Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - FIFTH HUSBAND POISONED DEAD IN NIGHT, Other Hubbies Feel 'LUCKY'

Episode Date: June 26, 2023

Sarah Hartsfield has been indicted for first-degree murder in the death of her fifth husband, Joseph.  He died of complications of the toxic effects of insulin. Sarah Hartsfield calls 911 after getting no response from her diabetic husband. Hartsfield had been sleeping in another room, coping with her own health issues from a recent surgery, when she says her husband's diabetes monitor went off.  At the hospital, Joseph Hartsfield's sugar levels should have responded to treatment but didn't. Hospital staff found that strange and reported suspicions to the police. An investigation revealed that Hartsfield wasn't the first of Sarah Hartsfield's romantic involvements to die, and then police learn of threats to others.  Sarah Hartsfield shot and killed her former fiancé David Bragg in self-defense. Police are now re-examining the case.  Hartsfield has pleaded not guilty to the murder charge and is being held in lieu of $4.5 million bond. Joining Nancy Grace Today: Sarah Ford - Legal Director, South Carolina Victim Assistance Network; Facebook: "SCVAN Legal Services Program;" Former Prosecutor (focusing on crimes against women and children); Host of Palmetto Primetime; Twitter: @Sarahafordesq   Dr. Shari Schwartz - Forensic Psychologist (specializing in Capital Mitigation and Victim Advocacy); Twitter: @TrialDoc; Author: "Criminal Behavior" and "Where Law and Psychology Intersect: Issues in Legal Psychology" Jason Jensen - Private Investigator (Jensen Private Investigations), Cold Case Expert (Salt Lake City, UT), and Co-founder: "Cold Case Coalition;" Investigations; Twitter: @JasonJPI, Facebook/Instagram: "Jensen Investigations" Dr. Kendall Crowns - Chief Medical Examiner Tarrant County (Ft Worth), Lecturer: University of Texas Austin and Texas Christian University Medical School Bryce Newberry - Reporter for KPRC 2 in Houston; Twitter: @Bryce_Newberry See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A young father of two dies after his glucose levels go dangerously low. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thanks for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. So he dies of dangerously low glucose levels. does he again thanks for being with us how did this unfold take a listen our friends at crime online joseph hartsfield is a diabetic whose glucose levels had been under control for years but in january hartsfield was hospitalized hartsfield had been at home when his blood sugar levels dropped dramatically his wife sarah hartsfield says been at home when his blood sugar levels dropped dramatically. His wife, Sarah Hartsfield, says when it happened, she went to the kitchen to get him juice and jam.

When she returned to the bedroom, Hartsfield had vomited on himself. Sarah Hartsfield then called an ambulance. By the time Joseph Hartsfield arrived at Houston Methodist Hospital in Baytown, he's unconscious. Hospital staff begins treatment, pumping glucose into his body, but Hartsfield did not respond as he should have. Nurses said Hartsfield's blood sugar level kept crashing. Joseph Hartsfield is brain dead, and 11 days later, he is pronounced dead. And just like that, a husband and a father is gone. You know, when we talk about diabetes, we kind of discount it as being a real mortal danger, but it is. With me, and it's an all-star panel, but first, I want to go to Dr.

Kendall Crowns, Chief Medical Examiner in Tarrant County, Fort Worth, lecturer at University of Texas, Austin, and Texas Christian University Medical School. Dr. Crowns, I will never forget my daughter's birthday party one year. 14 girls sleeping over, and you can only imagine. Well, they finally get quieted down around 3 o'clock, but not me. Why? get quieted down around 3 o'clock but not me why because one of her little friends who imbibed in a lot of birthday cake is diabetic and she was wearing an alarm that goes off if her sugar level changes and if it went off, I was supposed to give her a pill. I slept outside my daughter's bedroom on the floor with a sleeping bag and a pillow because

I was so afraid I would not hear that alarm. And in my mind, the little girl could just die in her sleep. Well, I was so worried. But guess what? The alarm did go off. I ran straight in there and I, you know, shook her awake very gently. And I had a bottle of water sitting right where she was asleep on the bed with a lot of other little girls. And she took her pill and went back to sleep.

