Murder In America - EP. 104 NORTH CAROLINA - The CONSENSUAL Murder of Sharon Lopatka

Episode Date: March 24, 2023

In the early days of the internet, chat rooms were often the only forms of interaction for people as they navigated their way through the unregulated and mysterious world wide web. And it was in those chat rooms where you could get to know people and divulge your deepest, darkest hidden secrets. But there are dangers that lie within. And this, unfortunately, was the trap that thirty-five-year-old Sharon Lopatka fell into. Sharon was a trusting person, a little too trusting, and it was this misplaced trust that would place her in an early grave. This is the twisted story of the murder of Sharon Lopatka and you’re listening to Murder In America. - Pick up where you left off to uncover new secrets or start your investigation today and download June’s Journey! Available on Android and iOS mobile devices, as well as on PC through Facebook Games. - This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com/MIA and use our custom code MIA for 10% off your first month of easy online therapy.  - Set your business up for success when you get started with stamps.com today. Sign up with promo code MIA for a special offer that includes a 4-week trial, plus free postage, and a free digital scale.  - Start your new language-learning journey today and get up to 55% off your subscription when you go to babbel.com/MIA. Stay Connected:  Join the Murder in America fam in our free Facebook Community for a behind-the-scenes look, more insights and current events in the true crime world: https://www.facebook.com/groups/4365229996855701 If you want even more Murder in America bonus content, including ad-free episodes, come join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/murderinamerica Instagram: http://instagram.com/murderinamerica/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Murder-in-America-Podcast/100086268848682/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/MurderInAmerica TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theparanormalfiles and https://www.tiktok.com/@courtneybrowen Feeling spooky? Follow Colin as he travels state to state (and even country to country!) investigating claims of extreme paranormal activity and visiting famous haunted locations on The Paranormal Files Official Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheParanormalFilesOfficialChannel Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Quins.com slash America. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Life is a journey. I know this. I think we all know this. Some days feel good and other days feel absolutely overwhelming. Whatever's keeping you up at night. It's easy sometimes to feel like you have to figure it all out on your own.

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You have been warned. On the internet, you can truly be yourself. Let's say you make a fake account, an account that doesn't bear your true name but bears your true desires. And through this anonymity, you can really express yourself. You can show the world who you really are. In the early days of the internet, you could even create and join anonymous spaces and communities, using a pseudonym to represent who you were throughout all of your interactions. Back then, chat rooms were often the only forms of interaction for people as they navigated their

through the unregulated and mysterious worldwide web. And it was in those chat rooms where you could get to know people, have conversations about anything, and could talk freely without fear of being scrutinized or judged. And it was in these chat rooms on forums and websites where anonymous users divulged their deepest, darkest hidden secrets that they often kept from spouses, friends, and family members. You see, through anonymity, a person can tap into one's true self. being completely anonymous is a way to explore how you feel on the inside, and you don't have to worry about how you're being perceived on the outside.

That's the beauty of it. There are dangers that lie within. For example, while wearing that anonymous mask on the internet, people sometimes experiment with role-playing, meaning that they completely change their identity and sometimes their entire personality to make the person on the outside match who they are on the inside. In the early days, the internet was seen as a safe space to interact with people who shared

the same ideas, beliefs, and interests, even if they were taboo. And this, unfortunately, was the trap that 35-year-old Sharon Lopatka fell into in today's story. Sharon was a trusting person, a little too trusting, and it was this misplaced trust that would place her in an early grave. This is the twisted story of the murder of Sharon Lopatka. I'm Colin Brown, and you're listening to Murder in America. It was October 13, 1996, and 35-year-old Sharon Lopatka had just arrived at her online lover's trailer in North Carolina. The home of her internet lover was humble, a trailer on a parcel of wooded property. But Sharon, at the time, was excited to meet the quote-unquote mad of her dreams. This man who she had traveled all the way from Baltimore to North Carolina to meet,

Robert Glass, who was in his late 40s, had promised to fulfill all of her sexual needs while they chatted on the internet. And allegedly, he would go on to a... indeed fill her needs. Over the course of three days from October 13th to October 16th, 1996, Robert pleasureed Sharon in ways she never thought were possible. They pushed the limits of a sexual relationship, severed the ties of societal norms, and went beyond what was acceptable. You see, Robert and Sharon's relationship had started in a chat room on the internet, a relatively new space at the time, and had quickly evolved into something more tangible, something more real. In just a moment, the relationship had turned from empty words and promises into real-world actions and consequences.

But sadly, something was amiss, and at the end of those three days of pleasure, Sharon would wind up dead. And her husband, back in Maryland, would soon be looking for her. On October 20, 1996, seven days after Sharon arrived in North Carolina, her husband, Victor, began to grow concerned. His wife told him that she was going to Georgia to meet some acquaintances, and he never thought much of it. However, shortly after her departure, Victor found a note from Sharon that said she wouldn't be returning home. And when he read the contents of this letter, he was disturbed. In her own words, after telling him that she had left, Sharon wrote, quote, If my body is never retrieved, don't worry.

Know that I'm at peace. Obviously, this was very alarming. So Victor immediately went to the police to file a missing person's report. The police department in Hampstead, Maryland, where the couple lived, had recently created a new department called the Computer Crime Unit. And on that same day that Victor discovered the note, the department was told to search Sharon's computer for, information on her whereabouts. And after a short search, they found substantial evidence linking

her to a man in North Carolina named Bobby Glass. Victor was shocked. He had never heard of a man named Bobby Glass and he knew his partner to be very loyal. He would have never suspected that Sharon was cheating on him. But immediately the local police in North Carolina were alerted and they sent officers to surveil Bobby Glass's trailer. They hoped that in doing this they would find Sharon. Police Captain Danny Barlow would later say during the stakeout that Bobby kept up his usual routine and he moved about as if nothing happened. He went to work every day, just kept up his routine.

