Small Town Murder - Fine Line Of Lunacy - Wenham, Massachusetts

Episode Date: October 15, 2026

This week, in Wenham, Massachusetts, a wealthy doctor and his wife seem to have the perfect life, until deep secrets start to emerge, leading to one of them being brutally murdered, and the other becoming an absolute public sideshow. Affairs, strange dressing habits, and "parading around naked" is just some of the strange behavior, leading up to the horrific murder. But the behavior after the murder is just as odd, and even scary!!   Along the way, we find out that this area will certainly judge your clam chowder, that being a huge success doesn't make you immune from losing your mind, and that punching your brother in law while naked is serious trash behavior!!   New episodes, every Wednesday & Friday nights!! Check us out on VIDEO Wednesday and Friday evenings on Netflix! www.netflix.com/smalltownmurder Go to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder, Crime In Sports & Your Stupid Opinions!   Follow us on... instagram.com/smalltownmurder facebook.com/smalltownpod   Also, check out James & Jimmie's other shows, Crime In Sports & Your Stupid Opinions on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts!!

This week, in Wenham, Massachusetts, a doctor and his wife seemed to have the perfect life until deep secrets start to emerge, leading to one of them being brutally murdered and the other becoming an absolute public side show. Welcome to Smalltown Murder. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yay! Yay! Indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrogall. I'm my co-host.

I'm Jimmy Wiseman. Thank you, folks, so much for joining us today. on another wild, crazy, insane edition of small-town murder, as usual. Buckle up, because it's a crazy one this week. We don't even have to say that anymore. They're always crazy. I'll tell you what. Before we get started, though, would like to tell you,

head over to shut up and give me murder.com. If you are listening to this when it's first coming out, first couple days, this weekend, get your tickets for live shows in San Jose in Sacramento. That is the 16th and 17th of October. Sacramento's on the 17th, San Jose on the. the 16th. Get your tickets right now for those. Also, you can get your tickets a few left for Terrytown on November 13th and a few left for Boston also on November 14th. So actually, it's Medford right outside Boston. So get your tickets for that. Shut up and give me murder.com.

Come see us for a live show. Sacramento, San Jose, different shows, by the way. So you can go to both. They're very close together. And you can see two different shows. That's a lot of fun. Also, Patreon. got to hear Patreon. Patreon.com slash crime in sports, which is the name of our other show that you should listen to. We promise you don't have to like sports. But Patreon, I'll tell you what,

from an unbiased perspective, pretty goddamn good show. Two guys who just like shows. That's a good show, those fellows put on over there. So check that out. Yeah, patreon.com slash crime in sports is where you get all of the bonus material. All you have to be is $5 a month or above,

and you get everything we put out. As soon as you subscribe, you're going to get almost 400 back bonus episodes you've never heard before. New ones every other week. One crime in sports. One small town murder, and you get them all, my friends. That is it. This week for crime and sports, we're talking, we called it when pilots go wrong. It's basically small plane incidents at sporting events that have happened over the years.

And there's a remarkable number of them. Those little planes are dangerous when you want them to fly around and do specific things. crazy stuff. And then for small town murder, because it's that month, we are going to talk about scary movies. Oh, God, are they so good. The best ones, the ones we like, the ones we hate. There's some terrible ones. Jimmy is very

up on the modern horror genre also, so he's going to have a lot to say about that. So that's patreon.com slash crime in sports. And that's where you get all of that. And in addition to that, that's not enough to give you for only $5 a month. But we give you everything we put out

both small town murders, crime, sports and your stupid opinions all ad free with your Patreon. Ad free? It's ad free, Jimmy. You can't beat it. I'll tell you that. Then at the time, I love how Jimmy reacts like he's never heard it before. Really?

Are we doing that? No. James, you're out of your mind. Taking money right out of our pockets. Wow. What are we doing? My kids have to eat, James. What are we doing?

And then for you also get a shout out at the end of the show too. So that sounds like fun. If that sounds good to you, it's going to be a good time. That's what it is. Either way, we have to do the disclaimer. Yeah. This is a comedy show, everybody. It is.

This is a comedy show. We are comedians. We are definitely going to talk about murder because that's the name of the show. Death is going to happen. And we have to make jokes. And you go, well, how do jokes go with murder? That sounds weird. Not really.

That's the thing. There's plenty to make fun of around a murder. You just don't make fun of the actual murder. It's super simple. And our rule to live by is we never make fun of the victims or the victim's families. Why, James? Because we're assholes. But we're not scumbags.

Super simple. See how that works? So if that sounds good to you, you were going to hear one hell of a wild story like usual. If you think true crime and comedy should never, ever go together, number one, how'd you get here? And number two, give it a shot. You might like it. But if you don't, no complaining later. That's what we're saying.

Don't say a goddamn thing. Don't say shit. We're not interested. So that said, I think it's time everybody to sit back. What do you say here? Let's go arms to the sky. Deep breaths, clear the lungs, and let's all shout. Shut up and give me murder.

Let's do this. Let's do it. All right. Let's go on a trip, shall we? All right. Yeah. We're doing it. We're going to Massachusetts where...

It's a nice place. It is where we will be going next month. November the 14th will be in Medford right outside of Boston at the Chevalier. So get your tickets now. Those are a fun, fun theater, and we like it. So this is Wenham, Massachusetts. If you're not from Massachusetts, you might not know how to spell that. It is W-E-N-H-A-M.

So, Wenham. Oh. That's how they do it there. Where the fuck is that? Eastern Massachusetts, over by the coast north of Boston. It's about 40 minutes to Boston, about an hour and a half to Portland, Maine. That's got to be so nice. It's a nice area.

It's like a wealthy area. It's a nice area like that. And about an hour to Sharon, Massachusetts, which is our last Massachusetts episode, number 697, the perverted professor. It's always smart people when we do Massachusetts episodes. It's always like. awfully perverted people. Oh, they're complete perverts, but they have a medical degree. Or something of that, a law degree.

There's always very educated people up here. It's hard to find real. trash like, you know, trailer episodes in Massachusetts. And that's just in Boston. You have to go to Western Mass to get that in Central Mass. What of that. So this is in Essex County, area code 351 and 978. Can't hold them with one area code here.

A little bit of history that was settled in 1635 this town. It's been a minute. Yeah, it's been a while here. Officially incorporated. This area is where they showed up. This is one of the first areas. I mean, it's right on the water, the port, the whole deal. This town was officially incorporated in 1643.

So it's been a long time here. Actual town. Actual town, Wenham, before, you know, this was even thought of as a independent country. So before that, it was home to the Agawam people. They're from the Eastern Algonquin tribe. And their numbers were greatly reduced before this town was settled around, 16, 17, they're pretty sure from smallpox. So we understand how that happened.

Yeah, that was kind of how a lot of that went down. We came over with stuff that there, you know, had no immunity for it. It was covered in terrible things. That was it. Yeah. Now, Wenham was originally a part of Salem, actually, with the witch trials and all that. Yeah. So that was originally, it's the same area over here.

As a matter of fact, Salem's minister, Hugh Peters, who I'm sure was a lovely man, not having women murdered or anything like that. Yeah. Man of the cloth. Oh, absolutely. He preached to a group on a hill by the Great Pond around 1638 to encourage settlement in the area. You can even kill women. It's totally fine.

As many as you want. We drown them. We drown them. We burn them. It's amazing. There's all sorts of stuff to do. So 1774, this is right before the Revolutionary War. The town voted to select 15 men as minute men.

So they selected 15 people to, you know, be there. Volunteers. And from that time on, loyalists to the crown to England were not welcome in Wenham. If you were, you want to, you don't want to come through here wearing a red coat. You're in deep shit. How about it? You're going to come for you. In 1909, a steel magnate named Henry Clay Frick, he bought the iron rail property.

It's a big home. that's still there. It's a historic thing. So that his daughter, Helen, could create a vacation home for the mill girls. Chicks that work at the mill. I don't know.

They need to go on vacation. They need to have ladies' night. And so we've got to build a place. Got to do it with his nickel drafts. Yeah, something. Hey, it's ladies night tonight, everybody. Come on in. Helen Frick transferred the Iron Rail vacation home

to the Girls Clubs of America in 1950. Then the town of Wedham bought the house in the 70s and it's like a museum now, basically. I've heard of the girls clubs of America. Yeah, the boys and girls clubs. So this is just the girls club. Yeah. Hey, no boys allowed. If they get in here, it's going to get gross.

There's going to be jizz on the floor. Bad stuff. Now, reviews of this town, I've never been to this town, so I'm not sure. No. It has 4.1 stars on Nitch. And there's no reviews less than three stars. They like it. They like it.

Here's five stars. We lived in Wenham for 23 years. It is a beautiful, safe, family-friendly town with excellent public schools and many private day schools nearby. Although Wenham is not on the ocean, there are many gorgeous beaches nearby. Yeah, it's close to the ocean. The town has a commute. That's kind of the life to have up there, isn't it? It's not bad.

That's pretty cool. I like that north of Boston going to Maine. That's, I think, that whole lifestyle. But inland, by five, ten minutes is the, is the answer. Because once you're on the beach, fuck, man, you don't want to be around there

on the summer. It's so ugly. Oh, around like a tourist beach. I'm like, yeah. Yeah. Any beach there's a fucking tourist beach. Yeah, yeah.

No, I'd love to be by the beach, just not where there's people. I don't want a tourist beach. That's what I mean. I'd like go like up the coast a little in Maine to where it's less populated. Right.

A mass beach, it's just. Too much. August to, you know what I mean? May to August. It's just flooded with the, worst people.

Just a bunch of guys with red hair punching each other. That's all it is. It's drinking in the sun and punching each other until it gets dark. That's Boston beaches. I went to a bar out on the beach out there that had no cell service. They had a phone on the beach that you call for a cat. You call for a cat. It was the scary, beautiful beach.

Scariest bar I've ever been to in my life. Most frightening people. And you can't call for help. No. We call that phone. No, not a cab. company. Do you have an ambulance over there, too?

The words I'm hearing are atrocious. Yeah, this is just redheads punching each other. And then if you go to the Jersey shore, it's just Italian guys punching each other. Yeah, but at least they're cell service. Either way. Yeah, at least they're sales. And they can go out in the sun without so much SPF also, which helps. I think they're just angry at the burn they've all received that day.

The town has a commuter rail and is only a 30-minute drive to Boston. A little more than that, but that's fine. I guess not how they drive. Don't be surprised the people, don't be surprised, I guess, to see people is what they're trying to say, on horseback going down the street. The town has a huge equestrian community because it's a bunch of rich people. Rich people love horses. Wow. Myopia Hunt Club borders Walnut Road.

My favorite parts of Wendham are Main Street and Larch Row, so many lovely historic homes and stunning lots of land. It's a pretty old little town. Sounds like I can't afford it. That's what it sounds like. Well, yeah, it's fucking pricey. This is this area, anything outside of Boston that's like real nice, super pricey. Four stars, Wenham is a cute suburb of Boston, located three miles from the North Atlantic Ocean. It's perfect for retired couples and those wanting peace within a tight-knit community.

Oh, it sounds great. That sounds amazing. Four stars, the houses are very pretty and most look pretty expensive. Yeah, I think that's the key. Now, this is the worst review I could find of the top. town. Three stars. It's a great place, a great quiet place to live. It's family oriented and very safe. It is a bit pricey, but it's worth it if this is your kind of town. The schools are nearby are very academically inclined. Well, I would hope they would be their schools. That's,

that would help. And the taxes here are outrageous, and that's where most of it goes. Yeah, because they say they're nice roads and schools. That's what happens. There are many parks and small businesses as well. That's a bad review. Little pricey. People in this town, 5,06. Not many. It's a pretty small town. This is a wild stat for a town of 5,000 people. 55.2% women. I don't know what, did a lot of divorces and they got the houses? I'm not sure what happened here, but it has to be. 45% men? Yeah, 40, not even, 44.8. That's low. Median age 34 here. A lot of kids too, a lot of kids too, a lot of families and a lot of young people. A lot of young people here too. Family here, 39.6% married, so not that much. Only 4% single with children. Meanwhile, it's married with children super high.

So that's very low. Race in this town, 89.7% white, 1.9% black, 2.9% Asian, 4.7% Hispanic. Very 57% religious here. 50-50 is the normal. And no shocker here, everybody. Catholic. 48.1% of the people here are Catholic. It is, as we know, Catholics are the Baptists of the North everywhere. 1.2% Jewish.

My God. My God. It's been so long. That's high. We've got to remember the words here. It's been so damn long. We remember to sing our song. It's so shocking. Well, let's get it to it here.

Hava, Nagila, Havah, Nagila, Habah, Nagila, I don't know the words. Hey, hey! Let's do this here. Unemployment rate is low here.

Pretty low, like half the national average. How about that? Which, I mean, there's tons of jobs. Boston's right there. Yeah. If you can't find a job there, it seems like that's on you. There's plenty of stuff going on.

I don't know. I don't live there. But median household income here. strap in for this, $154,375. Median. Wow. You got to be paid to live in this fucking town. 150.

150. Wait, do you hear the home cost? Cost of living here, 100 is regular average. Here it's 131 so high, and the very high thing is housing. Median home cost, $868,300. Median. 800. That's that.

Almost $900,000 median. Oh, boy. So if we've convinced you, damn it, you've done very well for yourself, I guess, and you want... Everybody died and they left you everything. Wow. You want smooth roads and nice schools. We have for you. The Wenham, Massachusetts Real Estate Report.

Okay, your average two-bedroom rental here goes for 2180, which is well above the national average. Yeah. First house, three bedroom, two bath, 2,016 square feet. It's nice. It's surrounded by woods in a leafy little neighborhood. 2.34 acres, so a nice little amount of land there. I mean, it's nice inside, hardwood floors, fireplaces. It's a nice little house, nice little family house.

$750,000. For two and a half acres, that's not bad. I mean, for there, I guess it's not terrible. It just had a $69,000. price cut actually on that one. So looking to get in there. It's 2,000 square feet or 1600,000, which you say? 2000, 2016 square feet.

That's not so bad. No. Well, here's one that's four bedroom three bath. Very nicely done on the inside. Looks like it was recently redone completely on the inside. Otherwise, it's a, your basic kind of you know, that house kind of the siding and the

few windows up top. Your basic suburban East Coast house, four bedroom three bath, 3,217, square feet. One point nine acres or one point oh nine acres so an acre one acre one million two hundred fifty thousand dollars. Ah. It's got to be in a real nice neighborhood I would have a million and a quarter I guess three thousand square feet is quite a bit of house. It's a lot of house yeah um and then finally a five bedroom six bath tea bowl for each and every beehole over here and one to spare um 6,200 square feet.

Fuck. Very big house. Nice house. Inside looks brand new. Built in 1997, so it's not an old house. 2.59 acres of land. $1,749,000 for that. Wow.

It's so much money. That's so much money. I got to be honest. That sounds in ground pool. Really affordable for Massachusetts. For this, too. This is like a mansion. It's a huge house.

6,000. Yeah, 6,000 square feet. Sub two, that sounds amazing. That's insane. That's a lot of house and almost three acres too. So, yeah, that's not bad there. Anyway, things to do in this town. Let's find out.

The 41st annual Essex clam fest. Fucking A. It's clam fest, everybody. How many jokes are being made by these fucking mooks? Yeah, hey, I'm going to clam fest. Who's coming to clam fest with me? Just a constant. Look at all these clams.

and it's an arts and crafts festival as well. All right. It's being a clam fest held annually here. Because that's what clams do. That's what they do. They gather and do arts and crafts, apparently, according to New England here. It's 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the park.

