00:00:00
[OMINOUS MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: Grand
Rapids, Michigan, 1996, police get a 911 call.
00:00:16
Two men say they found a body
dumped on the side of the road. PAUL VAN RHEE: And it
looked to them at the time
00:00:24
like a white blanket that
was wrapped around an object. Once they got
out of their truck,
00:00:29
it was immediately apparent
to them that this was a body. NANCY GRACE: Fear
grips the community.
00:00:35
It's not the only
body discovered in the Grand Rapids area. [SIRENS WAILING]
00:00:39
JOHN TUINHOFF: In the 1990s,
there were approximately 11 murders in the Grand Rapids
area and surrounding counties.
00:00:46
Typically, it would
be a murder, and then the body would be found the
next day or even months later.
00:00:53
NANCY GRACE: Police
exhaust all leads for a possible serial killer. The case goes cold.
00:00:59
Can new, groundbreaking
forensic science catch a killer
after all this time? This is the story
of a 26-year search
00:01:10
for a serial killer who may have
murdered as many as 11 women. I'm Nancy Grace.
00:01:17
This is "Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC] [PENSIVE MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: Grand
Rapids, Michigan, 1996,
00:01:48
a small city only three
hours northeast of Chicago, it's nicknamed "Furniture
City" because of its
00:01:55
booming home industry. JOHN TUINHOFF: In
1996, there were a lot of murders in
Kent County at that time
00:02:03
and in the city of Grand Rapids. As most metropolitan
cities, there are times where crime
does peak, and there's
00:02:09
times where it's not as bad. NANCY GRACE: October
3, 1996, two men on their way to work spot
something unusual on the side
00:02:20
of the road. Once they got
out of their truck, it was immediately apparent
to them that this was a body.
00:02:26
And then the other
one got into the truck and had to drive to a hotel to
make the phone call-- we didn't
00:02:30
have cell phones back then--
and said that they were there waiting for the police.
00:02:35
While he was doing that,
the other gentleman stayed with the body. But apparently, a
number of people
00:02:39
kept coming over and trying to
get to the body and to see it, and he was just trying
to keep the area clear.
00:02:45
NANCY GRACE: Police arrive,
and they immediately cordon off the area. BLAIR LACHMAN: When
they first got there,
00:02:53
they combed the area
for potential evidence. There was a lot of stuff that
were-- you know, if you're
00:02:58
on the side of a
road, where people are dumping cigarettes
and beer bottles, there were plenty of those.
00:03:02
So they preserved that,
not knowing if they were related to the crime scene. Then they took the body
and placed it on a gurney.
00:03:09
They took that body to
the medical examiner's office to do the autopsy. So no one actually saw
anything until they
00:03:18
got back to the morgue. NANCY GRACE: The
body in the blanket is soon identified
as Sharon Hammack.
00:03:25
She's a local woman who's
been known as a sex worker. PAUL VAN RHEE: She
was in her late 20s.
00:03:33
We learned that she did have
two children of her own, who she put up for adoption
because she didn't want them
00:03:39
to be part of the lifestyle that
she was part of, which included the prostitution and drug use.
00:03:45
She also had a family of two
sisters that we knew about. Whenever these
circumstances come up
00:03:52
in all of our investigations
into homicides, it's hard to talk to the family
and tell the family what has
00:03:58
happened to their loved one. TINA DE YOUNG: I had worked
a long shift that day, and I remember
feeling out of sorts,
00:04:06
like something wasn't right. And my boyfriend at the
time called me, and he said,
00:04:12
I have to talk to you
when you come home. And I'm like, just tell me. He's like, no, I'm not telling
you while you're driving.
00:04:19
I came in the door, and
he said, your sister-- and I knew who he was
talking about because she was
00:04:26
heading down the wrong path. He said, they found your
sister, and she's dead.
00:04:32
And I lost it. I just wanted to
go be with my mom. That's all I wanted. I wanted to go be with
my mom because I knew
00:04:41
it was gonna break her heart. But she knew that
day was coming. [CRYING] When they knocked on
the door, they told
00:04:49
my parents that they
had found a woman dropped on 76th and Patterson. And my mom goes, are
you sure it's her?
