MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - The Golden Years (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

Episode Date: April 10, 2023

Colon, Nebraska is one of the smallest and safest towns in America. So, back in June of 2003, when a few Colon residents received a call asking them to check on one of their neighbors, they weren't worried, but they still hurried over to make sure their neighbor was okay. After finding the neighbor's house empty, they wondered if maybe she was in her garage, which was located across the street. But when they entered her garage and flipped on the overhead light, what they discovered was so horrible that many of the town's 128 residents would never feel safe again.For 100s more stories like this one, check out our main YouTube channel just called "MrBallen" -- https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallenIf you want to reach out to me, contact me on Instagram, Twitter or any other major social media platform, my username on all of them is @MrBallenSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Colon, Nebraska is one of the smallest and safest towns in America. So back in June of 2003, when a few Colon residents received a call asking them to check on one of their neighbors, they weren't worried, but they still hurried over to make sure their neighbor was okay. After finding the neighbor's house empty, they wondered if maybe she was in her garage, which was located across the street. But when they entered her garage and flipped on the overhead light, what they discovered was so horrible that many of

the town's 128 residents would never feel safe again. But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you, please apply a rusting agent to the Amazon Music Follow Button's new tools. Okay, let's get into today's story. Hello, I'm Emily and I'm one of the hosts of Terribly Famous, the show that takes you inside the lives of our biggest celebrities. And they don't get much bigger than the man who made badminton sexy.

OK, maybe that's a stretch, but if I say pop star and shuttlecocks, you know who I'm talking about. No? Short shorts? Free cocktails? Careless whispers? OK, last one. It's not Andrew Ridgely. Yep, that's right. It's Stone Cold icon George Michael.

From teen pop sensation to one of the biggest solo artists on the planet, join us for our new series, George Michael's Fight for Freedom. From the outside, it looks like he has it all. But behind the trademark dark sunglasses is a man in turmoil. George is trapped in a lie of his own making, with a secret he feels would ruin him if the truth ever came out. Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to your podcasts, or listen early and ad-free on Wanderie Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wanderie app. Wondery Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app.

Hello, I am Alice Levine and I am one of the hosts of Wondery's podcast, British Scandal. On our latest series, The Race to Ruin, we tell the story of a British man who took part in the first ever round the world sailing race. Good on him, I hear you say. But there is a problem, as there always is in this show. The man in question hadn't actually sailed before. Oh, and his boat wasn't seaworthy. Oh, and also tiny little detail, almost didn't mention it. He bet his family home on making it to the finish line. What ensued was one of the most complex cheating plots in British sporting history. To find out the full story, follow British Scandal wherever you listen to podcasts,

or listen early and ad-free on Wondery Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. 66-year-old Sharon Erickson loved being retired, and as the former assistant treasurer of Saunders County stepped out of her house on the school Thursday morning in June of 2003, she thought, not for the first time, that one of her only regrets in life was that she hadn't retired a few years sooner. Now, turning to look up and down the tiny business district of Colon, Nebraska, one of the smallest towns in America, Sharon ran through her mental list of what she planned to do that early summer day. After spending 37 years collecting tax revenue and keeping perfect records of complicated financial transactions, the routines that

Sharon had put in place over the last five years of her non-working life had given her the time and opportunity to pursue her own interests and hobbies. And even though getting her hair styled every Thursday afternoon was not exactly a hobby, it was one of the weekly appointments that Sharon looked forward to the most. Putting her hand up to her brown hair, Sharon padded the big puffy curls that had been her signature style for as long as she could remember. And since the hair salon where Sharon went every week to have her hair done was out in Cedar Bluffs, that meant an enjoyable 10 minute car ride due north to a town that was more than four times bigger than Colon, which clocked