I was a nervous wreck the whole night, and the alarm did go off. As a matter of fact, it went off several times. I finally had to call the mother in the early morning hours to figure out what to do. It's not easily or isn't easily controlled. I don't know. How did this happen to this guy, Joseph Hartsfield? How did he die from his underlying diabetes? I mean, explain to me

how. You're right. Let me if I put you on the stand, I would have a big F for asking an incorrect question in court. Let me rephrase my question. Why do your glucose levels drop and why does that kill you?

Okay, so with diabetes you have a defect in your pancreas basically that your body doesn't produce enough insulin and because your body insulin breaks down food in your body so it processes glucose without, you get a condition called hyperglycemia. What is glucose? Glucose is basically sugar. It's the sugar in your system that is processed from the food and then used to, you know, give energy to your body. I know you've got an MD, but they did not teach diabetes in law school. So just we I need to hear about diabetes for dummies. So I can understand this. But I did just make a connection that the wife trying to save him runs in the kitchen to get juice and jam for the sugar content. And I've always seen people with

low blood sugar. They need juice. They need orange juice and quickly. and quickly now okay now it's making sense to me go ahead right so when your body doesn't have enough insulin you can't process sugar correctly and you get a buildup of sugar in your body well called hyperglycemia and this buildup of sugar in your body can actually cause your body to shut down and for you to die. Hyperglycemia. That's hyperglycemia is correct. Versus hypo when it would be too low. Too low blood sugar is hypoglycemia.

So in diabetes, it's kind of a hyperglycemia. You have way too much sugar in your system. Your body can't process it and it causes you to die. But in people that have too much insulin, they get hypoglycemia, and then they can also die because it causes you to go into a coma and it affects your brain because your brain uses a lot of the sugar in your system. So in either situation, too much sugar, too low of sugar, both affect your brain and can cause you to go into a coma and pass away. Now this guy who was diabetic, Joseph Hartsfield, his glucose levels had been under control for years. And then suddenly they drop dangerously low. What could cause that? Usually in well-controlled diabetics, where we

see an incidence of hypoglycemia, meaning too low of blood sugar, it's a mistake in their medication. Often when they're using their injectable insulin, they may put in too much, or they may put in too little, or they have forgotten that, oh, I, you know, use my insulin a few hours ago. Whatever it is, it's usually a mistake in how they've administered their insulin, resulting in their body then taking too much sugar out because there's too much insulin available. And then they get a low blood sugar. Bryce Newberry is joining us, reporter KPRC2, that's NBC in Houston. Bryce, thanks a lot for being with us. Let me understand correctly. Mr. Hartsville, Joseph, did he have hyper or hypo? I thought his glucose went dangerously low. Is that correct? That's right. His blood sugar did drop dangerously low. But from what his family says, by all accounts, his sugar normally ran high. He was the type of person who he liked food, they said.

And he normally had high sugar. OK, hold on, Bryce. Wait a minute. I like everything that you just said. I just want to go through a point. Did you hear that, Dr. Crowns? He liked food. And this guy is not overweight. He doesn't look overweight to me. So he didn't eat too much. He just enjoyed food. And it reminds me, Dr. Kendall Crowns, the little girl I was telling you about, her mother was very careful about what she ate, but she didn't want her daughter to feel like she was a prisoner in any way of food. So she had arranged through the day, watching what the daughter ate, for her to have birthday cake at the birthday party.