Come taste Cape Ann's finest chowders from noon to one and vote for your favorite. So we got a contest. I like that. Although the highlight of the day is the chowder tasting competition, There's also a great variety of activities, including arts and crafts, vendors, live entertainment, and of course, food vendors, I assume. You bet. Clam themes here. So there's lots of stuff to do.

Let's see, 11 to noon. We got the demonstration by the Canine demonstration by the Essex Police Department. Right. They're going to put on a piece of burlap and have a dog bite a man's arm. Give it a treat. Either that or have them find something. They do that sometimes. Oh, yeah.

But I don't know what that has to do with clams. Nothing. Nothing at all. Okay. It's just showing you that we've got a dog that'll help keep you safe if you have coke in your eyes. That's it. The beer truck opens at 12. That'll be a big crowded area there.

Chowder competition. We have face painting and reptiles here as well. Then from 12 to 2, the coveted noon spot. High noon at the park. You get live music by, you know they're from the area. Uncharted Waters. As W-A-T-A-H-S, uncharted waters. They know what they're, they know their crowd.

Is it, is it a bunch of John Waters covers? Is that what it is? It's got to be. What are they going to do fucking pink flamingos? That's a movie. How do you cover a movie? Not John, who am I thinking? Oh, I don't know.

A serial mom. God damn it. Reenacted serial mom. No, there's a guy from a band last name Waters. God damn it. Oh, Roger Waters? That's it. There it is.

We're talking about now? Yeah. Pink Floyd or the Who? One of those two. I don't remember. I think it's Pink Floyd. One of those two, yeah. So anyway, you got unchotted Waters coming to play.

Sure. And then Brick House will be there from two to four. Okay. But. All right. Do some R&B. Something, maybe. Yeah, it's all I can think of is she's a brick house.

Yeah. Maybe not. I don't know. Then in the middle of their set, though, they're going to have to, maybe it's during their little intermission. and they're going to have to step back for a moment from the microphone because the competition, chowder competition, the winners were going to be announced at three.

Get out of here. Oh, yeah, no shit here. That's right. We're going to break up the music to announce chowder winners. That's right. That's the whole festival. The clam chowder. I got this whole point of this, I guess.

It is. The clam chowder competition will take place on the tennis courts. Which is the strangest thing I've ever heard. I guess because that's where you can fit the most tables? I suppose, yeah. Just nets in the middle. Is it a eating contest or is it a tasting contest? It's a tasting to find the best clam chowder.

Yeah. Yeah, as clam chowder eating contest would get real messy. Oh, boy. About minute 15, there'd be some projectile. That would be ugly. Nobody wants that. Somebody gets a bad clam. We've got a big problem.

Big problem. Then there's also another festival, the Frozen Fest Festival. Ice Harvest Talks. The museum has run chainsaw ice carving on the front lawn. and frozen stories of ice and snow. Basically, this is a festival where you can watch people make ice sculptures, it looks like. Yeah, nothing could be more boring. Show me when you're done.

I'll be over here. Yeah. I'll be doing other shit. When they're all finished, I'll come look at them. I want to see it when you've glossed it, and I can see through it, and it's an angel. Yeah, for that matter, I don't want to watch anyone paint a picture. I don't want to watch anyone do any of those things. I don't want to watch you edit your video.

Show me when it's done. Even when they paint... Martin Luther King really fast with just their fingers, no brushes, and then they spin it upside down. He painted it upside down. I don't care. Yeah, that's great. I'm not impressed. This is the part I care about.

The done part. That's it. Don't care how you're painting it. And then tell me to turn around. I don't want to see you get a mess. Nope. So crime rate in this town, very low what we're interested in. Property crime, about 80% under the national average.

About 20% of the usual is what we got here for property. Incredibly safe. Violent crime, murder rape robbery, and of course assault. The Mount Rushmore of crime is about one third of the average, so about two-thirds low. So it's basically non-existent crime in this town, especially major crime. You might get a kid, you know, bashing a mailbox with a baseball bat or something. But outside of that, there's not much. You can leave your bicycle in the front yard.

It won't disappear. No, that's kind of how we are here with this. It's just a lot of rich people, I guess. that don't steal from each other, maybe. I don't know. They don't have to. They're fucking loaded. You got $2 million homes.

That's crazy. So that said, let's talk about a murder, everybody. Okay. Let's talk about some people first here. Who we got? Well, let's talk about a man who will become a very successful man later in his career. Richard John Sharp with an E. Okay.

So Dick Sharp over here, which is a crazy name. He's born August 23rd, 1950. and he's from Connecticut originally. He has had an very odd family life. He'll later become a doctor, like a medical doctor. Dr. Dick Sharp. Dr. Dick Sharp over here. Dr. Sharp,

comma, Dick. Dr. Dick Sharp sounds like a weird wrestler from the late 70s. Dr. Dick Sharp, they'd call him. So he is the third son. He has two older brothers and a younger sister. third son of a toolmaker who was basically an alcoholic gambling

addicted to gambling who beat the shit out of everyone in the family. That's dad. Oh. Lovely. A toolmaker. A tool maker. A quality man? That's like the old working around metal thing. That's a lot of metal. Yeah. That's a metal man. It's too much

metal to come home to your family and be nice. Now his dad in the same way, very arrogant, very smart guy. Stingy, real stingy. I don't know how much money the family has either with four kids working as a toolmaker. I don't know if that's a lucrative job in the 60s or not.

But even if you've got some cash and your kids need some food for lunch money and you're not giving it to them, that kind of stingy? That I'm not sure about. But you'd be lucky, I think, lunch would be the highlight of your day in this family, it sounds like, put it that way. Dad's name is Benjamin Sharp.

and like we said, toolmaker and machinist in Derby, Connecticut, and he beat his sons. Didn't beat the daughter, though. That's just the sons. Yeah, it's weird. Sometimes these, like, abusive parents,

sometimes it's a gender thing, and sometimes they, like, just, like, pick their favorite that they don't beat, but they beat the shit out of everybody. Sometimes they'll be four kids and they molest three of them and not the other one.

It's like what makes them not molest all of them. It's, I don't understand the psychology of being an abuser like that, I guess. It's not my... And I won't obviously relate to molestation, however. I do notice after I have a confrontation with my son or a conversation that's a learning lesson,

I am absolutely 100% much harder on him than I am my daughter. Okay. Yeah. But I don't punch him. I will... Yeah. I don't punch the son and not the daughter. It's just I am.

I am absolutely. No, it's true. The way I choose my words in a conversation with him, I realize after the fact. It's never during, like, during it, I'm like, this is totally fun. Yeah, this is how I should be discussing this.

Afterwards, I'm like, what kind of fucking monster are you? But we, yeah. You're meaner to him than you are to her. We all do that, I think, though, because we all have this thing of if we're, well, on only that, it's like they need to learn

how to take it almost. Whereas. Yeah, yeah. girls need to learn how to take it just as much because the world is just the same for them. Just as shitty to both of them. At the same time, like, we have this thing in our head of, if I mean to her, she will go find a mean guy later on. And then I'll have to kill him. And then that's just a lot of inconvenience.

So if I'm nice to her, then maybe she'll find a nice guy. That's kind of how our brains work. Whereas a son, we're like, you need to get it together, man. But maybe that's the problem. Maybe that's why guys are dicks a lot of times is because. we're fucking, we treat them like, we don't treat them the same. So much harder on them. I mean, at the same time, maybe we need to be harder.

I'm not sure. How do you get them? My daughter's gay. So, like, I can, I could be super fucking mean to her. She's not going to date a, no, a bad guy. How do you get them, though, to, at that point, the boys, like, we can be meaner, or we can be nicer, just, how do we get them to not rape people? That's what I'd like to get to that point.

That, right there's the sweet spot. formula. How mean can I be? Hopefully I've put together a good milkshake that doesn't result in that. I think that depends on how mom is to him. Well, that too, but I'm sure you can contribute. We can contribute. Dad certainly could tell him how to treat women.

We can set a terrible example. That's the we can do. Yeah. Which is terrible. But I think a lot of that rage comes from just loathing women. I don't know. There's probably, there's a lot more than. just that. Let's say that

let's say there's a cornucopia of treatment that creates a rapist. Oh yeah, yeah, there's lots of stuff that goes into that, obviously. I'm just saying I want to do what I can't, and that's what we need to figure out how not to make that. That would help. Figure out how to

just be so kind to him that he wants to treat the world as such. Maybe. Maybe that's what it is. I'm not sure, man. So the mom's name is Laura, and she is a homemaker. and he watches the kids. His brothers are Bob and Benjamin Sharp.

Now, Bob. You got a junior Benny, huh? Bob and Ben there. Well, it's, yeah, Ben. But the weird part is Ben is the second born. So, it's always strange when they junior up the second kid. Yeah. I guess maybe the first kid may be named after somebody's father who died or something

like that. Yeah, who knows. So. It does suck, though, to be looked at as the first born and then dad's not. Dad's like, not yet. Not that. Yeah, it was just some murder thing I was watching. That's the way it broke down.

And I was like, that's weird. Named the second kid that. So Richard was, Robert was 14 years older than Richard here. Wow. And then Ben was about nine years older. So he is much younger than his siblings. Like the parents had two, two kid having times. They had the middle.

the mid-40s there where they were early to mid-40s. And then later on, like 10 years, 12 years later, they started having kids again because then they had young Richard. And then they had a sister named Lori. Around the time Richard was born? A little after Richard was born. So, yeah, they had two batches of kids there. Now, okay, dad is extremely abusive. Not just a little abusive, extremely abusive.

And think about it at the time that was not even considered that. bad that's the thing that was like yeah parents beat the shit out of their kids and it was like well yeah you got to discipline your kids like you were considered like uh like lazy if you didn't discipline your kids the only one he did not beat up is lorry the girl so belts and fists and everything oh it's it's everything uh robert said uh the oldest of this said that uh he almost killed me for no reason at all the father didn't have to do anything you didn't have to you know spill paint the garage. You didn't have to do any of that shit. He just came home. And a lot of times if you were a drunk gambler

and you come home and you had a bad night, you might want to take it out on everybody, your own dumb fucking decisions and your own stupid shit. Robert remember being covered in blood from a deep wound to his head at one point inflicted by his father. That's crazy. So that's a lot. And apparently one of the grandfathers committed suicide. And that was like a big dark cloud that hung over the family

that nothing was ever the same after the grandfather committed suicide. Wow. A lot of weird shit going on in this family. A lot of undiagnosed mental things and addiction and all sorts of weird shit going on here. It's also a time that you didn't discuss things. No. And you don't get to the root of it. Fuck no.

And you don't solve problems. No, you push it down. Yeah. For later. For later. For later. Yeah. That's the whole family could have used just a big, just a big load of therapy.

Just everybody. Just one good round all around for everybody here. So it was a lot. Now, the older brothers grew up and moved out of the house, leaving Richard and his younger sister, and that's it. And he never beats up the younger sister, but he needs somebody to beat up. So Richard is the guy. And his father goes after him real, real hard, really hard. He looks to his older brother, the oldest Bob.

He's talking to him trying to get rescued. Bob's out of the house. He's like, please, Jesus, come help me. Bob's married and has a wife and everything. And Richard described Bob as more of a father than my own father was. Because 14 years is a pretty big difference. Yeah. He could have almost been his father.

If he's 10, his brother's 24. That's a lot. Yeah. That also means dad's aging. So he better figure it out. because he's about to be out of his punch swinging days. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, but that's the thing.

If you've cowed these children enough, especially the youngest, they're not going to fight back at all because they're scared, and that's the problem. And Richard said, I started calling him, meaning Bob,

two, three, four times a day. I begged his wife to let me come out to go visit them, to stay with them for a while to get the fuck out of the house just for a minute, if nothing. They literally moved away.

Yeah, they got the hell away from these people, which I can't blame them. By the way, where they live, Derby's like a, it's a mill town that's crumbling. Yeah. Like, things don't look good for this Richard's future if you look at him at this point. He's, you know, getting, he's in from like a trashy family where dad's a gambler and pisses away all the money and beats the shit out of him. Tool and die, man. Yeah, doing that coming home fucking covered in metal shavings and anger and just.

knocking everybody out and, you know, he has this town in the 60s falling apart, crumbling, had to seem like the most dead end place in the fucking world. And here he is. Winter in like a scummy area of Connecticut. Oh, dirty. Jesus Christ. Gray snow everywhere. Yeah.

Not great. So, and he's just begging his sister-in-law, please let me come live with you guys and they won't let him. So he's stuck here. Now, around the age of 10, he started hiding in the bathroom to get away from his father. He'd go in the bathroom, lock the door. He realized that if you're in the bathroom, nobody bothers you, essentially. That's the only place he has any sort of refuge is close the door.

He'll think I'm shitting for a while. That's good. And then hopefully he'll calm down before I'm done. Yeah. Now, Wally spent, he would spend long amounts of time in the bathroom is the thing. This long time. It becomes a jail cell. Yeah, hanging his own self-imposed exile to keep him out of his father's sight, basically.

Four by eight room. If you're not in his sight line, maybe he won't hit you. You'd have to come think about it and then come looking for you rather than just see and be able to get pissed off at something. Now, what he started seeing in the bathroom over lots and lots of amounts of time, as he started just hanging out and he would look through the hamper a lot. There's a hamper in the bathroom where the kids put their clothes, him and his sister. And he sees Lori's clothes in there, and he starts putting them on.

He starts wearing his little sister's clothes. Yeah. Now, later on, he'll say that basically, Lori was the kid that didn't get the shit beaten out of her. So this was like his way to maybe if he feels like Lori. he won't get beat up or something. It's a real weird psychological thing that he's got going on here. All right.

But he said he felt so good in his sister's underwear and dresses that basically every time his father went into crazy mode, he'd go lock himself in the bathroom, sit in the corner and dress up like his sister and sit there in his sister's clothes and pretend to be her.

Like that would be his thing. That's how he would escape mentally from this. Imagine being a fly on the wall of that house going, what is happening in here? Well, all the beatings and then this one leaving. And this is, we don't even know this is all, this is just what's going on with Richard. We have no idea the dynamic between the mother and father. It's probably wild.

You know what I mean? So there's a lot of weird stuff going on here. And he is doing this not because he thinks it's fun. It's literally an escape from whatever's going on. This is his way of escaping. I'm not a doctor, clearly. No? I can't even.

That's got a badful a doctor. That doesn't sound. That doesn't sound. How do you get from A to B there? I don't see even him saying this just makes me feel safe. That doesn't make any sense. It does, though, to those people, though. I've seen a lot on the psychology of this type of thing, and it's like, you know, like it just makes him feel comfortable.

Ed Wood had a similar thing, the filmmaker. These aren't the claims. You know what I mean? He's 10 years old. The hell is he care. Yeah. You know, she's probably... I realize that...

You know. Yeah, but it's just fucking wild that he's putting on... It's odd. The dirties. It's definitely odd. It's fucking strange that he would be like, I'm going to put my sister's clothes on, but that would be when dad was freaking out.

That's what he would do. He said, I always felt more relaxed and safer, dressed like that. Meanwhile, if his dad walked in and saw him dressed like that, he'd probably get twice the beating in 1964 in Massachusetts. He'd come in with a... Connecticut. He'd come in punching and throw him beer can.

at you probably. You're going to catch a Sam Adams. Well, eventually his father did catch him. Uh-oh. And the way Richard told it, it didn't go the way you think it would go. He didn't... His dad, like, crumbled? No, his dad...

He said, quote, he didn't say anything about the cross-dressing. He didn't say, why are you dressed like a girl? He, but he yelled at me for taking my sister's clothes. That was... He went to what you did, which is actually... give the guy credit. He didn't make a big fucking weird deal out of the cross-dressing.

