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Silo is streaming May 5th, only

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on Apple TV+. Tonight

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on Dateline. She has a way

0:34

of making you feel really important. When

0:36

she's the girl that you fall in love with, she's

0:38

an amazing person. You could walk right into

0:41

that little spider's web. Yes. I

0:44

think I really, truly did dodge a bullet.

0:47

My mom said that he had had a stroke.

0:50

She had posted that he had collapsed

0:52

and he was in a coma. Somebody

0:55

called the sheriff's office.

0:56

It appeared that he'd maybe been poisoned.

0:59

Yes. This

1:01

was her fifth marriage. She'd been married five times.

1:04

I started Googling. It was

1:07

just snowball after snowball. She

1:09

had been involved in a shooting.

1:12

I believe he was a fiancé. I'm getting a phone

1:14

call saying your house is on fire. I

1:17

started fearing for my life. Did

1:19

she actually do these horrible things? This

1:22

is one of those thousand-piece puzzles. It's

1:25

two very different people.

1:27

I don't know which one is the real one. Five

1:30

husbands. Two dead bodies. Is

1:33

this widow a killer? I'm

1:35

Lester Holt and this is Dateline.

1:46

Here's Keith Morrison with

1:48

Along Came Sarah. Who

1:57

were they seeing when they saw her? Angel,

2:02

protector, best friend.

2:07

What was true, or

2:09

was there a truth at all? Behind

2:13

the smile that might also be deadly.

2:19

This is a story about charm and

2:22

charisma and what lived

2:25

in the dark place behind.

2:34

The Distraught Woman

2:40

The distraught woman in the red sweatshirt is

2:42

Sarah Jean Hartsfield. The

2:45

man on the gurney, her husband, Joe,

2:47

a diabetic. When

2:50

Joe was admitted to the hospital in Baytown,

2:52

Texas, unconscious, his blood

2:54

sugar levels were dangerously low. So

2:57

the medical staff went to work, put Joe

2:59

on a glucose drip, and waited for

3:02

him to bounce back.

3:08

But he didn't. His brother

3:10

Tony and mother Helen got the news in a phone

3:13

call. Ain't nothing

3:15

you want to hear. Hurry up and get down there

3:17

as quick as you can, because you don't know what's happening. What

3:19

was the situation when you arrived? It

3:22

was unresponsive,

3:24

and I see you. The

3:27

medical staff was baffled. For

3:29

hours, they worked on him. Nothing

3:32

helped. All

3:34

the while, a worried Sarah Jean posted

3:37

medical updates on Facebook.

3:38

She had posted

3:41

that he had collapsed, and

3:43

he was in a coma. So I messaged,

3:45

like, how's it going? You know, what

3:47

are the doctors saying? Sarah's

3:50

friend, Evangeline Kelso, wasn't just

3:52

being nosy. She's a nurse who

3:54

had recently been instructing Sarah as

3:57

to how better manage Joe's diabetes was

3:59

in the hospital.

3:59

digital glucose monitor. That

4:02

attached to him that would alarm

4:04

on his phone. I have to make sure your

4:06

alarms are loud enough that it'll

4:09

wake you up so that if

4:11

he goes too high or too low, you can catch it

4:13

quickly.

4:14

Somehow Sarah said

4:16

she and Joe slept through the alarms

4:19

during the night and Joe went into

4:21

a diabetic coma.

4:22

That his sugar had dropped way too

4:25

low. And

4:27

then a few days later Sarah posted a change

4:29

in Joe's diagnosis. She

4:31

said that he had an ischemic stroke.

4:36

She told me that he had

4:38

a completely clogged artery. Sarah's

4:41

oldest child, Ashley. She

4:45

said that he had a stroke and that he might not

4:47

be able to come back from it. And

4:49

then she was like, they pronounced him brain

4:52

dead.

4:53

And then, yeah, she was very upset about

4:55

that. Then

4:58

after eight days in ICU, Sarah

5:01

finally made the decision to

5:03

disconnect Joe's ventilator and

5:06

let him die

5:07

peacefully.

5:10

She arranged the donation of his organs

5:13

and later had him cremated. But

5:17

from the night Joe Hartsfield was wheeled into the ER,

5:20

the doctors and nurses had been uneasy.

5:24

Why hadn't his body responded to

5:26

standard treatments? Why was he getting

5:29

worse when he should be getting better?

5:31

Amid quiet but growing alarm,

5:34

a nurse slipped away, made

5:37

a phone call. An ER

5:39

nurse called our dispatch

5:41

facility.

5:43

This is Brian Hawthorne, the

5:45

sheriff of Chambers County. I

5:48

think everybody at the hospital was potentially

5:50

seeing his foul play.

5:59

our request for an interview, but back

6:02

then she certainly talked to Chambers

6:04

County District Attorney Cheryl Leake.

6:07

The story that was being

6:09

given to medical staff about

6:12

what happened was not really lining

6:15

up with what the medical staff

6:18

saw. What was Sarah Jean's

6:20

story about what happened? That

6:22

she woke up and found him that way and

6:25

tried to revive him to no avail

6:27

and eventually called 911. And

6:30

my understanding is when

6:33

they brought him in via ambulance,

6:36

they knew when they took one look at him that he

6:38

wasn't going to make it. In

6:40

her report, Detective Rox wrote that

6:43

Joe's body was reacting to treatment

6:45

like there was too much insulin

6:47

in his system. Classic signs of an overdose.

6:51

It appeared to the nurses or to the attending

6:53

people at the emergency that he

6:56

maybe been poisoned. Yes.

7:02

Now

7:02

with Joe dead, D.A. Leake

7:05

wondered if she had a murder case

7:07

on her hands.

7:10

When did you start looking into Sarah Jean as a

7:12

possible suspect? Immediately

7:15

because they were the only two living in the house together.

7:17

And

7:19

yet

7:20

this Sarah Jean had been so apparently

7:22

loving, worried, attentive.

7:25

Was this grieving widow really capable

7:28

of killing her husband?

7:30

She does not have a criminal history. There

7:32

was no big life insurance payoff

7:35

for Sarah. No obvious

7:37

motive. What then?

7:41

Cheryl Leake takes some pride in her

7:43

own personal BS detector. And

7:47

this charming woman, this Sarah Jean

7:49

Hartsfield, D.A. Leake was sure

7:51

there was something disturbing about that woman. Something

7:54

she was hiding. And

7:57

Leake was determined to find out what it was.

8:01

I mean, every day is new. Every day, I'm

8:03

finding out something new every single day. This

8:05

was her fifth marriage. Wait a minute. How old

8:07

was she? Forty-eight, I believe. Forty-eight, and she'd

8:09

been married five times? Five times. Wow.

8:13

And she had lived in about thirty-nine

8:16

different places. And she's

8:18

very smart. The problem

8:20

for Leake was, while she suspected

8:23

Joe Hartsfield was murdered by his wife, Sarah, how could

8:25

she prove it? How

8:27

could she prove Joe, a diabetic

8:30

who died from complications of his own

8:32

disease, was ever murdered in the

8:34

first place? Good question.

8:37

But, as for us, we

8:41

decided to conduct our own investigation

8:43

into Sarah Jean,

8:48

an investigation that took us on

8:50

a zigzag course across the country.

8:53

From rural Missouri... Drapes her

8:55

on fire and everything else, and it just roared

8:57

right to the house. ...to Fort Hood, Texas.

9:01

I really feared for my life. We

9:03

went to Virginia, Florida...

9:07

It tore me up. ...and

9:09

up into northern Minnesota. It

9:12

was like a scene out of a bad action

9:14

movie. We heard so many strange

9:17

and conflicting stories

9:18

for a while, we didn't know what to believe. I

9:20

firmly believe she could kill

9:23

somebody right in front of a police officer and make

9:25

him believe that she did not do it. I think she

9:27

has that ability.

9:28

We heard about this Sarah... Four

9:30

great kids, nice house. I mean, they were living

9:32

the American dream. ...and

9:35

this Sarah, too. And she

9:37

continued beating me for what

9:39

felt like hours. We learned Sarah

9:41

was a mother of four, a

9:44

foster kid who bootstrapped her way into

9:46

an Army intelligence career, once

9:49

had a top-secret security clearance,

9:53

and had

9:53

one shot of fiancé to

9:56

death. told

10:00

she was violent, controlling,

10:04

charismatic, intelligent.

10:07

She's smart as a whip and can

10:09

manipulate a situation to her

10:11

advantage and a heartbeat. Which of the

10:13

many faces of Sarah Jean was

10:15

real? Finding

10:18

out would be a long, strange trip,

10:21

indeed.

10:35

It was Tolstoy who wrote the famous

10:37

line about families. All

10:40

happy families are alike, but

10:42

an unhappy family is unhappy

10:45

in its own way.

10:47

In the case of young Sarah Jean's

10:49

benighted family, make that many

10:52

ways. Relatives,

10:54

neighbors, and friends here in the rolling farmland

10:57

of Missouri where we started our journey,

10:59

tell stories still about a multi-generational

11:03

dynasty of dysfunction with a

11:05

legacy of violence, suspicious

11:07

deaths, and abuse. My

11:11

father Thomas Smith was incarcerated for a while.

11:15

This is Cody Lee Smith, oldest

11:17

of Sarah's three brothers, describing

11:20

their dad. I just

11:22

learned to stab his way. And I learned

11:24

not to say anything unless he said something to me.

11:26

Because if you did, you're going to get knocked on the

11:28

floor.

11:31

Cody said his dad never struck Sarah,

11:33

though. No, he believed

11:36

she was abused in an entirely different

11:38

way. He

11:40

had molested her.

11:43

And at a very young age like that, and we

11:45

don't know how many times. Sarah's

11:48

mom, Janie, kicked the dad out of the house

11:50

and filed for divorce and

11:51

then married a new guy named

11:54

Richard,

11:55

who just happened to be fresh out of Missouri

11:57

State Prison after serving a sentence for...

