has happened to Kenneth Countie. There was some indication that he had been murdered
00:27:32
on the property and that we were going to be looking for remains of his body. JAMES BOFFETTI: This is an unforgettable case.
00:27:39
Before I joined the Attorney General's Office, I was a public defender for 14 years.
00:27:45
So I did a lot of cases. I did homicide cases, some fairly notorious homicide cases.
00:27:53
The set of facts here are extraordinarily unique. I thought that we were really going to have our work cut out
00:28:05
for us because the size of the property, the buildings that were there, and it really only got worse when we actually
00:28:14
got into the residence. If I remember correctly, the fire was-- was right out here
00:28:19
in the front yard. We had a crew to begin documenting the scene, and-- and that's exactly what we did, you know.
00:28:27
We began with our photographs and photography. Started taking a look to see, you
00:28:31
know, exactly where we needed to possibly focus more attention to. And our work began, which you know,
00:28:38
it ended up lasting a number of weeks. 100 acres, quite a lot of space to hide things.
00:28:44
It was certainly-- certainly a place that I would not want to live in. The inside of the house was so decrepit
00:28:51
that it was unsafe to go in. Sort of like, you know, Sheila herself, that house had just fallen apart.
00:29:01
As we really examined things closer, that's when, you know, our eyes really opened.
00:29:06
You know, we started seeing evidence. The more that we dug, the more we found. And really the worse it got.
00:29:16
KEVIN FLYNN: This ended up being the biggest police search in state history. They patrolled as much of it as they could,
00:29:23
looking for any evidence of a crime, maybe bones that are the remains that had been scattered someplace.
00:29:32
Some of the evidence we found was blood spatter evidence. There was a lot of blood in-- in that-- in that house.
00:29:39
NARRATOR: The evidence didn't just come from inside the house. In the burn barrel where officers had spotted what
00:29:45
they thought was a human bone, more worrying evidence was uncovered. It was tough initially because those bone
00:29:52
fragments were potentially animal bones, but at some point, we did-- we were able to confirm some of the bones
00:30:01
that we did take were human remains. They couldn't find anything except a pair of human toes.
00:30:10
NARRATOR: With the search widening across the farm, officers now dredged the septic tank that served the house.
00:30:16
We were concerned that she may have been flushing evidence at the last minute, and we were able to find some evidence
00:30:24
that was incriminating. It was the driver's license of Michael Deloge. And this let investigators think they may be
00:30:32
looking for more than one body. NARRATOR: Even if officers were now looking for the remains
00:30:38
of Kenny Countie and Michael Deloge, the bones in the fire pit presented them with a mystery.
00:30:44
KEVIN FLYNN: They didn't belong to Kenny, and they didn't belong to Michael Deloge.
00:30:49
So who is it? There's a set of toes that don't belong to either of our victims. Is there somebody walking around with a limp
00:30:57
that was missing some toes? Or you know, is that person gone? JAMES BOFFETTI: I think that she was engaging
00:31:05
in this systematic torture, so it would be sexualizing and then-- and then accusing, and then
00:31:11
controlling them, and then torturing them, killing them, and incinerating them. It was a house of horrors.
00:31:19
It was-- it was a place of torture for human beings and for animals. It's amazing how beautiful this piece of property
00:31:29
actually is-- the open fields, and you know, the quietness. You know, this is-- this is New Hampshire,
00:31:36
but to imagine what went on on the piece of property and inside this house is-- it's unbelievable.
00:31:44
Predominantly our attention was focused on the house, because that's where we were finding the majority
00:31:50
of the-- of the evidence. Literally, we-- we pumped the septic system by hand, and we screened it back into the septic tank.
00:32:00
And that's how we found pieces of bone as well as a-- an ID. NARRATOR: The evidence against Sheila LaBarre was mounting.
