Sharron Erickson

Sharron Erickson spent nearly four decades serving her Nebraska community as a county treasurer's office clerk before enjoying a quiet retirement in the tiny village of Colon. Known for her kindness and daily routines, Sharron lived alone but had become increasingly concerned about her safety. In June 2003, those fears became reality when she was brutally murdered in what initially appeared to be either a suicide or a botched burglary. Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the murder of Sharron Erickson. The investigation would divide a close-knit community, generate suspicion toward several local residents, and ultimately hinge on DNA evidence and one critical tip that brought police back to a suspect they had already interviewed. You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetime Visit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation information An Emash Digital production See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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• 1:20Speaker 00

  Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 515 of the True Crime All the Time Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson, and with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. Gibby, how are you?

• 1:31Speaker 01

  I'm good, man, and you?

• 1:32Speaker 00

  I'm doing good.

• 1:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33Speaker 00

  Although I just noticed this mark on the desk. I don't know what it is.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  It's on your side.

• 1:37Speaker 00

  It is on my side.

• 1:38Speaker 01

  You look like you want to blame me for something that I don't even sit over there.

• 1:42Speaker 00

  You might have been over here doing something. I don't know. All right, buddy. Are you ready to jump right into this episode?

• 1:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm ready.

• 1:48Speaker 00

  We're talking about Sharon Erickson. When retired county worker Sharon Erickson was murdered in a small Nebraska town, people in the tight-knit community soon started pointing fingers at each other. Sharon's murder remained unsolved for months until a tip brought a suspect who had previously been cleared back onto police radar.

• 2:09Speaker 01

  Well, the old blame game.

• 2:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, can you imagine? You know, you live in a pretty small town.

• 2:14Speaker 01

  I do. Village.

• 2:15Speaker 00

  Village. Can you imagine a murder there? And people just pointing the finger down at the feedlot store? Or whatever it is the hell you guys have there? I don't know what you have.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  Half of them would be pointing at me automatically.

• 2:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:30Speaker 01

  For whatever reason.

• 2:31Speaker 00

  For probably very good reason, but.

• 2:33Speaker 01

  But you know, outside of that, yeah, I mean, there'd be some interesting conversations going on in the local diner and the barber shop, post office, you know, people like to gather weird like the other day I saw people gathered at the Family Dollar store. Around the counter.

• 2:53Speaker 00

  When you live in a very small town, there are not a lot of places to gather. I imagine.

• 2:58Speaker 01

  Weird place to get like, I just want to pay for my stuff. You guys take that conversation outside or something, you know?

• 3:04Speaker 00

  It was like five dudes in overalls with hay hanging out of their mouth, just talking about the weather, I guess, or whatever people.

• 3:12Speaker 01

  About what's, what's going on right now in the world? Yeah.

• 3:16Speaker 00

  So Sharon K. Barons Erickson was born on August 15th, 1936. She grew up on a farm near Colon, Nebraska, a small village in Saunders County. Colon has a population of just over a hundred people.

• 3:31Speaker 01

  I find it weird that the town is named after a body part that's used to get rid of waste.

• 3:38Speaker 00

  And I'm sure I'm pronouncing it incorrectly, even though it looks exactly like colon, it's probably colon. Or somebody's going to email me.

• 3:46Speaker 01

  I'm just saying, I mean.

• 3:48Speaker 00

  But I'm more struck by a hundred people.

• 3:50Speaker 01

  That's, that's really small, man.

• 3:53Speaker 00

  I mean, you could go into the local grocery store down the street here. There's two or 300 people in there, I swear.

• 4:00Speaker 01

  Pretty easy, yeah.

• 4:01Speaker 00

  But, uh, yeah, I grew up in a small village. You live in a village now, but even a hundred people is small.

• 4:07Speaker 01

  That's tiny, man.

• 4:09Speaker 00

  So Sharon moved into town in 1956. She was previously married, but was divorced at the time of her death. She had no children. For 37 years, Sharon worked as a clerk at the Saunders County Treasurer's Office. In nearby Wahoo.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 4:26Speaker 00

  Kind of a cool place. Fun to say.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  Probably drink yahoos at Wahoo.

• 4:30Speaker 00

  Maybe, uh, maybe they got a Wawa in Wahoo.

• 4:34Speaker 01

  Where they bought the Yahoo, the drink?

• 4:35Speaker 00

  I doubt with that small of a population.

• 4:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:39Speaker 00

  But it was said that Sharon was known for her bubbly personality and always having positive things to say about people.

• 4:46Speaker 01

  Well, there's only a hundred people.

• 4:48Speaker 00

  You know what? You better not be mad mouthing people when you only have a hundred people in the town. Word's gonna get around pretty quickly.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  Very quickly.

• 4:57Speaker 00

  Sharon's friend, Don Clark, said about her, Sharon Erickson had probably the highest standards of anybody that worked at the courthouse. She always dressed properly, very cordial to people.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  I mean, I think that's, it should always be cordial to people unless they give you a reason not to be.

• 5:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, I kinda go by the old roadhouse, you know, rule, be nice until it's time to not be nice.

• 5:22Speaker 01

  And then you know what happens then.

• 5:24Speaker 00

  It's just kind of, I think, good words to live by.

• 5:27Speaker 01

  Now, the-

• 5:28Speaker 00

  Try to be nice to everybody.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  The, the dressing thing, that's already, that's really changed over the years. I think people really used to dress a lot better back in the day.

• 5:36Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:37Speaker 01

  And I think over time, people have gotten more relaxed. And I seen it coming because my dad was one of those guys that always dressed-

• 5:45Speaker 00

  To the nines.

• 5:46Speaker 01

  To the nines.

• 5:46Speaker 00

  Suit and-

• 5:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you know, and he would polish his shoes almost every night.

• 5:51Speaker 00

  You think about a show like Mad Men.

• 5:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:54Speaker 00

  I mean, those people, the men and the women, I mean, they were really dressed up, right? All the time. I'm not opposed to the more casual, um, dress code. I'm really not.

• 6:08Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 6:08Speaker 00

  Because I always thought wearing a suit and tie was dumb.

• 6:11Speaker 01

  Well-

• 6:11Speaker 00

  I'm not gonna lie to you.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  They call it the old IBM-

• 6:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:15Speaker 01

  Uh, dress code, but-

• 6:16Speaker 00

  I just, I never thought it made sense. First of all, suits are expensive as shit.

• 6:22Speaker 01

  They are.

• 6:23Speaker 00

  And then you gotta get shirts and ties and-

• 6:25Speaker 01

  Dry cleaning.