00:04:57
And they said, we're
pretty positive it's her. And my mom lost it. NANCY GRACE: Sharon
Hammack's death
00:05:05
is not the only
murder investigation going on in Grand Rapids. JOHN TUINHOFF: In the 1990s,
there were approximately
00:05:14
11 murders in the Grand Rapids
area and surrounding counties. Typically, it would be a
murder, and then the body
00:05:21
would be found the next day or
even months later by someone. BLAIR LACHMAN: I think
people were pretty
00:05:27
convinced that there
was a serial killer on the loose in Grand Rapids. And it was weird because you had
this series of rapes and murders
00:05:34
that happened in that time
period, and then they stopped. I think they were convinced
that the serial killer took
00:05:41
his show on the road and left. NANCY GRACE: Police
talk to Sharon Hammack's family
to get a clearer
00:05:48
picture of her final hours. JOHN TUINHOFF:
Investigators in 1996 would have started looking at
acquaintances of Sharon Hammack
00:05:57
to try to get an idea of the
last 24 hours of her life, and also a pattern
of life for her
00:06:03
and who she was
associating with, what she was involved with, and
who may have some information
00:06:09
on what had happened to her. TINA DE YOUNG: She
was so beautiful. So beautiful. She just got hooked up
with the wrong people
00:06:17
and was led down that path. My mother had eight children
and I was the baby of eight.
00:06:25
She was so protective of me. I missed so many
memories with her because he chose that
she was better off dead,
00:06:35
that nobody was gonna miss her. But he's wrong. Is there a sadistic serial
killer lurking in Grand Rapids?
00:06:45
Can police find him
before he strikes again? We find out next on
"Bloodline Detectives."
00:06:52
[AUDIO LOGO] [AUDIO LOGO] [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: Grand
Rapids, Michigan, 1996,
00:07:03
police get a call from two
men who find a body wrapped in a blanket on the
side of the road,
00:07:10
the victim ID'd as 29-year-old
mother-of-two Sharon Hammack. Investigators look for clues
left behind by the killer.
00:07:22
JOHN TUINHOFF: Investigators
conducted a search warrant at Sharon Hammack's house
and went through the house
00:07:27
and located things of
interest to them, including beer bottles and other items
that a guest could have had,
00:07:33
for fingerprints. And also, they did examine her
vehicle as well for any chances
00:07:40
of identifying a possible
suspect or someone that could have been in her vehicle.
00:07:44
NANCY GRACE: For investigators,
the scene of any crime is the first stop for
clues left behind.
00:07:51
The condition of the victim,
the victim's injuries, even the victim's position
could provide vital clues.
00:08:00
In the case of Sharon
Hammack, the coroner decides to remove Sharon's
body from the scene,
00:08:06
still wrapped in a blanket. JOHN TUINHOFF: Sharon Hammack
was found, once she was
00:08:14
unwrapped from the blanket, to
have her hands behind her back, tied with shoe string, and
also her feet tied together
00:08:21
and pulled up towards her hands
so that she would be laying on her stomach with her
hands and feet tied together
00:08:27
so that she could not move,
and she would be rolling pretty much on her stomach.
00:08:33
It was a very
unique situation, I believe, that for them to open
that blanket up and find her
00:08:40
bound and tied in that manner. ELIZABETH BARTLETT: With
each piece of evidence being removed from
the victim's body,
00:08:47
it also has to be preserved. And so each of those
cords would have to be removed very carefully
and placed in evidence bags
00:08:57
to preserve any potential
evidence, DNA, anything that they could down the line.
00:09:03
JOHN TUINHOFF: Reviewing the
autopsy photos 27 years later, they are very disturbing on just
how the last moments of Sharon's
00:09:11
life would have been. PAUL VAN RHEE: An autopsy is
critical to the investigation
00:09:15
because it's a way for us to
look for additional evidence that might be on the
body to understand what
00:09:22
the cause of death
may be, also, to take measurements of potential
weapons that were used.
00:09:28
In this case, it was a knife. There was confirmed
stabbed wounds on her head. There was also
definitely indication
00:09:35
that she had been strangled
with bruises around her neck. JOHN TUINHOFF:
Sharon had bruising
00:09:39
all over her body, which
would indicate that there was a struggle with her. And one thing that I could note
that I noticed from photographs
00:09:46
is that her fingers, while
she was bound behind her back, her fingers were clenched,
and her fingers were
00:09:52
through the strings of the
bindings that were holding her hands behind her back.
00:09:56
So you could tell
that Sharon was fighting until her last breath. BLAIR LACHMAN: She was
strangled with such force,
00:10:03
she had the pearl necklace
wrapped on her neck. It wasn't used to strangle her.