12:01

murder. And

12:03

a few years later, Sarah came forward with

12:05

new accusations of assault, saying,

12:08

My stepdad Richard had touched my sister Sarah

12:11

in the wrong way. Didn't believe her that

12:13

time, said Cody.

12:15

I said, so I'm not buying your story because

12:17

I was there. And you know, he didn't,

12:19

he didn't do anything to you. There

12:21

was a trial. Richard was

12:23

acquitted. And Sarah, claiming

12:26

she didn't feel safe at home, demanded

12:28

to be placed in foster care. She

12:31

wanted to be away from the family, had no desire to come

12:33

back, and did not want any care given as

12:36

far as from my stepdad or my mother or

12:38

anybody that would have her facilitated

12:41

back into the home with us.

12:42

Her mother brought into child services

12:44

and basically dumped off and said, I can't handle

12:47

her. Foster parents Barbara

12:49

Stewart and her husband Steve welcomed

12:51

12-year-old Sarah into their home.

12:54

We were very close. She fit into the entire

12:56

family and everybody in our family accepted

12:59

her. I felt like, man, she is one

13:02

lucky girl.

13:03

Sarah's friend, Charissa Ferris,

13:05

envied her. She hit the goldmine

13:08

of getting really good parents

13:11

who really advocated for

13:13

her. But Charissa,

13:15

though she liked Sarah, was never

13:17

quite sure if the things Sarah said

13:20

were actually true.

13:22

I knew she had

13:24

been molested

13:26

or sexually assaulted by a stepdad

13:31

or her real dad or both. Sometimes

13:35

the story would change. I just

13:37

know that she's smart as

13:39

a whip and can manipulate a situation

13:42

to her advantage and a heartbeat. Barbara

13:46

saw that side of Sarah a lot. Like the time

13:48

when Sarah was angry about a punishment and Barbara said Sarah responded

13:51

by accusing her husband Steve. She goes, well, you

13:53

don't know how

13:55

he touches me when

13:56

you're not here. And I'm like, you know, I'm not here. You

14:00

know, you've done this before to other families, and

14:02

not every family in the world does that.

14:05

And I know better. And

14:08

she got mad, went to her room, slammed the door, never

14:11

said it again. Still,

14:13

Barbara and Steve stood by Sarah

14:15

and she thrived under their care. In

14:18

high school, Sarah worked on the student newspaper,

14:21

was in the band, and was very

14:23

popular.

14:24

She was a very pretty girl. Bill

14:27

May and Sarah were good friends in high school.

14:29

They even dated for a bit, though Bill

14:32

clearly understood he was just one

14:34

guy in a long line.

14:36

Sarah was just wild. You

14:39

know, she'd sneak out of the house and, you

14:41

know, mess around. There was

14:43

not a male that she did not like. She

14:46

just was a flirt. I mean, just

14:48

a flirt, I would say. But

14:51

when it came to flirting with shy jock Titus

14:53

Canernshold, Sarah put

14:55

her wild child's self on the shelf

14:58

and nestled up to him like a girl next

15:00

door.

15:01

We'd go to the movies, we'd knock up picnics,

15:05

we'd drive around. I played a lot

15:07

of sports in high school, so she'd show

15:09

up to the sports games and then we'd talk after

15:11

her or whatever. And you find yourself falling in love

15:13

with her gradually. Yes, sir. She

15:15

was this real sweet, nice person,

15:19

caring, you

15:21

know, easy to be with.

15:24

Foster dad Steve walked Sarah

15:26

down the aisle when she married Titus right

15:28

out of high school, class of 93 and just 18 years

15:30

old. A

15:33

month after the wedding,

15:35

as they had planned, Titus joined

15:37

the army.

15:38

And no sooner was he off training than

15:41

Sarah was off with another guy.

15:45

And when I came back, she was pregnant.

15:48

I actually had several people come

15:50

up to me and tell me they were having affairs with her. But

15:53

one gentleman that said, yes, I was with her during

15:55

this timeframe and she told me that was probably

15:57

my baby.

15:59

The pregnancy ended in a miscarriage,

16:02

said Titus. And in 1995, after

16:05

just two years of marriage, they got a

16:07

divorce.

16:09

Good riddance, thought Titus. I

16:11

figured I was out of it. I don't have

16:13

to worry about her anymore. We are divorced.

16:17

Game over. But

16:19

that's only true if your opponent leaves

16:22

the field. Titus'

16:24

new girlfriend, Angela, whom he

16:27

later married, said Sarah started

16:29

stalking her as soon as she and Titus

16:31

started dating. Strange

16:34

things began to happen. Angela's

16:36

car was vandalized repeatedly.

16:39

All four of my tires were flat. Laundry

16:42

detergent in the gas tank of my car. Some

16:44

choice words in the back

16:46

of my car with expletives

16:49

everywhere.

16:50

And every time something like that happened,

16:52

they said they'd call police and tell them they were

16:55

sure it was Sarah. The few people,

16:57

they had seen her

16:59

out there doing it. We

17:02

talked to two of Titus and Angela's friends from

17:04

that time who said they saw the vandalized

17:06

car and one of them said they witnessed

17:08

Sarah verbally abuse Angela. But

17:12

in a text message, Sarah told us that was

17:14

nonsense, that she never vandalized

17:16

anyone's car. If anything, they harassed

17:19

me.

17:19

She also said police never talked to her about

17:22

vandalizing the car. Titus

17:24

and Angela, though, said police did

17:27

talk to her, but seemed to take her side.

17:30

She would always get it turned back where it was our

17:32

fault. Somehow persuade the police?

17:35

Yes. Yes. You were at fault and not her. Right.

17:38

And they'd buy that? Yes. Even

17:40

to the point we were

17:42

told if anyone initiated a conversation,

17:45

we'd be arrested

17:46

for harassment. What you think when

17:48

you heard that? There was nothing the police will ever

17:50

do to help us. They

17:52

said the harassment, which went on for

17:54

close to a year, escalated

17:57

over time.

17:58

I was babysitting. My

18:01

friend's son while she was working an overnight

18:03

shift, and Titus and I

18:05

were on the couch with their

18:07

child in their home,

18:10

and I smelled gasoline. I

18:12

thought, where's

18:15

that coming from? I could smell it was coming

18:17

from the front of the house. So

18:21

I thought, something's wrong with one of the cars. So

18:23

I got Titus and we went

18:25

out there and there was a gas can.

18:28

There was gasoline splashed all

18:30

over the front of the house.

18:33

And I see her leaving

18:36

the vicinity. Wow. And

18:38

at that point I was like,

18:41

she was going to set that house on fire. This

18:44

time they thought Sarah had gone too

18:46

far. Surely there'd be a reckoning

18:49

for Sarah Jean.

18:51

Well, maybe.

19:06

Finally, they thought they had

19:08

her dead to rights. For so

19:10

long, Sarah Jean had made Titus

19:12

and Angela Canernchold miserable.

19:15

But now they felt sure they'd caught

19:17

her red-handed, pouring gasoline

19:19

on a house with them in it. No

19:21

doubt in their minds, Sarah was intending

19:24

to burn the place down. So we

19:26

went to the police, told them the story,

19:29

and they said, well, it's either arson

19:31

or it's not. Apparently there's no

19:33

such thing as attempted arson.

19:36

Sarah was never arrested, never

19:39

charged with anything, and in a

19:41

text message to us said she had

19:43

no knowledge of anything that might have

19:45

happened at the house.

19:47

We asked the police for reports

19:49

of these incidents, but we're told records

19:52

from that time period

19:53

are long gone.

19:55

Anyway, back then, much too tight

19:57

is an Angela's relief, they said. Sarah

20:00

took her anger elsewhere. She

20:02

moved on and married one of Titus'

20:04

friends. But he soon dumped

20:07

her after he caught her cheating with

20:09

a fellow soldier. And then after

20:11

two failed marriages, Sarah decided

20:13

it was time to shake up her life. And at

20:15

the age of 22, she joined the

20:17

army as a truck

20:19

driver.

20:21

She called me and said, I just

20:23

want you to know I've joined the service. I'm

20:25

like, well, good. That'll be good

20:27

for you. And after

20:30

I got off the phone, I thought, hmm, you're going to

20:32

know what the rules are now. Sarah

20:35

found herself stationed way up north

20:37

at Alaska's Fort Wainwright, where

20:40

she met a fellow soldier named Chris

20:42

Donahue.

20:44

He was a couple of years younger than her. And

20:46

I think he was

20:49

one of those guys that was just very

20:52

innocent and trusting. And

20:54

then the next thing you know, she's pregnant. And

20:57

you're going to have a baby. Would

21:00

they have married? Were it not for that?

21:03

Who knows? Chris also

21:05

politely declined the chance to talk about

21:08

Sarah on camera. But

21:10

that's when Ashley was born and 18 months

21:13

later, son Ryan, followed

21:15

in due course by two more daughters.

21:18

Her years with Chris perhaps Sarah's most

21:21

stable. In fact, in 2005,

21:25

while Chris was away and with four

21:27

young children to look after,

21:29

Sarah took in her sickly

21:30

dad. Yes,

21:33

the same man she claimed had molested her.

21:36

And she told me that she was going to go get him and bring him

21:38

home. I said, this

21:40

is the guy that you've hated all your life. And

21:43

you've talked about so terribly. And you're, well,

21:45

somebody has to. And

21:47

it did not make any sense to me. Ashley's

21:51

memory of her grandfather's brief time

21:53

with them is very

21:55

vivid. How could it be otherwise?

21:58

She was at our house for like. two or three days and

22:01

he died right in front of me. He died right in

22:03

front of you? Yeah. I was sitting right there

22:06

when it happened and she

22:08

had given him his medicine. He had a

22:11

liquid medicine to take and he grabbed

22:13

his chest like this and he

22:15

started to cough a little bit and

22:18

he's having a

22:20

hard time breathing and then after

22:23

that… Just died. Yeah.

22:26

Sarah texted

22:28

us that her father died of natural causes.

22:31

He was given medication prescribed to

22:33

him. Nothing else. In 2007,

22:38

after eight years in the reserves,

22:41

Sarah returned to active duty and

22:43

became something of a soldier soccer

22:46

mom.