See what I mean? So the little girl wouldn't feel deprived in life and angry and resentful about having diabetes. And I'd like to report that she's doing really great. In fact, she's now a star athlete in basketball. So she did manage to survive to spend the night at our house. That said, diabetics can eat what they want, but they just have to manage it. Like if you want to have pancakes and syrup, you have to kind of plan for that and eat appropriately so you can enjoy what you want to eat. Does that make sense? I mean, I'm not a doctor. I'm trying to phrase it as best as I can. Managing your diet. Correct. A lot of diabetics can manage their diet, especially type two diabetics that have, they have more of an insulin resistance. And it's more of a long term process where their

pancreas is beginning to fail because of an unhealthy lifestyle, so to say. But if you manage your diet and don't have too much sugar or carbohydrates, which are what usually gets turned into sugar in your body, you can function normally. You just have to be very careful of your diet. And that is one of the ways of treating diabetics is to have them monitor their diet where they can have those little moments of splurges, so to say, where they can have birthday cake or a milkshake or something like that. But then they have to be very aware of what they eat for the rest of the day so they don't get too much glucose or sugar in their system. Listen, Dr. Crowns, my dad was borderline diabetic. The last 10 years of his life, we obsessively watched how many grams

of carbs or sugar, right? Everything that he ate. And he really did a good job managing his diet. You know, did you hear what Bryce Newberry said from NBC? He said that the victim in this case was typically hyper, too much sugar. But that night, he went hypo. His glucose dropped really low. What about that, Dr. Crowns? So, I mean, if he liked his food and had a tendency to eat a little bit too much sugar, that would explain why he had probably difficulty regulating it with his medication,

and that's why he would have the higher blood sugar or hyperglycemia. But the fact he has hypoglycemia either means he did not get enough sugar in his system that day when he took his insulin and it caused him to crash or drop into hypoglycemia, or there was a mistake with his insulin that was administered to him that caused his blood sugar to drop dramatically and have made him hypoglycemic or have a low, a critically low blood sugar. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Bryce Neberry joining us. KPRC 2.

So explain to me the events of that night. I understand what Dr. Kendall Crowns is telling me, how he could have been hyperglycemic and then suddenly went hypo that one night. Tell me how it unfolded that night, Bryce Newberry. So what time of the night was it? Was the wife asleep beside him? Were they in their home alone? Were other people there? I know he has two children from a previous relationship. She has four children from a prior marriage. The children don't live with the couple. How did it unfold? Were they alone?

Were they at home? What time of the night was it? Yeah, they were alone in their home in Beach City, Texas. And the night before, the wife claims that she made dinner for him. One of his favorite meals, in fact, according to his family, broccoli, cheese and rice. And then in the middle of the night is when the blood sugar started dropping pretty low. And it wasn't until about one o'clock in the afternoon the next day that the wife says that she checked on him and he was unresponsive. Okay, wait a minute. They were at home together. How much time

passed? I mean, how long would he have been unresponsive before she checked on him? When did she last see him alive and well? That's something that's not clear in the court document. It was around 830 in the evening, she says, that she made dinner and had him eat it. And then the next time that's listed in these documents is one o'clock in the afternoon the following day. And she was asleep on the sofa, correct? Yes, that's what she says, because she herself was recovering from a surgery and says that she was on narcotics at the time. Okay, take a list of our friends at KPRC. The grand jury met on the top floor of the Chambers County Courthouse for several hours this morning, but we were not allowed up there because the whole

point of grand jury proceedings is that they are secret. But our camera captured those witnesses being escorted by a DA's office investigator in and out of the courthouse. We saw the oldest daughter of Sarah Hartsfield, as well as the Houston Methodist emergency room doctor who tended to her husband, 46-year-old Joseph Hartsfield, back in January. He died in a Baytown hospital due to what the medical examiner ruled, complications of toxic effects of insulin. While it's entirely true that grand jury proceedings are secret, it's very clear what's going on here. You've got the wife's oldest daughter going into a secret grand jury hearing

followed by the emergency room doctor that attended her husband, Joseph Hartsfield, when he died. Clearly, they're looking at her for his death. To, again, Dr. Kendall Crowns joining us out of Tarrant County, Fort Worth. What does this mean? Toxic effects of insulin. Because it seems to me we're hearing he died of extremely low glucose levels. So what does it mean if he has toxic effects of insulin? So what happens when you get way too much insulin in your system, the insulin kind of

takes all that sugar out of your body and you become, you crash and get a hypoglycemic episode or a very low blood sugar so it's a too high level of insulin resulting in the removal of all the blood sugar from his body where again like i said earlier your your brain kind of functions on the sugars as well and that the toxic effect of the low blood sugar causes you to go into a coma and eventually die. The way you're saying it makes it sound like glucose and insulin are the same thing. I thought you got injected with insulin. You do.