But he did yell at him, don't take your sister's clothes. Those are her clothes. Those don't belong to you. You're bigger than her. You're going to tear those. Yeah, it's about stealing more than it's about cross-dressing, which is actually, you know,

maybe his dad was pretty progressive. I'm not sure. But at age 14, Richard had saved up enough money to buy his own first set of women's clothing. Buy himself an outfit, not have to steal it from his sister. So from kind of 14 through high school, it's just a myriad of confusion.

And there's a lot of kids that are teenagers that are confused about their sexuality anyway, even if nothing happened to them. They just, they're not sure. They don't know. You know what I mean? They're 16. They're 17. They're just not sure. That's totally common for them to have some ambiguity in their sexuality and all that kind of thing.

And also, your body is, is. So specific. And everybody's so different. You use things, you'll, these guys that are doing like, they're doing that for a whole sexual purpose, but there's, there's things that women's products that are

leaps and bounds far and away better than men's products. Deodorant, socks. I use all, I use a lot of women's things. But using a woman's lotion or getting a, buying a broth for yourself, are pretty not the same thing at all, psychologically or any other way.

jamming a kotex up your ass. What do you do? Yeah. Talk about apples and oranges. That is. Yeah. It's not necessarily. Clams and cucumbers.

We're in a different thing. If you're using all women's things, yes, there's something interesting about that. But there are women's products that are just far and away better than men's. Yeah, that's true. But yeah, for him, none of that is germane to this guy at all. He's started doing this to hide from his dad and then started like it. Now it's a thing that he does. Now it's his vacation every day. Exactly. And he was full of confusion about his sexuality, his identity. He didn't know what the hell he was or what he liked or who he was or anything. His dad like beat confusion into him essentially. He said I was just a mess during that whole period of high school. And you are in the first place. And then dad made it worse. Fuck yeah. No, absolutely. And he's not doing well in school. He's drinking, Richard. He's fucking off in school.

there's a teenage joy ride that he took drunk and got caught for it, drunk driving while he was doing that. Wow, drunk. Yeah, doing that kind of thing. Now, back then, that would just be they'd take you home and have your dad slap you around a little bit. It wouldn't be that big of a deal like it would be now. But still, he did that. He's doing shitty in school. The kids picked on him a lot in school, too.

It's almost like they could tell there was kids are perceptive as fuck. And if there's something that far different about you, they are going to lock onto it like a top gun radar. and shoot a missile at it every time. They don't know why you're different. Nope, but they know it's different. They know you're different, and it doesn't matter. It's all you have to be. But, yeah, the abuse in the house was wild,

and basically that's the whole thing that happens. Now, by 1972, a new girl moves to town. Okay. Coming in from Mount Clemens, Michigan. Her name is Karen Hatfield, and she's... The last girl going to the fucking... New England. Born October 3rd, 195,

but you're younger than him. No big deal. Her parents are John and Patricia. She's got a brother named Jamie, a sister named Kathleen. Now, they moved to Shelton, Connecticut, because that's where he lives in Derby, which is right next door to Derby.

They both go to Shelton High School. Richard is a senior. She's a junior. Now, he is, by the time, he's like 19 by the time they really meet. A couple of years later. And everybody said that, this is the funny part is people, 19's old for high school, number one. Yeah.

And they said that he was arrogant and bad mannered as well. Oh. Now, Karen was about to turn 17, and her sister described her as Karen always took care of everyone. That's what everybody says here. Now, Richard was liked her, basically. So Karen's friend Karen said he was somebody who was interested in her and was on board to try to. And maybe that's because she's a new person and doesn't know that he's been picked on forever. And, you know, you'd latch on to that.

You don't have a rep with a new girl, essentially. So the thing is, he pays attention to her and that's all that she likes. She likes that he pays attention to her. and he's very attentive and very into her stuff. She totally fell for him. Her parents hate Richard, by the way. Is that right? Yeah, there is no, like, they're not looking at it going,

well, the man will be a doctor someday. They're looking at it. He's a jerk off. Yeah, from this. 19-year-old with bad manners. Yeah, from this dumpy fucking town who has no future who comes from a shit family. He's got a black eye for Christ's sake. Yeah, and also, what is that, a thong panty line I see in your jeans?

That didn't help either, probably. So Karen's senior year, he knocks her up. Really? Oh, yeah. Apparently she finished school with home tutoring, but knocked her up. Now, Richard and her are talking about getting married, but her father, John, will not let Richard move into the house, even though they're getting married and she's pregnant. Doesn't like him. At one point, Karen ended up at her aunt's house, and Richard,

found her there and you know I guess they were trying to hide her and trying to move her around like a shell game he he picked where the queen was going and uh yeah so he followed the queen and he found it they flipped it over and that's where she was so September 1st 1973 wedding bells are ringing well we got married we got a kid yeah she's 17 and um they'd get married in complete secrecy they don't tell anybody no that's Fucking unbelievable. That's wild. Didn't tell either sets of parents.

Oh, boy. So there's that. Now, she knows Karen is going to get a real idea of what she's in for right away. Because until you live with someone, you don't know what they're like. You haven't actually lived with them. Yeah. Spending a few hours with somebody at night getting something to eat, they drop you off. You have no idea what they're about.

Nothing. Yeah, you could spend a week with somebody and still not know. Still not, no, go on vacation. But apparently, once you get married and move in together, that is when shit comes out. During the first week of the marriage, first week, he overslept, apparently. And this is 1973. He blamed Karen for him oversleeping, you know, because it's her fault. I don't know why.

But here is a quote from a book here. as far back as 1973 during the first week of their marriage, he had hurled an alarm clock at her face after he had overslept. So he threw the alarm clock at her because she was supposed to set it? I don't know what it is.

Why can't you be an alarm clock and threw it at it? Or I don't know why, again, too, I don't know if this is his dad's example of taking something that they did and then taking the rage out on somebody else or what this is. Did he hit her? Yeah, he threw her at her face and hit her.

Wow. Wow. Now, for a 17-year-old pregnant girl. That's not cool. Yeah. Imagine being pregnant in 1973 and you're a young person and you're scared already because you're fucking pregnant. You're almost 18 and everything else. And then you get married to this guy who your parents fucking hate and they say it's going to be a disaster.

And you go, no, it's not. I love him. And he loves me. And we're going to have a baby. And then he's throwing a fucking alarm clock out. you. This isn't, this isn't one of these like, you know, 2005 fucking small little travel alarm clock. These were, this has the two rings on. God damn speakers on either the bell with that or a clock radio. Yeah. That is like got wood and shit on it that weighs three pounds. And a phone attached to the phone, speakers, everything. That thing is crazy.

Every dials and knobs. Electronics and technology. They stuck it right there. That's it. So it's either that or one that's made of metal and glass with two metal bells at the top. Yeah. Either way, not something you want thrown at you. Put it that way.

Things that need a hammer to break it. Yeah. Exactly. A screwdriver to take it apart. Yeah. So Richard decides he wants to go to college. Now, Karen is going to work two jobs to put her husband through engineering school. Oh, she's going to work while he goes to school and does like heavy workloads at school.

And this is what people used to do. It's which one of us has a better prospect of making a lot of money. And back then it would just be the guy is going to go make the money. Who has the penis? Yeah. So he would go. I don't know. Let's check both of your panties and find out.

So he, you know, she's going to work or she's going to work a lot and he's going to go to engineering school and hopefully then make a lot of money that can support this family. That's the goal that we're doing here. They also, by the way, in addition to hiding their marriage, they hid her pregnancy until it was very clear that she was pregnant. Until she was like doing that shit where she, you know, you waddle and like you, one of those where you have to lean your shoulders back to counterbalance your weight. And with an arm wrapped around it.

Yeah, go, oh, geez. That's when they, when she got up and it took like someone to have. help her as she's like did one of those that's wow that's crazy so that's when they finally told everybody like oh yeah I guess she is pregnant would you look at that right yeah and and that's the point at that point it's like that that cousin that comes out as gay that like you're like and we knew who is so obvious you're spinning a baton at the front of the parade we got it wearing short shorts we understand right no one cared that's why we didn't say anything we just said all right whatever rainbow under your eye who cares

We got it. Yeah. That's fun when that happens. And you go. And it's all so obvious. Yeah. And you didn't need to make an announcement. I mean, it's fine, but, you know, it's cool.

Just figured. So Karen then enrolls in community college and studies nursing. And she's working two jobs. She's going to community college. A daughter is born here. Okay. Their daughter's name? You love it.

this, Jenny. You will love this. His name's Richard. She couldn't name him after him. Nope. Shannon Sharp is the daughter's life. I swear to God. Shannon Sharp. Well done. Not a large black man, a small white girl.

Shannon Sharp. That's amazing. That's so fucking awesome. Probably porn. Shannon's a little older than that, probably five, six years older than her. But yeah. They might be the same age. Well, when it's Shannon come in the league, like 95, so he had to be like 21 and 95.

So, yeah, 74-ish. It could have been similar. It's similar. They might be the same age. They could be a similar fucking age. Wow. Yeah, because I think he's like 55 now or something. So anyway, now Richard, by the way, he said, quote, I thought Karen planned to put the baby up for adoption later on.

He goes, I didn't even think we were keeping this fucking baby. Yeah. I thought this baby was. going to be put up for adoption. It's like, well, then why'd you get married? Right. So that doesn't make sense. No. Now, Richard earns an engineering degree. Yeah. Which is a big deal. You can make some money with that. Then he says, no, no, I'm not done. Don't want to be an engineer. I want to be a doctor. Well, that was a waste. A medical doctor. Yeah. Four years pissed away. Well, she worked. I don't think it does. No, I don't know. I don't think any of those.

pre-recks are the same. Well, either way, you go to college and then you go to, you're going to have to go to medical school after that. Yeah, but you've got to do. Pre-Med courses you have to do. Right, that's my point. You've got to do other things before you can go to medical school. We don't know those things. Hey, everybody, don't know if you've noticed this or not.

But neither of us went to medical school. Yeah. Neither of us went to college. We have no goddamn idea what we're talking about. We just know that engineering and doctors are different people. Engineers and doctors are different people. I went to ASU for a couple hours to go do electrical work. That's fun.

And then get the fuck off campus because there's children here. Wave that thing around, yeah. Oh, man. So Richard said I'd always wanted to be a doctor, but having not done so well in school, I initially thought it was beyond my reach. Now I decided to try. So he gets into school. And now he said that after that, he said, quote, we actually got ahead of. the curve, meaning the family.

We actually started to be successful. I'm going to medical school, whatever. Now, the problem is while all this is going on, he's got a lot going on. He gets his degrees, going to medical school. He also starts becoming pretty abusive for what, from what we understand. This is from an affidavit filed by Karen. They will make up, break up, break up, make up a shitload of times these two over the years. Just one day here, two days there.

Karen always ends up going back, basically quoting the bigger picture, saying, you know, I want my kids to grow up with a family where they're successful and have money and go to privates, you know, whatever. She's trying to do all that. So she's trying to say, if I just ignore getting beat on, it's fine, which is a terrible thing to do. But a lot of people did that back then. Yeah. They really did. So 76 here. Karen said that Richard, wow, imprisoned her in their home.

for 48 straight hours beating her the whole time. Why? Dude, that's not, that's not like, oh, he got real mad and he was drunk and he punched her, which is still crazy. But this is, you know. Locked the doors all weekend. You don't realize what you're doing after, say, 20 hours or so of holding someone prisoner and beating them.

You don't go, this is crazy what I'm doing right now, right? Like, no amount of anger can last that long. And you're not allowing somebody to leave. while continuously beating them is crazy. You were saying you talk to your son, you say something shitty, and then like 10 minutes later, you're like, why do that?

Why am I so mean? 48 hours. Imagine if you just yelled at him for 48 hours, calling him names. And punched him. Now, she was hurt bad enough to need to go to the hospital. Oh, yeah. Richard went with her,

and while the doctors are working on her, this is what she put in an affidavit for divorce filings later on. quote, he accompanied me to the hospital, and while I was being treated, he whispered in my ear, quote, I want you to die. What the fuck? There's nothing funny about that. No.

That's the funniest thing I've ever heard. It's hilarious and crazy. As comedians, we have to see the dark side of this, but that is, and to not be like, did you hear that? Did everybody hear that? Holy shit. He just said he wants me to die. This is crazy. Oh, they're checking her blood pressure.

All the vital. I want you to die. He walked and probably kissed her on the cheek and then whispered it and they thought, what a sweet husband. Look at him right by his wife's side. What a nice guy? What the fuck? Holding her hand, like rubbing the top of it gently and he said, I want you to die.

No, good. Yeah, it's great. You hungry? Can I go get you anything? Are you okay? God damn. He's crazy. He's a fucking whack job and it gets weird.

80 or 81 New Year's Eve, not sure of the year here. One of the two. It's New Year's Eve. They were out at a event or something. They were drinking. Richard got drunk. And while they were driving home, he decided he was going to beat the shit out of her in the car as they're driving. Oh, boy.

Which, again, I don't know how you do that, but that's a whole separation. I guess a non-snowy New Year's Eve. It would have to be. Wow. They tried to stop at a hotel along the way. Let's just stop because he was drunk and it was late. She said, quote, we stopped at a hotel, but we were denied occupying. because I was covered in blood.

They were like, we can't, you know, what are you doing? There's like a wounded person. She was bleeding actively. From the face. What are your rates tonight? What? A hotel refused them service. And two, why would you take her in the office with you if you're going to be a crazy

abusive lunatic and fun? You want a parade her to show her off or something? Look what I did. It's so strange. Was it that different of a time that? This is 1981. Right. I mean, I get different, but this is like wild.

Public spousal abuse is just accepted that much? I wouldn't imagine so. I mean, no, I don't think so. But anyway, she said, as a result of this incident, I suffered from a broken nose, a concussion, two black eyes, and a split lip. Imagine what she looked like. He is jacking her up. She looked like fucking Rocky at the end of Rocky 1 for fuck's sake.

That's some Ollie Fraser shit. Yeah, this is terrible. So that's a lot. Now, 1983 comes along. They're still together. What the fuck? Which is wild. Now, Shannon Sharp at this point is 10 years old.

I guess it's so hard to say that and not picture a giant black man. I realize there's probably a lot of her that exists. This is the same exact spelling. So when I see it, it's just really funny to me, the E and everything. So she talks a lot of shit. Just a lot of shit talking, you know, big, you know, big for a tight end. But quick. So she's 10 years old.

She later filed her own affidavit during a divorce proceedings and said, quote, this is the daughter now. This is a 10 year old. 10. Imagine we both have daughters. Imagine taking your 10 year old daughter and doing this. Crazy. Quote, he grabbed my neck and continually. slam my head against the wooden bed frame until I could no longer breathe.

My next memory is my head hitting the stairs as he dragged me down the flight of stairs, screaming and battering me. A 10-year-old girl. Bashed her head against the bed until she was unconscious, obviously. Yeah. And then drug her- That's how she woke up, getting her head bounced off the stairs as she fucking got dragged down them. Now, his father was abusive.

Is this his way of, like, some weird mental... thing of like you don't beat my sister up but you beat me up so now i'll beat up again i don't understand the psychology here i just don't get it i'm i'm of the i'm of the like sick man james i don't want things that happen to me to happen to my kids yeah not i'm gonna inflict whatever happened to me on my kids like i don't i'm not a part of that so i got it so now i get to give it i don't understand that this is almost i think has something extra i mean it is the only kid so it's not like he has a choice he could beat up a son but he's choosing to beat up a daughter but still.

This is a... But he's also beating the wife and that's... Yes. He's just beating all the women up in the house. That's crazy. I understand lashing out against your family like that. I don't either. I don't get it.