00:10:07
It was the force of the
hands around the neck squeezing created an indentation
of the pearl necklace
00:10:17
on her neck. PAUL VAN RHEE: DNA was
very new at the time. It was a new form of
investigation, a new science.
00:10:23
Although they knew that that
was a possibility, at that time, evidence was taken and
kept and looked into.
00:10:32
NANCY GRACE: A tragic
blow in this case comes during the examination. During the autopsy, we
found out that she was
00:10:41
pregnant when she was murdered. NANCY GRACE: Now that
the autopsy is complete, Sharon Hammack's family can
finally bury their loved one.
00:10:53
TINA DE YOUNG: I remember
having a closed casket because that's
what my mom wanted.
00:10:57
It was horrible, horrible. I just wanted answers. I just wanted to know
who took her from me.
00:11:08
NANCY GRACE: Law
enforcement determined to provide answers to Sharon
Hammack's grieving family,
00:11:14
but it's 1996. DNA science is still
in its infancy, so police must rely
on old-school methods
00:11:25
to search for her killer. JOEL SCHULTZE: There's
four basic blood types that people have.
00:11:31
Type O, 45% of the
population has. So if you have a type that
almost 50% of the population
00:11:37
has, it doesn't really
give you much information. The other three, some
of them are under 10%.
00:11:43
But again, there's
only four types. So it doesn't discriminate
between people very well.
00:11:48
JOHN TUINHOFF: Several
police agencies in Metro Grand Rapids formed
a task force to investigate
00:11:53
the prostitution murders. And the detectives
assigned at that time received hundreds
and hundreds of tips
00:11:59
from people calling in
reference this case. Nothing was ever revealed
with any of those investigations
00:12:07
with regard to Sharon Hammack. They were trying to put together
potential suspects by looking
00:12:12
at boyfriends or
friends of Sharon and anybody that may
have been a person in common with any
of these other girls
00:12:19
that were also found. BLAIR LACHMAN: So she's
walking the streets, so there's no witness to it.
00:12:24
They interviewed
other prostitutes. They interviewed people that,
I guess, for a better term,
00:12:28
labeled pimps, people
who might know. Dozens of people they
interviewed and nobody
00:12:34
had any information. Sometimes they'd say, OK, you
might wanna check this person.
00:12:37
So then they'd go check that
person, and then that person wouldn't pan out.
00:12:41
Sometimes there were suspects
that they would exclude, but then they might
come back to them
00:12:45
again and try to re-interview. JOHN TUINHOFF: It was the
belief of investigators
00:12:49
that our suspect was someone
that could be transient or could be a truck driver that
could be traveling the roads.
00:12:56
And that's why we were finding
bodies on the sides of roads. NANCY GRACE: One by one, all the
leads in the search for Sharon
00:13:04
Hammack's killer go dry. JOEL SCHULTZE: I came to the
Michigan State Police in 1997
00:13:12
and helped start the DNA unit
in Grand Rapids laboratory. And the-- obviously, the
homicide had already taken
00:13:18
place. We started doing DNA analysis
at the Grand Rapids laboratory in 1999, getting more
complete DNA profiles.
00:13:26
ELIZABETH BARTLETT:
They were able to obtain DNA from some of the items. The blanket had male DNA on it.
00:13:34
So then the next problem
became whose DNA is it. BLAIR LACHMAN: All the
DNA did at that time was
00:13:39
eliminate potential suspects. NANCY GRACE: Grand Rapids Police
have the killer's DNA profile,
00:13:46
but they don't have a match. They also have 10
other unsolved murders. Can a groundbreaking
new forensic tool
00:13:57
crack this very gruesome case? That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives."
00:14:05
[AUDIO LOGO] [AUDIO LOGO] [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: Grand
Rapids, Michigan, 2008.
00:14:16
Detectives have a DNA
sample from the 1996 murder of 29-year-old Sharon
Hammack, a mother of two,
00:14:25
her body found wrapped in a
blanket on the side of the road. Investigators fear they've got
a serial killer on their hands
00:14:33
because Sharon's death is one
of 11 similar unsolved murders, all in the same area.
00:14:42
Now police turn to forensic
science and CODIS for answers. CODIS is the Combined
DNA Indexing System,
00:14:52
and that's set up to track
offenders convicted of crimes to potentially identify them
if they've been involved
00:14:59
in any other unsolved crimes. BLAIR LACHMAN:
Every time someone commits a crime or a felony,
their DNA is extracted.