22:47

The neighbors would compliment her and my dad as parents

22:50

because they always saw all of us outside

22:52

working together in the yard. So

22:54

I think they thought that we were nice

22:56

kids with a great family.

22:58

Whenever we had people over,

23:01

she'd go crazy in the kitchen. Sarah's

23:04

son, Ryan. Honestly, those

23:06

are my favorite memories of my mom just

23:09

making food. She was really

23:11

good at it. Thanksgiving, she'd

23:13

go nuts. Christmas, she'd go nuts.

23:16

There's decorations everywhere.

23:18

She was very family-oriented. She adored her

23:20

children. Evangeline

23:22

Kelso and her family were Fort

23:24

Hood neighbors. She would

23:27

brag up one side and down the other about how wonderful

23:29

her kids were. Meanwhile, Sarah's

23:31

military career took off. She

23:33

was assigned to intelligence, rose

23:36

to the rank of Sergeant First Class.

23:38

She had a top-secret security

23:40

clearance. And later, when

23:43

the war in Iraq got hot, resulting

23:45

in a massive surge of U.S. troops to the region,

23:47

both Sarah and Chris were

23:49

deployed.

23:51

I know they had some heavy, specific responsibilities,

23:53

and they were executing them well. Former

23:56

Army officer Kevin Robinson, who served

23:58

with the Donahues in Iraq,

23:59

But Sarah was a respected soldier. She

24:02

had a very good professional relationship with

24:05

everyone there in the division headquarters because

24:07

she was selected essentially to be the

24:10

person that was the go-between between the

24:13

intelligence

24:14

section of the headquarters to

24:17

everyone else in the staff. With

24:19

both parents gone, the kids were

24:21

farmed out to relatives. How

24:23

was that? It was all right.

24:26

They were gone for I think a year. Yeah,

24:29

it was definitely a big change when we

24:33

went back.

24:34

Which is one way to put it. Sarah's

24:37

return from Iraq would be no

24:40

happy homecoming for the kids. More

24:43

like a horror movie.

24:44

I felt like she was a taking time bomb.

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25:49

How language is learned.

26:01

What was true and what was

26:03

not? To the public, Sarah

26:06

seemed like some sort of super-soldier mom with

26:09

a fine career handling top-secret

26:11

intelligence, a charming husband,

26:14

a spotless house, and obedient

26:17

children. We were really

26:19

big on presentation, so

26:21

how you dress is important, how

26:24

you act is important. What other

26:26

people see from the outside

26:28

is very important. But

26:31

inside? Well,

26:34

that was very different. Altogether

26:37

different. The

26:39

biggest rule we had was, you know, what

26:42

happens in the house stays in the house.

26:44

The neighbors, they didn't know anything about what happened behind

26:46

closed doors. Inside

26:49

said her children Sarah was a

26:51

different person. I felt like she

26:53

was a ticking time bomb. If we did

26:55

something that had upset her,

26:58

like it was kind of zero to 100. Big

27:00

temper. Yeah. They

27:03

learned to be wary, to watch her mood,

27:06

especially when their soldier mom

27:08

put on her uniform.

27:10

I felt like she was a completely different person

27:13

when she had her hair up in a bun, had a uniform on.

27:15

I hated that. How was she different? In

27:17

what way? I don't know how to describe it. I think

27:19

it was just the look that she had on her face. And the way her hair would

27:22

be pulled back so tight, I'm like, please take it down.

27:24

Well, whenever you got in

27:26

trouble, she'd let you know. And

27:29

it was something that the whole house knew.

27:33

Like even as kids, you know, when the other person's

27:35

getting hit in

27:39

the other room, you could hear every hit through

27:41

the house, because it would echo.

27:46

Ryan said the worst beating he took was after

27:48

he broke a wall hook in

27:50

a house they were renting. She

27:53

had the belt in her hand. She's just swinging, doing

27:55

her thing. And after

27:58

a while, I was like, She

28:01

throws the belt to the side and she just

28:03

starts punching me in the face. And

28:05

it was so bad that I

28:08

had

28:10

bruises from my whole face down and

28:14

from my shoulders to my ankles. And

28:18

I missed school for a whole week. How old

28:20

were you when that happened? I'd

28:22

say like, I'd say 10. And

28:26

that was when I

28:28

realized I was scared of my mom because

28:31

right after everything happened, the

28:35

whole beating thing,

28:37

we went downstairs and she

28:40

was being on ice. She was

28:42

cutting me up oranges and

28:44

stuff, talking all sweet and whatnot.

28:47

She's hit me in the face multiple times before as

28:50

a child, also as a teenager. There

28:53

was a time though, it was so bad. I told her I was

28:55

going to call CPS. That

28:57

would be child protective services. And

29:00

she said if I was going to call CPS, she was going to give me

29:02

a reason to call CPS. And she continued

29:04

beating me for what felt like

29:06

hours because she would stop. She'd

29:08

be talking and she'd be yelling. And

29:10

then all of a sudden she'd pick up a belt and she started wailing

29:13

on me again. And I was like, this is ever going to be

29:15

done. And I was covered in bruises. I had bruises

29:17

all over my legs. I

29:20

had

29:21

a bruise on my face. I had

29:23

them all over my arms and my back. Did

29:25

you complain to CPS? No, because

29:27

I was too scared of what would happen.

29:30

I didn't tell anybody to call CPS.

29:32

I didn't ask any of my friends. But CPS

29:35

did get called. And police

29:37

showed up at the door one day after school.

29:40

And here is the report about that visit from

29:42

the Bell County Sheriff's Office. It

29:44

says a father of one of Ashley's friends called

29:47

them saying Ashley was beaten pretty bad, had

29:50

a black eye, looked like her fingers

29:52

were possibly broken, and had whipped

29:55

lacerations all over her back.

29:57

And I was like, oh my gosh. I

30:00

wouldn't mean it would go to CPS and my mom could get in

30:02

trouble and then she would use it against me. You

30:04

didn't see the police as a savior.

30:06

You saw them as getting in trouble

30:09

even more. Yes.

30:11

I was very upset that they came to the house.

30:15

So much so, Ashley said she lied.

30:17

And sure enough, the report

30:19

quoted Ashley telling the deputies her black

30:22

eye was an accident. The

30:24

report concluded with, there's no

30:26

evidence of ongoing abuse. When

30:29

we asked Sarah about this, she wrote,

30:31

I'm sure my kids would call it a beating, but

30:34

no, no one was beaten. But

30:36

Barbara Stewart said she heard about this

30:39

incident and others.

30:41

The kids were threatened. They

30:43

better not say anything. They

30:46

better not admit any of this

30:48

happened. And family

30:50

services would always believe her. She

30:53

would always talk her way out of it.

30:56

Ashley said her dad, Kristana

30:58

Hugh, seemed powerless with Sarah.

31:02

There was only so much he could do because

31:04

if he stood up for us, she would get

31:07

very, very angry at him. I think he wanted

31:09

to do anything to make it work and keep his family

31:11

together. And he really did try and

31:14

she just made it difficult.

31:18

In 2014, Sarah and Chris

31:20

bought an impressive big custom

31:22

built place on the lake, not far

31:24

from Fort Hood. And there

31:27

they reconnected with Kevin Robinson

31:29

and his wife, Melissa.

31:30

Everybody just loved them because

31:32

they were just like a great couple. They seemed like happy,

31:35

had it together for great kids, nice

31:37

house. I mean, they were living the American dream.

31:42

But money was tight. And

31:45

then just

31:46

three months after buying their home, Sarah

31:48

got a call from her brother Cody.

31:51

Their grandmother, Merle Repper had

31:53

died. Leaving behind

31:55

a house of 325 acres of prime farmland, there was bound to

31:57

be a new home.

31:59

to be a big inheritance. And

32:02

Sarah, the family in tow,

32:04

rushed off to Missouri,

32:07

where she was about to get some bad

32:10

news. Bad news for her

32:12

anyway. After she screamed and yelled at

32:14

my wife that day on the porch, I should have

32:16

known her at the end. There was not gonna be any kind of peaceful

32:19

amical anything with my sister.

32:21

You can't

32:24

watch Sarah's long-suffering older brother Cody

32:34

amble

32:39

about his land in Missouri and not

32:41

be reminded of Job. Living

32:44

alone in a single wide, no

32:47

car, no internet, the family

32:49

farm long gone. His wife

32:51

and mother and youngest brother,

32:54

dead, sad.

32:57

It wasn't always like this. Cody had done

32:59

so well despite his messed up

33:01

family, his troubled upbringing. Life

33:03

was pretty good. Until

33:05

the day his grandmother Merle passed

33:08

away. It was August 2014.

33:11

There was a funeral of course.

33:13

And Sarah came

33:15

like some dark, prodigal

33:17

child. She stayed at night

33:19

at the house with us. And

33:22

I guess it was, I don't know, maybe

33:25

a couple of days later, she wanted to kind of look through

33:27

things and said, well, the

33:30

will doesn't have you in it. Cody

33:33

and his wife, Mary Nancy, had been tending

33:35

to grandmother Merle on her farm for

33:37

years. Only once in the

33:40

family to do so. Which

33:42

is why Merle, in her will, left

33:44

everything. The farm, the house, the

33:46

furniture, all

33:48

of it, to Cody and

33:50

nothing to Sarah. It

33:53

just

33:53

became more or less a screaming match. Now

33:55

she said she was gonna fight me for the house and the land and everything

33:57

because she owed 200 and some thousand dollars on her place.

33:59

wherever she was living at the time. And

34:03

everything she sold out here, that would pay for it.

34:05

That was the story I got. Sarah

34:08

up and left after that, but Cody

34:10

said she came back later

34:12

that day. The next thing

34:14

I know, they've got trucks and trailers, and they're trying to, they're

34:16

hauling everything and been in looking on her laptop to

34:18

see how much it was worth. And I told

34:21

my wife, so, well, I don't know what to do about it. Really, I mean, I'm

34:23

just gonna let her have what she wants to have, and maybe

34:25

then she'll let us alone. Sarah's

34:28

son, Ryan, was there.