• 6:26Speaker 00

  Dry clean them and all that. I'm, I'm much more comfortable in jeans and a nice shirt. I think you can still look nice and presentable.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  You can. I, I am surprised, like, so I've been to a couple, like, funeral viewings in the last few months.

• 6:43Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:44Speaker 01

  And I'm really surprised how relaxed people are-

• 6:46Speaker 00

  Even there.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Even there now.

• 6:48Speaker 00

  Now, that is the one place that I do wear a suit.

• 6:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:51Speaker 00

  Um, you know, just- I feel like it's out of respect. I'm not saying anything bad about people who don't wear, you know, nice clothes, but my wife and I always dress up for funerals. But I have noticed, just like you, a lot of more people wearing jeans and just something you probably wouldn't have seen 20, 30 years ago.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  Shorts and flip flops, you know, I'm thinking.

• 7:14Speaker 00

  I don't think I've seen that, but.

• 7:17Speaker 01

  Didn't really make much of an effort, did you?

• 7:18Speaker 00

  I also don't live where they filmed Hee Haw, so I, uh, I'm probably less likely to see that than you are.

• 7:27Speaker 00

  When Sharon retired in 1998, many of her coworkers gathered to celebrate her long career. Sadly, Sharon only got to enjoy retirement for five years.

• 7:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's terrible, man, you know, because you work so hard to get to that, the golden years, as they call it, right?

• 7:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's what they call it. But I feel like nowadays, people are working longer and longer.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  They are.

• 7:51Speaker 00

  You know, a lot of people, like my dad, I think he retired at like 50, or 51 or something.

• 7:57Speaker 01

  Man.

• 7:58Speaker 00

  Who in the world is retiring in there at 50 nowadays? Very few people.

• 8:02Speaker 01

  Be nice to do that old 30 years and out.

• 8:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, it just, they don't seem to have that as much as they used to. And, you know, people have less options as far as pensions nowadays. There's less companies that offer those types of things. So.

• 8:19Speaker 01

  Sometimes you have a pension for a pension.

• 8:21Speaker 00

  Mm hmm. Well, who, who wouldn't want a pension thereby, meaning you would have a pension for one?

• 8:30Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 8:31Speaker 00

  The fact that you know that word is shocking to me and I can barely go on with this episode. I am so flabbergasted.

• 8:41Speaker 01

  We used to have one time back like, I don't know, 400 episodes ago.

• 8:45Speaker 00

  Uh huh. Yeah, it was a long time ago.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  And we, I overused it so much.

• 8:50Speaker 00

  Which one pension?

• 8:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:52Speaker 00

  You used to get fixated on like a word and I think you would learn a word. Remember we used to joke about you having or me getting you like a word of the day?

• 9:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:02Speaker 00

  You would hear a word like on a movie or something.

• 9:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:05Speaker 00

  And then I feel like you'd come into the studio and just want to use it four or five times in the same episode. Like first of all, you've never said that word in your life.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:14Speaker 00

  You surely, don't call me surely, wouldn't have used it four or five times in the same episode.

• 9:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:21Speaker 00

  But you know, getting back to the retirement thing, you know, I feel like back in the day, okay, if you retired at 50, man, you were still really young.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:30Speaker 00

  So those were the golden years. You had um, a lot of time and could still do a lot of things. But today, if you're retiring in your late sixties, early seventies, which a lot of people, more and more people are probably doing.

• 9:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:44Speaker 00

  You're not quite as active as you would be if you were 50 years old.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  No, not at all.

• 9:50Speaker 00

  So it's almost like, you know, it's that old adage, you know, are we working? Are we living to work? Are we working to live or whatever the?

• 9:58Speaker 01

  You're right.

• 9:59Speaker 00

  I forget what the saying is, but.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  You should, you should work to fund your life, not the other.

• 10:06Speaker 00

  This is not going to go the way you think it is. I can already tell. But we, I think we all understand.

• 10:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:12Speaker 00

  After retiring, Sharon was enjoying a slower pace of life at her home on Main Street. Main Street in colon spans just one block, right? Which is going to happen when you live in a town with only a hundred people.

• 10:26Speaker 01

  Only have so many homes if you only have a hundred people.

• 10:28Speaker 00

  Yeah. So it was said there was a bank, a post office, one restaurant, a bar and a few houses. And, and probably one stoplight probably, right? That's the kind of town that probably has a single stoplight or maybe no stoplights. I don't know.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  We just got our uh, third stoplight last year.

• 10:47Speaker 00

  Did you?

• 10:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:48Speaker 00

  Woo hoo.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  And it really wasn't needed, but I think they just wanted to put it in just so they.

• 10:53Speaker 00

  So they couldn't stop, people had stopped saying you only got two stoplights.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:57Speaker 00

  It was said that Sharon lived in a converted grocery store and had a small garage across the street. Never liked the separate garage.

• 11:05Speaker 01

  Really?

• 11:06Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  I have a separate garage.

• 11:07Speaker 00

  I had one, one time. And it was when I lived in Michigan where it used to snow like crazy. And uh, once you got into the garage, that was great, but then you still had to make it into your house.

• 11:19Speaker 01

  That's very true.

• 11:20Speaker 00

  As opposed to just walking from the garage right into your house. Sharon developed a routine. Most mornings at 8am, she picked up her mail from the post office. She would talk to her friend, Postmaster Rick Hartman, for about 15 to 20 minutes. Then she walked down to the bank to chat with the ladies who worked there. And then she went about the rest of her day. Sharon also talked daily with a cousin who lived in Lincoln, usually around 5pm. So, you know, pretty good routine.

• 11:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:51Speaker 00

  For a person who's retired, does sound like she was enjoying her retirement.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  Sounds like my dad's days when he retired, you know, he'd be like, well, Mary Jane, I gotta go up to the bank. First, I'm gonna stop at the post office, you know, and he'd go up there, talk to the, like she did, and then roll to the bank and then.

• 12:11Speaker 00

  Talk to everybody that he probably met along the way. So even though she was enjoying retirement, she seemed worried about her safety. She was aware that everyone in town knew she lived alone. Postmaster Rick Hartman told the Fremont Tribune in July 2003 that Sharon was paranoid about her safety. Which is why she had a six foot tall padlocked security fence installed around the backyard of her residence shortly before she died. She also purchased and installed motion detector alarms near her back door.

• 12:48Speaker 01

  For a small town, that's, that's uh, extreme.

• 12:51Speaker 00

  It is, because again, I understand if you live in a big city, you're paranoid, there's a lot of crime. How much crime could there really be in a town of 100 people?