You get injected with insulin and then the insulin gets in your body and it causes your body to use up all the sugar. And if you get too much insulin, it taking the the reserves that your body has out of out of out of reserve basically let me just be clear dr kendall crowns does your body create insulin yes your body does create insulin so how do i know if his body created too much or if he was injected with too much so he is diabetic, so he is on insulin. So that is his body is inherently not producing insulin properly. So any insulin he has in his system is probably being injected into his system. And you can also do drug testing to see the insulin levels in the body.

So if you see a really high abnormal insulin level, you know he's gotten too much insulin in his system, which then caused his blood sugar to drop to basically a low enough point that it put him in a coma and eventually he died. Do you feel yourself going into a coma? Do you know what's happening to you when you've got too much insulin? Yeah, yes, you can feel very lethargic and confused. And before you pass out, it's a time period of just kind of tiredness, confusion, and it can even affect your heart rate and things of that nature. So you can feel yourself slipping into a diabetic coma initially. But it may or may not, you may be so confused you don't realize what's going on. I understand. So the confusion makes you or can make you unaware of what's happening

to you. You're that confused. Well, as police and detectives begin to investigate the true cause of death, the toxicity of way too much insulin, the case develops in a very unusual manner, a very bizarre manner. Take a listen to our cut 11. Chambers County DA Cheryl Leak Henry says investigators have already started hearing from people out of state with information about Hartsfield.

She had a lot of people afraid for a long time is what I'm finding out. One of those people, her first ex-husband. I felt threatened quite often. He says their marriage ended horribly and his family has been watching their backs for the last 27 years as she kept interjecting herself into their lives.

Sarah's a narcissist and she's good at making herself look like whatever she wants or the other person wants to see. I knew she would eventually get caught for who she is. Well, her former family may despise and hate her. They go so far as to say they've been looking over their backs for the last 20 plus years wondering what she may do next. But how does that fit in to the death of Hartsfield take a listen to Maury Glover Fox 9. Joe eventually died and investigators say the story his wife told

them didn't add up. If the hospital hadn't called us and we didn't our officers didn't get involved and make good decisions we we wouldn't be here and potentially could have somebody getting away with murder. According to a determination letter from the Douglas County attorney, Hartsfield, whose last name was Donahue five years ago, shot and killed her fiance, David Bragg, during an argument that turned physical in Garfield, Minnesota. The Douglas County attorney found that Hartsfield shot Bragg in self-defense because he fired a gun at her and declined to file charges against her in Bragg's death. To Bryce Newberry, joining us from KPRC2, that's NBC in Houston, stop everything. I've got one dead husband from insulin overdose. And according to our doctor,

who is a renowned medical examiner, Hartsfield didn't create enough insulin. But suddenly, he has an overdose of insulin and dies after lingering for days in a coma in a hospital. Now I'm hearing about another dead lover, fiance David Bragg, shot dead by the same woman in 2018. And I've got husband number one,

Titus Cornchild, who has four children with this woman. Is he the one that says he looks over his back for the last 20 years and his children do too? Because they don't know when she's going to reinsert herself in their lives. Do I understand she's lost custody of her children? Yes, that's right. In 2021, her two youngest children

were put in custody of their father, Christopher Donahue. That was because he filed for a protective order for him and for the children and his new wife, because they found out from Sarah Hartsfield's fourth ex-husband that she had been pressuring him to drive across state line to Arizona where the Donahue family lived to kill the new wife of Christopher Donahue. Okay, you know what? I'm sorry that I've lost. I've run out of paper on my flow chart. This woman who just happened to be asleep on the sofa downstairs when her husband has a toxic level of insulin injected into himself. Sarah Hartsville. Husband number one, Titus Cornchild. She has four children with him. Husband number two, Michael Traxler. Don't know what happened to him yet. I just want to know if he's still alive.