00:15:07
It's just a simple swab. You just take that. And a sample is created, and
it's entered into this system.
00:15:15
And there's millions of
people in that database. You're looking to see if
someone, for some reason,
00:15:21
has been entered
into that system, whether it's from a
felony, from a rape. However they get
into that system,
00:15:26
if they're in that system,
you're looking for a match. NANCY GRACE: CODIS
is the National DNA
00:15:32
database for convicted felons. In this case, investigators
do not get a match on CODIS,
00:15:39
and that means the
suspect in the murders has never been arrested
for a serious crime.
00:15:45
The DNA sample, however,
leads Michigan investigators to a similar crime
in another state.
00:15:54
JOEL SCHULTZE: In 2008, we had a
CODIS association, what we refer to as a forensic hit,
which is a case-to-case hit
00:16:02
with a case out of Maryland. And exchanging
information, we found that it was a 2006 homicide
that occurred in Maryland.
00:16:11
We issued that report
to the investigators, and then they were able
to talk with the Maryland
00:16:16
investigators, the local ones. They had some
information in Maryland that pointed towards
the suspect being--
00:16:23
possibly being a truck driver. PAUL VAN RHEE: That case was
a young female that was also
00:16:29
found on the side of the road. She had been killed by stabbing,
and her name was Dusty Shuck.
00:16:37
She was found on the side
of the highway in Maryland. And she also had DNA evidence
from potentially the suspect
00:16:45
on her, and that
DNA evidence on her matched a DNA profile that was
obtained from Sharon Hammack.
00:16:52
We had DNA, but we have no
one to match it up to because he was never in the system.
00:16:57
So basically, we
were up in the air. And he would either
have to get caught, or we would never find him.
00:17:03
NANCY GRACE: So far, this serial
killer stays just out of reach for the Kent County Sheriff's.
00:17:09
That is until they hear
the infamous Golden State Killer has
been caught using a brand new forensic science--
00:17:19
investigative genetic genealogy. PAUL VAN RHEE: With a
good-enough DNA profile or suspect DNA
profile, that it was
00:17:29
possible to submit
that DNA for processing and utilize different databases
that contain genetic genealogy
00:17:38
to be able to find relatives
of this potential suspect in order to drill down
and locate or provide
00:17:48
a name for potential
suspects that were involved in any related cases like this.
00:17:54
JOEL SCHULTZE: So we took a
portion of that extracted DNA from the electric blanket and
sent it to an FGG company,
00:18:01
Identifinders. NANCY GRACE: Identifinders
International is a company that specializes
in forensic genetic genealogy,
00:18:10
its leader, Dr. Colleen
Fitzpatrick, a pioneer in this emerging science. And they developed
their DNA for profile,
00:18:20
which, again, is different
than what we look for. And the power of the FGG in that
search is that they can go out
00:18:27
to third, fourth, fifth
cousins twice removed as far as relationships. And then the second
part of that, then,
00:18:35
is once they get these
searches and some names back as doing the genetic
genealogy portion,
00:18:40
and they're building these
family trees, where they're finding a common ancestor--
00:18:45
and typically, in the
cases I've seen, it usually goes back to the 1700s or so.
00:18:50
I've seen it go back further. I've seen it stop in the 1800s. And once they find
that common ancestor,
00:18:55
they build a family tree
back to the evidence and typically will come back
with an investigative lead
00:19:00
of the one generation. And then the investigation
starts kind of all over again for the Kent County
Sheriff's Department.
00:19:08
NANCY GRACE: Genealogists
at Identifinders make a remarkable
breakthrough, but now they
00:19:15
must combine their
resources with Michigan police to catch a killer. JOHN TUINHOFF: They identified
a distant relative family
00:19:25
that I started to investigate to
try to get a DNA sample from one of them so that we
could get closer
00:19:32
to identifying our suspect. I knew if I obtained
a DNA sample from someone in that family--
00:19:37
and they will get us a lot
closer to our perpetrator to help us to identify them.
00:19:43
I made contact with a distant
family member of our perpetrator in Caro, Michigan.
00:19:49
The family member was
extremely cooperative with me. I explained to them the
situation and what we were
00:19:57
investigating, and
they voluntarily provided me with a DNA sample. I resubmitted it to
Identifinders International.
00:20:05
And at that time, they
realized that they were close to the suspect, but
now they could get a lot closer.