00:32:11
James Boffetti believed he had enough to arrest her for at least the murders of Kenny Countie
00:32:16
and Michael Deloge. But then a new problem. While investigators are searching Sheila's property
00:32:22
for evidence of Kenny and for any other foul deed, Sheila cannot come to the farm.
00:32:28
She needs to go someplace else, but they just don't want to let her out of her sight.
00:32:33
So state police have some detectives tail her, but Sheila is pretty savvy. Sheila has an escape plan.
00:32:40
She withdraws a lot of money. She starts going by an alias. She calls herself Casey, which is actually her middle name.
00:32:47
At one point, she had made her way down to Boston. She's learned the game, and so she
00:32:52
can still use what sexual powers she has left to get what she wants. And what she wants right now is a ride to Boston.
00:33:01
JOHN ENCARNACAO: She met up with a individual in Boston and spent the night with him, three nights with him,
00:33:07
I believe it was, in a hotel kind of laying low. You know, and she was just kind of out on the run
00:33:13
away from New Hampshire, certainly away from the farm. She had this intense hypersexuality called
00:33:20
paraphilia that caused her to be violent and aggressive, and in some ways this was sexually charging for her.
00:33:30
NARRATOR: The driver who stops to pick her up is a man by the name of Steve Martel.
00:33:35
With no idea of the potential danger he's in, Steve enjoys his time with the woman he knows as Casey.
00:33:42
They have sex in the hotel together. I guess it's her way of thanking him for the ride.
00:33:48
You know, it wasn't until later that night, Steve sat down and watched the nightly news that he
00:33:54
realized who it was that he had picked up and who he had had sex with. And he told investigators, if you want to find Sheila, well,
00:34:01
she's in Massachusetts now. NARRATOR: The realization that a double murderer, maybe a serial killer, was on the loose
00:34:08
sparked a major manhunt. Sheila, meanwhile, was up to her old tricks. Got a new problem, get a new man.
00:34:16
At 48 she could still make the magic work. With police all over New England looking for her,
00:34:24
she's holed up with a guy by the name of Kenneth Washington. She throws herself at him and is able to basically
00:34:30
move into his apartment, trading sexual favors for the room. When Kenneth Washington sees Sheila's face on the TV news,
00:34:39
he realizes who he has let into his home. That's when he calls the cops and says,
00:34:44
I think I've got who you're looking for. NARRATOR: Sheila is arrested, finally in custody, accused of the murder of Michael
00:34:52
Deloge and Kenny Countie. Shelia-- Shelia was evil. She was conniving. NARRATOR: Was she also a serial killer?
00:35:07
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] She was no doubt an elitist, a driver seat personality. She was cunning and cooperative, and it was--
00:35:25
it was frightening to be honest with you. JEFF LADIEU: And she came out very aggressively.
00:35:29
She wanted to dominate the conversation. She immediately asked for credentials. Who are you?
00:35:34
Why are you here? So we-- we showed her our-- our IDs. We explained who we were and the fact
00:35:41
that we were from New Hampshire, and we were from the state police. I knew right out of the gate that she was not
00:35:46
going to be warm and inviting. She was super-intelligent. Knew the right things to say.
00:35:52
Knew the right things to do, how to position herself. As we-- as we had a discussion, she moved herself closer to me,
00:36:02
engaging in the conversation, and enough that my partner, who was sitting back listening, was, like,
00:36:09
almost kicking me under the table, saying, whoa, you know, this is-- she's-- she's trying to turn the tables on us,
00:36:15
you know? And she was very good. She made it obvious by her body language, you know,
00:36:25
that she was comfortable being around me. After some time, she had gotten closer and closer to the point
00:36:32
where she was sitting right in front of me and our legs were almost touching. And we started out three feet apart.