Husband number three, you just mentioned, Christopher Donahue, got a protective order against her because she was putting somebody up to come kill him and his new wife. Fiancee David Bragg is the one she shot dead. Then hubby number four, David George. I'm curious to see dead or alive. And now husband number five, Joseph Hartsville, who dies of insulin toxicity. Do I have the husbands right? Well, actually, the children were not with Titus. The children were with Christopher Donahue. That was number three. Okay. So the four children come from Donahue. Got it. Which husband was being pressured to go back and kill Donahue? So the man that Sarah married after shooting and killing David Bragg in Minnesota, that's the man who was then allegedly being pressured to drive to Arizona to kill the new wife of Christopher Donahue.

And the reason, according to that application for a protective order, was because she didn't want or she wanted Christopher Donahue to be too distracted dealing with his wife's death to be fighting for their children anymore. OK, it's all starting to fit together in a kind of bizarre, crazy way. Sarah Ford is joining us, Legal Director, South Carolina Victims Assistance Network, former prosecutor, host of Stepping Toward Justice podcast. Sarah, thank you for being with us. Explain why a grand jury is secret and how, basically,

if you can watch the witnesses going into the grand jury proceedings, you can figure out what's happening. I mean, she sees her oldest daughter go into the grand jury proceedings and then she sees the ER doctor of her dead husband go in. Two and two still equals four, I think, Sarah Ford. Yeah, I mean, it's really important for our grand jury system to be secret because we want everyone who's going to come in there and testify to make sure that they're testifying to the truth, that they don't see a reprisal from defendants who may know, you know, obviously they're watching, they can see what's happening. So it's really important that that is a secret process. And of course, it's not going to remain secret. You know,

if they indict the individual, then they'll be tried by a jury of their peers. But it's incredibly dangerous to have, you know, defendants watching what, you know, who's coming in to testify against them because they certainly have an interest in stopping people from testifying before the grand jury,

which would mean that their case would never be able to come to trial. Absolutely correct. I agree with you. Guys, this is not the first time we have seen death by insulin. Take a listen to our cut 31, our friends at WAFF48. The state is still waiting to receive the final autopsy report, but the medical examiner told officials it's consistent with being poisoned by insulin.

A check at the hospital where Capella's wife worked as a charge nurse showed that insulin was missing. The judge found probable cause for the case to move forward in court, what the victim's family was hoping for. He's shining down on us right now. He's with us every step of the way. You know, he was well known in the

Huntsville community. He's my son and I miss him. He didn't deserve this, but he deserves justice. The couple's daughter, meanwhile, is in the care of loving relatives. Jim Capella was a local private investigator who knew everybody's secrets all about divorce proceedings, lawsuits, double dealing of all sorts. So at first there's a big question as to who would have motive to kill him. Well then focus turned on his wife a charge nurse. After it was discovered it was all about the insulin. So Jason Jensen joining us, a very well known private investigator, cold case expert, and co-founder of Cold Case Coalition. You can find him at jensenprivateinvestigations.com. Jason, how can we prove in this case that the defendant, Sarah Hartsville, injected her husband with insulin as opposed to him mistakenly injecting himself or his body somehow producing too much insulin? How can you go about proving this was an intentional killing?

Yeah, that's a very good question. And I think that's really the hill that prosecutors have to overcome. Because just like Dr. Crown was explaining, oftentimes it's a mistake and you have to overcome the nature of a mistake to prove the intent. Here, what I believe that law enforcement is relying on is is her own inconsistent statements to show that there's no logic behind it otherwise yeah we're still wondering if we can prove that wasn't a mistake what sort of inconsistent statements do we know of has that been released to bryce newberry I mean, she has shared different stories with investigators over time. She's also been communicating with us via text messages

from her jail cell to explain her side of the story and says that there was no wrongdoing. So her story is there is no wrongdoing. What is the inconsistent portion of her statement, according to police? His obituary says that he died of an ischemic stroke, which that's the first thing that doesn't match up with what the medical examiner's office actually ruled in this case. In terms of the story that she shared immediately when things were not adding up to the medical staff, that's when the sheriff's office was called in and said that the story really just didn't add up and match up because this Dexcom that Joseph Hartsfield wore is what monitored his sugar level. And according to his family, both of them had apps on their phone that would send the alert.