We watched him day and night and there was absolutely no sign of her. After a few agonizing days with no solid answers on October 25, 1996, 15th, 15th, days after Sharon's disappearance, Judge Beverly T. Beale issued a search warrant for Bobby Glass's trailer. Bobby was at work at the time that the investigators arrived, and seizing the opportunity, they immediately went to work. When authorities arrived at Bobby Glasses to crept at turquoise trailer, they noted that the lawn was unkempt and covered with garbage and abandoned toys. Needing more evidence, the authorities entered Bobby's trailer and were disgusted. For the inside of the home was just as cluttered and filthy as the outside. Inside of the trailer, police recovered

personal items that belonged to Sharon Lopatka, dirty bondage paraphernalia, child pornography, various drugs, and a 357 magnum pistol. Over the course of that afternoon, authorities removed multiple boxes from the home filled with over a thousand computer discs, magazines, videotapes, and even a Cybermax computer. But it was only when they searched the exterior of the home, but unfortunately, they would discover what they were looking for. While wandering around outside in the yard, a group of officers spotted a fresh mound of dirt located 75 feet from the trailer near a child's swing set off a path that Bobby had created to help him dispose of and burn his trash immediately this pile of fresh dirt was suspicious and police went to work to uncover what

Bobby had recently buried in the yard sadly they wouldn't have to dig deep to find what they were looking for after a few minutes of digging authorities on earth Sharon Lopatka's decomposing corpse buried only two and a half feet underneath the pile of fresh soil a man named d.a brown a Caldwell County investigator would later tell the Washington Post quote On that fateful day, Sharon's body was found with her wrists and ankles bound with rope. There was a rope around her neck and she had abrasions to her neck and breasts. After they recovered Sharon's decomposing body, the authorities immediately got an arrest warrant for Bobby Glass. Upon hearing this, Investigator D.A. Brown made his way to the government center, where he knew he would find Bobby.

and they arrested him right as he was heading out of the men's restroom. According to police, Bobby didn't put up a fight that day. He didn't even ask why he was being arrested, which was strange. He had simply put his hands behind his back, hung his head, maintained his composure, and cooperated with the authorities. Later on, D.A. Brown, the man that made the arrest, would state that at the time, Bobby Glass had acted, quote, very cool. In the day after his arrest, on October 26, 1996, the government center fired Bobby and immediately removed his picture from the company's website. But there were still so many questions. How did Sharon, a married woman from Baltimore, Maryland, end up outside of a

man's trailer in North Carolina brutally murdered? A short while later to obtain more information about their suspect, the authorities brought in Bobby's ex-wife Sherry for questioning. She told them that the couple shared three children, two girls aged seven and ten, and a little boy who was just six years old. A polite young woman, aged 35, Sherry spoke about the hardships that she had suddenly faced after Bobby's arrest. She told police that the community had turned their backs on her and wanted to blame her for what happened, saying that if she hadn't left him, this murder never would have occurred. She even told the police that her friends and family had blamed her for Bobby's secret internet vices. Wait, what secret internet vices? But Sherry told him that she knew the truth.

She said, but I left because he said he was no longer attracted, push me away. He said it back and away. The final straw was when my kids asked me why their daddy didn't love me anymore. But Sherry still had a soft spot for her husband, and throughout the interviews, she described how good he was at his job and how smart he was with computers. She even told the authorities that at one point in their marriage, he had encouraged her to challenge herself. even when she lacked self-confidence. It seemed that Bobby had cast a spell on Sherry, but after their marriage had dissolved,

he had turned to the dark side. But that wasn't all of the story. According to Sherry, and this was new information to the police, computers had been Bobby's downfall. He'd name his life. He ate, slept everything about computers. He would stay up almost all night on the internet.

I'd have to drag him out of bed in the morning. The interviews were extensive, but after a while, the authorities struck gold with Sherry. She told him that one day, after snooping through his computer while he was at work, she had unwittingly uncovered her husband's secret life. According to her official account, Bobby had saved numerous chat sessions with women that contained disturbing information, information she had learned that was so disturbing that she refused to discuss these matters with the police.

She then stated that he often kept sexual magazines around their house, magazines that never bothered her just as long as the kids didn't find them. But what she had found on his chat logs was something, that had deeply disturbed her. These logs, in fact, were so disturbing that she refused to even revisit them in her own mind. But eventually, after ruminating on the fact that her estranged husband was now accused

of murdering an innocent woman, she decided to divulge this information to the police. According to Sherry, after discovering these disturbing chat logs on her husband's computer, she felt the need to discuss her findings with him. And one night, during dinner, she gathered enough strength

then finally confronted him. She would later say, quote, One night, I cooked him all of his favorites. He was in a good mood to talk for a chain. He quoted something he had said on the chat session. He was drained out of his fan that I knew. I guess he underestimated my ability. I've been confused by this.

He's such a nice, gentle person. I really can't see him doing something like that, killing someone or me. I might of him that I don't know. While Bobby sat in jail waiting for his trial, his only sibling, a sister named Joanne, said that she was in disbelief after hearing her brother had been charged with murder. She would later say, quote, I don't consider my brother an animal, and I don't consider him violent.