00:36:40
I mean, she was flirtatious with me in a way that was just bizarre. And the fact that she couldn't help doing it,
00:36:48
even in this situation, it was-- for me it was-- it was fairly pathetic. NARRATOR: In court, charged with two murders,
00:36:57
as the cops tried to get to the bottom of the identity of the bones found in the burn pit,
00:37:02
Sheila adopted an unexpected line of defense against the charges of murdering Michael
00:37:06
Deloge and Kenny Countie. She admitted that she did the conduct, in other words,
00:37:12
that she killed these two men, but she said at the time that she was insane and not criminally liable.
00:37:19
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] We know that she was engaging with other men and that they just happen to escape.
00:37:33
So very well, there could have been others that had been killed the same way. JOHN ENCARNACAO: There was potentially
00:37:40
others that haven't been identified at this point, making her a serial killer. There was DNA that was found that was not
00:37:47
associated with these two victims or other men that we could identify. She would pick them up and bring them home.
00:37:54
And then they would just disappear. They'd be there for a while. And if it didn't work out, then they would go off on their way.
00:37:59
Some of them would just literally run away, but that's not the type of person that's going to go to the police filing a police report.
00:38:07
But it's likely, given her pattern, that she tortured Michael and eventually killed him and burnt his body
00:38:15
and got rid of the remains just as she did with-- with Kenneth Countie. She had the body cremated very quickly.
00:38:25
There was not a formal investigation. There was not an autopsy done. And at that point, you know, she had-- she had assumed--
00:38:32
and she had-- she had legal documents that were basically leaving his property to her.
00:38:39
NARRATOR: The jury at Sheila LaBarre's trial in June 2008 threw out her defense that she was not guilty of murder
00:38:45
by reason of insanity. She's currently behind bars, serving two consecutive life sentences without the possibility
00:38:51
of parole. She didn't really think she was insane. Later, she would-- she would tell someone in prison, right,
00:38:58
thank God, I never wanted anybody to think that I was insane. This was a ploy to, you know, perhaps escape the State
00:39:07
Penitentiary and maybe be sentenced to a mental health institution, where she might have
00:39:12
thought she'd have it-- she'd have a better-- a better life. NARRATOR: If Sheila LaBarre wasn't insane
00:39:17
when she murdered Michael Deloge and Kenny Countie, why did she do it? Would she put it down to the abuse she suffered as a girl?
00:39:25
BRIAN FREDERICK: LaBarre was abused sexually by her father, and this could have set her up in life to feel inadequate.
00:39:31
We know that she was seeking to rid the world of child molesters, right? That she saw them as a scourge on the face of the planet.
00:39:39
And so yeah, if you-- if you happened to be attracted to Sheila LaBarre, watch out.
00:39:45
She has some serious psychological problems, and potentially abused as a child. I know that there was some reports of what her childhood
00:39:55
was growing up, but there was certainly something in her past that triggered this behavior.
00:40:01
NARRATOR: It was a twisted view of men and sex that LaBarre imposed on her innocent victims, victims
00:40:08
like 24-year-old Kenny Countie. You know, he came from a good family, and he hooks up with this woman.
00:40:15
And he moves up here, and she brainwashes him. And then, he's dead, and-- and the circumstances
00:40:21
of that death, you know, are just so painful that-- yeah, it's a case that I don't think that any of us
00:40:29
will ever forget. I promised Kenny that I'd fight for him, because nobody did, that he wouldn't be forgotten.
00:40:42
When Sheila murdered him, she burnt everything in the pit. I never had a body. I never had closure.
00:40:52
I never had anything. Their worst nightmare came true, and their loved ones are gone because of that.
00:41:00
CAROLYN COUNTIE: And I was like a mouse looking-- looking for a way out, couldn't find one.
00:41:08
Couldn't find one. And to this day, I still can't find it. Still can't find it. How she could have taken a human life and did what
00:41:22
she did to him, and laugh at it. He was somebody's child. He was my child. So I would have taken that bullet.
00:41:33
I would have taken that stabbing. I would have taken that poison. If I could have my son back, I would have--
00:41:40
I would have taken anything to let him live. [SOMBER MUSIC] [INTENSE MUSIC]