• 13:02Speaker 01

  Wouldn't think there'd be that much.

• 13:03Speaker 00

  No, usually when we're talking about a, a place that's small, you know, that's where people don't even lock their doors. And they just don't worry because crime is relatively non-existent.

• 13:17Speaker 00

  Sharon was last seen alive at 5:30 PM on June 29th, 2003, which is my birthday.

• 13:25Speaker 01

  It is.

• 13:25Speaker 00

  By the way, I just had it. She met family for an early dinner and was dropped off at home by her cousin from Lincoln. The cousin later told authorities that nothing seemed off with Sharon that night.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  So all seemed normal.

• 13:39Speaker 00

  It did. I do want to go back to this, this idea that she was paranoid about her safety. You know, a number of people said that, you know, six fall, six foot tall padlocked security fence. Okay. I could understand. Maybe that denotes some paranoia, but where's it coming from?

• 13:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's got to be driven from something.

• 14:00Speaker 00

  Yeah. To me, that's the big question. On June 30th, 2003, Sharon missed her daily 5:00 PM phone call with her cousin. The cousin called the local bank and asked the workers if they had seen Sharon. When the cousin heard that she hadn't stopped by the bank, they asked the bank workers to do a welfare check. So again, pretty small town, right? I mean, just another kind of thing pointing you to that fact. Most local banks wouldn't go do a welfare check on, on someone, but

• 14:36Speaker 01

  No, they would not.

• 14:37Speaker 00

  This is a person who, in Sharon, who stopped in every day. It sounds like she knew everyone at the bank. And again, probably knew everyone in town. You're just not going to find that in too many places.

• 14:51Speaker 00

  The bank workers contacted postmaster Rick Hartman. He hadn't seen Sharon in the morning, in the morning either, which was unusual. Again, right? Talking about routine.

• 15:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 15:02Speaker 00

  When you stop by the post office every day that it's open and you stop by the bank every day that it's open.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:11Speaker 00

  That is a routine. And so if somebody thinks you're missing and none of the people at those places have seen you, that is going to raise some alarm bells for sure.

• 15:22Speaker 01

  Especially if you didn't say, oh, by the way, next week I'm going to be out of town.

• 15:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:26Speaker 01

  Got to go, you know, travel for a little bit, you know, then they, they'd be okay. They'd be like, oh, the reason you haven't seen her is because she's traveling over Europe or whatever.

• 15:37Speaker 00

  Which I'm sure if Sharon was going to go on a trip, she probably would tell this.

• 15:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 15:42Speaker 00

  Hartman had a key to Sharon's home. He and the bank workers walked over and began searching for her. They noticed that Sharon's house was unlocked, which was unlike her, and an alarm on the handle of her back door was going off. So we kind of talk about alarm bells or things that stand out.

• 16:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:02Speaker 00

  You can see, right? She locks her door. We know that. She's already paranoid.

• 16:06Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 16:07Speaker 00

  People said that. Now you've got an alarm going off. Okay. I'd be a little worried, even more worried at that point.

• 16:15Speaker 01

  Definitely some concerns.

• 16:16Speaker 00

  But it did strike me that not only the bank workers going over, but the postmaster's going over.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  Probably related.

• 16:24Speaker 00

  Maybe. There's just not much going on in the town. People are just able to walk out and go searching for her.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  That or he's like, has two hats, like, part of the bank is part of the post office, and it's been on what you're coming in for. He puts it, turns the hat around, you know?

• 16:41Speaker 00

  Maybe.

• 16:44Speaker 00

  When they didn't find Sharon inside, they walked over to her garage across the street. Rick Hartman found the garage door opener to access the garage. When the door lifted, they saw Sharon's body inside the garage. She was lying in a pool of blood and was unrecognizable, according to People Magazine.

• 17:04Speaker 01

  Oh, man. I mean, so, rough anywhere.

• 17:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  But now, this is a small town. I mean, I'm sure it had to be like, the shock of it, the shock and awe, and knowing that, you know, she's, you know, older.

• 17:17Speaker 00

  What's going to hit differently in a, in a town the size of 100 people?

• 17:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it does. So.

• 17:23Speaker 00

  And to me, when you hear the term, someone is unrecognizable, I mean, that is as bad as it gets.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:34Speaker 00

  That just means that this attack was utterly brutal, vicious, whatever word you want to use. Investigators quickly arrived at the scene. Detectives noted that Sharon was still wearing her pajamas. Her shorts were pulled down slightly on one side and her shirt was pulled up, exposing her stomach. Sharon's Beretta handgun was found next to her head, leading to the initial speculation that she died from a self inflicted wound. And I understand that. Yeah. You know, when you find a handgun near someone, especially in a position where

• 18:14Speaker 00

  it looks like it might have naturally fallen out of their hand, that might be your first kind of speculation or your first thoughts.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. Before you get a chance to dive into it.

• 18:26Speaker 00

  But, you know, let's talk about, okay, she's wearing pajamas. Her shorts are pulled down a little bit on one side. Her shirt is pulled up, exposing her stomach. Well, that could just be the, from her falling.

• 18:42Speaker 01

  Could be. Yeah.

• 18:43Speaker 00

  And the natural way that, that clothes move, but it could also be maybe an indication of a sexual assault.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. Some type of struggle.

• 18:53Speaker 00

  And then they find the gun. Her purse was also near her body. Investigators began to question the suicide theory when they noted there was no magazine in the gun. There were also no shell casings at the scene.

• 19:07Speaker 01

  Well, it kind of puts a damper on that.

• 19:10Speaker 00

  Well, it's kind of hard to imagine that someone shot themselves when there's not a single shell casing to be found.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's kind of hard to do that to yourself and then take the.

• 19:22Speaker 00

  The evidence.

• 19:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:23Speaker 00

  Yeah. And get rid of it. They also noticed a blood smear on the back bumper of Sharon's car and blood on the door frame. Sharon could not have left these marks if she was lying on the floor of the garage with a fatal gunshot wound.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. Impossible.

• 19:40Speaker 00

  So I think pretty quickly, right? The investigation shifted from suicide to murder. The search of Sharon's house provided further evidence of homicide. Someone had climbed her fence and cut her phone line. The back door had a pry mark on it. A chisel was found on the floor that may have been used to pry the door open. So. You know, she was paranoid. We talked about it. She put up this tall security fence.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 20:10Speaker 00

  But yet, we know someone climbed it and cut her phone line. So I'm telling you, the first thing that pops into my mind was, why was she paranoid? And did she have a good reason to be? Because now it's looking like maybe she did.