00:20:15
And they came up with
a target family for me. JOEL SCHULTZE: It
was one of our first
00:20:19
that we did through
the laboratory, so I was hopeful and excited
when they did come back
00:20:24
with a set of brothers that they
said needed to be investigated. And now it's up to
the investigators
00:20:30
to investigate that
family of brothers and get a known
from those brothers so that we can compare it back
to the evidence in the crime.
00:20:39
I can actually remember
where I was when the phone call came in from them. I was actually at my
daughter's basketball practice.
00:20:45
And I saw the phone number
that was calling me, and I knew it was
probably good news.
00:20:50
And in fact, it was. Genealogist Linda Doyle
told me over the phone that she had just
forwarded me an email,
00:20:57
and she had identified
a target from a family that she believed was
going to be my perpetrator.
00:21:03
Perpetrator was one of
four biological male sons of Wilfred and Donna Artman. NANCY GRACE: Kent County
sheriffs now closer
00:21:14
than ever to cracking
this case, investigators begin to focus on the
backgrounds of all four
00:21:21
for brothers to isolate
a likely suspect. JOHN TUINHOFF: We knew
the perpetrator was male,
00:21:29
so we had to go through
and identify which one of the brothers had
ties to Grand Rapids
00:21:34
and look for anything in his
background which would lead us in the direction
that he would
00:21:39
most likely be our perpetrator. And one of the four brothers had
an extensive criminal history
00:21:45
for sexual assault. And he,
at one point, was a resident of Grand Rapids in the '90s.
00:21:52
And when we did background
investigations on these four brothers, it became
very apparent
00:21:57
right away that one of the
brothers, Garry Artman, was more likely the suspect
that we needed to focus on.
00:22:05
BLAIR LACHMAN: So Garry was in
the military for three years. He was discharged
for a sexual assault
00:22:11
while he was in the military. While he was awaiting trial
for that sexual assault,
00:22:16
he raped a 15 or
16-year-old girl at knifepoint multiple times. He was convicted of
that rape and got
00:22:23
sentenced to 16 to 30 years. He only did 11 of those years. After he got out of prison, he
moved to the Grand Rapids area,
00:22:32
which is where he
resided during the time that Shannon Hammack
was found murdered.
00:22:36
There was another
sexual assault during his time in prison,
and he was investigated
00:22:41
as a potential suspect. And we read those reports,
and they were pretty telling,
00:22:46
which included a statement made
by him to one of the deputies that the reason he was even
in prison in the first place
00:22:52
is that he was
leaving witnesses. In other words, he
didn't kill his victims.
00:22:57
JOHN TUINHOFF: When I saw
Garry Artman's criminal history and started reviewing some
of the prior police reports
00:23:04
of the violence of his sexual
assaults on these victims from the early 1980s and late 1970s,
sometimes you just know that
00:23:13
this is the guy
we need to target, and this guy matched
everything for what we are looking for for the
murderer of Sharon Hammack.
00:23:21
BLAIR LACHMAN: He was a recluse. He was an over-the-road
truck driver. He didn't have
many close friends.
00:23:26
We talked to his brothers,
talked to the victims of the sexual assaults. They all painted
the same portrait--
00:23:31
a very dark, scary man who
they were all afraid of, uncomfortable with,
capable of the heinous acts
00:23:40
that we're talking about. That was a pretty
consistent theme. All those things raised
our eyebrows to the point
00:23:47
where we knew we were
really on the right path, but it wasn't enough
just to stop there.
00:23:52
We had to keep
taking all the steps. NANCY GRACE: Detectives
are almost certain they've
00:23:58
got their serial killer, but
they need concrete evidence to make an arrest. PAUL VAN RHEE: We continued
to monitor where he lived
00:24:06
at the time, which
was in Florida, continued to learn
who he was working for and try to learn what his
potential routines were.
00:24:15
And we also started to
ping his cell phone. We were able to get his
cell phone information.
00:24:21
We were pinging his phone
so we could track where he was located at the time. We had meetings with the Kent
County Prosecutor's Office,
00:24:29
along with several
detectives, and we decided that based on the
evidence that we had,
00:24:35
we had enough to get a
warrant for his arrest, based on the information
that we had obtained.
00:24:40
NANCY GRACE: The net is now
closing in on a prime suspect. Name-- Garry Artman. Is Artman the man
who so cruelly dumped
00:24:51
Sharon's body on the side of the
road like trash back in 1996? We find out next on
"Bloodline Detectives."