I'm much more of a... I'll go sit by myself and be depressed for a minute rather than lash out at others type of thing. Yeah. That's just me. I can't imagine wanting to make another person, let alone a child or a wife or just wanting somebody to feel what you felt when you... It's weird. You know how that feels.

And I blame myself for everything, too. Yeah. So, like, I couldn't imagine taking it out on somebody else. I blame myself for shit that you do for fuck's sake. I do. I'll blame myself for anything. One time. Yeah.

I just had to unload a toolbox that my mom gave me. And the horrible memories of each tool that I'm pulling out of these boxes that I used as a child and the memories attached to them are horrific. I threw away all of them. it. Good. That's the thing we do. You don't, and I'm, and I'm still mad at me about a lot of the shit in there. I don't blame you. No, I kick my ass better than anybody. Yeah, I'll tell, just from the show, people will, if someone's mad, it takes exception to something you say, I'll say, well, blame me because I'm the guy who's got final cut,

so I could have edited it out. That's my fault. I literally say that. Whatever anybody says, blame me because it's, it's my fucking thing. I'm the one cutting it and I'm the one with final say on everything. Yeah, so I don't know. That's a, we have a weird. And I said it and I'm fine with it. Yeah, we have some weird shit going on here. But I just say blame me because it's easier.

Yeah. You know, fucking. Now others, I don't know. I feel like being, when you've been abused or when you've been through something, you feel like you can take more than people that haven't. Yeah, absolutely. Does that make sense? Yeah.

You just feel like whatever. I don't know, I'll deal with it. I'll handle it. Very much understand that. Yeah. But I don't understand lashing out at others and blaming. No. And he's actually injuring other people, especially women.

Especially your daughter, your 10-year-old daughter. That's crazy. Women and children. To not have the instinct to fucking just protect a young daughter as much as possible. It's a very strange thing for a guy's brain. He could easily find a crazy bar and go get drunk and challenge a man. Yeah, and he doesn't want to do that, as you will find out. He's a very thin guy.

He's not a very, he's a very, he's a very, he's a very, not a very physical guy. That's the other thing, too. He's a kind of a, kind of a, he's a meek guy. I mean, he doesn't, he came up getting picked on and he never said, well, I'm going to work out and get big and I'm going to be tough. Like that, that part never clicked in. He just finally found someone who's ass he could kick and it's a 10 year old girl or his wife. Now, Shannon, his daughter, also swore that on several occasions, she found that her father had taken her underwear for his own use. Okay. That's creepy. that's fucking creepy

you're using your daughter's underwear on your own self and what's and what's your use he's wearing them yeah right he's fucking wearing them when she hit her teenage years he started taking

other items of her clothing now he'd been stealing clothes from his wife the whole time from Karen but he's also stealing clothes from her she'll find clothes missing and you know he'll have worn them so

yeah In 1985, the family moves to the Boston area. This is so Richard could continue his medical training. Okay, because he's still trying to become a doctor. That takes forever. In 1985, he became a research fellow at the Wellman Laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital. He spent about a year under a guy named Dr. Richard Granstein. Dr. Dix just everywhere.

Wow. Everyone's named Dr. Richard. It was such a popular name. common name. Probably till 70s. Yeah, the 70s, everybody started laughing and saying, Dick, that's hilarious. Before that, no one even noticed somehow.

Everybody had an Uncle Dick, though. Everybody, yeah, everybody. Everybody. So from 87 to July 87 to June of 90, he was a resident at the Harvard academic department of dermatology. Look at you. All fancy. Now, in the 90s, we'll talk about,

This is when his career really takes off. From mid-90 to 1993, he was a full-time instructor in dermatology, seeing patients and making rounds with students. So he's instructing now. Wow. It's your largest organ, James. It is. Well, maybe yours.

Yeah, well, yeah, but mine has to also cover that organ. That's right. So April 26, 1991, this is when Shik really gets crazy. Now, maybe you'd go, okay, maybe the abuse before. Maybe he felt like his life was spinning out of control. Maybe he felt like he couldn't get. Still, not even close to an excuse, but maybe possibly a reason. By this point, the family's living in the Cambridge area.

This is April 26, 1991. He's being successful. The family is thriving as much as we can see. Richard comes home from work unexpectedly. Uh-oh. Now, apparently, according to court, court records, he found Karen with another man at home. Gee, wonder why she would possibly want to find somebody else.

Was he possibly kissing or not punching her? Yeah, you think? And also wearing his own underwear, possibly, you know, just not stealing hers. Wear women's if you want, but don't steal him from her. So. Taking off his own underwear. Yeah. He asked, so she then said, I want a divorce.

Yeah. He came home, caught her in the act, apparently, and she said, well, I want a divorce. Right. Okay. The next morning comes around. Everybody's still in the house. According to Karen and really the hospital and lots of other people, too, Richard took a fork and stabbed her in the forehead with it.

Just bink right in the forehead. Toink, yeah. Which, that's the noise it would be. Pink, it was just, think. It's not going much further, but. No. Stab right in the forehead. Very shallow stab.

Does it stick or does it fall out? Probably falls out. It probably falls out, but you're going to have time marks up there. All four of them. Stuck a fucking fork in her, which is just wild lack of control of your rage. To just be like, and just stab someone. In the forehead especially, it's not even like a directed wound, not in the neck, right in the forehead. Aiming for an eye, though, you think?

Who the fuck knows? I'm not sure. We don't know how big of a forehead she has at this point. So we don't know. It might have been a big target or maybe not. Sure. So Karen grabs Shannon and flees the house. Yeah.

We don't know, possibly with a fork dangling from her forehead. Maybe. She reported the attack to the police. Yeah. Here we go. The first time they've come up at all in this story. Richard is involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital because of this incident. Oh.

Yeah, they immediately put him away. They couldn't explain it. A fork? He's got to be crazy. Yeah. And he's a doctor. too, so they're kind of, you know, looking at that. He was diagnosed with major depression with features of anxiety and schizoid or other personality disorder.

Oh. Okay. Now, two days later, Karen goes back to the police and recants everything. Didn't happen. She has she been in contact with him at all? Don't know why I said that. It didn't happen. It has to have been.

We know that Richard pressured Karen and Shannon to stop to recant everything because, well, he said, not that it didn't happen, he said they're going to take my medical license away. They're going to ruin everything. Basically, everything we've worked for for for the last 20 years will be gone if you don't tell them that this didn't happen. That's the reason you don't stab people with four. That's the thing. This is consequences for behavior. This is that when you're talking about high dollar people and people that make good money and have a lot to lose, this is why you constantly see athletes. Yeah.

Beating up their girlfriends and then the next day, two days later, the girlfriend recants everything. And they go, see, we're just happy the truth came out. The truth, my ass. The truth is this guy's going to get fucking Ray Reist and suspended and never play again. And if she likes driving around in fancy cars, he told her you better fucking tell the cops that shit didn't happen or else we're going to be back. If she likes getting on planes from the tarmac with only 12 people on them, she better change her story. And that's what they tell them. And that's what it is.

And then everybody turns into that. So that's why things never get done with athletes. And that's why a lot of their shit never gets reported because they don't want it to be public. And neither do the women because they want the money or they want whatever. So either way, it's crazy, though, that that happens. now a criminal record for stabbing with a fork, your wife in the forehead. No one's going to you as a doctor, and you're probably not going to be working for Harvard much longer. That happens.

So it worked. She recanted. They have nothing else to go on. So he leaves the hospital. He's got prescriptions for anxiety and depression medication. And, you know, that's what he's been diagnosed with. And goes right back to the family home. But he's got meds now.

he got he has meds now and at that point this is what richard said from that point on quote whether he takes them or not it's a whole separate issue sure quote i was concerned that she wanted me back not because she loved me but because i was a meal ticket also you have a family and she probably seems like a decent person who's trying to keep her family together also he said okay but once he starts beating up the kid the family's over and we're the fuck out of here doesn't matter like like it's stabbing in the forehead, whatever, by 1983, when he was bashing Shannon's head into the bed, that would have been the end of the marriage, I would hope. Now, while he was in the institution here, while he was committed, Shannon is like 18 years old at this time. Yeah. She's basically an adult. While he's in the institution, she became violently ill after eating some whipped cream. Oh.

Which is not normal. No, that's not pretty safe usually, right? Or unless she just developed some serious lactose intolerance, like now. Or she found the one that hasn't been turned over in the fridge. Something. Well, she was rushed to the emergency room. So this wasn't just like, my stomach's a little upset. After she was discharged, she went home and found in the kitchen.

Her mother's diet bars, you know, whatever the fuck those were for the 90s, had tiny syringe holes in them. Think about that. Dad's a doctor, has access to lots of syringes. So she said the bars gave off the same foul smell she noticed in the whipped cream as well. Hmm. Yeah. So she believed that her father was trying to poison both her and her mother, and that's what happened.

No charge has ever filed over that. That doesn't go anywhere. It's just this is like in the family lore as he tried to kill us both that time, remember? Does she tell her mom or does she? Yeah, yeah, yeah, told her mom about it. Okay. Karen says, that sounds awful.

We'll have to discuss it with him when he gets home because he's moving. We'll talk about it over dinner. Yeah, he's moving back into the house. So he's coming back. Oh, boy. So that became a big deal. And the commitment and all of this shit becomes a big family secret for a while until divorce proceedings occur later on. So then they move into a new house.

house. They move north. They settle into a big home at eight Great Ledge Road in West Gloucester. And they start trying to have some semblance of normalcy. They have a son now. Now they have it's been 20 years. Another kid. Yeah. They had a long time apart. Two batches. Same thing. 92, they have a son named Mikey and 95, a daughter named Alexandra. They call her Allie. So we're having another. Another. So now they have three kids, two very little and one an adult. And dad's not stable. No. He's not fixing anything.

Absolutely not. No, no, nothing is getting fixed here. I don't know how this was all kept together or what. But from 93 till June of 2000, he was a part-time clinical instructor at Beth Israel Hospital. Wow. And at work, he's great. Everybody, no one has a complaint about him at work. Yeah. Um, his supervisor here, um, Dr. Joseph Kved, Vedkar, Veddar, whatever the fuck you say that, said, he was a very, very bright, very directed man and had clear ideas of where he wanted to take his life and where he wanted to go. That's a guy from Harvard Medical School. Um, another one, Dr. Steve Shama, who was a clinical instructor, said that, uh, he remembered him as a major donor to the dermatology foundation.

He said Richard was one of the most generous people in the state. He would give me whatever I would ask for. And called him an upright, nice guy. Upright. Upright. Yeah. Well, that's get from the corset. It keeps you very upright.

That's how that works. It's very tight back there. Yeah, he can't help, but stand up straight. That's the way it works. I don't have it. So he opens his own dermatology business, and this is where he's going to make his dough. Money.

Money. He's got lasers that take hair off and shit like that. Oh, yeah, that's where the money's at, my friends. So, yep, his first office was at the Cape Ann Medical Center in Blackburn Industrial Park. And then he moved to an office near O'Malley Middle School. And then he had an office in the Shaw's Plaza on Eastern Avenue. And he had hospital affiliations with Addison Gilbert Hospital and Beverly Hospital. He treated hundreds of patients.

And they all loved him. Just printing it. This is from the newspaper. Quote, he's remembered as a smart doctor who helped patients, but also as a doctor who often unnerved patients who would go, patients who would go for an office visit for a specific mole or skin lesion, then be asked to remove all their clothes with no bedside manner. Also, let me try those panties on. Those look pretty good while we're here. That's uncomfortable. I have a, see, it's right, it's on my cheek right here.

Yeah, take your pants off. Don't you take your pants off and then we'll talk about it, all right? No underwear too. Let's go. Bring them over here. I mean, I've been to dermatologist a bunch of the time just because living in the skin cancer capital of fucking everything. Yeah.

You go in and you get checked out and they strip you down. But, I mean, they're, the only time they're concerned with a. anything to look further as if they see something. You know what I mean? They don't go, here's a mole on your neck, pull your dick out. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. Generally, that's the safest area.

I have this very specific thing and he's like, take a dick out. That's real weird. It's just strange. And they found it strange. That's the area that's covered the most. No sun gets to it. Very little skin cancer found around assholes and dicks. I would hope so.

Talk about luck. Yeah. My asshole's never been exposed to the sun, and it's fucking, how the fuck did that happen? Jesus Christ. I spent my whole life covering my asshole outdoors. This is impossible. And that's probably true right now, but now that Aaron Rogers X is telling people to sun their asshole, it's about to get way back. Because that's like a very sensitive area.

Who would care about the shade of their asshole is an amazing thing. It's not even the shade. That's how you absorb the sun's light. Oh my God. Well, yeah. If anyone who would fuck Aaron Rogers is dumb enough to think that you absorb light through your asshole. Yeah, she's a, she's a loon. As far as I know, too, when he wanted to get married to her, she wanted to go fuck some other people.

Good Lord. Idiots. The guy used to son my asshole with. I got to go blow and roll back. I have a bunch of relatives who are in their mid-90s. None of them ever take their assholes out. You don't know. I don't.

They might have an asshole son and patio. You don't have any idea. You have any idea. My 96-year-old Uncle Tino could be out there with his asshole out. We have no clue, really. It feels like if they were doing that and that's what got them to 97, they'd probably call you. To be telling everybody. Yeah.

They'd be telling all their friends. So now outside the office, the Sharps look like the perfect family, obviously. They're, you know, next door neighbor said you'd think there they are again, the perfect family. That's what the next door neighbor said. He's a doctor, wealthy. They have a lot of money. They have a lot of things. Their kids look nice.

They're dressed nice. You know, everything looks fine. Nope. None of that shit. So, Karen, though, would never let anybody know about anything. She's got her sister Kathleen said that Karen never told her or their two brothers about the abuse. He said she didn't share it with any of us because she didn't want us to feel her pain. She also didn't want you to say, are you out of your fucking mind?

Get out of there, which is another reason. Then this is funny from the early 1990s here. Okay, this is a wild one. Just from the start to the end of the sentence is crazy. This is from an affidavit from Karen. Quote, my husband and I went out to dinner with my family and he drank to excess. Okay, that makes sense. When we arrived home with my family, my husband became belligerent,

began parading around the house naked. Okay. What? And punched my brother Jamie. That is, okay. That's belligerent. That's the definition of belligerent. You get drunk, strip off all your clothes, and punch your brother-in-law for no reason.

That's fucking the dictionary definition of belligerent right there. Look at my dick, look at my dick, pow, knocking people out. Yeah. Parading around nude. So he's shaking his dick at people. Oh, you know it. So that's creating. Yeah, you know, you got to really, it's like a strut, like a peacock strut.

And for Jamie, it's got to be surprising because I'll tell you what, the last guy you expect to punch you in the face is a naked guy. Naked isn't the best way to fight, so you don't expect anyone naked to start a physical fight with you. And if they do, you're very surprised, very surprised. Yeah. Indeed. Richard can't handle booze, man.

No, he is not good on the booze. Now, that'll keep going throughout time here. 1995 Richard founded a company called ClickMed. It evolved into laser hair, like laser, laser hair, which was a chain of laser hair removal clinics. Oh my. Makes millions. Yeah. Millions, we're talking now.

Starts really stacking it up. He also ran a medical software company. He held patents and was playing the stock market, doing very well in investments, doing all this. He is stacking money. By 1997, he made his first million. By January 2000, the family's net worth was estimated at over $5 million. Yeah, they save the first one's the hardest to make. And then they just start raining on you.

I guess money just starts pouring in after that. I never know how that works, but it sounds great. Yeah, that sounds awesome. Once you make $1 million, people are like, well, he's got a million. They start throwing money at you. That's how it worked. Who knew? He doesn't need it.