in with just 128 residents. For Sharon, the drive to Cedar Bluffs was also a trip down memory lane. This was where Sharon had gone to high school, the same high school where Sharon's mother had spent years of her teaching career. In addition to seeing some familiar sights and maybe grabbing a quick bite to eat, Sharon's weekly appointment was always a nice opportunity to chat with her hairdresser about what was going on in Saunders County, where both towns were located, and to exchange local news, in Saunders County, where both towns were located, and to exchange local news, personal stories, and opinions about everything from the weather to state and county politics. And after an hour of friendly conversation, in which the women would feel like they had identified and probably solved

most of the world's problems, Sharon could enjoy a stroll around the local farmer's market before she hopped back into her silver Taurus sedan and headed back home to 112 Spruce Street. Sharon knew that from the outside, this weekly visit to Cedar Bluffs, along with her other daily and weekly routines, might look unexciting and even boring, but to Sharon, who had been divorced for many years and who did not have any children, these routines represented all the ways in which she had become part of the social fabric of Colon, Nebraska, her home for the last 47 years. And it was this connection that had made Sharon's retirement meaningful. As the strongly built woman with bright blue eyes and big hair stepped into the post office right next to her home, she stopped long enough to say good morning to the postmaster, Rick Hartman, before walking

over to her post office box to check for mail. Sharon was good friends with Rick. She had hired him to do various repairs and improvements to her house, and when Sharon was away on one of the trips she enjoyed taking with her cousin, who lived 40 minutes south in Lincoln, Sharon left her house key with Rick so he could keep his eye on the property while she was gone. The post office, always Sharon's first stop, was also a good place for Sharon to catch up with neighbors and local news. And even though Sharon had never been known as a person who meddled or pried into other people's business, all her years in customer service and all her years of handling bills and money had left Sharon with a keen eye for making sure that things

in her own little hometown were running smoothly. Sharon had always been known at the Saunders County Treasurer's Office as a very honest and straightforward person who would not cheat her employer or taxpayers out of a single minute's worth of work. She was also known as someone who would not shy away from confronting someone if she thought they were doing something wrong or inappropriate. That was an attitude that Sharon had learned as the oldest of three children who'd been raised on a farm in Dodge, Nebraska, and who'd grown up taking care of land and livestock. In fact, here in Colon, there was a whole generation of 20-somethings who could remember Sharon calling them out when they were just children or teenagers

if they got up to any trouble or mischief. And that no-nonsense attitude was also on display when it came to Sharon's prickly relationship with one of the long-distance truckers who sometimes parked his rig overnight on Colon's main street and left the engine running and the wheels of his truck partway on the sidewalk right in front of Sharon's home. As the postmaster, Rick, and everyone else in the tiny town knew, Sharon had an ongoing argument with the trucker, and, like everything else in Colon, disputes like that sparked plenty of satisfying gossip, and there was speculation that the trucker actually enjoyed riling up his strong-willed and outspoken critic. But except for her disagreements with this trucker, Sharon Erickson

was one of the most popular and best-known residents of Colin. Even Sharon and her ex-husband, Robert Lee Erickson, had parted on good terms, and when their marriage ended, Robert had left two commercial properties to his ex-wife. And after the divorce, Sharon had converted Erickson Market, a little grocery store, into her private home, and on the lot across the street, she now had a garage where she kept her car. But it was what Sharon had done with part of the former grocery market that had won her a special place in the heart of her community. When the bar-slash-cafe in Colon, where residents would all go to grab coffee and talk, closed down, Sharon had hired Rick, the postmaster, to remodel the front room of her home into a little community meeting place with tables and chairs and free coffee. And then Sharon handed out keys so Colon residents could come and go as they liked.