If my brother did anything, that's between him and God. End quote. After his arrest, Bobby's father-in-law, Fred Harless, was, quote, quoted stating that Bobby was one of the nicest men he had ever met. In an interview with the Baltimore son, Harliss even stated that Bobby had paid two mortgage payments for him when he was strapped for cash. Meanwhile, throughout the legal proceedings,

Sharon's family and close friends remained tight-lipped about the entire situation. Sharon's father-in-law, John Lepadca Jr., was the only family member to comment on the crime. He made a simple statement and said that the family was heartbroken and that they wanted the media to leave them alone. Too much has come out already about this case. The respectful thing to do would be to leave us alone. This is a tragedy, nothing more and nothing less. End quote. But it was in the police interrogation rooms behind the scenes where everything changed. After Bobby was arrested, he spoke to the police about what happened during the time Sharon stayed in his trailer.

He said that he and Sharon engaged in rough sex and had consensually acted out several dark fantasies and that he had used random objects from around the home to probe her and sexually penetrate her, all while she was tied up. But according to Bobby, Sharon had allowed him to do all of these things, and she had even asked him to use a rope to choke her out during sex. At one point, during the intercourse, Sharon had even told Bobby to tighten the rope as she climaxed, which is a known thing that people do. According to Bobby, during one session, he accidentally tightened the rope too much, and he ended up strangling her. He would later say, quote, I don't know how much I pulled the rope. I never wanted to kill her, but she ended up dead.

End quote. It was shortly after this confession, after the computer data was retrieved from both Bobby and Sharon's computers, when the full truth of this twisted situation came to light. We need to backtrack a bit, back to the early 1960s, to the year that Sharon Lepatco was born. Sharon Rina Denberg was born on September 20th, 1961, in the state of Maryland to Orthodox Jewish parents, Mr. and Mrs. Abraham J. Denberg. The couple would go on to have three more daughters after Sharon and would raise their family in the Beth Tophilo congregation in Baltimore, Maryland, the largest synagogue in the United States. Sharon's father, Abraham, was a deeply religious man and a canter at their synagogue who led songs and chanted prayers to the congregation. With a family who was so deeply invested in their

faith, Sharon had a very normal childhood and was known to have a lot of friends. She attended Pikesville High School in Maryland, where she participated in field hockey and volleyball. She was also a member of the school's choir club and really enjoyed singing and expressing herself. During her junior and senior year, Sharon had been a library aide and a nurse's aide. If anything, Sharon was an active young woman with a promising future. Nothing had ever seemed to miss. In fact, former classmates of Sharon's would even describe her as, as normal as you can get. A former classmate of her, Steve Hyman, even said, quote, she wasn't an outcast or anything of that nature. I think making her this weird loner is just a media thing, end quote. Upon her graduation in 1979,

Sharon held a variety of jobs which even included a stint as a clerk in an FBI fingerprint lab, a job that she stayed at for 18 months. In 1991, when she was 29 years, old, Sharon met a man named Victor Lopatka, a construction supervisor and a Catholic from Alicott City, a nearby community in Maryland. Eventually, the two would marry, but Sharon's parents were never supportive of the relationship because Sharon had quit Judaism and converted to Catholicism. In fact, instead of celebrating this marriage, Sharon's parents, the Denbergs, considered it to be more of an embarrassment. A close friend of Sharon's Sarah Weinberg would later say that marrying Victor was a way to break free from her conventional lifestyle. She needed something,

thing in her life, a way to break away from her conservative upbringing, a way for her to, as an adult, rebel against her parents. After her marriage, Sharon's relationship with her parents became estranged. In the early 90s,

Sharon and her new husband, Victor, moved to a suburb in Hampstead, Maryland, and they purchased a beautiful ranch-style home at the end of a cul-de-sac. Back then, the town of Hampstead was the perfect mix of a rural small town mixed with suburbia, and the two had settled down in the small township

of Indian Court, a quiet family-friendly neighborhood where children could run through the streets and play without having to worry about any danger. After getting married, Sharon purchased a quote, money-making kit for $39, and it outlined ways for people to make money from advertisements. and 1-900 numbers. And she decided that she wanted to earn extra money while working from home. After diving deep into the training, Sharon started several small internet businesses. One business she created was called Classified Concepts. To make money, she would rewrite ad copies and send them back to advertisers for $50 in advertisement.

It was a small hustle, but, she made it work. Another website she created was called House of Dion, which was basically home decorating tips that she would mail out for $7. An advertisement for the business at the time read quote, Home decorating secrets seen in the posh homes from the New England states to the Hollywood homes that can now be yours. Never published before. Quick, easy ways to decorate your home." Eventually, Sharon would befriend a neighbor named Diane Safar, and the two would go on to create another business.

Their new endeavor revolved around a 30-page booklet that they created titled, quote, Dion's Secrets of Home Decorating Guide, which advertise country crafts and home decorating tips. Diane would later say that the two had small success with the booklet, selling it to local churches and ladies' groups. She would later say, quote, here we were decorating our houses one day and talking to each other for advice. And we just said, hey, we should put this stuff in a book.

It was fun. End quote. A third website created by Sharon offered psychic services and advice. The advertisement read, Velado, America's favorite warlock, will cast a spell for you. The advertisement stated that Vallado Dion was from a small town in Manila where magic and the mystical sciences are commonly used in everyday life.