We gave him a million, so he clearly deserves all of the others. Why not? Jesus. So, Richard really, really hates body hair, as you can imagine. He hates his own? He does the laser shit. Yeah, he's got to hate body hair. And think about the psychology here for Richard, but it's all wrapped up in this.

It's all attached, yeah. He used his laser equipment to remove all of his body hair. His own. Minus eyebrows and head and shit. His head is the rest of him. Clean. Like a turtle shell, as Dennis Reynolds would say. Clean and smooth.

He then prescribed himself hormones and stole his wife's birth control pills in an effort to grow boobs. Oh. Yes. He's going to jam himself full of estrogen. So now he's trying to grow boobs and has removed all his body hair. You see, that's what Ging didn't understand, is that you don't have to kill people and make the suit. You'd really don't. Make this the suit.

You can make that the suit. That's all you needed to do. Wow. Then he got a nose job, apparently. Okay. And so, yeah, basically he can, it's got enough money. He can do whatever he wants here. He goes to all of his own clinics as the work done.

Karen said he became very obsessive about money. Obsessive. He made sure that everything was in his name. Everything. Nothing's in Karen's name. Right. Finanually, I own all this. Which is funny because if she files for divorce, none of that matters.

Nothing. No, none of that matters. She's still getting half. So he can put it in fucking Howdy Duty's name. It doesn't matter. She's still getting half. But that's his idea, right, to protect everything? It's just to be able to control.

Yeah. It's just, you know, pull the strings a little bit more. I don't think he's thinking of divorce. I think he's thinking of, I don't want her to spend anything or think she's in charge of anything. One account said that she was micromanaged and controlled by him to a wild extent. Then there's a woman named Linda DeFrucchio. Linda DeFrucchio, here she comes. Linda, the fruit.

The fruit. She came in. She ran her own company called A&A Laser and also electrolysis and skincare associates. She was an electrolysis and electrolysis. and or electro-electrologist. That's how they put it here. Estetician. A professional hair remover.

She'll take your hair off. The competition is what she is. Well, no, but they became really good friends and business associates. They would review each other, or not review, but refer each other to each other. And she said that he became, quote, a dear friend. Now, no affair or anything is going on. Just friends of this late. Associates.

Yeah. 1999. High school reunion time. Oh. For everybody. I don't know what year or whatever, but she organizes a high school reunion for the Shelton, Connecticut classmates.

Richard gets really shit-faced and super mad that the DJ played Karen's old boyfriend's request and not his, so he threw a drink. at the disc jockey throws it just how dare a high school reunion DJ dude he doesn't get a fuck yeah he came in in his minivan with his crate of shit yeah and put it down it was this is you know with a list of yeah 1979s uh hot 100 that's he's trying his best 74 he's like oh what

do i put here the spinners i guess we got a little bit of this a little bit of that what do you guys want some zeppelin like they graduate 74 something like that's early so This is a 25 year. Got it. Something. Yeah, yeah. So, anyway, he got mad through a drink at the disc jockey and caused a big mess, and they had to, you know, restrained him and pull him away. That's a thank fuck for that.

Yeah. He's, so he, he had been Harvard Medical School instructor who throws drinks at people and stabs people in the forehead before he steals his daughter's underwear. Unbelievable. Very nice. Doing very well. Multi-millionaire. And there's a place here. called the rum line.

R-U-R-U-M-B. I guess that's rum. R-H-U-M-B. No, just R-H-U-M-B. There's no way. Oh. I'm not sure. Richard likes to go around

and go to bars and shit after work sometimes. A local musician knew him, a guy named Alan Estes, knew him through his wife who worked in his medical office. So my wife works for this guy. got to hang out with him sometimes.

SDs also did work on the house as well. He would hire him. Richard would hire him and do handyman shit around the house. He remembered Richard and Karen coming to hear him play at the rum line on Railroad Avenue. And he said for a while, he was a fairly social guy. Come out and do shit. Imagine that's the list of your friends that my employer's husband. Yeah.

Who knows? Now, the owner of this place, Fred Shrigley, He said, according to him, sometimes Richard would come in with this Esty's guy's wife, his office employee, to listen to the music. Now, this Fred said she was a beautiful woman and I think he liked to be seen with her, but he started to get weirder and weirder. In public? In public. The guy eventually had to ban him from the bar. What was he doing?

I don't know, but I worked at a bar for a long time. You have to be a problem to get permanently banned from the bar. Yeah, is he like, are they exchanging underwear in public? There's got to be some sort of like threat to other people. Apparently he was, he'd get extra, extra drunk, which was part of it. And he harassed the doorman. He would act erratically. Yeah.

Just fucking pissing the staff off being a problem. The SD's guy said everybody was watching him go downhill. He was a successful businessman and a doctor, and he was always walking a, fine line of lunacy. A fine line of lunacy is a great name for this episode, which a fine line of lunacy. I like that. So anyway, he said that. People saw him losing more and more touch with reality as time went on. What is going on? He later wrote a song, SD's about this whole thing, calling it, quote, The Ballad of Dr. Sharp. Jesus Christ. And he's singing this at the rum line?

This sounds like an old country song from like the ballad of Wyatt Earp or something. Like, that's crazy. A ballad of Dr. Sharp. That's a bad song. He wore his daughters underwear. Came on through the door. Yeah. Early 2000.

Okay. He's got a lot of pressure. Oh. Some of his business deals are going bad. And if you know anything about early 2000, this is the dot-com bubble has burst. So if you had a lot of your money in that, some of that has shrunk away. Sure. It's not great.

He's being sued by several competitors for different business reasons here. So to keep the money out of reach of people suing him and things like that, he's got to start moving money. He transfers almost $3 million into an accountant Karen's name. Not the business, not his, Karen. He also put the new house that the family was building in Wenham in her name as well. Okay. So now she has $3 million and a huge house. A pretty good day.

Yep. He continued to wear makeup, dressing women's clothes. He's doing this all the time throughout all this, by the way. That never goes away. And he would stay out all hours of the night sometimes. And no one knew what the fuck he was doing. Apparently, now Karen, and this is by, we're not sure if this is true, but there was in a documentary they talked about this, that Karen's apparently began a relationship with a contractor who was working on the house. She had some kind of affair there, but we don't know if that's true or not.

I wouldn't blame her, for Christ's sake. Yeah. Now, Shannon here, who is 26 at this point and still living at home, I would have got the fuck as far away from these people in this fucking house. There's something. Moment I turned 18. Keeping an eye on mom, right? Or maybe the little siblings. I'm not sure.

But she told her mother that I found. something and dad's shit. Apparently, dad brought home duct tape and rubber hoses, which is an odd combination of shit to bring home. So Karen immediately at that point

started believing that he was planning to kill her and the two younger children. That's what she started thinking, so she was scared at that point. Duk tape and rubber hoses. We're all dead. We're all dead. Well, what else do you do with duct tape and rubber hoses, I think, is what he...

I mean, rubber hoses like I don't know what strangle. These syringe hoses? You know what I mean? Yeah, I think that's what it was. Yeah, from him I can't imagine it was. Chunks of garden hose, but why do you need duct tape in that in your house? Yeah, I mean, there's certainly a way to explain it.

I don't know what it is. That's the problem. Yeah. And if it's coming, if it was nothing else weird has happened, now all of a sudden there's duct tape and hoses, you might give them the benefit of the doubt that they were going to make some weird art project. But this guy, you go, he's going to kill us. Holy shit. Right.

Is it? Anything out of the ordinary is a possible murder weapon. I don't know. Is it only those two supplies in a bag? That's not good. Yeah. That's what he brought home. Just those two things, which is very odd.

Oh, boy. So Monday, February 28, 2000, at 7 in the evening, Richard is upstairs in the bedroom taking a nap. Karen takes Mikey and Allie, the two little kids, walks out of the house and checks into a motel. Oh, it's getting away. Now, she went to a motel, even though they have a brand new house. Right.

Because she didn't, because she thought he was training. She doesn't want him to know where she is. She wanted to hide out. So she didn't want to be found. She didn't want him around. Later, she called Richard, but didn't tell him where she was. Wouldn't divulge that. She said she wanted a divorce.

And he said, if you're going to divorce me, guess what? I'm going to divorce you first. I'm going to divorce you back. Take that. And I get half your panties. What do you think of that? You want half my money?

I get half of your unmentionables. Boom. Half the thongs are mine. Half the thongs. Half those frilly bras that you have that kind of see, you can sort of see your nipples through. I want half. So March 9, 2000.

Okay. We've got divorce proceedings here. He files for divorce first. in the Essex probate and family court. Karen had readily agreed to divorce, too, so she's happy to do this. Around the same time, an employee of his,

a long-time employee named Suzanne Croson, quits the office because she resigned because she learned that his wife had left him and was hiding from him, so she thought that he was probably dangerous. Dangerous. Dangerous or just not the best guy to work for. Early April 2000,

That's when Karen and the kids move into the new house in Wenham. Okay? Now, apparently it's in her name, but Richard talks about it as a house he owns because they're married. So whose name is really pretty irrelevant here legally anyway. So he regarded it as his. And for her, it's the only place she ever lived without him outside of her parents' house. So she likes it. A neighbor said that had talked to her and saw for a few months.

She said, Karen said that she just didn't want him here. Now, Shannon is working as a laser tech in her father's practice. She works for him. She works for him. Yeah. And didn't move to Wenham with the mother. She stayed in the fucking house with the dad. This is wild.

She's the one who found the duct tape and rubber hoses, for Christ's saying. She's like, I'll stick around. So we're not sure. but it's Karen and the two little kids in a big new house here. Now that same month, Richard's got a receptionist that he's been seeing on the side.

We assume he's been seeing on the side because he moves her into the house with him. With the daughter? With the daughter, I guess. Yeah, unless she went and got an apartment. I'm not sure. This is Paula Hiltz, H-I-L-T-Z. So they move her into the Gloucester house.

he, by the way, at this point, is also now taking shitloads of painkillers all the time in addition to drinking. Yeah. So he's got an addiction problem. He's falling apart here. Yeah.

Now, Karen, she's starting to have a little renaissance while she's out of house. Oh, fucking hey. Rebirth. She's friends are socializing and she's enjoying her freedom and not have to worry about him

stabbing her with a fork. Or his skid marked in her underwear. Yeah. Or is, Dick marks in their underwear. Either one are both equally bad. So Karen hires a high-profile divorce firm here. They file for a court order of protection under the Massachusetts abuse prevention statute.

A Supreme Court justice later said in May 2000 at the request of Karen Sharp, supported by her affidavit. And after an ex parte hearing, the judge in the probate and family court issued in a separate action an abuse prevention order against Richard Sharp. So, not allowed to come over. On May 30th, the order is extended again, and then on June 12th, the judge extends it indefinitely. Oh, there's no end to this. No, so I think it had to be reviewed every couple weeks, and then after the last one, they can review it indefinitely. So there's two more affidavits, one day to June 9th and one day to June 12th, and from Karen,

and that's what led to the indefinite thing here. She said that basically he had verbally and physically abused her on a number of occasions. And there was proof and witnesses and shit. So now, apparently, the same day, the judge appointed a guardian for the child, our guardian ad litem for the children and also sealed the case at Karen's request with Richard's agreement. Sealing is very important because Richard wants none of this to be public. Yeah. And really, neither does Karen.

So, right. Yeah. I mean, he keeps pregnancies and marriages to see it. He doesn't want this out. No. And this would be everything in here is what he does. Damaging. Drug use, drinking, abuse, cross-dressing.

You name it. That's what he's doing. So marriages and pregnancy are generally happy things that you tell everybody about. Usually. He's keeping that secret. He's going to keep this secret. No, shit. So Karen's motion also said that to get it sealed, he said the affidavits may be extremely

detrimental to the parties and their minor children. Basically, she didn't want the kids to read about the shit anywhere, and he didn't want anyone to know about it. He doesn't want anybody to read about it. No. So the order bars him from the Wenham house. Now, according to the prosecutors and Karen's family, he violated it constantly. Never would listen.

Yeah. He's like, fuck that. This is my house. His whole thing is, this is my house, and you're spending my money. Yeah. So I'll do what I want. That's his whole crazy plan here. Apparently in the months here after that, he kept breaking the thing, the restraining order.

Karen also suspected he had hired a private investigator to follow her. Oh. She filed an affidavit saying, I believe I'm being followed at my husband's directive. Huh. Okay. Also, they describe, you know, being in the hospital more than months, broken nose, split lip. black guys, the whole motel incident. She said she was scared to death of her husband and unhappy quote about the cross-dressing.

That's not good. Her own family said they didn't know about it, like we said before. Now, March 5, 2000, this is less than a week after Karen walked out and four days before he filed for divorce. So before it was escalating. Richard Sharp fell down a flight of stairs. Dang. He was carrying a laser diode. at the time. He's carrying one of his laser machines.

Right. So he fell with that. He suffered a concussion, which is really ridiculous, by the way. Is the laser broken? I have no idea about the laser. But he's drinking. He's taking pain killers and taking tumbles down the steps with very expensive medical equipment, which seems stupid. Right. The times walking downstairs that you seem like you'd probably be most careful. You would imagine so. Yeah. He's as careful as he could be, and it's not happening. So he wants to have her served with divorce papers but couldn't find her. She's in the motel. So he wanted this done big time.

So there's a guy he talks to and he tells this guy, quote, this is the guy who was approached, said, he said, I want you to break into a hotel room. And he showed me the key. He said that Karen had up to $100,000 of his kids. and other financial documents that she had stolen. So he wants him to steal it all back. So Richard also, his business is fucking falling apart. He starts inflating invoices to make more money. Which is highly illegal.

Can't do that at all. Taken paying killers drinking. His businesses are falling apart, being sued by competitors. His wife is suing him and divorcing him. It's a mess. He's been thrown out of the bar he likes. His employees are quitting because he's a scumbag. Right.

It's a lot. That musician said, quote, everyone was watching him go downhill. Crash and burn. I mean, like a fucking just right down to the ground. So when she got the abuse prevention order on May 17th that we talked about, she said in her filings, quote, he also prescribed himself hormones and stole birth control pills in an effort to make his breasts grow, and then said also he's having me followed.

So there's a lot here. In the spring of 2000, while all this is going on, Harvard is gone now. They quit on him? They quit on him. The dermatology department, not because he's an idiot. Yeah. Because he doesn't really, they just pay him for nothing, basically. The dermatology department reviewed its list of partners.

time faculty and found 30 people who were not involved in anything, but listed as part-time faculty and probably get some kind of paycheck. Yeah. Yeah, they said there were 30 people who weren't really actively involved. We sent them all a letter telling them if they felt differently, they should contact us to provide us with evidence of their value. Huh. Otherwise, we're not going to pay you anymore. Yeah.

So his appointment was terminated in June of 2000. So there's a lot. at one point here in June of 2000 he wanted a gun he wanted a rifle he said oh looking for a rifle now Paula Hiltz has an ex-boyfriend who has a shitload of guns so Richard goes over to that guy and tries to buy a gun from him and the guy won't sell him a gun he said no I don't know if he just doesn't want to sell his guns or doesn't want to sell his guns to him but yeah that's probably what it is Everybody wants to sell every...

I'll sell you anything I have for the right price. You know what I mean? Right. Exactly. Yeah, they're not all family heirlooms. No. Like, you know, great-grandfather used this at fucking Cold Harbor in 19... In 1863.

That's not... My family has nothing of that. No, fuck no. We don't own anything like that. Not at all. No. I assume it got lost coming across the ocean at some point, probably. Whatever we had from back then.