34:29

He saw it all. Cody,

34:32

he let her take whatever she wanted. My

34:35

mom took a whole U-Haul full

34:37

of stuff.

34:38

Ashley was there, too. My mom

34:41

cleared out a lot of things, like

34:43

had

34:44

myself, my brother, my dad, a

34:47

bunch of people helping her carry stuff up out of the basement.

34:50

Like, we don't really need all this stuff. But

34:52

to her, it was the most important thing in the world because

34:54

she said her grandmother was the only person that ever truly

34:56

loved

34:56

her. And she felt entitled to it. She

34:59

did. She felt entitled to

35:01

a lot of things. By

35:03

nightfall, Sarah was gone, and

35:05

Cody and his wife curled up on the couch with

35:07

their eight-year-old nephew, Xander,

35:10

who was spending the night. I

35:12

want to say it was about 2 o'clock in the morning. I'm

35:14

not certain, but I know when I got up, I smelled smoke.

35:17

I knew that wasn't good. Cody opened

35:19

the door and saw a broken window burning

35:21

drapes and flames spreading rapidly across

35:24

the pine floors. I mean, the fast

35:26

you snap your hand, it just roared right to the

35:28

house. The smoke just billowing, you know. And

35:31

I mean, it was thick, it was black, and then when

35:33

it come, it come. And

35:35

I couldn't see my hand in front

35:37

of my face, honestly. Cody said he

35:40

passed out, but came too after

35:42

hitting the floor. When I came to, all I

35:44

could do was crawl out the door. And I

35:46

could hear Xander behind me, and I kept having

35:48

to grab my hand and equine and grab my hand. So

35:51

all I could do, I got out the door, I

35:53

took a deep breath, and I ran

35:56

down to my brother's place. I woke

35:58

him up, grabbed him up,

35:59

to the house we came. My brother

36:02

dove in the house. Of course, he starts

36:04

choking immediately, and I was just, if you can grab him, if you

36:06

can't grab him and get back out here. Otherwise,

36:08

none of us gonna make it, till he went back in, and

36:12

somehow grabbed ahold of something that he thought was him, and

36:14

grabbed him, and jerked him, and then out he came. And

36:17

that was rough. As

36:20

I love, I love Lil' Boy. They rushed Sander

36:22

off to the hospital, suffering from smoke inhalation,

36:25

where he finally did recover.

36:29

But Cody's house was a total

36:31

loss. We got to watch everything we had go, in

36:36

a matter of just hours.

36:37

The first thing I did after that fire,

36:40

the next morning when it got to be daylight, I called her. Her

36:44

being his sister, Sarah. Because

36:46

I wanted her to know that I had survived.

36:50

And the big plan of taking the house out and leaving

36:52

even nothing didn't work so well for her. That's

36:54

why I called her. I said, I just want to tell you it didn't

36:56

work. I'm still here. I

36:59

said, I'm here, the wife's here. Sander's

37:01

is doing okay as well.

37:03

And the first thing she said was, well,

37:06

what was Sander doing here? Sarah denied any involvement,

37:08

of course. Yeah, she denied to the fire

37:10

investigators. She denied to the police. She denied to everybody,

37:13

including her lawyer. She denied

37:15

it in a text message to us too, saying,

37:18

I did not set my grandma's house on fire,

37:21

and was never suspected or questioned. But

37:23

according to Ryan, not everyone

37:25

believes Sarah's denials. Not

37:28

even her own children. The

37:30

consensus throughout the family

37:33

was,

37:33

she was pissed off that

37:36

he got the house and she didn't. Was

37:38

it the family consensus that she started the

37:41

fire? A lot of people believe

37:43

that. The sheriff's

37:45

department said the cause of the fire was undetermined.

37:48

The fire department said the same. But

37:51

according to Cody's friend and neighbor, Billy

37:53

May, the fire marshal did

37:56

find something noteworthy. Where

37:59

the fire had started.

37:59

there was poison ivy in the back of the

38:02

house. And the fire

38:04

marshal said when they went and visited Sarah that

38:06

her face was covered in poison ivy and

38:09

that he couldn't prove for certain,

38:12

but he pretty well thought that she probably

38:15

started the fire. Cody

38:17

heard the same thing from his brother, who

38:19

saw Sarah right before she left

38:21

town. He said she had poison ivy

38:24

all over her face.

38:25

But it wasn't quite proof,

38:28

was it, said Cody, rather sadly.

38:31

I'd love to tell you that I knew what happened and

38:33

I'd love to say, well, she's going to get hers for

38:35

this, but I can't.

38:38

And Sarah was

38:39

never charged with anything.

38:42

And despite all the talk around here about Sarah

38:45

and the fire, it never stopped her from

38:47

coming back time and again to see

38:49

a guy who was about to explain

38:51

why he would like to take it all back.

38:55

I think I really, truly did dodge a bullet.

39:00

When Sarah Jean de-furnished

39:02

her brother Cody's house,

39:06

she got more than a truckload of old furniture and family

39:08

keepsakes.

39:09

She also picked up her next boyfriend. Not

39:13

to mention a convenient place to store all that stuff. It

39:16

went into this guy's garage. I

39:19

mean, it got to the point where he was going

39:21

to be in the car and he was going to be in the car. It

39:25

went into this guy's garage.

39:28

I

39:28

mean, it got to the point where I was like, how much more

39:30

crap do you really want? Because my

39:32

garage was getting full. Brian Altus

39:35

is an old childhood chum of Sarah's. They

39:38

reconnected during the grandmother's funeral.

39:42

And the very night Cody's house burned

39:44

down, Sarah crawled into

39:46

Brian's bed. Just to

39:48

sleep, he told us. And

39:51

if she started the fire, he said, he

39:53

wasn't aware of it. Anyway,

39:56

that's how the affair and Brian's two-year

39:58

rollercoaster ride was set. Sarah began.

40:02

And the inconvenient fact that

40:05

she was very married to Chris

40:07

Donahue? She

40:09

informed me that she and Chris were going to get

40:11

divorced.

40:13

Brian

40:13

fell hard. There

40:15

was something irresistible

40:18

about that woman.

40:22

When she's the girl that you fall in love with, if she

40:24

could be that person day in and day

40:26

out, she

40:29

was an amazing person. What did you love

40:31

about her back then? She

40:33

asked the way of making you feel really important.

40:36

Like you matter. When I brought her

40:38

around, some of my family members and some of my

40:40

friends, and they're like, oh, I'm glad for you. She's

40:43

just a very likable person

40:46

at first impression. Was she attractive?

40:48

Was she good in bed? Was she enticing? Was

40:51

she? Yes. Yes to pretty much about

40:53

everything I think you just

40:54

said. So she could persuade you that up was down and

40:56

down was up. Oh, yeah. She has a

40:58

way of talking to people to make you believe everything.

41:01

Yeah.

41:02

And I firmly

41:04

believe she could kill somebody

41:06

right in front of a police officer and make him believe

41:08

that she did not do it. I think she has that

41:10

ability.

41:12

You might want to remember that. For

41:17

two years, Brian was as happy as

41:19

he had ever been and

41:21

as miserable. There's

41:25

no way you can be this

41:28

person that everybody loves to be around

41:30

and got to know to

41:33

be downright mean and hateful

41:36

in a matter of seconds.

41:38

Basically the devil's daughter, if you ask

41:40

me.

41:43

Things got contentious between them. They

41:45

even filed for restraining orders against each

41:47

other. And then one

41:49

day when Brian was in court, Sarah

41:52

had an envelope delivered to him. So

41:56

I open it up and I look at it and.

42:00

I remember the smell of urine and

42:02

it was a pregnancy test. Oh my. And

42:05

it said it was positive.

42:07

And I'm like, nah, this

42:09

ain't legit. Still,

42:11

Brian agreed to meet with Sarah at

42:14

his house to hash things out. He

42:17

brought his sister for support. And

42:19

I said, let's go do her own test together so that I can

42:22

see for sure that

42:24

you're pregnant. And she wouldn't do

42:26

it. They stood outside

42:28

the house and argued about everything then.

42:31

And finally, Sarah agreed to leave

42:34

for good. But she made

42:36

one last request.

42:39

Can I use the bathroom before I leave? I'm like, sure,

42:41

no problem.

42:43

She was in there for a while.

42:44

I remember that because my sister and I both looked at each other and we're

42:47

like,

42:47

wow.

42:49

What the hell?

42:51

And finally she came out. She

42:54

went her way. I went down to the local

42:56

bar in town to meet up with some coworkers. 20 to 40

43:00

minutes later, I'm getting a phone call

43:02

from

43:03

the local police station saying your house is

43:05

on fire. Do you think she started the fire?

43:08

And you'll never hear me say that. Do

43:11

I believe there is a possibility? Yes.

43:14

But I will never, ever. Yes,

43:17

she did it. I can't prove it. Nobody proved

43:19

it. Sarah told

43:21

us by text she had nothing to do

43:23

with the fire.

43:24

Anyway, she

43:25

was out of Brian's life, finally.

43:29

And what did she leave him with?

43:32

No, not a child, but perspective.

43:37

You know,

43:37

everybody joked about the fire, you know, how

43:40

I was lucky to survive that. But

43:42

I think I really, truly did dodge a bullet.

43:46

And I meant that, literally.

43:48

The next

43:50

fella, Zara Jean, set her eyes on. Wouldn't

43:54

be so lucky. Can

43:57

we talk about David? Yes. What

43:59

he was like. He was a big teddy bear. Any

44:02

time he walked into a room, he'd have

44:05

a big grin and he'd give you a big hug. Carl

44:09

and Laura Bragg told us their son,

44:11

David Bragg, was this teddy bear.

44:14

An Air Force veteran known for taking care

44:16

of people, maybe because he was the eldest

44:19

of eight siblings, five of them adopted,

44:21

including Daniel and Ronald Bragg.