• 20:25Speaker 01

  I mean, it sounds like it did. She did have a good reason, you know, based on what we know at this moment.

• 20:31Speaker 00

  We don't know why she would have been, or, you know, who she would have been afraid of. There were no signs of struggle in the bedroom, but there was an empty holster on Sharon's bedside table. It appeared that Sharon was in bed and heard something, so she retrieved her gun. Investigators believe the attack started in Sharon's home. And at some point, she fled to the garage to try to escape, but was confronted and killed.

• 20:59Speaker 01

  Hey, maybe that's why her purse was by her. Maybe she grabbed her purse, the, because the keys, you know, might have been in there.

• 21:06Speaker 00

  To the car. Yeah. Who knows? But it's a different situation, right? It does sound like Sharon was prepared. She had an alarm, some type, some type of alarm.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:18Speaker 00

  She had put up this large fence. She had a gun by, on her bedside table. It looks like she retrieved the gun, but she was ultimately killed.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:29Speaker 00

  And we don't know the specifics yet. We don't know exactly what happened.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  Well, because, you know, at this point, we don't, you're right, we don't know. But if, we know they found the gun with no ammo in it. Right? So.

• 21:42Speaker 00

  Not just no ammo, but no magazine at all.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:45Speaker 00

  Which is really strange, because if you're going to keep a gun on your bedside table.

• 21:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:53Speaker 00

  First of all, you're gonna have a magazine and nobody keeps a gun without the magazine, but also it doesn't make sense to keep it unloaded because it's not gonna do any good.

• 22:01Speaker 01

  Exactly. If you're, if that's your concern, then you would keep it loaded, ready to go in case of, you know.

• 22:08Speaker 00

  This exact scenario. So to me, this is kind of a mystery. That part is a mystery already. Now Sharon didn't keep a large amount of cash in her home and she didn't own anything, you know, particularly valuable. Cash was found in her purse, indicating robbery wasn't a motive.

• 22:27Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, I mean, if they were looking for cash, they would definitely grab the purse. I mean, it's right there.

• 22:32Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, if you're gonna rob a place and you see a purse, would you not rifle through it? Thinking there's gonna be cash in there. Maybe I'm gonna take some credit cards or whatever it might be. So I do think, and you kind of have to rule out robbery, just based on that.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:50Speaker 00

  On July 8th, Sharon's autopsy results came in. Up to that point, police suspected she was shot, but her autopsy revealed she was beaten and strangled to death. She didn't have any gunshot.

• 23:04Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 23:05Speaker 00

  And that's amazing. And I think it goes to that aspect of her being called unrecognizable. You know how badly you have to beat someone for the police to initially assume they were shot?

• 23:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's pretty, pretty bad.

• 23:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, it really is. A sexual assault swab was collected and sent in for testing. Investigators were still waiting on the results at the time of that this announcement was made.

• 23:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:37Speaker 00

  But because Sharon was strangled, authorities suspected there was a personal motive to the crime. And I get that, right? Most people, when they talk about strangulation, investigators, um, profilers, people like that, they talk about it in terms of it being more of a personal crime.

• 23:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:59Speaker 00

  Right? You're up close and personal. So a lot of times that does lead the authorities to believe that this is someone who knew the victim, maybe had some very strong feelings about the victim.

• 24:13Speaker 01

  And the fact that nothing was taken, right? No robbery that they know of.

• 24:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  I mean,

• 24:19Speaker 00

  Why, why kill this person?

• 24:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:21Speaker 00

  Other than you knew them and you didn't like them.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 24:25Speaker 00

  One of the people they looked closely at was postmaster Rick Hartman. Hartman seemed to be inserting himself into the investigation. On the day Sharon's body was found, he had to be asked to step back from the crime scene. And like you said, Gibbs, you know, maybe he's wearing a couple of different hats. You know, he's, he's the, the postmaster, but he's also a part-time deputy. I don't know what all he's got going on. But what do people always say, right? About individuals who try very hard to insert themselves into the investigation, at the crime scene, usually it's a bad sign.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, typically. Now, this is a small town, village, and you know, this is somebody that she would talk to every morning.

• 25:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think they were good friends.

• 25:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, and he's also one of the people that showed up to the house to look for her. So maybe it's not as strange in this case, but.

• 25:28Speaker 00

  But I think there's more of a, a personal connection in a town of a hundred.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  Sure there is.

• 25:34Speaker 00

  You're gonna know people a lot better than you would in a town of a hundred thousand or a million or whatever. Hartman became angry at one point and told a deputy, if you're gonna arrest me, arrest me, but I'm leaving. Okay, maybe a strange thing to say.

• 25:51Speaker 01

  That seems a little bizarre, right? I mean, you're not helping yourself at that with, with a statement like.

• 25:59Speaker 00

  No, you're making, you're not making yourself look better, right? By saying it. Hartman and Sharon seemed to be good friends. He housed that for her when she went out of town. And, you know, I mentioned it, right? He had a key to her house. Most people, and you don't give a key to your house to someone unless they're a pretty good friend or you know them pretty well.

• 26:21Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 26:22Speaker 00

  And at the very least, you like them.

• 26:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:24Speaker 00

  To some degree.

• 26:25Speaker 01

  Which brings me back to a question I had for you weeks ago. Like, are you ever gonna give me a key to here?

• 26:32Speaker 00

  No.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  I mean, it's been 10 years.

• 26:35Speaker 00

  Never gonna happen. My wife has forbidden it. You talk about paranoia, she wouldn't sleep at night if she thought you had a key to the place.

• 26:46Speaker 01

  I really wanted it when you guys were in Jamaica, you know, I was like, can I get that key now?

• 26:51Speaker 00

  No, you cannot.

• 26:54Speaker 00

  So after the murder, rumors circulated that perhaps he and Sharon were more than friends, despite Hartman being married. Now, Hartman denied having any involvement in Sharon's murder. He said he was home that night and his wife confirmed his alibi. And that's always good, right? To have someone to confirm your alibi. The problem that I always have in, in these stories, or in any movie or anything, right? Where you're talking about an alibi is when it really is just a loved one's word. I'm always still a little dubious because let's face it, there's a vested interest that person has in wanting to help you.

• 27:40Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely. Unless for some reason you really tick them off, they're going to want to keep you out of prison, right?

• 27:49Speaker 00

  Well, if he was having an affair, maybe she didn't know about it at the time she gave the alibi.

• 27:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 27:54Speaker 00

  Or maybe she's being truthful.