And not only did Sharon offer free refreshments, she could also still help Colon residents out with questions or any problems related to their county tax bills. After chatting for a few minutes with Rick, Sharon waved goodbye to her friend and walked out of the post office to make her next stop at the local bank. Not only did Sharon keep her checking and savings account there, she and the bank employees had shared a common career in managing and keeping track of money, and so there was always common ground for discussion. Except now that Sharon was retired, she mostly just liked to talk about what vacations she might like to take with her cousin. Along with her skill as a dancer,

who never missed the chance to twirl the night away with her local singles group, Sharon also loved outdoor activities like fishing and visiting her sister out in Colorado. By the time Sharon had arrived home late that afternoon from her trip to Cedar Bluffs, she was looking forward to the phone call that was always the final scheduled event of her day. After pulling her car into the small tan garage that was located across the street from her house, Sharon walked outside and used the remote to close the garage door. Then she turned and crossed Spruce Street to her red brick home with the big glass windows that faced onto the street. Although Sharon was not someone who scared easily, as a single woman living alone, she was very mindful of her personal safety. While she had welcomed the community into one

of the front rooms of her house, that room was closed off from the rest of Sharon's house, and Sharon had made sure that her window coverings blocked any view from the rest of Sharon's house, and Sharon had made sure that her window coverings blocked any view from the street into or out of Sharon's living space. About a year and a half ago, Sharon was sure that while inside her house, she had seen one of her doorknobs turn, as though someone outside was checking quietly to see if the door was unlocked. In response, Sharon had immediately installed door alarms that were designed to go off in the event of any forced entry. Behind Sharon's house, there were only a handful of other residential buildings separated by a narrow alley from Sharon's own property. And about a half

block away, there was also a small field containing long, round, white steel tanks filled with anhydrous ammonia. Anhydrous ammonia was one of the ingredients used to make fertilizer, but it was also one of the key ingredients that went into the illegal production of methamphetamine, the highly addictive and popular stimulant that, in the last several years, had driven up the rate of crime and health problems throughout the population in the rural Midwest. Concerned about the alleyway and about people trying to steal anhydrous ammonia from those tanks, Sharon had enclosed her own backyard by putting up a six-foot-high chain-link fence, leaving just the back and side doors with access to her fenced-in backyard.

Now, glancing at her watch, Sharon stepped up to her front door, turned the key, and let herself inside her cozy wood-paneled living room. Sharon was looking forward to changing into comfortable clothes, admiring her freshly styled hair, then settling into the soft brown armchair tucked into the corner next to a reading lamp. And then, at 5 p.m. sharp, Sharon would do what she did every day, chat on the telephone with her cousin in Lincoln. The two women, who enjoyed traveling together and who visited each other at least several times a week, had plans to get together that Sunday for lunch and a movie. After chatting for a few minutes, the two friends confirmed those plans

and then ended the call. As for the rest of Sharon's day, it wouldn't be too long before Sharon made one quick circuit of her house and made sure all the doors were locked and she was buttoned up tight for the night. Not that Sharon expected any trouble. After all, if there was one person in Colon who knew all of her neighbors and practically everybody else in town, it was Sharon. To her, the little town of Colon was an open book, and a book with its ever-changing stories and secrets that Sharon never tired of reading. And besides, when it came to personal safety, Sharon had one more line of defense. Tucked inside the drawer of her nightstand, right next to Sharon's bed, was a small Beretta handgun.

It wasn't until the evening of Monday, June 30th, 2003 that Sharon Erickson's cousin in Lincoln picked up the phone and dialed the number for the state bank in Colon where Sharon did her banking. Sharon and her cousin had spent the previous day, Sunday, having lunch together and watching a movie. When Sharon had left Lincoln at 4.30 p.m. that Sunday afternoon, the two friends had said goodbye and promised to talk again the next day, Monday, at the usual time, 5 p.m.