00:25:00
[AUDIO LOGO] [AUDIO LOGO] [SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: Grand
Rapids, Michigan, 2022,
00:25:11
police investigating the 1996
murder of a 29-year-old mother, Sharon Hammack, her body found
dumped on the side of the road.
00:25:21
There have been no solid leads
for over 20 years, until now. The science of investigative
genetic genealogy
00:25:30
leads detectives to
Garry Artman, a truck driver prone to violence. Now, they close in
to make an arrest,
00:25:40
an arrest of a
suspected serial killer. Their plan is to arrest
Artman during a traffic stop
00:25:48
as he drives through the
state of Mississippi. PAUL VAN RHEE: I was
involved in tracking
00:25:54
Mr. Artman while he was
moving towards the state of Mississippi. I had contact with the
Mississippi State police,
00:26:02
and we were able to, based on
his cell phone location data and knowing that he was driving
a certain type of truck,
00:26:10
they were able to locate him on
the highway and make an arrest. PAUL VAN RHEE: On
September 22, 2022,
00:26:30
we conducted a traffic stop
on the highway in Mississippi. From that traffic
stop, Mr. Hartman
00:26:35
was located as the driver
of that semi truck. And he was taken into
custody at that time.
00:26:41
He was somewhat cooperative
with investigators at that time and officers on the scene.
00:26:48
And it was just surreal
for me at that time because there was always such a
huge concern that we didn't know
00:26:56
if he would have the tendency
to go out and continue doing violent things to people.
00:27:02
So once he was in
custody, that was a relief to all of us
investigators at the Kent
00:27:06
County Sheriff's Office. Now we had to
continue doing our job so that he wouldn't be
able to hurt anyone else.
00:27:12
BLAIR LACHMAN: He is
arrested and taken to the jail in Mississippi. At the jail, he is
read his rights,
00:27:18
and he waives his rights. And he does an interview
for about three hours with the sheriff's department.
00:27:23
PAUL VAN RHEE: With any
interview like this, our goal, obviously, is to-- to hopefully get a confession.
00:27:29
Because it had been so long
since the homicide took place, we wanted to not only
get a confession,
00:27:36
but first of all, confirm
a lot of the things that we had found
in his background.
00:27:41
My intention was to
start out in the past and hopefully have
him talk to me about what his
timeline in life was,
00:27:51
especially after he
got out of prison. And he was very open
to talking about that.
00:27:56
BLAIR LACHMAN: He
denied killing women, openly admitted that he used
prostitutes in Grand Rapids
00:28:02
frequently. He acknowledged that
he thought women, in general, but particularly
prostitutes, were beneath him.
00:28:08
They were just objects. He actually used the word--
they're "pieces of meat."
00:28:28
JOHN TUINHOFF: The demeanor
that I reviewed from watching his interview and also
from the traffic stop
00:28:33
was he didn't seem
surprised that he was arrested for a murder. He was very calm,
would answer questions.
00:28:43
To me, thinking, if you were
being accused of a murder, you would think
that you would be
00:28:49
putting up a defense to
the investigators saying, I didn't do this. But Garry Artman didn't
really ever say that and just
00:28:59
acted like he didn't know
what we were talking about. PAUL VAN RHEE: He denied
being part of what happened
00:29:23
to Sharon this whole time. I brought it up several times. I told him that we knew that
he had murdered Sharon based
00:29:31
on the evidence that we had. And he never really
reacted to that. We had previously
gotten some information
00:29:39
from one of his recent
coworkers, a female. She had said that when he
left his employer, he said,
00:29:47
it's a good thing
that I'm leaving, or something bad
might have happened.
00:29:51
I brought that up
to Garry Artman, and he immediately reacted. He became incredibly angry.
00:29:57
He was swearing at me. I was very surprised by it
because up to this point, he hadn't had much
of a reaction.
00:30:03
And I said, Garry, why are you
so angry at me for saying that? He said, well,
because it's a lie.
00:30:12
And I said, Garry, I've called
you a murderer to your face this whole time, and
you've never once reacted.
00:30:18
And he said, well, that's
because I can't defend that. It was the first time that he
had had a significant reaction.
00:30:26
And it was the first time
that I saw his short temper. NANCY GRACE: During
the interview,
00:30:33
detectives roll the dice on a
very crucial piece of evidence. They take a DNA swab
from Garry Artman.