And she allegedly ignored those alerts when his sugar was dropping dangerously low. Now, she denies that. She says she didn't ignore those alerts. But yet she has the app on her phone to alert her. And I can tell you this much. I heard the alarm go off very clearly at my daughter's sleepover. Dr. Kendall Crowns, would it be a matter of proving the case by showing how much insulin was injected, that it was such a huge amount, it could not possibly have been a mistake. Yes, actually, the testing the medical examiner's office can do can show that the amount of insulin injected, it was extremely high. It wouldn't be not congruous or similar to just a standard, oh, I gave myself one extra injection. It would have more of a look of, I gave myself 10 extra injections,

which wouldn't make sense. It would either be a suicide or a homicide at that point. There were actually eight insulin pins beside his bed. Eight. What does that mean, Dr. Crowns? Eight insulin pins. So potentially he was injected with eight rounds of insulin all at one time, which would be more than sufficient to kill him.

And then they would see that at the toxicologic testing that he had, you know, eight times the normal amount of insulin in his system. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. To Dr. Sherry Schwartz joining us, renowned forensic psychologist specializing in capital mitigation and victimacy at panthermitigation.com. She's also the author of Criminal Behavior and author of Where Law and Psychology Intersect. Dr. Schwartz, thank you for being with us. You know, there's a big difference in my mind. Getting into an argument at a bar, let's just say, and pulling a gun and pulling the trigger and immediately regretting the deed. While the law doesn't care if you immediately regret the deed, the person's still dead. I believe there is a difference in that and a cold-hearted, calculated plan to commit murder where you know your victim is going to suffer,

suffer greatly before their death, and you do it anyway. Dr. Schwartz? Yes, there's a remarkable difference. There's a remarkable difference in the approach. What it seems on Ms. Hartsfield's part, if we're to believe everything that everyone said, and there doesn't seem to be a reason not to, right, that she engages in predatory behavior with the intent to inflict harm, violence, homicide on people. So this is, if we look at the FBI definition of a serial killer, and I don't know that that's what we're dealing with, but it seems to have shades of that feeling. What we're looking at is someone who would fit into the hedonistic category, such that they kill for the pleasure of killing.

They seek to kill for the thrill of killing. And she does it in a very planned way. And she does it consistent, it seems, if the evidence is correct here, with how most female serial killers do it. It's either for revenge, and then the mode of homicide tends to be something like poisoning. You know, one of these pens should last about a month. One of the diabetic insulin pens holds about three mls of insulin, and it should last about a month. He had eight of them beside his bed. Eight pins.

That's eight months worth of insulin. If we are reading the directions in the packaging correctly, this wouldn't be the first time that a very obscure method of murder has been used. Take a listen to ARCA 21, our friends at GMA, death by eyedrop. Investigators say they still have no clear motive as to why 52-year-old Lana Clayton allegedly used eyedrops to kill her husband of four years. Well, she did admit during interviews with our detectives that she committed the crimes. Stephen Clayton was found dead in the foyer of this $800,000 South Carolina mansion

he shared with his wife in July. Police say they never suspected foul play was involved until toxicology results from his autopsy revealed high levels of tetrahydrosline, the chemical found in eye drops and nasal sprays in his bloodstream. It mocks, for instance, a heart attack because just as eye drops, like Visine, restrict the blood flow to the tiny vessels in your eye so your eyes are no longer red, it can also constrict the blood vessels going to your heart. And that one has been used again.

Take a listen to our friends at Inside Edition. This is Jim Moray in Cut 23. He saved dozens of lives as a paramedic. Now prosecutors say he murdered his wife by poisoning her with Visine. Joshua Hunsucker and his wife Stacy were high school sweethearts, raising two adorable daughters aged five and six. Stacy died in September last year from what appeared to be a heart attack. But in a stunning development, her 35-year-old husband has just been charged with murder.