But it was now nearly 6 p.m. on Monday, and Sharon was not picking up her phone, despite her cousin calling her over and over again. could just not keep the concern out of her voice when she asked if anyone at the bank could just walk two doors down the street to Sharon's house and just make sure Sharon was okay. In a town as small as Colon, where residents were used to looking out for one another, this was not an unusual request. But even though two bank employees immediately made arrangements to step away from their workstations to go check on Sharon, given how little crime there was in this tiny town, they were not really that worried. All that changed when the two women reached the front door of Sharon's house and saw an unread morning newspaper lying inside the screen door. Along with the folded newspaper was a delivery of frozen food

with a sticker indicating it had been left there at about 1 p.m. and a note, sorry I missed you, that suggested Sharon had not answered the delivery person's knock on the door. Even as their own knocks went unanswered, the two women from the bank were suddenly aware of the sound of a door alarm going off in the side or the back of the house. A minute later and the women had called Sharon's friend and Colin's postmaster, Rick Hartman. Together, the three of them entered the unlocked front door to Sharon's house, their sense of neighborly concern quickly turning to worry and dread. One look into Sharon's empty bedroom and that worry turned to fear. Sharon's

bed was unmade and on top of her nightstand, Rick saw an empty gun holster. The only other place left to search for their missing neighbor was Sharon's garage across the street. Grabbing the extra remote from its hook near the front door, it was only moments before Sharon's friends were watching the garage door slowly roll upward to reveal Sharon's silver Taurus, and there, right next to the car, lay the blood-spattered body of its owner, 66-year-old Sharon Erickson, and next to her body lay a small black Beretta pistol. By 7 p.m. on the evening of that Monday, June 30th, a little over 24 hours after Sharon had

arrived home from her Sunday afternoon visit with her cousin in Lincoln, the street outside Sharon's home and garage was filled with flashing lights as sheriff deputies and medical personnel responded to the 911 call that Rick had made about 15 minutes earlier at 6 42 p.m. And right from the very start of the investigation into what had happened inside that garage, the town's postmaster did not hold back when it came to offering law enforcement his personal theories and observations. Even before the yellow crime scene tape was strung up around the perimeter of both properties, Rick Hartman was explaining to police that Sharon must have used the handgun that was found on the floor of

the garage to commit suicide. Repeatedly ducking back under the crime scene tape to join officers clustered around Sharon's body, the postmaster would back up his theory by pointing out the fact that Sharon's own father had ended his life with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head back when Sharon was just 23 years old. But even a very quick examination of Sharon's body laying face up on the floor and parallel to her car was enough for investigators to rule out suicide. Because not only was the Beretta unloaded and showing no signs of having been recently fired,

there was also a bloody footprint on the floor that did not belong to Sharon. And after visually inspecting the injuries to Sharon's body, it looked to police like whoever else had been in that garage hadn't shot Sharon. Instead, they had delivered a long and savage beating to one of Colin's best-known residents. Meanwhile, deputies who had done a sweep of Sharon's house across from the garage reported back that the phone line to Sharon's house had been cut. It also appeared that an intruder had climbed over Sharon's six-foot-high fence and then used a chisel to break into Sharon's house through the side door, setting off the door alarms as well as the motion

sensor alarms in the backyard. And even though Sharon's security system seemed to have worked, the actual alarms had not been loud enough for any of Sharon's neighbors to notice that Sharon's house had been broken into. Even as the Saunders County Sheriff's Department put out the call for assistance in the case to the Nebraska State Patrol, investigators on the scene noticed one more chilling detail about the crime scene. The shirt Sharon was wearing had been pulled up and her underwear was exposed. It now appeared likely that the first homicide in Colon in more than 40 years might also include a sexual assault. Within hours of discovering Sharon's body,

assault. Within hours of discovering Sharon's body, crime techs were busy collecting and processing physical evidence from the house and garage on Spruce Street, and police had already begun fanning out around the tiny town of Colon to see if anyone heard or saw anything suspicious that might be connected to the murder. But wherever state and local police went, it seemed like the terrified residents of Colon had already heard about the brutal attack and the town was already swirling with rumors and speculation. Was the killer someone Sharon knew or a random stranger passing through town? Was this a burglary gone wrong? Was the murder somehow connected to Sharon's past and to her work at the county treasurer's office? And at the center of all the speculation,

residents were asking themselves, what was it about Sharon Erickson that they didn't know? I'm Peter Frank-O'Pan. And I'm Afua Hirsch. And we're here to tell you about our new season of Legacy, covering the iconic, troubled musical genius that was Nina Simone. Full disclosure, this is a big one for me. Nina Simone, one of my favourite artists of all time, somebody who's had a huge impact on me, who I think objectively stands apart for the level of her talent, the audacity of her message.