44:24

When you were growing up, how

44:26

do you remember his presence in your life? I

44:28

remember him being very tall, just like my dad. He

44:31

had a presence

44:33

to him. Honestly, spending image of our dad, it's kind

44:35

of weird. You see him side by

44:37

side and it's like, well, who's who sometimes? Was

44:40

he welcoming to all you younger ones?

44:43

Yeah. My mom used to tell me stories

44:46

about how he'd walk around the neighborhood with his

44:48

little mixed-race brother

44:50

to try to get the ladies to look

44:52

at him. Ladies would

44:54

look at David and sometimes David

44:57

looked back.

44:58

He was married when he met Sarah, had

45:01

two kids.

45:02

But he spent a lot of time on the road working

45:05

in construction. And while absence is

45:07

said to make the heart grow fonder,

45:09

distance from his wife did not have

45:11

that effect on David. What happened

45:13

between them? Sarah happened between them. Sarah

45:16

happened, yeah.

45:18

Now, Brian was out of her life, and

45:21

David Bragg was on a construction project

45:23

right at Fort Hood, where Sarah

45:25

was stationed. They hid

45:27

their relationship from her husband, Chris, until

45:31

he was stationed in Korea. And

45:34

then everything changed.

45:36

And the day he left, David

45:39

was over at the house. In

45:42

fact, he was at the house a lot,

45:44

overnight too sometimes.

45:47

My mom would tell me that he was sleeping

45:49

in the front room, and I didn't

45:51

believe it. One time I walked to the front of the

45:53

house, and I peeked in the

45:56

bedroom that David was supposedly

45:58

staying in, and it looked like David was staying in.

45:59

somebody was laying under the covers. So

46:02

I went in there and he yanked the covers back and

46:05

there was pillows and I was like, oh my God.

46:08

While Chris suspected his wife had been

46:10

running around on him for years, this

46:12

was it for him. Made him so

46:15

mad he flew halfway around the world

46:17

to confront her.

46:18

And so my dad got permission

46:20

to come back to the States from his boss and

46:23

I basically helped him catch her

46:25

cheating on him.

46:26

She helped her dad by ensuring the

46:28

garage door was unlocked and

46:31

once in his house, Chris went

46:33

to his bedroom and made a shocking discovery

46:36

in his bed.

46:39

They were in bed together and she's

46:42

made a whole bunch of excuses about it, didn't know what

46:44

to say. The marriage

46:46

was effectively over, but Sarah

46:48

was all in with David Bragg now. She

46:51

even went to meet his deeply religious

46:54

parents.

46:55

What were your first impressions of Sarah? We

46:57

kind of liked her. Kind,

47:00

charismatic Sarah,

47:02

intent on being a good wife to

47:04

their son

47:05

or so it seemed to Carl. We

47:09

were convinced for a long time that,

47:11

you know, she had been wronged

47:13

in her first marriage.

47:15

That is her marriage to Chris, which of

47:17

course was actually her third, though

47:20

they didn't tell the parents that.

47:22

We loved her, we loved her kids, she's

47:25

got beautiful kids.

47:26

Sarah definitely had

47:29

David hooked, but then work had David on the

47:32

move again. This time,

47:34

some 1200 miles away to a tiny hamlet called

47:37

Garfield, Minnesota. So

47:40

he and Sarah made a plan, a life

47:42

plan. He

47:47

ended up going to Minnesota and I believe the

47:49

idea or what was supposed to

47:51

happen was that she was supposed to come

47:53

up there and live and he was like, I'm gonna

47:56

go and live, you know, happily ever after,

47:58

of course.

48:01

The only problem with happily ever

48:03

after is that it tends

48:05

to be the provenance of fairy

48:07

tales. Now the story

48:09

David Bragg was living in was

48:12

going to be more Brothers

48:14

Grimm.

48:16

She had a temper that she could

48:18

be really sweet one minute and just crazy

48:21

in the next minute. Sadly for David,

48:24

crazy was just around the corner.

48:44

In the winter of 2017, the

48:46

woman still known as Sarah Donahue

48:49

settled in with David Bragg in tiny

48:51

Garfield, Minnesota. Her

48:54

plan was to make him her fourth

48:56

husband. Mind

48:58

you, David was no stranger to starting

49:00

over himself. Now he's going to be married

49:02

to woman number three. Yeah,

49:05

number three. And they worked together for about

49:07

six, six and a half months and

49:09

engaged. So it wasn't very

49:12

long at all. Did you see them together

49:14

at all?

49:15

No, see, it was so quick

49:18

and they were thousands of miles away. I

49:21

actually met Sarah

49:23

face to face over FaceTime one time. Just

49:26

a normal happy lady and my

49:28

brother loved her and we trusted him.

49:33

To be clear, Sarah was still married to

49:35

Chris Donahue when David

49:37

and Sarah Jean found an old white farmhouse

49:40

in which to start their new life together. The idea

49:43

was they'd rent to buy and fix

49:46

it up as they went along. Jeff

49:48

Wood would be their landlord.

49:52

A really nice couple. David

49:55

was very gentlemanly,

49:58

had that southern. thing about him. I

50:01

thought they're a great couple.

50:04

At the beginning that is, everything fresh

50:07

and perfect the way new love feels.

50:12

Seemed to be in love. That

50:16

kind of changed as the time

50:18

moved on with them working on the house

50:21

and stuff. She

50:23

started getting very agitated,

50:25

really short, because David

50:27

wasn't getting the house done fast enough.

50:31

Part of the deal was that David would

50:33

remodel the kitchen of the old farmhouse,

50:36

but he had his own

50:38

idea of how long it should take and wanted

50:41

to surprise her, perhaps.

50:45

She had gone down to Texas for

50:47

two and a half weeks and when she came

50:49

back, David had hired somebody

50:52

to make a path through the woods instead of working

50:54

on the house. And all she was just irate

50:57

because he had wasted all that money on this guy

50:59

and not put it into the house. So

51:03

she had a temper that she could

51:05

be really sweet one minute and just

51:07

crazy in the next minute.

51:11

If some alarm went off in

51:14

David's mind, he seemed to show

51:16

no sign of it. But

51:18

rather, tried harder to

51:20

please her. At least that's

51:22

how his parents saw it. I

51:26

wondered whether he would be somebody who would

51:28

always try to see the good side in people,

51:31

even if

51:32

maybe other people didn't.

51:34

Absolutely. Yes. That

51:36

he was always trying to make things right

51:38

in a relationship. He'd had

51:41

failed relationships and he kept

51:44

trying to give this woman chances because

51:47

he didn't want another failed relationship.

51:52

But it wasn't long before David had to stop

51:54

living in denial. He

51:57

told his family the real Sarah...

51:59

wasn't at all the woman he thought he'd fallen

52:02

in love with.

52:04

You know, when the last time I saw

52:06

him, he kind of wanted out. You

52:09

know, he wasn't as happy as it. David wandered

52:11

out? Mm-hmm. Okay. I remember

52:13

very vividly my dad

52:17

telling me

52:18

that he reached out and was like, I

52:20

don't have a good feeling about this. Maybe I

52:22

made a mistake here. Yeah, I made a mistake,

52:25

but just hearing that, it

52:27

gave me goosebumps and even talking

52:29

about it. It makes the hair on your neck stand up.

52:32

Yeah. And

52:34

then one spring day in May 2018. We

52:39

heard it come across our scanner. Al

52:41

Eatonloft is editor-in-chief of the local

52:44

newspaper, something happening at that

52:46

old white farmhouse. A

52:48

few minutes later, landlord Jeff Woods phone

52:51

rang, too.

52:53

One of my coworkers called me at work

52:56

and said I'd better get over to the house because

52:58

there's squad cars all around

53:00

the house. The sheriff told

53:03

me that there was a shooting and

53:05

that there was a body

53:08

found

53:08

in the downstairs

53:10

portion of the house in the downstairs living

53:12

room. What in

53:14

the world had happened in that old

53:16

farmhouse?

53:29

It was David Bragg in

53:32

the living room, shot dead.

53:34

And the shooter? Well, that

53:36

would be Sarah Jean. And

53:38

she even admitted it, telling

53:40

detectives that there had been an argument and

53:43

Bragg pulled a gun.

53:45

In a string of texts, she told us, I

53:47

was looking down the barrel of a .45 thinking

53:50

this man is really going to kill me. He's

53:52

going to kill all of us. He fired

53:54

at me first. Had I not dove

53:56

into the floor at the base of the stairs, he would

53:58

have shot me in the head.

53:59

She had to shoot back, she said.

54:02

It was self-defense.

54:10

Sarah's son Ryan was living at the farmhouse then, but he was out

54:12

when it happened. And when

54:15

he got home, she told him

54:17

more or less the same story she told police, but

54:20

with a few extra bits added. The

54:23

tales that made Ryan wonder. She

54:26

said he fired at her first. That

54:29

his gun was fired first.

54:31

As she's coming down the stairs, she

54:33

dropped in place and had her arm

54:36

over the railing and

54:38

fired that way. So just

54:41

picture yourself crouched down, arm

54:43

over the railing and just shooting blindly.

54:46

She hit him center mass. Like

54:48

there's no way. The

54:51

story couldn't be true. No.

54:54

Like there wasn't... There

54:57

wasn't a lot of blood there. It

55:00

was probably maybe

55:03

like this big, that much blood. Because

55:06

she hit his heart right off the bat. And

55:09

then one of my younger sisters

55:12

came in. She's like, I heard bubbling,

55:15

like this bubble noise. And

55:17

he just died there.

55:20

When Jeff Wood, the landlord, heard

55:23

that version of events straight from Sarah

55:25

Jean, he too had doubts.

55:30

I don't buy it because the way she explained it, it

55:32

was like out of a bad action movie. I mean,

55:34

she explained how she dove

55:37

on to the landing of the steps and

55:39

she pulled her gun and shot between

55:41

the spindles of the steps going

55:44

upstairs and shot him and returned fire,

55:47

which I just don't buy. So

55:51

I think if David wanted to shoot her, he would have shot

55:53

her. I don't buy it at all. The

56:00

sad fact remained that Sarah's fiancé

56:02

was dead. So after

56:04

the chaos and the cops were gone, Ryan

56:08

grabbed a bucket and a rag. I

56:12

cleaned up the mess and switched around

56:14

the room. You cleaned up the blood

56:16

and the mess from his body.