On these websites, Sharon would post ads for other services, often with a 1-900 number attached, and she received a percentage of the profit for the phone calls made. And this hustle worked for a while. Sharon was making money, using the internet to her advantage, and bringing in funds for she and her husband, Victor, to save and invest. But a few years into the marriage, Sharon's internet use started to dive down a darker path. Eventually, and secretly, she created an online. alter internet ego that she nicknamed Nancy Carlson. Using this fake name, Sharon began to market graphic pornographic material

that depicted women being drugged, chloroformed, and hypnotized until they were unconscious. And the content that she marketed, once they were unconscious, various sex acts would be performed on these women while they were being videowed and photographed. Sharon also started selling her used underwear under the pseudonym of Nancy Carlson, and her first post was made to an open forum frequented by those interested in sexual erotica. On the forum, Nancy's advertisement read, Hi, my name is Nancy. I'm 25, have blonde hair, green eyes.

I'm 5'6 and weigh 121 pounds. Is anyone out there interested in buying my worn panties or panty hose? This is not a joke or wacky internet scam. I'm very serious about this. If you were serious too, send me an email. Under the pseudonym Nancy Carlson, Sharon marketed herself falsely as an adult film star and a dominatrix. She put out advertisements stating that she would be willing to star in customized pornographic videos for a price and began to seek out in frequent hardcore pornographic chat rooms that fetishized necrophilia,

sadomasochism, bondage, and torture. For several months, Sharon posted messages and websites for sex weight gain, sex bondage, foot fetish websites, and Amazon women admirers. A few of her messages read. Name is Nancy. I just made a VHS video of actual women, willing and unwilling to be knocked out, drugged, under hypnosis, and choriformed. Never before has a film been made like this that shows the real beauty of the sleeping victim.

She also posted another message that read, Let me customize your most exciting bondage fantasy for you. on VHS, to watch and enjoy privately in the comfort of your own home. Prices start at $100. On one online platform, she asked if someone might be interested in force-feeding her until she reached a weight of 500 pounds. She apparently wanted someone to feed her as much food and drink as possible, forcibly, until she reached a weight of at least 500 pounds.

At the time of her death, she weighed 189 pounds, so this would mean that she wanted someone to force-feet her until she gained at least. $310 pounds. Her online ad read, I am not interested in email correspondence or a phone feeding. What I would really like is the real thing. I am willing to be forced fed to meet my goal if necessary. I am also willing to relocate if that's what it takes to find the right feeder. I am hoping someone out there will help me out and share in the most erotic experience of their life. I don't want to break up any marriages. so if you're married, please don't respond to this post.

Ironic, considering that Sharon was, at the time, married and in a committed relationship herself. Sharon Lopatka, or Nancy Carlson, had many alter egos on the World Wide Web. Typically, but depending on which website she was posting on, Nancy was a fit blonde woman who weighed 120 pounds. But on other sites, she was a 300-pound dominatrix willing to control and abuse any man who might be interested. At this time in her life, Sharon's sexual obsessions were beginning to blossom. But on the outside, nobody knew just how deep she had gone down the rabbit hole. She even kept these desires a secret from her husband, who at the time was completely oblivious.

Neighbors would later say that, according to what they saw, Sharon and Victor were introverts who often kept to themselves. Many neighbors and acquaintances would see Victor jogging or riding his bike around the neighborhood, but they hardly ever saw Sharon. One neighbor, Beth Long, a registered nurse, even said, quote, I never saw her at all. She could have been a patient at the hospital and I wouldn't have ever known she was my neighbor. End quote.

The people that lived around them also said that she and Victor didn't participate in neighborhood activities, and they never had any interest in getting to know them. They did note, however, that during Halloween, their family would give out full-sized candy bars, possibly to make up for the fact that they never came around. From the outside looking in, the couple was shy and introverted, but they also seemed pretty normal. But in reality, Sharon was actively typing away on her computer. selling sex and looking for a man to fulfill her darkest fantasies.

Eventually, she became a regular visitor on websites like fetishfeet.com and sexbondage.com. And she would enter these chat rooms and ask around for someone who might be interested in sexual torture and murder. A sex rights activist named Tanneth Teer often frequented the same websites as Sharon Lepadka and actually saw the messages and chat room conversations at the time regarding her desire to be sexually tortured and murdered. Obviously, this was disturbing to Tanneth as she was open to accepting any sexual fantasy, but was opposed to anyone getting hurt in the process. After reading some of Sharon's public posts,

Tanith became concerned with her bizarre messages and actually reached out to her in an attempt to change her mind and explain the difference between fantasy and reality. But Sharon had no interest in listening to her and rejected her messages, then eventually responded, saying, I want to surrender completely. I want to die. Tanith also said that Sharon had often headed into bondage chat rooms and had tried to establish her presence in the community

in hopes of finding a person to carry out her twisted fantasy. In one last attempt, Tanith reached out to Sharon, expressing her concern, and Sharon replied, stating, I want the real thing. I didn't ask for you preaching to me. On August 22, 1996, 6, Sharon entered a chat room specifically reserved for those who enjoy necrophilia, aka having sex with dead corpses, and asked,

Want to talk about torturing to death? I have kind of a fascination with torturing till death, but of course I can't speak about it with my family. Apparently, after posting this message, Sharon received numerous messages from men who were interested in fulfilling her fantasy, but they all backed out once they found out that she was being 100% serious. After the news of her murder broke, bondage enthusiasts from various chat rooms and forums even went on the record and stated that they had concluded Sharon was seriously on the hunt

for someone to kill her. But it seemed that Sharon was out of luck. No matter how perverse her internet fantasies were, no matter how dark her mind could get, no one was ever going to give her what she really wanted. That was until August of the year 1996. Eventually, Sharon would find a willing participant in her own torture and murder. a man who was willing to carry out her deviant wishes and her deepest desires. Robert or Bobby, Frederick Glass, who went by the pseudonym Slow Hand.