If I was a first year at university, the first time I sat down and really listened to her and engaged with her message, it totally floored me. And the truth and pain and messiness of her struggle, that's all captured in unforgettable music that has stood the test of time. You think that's fair, Peter? I mean, the way in which her music comes across is so powerful, no matter what song it is. So join us on Legacy for Nina Simone.

In May of 1980, near Anaheim, California, Dorothy Jane Scott noticed her friend had an inflamed red wound on his arm and he seemed really unwell. So she wound up taking him to the hospital right away so he could get treatment. While Dorothy's friend waited for his prescription, Dorothy went to grab her car to pick him up at the exit. But she would never be seen alive again, leaving us to wonder, decades later, what really happened to Dorothy Jane Scott? From Wondery, Generation Y is a podcast that covers notable true crime cases like this one and so many more. Every week, hosts Aaron and Justin sit down to discuss a new case covering

every angle and theory, walking through the forensic evidence, and interviewing those close to the case to try and discover what really happened. And with over 450 episodes, there's a case for every true crime listener. Follow the Generation Y podcast on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. By Tuesday, July 1st, the day after Sharon had been killed, there was already one name at the top of investigators' list of possible suspects, Colen's postmaster and volunteer firefighter, Rick Hartman. In the absence of a husband or romantic partner who might have had a personal motive for killing Sharon, Rick appeared to be an exceptionally close friend of Sharon's, someone Sharon

had entrusted with a key to her house and someone who had helped her with improvements to her property. Rick had also drawn suspicion to himself with his intense interest in what police were thinking and doing and by repeatedly showing up near and even inside the marked off crime scene areas. At the same time that police began to have conversations with Rick about his movements in the days leading up to Sharon's murder, investigators were also following up on another possible theory that Sharon's murder had been the result of a robbery gone wrong. Even though nothing of value seemed to be missing from Sharon's house, investigators were looking at

the possibility that the break-in had awakened Sharon who then confronted the robber with her unloaded pistol before fleeing from her house to the safety of her garage and the cell phone she kept inside her car. It was there that Sharon had been attacked and killed. But it wasn't long before both theories, Rick as murderer and robbery gone wrong, seemed to hit a dead end. Rick's wife and family confirmed his alibi for the likely time of Sharon's death. As for the robbery, the only person in town with a history of criminal offenses was a 24-year-old man who lived with his mother in a house across the alley behind Sharon's house. But like Rick, James Mars also had an alibi for the time of the murder. He'd been out drinking with friends in the neighboring town of Wahoo before arriving back

home, checking in with his mother who was asleep on the couch, watching TV, and then going to sleep in his bedroom. Like everyone else in Colon who police would interview over the next two weeks, James knew Sharon, but his only real contact with her had been when he was much younger and would sometimes pick up a few dollars helping her with yard work or shoveling her snow. Meanwhile, the autopsy report on Sharon's body, which was released to police seven days after her murder, had confirmed police suspicions that Sharon had been sexually assaulted before she was killed. Unfortunately, the DNA samples that the medical examiner had collected from Sharon's body and

clothing were not large enough to produce a DNA analysis definitive enough that police could use it to identify a possible killer. Police also came up short on other physical evidence. It appeared that the killer had not left any fingerprints or any trace of his own blood or tissue either inside Sharon's house or garage, or on the unfired gun that was found near Sharon's body. With James Mars and Rick Hartman on the back burner as suspects in this case, police turned their attention to two other possible leads. After hearing about the arguments that Sharon had had with the trucker who sometimes stopped over in Coland, investigators hopped into their service vehicles and drove throughout Saunders County asking at gas stations and truck stops about a man with a red rig that had an eagle