I think they all came over here, penniless. Oh, that... Looking for a little. An easier way to get away from it all. No shit. So July 14, 2000, Karen gets ready for a night out. And this is her first real big night out. She's going to party and have some fun here.

July 14th. Yep. She left Michael and Alexandra, who are seven and four, at her house, at the Wenham house, with the babysitter, a Kristen Dormitzer who's 19 years old. You see pizza being ordered, for sure. She left extra pizza cash, without a doubt. Go to sleep.

My boyfriend's coming over. That's, yep. After a little, eat that pizza, go crash out. I'm going to get fingered on your love seat. Yeah. So she went out with her brother, Jamie, and his girlfriend for dinner with friends, and they also went on a moonlight harbor cruise. So she's having us quite a night. That's a guy, he got nude punched, this guy right in the face.

Poor Jamie, yeah. Now, there's different accounts of where this harbor cruise was. Some people say Boston Harbor. Some people say it was Gloucester Harbor. So we're not sure. At some point, Karen talked with her brother and Jamie here. And now, Jamie said Karen seemed more optimistic than he had ever seen her. Yeah.

She's feeling good. You get optimistic on a boat. It feels good. Yeah. After a nice dinner and a couple glasses of wine, Start feeling optimistic. This life's easy. This is great.

Now, 7 p.m. though, that same night, we'll go over to Richard and say she's having her night and we'll find out what his night is. What's his bar? What's his Harvard Cruise like? Well, he met Paula Hiltz for dinner at the Hallibut Point restaurant in downtown Gloucester. According to everybody's timelines, he already took a bunch of prescription drugs that evening for his anxiety, depression, pain. So a bunch of different ones. On top of it.

And on top of that, he kept drinking a shitload over dinner. He kept drinking red wine with dinner. Red wine. With fish, too. Strange. So not a good combo. Now, 915, Richard pays the check

and takes Paula Hiltz to the Blackburn Tavern for more drinks because that's what he needs, obviously. God damn. At 10 o'clock, they leave the tavern. On his way home, he insisted on stopping at Paula's ex-boyfriend's house, the man who refused to sell him a rifle months earlier.

He said, I have to stop there. I can pitch it now. Apparently, he got out of the car, she stayed in the car, and we don't know what happened. So keep that in mind, okay? Now, about 1140 p.m. in Wenham at the Wenham house that Karen's been living in here.

It's Karen, Jamie, and Jamie's girlfriend all returned to the house. The babysitter's there. She's about to leave. You get home. Babysitter leaves. So she is in the front foyer talking to the babysitter. I'm sure asking what happened would they eat the time they go to bed. Were they good?

At that point, Jamie and his girlfriend went to check on the children who were asleep in the TV room. Right when that's going on, a car pulls into the driveway. Oh, boy. They can see the lights and everything. A car pulls in. Lights go off and engine turns off. So it's not someone just turning around in a drive. driveway or something.

We have a visitor. The next thing you know, the door's not locked because they just came in and then the babysitter's going to leave and everybody's in the foyer so no one's locking the door right there. All of a sudden the door opens. Yeah. Now, Karen's standing there with the babysitter and all that kind of thing. And it's fucking Richard at the door.

Hairless. Yeah. Fucking smooth as a baby's bottom. Yeah. And said, Karen said, what are you doing here? And said, you're not supposed to be here. I have a restraining order. You're not supposed to be here.

At some point, she said, oh, my God. And turn to run. Uh-huh. Because he pulled a rifle out. A rifle. A rifle. And shoots and hits her once with the rifle. Where did he hide that?

Had it behind him or something? Yeah. Yeah. You could have not the other, like a half in the door frame. Surprises her with a rifle. Surprises her with a rifle. shoots her, she goes down. Uh-huh.

Okay. Now, Kristen, the 19-year-old babysitter, grabs the two kids and pulls them into, where, Jimmy? A bathroom. Bathroom. Yeah. Guess what they're doing. Yeah. Hiding from their

father's rage in the fucking bathroom. Yeah. They might as well just switch clothes at that point. Like, make it all connect full circle here. Run it around. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what's going on. So Jamie calls 911.

and says I have an emergency. There's been a shooting at 19 Hull Street. Let's get somebody over here now. There's somebody here that might be dying in my arms. Okay. Let's get somebody. Sounds like a pep talk. Come on.

Let's get somebody over here right now. Let's do this, everybody. We got this. Let's do it. All right. Went him on three. Yeah. Let's go and win him.

So did he shoot her and take off? He shot her, just took off. Shot her. That's all he was after. Didn't shoot Jamie. Didn't shoot Jamie's girlfriend. Didn't go after the babysitter. Shot her once in the back and took off.

So the dispatcher says is your sister's still breathing. Where was she shot? Jamie says, I don't know where she's shot. I'm holding her. I'm trying to talk to you. I'm trying to hide from bullets. I don't know where she's been shot. Like this is a stressful thing.

How about you get an ambulance over here and they can figure out where she's been shot? Ambulance and cops send them fast. And he said, quote, we need an ambulance for my sister right now. And they said, where's the person that has the gun? Yeah. And he said, we don't know. We're held up in the house. We need emergency people here and we need police officers.

The best you have. State police, whatever you need to do. Get up here now. The best you have. No, don't send Bill. He sucks. Send the good guy who's good at this. Send officer of the month, the last 12 of them.

Don't send the one you send when someone like loses their dog or like, fuck that guy. Don't send him. No traffic cops, lady. One of these idiots. So the dispatcher says, do you know who shot your sister? And he said, the shooter is Richard Sharp. Dr. Richard Sharp is the shooter. Just to be super specific about it.

Doctor. The doctor. Yeah. So the police arrive minutes after the call. This is a rich neighborhood. Cops come fast. Dispatch goes out at 1145 that night. The officers pulled into the driveway.

They didn't know if the shooter's still on the property. Right. Because he said on the phone, I'm trying to hide from bullets. And it's a big new house. And they go, Jesus Christ, there could be, we don't know who's in there. What's in there? Yeah. It's pretty crazy.

So the front door opens directly into the foyer. And that's where they find her. She's on the floor in the front hall with her brother holding her. Like Rocky holds Apollo Creed and Rocky Four when he dies. It's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. That was so sad. Like Forest holding Bubba.

I want to go home. I don't know why it was so much sadder with Apollo. I don't care. Give two shits about that fucking mumbling douchebag with his shrimp. Shut the fuck up, you idiot. I don't care. I hated everything about Forrest Gump. I wanted everyone in there to be set on fire.

Forest Bubba, the fucking Lieutenant Dan. No, he wasn't. He was annoying as shit. Bubba had clear mental issues. He never shut the fuck up. Exactly. Imagine being stuck next to that. asshole forever fucking strangle him but he knows every kind of shrimp james it's all he knows

fuck him and fuck forest too he's going keeps going that was so sad way sadder about apollo than bava come on mentally diminished and he's dying for this country he's dumber than apollo and apollo got hit in the head constantly fuck him we're an american flag trunks that poor vasters yeah that was the saddest thing ever dying for america that's yeah he's dying he's in sly's arm That was a big deal. For kids our age, that's one of the sadder things. Yeah. Oh, God.

Living in America and dying for it. Yeah, here comes James Brown. Next thing you know, he's dead. Yeah. Follow's dead. So, anyway, like I said, they find her. They rush her to Beverly Hospital sometime around midnight. Now, this is one of the two hospitals where Richard, like, is affiliated, actually.

Yeah. Trauma surgeons work hard to save her, but she's. is pronounced dead of a single gunshot wound. Wow. Now, seven-year-old Michael had been woke up, woken up by the shot. Fucking, yeah, that's loud. And later on, he said, why did my father shoot my mother? Why did he do that?

I never, ever want to see my father again. He's mad at him, which don't blame him. The wound is, there's a lot of different accounts of what the fuck the wound is, by the way. Court TV, the AP, and another, and the heart. Harvard paper, all described it as a shot to the chest, but then a later television documentary described the bullet as striking her in the back. So front or back, either way. It's going to be a chest wound either way. A hole in the torso, yeah. The other thing is what gun was used, because there are some people that say that they found a 22 caliber fragment, but the rifle

that they believe that Richard took from Paula Hiltz's boyfriend earlier that night was a 30 caliber weatherby. Right. So they don't understand that. It's odd. So the book later on that comes out that we get a lot of quotes from said a 22 caliber rifle was unloaded into Karen's chest. But then the news copy called it a high-powered rifle, which is not a 22 rifle. It's literally the lowest-powered rifle you could. fucking commercially buy, I believe.

One of them. I mean, it's certainly not a lot of powder behind it. No. It goes, it bounces around a lot. Not a lot of through and throes because of the fucking, you know, whatever. So the 30-calibers, those things go right. Plus it's a, it's a haunting rifle. It's meant to shoot something much bigger than a woman in her foyer from three feet away.

And far, right. So if you catch that bullet. on launch. From me to you is not enough distance to not get it through. It's going through and then the vacuum's pulling everything out. Right out the other side. You have a big old exit there. So anyway, we don't know because we'll never even find the murder weapon here.

That's the other thing. What? So the police, by the way, when he said send the best you have, send good people, that's smart because the Wenham Police Department has not handled a murder in over 20 years at this point. Oh, my God. So they don't really have a lot of great, you know, a whole system they do for this. Seasons. So they call the Massachusetts state police because they're like, we're just going to fuck this crime scene up probably, right?

I don't know how to do this. We don't have a routine. At that point, they're like, well, we got to find Richard. So an APB is put out for Richard and his 2000 Toyota forerunner as well. He's called armed and dangerous, obviously. photograph goes out to all the law enforcement, you know, in multi-state area. They do Connecticut. They do everywhere.

Newscasts in New England are putting his picture out there. But the other thing, the police dispatcher also passed along a warning to all the officers. This is him. Here's his description. Here's his picture. But he might be dressed as a woman also. Right. He'll look much different if he's fully dressed as a woman.

So you might have to, so basically they have no description. Look at everybody. Everybody possible, which if you could just narrow it to a gender, that's great. You know what I mean? Just at least that's half. Split it right down the middle, but now they have no idea. So they're driving around the street, literally looking at every woman, every guy, staring at people trying to figure it out.

They don't know. They're like, is that woman just ugly or is that a guy named Richard? Right. Who's not a doctor or not? Yeah, who's not trans or anything. He's just a guy who thinks he looks better in women's clothes. Yeah. So anyway, there's dirt checking him out. Now, Saturday morning, the detectives talked to Paula Hiltz. This is the next day. She's at her ex-boyfriend's house there, the one who got

the rifle stolen. So Richard's relationship with her is going very well. It's going great. Yeah. She walked them through Richards' whereabouts from dinner onward, went to Hallibut Point. The Blackburn Tavern stopped at the ex-boyfriend's house. Now he's got a rifle missing. All of that. Now, this will be good for everybody, actually, because for the prosecution later on, it puts Richard at the house where the rifle went missing two hours before the shooting, which is great. For the defense, though, she talked about how much drinking and pills that he took and how he's been a fucking whack job later on. Yeah. Which is going to help the defense later.

So the missing gun, though, they said that the boyfriend's a gun collector. and on that night, a 30-caliber weatherby rifle disappeared from his house. Detective searched Richard's home in Gloucester. They searched his office and they retraced his route to see if he left from here and went this way. And they retraced it out, where would it get thrown out of a window even? And they said the weapon was never found, no matter what they did. They could not find it. Massachusetts, nobody stumbled across.

There's a lot of woods and water. Had to go in a dumpster then. A dumpster, a creek. You know what I mean? There's plenty of these little bridges, little creeks you could chuck it out of. And who knows. Or, yeah, just a, you know, a Chipotle fucking dumpster.

That'll do it. No one's digging in that, tell you that much. A lot of dunks around there. Oh, yeah. Nobody's digging in a Dunkins. Well, they will. You can get donuts. They're great.

Oh, yeah, but they're covered in coffee grounds. They put them in a big bag. Do they? Yeah, I got one time, yeah. We were out at like four o'clock in the morning. No, James. We were out at like four o'clock in the morning, and we went to a place,

and it was the changing of the donut guard. The guy came in with all the new donuts. So the guy was bagging them up, and my friend goes, what are you going to do with them donuts? And he goes, fucking throw them out. And he goes, what would they like? And he goes, I would have sold them 10 minutes ago.

They're fine. They're just, you know, whatever. I got new ones. And he goes, we get all those. And the guy goes, I guess. I don't fucking care, and handed over a giant clear garbage bag, like Santa's sack full of good. Probably 80, 90, 100 donuts. More than that.

Christ, it was full. I thought you were about to tell me you jumped in a dumpster and took on donuts. I just tell they had them in a bag to throw them out. So if you found that, it's jackpot. We sat around for hours eating that shit. It was awesome. Cruelers. Oh, we had everything.

So 8.15 p.m. this is where Richard is because we can't find Richard at this point here. During all this, Richard was contacting people on the night of the killing, trying to build an alibi. Calling people or going to their house?

Calling people and trying to build an alibi, which is interesting. He ends up showing up 8.15 p.m. in Tuftonboro, New Hampshire, where he goes to a set of rental cottages at 19-mile bay. which is Lake Winipasaki. Yeah.

So, you know, Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfus going all around there. White Mountains. He asked the owner's son and his wife for a room, and they said they had nothing available. You should try down the road at the Pineview Lodge. Okay. So he drives a couple miles to Pineview, checks in room 12 using his own name.

Okay. Brilliant. I'm hiding out. Yeah. Now, at 11 p.m., old Chonel. Buck Deloreo, who is the owner's son at the first place that didn't have any vacancy, he's watching the late news on TV. They put up a picture and the guy's name. And he goes, I know that fucking guy.

I saw that guy three hours ago. That's the guy that came up here. So rather than, he waits about 15 minutes and then he calls his mother for advice. What should I do? Should I call it cops in this guy or what do here? Turn this fucking guy in or what? I mean, you know, I want to mind my own fucking business and everything, but it just seems like a lot. I don't have a stand-up guy, but I also want to keep people safe.

His mother called the police. I'll call the goddamn police. And police called the Pineview Lodge. And they said, yeah, we got that guy. We got a Dr. Richard Sharp. He's in room 12. So the New Hampshire State Police SWAT team surrounds the motel. By the way, torrential fucking downpour, pouring outside.

They have to evacuate the entire motel. So everybody stands out in the rain for an hour and a half. Then they shoot pepper spray grenades through the window. Oh, fuck. To draw them out, basically. So this is a lieutenant and a sergeant said, I remember that night in New Hampshire, this is the lieutenant, he was strange that night.

He showed no remorse. It was pouring buckets of rain that night. It was torrential. They evacuated as many people as they could from the motel and threw in the biggest can of tear gas I ever saw in my life. He came right out. That dissipates fast. That'll be in there a while. He came right out.

They put him to the ground and took him away. He said just a few syllables. He wasn't upset. He wasn't screaming or crying. It was like, okay, you got me. Now, they said also that they all were aware that he might. might have been dressed as a woman, but he wasn't at the time. But when they took him to the ground, they realized that he had fucking bee cups.

Like he had some tits on him. They were like, they were like, is this guy growing tits? Like, wow. It's pretty impressive. Yeah. Just odd because it didn't fit in. He's not like a fat guy. So it's odd.

Now they searched the room. They found he made two purchases on the way up here, by the way. Yeah. A six pack of beer and a rope. That's what he has. He's going to end it. That is. He's going to get drunk and jump off the bed.

That's the most basic suicide kit ever put together. Yeah. A sixer and a rope? A rope, Jim, not a gun. Yeah. He's cheaper in a rope. Yeah. That is old school.