00:30:41
Why? To confirm, without
a doubt, it's his DNA on that blanket
in which Sharon Hammond
00:30:50
was found wrapped back in 1996. PAUL VAN RHEE: During
that interview, we did take a moment to
take a DNA sample from him,
00:31:00
and we immediately
had that shipped back to Michigan for
comparison with the MSP labs.
00:31:04
JOEL SCHULTZE: They flew
the buccal swab to us. And that's kind of a pretty
straightforward test.
00:31:10
And I think we
turned that around in six hours with a
report out in, like, a total of eight hours.
00:31:17
NANCY GRACE: The
buccal swab is a match. After all this time, police can
finally inform Sharon Hammack's
00:31:24
family the man who caused so
much pain for 25 years-plus has been caught. We thought that
they just gave up.
00:31:36
And after my mom died, we never
heard anything from anybody. And then one day, a detective
knocked at my sister Terri's
00:31:44
door and said, we can't
wait to tell you this, but we've solved
your sister's murder.
00:31:50
I looked up at my
mother, and I said, we finally got justice, Mama. [CRYING] We're gonna
get justice for her.
00:31:58
And I'm sorry you're not
here, but you're gonna be up there celebrating with her.
00:32:05
NANCY GRACE: The DNA match
is fantastic evidence, but investigators plan to
leave no stone unturned.
00:32:13
Before taking Garry
Artman to trial, the Kent County sheriffs
and the district attorneys
00:32:19
get a search warrant
for Artman properties. We see what explosive
evidence they find there
00:32:27
next on "Bloodline Detectives." [AUDIO LOGO] [AUDIO LOGO] NANCY GRACE: 2022,
White Springs, Florida,
00:32:41
detectives have Garry Artman
in custody for the 1996 murder of a young
mom, Sharon Hammack,
00:32:49
in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Artman, a truck driver,
is arrested at a traffic stop in Mississippi.
00:32:57
Now, investigators want to
search Artman's storage unit. PAUL VAN RHEE: Part of the
information that we received
00:33:04
during the interview was the
fact that he had a storage unit where he lived in Florida.
00:33:10
Based off that information, we
were able to obtain a search warrant for that
storage unit in Florida
00:33:15
and conducted a search there. During that search, we
located several journals that appeared to be
writing from Garry Artman.
00:33:23
We located several
different bibles with scriptures highlighted and
other writing within the bibles
00:33:31
as well. We located women's
panties and women's bras that were put in a bag that
was in the storage unit as well.
00:33:41
And all these items
were taken back to Michigan for further review. He was a man
that kept journals.
00:33:48
He wrote down all of
his feelings, quotes. He basically told us about
his hatred for women.
00:33:56
Any woman in high school
that turned him down, it stemmed this
hatred and anger.
00:34:02
And he thought, if they're not
going to give me what I want, I'm going to take
it from other women.
00:34:07
And that's what
he started doing. PAUL VAN RHEE: He had
many writings about women,
00:34:13
specifically prostitutes. A lot of his writings,
he referred to these prostitutes as "slaves."
00:34:19
He referred to his work
as being told by God to-- that it was his work to do
whatever he was writing about.
00:34:29
ELIZABETH BARTLETT: He
talked about murdering women out of morality. It was, like, his right to do.
00:34:35
He mentioned raping 152 girls
and showed no remorse for that. Given his meticulous notes and
the things that he collected
00:34:46
and kept, I believed
that there are at least 152 women that he raped. NANCY GRACE: Equipped
with strong evidence,
00:34:56
Kent County District
Attorneys now ready to face Garry Artman in court. ELIZABETH BARTLETT:
My goal for this trial
00:35:06
was to tell Sharon Hammack's
story without her being here, really focusing on her as a
person, and the brutal way
00:35:17
that he treated her,
and just painting that picture for the jury. They were filled with heartbreak
and compassion for Sharon.
00:35:27
They did not judge
her in any way. Some of the quotes that were
read from Garry Artman's journal
00:35:33
in court, their faces changed
to hatred and disbelief that there is somebody out
there that is so monstrous.
00:35:43
BLAIR LACHMAN: He showed
zero signs of remorse. He did engage, and
not in a good way.
00:35:48
He would act up, say
some funky things during the course of trial. Like, he commented on his
knots and how good they were.
00:35:54
And we put the part
about him saying, women are just a piece of meat. He openly acknowledged
they are in the courtroom.
00:36:02
The sense we got was the
jury was disgusted by him. I think they were. It wasn't just that he
killed and raped her.