on its front license plate. At the same time, investigators were spending hours tracking down any possible link between Sharon's death and the drug trade, specifically whether Sharon might have been killed because she witnessed someone stealing anhydrous ammonia, the key ingredient in meth, from the tanks located half a block from her house. But almost three weeks after Sharon's murder, both of those leads had dried up too. That's when the trucker, unaware that there was an all-points bulletin out for him and his rig, passed through Colon again. But when he was stopped and questioned by investigators, the trucker presented gas and travel receipts that showed

he'd been out of state at the time of Sharon's murder. By then, investigators had also failed to turn up any connection between Sharon's murder and the operators of any local meth labs. By late July, almost seven weeks after Sharon's murder, state and local investigators were no closer to finding Sharon's killer than they had been on the evening her body had been found sprawled out on the floor of her garage. And even as the residents of Colon were becoming more and more desperate for answers, the only thing detectives had left to do in a case that was quickly starting to go cold was to send the DNA evidence collected from Sharon's body and clothing to the crime lab at the Nebraska State University Medical Center

for more advanced and sophisticated testing. Investigators also circled back to Colin's postmaster, Rick Hartman, raising the possibility that his alibi was not so solid after all. And as the cornfields surrounding Colin, Nebraska ripened over the course of that hot Midwestern summer, the rumor mill inside the little town had also heated up. And at the center of the gossip over Sharon's murder was speculation that Rick and Sharon had been having an affair that had somehow ended with Sharon's violent assault and death. And in October 2003, four months after Sharon's murder,

investigators got a tip that put Rick right back in the number one position on detectives' list of suspects. At a recent garage sale of Sharon's furniture and other belongings, Rick had made what police viewed as a strange and suspicious purchase. Colin's postmaster showed up at the estate sale and bought Sharon's mattress. When Sharon's sister had confirmed that sale to investigators, their first thought was that maybe Rick wanted to get rid of the mattress because it contained traces of his own DNA that could link him to Sharon and to her murder. After again denying any involvement and explaining that he bought the mattress for use in his family's spare bedroom,

Rick finally agreed to provide police with his family's spare bedroom, Rick finally agreed to provide police with his fingerprints and hair samples. He also agreed to take a polygraph test, but the results of that test were inconclusive. Still, with no hard evidence that linked Rick to the crime, investigators had to let Rick go and admit, at least for the time being, that their investigation into Sharon's murder had ground to a halt. It would be another six months after that interview and 10 months after the discovery of Sharon's body before investigators finally got the breakthrough in the Sharon Erickson homicide that they'd been hoping for. In April of 2004, detectives received a call from the Nebraska State Crime Lab. Using a single sperm cell they

had found on Sharon's clothing, scientists at the state lab had been able to isolate a complete DNA profile of Sharon's presumed killer. And to the shock of everyone who had been involved in the investigation, that profile did not match the DNA submitted by the detective's number one suspect, Rick Hartman. Still, the new evidence breathed life and hope back into the Sharon Erickson homicide investigation, and soon detectives were once again poring over every one of the 200 interviews and 500 pages that made up the case file to see if there was anything they might have missed back in the summer of 2003. And within days, police had launched a DNA Dragnet spreading out across Colon and other areas of Saunders County to collect DNA samples from people whose

names they had found listed in previous interviews and sending each of those samples straight back to the Nebraska University crime lab and just three weeks later by the end of April 2004 10 months to the day after Sharon's murder investigators got another call from the crime lab one of the DNA samples they had just tested was a perfect match to the killer who had left their DNA on Sharon's clothing. For the 128 residents of Colon, the name on that report would change everything they thought they knew about each other. And for years to come, Sharon's beloved hometown would become a place where people locked their doors, looked over their shoulders, and questioned the basic goodness of human nature. Based on what investigators would discover from a review of Sharon's murder file, coupled with that DNA evidence, here is a reconstruction of