• 27:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:57Speaker 00

  In the days immediately following the murder, investigators canvassed Main Street to ask residents if they saw or heard anything out of the ordinary. They spoke to the Mars family who lived behind Sharon. The Mars son, 25-year-old James, was a farmhand. He had been in trouble with local police before. All right, are you going to want to talk to James if you're investigators? Yeah, I think so.

• 28:23Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure.

• 28:24Speaker 00

  He lives right behind her. He has a rap sheet of some sort. When investigators spoke to the family, James was cooperative and answered their questions. It was said his mother was cooperative as well.

• 28:38Speaker 01

  I was just trying to think, you know, a town of 100, I mean, your, your pool of Suspects has gotta be kinda small unless it's just a lot of bad people hanging out in that town.

• 28:50Speaker 00

  Well, it can't be larger than 99.

• 28:52Speaker 01

  Well.

• 28:53Speaker 00

  If there's a hundred people and one person is dead.

• 28:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:56Speaker 00

  There's 99 people to look at. I mean, obviously, that's just the people in town.

• 29:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:02Speaker 00

  But that's where, you know, most murderers come from, right? They're normally known to the victim. Not always. You could have a stranger murder, but.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  Good, but it's where you're gonna start.

• 29:13Speaker 00

  Yeah. Now, James said that on the night of June 29th, he went out to a bar in Wahoo and afterwards went to a friend's house. Then he went home. James's mother told police she was up waiting for him and James's friend also confirmed his alibi.

• 29:30Speaker 01

  Well, James's mother, come on. What mother's not going to kinda agree with their son?

• 29:37Speaker 00

  I don't know. There are some moms who have turned on their sons that I've seen. But here you have more than one person, right?

• 29:43Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:44Speaker 00

  Confirming. So I think you you've got a little bit better chance of this being correct. Investigators then learned about Sharon's conflict with her neighbor, who was a trucker. They had a contentious relationship and Sharon strongly disliked him. It bothered her that her neighbor worked on his truck outside and she asked him not to make so much noise. The trucker also reportedly had a strong personality and wasn't afraid to tell Sharon what he thought.

• 30:14Speaker 01

  Well, you don't want me to work on my truck outside. Where else can I work on my truck besides outside?

• 30:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, again, I don't want to say anything disparaging about Sharon because she's the the victim in this story, but you know, we probably all had neighbors like that. Again, I don't know how much noise this guy was making. Maybe he was revving the engine like crazy or whatever it was. But there, you know, I've had some neighbors who have complained about things that that to me didn't seem like there was any reason they should be complaining.

• 30:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:49Speaker 00

  And to be honest with you, I am the type of person that will not shy away from telling them how I feel. I actually quite enjoy it sometimes.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  In a strange way, you absolutely do.

• 31:02Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 31:03Speaker 01

  You kinda, uh, yeah, it makes you really happy.

• 31:06Speaker 00

  Well, especially when I think somebody is way out of line.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 31:09Speaker 00

  Now, if I'm out of line, I'll be the first one to say, oh yeah, sorry about that. I'll tone it down or do whatever. But if I think you're just being petty, I'm going to give it back to you.

• 31:20Speaker 01

  As you should.

• 31:21Speaker 00

  No doubt about it.

• 31:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:22Speaker 00

  The trucker admitted that he sometimes did things to antagonize Sharon. But on the night of the murder, he was working in another state. He brought in receipts from a truck stop that cleared him as a suspect. And you would think that a trucker, um, especially in the more modern era.

• 31:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:44Speaker 00

  Would have pretty good documentation.

• 31:47Speaker 01

  I would think so too, with all the records they have to be able to produce if they get pulled over.

• 31:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, especially nowadays when I think they're tracked, uh, by GPS and all that type of stuff. But even in the, you know, in 2003, they, I'm sure they had records and this guy's got a receipt from another state. So.

• 32:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:06Speaker 00

  Probably not hard to figure out that it wasn't him.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  These truckers, man, they, they got some nice rigs and setups and.

• 32:13Speaker 00

  Some of those rigs are darn expensive though.

• 32:16Speaker 01

  They are, man. They're like, they're like a little apartment on the inside.

• 32:19Speaker 00

  Right. Sleeper cab and.

• 32:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:21Speaker 00

  Maybe you got a little microwave, uh, espresso machine. I don't know what all they got in there.

• 32:27Speaker 01

  Maybe we should take, take this, take this on the road.

• 32:30Speaker 00

  That does not sound appealing at all. I, you think I want to spend the night with you in a sleeper cab?

• 32:35Speaker 01

  It's big.

• 32:36Speaker 00

  And what's big?

• 32:40Speaker 00

  I, I don't think you're helping yourself from there.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  It's a sleeper cab.

• 32:44Speaker 00

  I mean, what are we gonna record the podcast in a, a lot of a truck stop?

• 32:50Speaker 01

  Hey, that'd be kinda cool, you know?

• 32:52Speaker 00

  I guess it would.

• 32:53Speaker 01

  Got some good trucker friends. They all come over and support us.

• 32:56Speaker 00

  That would be kinda cool, actually, except for the part about you and I having to sleep in the same sleeper cab. Now, if we had our own big rigs.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  Well, that'd be different.

• 33:07Speaker 00

  That'd be different.

• 33:07Speaker 01

  Like name one Smokey, the other one Bandit. Or you just drive the big rig? Nah, I'll have to drive the big rig. You drive the, you drive the little Trans Am, you know, keep the cops away.

• 33:18Speaker 00

  Why does it have to be Smokey and the Bandit?

• 33:23Speaker 00

  So the investigation was at a standstill until DNA results revealed Sharon was sexually assaulted before she died. The semen sample was sent into the lab in hopes of finding a match in the database, but it would take several weeks to get the results if there were any. And that's the thing about DNA, right? It's great if you can find a match.

• 33:47Speaker 01

  Well, that's it. You know, you gotta hope that what you're looking for, someone has got themselves in some data database.

• 33:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, somewhere because if not, I mean, it's still good, but you're, you're in kind of a holding pattern.

• 34:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:01Speaker 00

  Until you can find the match.

• 34:05Speaker 00

  Police focused on interviewing Sharon's male friends and getting cheek swabs for additional comparison. And you would think, because we're talking about such a small town, that would be pretty easy to do.

• 34:18Speaker 01

  You would think.

• 34:19Speaker 00

  So 100 people, what we got, maybe 40 males, 30 males? I don't know how many, but.

• 34:25Speaker 01

  Need a swap from each and every one of you.

• 34:27Speaker 00

  I would do that. And whoever doesn't want to do it, I'm going to look at you even closer.