00:36:09
I think the volume of rapes-- I mean, he admitted to
150 rapes in his letters. He explained some
of his rationale
00:36:16
in some of his journals. And I think they were
disgusted by him. I think it was hard not to be.
00:36:22
NANCY GRACE: It doesn't take
the jury long to decide the rest of Garry Artman's future.
00:36:29
JOHN TUINHOFF: Sometimes
this can take a while. Some murder cases, it could
take, you know, two days.
00:36:34
The prosecutors
and the detectives, we decided that we were just
gonna walk down the street
00:36:39
to grab something to eat. But while we were
ordering our food, we got a call from the
court saying the jury
00:36:46
had already reached a verdict. The only time I think I
get a little bit nervous is when the jury is coming back
in after they have a verdict.
00:36:52
And there's that unknown
moment where you don't know what they're gonna say or do.
00:36:58
But it was a 30-minute verdict,
so we felt pretty comfortable. When you have a 30-minute
verdict, it's usually
00:37:04
favorable to the prosecution. NANCY GRACE: The
jury finds Garry Artman guilty on three counts--
00:37:11
open murder, felony murder,
and first-degree criminal sex conduct. And he is sentenced
to life behind bars.
00:37:23
PAUL VAN RHEE:
Even though he made it that long without getting
caught, I'm glad for the family
00:37:28
that they were able to get
their closure with this trial. TINA DE YOUNG: Is
there still heartache?
00:37:33
Yes. There will always be heartache. I prayed to God that he
would give me the answer.
00:37:39
That's all I ever wanted
for her, was justice. She deserved that. That monster can't
hurt nobody else.
00:37:47
BLAIR LACHMAN: I'm
confident that Garry Artman thought no one would care. Because she was a prostitute, I
don't think he thought anybody
00:37:54
would care a year later. I didn't think he thought
anybody would care five years
00:37:58
later, and I definitely don't
think he thought anybody would care 27 years later.
00:38:02
PAUL VAN RHEE: No
matter what that person does in their lifestyle, we
treat all of these scenes
00:38:07
and all of the
homicides the same, no matter what the background
of the individual is.
00:38:14
NANCY GRACE: Without
the incredible work of the "Bloodline
Detectives" and the science
00:38:18
of investigative genetic
genealogy, this case would never have been solved. Boy, we've come a long way
since 1996, between cell phones,
00:38:30
technology, DNA, familial DNA. There's just so much more we can
do in solving crimes and giving
00:38:38
people their justice today. ELIZABETH BARTLETT:
Forensic genetic genealogy is such a wonderful
tool now, looking
00:38:44
back on these cold cases. It changes the game. Cases that would otherwise
go unsolved forever
00:38:52
now have a chance. PAUL VAN RHEE: I think
the highlight of this case was just seeing how
this genetic genealogy
00:39:00
can work with these cold cases. And it gives me
hope that there's additional cases that can be
solved in the same manner.
00:39:08
NANCY GRACE: Now,
Sharon's family can finally close this awful
chapter of their lives.
00:39:15
I loved the way we
hugged each other. And we always told each
other we loved each other.
00:39:20
And my last conversation with
her, it wasn't very nice. And we didn't end the
conversation with "I love you."
00:39:29
And that--
[SIGHS, SNIFFLES] I know she knows I loved
her and just as much as I know that she loved me.
00:39:38
She's a beautiful person that
went down the wrong path. And I wish she wouldn't have
because she was beautiful--
00:39:47
her smile, her soul, everything. She was a beautiful
person, and she did not deserve to have her
life ended at such a young age.
00:39:57
PAUL VAN RHEE: At the
time, we had over a dozen similar incidents
in the Grand Rapids
00:40:02
area during the late 1990s. And if I was able to
interview him again, the most important thing
I would want to know
00:40:09
is what other homicides
out there was he a part of. The incredible work of
the "Bloodline Detectives"
00:40:17
goes well beyond the tragic
murder of Sharon Hammack. Between 1993 and 1996, 17 women,
many of whom were sex workers,
00:40:30
disappeared in the
Grand Rapids area. Some of them were
never even found. 11 of them, including Sharon
Hammack, were murdered.
00:40:42
On his deathbed,
2024, Garry Artman confessed to 10
of those murders, plus the murder of a
Florida woman back in 2012.
00:40:57
I'm Nancy Grace, and I want
to thank you for joining us here on "Bloodline Detectives."
00:41:03
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