In the month of August 1996, Bobby and Sharon would meet in a sexually oriented chat room. At the time, as stated online, Bobby's sexual fetish was inflicting pain during sex. Sharon's sexual fetish was a desire to be tortured. On that fateful day, when Sharon saw his internet profile, she immediately became infatuated. Slowhand's profile said that he was born on Valentine's Day and that he was a good lover. Bobby on his profile also stated that he was into various deviant sexual behaviors. And that really turned Sharon on. Some of these behaviors included sadomasochism.

Sadomasochism is a mixture of two behaviors, sadism and masochism. And it can be grouped into a category of sexual problems called parapherias. Sexual masochists like to be subjected to humiliation, beatings, and verbal abuse in order to achieve an orgasm. typical DOM sub-behavior. You beat someone down, spit on them, tell them that they're worse than nothing. That's what a masochist craves. Sometimes, the masochist will be bound and gagged and engage in sexual activities like bondage, simulated rape, and spankings. Sharon in this situation was a masochist. On the other hand, sadist are people who achieve climax through inflicting physical or

psychological pain and suffering on their sexual partner. Think of someone who gets off to slapping, raping, or torturing others. That's who Bobby Glass or Slowhand stated that he was, a masochist, Sharon, and a sadist, Bobby. So sexually, they were in a sadist. They were in a sadist. So sexually, they were the perfect match. The man behind the pseudonym's slow hand was a 45-year-old computer analyst who worked for the local Katava County government in North Carolina, named Bobby Glass. Considered to be an introvert to all who knew him, Bobby was a good employee and had been for the past 16 years. He earned a good salary of $381 annually and worked in computer programming, where he created programs for tracking

fuel consumption of local county vehicles and helped with the voter data and tax rolls. Although he was introverted, Bobby wasn't a hermit, and people in town all knew his name. He was an active member of the Rotary Club and came from the prominent Glass family, a family that was well known throughout the rural community. Bobby was your typical, all-American guy from the outside looking in. No issues with friends, no issues with family, just a true average Joe. At the time, Bobby and his wife Sherry had been married for 14 years, and together they had had three children. Sherry would later say that Bobby's passion was computers, and that he spent most of his time at home away from family in order to spend more time on the internet.

But seeing as the internet was such a new, exciting thing back then in 1996, it really wasn't that suspicious. It was just the thing to be on, the internet. But according to Sherry, Bobby's wife, she knew that something was up almost immediately. At the time, Sherry had a gut feeling that Bobby was talking to other women on the internet, and she knew that she needed to do something. He had been neglecting his responsibilities, both with work and his family for months, and one day she decided to go through his computer to see what was up.

While searching, she discovered multiple emails exchanged between her husband and other women, most of which she would describe as, quote, raw, violent, and inappropriate, end quote, emails that Bobby had sent under pseudonyms such as Slow Hand and Toy Man. Sherry ultimately confronted her husband about these messages, but he didn't have much to say in his defense. Armed with this disturbing information, Sherry kicked her husband out of her home in May of 1996, and shortly after she filed for divorce. But Bobby viewed this as a win. You see, after his wife and kids were suddenly out of the picture,

Bobby now had more time for the internet and for his new online lover, and this new lover was none other than Sharon Lapitka. The two had become acquainted in an alt-sex news group when Sharon posted a message under the pseudonym Nan Concentric that read, Want to talk about torturing to death? I hope you all don't think I'm strange or anything.

Intrigued after reading this message, Bobby sent Sharon a message. And over the next six weeks, the two would exchange almost 900 graphic sexual emails. Police would later say that when the chat logs and messages were printed out, they totaled just over 870 pages. Police captain Danny Barlow would later say, If you put all their messages together, you'd have a very large novel.

It would be very thick, and I think you could say it would have a very sad ending. Investigators said that through the retrieved messages on Sharon's computer, it was obvious that she wanted Bobby to strangle her during sex, and she was very graphic in her request. In fact, Sharon was practically begging Bobby to torture, abuse, and murder her. In return, Bobby would message her back under the pseudonym of Slow Hand, letting her know in very graphic detail exactly how he would torture and kill her. Bobby, when writing to Sharon, would describe a slow sexual torture

that would ultimately lead to Sharon's strangulation and death. These messages are apparently so graphic, so obscene, that they have never been released to the public. We tried for hours to find any sort of text from these emails, but it doesn't exist online. So it just speaks to how disturbing these messages must have been. According to various experts that have studied this case, it could be determined that Sharon had auto-assassassanophilia,

a fetish in which a person becomes sexually aroused at the thought of being murdered. The term was coined by sexologist John Money, who said that people suffering from auto-assassanophilia are aroused by carrying out or staging the murder of a sexual participant. Considered a parapheria, like pedophilia or exhibitionism, odd-assanophilia is characterized by sexual encounters in which a person fully commits to an extreme sadist for a staged or real murder. According to the Psychology Dictionary, an auto-assassanophile is defined as, quote,

a person who pretends he or she is in danger of being murdered to achieve an orgasm. End quote. Keep in mind that the entire time that Sharon was selling sex videos online, begging strangers to force-feed her and sexually fantasizing about her own murder, her husband, Victor, was blissfully unaware. There was nothing that would have led him to believe that his wife Sharon was secretly Nancy Carlson, the sexual deviant willing to let any man strangle, rape, and kill her at the blink of an eye. Eventually, though, some desires jump from the screen to the real world, and this leads us back to October 1996 in North Carolina.