what police believe happened to Sharon Erickson in the early morning hours of June 30th, 2003. in the early morning hours of June 30th, 2003. On the afternoon of Sunday, June 29th, while Sharon was spending the day with her cousin in Lincoln, Sharon's killer was also spending the day with their family. But unlike Sharon, whose golden years of retirement had capped a long and successful life of hard work and close friendships, on that particular day, the killer's feeling of everything going wrong in his life seemed to get worse with every passing hour. And by 1.45 a.m. on the morning of Monday, June 30th, the killer found himself

standing outside the six-foot-high fence that encircled the backyard that belonged to Sharon Erickson, a single older woman who appeared to have at least one thing the killer really needed, and that was money. But over the last few hours, the killer had gone from feeling depressed about his life to feeling both angry and excited, like he was finally capable of taking steps that would change things for the better. Looking at the fence, the killer felt like he could easily climb over a barrier that was twice as high, and he didn't need a weapon to make his plan work. He'd already cut the telephone line, and all he needed now was the chisel inside his pocket that he could use to get

inside that treasure box of a house. And just a minute or two later, the killer was dropping quietly onto the grass of the backyard and heading to the narrow space between the fence and the side door. And as he did this, the motion detector lights in the backyard switched on. And as soon as the killer had pried loose the door and then used his boot to kick the door open so he could slip inside, he began to hear the sound of the door alarm going off inside the house. The staccato bleat of that alarm was loud enough to wake Sharon from a sound sleep. Sitting up in bed, Sharon immediately understood that alarms were going off and so she reached for the phone on top of her nightstand.

Even before she had put the receiver to her ear, she had punched in 911. But instead of hearing the police operator at the other end of the telephone line, all Sharon heard was silence no matter how many times she kept punching in those three emergency numbers. Dropping the phone and switching on her bedside lamp, Sharon jumped out of her bed, opened the drawer of the nightstand, and pulled out the holster where she kept her pistol. Even though the gun was not loaded, the Beretta felt solid and heavy in Sharon's hand. Dropping the holster onto the tumbled sheets, Sharon wrapped both of her hands around the grip

of the gun, and when the intruder stepped inside her bedroom a moment later, Sharon was there waiting, gun pointed straight at his chest. But as soon as Sharon saw the face of her intruder, her eyes widened and the gun dropped a few inches as a burst of anger ran through Sharon's body. Yelling at the man in front of her to get out of her house, to leave and never come back, Sharon stepped forward to close the distance between them. barrel of a Beretta pistol, the intruder backed up, tried to get his bearings, and tried to remember that feeling of power that had surged through him when he had swung his body over Sharon's fence and kicked her door in just a few minutes ago. But the last thing he had expected when he entered Sharon's house was this show of anger and defiance, and this voice that put into words all of his failings and mistakes. Pivoting suddenly, the killer made for the door.

It turned out there was nothing worth stealing in this house anyway, and now he just had to get away. But even as the killer slipped outside and headed for the empty street, he could hear Sharon's footsteps behind him. Dropping back into the shadows, the killer watched as Sharon, dressed, carrying her purse, wearing her slippers, gun in hand, came running out the front door and headed for her tan garage 50 yards away, already clicking the remote that opened the garage door. And suddenly the killer understood what Sharon was

about to do. She must have a cell phone inside her car and she was going to call the police, tell them who he was and what had just happened. Sprinting out from the shadows, the killer raced after Sharon and made it into the garage right behind her even as the garage door was starting to roll back down. According to the autopsy that would be conducted on Sharon's body 36 hours later, the medical examiner would determine that the actual cause of Sharon's death was strangulation. But that came after a beating that would leave Sharon with severe blunt force trauma to the left side of her head, nose, and her left eye. Defensive wounds all along the left side of her body, along with cuts and bruising to her face, arms, and legs, all indicated

that Sharon had struggled against her attacker with all of her strength. But all of Sharon's strength and all of her will to live would not be enough to save her. Before the attack in that garage was over, Sharon's killer, a man Sharon had known since he was a small child, sexually assaulted the 66-year-old retiree who had spent most of her life helping other people. Finally, Sharon's killer unwrapped his hands from around Sharon's throat. But when he looked down at his victim, Sharon's killer was shocked to find that Sharon was still alive.