56:20

Yeah.

56:22

Of course, there was an investigation. It

56:24

involved the Douglas County Sheriff, the county

56:26

prosecutor, and even state law enforcement.

56:29

Went on for months.

56:31

And then the prosecutor's office released a

56:33

statement that there was some ballistic

56:35

evidence to support a case of self-defense.

56:39

They determined they would not be filing charges,

56:41

that there just wasn't enough evidence to justify

56:44

or say there was anything else, and it was a justified

56:46

shooting.

56:50

David's

56:50

family can never forget hearing

56:52

about how their son had

56:54

been killed. What was it like

56:56

for you, Carl? It

56:59

tore... It... Just

57:03

breathe. It

57:05

tore me up. Still

57:07

tears you up. A

57:10

few years later. Yeah.

57:14

I'm sorry, Carl. David's

57:20

brother, Daniel, believes those

57:22

investigators got played by

57:24

Sarah. That's the thing

57:26

that got us was the fact that, like, all right, well,

57:28

let's let the police figure it out. You

57:31

know, let's let law enforcement figure it out. And

57:34

they didn't prosecute it.

57:37

But

57:37

Sarah's daughter, Ashley, also

57:40

had a story to tell. It

57:42

started a few months before the shooting. Sarah's

57:45

husband, Chris, had filed for divorce. It

57:47

would be finalized soon when

57:49

Sarah got word that Chris had begun dating

57:52

again. She got

57:54

really sad and upset about my

57:56

dad because my dad had started talking to somebody. She

58:00

hated that. So what did she do?

58:03

Ashley said her mother told her she was sending

58:05

a text to David Bragg. Saying

58:08

that now it was over and she didn't want to be engaged to him

58:10

anymore. So she's pulling away from David now?

58:13

Supposedly, but I think that she was playing

58:15

house with David at home, but then like still trying

58:17

to get with my dad behind David's back. Oof,

58:19

complicated. She and

58:21

complicated go along very well.

58:25

Did Sarah actually send that breakup

58:27

text? Ashley couldn't say

58:30

for sure, but she did see her mother

58:32

pack up her car and head north to keep

58:34

playing house with David Bragg.

58:37

But before she left Texas, she

58:39

said something Ashley thought was very

58:42

strange or in

58:45

retrospect, downright ominous.

58:48

She told me if anything

58:51

happens, when I go back to Minnesota

58:53

and I have to defend myself,

58:55

call this person and tell them to come pick up the girls.

58:58

And I was just like, why? And

59:01

I told her, I was like, mom, I don't think anything's gonna happen like that.

59:03

And she was like, well, if it does, she's

59:05

like, call them and tell them to come pick up the girls.

59:08

I was like, okay.

59:09

And then I get a call a couple of days later and I was like, whoa.

59:13

That is how Ashley learned David Bragg

59:15

was dead.

59:17

In your heart of hearts, what do you think happened in there? With

59:20

David? Yeah. I

59:23

personally think that she provoked a fight and

59:25

she thought that she would be able to get my

59:27

dad back and he would want her back

59:29

if David was no longer in the picture. I'm like,

59:31

my dad doesn't wanna be with you. And like, he's

59:34

completely detached himself from me. So like

59:36

anything you're doing at this point is just a waste of time.

59:38

But

59:40

by the time of the shooting, it appears Sarah was

59:43

already moving on. Another man,

59:46

another premature death, another

59:49

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slash Dateline. Rosetta Stone,

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how language is learned. recognized

1:00:59

as a transformation

1:01:03

to our culture. Sarah Jean settled right back

1:01:05

into life at the old white farmhouse in

1:01:07

tiny Garfield, Minnesota, the

1:01:10

very house in which she had just shot her

1:01:12

fiance, David. Self-defense,

1:01:14

she'd said. And the authorities

1:01:16

finally agreed, officially. Their

1:01:19

months-long investigation ended with no

1:01:21

charges against Sarah

1:01:23

Jean.

1:01:24

In any case, if it seemed odd

1:01:26

to some that she'd go on living in the very place

1:01:29

where she killed her man, it

1:01:31

certainly seemed to suit Sarah.

1:01:33

She made herself at home in

1:01:36

more ways than one. One

1:01:38

day I was over there, I was talking to her, getting the rent,

1:01:41

and the propane guy drove

1:01:43

up and came in the house

1:01:45

and, well, apparently she's dating him now.

1:01:48

And it was a pretty short time after she had

1:01:50

shot David. And

1:01:53

so I thought that was kind of odd.

1:01:57

The propane guy was another

1:01:59

David.

1:02:00

David George, not

1:02:02

just a propane guy by the way, but a local

1:02:05

farmer, and before long he was

1:02:07

Sarah Jean's fourth husband. I

1:02:10

thought that was a pretty quick marriage after, you know,

1:02:12

killing her fiancé.

1:02:14

Sarah's son Ryan got

1:02:16

on quite well with his new stepdad.

1:02:19

What was he like? He was a great guy. I

1:02:22

got nothing but good things to say

1:02:24

about him.

1:02:25

He really cared about us. He

1:02:28

tried helping us every way he could. I

1:02:30

think his only flaw,

1:02:32

it doesn't make him a bad guy, is

1:02:35

the fact that, you know, my mom was

1:02:37

his wife, and even when she's

1:02:39

wrong,

1:02:40

he sides with her. And

1:02:43

I don't think he knew she was in

1:02:45

the wrong, but he truly

1:02:47

loved her, and, you know,

1:02:52

stand by her wife, you know.

1:02:55

Which is something to keep in mind when you

1:02:57

hear what happened next, or what

1:03:00

didn't quite happen. But

1:03:02

first to bring you up to date, ex-husband Chris had

1:03:04

married again, too, to

1:03:06

a woman named Heather. They seemed very

1:03:09

happy. Except for

1:03:11

one big problem.

1:03:14

Chris and Sarah had a custody agreement

1:03:16

for their two youngest daughters, but Sarah

1:03:18

wasn't honoring it, according to Chris.

1:03:21

She refused to let him get anywhere

1:03:23

near the girls. And

1:03:25

then one day,

1:03:26

one of those girls, Hannah, texted

1:03:29

Ashley and told her she wanted to see her.

1:03:34

So I

1:03:35

got ready, dropped everything. But

1:03:38

when Ashley met her then 16-year-old

1:03:40

sister, Hannah was suddenly reluctant

1:03:43

to talk, so Ashley pressed

1:03:45

her.

1:03:45

She's like, I can't tell you. She's like, George told

1:03:47

me not to say anything. And I was like, Hannah,

1:03:50

if it has to do with Dad or Heather's safety,

1:03:52

I know you don't know Heather, but she's a nice person. She

1:03:55

means a lot to Dad. But you know Dad, and Dad is a good

1:03:57

person. And I was a little bit nervous.

1:04:00

Like, if it has to do with their safety, I need

1:04:02

to know.

1:04:03

Heather, remember, was Chris

1:04:05

Donahue's new wife. I

1:04:08

was like, I'm not gonna run back to mom or tell her you said anything.

1:04:10

And so she tells me and she like

1:04:12

whispers it to me. The

1:04:14

secret was unbelievable. And

1:04:17

Ashley knew she could not let it remain

1:04:20

secret.

1:04:22

I texted my dad and I was like, I

1:04:25

need you available to talk as soon as I leave this

1:04:27

place because there's something really important that you

1:04:29

need to know.

1:04:29

What did Hannah tell you was

1:04:32

gonna happen? George had told her that

1:04:35

my mom wouldn't let George back in the house until

1:04:38

he killed Heather. She wanted him to

1:04:40

shoot her. And

1:04:42

Hannah was able to provide me with details about

1:04:45

this car. That's the car that George

1:04:48

was supposed to drive down there and he

1:04:50

was supposed to knock on the door. Heather was

1:04:52

supposed to answer and then he was

1:04:53

supposed to shoot her. But he didn't wanna do it. And

1:04:55

my mom kept pressuring him to do it. What was it

1:04:57

like to hear that? It honestly

1:05:00

made me sick. Like I

1:05:02

felt like there was a pit in my chest. I just kept

1:05:04

thinking she always used to say to me when

1:05:07

I was younger, if there's a will, there's a way. And if she

1:05:09

really wanted that to be done, she would find a way for it to get carried

1:05:11

out.

1:05:13

Ashley got her dad on the phone.

1:05:16

Wow. How did your dad react

1:05:19

to what you told him? I think it really, really

1:05:21

stressed him out. I

1:05:23

think it worried him because his main

1:05:25

concern was making sure his wife was

1:05:27

safe. Chris

1:05:29

and Heather were nearly a thousand miles

1:05:32

away in Arizona, a seemingly

1:05:34

safe distance. But Sarah

1:05:37

had a way of making men do what she

1:05:39

wanted. And David George seemed

1:05:41

quite intent on pleasing her, even

1:05:44

if she asked him to be her hit

1:05:48

man. Yes, hello? Yeah, I've had two

1:05:50

followers.

1:06:00

Far away in southern Arizona,

1:06:02

Kristana Hewitt just learned that his ex-wife,

1:06:04

Sarah Jean, was

1:06:08

supposedly cooking up a plot to kill his new wife,

1:06:10

Heather. He knew he had to act fast. First,

1:06:14

he was making sure Heather was safe,

1:06:16

then it was talking to the person that told

1:06:18

Hannah this, and then

1:06:20

it was talking to his lawyer so that he could

1:06:22

try to get his daughters out of that house, because

1:06:25

they shouldn't have to go home to a woman that

1:06:29

one of them knows wants to kill somebody else,

1:06:32

or wants somebody else killed

1:06:34

on their behalf.

1:06:34

Just the idea. Yeah, he was

1:06:36

already trying to get them out of the house. He wasn't even trying to

1:06:39

take them from my mom. He just wanted

1:06:41

to be able to see them. He hadn't seen them

1:06:43

in almost four years, because she wouldn't let him.