Now, Bobby's trailer was far from charming. The lawn was littered with rusted toys and garbage, and it almost looked like it was abandoned. He had four puppies that chewed on furniture, wood, and pretty much anything in sight, and his place was constantly a mess. Police officers who eventually searched his home would later say that there were dirty dishes piled up in the sink and trash all throughout the home. And it was a far cry from his childhood home where his father, Joe Glass, had really established himself and his family in their community. Bobby's father had helped bring a fire station and an ambulance service to the community, to make it a better place for people to live and work. He cared for the town and for the people who lived there.

Ironically, Bobby's decrepit rotting trailer sat less than a mile away from his father's mansion, just a little bit further down on Glass Road. At the time of the murder, the Glass family's once beautiful mansion, with large wooden shutters engraved with the letter G, sat abandoned. and in a state of ruin. And each morning, Bobby would drive past his childhood home on his way to the government job, which was about 40 miles away. Bobby chose to live the simple life, out of the way of other people,

and he spent most of his time browsing fetish websites in engaging and disturbing anonymous sexual conversations. To many people that knew him, he loved music, photography, and model railroads. On his AOL account, he wrote, quote, moderation in all things, including moderation. But behind closed doors, Bobby was a monster. After months of chatting online, Sharon and Bobby, or Nancy and Slowhand, decided that it was finally time to meet each other. On October 13, 1996, Sharon left her husband a note at home

and drove her Blue Honda Civic to Baltimore, Maryland, where she would board a southbound train to Charlotte, North Carolina. That morning, Sharon had kissed her husband Victor and told him that she was just off to visit some friends in Georgia and that she would return home in a few days. But on that morning, Sharon was filled with excitement. In fact, she could barely contain it. It was finally time to live out her deepest and most certainly darkest sexual desires. She wasn't on her way to Georgia to see friends. She was on her way to North Carolina to see her online boyfriend, a man that would promise her that he would torture and kill her. So at 9.15 a.m., Sharon boarded ordered the train to her final destination with the hope and determination that Slowhand could fulfill all of her desires.

And that, he would. Sharon arrived in Charlotte, North Carolina at 8.45 p.m., having traveled over 400 miles to meet her internet lover, Slowhand. On that evening, Bobby drove to the train station in his pickup truck, and he picked up Sharon at around 9 p.m., arriving just on time like a gentleman. On that fateful night, the two would leave the city of Charlotte and head right towards rural Caldwell County nearly 80 miles away, where Bobby's old run-down turquish trailer was located. And this is where the story starts to get a little blurry. To this day, nobody knows exactly what happened between Bobby Glass and Sharon Lepadka in the three days between Ockerman Lepadka in the three days between Ockerman. October 13th and October 16th. According to the autopsy reports, Sharon's body wasn't bruised or beaten before her death. So it's unknown if the extreme torture portion of her fantasy was ever fulfilled. But what is known is that she was eventually murdered after being strangled by Bobby Glass on October 16th, 1996. And afterwards,

he buried her body outside of his trailer. Now, everyone can have their theories on what happened, but no one really knows. Even though Bobby claimed that the murder was an accident, according to all of the previous chat logs, and all of the evidence, it wasn't. But still, Sharon had shown up that day with the express desire to be murdered. So, in the end, we will truly know. never know what really happened, making this one of the most bizarre cases we've ever heard of.

Let's fast forward, past the point when the police eventually discovered Sharon's body in the trailer yard and passed the point of Bobby Glass's arrest. You have to understand, at the time this news story was huge. You see, after Sharon's murder, people were both fascinated and disturbed when they learned about the details behind the crime. And still, to this day, this murder is disturbing. In fact, it's so disturbing that I chose to write this. episode myself because I felt that when researching this case, almost nobody knows that it happened. At the time, back in 1996, many people were speculating that Sharon's marriage to Victor was an unhappy one, that her size and weight led to her having a deep depression, and they believe that there were other

factors that may have led Sharon to want to self-harm. But friends who knew her said she wasn't depressed. Diane Safer, her neighbor and former business partner, told the Baltimore son, quote, What I want people to know is the woman I knew was not crazy in the slightest. She was always a happy person." After Sharon's murder, the online BDSM community was also having a hard time dealing with the news. On the public message board for alt-sex bondage, one member spoke out about the news coverage regarding their lifestyle. The chief found someone to do it under the guise of bondage or sadomasochism is going to be the rallying cry of those who condemn our lifestyle. Another member, sex educator Nancy Ava Miller, said the community was trying to distance themselves

from the consensual death of Sharon. I don't know what they were doing, but it wasn't S&M, she was quoted as saying. However, another member of the alt-sex group where the couple met, a member named Perro Loco, said he interacted with Bobby and believed he was a compassionate man, but simply not smart in his endeavors. Perro was quoted as saying, he's a compassionate man but was unfortunately stupid for not insisting that Sharon, Lady Elle, bring her hard disc with her for him to wipe,

not to mention that he should have taken her somewhere safer to do her. At the time, the police were also having a hard time grappling with the news. They had copies of multiple emails and chat logs where Sharon confessed she wanted to be murdered. However, the law states that a person couldn't consent to their own demise. The search warrant affidavits that were presented to Judge Beale indicated that Sharon specifically traveled to North Carolina for Bobby to torture and murder her. And police captain Danny Barlow said that after reviewing Bobby's emails that were written under the name Slow Hand, it was determined that Sharon's death was deliberate and not accidental as he had claimed.