Exhausted, 24-year-old James Mars, who had been one of the teenagers Sharon had once scolded for getting into mischief, climbed to his feet. Stepping onto Sharon's chest and neck, he could feel her ribs and the bones in her neck start to break under the weight of his boots. He literally stamped the life out of his victim. It would turn out the alibi James Mars had given investigators back in July of 2003, about 11 days after Sharon was discovered,

was riddled with lies. After spending the afternoon of Sunday, June 29th, just across the state border in Kansas, helping his aunt put a new roof on her house, James headed back into Nebraska to drink beer at one of his friend's houses. But by 12.30 a.m. on Monday morning, June 30th, James and at least one friend had gone to a local bar where they continued to drink for another half hour or so until they moved to a second bar called The Oasis. But they arrived at The Oasis right as the bar had stopped serving alcohol. And after the bartender refused to serve James another drink,

James decided to experiment with a new kind of stimulant. And for the bartender refused to serve James another drink, James decided to experiment with a new kind of stimulant, and for the first time in his life, James tried cocaine. Too drunk and high to drive back to Colon using the main roads where he might be stopped by police, James left the bar nearly an hour earlier than he had told police, arriving back at his mother's house not at 2.30 a.m., but at 1.30 a.m. After digging into James's alibi, police would discover that one of James's friends had agreed to lie about when James left the bar, and James's mother may only have been guessing at what time James had actually arrived home. But one thing is certain, James did not just go straight to bed

after watching a few minutes of TV in his mother's living room. Instead, by 1.45 a.m., riding a cocaine and alcohol high, James had decided that he could at least solve one problem in his life, the fact that he was flat broke, by robbing his neighbor who lived just across the alley that separated their two houses. James figured that Sharon, older and single, would be an easy target. Instead, as soon as Sharon had recognized who her intruder was, she confronted him in the same way she had when he was a teenager, asking what he thought he was doing and telling him to get out of her house. But after doing exactly as he was told,

James saw Sharon make a run to her garage and the thought of her calling police and getting him to get out of her house. But after doing exactly as he was told, James saw Sharon make a run to her garage, and the thought of her calling police and getting him arrested, along with everything else that was wrong in his life, like the fight he'd just had earlier that night with his longtime girlfriend, his young daughter who didn't live with him, the straying of part-time farm work rather than any steady job, all caused James Mars to snap. As he said to investigators when he later confessed to Sharon's murder,

quote, I blew my cork, end quote. It wasn't until April 16th, 2004, 10 months after Sharon's murder and six months after James had moved out of Colon to Lincoln, Nebraska, that detectives located James, re-interviewed him, and requested a DNA swab, which he agreed to give them. 13 days later, on April 29th, James' DNA came back as a complete match to the sperm cell that was found on Sharon's clothing. Five days later, on May 4th, 2004, James Mars was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. 2004, James Mars was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. Three months later, in August of 2005, James Mars avoided a jury trial by pleading guilty

to a lesser charge of second-degree murder that he believed would come with a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Instead, in January of 2006, three years and six months after killing his next-door neighbor, James was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Explaining the severity of the sentence, the judge told James, quote, End quote. podcast. If you got something out of this episode and you haven't done this already, please apply a rusting agent to the Amazon Music Follow button's new tools. This podcast airs every Monday and Thursday morning, but in the meantime, you can always

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