• 34:32Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 34:34Speaker 00

  Rumors continued to circulate about postmaster Rick Hartman. He was not publicly declared an official suspect, but he did remain on police radar due to unusual behavior.

• 34:46Speaker 01

  Oh, the unusual behavior stuff.

• 34:48Speaker 00

  It, a lot of times really trips people up.

• 34:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:54Speaker 00

  It's like they trip themselves up, right? By how they act. So in September of 2003, Hartman showed up at Sharon's estate sale. This already raised police suspicion because of some killer's tendency to revisit a crime scene.

• 35:10Speaker 01

  True.

• 35:11Speaker 00

  But I think what really got their attention was the fact that he was interested in buying Sharon's mattress. And police found that very suspicious.

• 35:20Speaker 01

  I would think that would be off the charts for suspicious activity.

• 35:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, because they started to wonder if maybe his DNA was on that mattress and that's why, you know, he wanted to, to buy it. So he was brought in for more questioning. At first, he denied purchasing the mattress, but eventually he admitted to it. He said he bought it for one of his kids who was going to college. I get it. You want to save a buck.

• 35:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:49Speaker 00

  But I mean, this is a woman who was murdered.

• 35:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:55Speaker 00

  I know my daughter would not be happy if I sent her off to college with a mattress that belonged to a murdered individual.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  No, she didn't even want the one that I tried to sell you to let her have mine.

• 36:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, that thing looked like a Jackson Pollock painting. I don't know what it had been through.

• 36:14Speaker 00

  Some of the stains didn't even look human.

• 36:19Speaker 01

  No comment.

• 36:21Speaker 00

  So thi- this is weird though, right?

• 36:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:23Speaker 00

  He shows up at the estate sale and wants to buy her mattress?

• 36:28Speaker 01

  It's bizarre.

• 36:29Speaker 00

  Oh, my gosh.

• 36:31Speaker 01

  Like, that's one thing. I know people are, they're good with buying used this and that.

• 36:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:37Speaker 01

  For me, I'll never buy a used mattress.

• 36:40Speaker 00

  No, me neither. Some, some things I'm okay with.

• 36:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:44Speaker 00

  But, uh, used mattress is not one of them. I mean, it's, it's something that is very personal, I believe.

• 36:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:51Speaker 00

  Um, it's something you're going to be sleeping on for long periods of time. Plus, who knows what people do on, or did on that mattress?

• 37:01Speaker 01

  Exactly. You just don't know.

• 37:03Speaker 00

  Most of it is something I wouldn't want to know.

• 37:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, probably. If you did know, you still probably wouldn't want it, so.

• 37:09Speaker 00

  So on October 10th, 2003, the lab results came in. Unfortunately, there were no matches in the database. And, you know, that's something that just comes up a lot.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  It does.

• 37:19Speaker 00

  With DNA. Investigators had not yet compared the DNA sample from Sharon's body to the DNA of her male acquaintances. As the months passed, there were no matches. Police focused on following up on all potential leads, but, you know, the case went unsolved. And that had to be extremely frustrating. My other thought is here, Gibbs. In a town this small, I'm thinking most of those people were not in a DNA database. Probably hadn't gotten in that type of trouble, right, to be required.

• 37:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, no reason to.

• 37:56Speaker 00

  To have their DNA in the database. In the spring of 2004, Rick Hartman agreed to take a polygraph, which was inconclusive. He also submitted a DNA sample, which was not a match.

• 38:08Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, that's the bigger piece right there, right?

• 38:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:11Speaker 01

  The DNA.

• 38:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, the polygraph being inconclusive, and you can make that, uh, that of what you want, but to me, it doesn't mean that that much. Eight months after the murder, the Fremont Tribune reported that talk of the case had quieted down, but residents were still affected. And I can imagine this is a, an event that would affect a town that size for many, many years.

• 38:36Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, I would think the conversations would continue for a while, like, you know, who did it? I'm sure everybody in the town had their own person they thought did it, like most towns do.

• 38:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  You know?

• 38:49Speaker 00

  I'm sure a lot of people were suspicious of this Rick Hartman guy.

• 38:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:54Speaker 00

  Sid Morker, owner of the Stardust Tavern, near Sharon's house, said, every once in a while, someone will say something, but the more time that goes by, the less they're apt to solve it. And I think as a general rule, that is true.

• 39:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:09Speaker 00

  Right, the more time that goes by, the harder a case is to solve.

• 39:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. I mean, we, we know, like, of course, the first forty hour, forty, forty-eight hours is the most critical, and then it steps out from that and further and further and, but we also know that we can have cases forty years old that eventually will be solved because we've seen it.

• 39:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:34Speaker 01

  You know, so.

• 39:35Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 39:36Speaker 01

  It's just tougher because.

• 39:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, because at that point, you're relying on DNA.

• 39:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:41Speaker 00

  For sure.

• 39:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:42Speaker 00

  And if you don't have DNA. Really tough.

• 39:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're kind of really, you're hoping at that point, just for a prayer that somebody on their deathbed is saying, hey,

• 39:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:52Speaker 01

  that such and such, that was me.

• 39:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, when you get decades on.

• 39:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:56Speaker 00

  Definitely. So when he said they, he was referring to the Saunders County Sheriff's Department and the Nebraska State Patrol. The Tribune reported that someone else owned Sharon's garage. And Cologne volunteer firefighters purchased Sharon's home. Although the town appeared the same, it wasn't. According to Sid Morker, we're all on edge here. Everybody locks their doors. The kids don't play outside. And that goes back to what I said, right? How is this going to affect a town this small? And again, if this was a town where most people didn't lock their doors, well, now they are.

• 40:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, it didn't take much, did it? I mean, well,

• 40:38Speaker 00

  It was a big event.

• 40:39Speaker 01

  It was a big event. But I mean, that's all it was. You know, at that point, everybody started locking their doors. Now the parents are like, kids, stay inside. We don't want you walking the streets, alleys, whatever, because we don't know who's out there.

• 40:52Speaker 00

  There's a killer.

• 40:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:54Speaker 00

  There's a killer somewhere.

• 40:55Speaker 01

  Somewhere.

• 40:55Speaker 00

  And maybe they live in this town. She noted that her business had suffered and there was a noticeable decline in customers from out of town. Saunders County Chief Deputy Jeff Morris told the Tribune that there were 500 pages in Sharon's case file. And they were trying to make the best case they could for the county attorney. He encouraged people to come forward with any information that could help. It was said that they had also done more than 200 interviews by that point, but because there were no eyewitnesses or reports connected with Sharon's death, the case was harder to solve.