But instead, he got drunk and fell asleep before he could kill himself and he woke up to the room filling with tear gas. Oh, no. That's what happened. Now, they sit him down. They had talked to him. He claims that he didn't remember much about that night. He says that, you know, maybe a vague compulsion he had that he could remember to reunite with his family. That's why maybe he drove there.

He's not sure. He is not denying that he shot these people. He's just going to say, yeah, I did it. I just don't remember. I don't really remember. My mind was in a different place. He described the shot basically as something. Like that he saw happen rather than that he did.

Like here's a thing that I, you know, realized happened tonight. Really fucking weird. A lot of inconsistencies and what he said. He claims that he did not remember pulling the trigger. Oh. He said that he does remember that he got rid of the rifle and the ammunition afterwards, but he doesn't remember where he put them. I don't know.

I got rid of that, but I don't know. He said he was in a dissociative haze. Yeah. It's not the fucking remote, man. This is a gun. This is your murder weapon. Yeah. Dissociative Hayes enough to drive to New Hampshire and try to check into multiple hotels and all of that kind of shit.

But he didn't have a real big, you know, he wouldn't have a plan here going forward. Now, while in custody, he's held without bail, enters a plea of not guilty. The same day, the Massachusetts Board of Registration and Medicine suspends his medical license. Oh, no, it's over. That's it. At the jail, basically, he just crumbles to nothing at the jail. He curls up in a fetal position refusing to move. That's what he does.

Life is over. He knows it. I'm just going to stay here. It's over, and he knows it. The officials said, this guy's going to fucking, if I've ever seen anyone be suicidal, it's this guy. Like that guy, yeah. Yeah, maybe we should give him his rope. See if he wants to pull it off.

So he's moved to the Bridgewater State Hospital, which is a state psychiatric facility for prisoners. This is when now everything comes out. Everything comes out. The beatings. The pictures, they have full-color pictures are all published of him in dresses with fishnet stockings on. He dressed like a fucking, like a street prostitute. Yeah, it was the other thing. He didn't dress like a, he wasn't like, I'm going to look like I'm going on.

on a job interview, like a nice lady on a job interview. He's like, I want to be a slut. That's what I'm going to be. I am a slut, slut, slut, and I'm doing it. That's what he did. That is interesting. Yeah, it's interesting. Court TV said his arrest drew national attention when photographs of him

wearing slinky dresses and fishnet stockings were widely publicized. Surprise locals learned that Sharp had a pension for crossdressing. Nobody knew about it. Yeah. Jay Edgar Hoover. Yeah. A lot of headlines, the cross-dressing dermatologist and, you know, worse. And a lot of people tried to also act like he was gay, but there's nothing to do with that.

No, there's no gay connection between that. No. I mean, some gay people can be cross-dressers, but cross-dressing doesn't make you gay. Right. Not all cross-dressers are gay. No. So several outlets, including the Boston Globe Associated Press, they all reported he was still on the fact. of the Harvard faculty currently.

So they released a statement, quote, he is not a faculty member at the Harvard Medical School. Let's put that out there. Please stop saying. You're hurting us. They asked his old research supervisor, Dr. Granstein, you know,

did you see any of this coming? You know, could you? He said, it would be sexy to say, oh, yes, he seems strange. Or as every newspaper seems to find someone to say, oh, he was a regular guy. I couldn't believe it. I never expected he would kill anybody.

But what does that mean? Who do you expect to kill people? Like, honestly. Why do you say sexy? Can we say interesting? Yeah, I get it. Sexy with the, yeah, I get it. It's interesting that he used that word.

Yeah. Now, for Richard, he hates this. He hates this. Oh, everybody knows. Everybody knows. But the prosecution doesn't really love it either because it makes him look really fucking weird. And that's kind of what he's leaning into. It just makes him look like an odd guy.

So basically, his defense lawyer said, I want the jury to see a mentally ill man, not a tabloid fucking cover. So how do I do that? July 20, 2000, Karen's family files a wrongful death suit against her on behalf of the three children. They ask for $100 million. I don't know if they think they're suing Bill Gates over here. Yeah, who were they suing? $100 million. This fucking guy. Also, the family babysitter

files her own $5 million civil action for the trauma of watching the killing against him too. Shannon Sharp said, it's funny every time. On the heels of a back-to-back Super Bowls.

Yeah, he said, you know what, maybe I should hang him up. He said, she said, it should be clear that I have no doubt in my mind that my father's actions are unforgivable. That's good. Late July 2000, Karen's lawyers, you know, had spent all this time trying to get the restraining orders and the divorce shit and all that kind of thing.

But they have all this documentation saying she was scared to death, you know, every goddamn thing you can imagine. So there's, they have a lot of documentation, basically, that they need. But at the same time, he's also got shit that's saying he's like a whack. job, which is not what they fucking want here. But they said we took every precaution. We filed restraining orders, but it goes to prove that restraining orders are no

defense against a speeding bullet. That's a fact. You can get a restraining order, but that doesn't actually stop anybody from doing anything. It doesn't stop somebody hellbent on doing damage. No, it doesn't. So,

everything goes public here. July 25th, 2000, that is when a judge, I believe, unseals the divorce and restraining order files, and the media latches onto it, and they're like, oh, we got it all now. Oh, the juice. Oh, my God. Now, the reasoning for releasing it was the couple's expectation of privacy has been surrendered once their situation became a batter of legitimate public concern.

Yeah. That's what the judge said. They said the public's right to know clearly out. weighs the interest which any party to this case or any other individual might have in protecting the impounded materials. Richard fought it saying that, you know, we shouldn't do this. They appeal. An appeals court justice agrees with him in part and reseals three of the affidavits.

Then a supreme judicial court unsealed everything again. So he appealed again in November of 2000. The court ruled against him. and they said the sharp contended, the Sixth Amendment rights are presumptively preeminent, and that releases of that the releases of the affidavit would be, quote, especially prejudicial to him because the new source of information carries the impromitore of the probate court. Sure. So basically, yeah, that wasn't adjudicated in this court, so why are we doing that?

So, yeah, they said the court, the document does not obtain greater. validity merely because it's filed in court. The affidavits of Karen Sharp might actually be viewed by potential jurors as self-serving, giving the highly contentious nature of the Sharp's divorce. That's what the Boston Herald said, because basically there's a big lawsuit because Richard wants to keep it sealed, but all of the local media are on the side of unsealing it, so they're all fighting against it.

So he's suing like all the media people. Boston Herald is really one of them. They said it is of considerable importance for the public to be in a position to evaluate why an order may or may not have been successful in protecting a victim of domestic violence. Right. That makes sense. The court also noted what the children wanted, though counsel for Karen's estate, the two minor children, apparently supported termination of the impoundment order. Richard tried to invoke their privacy, and they said, no, we're good.

we don't need you to fucking fight our shit for us. We got this. So yeah, you got way more to worry about than us. They have a big memorial for her, by the way. Her ashes were buried at Mount St. Peter's Cemetery in Derby, where she's from, and all that kind of thing. Shannon went to the memorial, but the two little kids didn't. They thought it was too traumatic for them or what. So finally, July 25th and 6th, that's when all the newspapers and a Boston TV

station, that's when everything is opened. So that's a big deal. Winter of 2000. Okay. He goes to a fellow inmate and he says, listen, I need to escape. Richard does. Jail? Yes.

He said, listen, I need to escape. If you help me, I'll give you a million dollars. A million. A million. So he said that also part of that million isn't just trying to help me escape, but it also is helping me on the outside, keep me underground. He asked, this is a career criminal, a criminal saying that, will you contact associates? Do you have associates that would even kill police if necessary?

That's what he asked the guy. Like, really, get me out of here. February 14th, 2001, he writes a Valentine's Day. letter to Shannon. I don't think this is going to be received. Well, he said, Shannon, I loved, dear Shannon, I loved your mother. I miss her terribly.

I cry every day. I want nothing but the best for you, Mike, and Allie. The only thing that gets me through each day is the thought that my children may need me. She's like, I don't need you at all. No, I think we're good. I'd assume from the minute you slammed her head into a wooden bed frame, that's the end of being needed. Now, he wants contact with his two younger children, Michael and Allie, Mikey and Allie, but relatives oppose the request that basically Sharp has a request that his two children be evaluated by a psychiatrist to show that they can handle it. And so that's what goes on there.

July 2001, they place him in isolation because he's now making him. threatening phone calls to one of his daughters. So he's threatening probably Shannon, we would imagine. So he's placed in isolation so he can't do that. So he goes from I want to see my kids to I'll kill my kids. Yeah. He doesn't like being rejected. Wait till I

fucking escape. So pre-trial here. You know, he's trying to get a couple of things suppressed and everything like that. But his main thing is he is pleading insanity. Yeah, I mean, yeah, you have to. We've just had a big insanity case in Massachusetts, so this is kind of, you know, germane to that whole thing here.

What fucking choice do you have? Now, the law of insanity in Massachusetts, because this is the, it doesn't matter you can say you're insane or whatever, but the exact letter of the law state to state is what really matters, because that's what they're going off of. Like we said in Georgia, watching that Chloe Driver case, she killed her baby and then stabbed herself in the throat, really tried to off herself, and she was fucking seeing shit and hearing voices, and she had like the worst life of anybody. that ever happened. And the only thing the prosecutor asked everybody was, I mean, they gave this

harrowing tale and then she just goes, did she think her baby was going to hurt her? And the answer was no. And she got no further questions. And that's what she said to the jury. It doesn't matter how bad of a laugh she had. It doesn't matter whether it's fair. It doesn't matter anything. All that matters is by law, by law, who broke law into three syllables and a fucking idiot. Unless that baby, unless she was in fear of that baby. baby's life was going to kill her. That's the only time she could have done it and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So they found her guilty.

So it's different state to state. That's the craziest one of it. That's ridiculous, a ridiculous stupid law. So this one, okay, apparently Massachusetts doesn't use the right from wrong test by itself. Not, you know, did you know the difference? Yeah. Yeah, did you know the consequences of your actions? Did you know the difference?

It standard was set by the Supreme Judicial Court in that state in 1967 asks whether because of mental disease or defect, a defendant lacked substantial capacity either to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law. So that's all is do they lack capacity to do that, not any other thing. That's all. That's all. So a defendant can know perfectly well that shooting someone is wrong and still will be found not criminally responsible if the mental illness left him unable to stop it. So that's why there's the two prongs to that. I know it's wrong, but I can't stop. Exactly.

So there's a piece of peanut butter stuffed pretzels. Same thing. I know it's wrong. So the court TV intro, by the way. The pretrial profile said Dr. Richard Sharp was a millionaire. He was a cross-dresser who prescribed himself hormones to alter his body. He stabbed his wife in the forehead with a fork. Then he killed her.

What? So far. It sounds like that all happened in two weeks, doesn't it? He married her, stole her underwear. Stolen her underwear, popped all her birth control pills, stabbed her in the forehead with a fork, and then shot her. That's what it sounds like, all at once. That is a fucked up novel.

That didn't happen. It was also really hard not to use that as our opening. That would have been very funny as an opening because it's wild. But no. We try to at least tell the truth here. So the lawyers here, we have the first assistant district attorney for Essex County. His theory was this is about money and control, not about illness, not about anything else. Money and control.

He said that Richard killed. his wife because he believed she had stolen three million dollars from him and stood to take millions more in a divorce. That's not what happened, though. Well, he put $3 million in her name and then she left. So he's saying this was a way to try to control her and get that money back and all that. In his head, this is what he was doing. That's exactly. That's what they're saying.

The defense, though, here, they have Joseph Beliro. he's one of Boston's best known criminal defense attorneys. And he said that, you know, his job is to explain a lifetime of bizarre behavior and mental illness rather than evil, basically. Okay. Yeah. He said, quote, he wasn't a cross-dresser in the sense that he had an alternative lifestyle. That's what he told them. Like, he's a normal guy who just like the bra once in a while.

He wasn't like he was out, you know, cruising fucking. you know, cruising the streets for dudes to pick him up. Like, it wasn't what he was doing. Some guys paint toy house furniture, you know? Yeah. He just happens to wear panties. That's what he's into. So you picked Freeman there.

I did. Yeah. You pictured of his little tool. Yeah. It was either that or building stained glass, but you got stained glass right here. Yeah. Got that behind me. Yeah.

So on the night of July 14th, the defense said, all of this, all of his mental illness all of his problems and his lawsuits and everything collided with red wine and prescription medication. And basically, you know, his family leaving him. And he couldn't tolerate it. His brain broke. Sutter home broke this one. Broke it. The Woodbridge is over.

In that, he said that he drove to Wenham. He didn't have any plan, even though he stopped and got a rifle on the way. He said it was the compulsion to run. reunite the family. That's what it was. It was a compulsion, and the noise woke him up a little bit, and then he ran to New Hampshire, he had a six-pack in a rope. This is the behavior of a man trying to die, not the behavior of a man trying to get

away with something. He wanted to go die in there. Now, their strategy, too, is that basically they have to trash Karen as well. And they do. They say, we got to. There's no choice. They said Sharp's lawyers have implied that Sharp's wife Karen was no angel. During the murder trial, they have portrayed her as a cruel woman who had affairs and left her husband as soon as she got his millions. That's how they portray her, which still not allowed to kill him. It might be true in all.

You still can't kill somebody for that. And there is no law that says, well, if he really pissed you off enough, then it's, you know, then I get the murder. Like that's not part of it. So they said, even so, defense lawyers argue that a full portrait of the victim blemishes and all is essential to suggest why the unthinkable happen. One said it puts the attorney in an extremely difficult position because you don't want to trash the victim, but you want to put it in context. That's his lawyer talking. They said, did things that occurred during the marriage or the divorce trigger something in him? Now, there's a state psychiatrist who says he believes that Richard's faking.

Everything. Oh, malingering. The whole thing. All his psychiatric conditions for years. He's been faking it the whole time. Well, fake, fake, fake. It doesn't matter. Which is a pretty stupid thing to say.

It's balzy. Yeah. It's balzy. Richard, while, by the way, while people are testifying, he has some seriously wild fucking body movements and shit in court. He holds his head, closing his eyes, makes a big spectacle of himself a whole lot. I mean, it's like a... Really?

It's a thing. He's always doing that kind of shit. Court TV reported that he had two outbursts during trial, which might be good for him because he's saying he couldn't control his rage. He can't control his grief. Could go either way. So the defense can say, look, even in court he can't control himself. He's on TV for Christ's sake. He can't control himself.

And the prosecution can say when testimony comes out that turns against him, then he acts like a dick. So the defense shrink is. Dr. Ablo here. He said that Dr. this guy's a very famous guy. He's written books and all sorts of shit. I felt like that was a familiar name. He wrote a Scott Peterson book.

Oh, that's why. One of them. Did you read it? No, but I think he was probably interviewed on things. Interviewed a lot, probably, yeah. He said Sharp lacked the ability to conform his behavior to the law. Richard Sharp, according to him, suffered from such an array of psychiatric disorders and a frantic fear of being abandoned

that he couldn't stop himself from fatally shooting his wife after they separated. That's what he said. He said that Richard was insane. At least when he killed his wife, he was insane.

He did it in front of other witnesses. He's obviously not going to get away with it. Right. They said he suffered abuse as a child. At times he's been violent himself because of that. And he was so dependent on his wife of 27 years.

to provide a facade of normalcy that the prospect of losing her was unthinkable for him. She's a facade. That's a great way to put it. She's like wearing a, you know, like a fucking CGI fucking, like just your face sticking out.

Totally different thing. He said, she is his lifeline to normality. Normal tea, not normal C, interesting. She is the thing between him an absolute disintegration as a person. And he gives a list of psychiatric and personality disorders from which he said Sharp suffers. Now, this is the one that the state said he faked all these. These are intermittent explosive disorder, which sounds like you shit yourself sometimes.