According to Captain Barlow, the emails exchanged between Slowhand and Nancy Carlson, aka Bobby Glass and Sharon Lapitka, graphically stated that their plans were that Bobby would deliberately torture and kill Sharon, and this proof of that Bobby would deliberately torture and kill Sharon, and this proved that the murder was premeditated. So at the time, Bobby was facing a first-degree murder charge, and his bond was denied. After the news of this murder broke, and the details relate to the media,

the sensationalism surrounding the case grew so large that Judge Beale even issued a gag order to everyone involved who was working on the case. You have to imagine that this was one of the first, first, if not the first murder case involving emails and the internet. Of course, the media wanted to report on it. And boy would they. This gag from Judge Beale did nothing. There's already so much information out there about the murder that the media simply took the information that they already had and ran with it, and in turn created a frenzy surrounding the case. Many news stories

focused on the negative aspects of the internet and the danger of meeting a stranger from a chat room. Other debates and on-air discussions included calls for censorship to protect children and to prevent further murders and deaths from happening. This media frenzy grew so wide that anti-censorship groups even released their own information against the idea of internet censorship, stating that the internet allowed people to express themselves and their ideas freely because of the concept of anonymity, and that some fantasies are simply that. Fantasys. The case was so influential that it even spawned new psychological studies and terms. You see, it was around this time that the term Marty Graf, phenomenon was coined by psychologists as a term to describe people who use the internet to mask

their true identity by hiding behind a computer screen. The publicity surrounding Sharon's case also gave rise to a movement within the field of psychology that attempted to help doctors and researchers better understand deviant sexual behaviors like masochism, sadism, and asphyxia. If you don't know, asphyxia is a form of sex play practiced by sadomasochists and many others in which a sexual partner is strangled to decrease oxygen to the brain, which can intensify an orgasm. In fact, the term derived from sexual strangulation is called asphyxophilia. However, obviously, engaging in such risky sexual behavior can result in accidental death due to asphyxia. According to the BDSM community, exploring and engaging in asphyxia during sex is

considered edge play. Edgeplay is trusting another person with your life and the thrill comes from the danger and vulnerability a person feels during the activity. Asphyxia can be practiced safely, But as with anything in life that's dangerous, there can always be consequences. There are numerous theories that suggest why a person might want to explore and participate in deviant sexual behavior, theories that deal with childhood trauma and all other sorts of things. But there's absolutely no evidence that either Bobby or Sharon suffered from any trauma in their childhood or had any abnormal sexual experiences. It remains unknown to this day, what drove a seemingly normal woman, a normal devoted wife,

to consent to her own torture and murder. After her body was discovered in a shallow grave, Sharon's corpse was sent to the chief medical examiner, Dr. John Butts, for an autopsy. After the examination, he determined that Sharon died on October 16, 1996, three days after arriving at Bobby's trailer, and the cause of death was strangulation.

Interestingly, there was no indication that she had been sexually tortured or mutilated before her death. Once again, to this day, it is unknown what exactly happened during those three days. Were they truly living out their dark sexual fantasies? Did he torture her in creative ways? Or were they just hanging around the house until she was eventually murdered? Nobody knows. Bobby's attorney, Neil Beach, would later say that the autopsy findings matched what really happened. Sharon's death was accidental.

Three days, if the medical exam find any indication of that, it's much easier to understand or picture an accident. Bobby was incarcerated at the Caldwell County Jail for three years after several lengthy delays. And on January 27, 2000, he pledged. guilty to voluntary manslaughter in possession of child pornography. At the time, Bobby was also charged with six counts of second-degree sexual exploitation of a minor after police uncovered child porn at his trailer. After all was said and done, Bobby was sentenced to 36 to 53 months at the Avery Mitchell Correctional Institution for the voluntary manslaughter of Sharon Lepatka. That's right. He received a sentence of three to four and a half years in prison for murdering Sharon.

As for the child porn charges, Bobby was sentenced to an additional 21 to 26 months. According to an article in the Baltimore Sun, Bobby received a shorter sentence because he didn't have a criminal record. He also received credit for the months served while he was incarcerated waiting. for his sentencing. So due to his clean record and the time served, at the end of it all, Bobby would only have to stay in prison for another 27 months, a little over two years. After Bobby was found guilty, Sharon's husband Victor would state that he and the rest of her family just wanted the matter to end. He also said that he was certain Bobby wasn't telling the truth. While serving his time in prison, Bobby became a model prisoner. He mostly kept to himself in read books.

Assistant District Attorney Andrew Jennings said that Bobby never tried to file any other court documents regarding his convictions. According to Assistant District Attorney Andrew, he was a model prisoner. He had books that he read. He was very interested in computers. That was his job. From the information we had here, he was a very intelligent man. He never had any trouble in prison or custody, nothing that we heard about. Just two weeks before his scheduled release on February 20, Bobby Glass was found dead in his prison cell at the Avery Mitchell Correctional Facility in Spruce Pine, North Carolina from an apparent heart attack and was pronounced dead at 1.30 a.m. at a local hospital. He was 51 years old at the time of his death.