He is the one who poisoned Ms. Hunsucker with Visine or a similar product and calls for death. Murder by insulin? Death by eye drop? Well, what about death by cereal? Breakfast cereal? Take a listen to our Cut 30 WDIV. Stephanie Arnold remembers how she reacted when she got the news her friend was dead. You mean Christy's dead.

She's a mom breastfeeding a baby. That doesn't happen. Did you ever know her to do drugs? No. Did Christy seem happy in her life? With her children. You pause and you say with her children. Her relationship was rocky.

The fights were bad. Christy and Jason Harris were married for 11 years, knew each other for 16, and had two children together. When we found out about overdose, that's kind of exactly where our brain went. Because she wouldn't do that herself. Nobody believed that she would do that. It was only by comparing the breast milk

that she had pumped and frozen to her toxicology reports that it became very clear her cereal had been poisoned with a high dosage of drugs. Back to our case in chief. The very latest

take a look at our cut eight. The investigation has taken us to other states. Let's just put it that way. I'm hoping within the next year and a half to get Ms. Hartsfield tried. Minnesota authorities are also getting close to the end of a reopened investigation of Sarah Hartsfield, who in 2018 fatally shot her fiance at the time, David Bragg, but she was never charged because prosecutors ruled it self-defense. Sarah Hartsfield has maintained her innocence and in messages to me from her jail cell said the real story is quote, when a citizen with no criminal history can be thrown in jail while they think I did something

but aren't sure and if I did do something they don't know how. She wrote if she's guilty of anything it's picking horrible husbands. Wow,ame the victim. It's their fault. They're the horrible ones, all five of them. Plus, you've got the fiance that got shot and the other one that was afraid, surprised he lived through it to tell the tale. You are hearing the voice of Bryce Kneeberry joining us right now from KPRC to NBC Houston, what did that mean that they are now looking in other states and other jurisdictions for what? There's a lot of things that have happened allegedly in Sarah Hartsfield's past. Of course, there's the shooting in Minnesota. There's the murder plot. Well, you mean the shooting and the dead husband? That one? The dead fiancé?

That one? Yes, that one. And, you know, the family in that case, we've interviewed them. We've traveled to several states covering this story and interviewed people from Sarah Hartsfield's past. And when we spoke with the family members of David Bragg, they said that she tried to explain herself for that shooting to them. And when she shared her version of the event, they say, well, it really didn't add up. And

they even called her story far-fetched. So they're understandably very grateful that this case is getting a renewed look now. Take a listen to our cut nine. Sarah Hartsfield is in the Chambers County Jail tonight for the murder of her husband in Beach City last month, but investigators say she's been married at least five times, and tonight we've learned just five years ago she shot and killed a man who never made it to the altar. 43-year-old David Bragg was engaged to Sarah Hartsfield in 2018 when she shot and killed him in their Douglas County, Minnesota home. The county's top prosecutor declined to file criminal charges, saying she fired in self-defense. But tonight, the Douglas County Attorney's Office is reopening the investigation in light of new information that came into the sheriff's office.

Bragg's family is relieved, telling us in a statement, his death was very random and the circumstances that surrounded his death seemed far-fetched and almost made up. Bryce Kneeberry, we know so many other men in her life, husbands, fiancés, boyfriends. Is there a chance there are even more dead bodies, possibly not just the men in her life, but a neighbor, a love rival? How do we know? Well, throughout this coverage of this story, we've been looking into different people around Sarah Hartsfield who have died. And in fact, in 1990, her little brother died of an accidental death in Otterville, Missouri. That case is also getting a renewed look, although Sarah Hartsfield was not present at the time that her little brother died. There is also the 2005 death of her biological father, which was reviewed earlier this year by police in Bell County, Texas.

They did not file criminal charges in that. But based on the events that have come to light throughout this investigation, there are a lot of other investigations that are getting a more focused look at them now. Who knows where this is all going to end, but I know one thing. She will be tried for murder in the death of Joseph Hartsfield and his insulin toxicity will play a major factor in that prosecution. We wait as justice unfolds.

Goodbye, friend.