1:06:45

The urgency intensified

1:06:47

for Chris and Heather once Chris realized

1:06:49

he had already been face-to-face with David

1:06:52

George, Sarah's current husband, and

1:06:54

the would-be hit man. As

1:06:56

you can see yourself, this

1:06:58

delivery

1:06:59

man on doorbell video

1:07:02

at the Donahue residence is

1:07:04

David George. Yes, hello?

1:07:07

Yeah, I have some flowers for Donahue's. The

1:07:10

flowers were addressed to Chris's

1:07:13

wife, Heather. Okay, perfect.

1:07:16

But then, something curious. No

1:07:19

car or anything?

1:07:21

Was there a hint of nervousness in

1:07:23

the delivery man's voice?

1:07:25

Oh, let me check and see if I... Okay,

1:07:27

got it. Thank you. Chris

1:07:30

waited, but the mysterious delivery

1:07:32

man never returned.

1:07:35

And a few minutes later, Chris saw a black

1:07:37

Honda Accord drive out of the neighborhood.

1:07:40

The man behind the wheel was

1:07:42

David George. It's all documented,

1:07:45

every bit of it, in court filings. In

1:07:48

a signed affidavit, Chris Donahue described

1:07:50

a phone call in which George told him he'd

1:07:52

been sent to deliver more than just flowers.

1:07:55

He'd been sent to kill Heather. He told me that

1:07:57

he had a pistol that was going to be killed by the

1:07:59

man in the car. given to him by Sarah to carry out

1:08:01

this act. He also said that he came

1:08:04

to my house 16 November 2020 and had flowers. Chris

1:08:09

went on to say that David George said

1:08:11

he ultimately refused to do Sarah's

1:08:13

bidding. David told me that he

1:08:16

even told Sarah once over the phone to

1:08:18

call what she wanted done what it was,

1:08:20

murder. He told

1:08:22

me that she got mad at him and hung

1:08:25

up. Mad at him?

1:08:27

Is one way to put it.

1:08:28

After David George returned from Arizona,

1:08:31

said landlord Jeff,

1:08:32

David told him Sarah refused

1:08:35

to let him back into her house or

1:08:37

her life at all. He

1:08:40

was basically really mad

1:08:43

bitter that she did that.

1:08:45

To put somebody in that position where if you

1:08:47

don't kill somebody I'm going to leave you, that's

1:08:49

kind of something

1:08:52

you don't really want to hear. As

1:08:54

for Chris, he filed for sole

1:08:57

custody of his two youngest daughters and

1:08:59

sought a protective order barring Sarah

1:09:01

from getting anywhere near him or

1:09:03

his children.

1:09:05

And perhaps

1:09:06

not surprising after all that,

1:09:08

the judge granted his requests,

1:09:11

both of them. And that said

1:09:13

Ashley, that seemed to send her mother

1:09:16

right over the edge.

1:09:17

Of course she like lost

1:09:19

her mind on him when she

1:09:21

lost custody of my sisters. So what was

1:09:23

your mom's motivation? What did she want out

1:09:27

of this? She doesn't like Heather. She doesn't

1:09:29

have to like Heather because Heather's the other woman that

1:09:31

she has to share her children with. And

1:09:34

she doesn't like that. But

1:09:37

even though she'd finally lost Kristana Hu

1:09:39

for good, had a dumped David George

1:09:41

and finally had no man in her

1:09:43

life, well, it wasn't

1:09:46

like she was a nun after all.

1:09:48

I think during that time she had also started seeing

1:09:50

other men that she met on like

1:09:53

Christian Mingel or something is what my sisters told her.

1:09:55

Christian Mingel? Yeah. My

1:09:57

sisters had said there was a few guys that would come over

1:09:59

to the house. after George left.

1:10:02

David George declined our request for

1:10:05

an on-camera interview, but he told us that

1:10:07

Sarah gave him a gun, though

1:10:09

he said he didn't have it on him at the Donahue's front

1:10:11

door. He also said he had no intention

1:10:14

of killing Heather and, quote, hoped

1:10:17

Sarah Jean would come to her senses and

1:10:19

know that was not going to happen. Sarah

1:10:22

texted us to say, it's not

1:10:24

true, and she never gave

1:10:27

George any kind of gun ever. George

1:10:30

said he's not in touch with Sarah anymore,

1:10:31

but he still talks

1:10:34

to Ryan Donahue. Does he

1:10:36

talk about the whole experience of having been with your mom? Yeah.

1:10:39

He says he'll always have

1:10:41

some sort of love for

1:10:43

my mom, but

1:10:45

he's happy he's got away from it. Happy

1:10:49

to be rid of Sarah Jean? Indeed,

1:10:52

he told us that while he was once entranced

1:10:54

by her, in his words,

1:10:57

I got burned. I got burned

1:10:59

hard.

1:11:00

But there may be more to this story.

1:11:02

Four

1:11:04

months before he moved in with Sarah, George's

1:11:07

partner of 25 years, Rebecca

1:11:09

Kunze, died suddenly.

1:11:12

And a few months later, the house

1:11:15

they had shared burned down. Coincidence?

1:11:19

Her brother Dana doesn't think so.

1:11:21

I think that there was a point in their

1:11:23

life where they had a happy relationship,

1:11:27

but I feel as though there was also a point

1:11:29

when that all stopped. And then, you know,

1:11:32

not too long

1:11:34

after that, she's dead. And not too long after

1:11:36

that, now they're married. The

1:11:39

whole picture together, that alone

1:11:41

made us wonder and question that

1:11:44

whole relationship at the end. And

1:11:47

now, of course, learning what we've learned,

1:11:49

you know,

1:11:51

has just made those questions even harder

1:11:53

to swallow.

1:11:59

for investigative reports concerning

1:12:02

Rebecca Kunze's death and that house

1:12:04

fire. Their response? They're

1:12:07

reopening both investigations in light

1:12:10

of new information. What that might

1:12:12

be, they wouldn't say. David

1:12:14

George told us Rebecca died of a heart

1:12:17

valve problem and he had nothing

1:12:19

to do with her death. And he said Sarah

1:12:21

and he were both out of the state

1:12:24

at the time of the fire. As for Sarah,

1:12:27

she put it all behind her when she dumped David

1:12:29

George and

1:12:29

left Garfield, Minnesota and moved

1:12:32

back to Texas, where she set her sights

1:12:34

on a brand new man. But

1:12:36

soon, someone will be setting their

1:12:38

sights on her.

1:12:40

You know, thank God somebody was paying attention.

1:12:43

You know, the attending position, the nurses

1:12:45

that were on staff that night, they

1:12:47

knew something was wrong.

1:13:01

By July, 2021, Sarah Jean's carefully crafted facade,

1:13:03

high functioning mom and soldier was in ruins.

1:13:07

Since leaving the army, Sarah had dumped her

1:13:09

husband, killed the

1:13:12

fiance, was implicated in an alleged

1:13:15

plot to

1:13:17

kill the new wife of her ex-husband, lost custody

1:13:19

of her children and had been

1:13:22

blocked from even seeing them. It always

1:13:25

seemed like she was the most unlucky

1:13:26

woman

1:13:28

in the world. Evangeline Kelsell, Sarah's old friend from

1:13:31

Fort Hood, stayed

1:13:34

in touch through all that emotional chaos. It

1:13:37

always seemed like she would start getting

1:13:40

to a good spot and

1:13:41

then a relationship would end or she

1:13:43

would get sick or

1:13:46

she was trying to fight for her kids or whatever. But

1:13:49

Sarah was nothing if not relentlessly resilient.

1:13:52

By November of 2021, Sarah

1:13:53

Jean

1:13:54

was in the After

1:14:00

four failed marriages and one dead

1:14:02

boyfriend, Sarah was on a dating

1:14:05

website, trolling for a new

1:14:07

guy, which is how she

1:14:09

met Joe Hartsfield. We

1:14:12

talked about it all the time

1:14:13

because she started dating him

1:14:17

a few months after I started dating

1:14:20

my now boyfriend.

1:14:24

Evangeline said within weeks of meeting

1:14:26

Joe, Sarah married

1:14:28

him. And it was,

1:14:32

like, very, very quick. I

1:14:34

think from proposal to walking down

1:14:37

the aisle might have been a month. Which

1:14:41

now brings our story full circle.

1:14:44

Sort of. During

1:14:46

our journey through Sarah's life, we

1:14:48

also learned new things about how

1:14:51

Joe's ended. Learn,

1:14:53

for example, that by December 2022, just

1:14:57

weeks before she rushed him to the hospital,

1:15:00

Sarah was letting it be known she was done

1:15:02

with Joe.

1:15:04

She said her house was destroyed

1:15:06

and he had left mess everywhere. There was food

1:15:09

out, all kinds of stuff. Evangeline,

1:15:12

a nurse who'd been giving Sarah advice about

1:15:14

treating Joe's diabetes, said Sarah's

1:15:17

texts about him quite suddenly

1:15:19

went from caring to complaining.

1:15:21

And she was livid. She

1:15:23

was absolutely livid. And

1:15:27

she said that she was going to sit him down and

1:15:30

have a come to Jesus moment about, this

1:15:32

is my house, these are my things, how dare you?

1:15:34

This isn't going to work unless

1:15:36

you kind of fall into step with me.

1:15:40

Another friend who did not want to be identified shared

1:15:43

a text from Sarah dated December

1:15:45

19th, 2022, saying, Joe

1:15:48

has turned into a nightmare. I can't

1:15:50

take the level of financial irresponsibility.

1:15:54

He was just looking for a meal ticket and

1:15:56

way back to a lifestyle he could never attain

1:15:58

on his own. I have to save

1:16:01

myself and figure out how to recover.