• 41:32Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 41:33Speaker 00

  And obviously that means they're going outside of the little village there, right? If you're interviewing 200 people. A new tip surfaced in April 2004 that broke the case wide open. People in the area suggested that the police should further investigate Sharon's neighbor, James Mars, because the person who gave his alibi was not telling the truth.

• 41:58Speaker 01

  So we're talking about the trucker?

• 42:00Speaker 00

  The person that, no, this is the person who lived behind her.

• 42:04Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 42:05Speaker 00

  It was the farmhand.

• 42:06Speaker 01

  The farmhand, yeah.

• 42:07Speaker 00

  I believe, the son.

• 42:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:10Speaker 00

  That lived behind her.

• 42:11Speaker 01

  That had somewhat of a record.

• 42:14Speaker 00

  And I thought it was the trucker who had the record, but I could be wrong.

• 42:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:17Speaker 00

  Maybe you're right. I forget, we've talked about a number of people, right, so far. Investigators discovered that James reportedly asked his friend to confirm he was at his house if the police ever asked questions. Police talked to James's friend, but he never admitted to lying about the alibi. And I always think it's strange, Gibbs, that, you know, almost every week when you're here, you ask me to say you were someplace if someone asks.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:47Speaker 00

  And there's no way to confirm that I know the truth. So I don't know what I would be giving you an alibi for. I've never had to do it. Don't think I would do it, even if they asked me.

• 42:59Speaker 01

  But see, what will happen is when they come and ask you, hey, do you remember on this day, did he say that he was with, and you were like, well, he did tell me that. I don't recall the details around it, but he did say. I'm just, I'm just like.

• 43:16Speaker 00

  Well, I wouldn't be lying, right? I wouldn't be lying if I just said, he said that. But that, what does that mean? It just means you said that. It doesn't, that's not me alibying you. At the time, James Mars was living in Lincoln with a friend and was working as a farm laborer in the Wahoo area. He consented to saliva testing. On April 16th, 2004, testing confirmed that James's DNA matched the sample from the crime scene.

• 43:46Speaker 01

  Now we're, now we're on to something.

• 43:48Speaker 00

  Phew, man, I tell you, there was a lot of people already in this case that kind of looked good for it.

• 43:55Speaker 01

  They did.

• 43:56Speaker 00

  And I'm sure going back to the, the whole finger pointing idea in a very small town, you know, the postmaster probably got a lot of those fingers pointed at him. The trucker you mentioned probably did as well. Well, the neighbor, but it turns out that the DNA belonged to James Mar. James arrived at the state patrol office on May 4th, 2014 for questioning and was subsequently arrested. According to one investigator, James didn't volunteer any information. His confession came in bits and pieces. And those are always interesting confessions, right? So there's the confession where the person just says, yeah, you got me.

• 44:41Speaker 00

  You know, I did it. Here's exactly what I did.

• 44:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:45Speaker 00

  But I don't know if those are the norm. I think what's more apt to happen is somebody denies, but then they give a little away. And then things just start to crumble, right? And the confession kind of slowly comes out over time, but it's normally because they can't hold their stories together.

• 45:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, because they don't know what the truth is compared to some of the lies they're telling.

• 45:10Speaker 00

  Yeah. James said that on the night of June 29th, 2003, he drank at a bar in Wahoo and did a line of cocaine with a friend. When he got home, he was hoping to get some gas and beer money. So he decided to steal from Sharon's home. He jumped her fence, cut her phone line and was trying to kick in her back door when the alarm went off. Sharon came out and confronted him with her gun, which was not loaded. She recognized who he was, called him an asshole and told him to leave.

• 45:45Speaker 01

  I mean, I could see that, right? You know, somebody breaks in, kicks in your door here, you know, and you know them like this is that kicked in your door. You're gonna be like, you asshole. Why did you do that?

• 45:59Speaker 00

  I've already fired six shots by that point, but yeah.

• 46:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm falling down on the ground.

• 46:03Speaker 00

  I might call you that, but yeah. But to be honest with you, you know, I said it earlier. What good is the gun by the bedside if it's not loaded?

• 46:15Speaker 01

  No good at all.

• 46:15Speaker 00

  It's not now, maybe she thought just by having it, that would be enough to scare someone away. And maybe that is true in some circumstances. And I get it. Some people don't like guns. They don't want a loaded gun anywhere near them. But when you're confronted with a very serious situation, if you point a gun at somebody and they know it's not loaded, and I'm telling you right now, in certain guns, if the magazine's not in there, it's not that hard to tell.

• 46:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:46Speaker 00

  The magazine, a lot of times, either is flush or it sticks out a little bit. And just by looking at the gun, you can tell there's, there's no magazine in there. I don't know. I don't know. But she must have thought just the sight of the gun alone, right, would be enough to, to scare some, someone off. But at that point, things shifted. James told Sharon, go ahead and shoot me. And when she didn't fire, he attacked her.

• 47:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, because he knew he had nothing to lose at that point because the gun wasn't loaded.

• 47:23Speaker 00

  Maybe he knew that, maybe he didn't.

• 47:25Speaker 01

  And he also, at that point, knew that his ID was made.

• 47:29Speaker 00

  Yeah. So maybe he didn't even know the gun was, wasn't loaded, but maybe he didn't care.

• 47:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:35Speaker 00

  Let's not forget, he's hopped up on cocaine, he's been drinking.

• 47:40Speaker 01

  That will do it to you.

• 47:40Speaker 00

  He's probably not making, uh, very good decisions.

• 47:44Speaker 01

  No.

• 47:44Speaker 00

  In that state, Sharon ran into the house. James jumped the fence again and saw the garage door open. He knew Sharon was going to get in her car and flee. So he ran across the street and confronted her. He told her to shoot him again. And when she didn't, didn't?

• 48:03Speaker 01

  Didn't?

• 48:03Speaker 00

  When she didn't.

• 48:04Speaker 01

  Sounds like you're from that town right there.

• 48:06Speaker 00

  I know. He beat her again and strangled her. He refused to admit to sexually assaulting Sharon and began shutting down when the questions turned in this direction. And. You know, it, it surprises me, but maybe it shouldn't, that so many people will admit to murder.

• 48:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:28Speaker 00

  But won't admit, admit to sexual assault.

• 48:31Speaker 01

  Well, I think on the shameful ladder, you know, sexual assault is much higher than murder for some reason.

• 48:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think you're right. Especially, you know, if you're in prison and people find out that you sexually assaulted an elderly woman.