As we stated earlier, the case of Sharon Lepadka would be the first case where a suspect was arrested based on email messages and internet activity. In 1996, the internet was still in its infancy with the rise of chat rooms, websites, and email messages. It really was the way. wild, wild, unregulated West. And when looking at the facts of the case itself, it seems that this would be an isolated incident of consensual homicide. But nearly five years later, Germany would be horrified by the tale of Armin Mewis. Armand Mewis would be sentenced to life in prison after meeting his victim, Byrne Brandt, on an online forum titled Cannibal Cafe. Over the span of a few following days, Armin would cook and eat parts of his willing victim after the two exchanged sexual messages

over the internet. Burn, in fact, had told Armin that he was willing to be murdered and cannibalized for sexual gratification. And that's exactly what eventually happened. During Armin's eventual trial, the court shared the email exchange between the two men. Here's that. From Burn Brandes. Thanks for your mail. You really turn me on. Low freezing is good. In response, a message from Armin, Red. It'll be awesome, anyway. Your tasty body on show like... Surprisingly, in this day and age, there are now more cases of consensual homicide

than there were back then, although it is extremely rare. One of Sharon's neighbors would later tell reporters that maybe the true tragedy of the case was that the internet truly isn't a free space, that we should all view this as a lesson, instructing us not to engage in this sort of sexual activity on the internet with strangers. But to the online BDSM community, the outcome of Sharon's faith was not something that they had ever promoted or engaged in. In fact, they distanced themselves as far away as they could from the case of Bobby Glass and Sharon Lepadca. According to psychology today, BDSM can be part of a normal healthy relationship.

It says, quote, early psychologists viewed BDSM-related interest as pathological, leading many in the Kink community to feel intense shame about their desires. Today, however, many researchers and clinicians acknowledge that BDSM can be part of a healthy sexual expression. However, if the interest and behaviors involve non-consenting parties, or caused the individual distress. They may indicate a mental health disorder."

End quote. And the desire to engage in BDSM behaviors is quite common. According to statistics, nearly 30% of couples have tried spanking in the bedroom and 25% have tried dominant submissive role play. People who practice BDSM report that the benefits include a deeper sense of trust, of trust that comes from setting boundaries.

And it gives a feeling of emotional safety that comes through communication. And this communication is all about what will and will not be permitted in the bedroom. As a result, relationships that include BDSM usually have better sexual communication than couples that don't. So there is absolutely no king shaming here

at murder in America, and if you're too consenting adult, then it's perfectly okay. But clearly this situation is on a whole different level. And it's dangerous if a person is so deeply ingrained with their fetish that they have a desire to end someone's life or their own. The mystery surrounding the Sharon Lopatka case still baffles many people to this day. No one will ever know if it was a fantasy taken too far, if it was a sexual liaison gone wrong, or if she was deadly serious in her desire to find someone to end her.

life. The case included every aspect of shock journalism, a dingy trailer, sex, torture, death, and of course the internet. But the most shocking of all was the confession, revealed through numerous email exchanges that implied Sharon had left Maryland of her own free will in order to be sexually tortured and murdered by a man she had never met. The last two posts she ever wrote on the internet were regarding the videos she tried to sell. In those posts, Sharon wrote, on VHS, to watch and enjoy privately in the comfort of your own home, a film designed by you. With the scenarios of your choice,

films are shipped in plain envelopes to protect your privacy. When many people failed to receive their videos after sending payment, they labeled her a fraud, and she responded with her final post saying, I'm just one person trying to fill all these orders. I don't even have time to have a life. According to the Maryland State Police, who did an interview with the Baltimore son, Sharon had been actively trying to find someone locally for the same service in the months before her death.

But even though she was unsuccessful locally, eventually Sharon would find Slow Hand's profile. And I feel like anyone will agree that what happened to Sharon was horrible. And to her family and friends, it was a complete shock to find out her secret life. A former neighbor, Deborah Walker, said that everyone who knew Sharon believed she was a normal work-from-home wife. The suburb of Hampstead, Maryland, after all, is your typical all-American town. A resident of Hampstead was quoted saying,

I guess some people have some kind of inner thing going on that you just never know about. I think we all knew them as well as anyone in the neighborhood. She was just like anyone else. And that kind of scares me in a way to think, you never really know somebody, end quote. And I think that really is the takeaway from this story. Do you ever really know somebody? Especially in this day and age.

Sure, you can hang out with your friends and family members from sunset to sundown, but still, you never know exactly what they're doing in the shadows, especially with how integrated smartphones, computers, apps, and the internet are in our lives today. So what do you think? Was Sharon Lopatka's death an unintentional murder? Was it a straight-up homicide?

Or did she finally reach that level of pleasure that she obviously craved day in and day out? That's a question to which I think we'll never have an answer. But just always keep one eye open because you never know what your friend, husband, wife, or child is searching on the internet the moment that you step out of the room.

Hey, everybody, it's Colin here. Thank you for listening to this week's new episode of murder in America. This is a case that I personally wanted to cover, Courtney and I had never heard of it before I was researching consensual homicide because I think it's such a just strange concept and I felt like no one's really talking about this case and it was really interesting to kind of dive deep in and figure out what exactly happened in that trailer but I want to shout out our new patrons this week Kate Brianna Raposo Jimmy Rogers Easton Rains Carlos Maya Trina Dilbeck Tony Milnes Jen Blocker amela Gordon Cynthia Vanessa Gill

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