1:16:04

I have a plan. It's now a

1:16:06

matter of

1:16:07

implementing, executing, and

1:16:10

finding a place to go. By

1:16:13

Christmas, Ashley said her mother's hatred

1:16:15

of Joe had reached such a boil. It

1:16:17

was all she could talk about. And

1:16:20

how she was so over her marriage, and she

1:16:22

just, he's this, he's that. And

1:16:25

it's like, it's Christmas, can you just,

1:16:27

can you just chill? And then all of a sudden,

1:16:30

I don't

1:16:31

know what it was. It was like a folk

1:16:41

and

1:16:53

a family members of Joseph who advised

1:16:55

Joseph was planning on divorcing Sarah,

1:16:58

and he was concerned for his safety, that

1:17:01

he's Sarah might try to kill

1:17:03

him. And

1:17:06

then two days after telling his family

1:17:08

that, Joe was in the hospital,

1:17:11

and Sarah was on Facebook posting that

1:17:13

Joe's condition had nothing to do

1:17:16

with his insulin or blood sugar levels.

1:17:18

Oh no, she was saying Joe had a stroke

1:17:21

from a clogged artery.

1:17:23

And after years of eating too

1:17:25

much junk food. It seemed like

1:17:27

she was blaming him for having a stroke, almost

1:17:30

patient shaming. And

1:17:34

when Evangeline heard

1:17:36

Joe died, her mind went to a very dark place.

1:17:41

She wondered if Sarah Jean had been playing her

1:17:44

all along.

1:17:45

I wasn't sure if she

1:17:47

had taken my information and

1:17:51

used it the wrong way. It

1:17:54

was almost like Evangeline was reading

1:17:56

Detective Rox's

1:17:58

mind.

1:18:12

Jambres County District Attorney Cheryl Leek

1:18:14

had a problem, a big one, no

1:18:16

matter how suspicious Sarah's behavior

1:18:19

or strange the conditions under which Joe

1:18:21

Hartsfield died. The case

1:18:23

against her simply wasn't

1:18:26

strong enough to make an arrest.

1:18:28

We didn't really have enough. We had to wait

1:18:30

for more information to come in. Still,

1:18:33

D.A. Leek went to work. How

1:18:36

could she not, given what she learned about

1:18:38

Sarah's background and the alleged

1:18:41

plot to kill Chris Donahue's wife

1:18:44

and especially the David Bragg shooting?

1:18:47

Leek thought that should have been prosecuted.

1:18:50

I can see it clearly that

1:18:52

it needs further investigation. When

1:18:56

Sarah was close to moving away from Chambers

1:18:58

County and thus her jurisdiction,

1:19:01

D.A. Leek broke the glass. She

1:19:04

convened an emergency session of the county

1:19:06

grand jury to see if she could get Sarah

1:19:09

indicted now before the investigation

1:19:11

into Joe's death was completed.

1:19:13

So we presented everything we had

1:19:15

at that point and

1:19:18

they indicted her and

1:19:20

then she was arrested after that.

1:19:22

She will go on trial charged

1:19:25

with what? Murder.

1:19:30

Sarah was booked into the Chambers County jail

1:19:33

on a $4.5 million bond and was soon on the

1:19:38

phone to her daughter, Ashley.

1:19:40

I was getting my hair done and I saw

1:19:43

that I was getting a call and it said

1:19:45

prison slash jail and then it said Chambers

1:19:47

County and I was like, where's Chambers County? Who's calling me?

1:19:50

I didn't know anybody else that could have went to jail and

1:19:52

she answered and I was like, what did you do?

1:19:55

And what'd she say? She said they

1:19:58

arrested me and I was like, for what? She

1:20:00

said, murder. What was

1:20:02

it like to hear that? I didn't

1:20:04

really know how to feel about it because my phone was on speaker,

1:20:06

so my hair lady heard it. Oh boy.

1:20:09

It didn't really hit me, because at first it was just very

1:20:11

chaotic. I had a lot of things

1:20:14

rushing through my mind, but then later that

1:20:16

night, like it really

1:20:18

was just heavy on me. And I

1:20:20

think I came to the realization that I had to accept

1:20:23

that something was really wrong, because

1:20:25

you don't arrest somebody and charge them with murder

1:20:27

if

1:20:29

they did nothing, unless you

1:20:31

have like something. Have you got

1:20:33

to see her in jail? I have not. I

1:20:35

don't think I want to.

1:20:41

On April 27th, Ashley

1:20:44

was only a block away from the jail in Chambers

1:20:46

County, but she was not in town

1:20:48

to visit her mom, no.

1:20:50

Ashley was there to testify about

1:20:53

her mom before a grand jury.

1:20:56

And up in Minnesota, where they've reopened the

1:20:58

David Bragg shooting case, a

1:21:00

spokesperson for the county attorney's office

1:21:03

told us they expected decision on possible

1:21:05

charges within the next couple

1:21:07

of weeks. We

1:21:09

wanted to hear what Sarah had to say about

1:21:11

Hartsfield and Bragg and the alleged

1:21:14

plot to murder Heather and Cody's

1:21:16

house fire, the whole lot of it. We

1:21:20

visited her in jail twice,

1:21:23

where she told us she wanted to appear on our

1:21:25

program to answer any questions

1:21:27

I might have, and that once she had

1:21:29

done that, we'd all understand

1:21:32

that she was innocent.

1:21:35

But then the day before we were to talk,

1:21:37

she consulted her attorney

1:21:39

and changed her mind. But

1:21:42

she did send us a whole slew of text

1:21:44

messages, hundreds of them.

1:21:47

She wrote that she's a 20-year combat

1:21:49

veteran of the Army who had a top-secret

1:21:51

security clearance. That she is

1:21:53

completely innocent, has always loved

1:21:55

her husband Joseph, and is devastated at

1:21:57

the loss of him.

1:21:59

Sarah said, She never knew anything

1:22:01

about Jo's insulin, specifically

1:22:04

how much she took and when, and she

1:22:06

said she was disappointed and heartbroken

1:22:09

her two oldest children aren't supporting

1:22:11

her after all she did for

1:22:13

them.

1:22:16

As for people in Sera Jean's past,

1:22:19

those we've been able to speak to, they

1:22:22

all said they were surprised by her arrest,

1:22:25

but for a number of reasons.

1:22:28

I honestly thought she wouldn't get caught

1:22:30

and she'll get away with it. I was like, yeah,

1:22:33

about time. She's like, what are you

1:22:35

talking about? Arrested for what? Well,

1:22:37

apparently it's murder, it's up to the murder. Who?

1:22:40

It didn't match the person that we

1:22:42

had met and we had known for those years.

1:22:44

My sentence is directed towards the heart's field

1:22:47

because this could have been

1:22:49

avoided. Our biggest fear the whole time

1:22:51

has been that this would happen to someone else. It

1:22:54

wouldn't surprise me if she did do

1:22:56

it. Somebody had posted the news

1:22:58

article with her mug shot and

1:23:01

I honestly thought it was a joke because the person

1:23:03

I knew, I didn't

1:23:05

think could have been capable

1:23:08

of that.

1:23:08

Meanwhile, evidence is

1:23:11

assembled. It's a puzzle that is continuing

1:23:13

to be put together, the pieces, and this is a big

1:23:15

puzzle. This is one of those thousand

1:23:18

piece puzzles.

1:23:20

Shortly before we sat down for our interview

1:23:22

with Ashley,

1:23:23

the medical examiner made public the primary

1:23:26

cause of Joseph Hart's field's death. It

1:23:28

was complications of toxic

1:23:30

effects of insulin.

1:23:33

In other words, an insulin overdose, just

1:23:36

as the medical team suspected,

1:23:39

but

1:23:39

not at all what Sarah had posted

1:23:42

on Facebook.

1:23:44

She said it was from a stroke. Those

1:23:47

are not the same, are they? No. Joe's

1:23:52

mother and brother, potential witnesses,

1:23:54

both of them, are afraid to

1:23:56

say anything about Sarah before the

1:23:58

trial.

1:23:59

What did it feel like when you heard

1:24:02

that Sarah had been arrested and charged?

1:24:05

I don't think we need to talk about that. Yeah,

1:24:08

I don't want to talk about that.

1:24:14

Well, D.A. Cheryl Leake builds a murder

1:24:16

case against Sarah Jean.

1:24:20

It sounds to me like you don't think you know everything there

1:24:22

is to know about her yet. I really

1:24:24

do not think that we do. What happened

1:24:27

when the press release about her arrest was

1:24:29

posted on Facebook? I went crazy.

1:24:32

It just was like bugs hitting a windshield.

1:24:35

It just went crazy. It went everywhere. We

1:24:37

started getting phone calls and messages

1:24:40

on social media. And that's

1:24:43

why I'm talking to you right now. It's because

1:24:46

we're just asking everybody that knows her

1:24:48

or that knew her to come forward. Even

1:24:51

if you were her best friend, I want to hear about

1:24:53

her. I want to hear about your experience with

1:24:55

her. D.A.

1:24:57

Leake might want to give Sarah's son

1:24:59

Ryan a call. Do you suspect

1:25:02

that there are other incidents in

1:25:04

your mother's life which the police will end

1:25:06

up being interested in as they continue their investigation?

1:25:10

100 percent, yeah.

1:25:12

There's some that I have in mind that

1:25:14

I'm kind of waiting for

1:25:17

them to come to light. So

1:25:21

maybe the story of Sarah

1:25:23

Jean isn't fully told. Yet.

1:25:32

That's all for this edition of Dateline.

1:25:34

We're off this Sunday, but we'll see you again

1:25:36

next Friday at 9, 8 central. And

1:25:39

of course, I'll see you each weeknight for NBC

1:25:42

Nightly News. I'm Lester Holt.

1:25:44

For all of us at NBC News,

1:25:47

good night.

1:25:51

Hello, I'm Keith Morrison.

1:25:53

Friday in an all new two hour

1:25:54

Dateline. He was 20.

1:25:56

She was just 16. But

1:26:00

their love burned white hot.

1:26:03

And when the embers cooled, well,

1:26:06

that's the subject of our story. Friday,

1:26:09

9-8 Central on NBC. I

1:26:12

hope you'll join us.

1:26:30

And we're here to get your job done right. Get

1:26:32

started at angie.com. That's

1:26:34

A-N-G-I. Or download the app today.