• 48:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:50Speaker 00

  They're not going to look good. That's why people also, they might admit to killing 15 people, but won't admit to murdering a child.

• 48:59Speaker 01

  No way.

• 48:59Speaker 00

  Cause that would not be good for them in prison.

• 49:02Speaker 01

  No, that's a pretty much a guaranteed death.

• 49:06Speaker 00

  Not that they care about it. They probably don't care about it.

• 49:09Speaker 01

  No, they care about them.

• 49:10Speaker 00

  They just don't want anybody else to know what they've, what they've done. Investigators suspect the assault was opportunistic rather than fully planned out. And I get why they would say that, right? I'm not sure he went there with that thought in mind. He went there to get some money to rob her. On May 5th, 2004, James Marr was charged with first degree murder and perpetration of or attempt to perpetrate robbery, perpetration of or attempt to perpetrate burglary and perpetration of or attempt to perpetrate sexual assault.

• 49:46Speaker 01

  Uh, perpetration going on.

• 49:47Speaker 00

  Yeah. That's, and those are hard to say. Perpetrate.

• 49:51Speaker 01

  Perpetrate.

• 49:52Speaker 00

  Perpetration. But he deserves all of it.

• 49:55Speaker 01

  He does.

• 49:55Speaker 00

  Right? In June, James's mother, Donna Maris, told the Fremont Tribune, the family wasn't worried about the trial because they believed he was innocent. I, I get it. Families, they stick by their family members. I understand that. And especially moms. Moms pretty much always stick by their, their kids. I think it'd be a little tough when you have the DNA evidence. You have the confession. At some point, when do you stop saying that this person is innocent?

• 50:31Speaker 01

  Well, nobody wants to believe their child could, one, sexually assault anybody, let alone an elderly person. And then two,

• 50:40Speaker 00

  And a neighbor.

• 50:41Speaker 01

  And a neighbor.

• 50:42Speaker 00

  Let's not forget that.

• 50:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then to murder that person.

• 50:45Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, because that means there's some reflection on you as a parent.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure.

• 50:51Speaker 00

  Right? What are people gonna think about you? James's brother, Mike Maher, said he and James had just returned from Kansas, the night of the murder. They got to Cologne about 10:30 PM and James went to Wahoo. See, I'm changing the name.

• 51:08Speaker 01

  I noticed that.

• 51:09Speaker 00

  Of the city, because I think it's Cologne now. And it just sounds better than colon.

• 51:13Speaker 01

  Well, it does sound better than colon.

• 51:15Speaker 00

  I'm going with that now. According to Donna, James returned home between 1:00 and 1:30 AM. James didn't act suspiciously, though. During the 10th month, 10-month investigation, and Donna said he was his normal self. Prosecutors hit a stumbling block when James's confession was suppressed because he never established that he was waiving his right to an attorney. However, the prosecution still felt confident in their case because they had DNA evidence proving James assaulted Sharon. They determined the tool used to pry the door open belonged to his father,

• 51:57Speaker 00

  and they knew he asked his friend to lie about his alibi. James had also bragged about the murder to six of his prison cellmates.

• 52:06Speaker 01

  I just don't under- I'll never understand that.

• 52:09Speaker 00

  No.

• 52:10Speaker 01

  You know, you're in prison and you're just boasting about what you done.

• 52:15Speaker 00

  And you haven't been convicted yet.

• 52:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:17Speaker 00

  I get it. Once you're convicted, maybe you're saying that because, you know, you want the cred, right? Or whatever it is in prison. But you're still on trial for your life and you're like, yeah, just telling everybody you did it. And you don't think that's gonna get back to prosecutors?

• 52:36Speaker 01

  I mean, you gotta know how. Criminals are.

• 52:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, they're gonna use that any way they can.

• 52:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:42Speaker 00

  Prosecutors thought it would be challenging to prove the intent needed for a first degree murder conviction. They discussed the possibility of a plea deal for second degree murder with Sharon's family. And they understood on August 15th, 2005, James pleaded guilty to second degree murder. He made his plea on what would have been Sharon's 69th birthday. James was sentenced to life without parole and he is still serving his sentence in Nebraska. And, you know, we talk about pleas a lot. I, sometimes I, I think there's a plea deal made when there doesn't need to be.

• 53:23Speaker 00

  This one, though, I do understand, you know, first degree murder comes with a very specific set of circumstances.

• 53:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:34Speaker 00

  And I don't think that James went there that night to kill Sharon.

• 53:40Speaker 01

  No, I don't think so either. It was definitely a robbery.

• 53:44Speaker 00

  Now, you could argue that murder in the commission of a robbery should be first degree murder and, and would be in, in many places. But I get it. There, there might not have been the intent there to murder. So as we wrap this one up, Gibbs, the small town of Cologne was forever changed by the murder of Sharon Erickson. Residents questioned if they really knew their neighbors and wondered what they were capable of. The murderer left some residents with a lingering sense that something bad could happen to them too. But it also brought the community closer together as they supported each other in the midst of the tragedy.

• 54:28Speaker 00

  And, you know, that's the, the thing about a small town and we've seen it in so many cases. You have the, the whole, we don't lock our doors. It's a safe place. Nothing bad is ever going to happen until it does.

• 54:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:45Speaker 00

  And then it completely changes that town forever. And I think, you know, the, the case of Sharon Erickson did that here for this place.

• 54:54Speaker 01

  I mean, it changed everything on a dime.

• 54:57Speaker 00

  Yeah. People like, what'd we say? Kids stopped playing outside. Their parents probably wouldn't let them. Everybody started locking their doors. I'm sure if everybody didn't have a gun, they went out and bought one. I mean, that's just the normal stuff you see when a town is rocked by something they're not used to.

• 55:16Speaker 01

  Sure. Changes, you know, the way life used to be.

• 55:19Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. But that's it for our episode on Sharon Erickson. Anything else, bud?

• 55:26Speaker 01

  No. Interesting case.

• 55:28Speaker 00

  It is very interesting and, you know, I wonder about the people who were looked at or cast, had suspicion cast on them, right? This postmaster really seemed like people were thinking, they were thinking he was involved.

• 55:45Speaker 01

  He's just like, I just wanted the mattress, man.

• 55:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's still strange for me, but.

• 55:49Speaker 01

  For me it is too, but maybe because he knew her, he felt okay with it and.

• 55:55Speaker 00

  That she had taken care of it or something like that, but yeah, I don't know. But that's it for another episode of True Crime All The Time. So for Mike.

• 56:04Speaker 01

  And Gibby.

• 56:04Speaker 00

  Stay safe and keep your own time ticking.