Yeah, after Skyline Chili. I've seen you have intermittent explosive disorder. We've had to pull off the highway. Thanks a lot, Delta Sky Club. for you to have intermittent explosive disorder. Turnpike chicken does that too, man. Turnpike chicken, eggs. Major depression, alcohol-related disorder, narcissistic personality disorder,

oh, CD, and the big one, borderline personality disorder. So, problem. If those are all true, that's a lot of shit wrapped up in one person. That is quite the full house of crap. Yeah, if you've never been diagnosed with all of that at once, that would be devastating to learn and also eye-opening to know why you can't control your behavior. Yeah, exactly.

And on the other hand, in court, you look at it as, that's a guy he's paying to come out here and say this in court. And that's what they do. I never understand that. When the prosecution's expert witnesses testify, they're just people who are experts in their field who are telling you what the real is. They're still, they're getting paid to be there and everything, but nobody ever brings that up. But the defense attorney,

the number one thing they always ask is, not defense attorney, but the defense experts is how much are you getting paid for this? Right. Like, the fact that you are being paid for your expert. Yeah. And they go, why would I do it for free? This is my job. Like, you

wouldn't say you didn't fix my car right because you got paid to fix it. Like, it would make no sense at all. Why the fuck would you fix it for free? You put anaphrase in the in the power steering. How much are you being paid for this?

We're being paid for this. This doctor said all of these are serious. Together, they're devastating. That's the plan. They said the borderline is the big one. He calls it a tremendously disabling condition that features impulsivity, difficulty controlling anger, and chronic feelings of emptiness.

People that are borderline generally start shit a lot. They start drama. They need drama. They bind it. They start it. They have to have it. Because of that, he said at the time of the murder, Sharp was in the throes of a dissociative psychotic state brought on by an intense desire to get his wife back.

I really wanted something and couldn't have it is what he said. Yeah. We've seen our kids have those. They've got to fall on the ground. They hit the ground and kick their feet. That's called a fit. No, it's called a dissociative. psychotic state, apparently.

Now, there is dissociative psychotic states, but not just because you want something. Yeah, it's not when it's not over a butterfinger. No, it's super strange. So, they said one feature of borderline personality is identity disorder. In Sharp's case, he feels more comfortable dressing as a woman, takes birth control pills, has cosmetic surgery to alter his appearance, all that shit. He said he interviewed Sharp 11 times. And given Sharpe's mental state, he said he could not have premeditated his wife's murder. Couldn't even have put...

It's impossible. He could put the thought of, I'm hungry and I want dinner together. Let's go out to dinner. He can put that thought together. He can put the thought of there's gun that I want in that house, so I'll stop here and steal it. He can put that thought together. I need a six-pack in a rope. You put that thought together.

My balls feel good in this form of nylon. He can put that together. Yeah. But he can't put together the intent to go over there with a gun, which is interesting. Take gun, kill person. That's odd. He said that his anger explodes without warning. And he said he doesn't just get drunk.

He gets crazy. He gets annihilate. In a clinical term, crazy. You know, I have a psychiaturers shouldn't use the word crazy unless they mean what they mean. Yeah. So he said that, I guess at first when he first met him, he didn't even call himself his real name when the psychiatrist first sat down with him. He called himself Clark Rockefeller.

What? That's what he said. Made up a bunch of shit. And he said, eventually he told me the truth. But he made up like a whole childhood that didn't exist. That was like a nice childhood where he was like wealthy and rode horses and all this shit. Yeah.

Yeah. So he said, it's a strange thing. He said, whenever the truth has more of a voice in the judicial process, that's a good thing. I encourage a dog at pursuit of personal truth. That's what he said. And he published a self-help book,

this psychiatrist in 2007, titled Living the Truth. Yeah. And he also wrote one about out. Let's go out and get crazy. Get crazy. Let's go out of some drinks. Like clinical.

Let's go get crazy. Let's get clinically crazy up in the bench. Clinically nuts. Fucking nuts. On the gray goose. We did that once or twice. Yeah. We have definitely done that together a few times.

So during his. cross-examination, as they cross on this guy now, the DA tried to insinuate that perhaps maybe old Dr. Richard smarter than you and maybe pulled one over on you. Oh, fuck. How about that? I mean, you're both doctors, but maybe... A man duped you, you idiot. Probably this guy.

But the psychiatrist said no. He said that your psychiatrist misread his severe discomfort. being analyzed, pointing to his habit of touching and rubbing his face, which he did constantly. And he said, this picking he does with his face is almost what you might do if you wanted to reassure yourself that you're there. He's concerned that his own veneer might crack. Like an egg, like a Humpty Dumpty style. He's just going to crack and fall. Yeah, is this together? Am I good? they also made a big deal out of this guy's $300 an hour fee that he charges.

Yeah, that's the thing. They said which he charges for interviewing, reviewing records, making diagnosis, and testifying. He said he spent about 100 hours, but he's been paid about $7,000 by Sharp. So that means fucking $23,000. A bit, yeah. So that means that no matter what he says, it's not to be believed because he's getting paid for his work. Right. which is, like I said, like the state guy doesn't also get paid to be here, you know.

So he has no choice. He's saying, I killed them, but I'm crazy. He has to testify. Has to. Awesome. And he's going to. On the stand, he constantly frantically rubs his forehead, really weird manner. He's always got his hand on his forehead.

He'd squeeze his eyes shut real tight in a weird way. He blamed all of his weirdness on his childhood. basically, which seems right. He said his father called him every permutation and combination of profanities you could imagine every day. Hated him. He said that he was regularly picked on by bigger boys.

He said, I invariably got beat up on a regular basis to the point where it was almost a joke. He said that when he found his sister was the only child his father loved, he tried to emulate her by wearing her clothes, so maybe his father would love him, he says. He said, at times it relaxed me.

At times I thought it was fun, and at times I thought it was erotic. I thought it was hot. Yeah, times I just like that tight squeeze on my dick at that point. I like seeing my balls in women's clothes. It looks hot. I like seeing him hanging out the sides of my leg there. That sounds perfect.

Harry balls. You put a thong on backwards? Fucking, yeah. That's what I'm talking about. Karen and I would sort of use that as a way of playing together. Now he's saying that he did this with his wife. Like this was a, he was like, I'm going to put my panties on and then we'll get down to business. Huh.

I don't know if that's true. We don't know what goes on in people's bedrooms, obviously. Well, she's dead so she can't fucking argue that. No. He admitted to taking female hormones to relieve stress. Wow. And said he has undergone six cosmetic surgeries, including love-hand. handle liposuction, a nose job, and the removal of all hair from his face and legs.

And his face. Face, not eyebrows. He did the beard. Did the beard. Yeah. Yeah. Hard to look like a proper lady with a hard, heavy five o'clock shadow. Yeah.

So he admits to all that. And his lawyer walked him up to the moment of the shot and said, and did you hear a loud sound? Did you see something? He said, I heard the gun go off. I heard the noise. They said, what did you do after you heard the gun go off? And he says, I think the noise sort of woke me up a little bit. I just heard the noise and left.

So that's his story. What am I doing here? I got to go. I'm crazy. Didn't realize I was standing there at the door with a gun, even though I specifically went and got the gun on the way here. Right. Just snapped.

Yeah, just snapped. And then as soon as I saw, snapped just as easily, the noise of the gun snapped me right back. And I got a sixer in a rope and I'm ready to go. And on up to the lake and find a little swanky motel to end it. Perfect. Yep. In the closings, the prosecutor asked the jury, quote, stop listening to the experts.

Oh. This is what's wrong with our entire fucking world right now as people go, just use your own common sense. Do your own research. No. You don't even know how to research. To people who devoted their lives to this topic. To knowing everything about this subject, literally. You read an article

and saw a YouTube video so you know more. This is pre- YouTube video, but this is the fucking problem. You read popular mechanics and think you know everything. You read Field and Stream. Yeah. Listen to experts because they know more than you. Even if you read something, it's the Dunning Kruger

thing with the, it's fucking Anyway. There's also a lot of times a publication has a reason to write what it's writing. Stop. Stop. Let's get medical journals. And if you can't read and understand those, then shut the fuck up and trust an expert. You can't understand them because you don't have the training to.

That's why we bring an expert in because you can't understand the guy in the jury who does welding. And that's no offense to welders. That's just unless you went to fucking medical school. You don't know what you're reading. Well, welders who think they're doctors, yes. Welders who think they're welders, great. Yes. Defenders who are going to...

Defensive to welders who read something and then go try to convince other people of medical shit that shut up and weld my car. Welders who are telling me not to get my kids' measles shots. You shut the fuck up and weld, you idiot. Pick up the stick. Weld the fucking frame. Let's go. So he said, put aside the psycho babble. That's what he called it.

So it's not even legit. even though you called your own expert, Psychobabble. Psycho babble. Child abuse is not an excuse, he said. He described him as a calculating murderer who had planned the insanity defense in advance, which he called,

why he called it the perfect crime as what he was trying to do. He said he spent years around, in and around psychiatry. He's been already committed once. He knew exactly what you guys would want to hear. And then he said, he's faking it. Oh, malingering.

Faking it. Bullshit. The defense lawyer said, you know, he was destroyed by his childhood. He killed Karen in a haze of drugs and alcohol, gripped by an uncontrollable rage that culminated years of madness, depression, and sexual confusion. Can't get out of it. Wow. Now, the truth is somewhere in the middle, unfortunately, in reality. And the verdict comes through.

It is six men and six women on the jury. Okay. That's good. Yeah, 10 hours of deliberation. Okay. And by the way, there's no question about the abuse. They brought in his siblings who testified under oath that his father was savagely beating him. So all of that kind of shit.

It was true. He was committed and diagnosed in 91 with all the same things that this doctor saying he has. All that kind of shit. They never found the rifle and everything like that. So who knows what they're going to pick? They choose guilty of first-degree murder. Period. First.

No insanity, no nothing. They also convict him of a possession of an unlicensed firearm and violating a restraining order. Okay. And speeding probably and bringing a stop sign on the way to New Hampshire. Failure to yield. Failure to yield. The prosecutor said they paid close attention to the evidence and they disregarded what the government felt was a fabrication of an insanity defense. I think he is crazy, but also you can't go kill your.

wife. I think he's got a lot of problems. I don't even know that he's crazy. I just know he's got a lot of mental problems. I mean, he's been diagnosed as being crazy for 20 years. Yeah. So, I mean, it's all documented. Yes, but the effort to. But it doesn't matter, I think, here. Right. And the effort to cause this situation was, it's calculated. You can't be crazy and make those decisions. And I don't think, I don't think crazy factors into this at all. Yeah. Him going over to It doesn't really factor in this one. He told her 20 years ago in her fucking waiting room at the hotel, at the hospital. I want to kill you.

I want you dead. I want you to die. That's what he said. So on the courthouse steps here, Karen's sister spoke for the family. She said Karen Sharp was a loving mother, the best sister anybody could have. She was a wonderful daughter and friend. By the way, this sister will become legal guardian of the children. Oh, good.

So she's going to watch them. She also addresses the defense's attempt to put Karen on trial, including the contractor affair claim. She said, quote, you got a sense of a lot of things that weren't Karen Sharp in the courtroom. But the prosecutor and his people were able to convey to the jury that she was not that person, which I don't think she knew what the fuck was going on with Karen. She didn't know about the abuse and I don't think she would have told her about an affair either. Seems like Karen was a private person who didn't tell people about this shit other than her lawyer. Seems like Karen may have been even a little bit embarrassed of how her life has worked out. Absolutely.

You don't want to fucking just go tell everybody about your embarrassment. No, I think she's a smart person too and doesn't want people to think she's dumb, even though she's not. She's smart. It feels like a failure in some ways. Who doesn't? As we all do. As relationships fail, even if it's not your fault completely, you still feel like a failure because you entered into it in the first place, which was at some point a decision you made got you here is what you can't help but think. And now there's three children involved in this.

Yeah. So one of the jurors that they interviewed afterwards said it would have been a much tougher case for me to decide if he didn't put himself on the stand. It doesn't work. Unless you're a great witness, don't do it. Just don't fucking do it. They said his testimony was the nail in the coffin for me in terms of really understanding whether he was sane the night of the murder. He's ready to quit the guy or at least say guilty by insanity. And this fucking guy.

Yeah. Another juror said he was clearly faking his mental illness, but they didn't realize that until he was on the stand. And it was obvious because he's up there. You put someone up there for two days, every little crack's going to fucking show. And it's wild. We were just watching this documentary about this lady who was accused and convicted of killing her ex-husband and her ex-husband's girlfriend in Topeka, Kansas, right? It's a small town, actually. We could do the case. But she was. They accused her of like, she lived in Denver. They accused her of like driving 800 miles, killing them, turning back around and going back home. Okay. But it's like 11 shots were fired.

They all hit targets. Wow. These were moving targets, which you'd have to be a great shot. The weaponry, like the bullets they found were like, Israeli made 9 millimeters that are used for Uzi's, like automatic weaponry. So somebody with an automatic hit 11 times on moving targets. And this lady is not like that at all.

So anyway, they convicted her. And then they have a hung jury on the second trial after she gets overturned. Then the third trial's coming up. And it's all set for her to be acquitted. And she fires her attorneys and said, I'm going to represent myself. And fucked up the entire fucking thing. Ficked it up. Put herself on the stand where they just excoriated her over little lies.

in little, you told this person that, but she told this person that. And she got convicted of first degree murder again. She was sitting by her. She didn't even have co-counsel. It was just her. She's sitting at a table by herself going through paperwork.

It looks like nobody believes in me. I'm all by myself. I couldn't even get anyone to represent me as what that looks like. She made a visual eye for the jury to look at too. That sucks. It's so dumb. So anyway, the jurors didn't believe her.

Sentencing comes around. lots of people talking about how great Karen was and what a dickhead this guy is and that she had to put up with this shit and now she's dead. And the judge says, You sir! May fuck off life without parole.

Oh, dang. Bye bye, dickhead. Forever. That's it, man. Forever. Now, as he's being led from the courtroom, he yells, I love Mikey and Ali.

His two kids. What about shit? That's fine. No, he never mentioned Shannon. I love Mikey and... Remember, he threatened to kill her from Jeff. I love Mikey and Shannon. Then they lead him a little more, and he goes, I love Karen.

His wife, that he killed. Which is just the hilarious TV Joey Buttafuco movie with him going, I love Mary Joe all the time. That's the same thing that's going on. Hey, I love Mary Joe. I love Karen. Oh, man. By the way, the trink that he had, that psychiatrist, gets just savaged by people. Really?

They really, really, really hate anyone trying to defend themselves unless it's them. That's the way court works for people. If you even defend yourself, how dare you? But if it was them, fight for my life. Just admit it. Take the punishment. Real weird. This guy said, this is Ablo, prosecutors sometimes tell me, you think of this as a thriller, rather than a real legal case.

Now that I've had a talk show, people say, is this just grandstanding for you? But I like to think of the work I've done in the media as an opportunity to convey ideas I deeply care about to a lot of people. Apparently, he had a syndicated talk show that debuted in 2006 and last one season. Is it Kenneth Ablo?

Keith. Keith. I think he's on Howard Stern show. Maybe. He might have been. I think he is. That's possible. Yeah, he's involved in all these high-profile.

file cases. So, yeah, it's become easier to gloss over people's problems and provide kissy solutions, and it ended up looking like all of their talk shows that have come and gone. That's what somebody says who was a senior producer for the program. Today, he frequently speaks on different news shows from topics ranging from serial killers to people's mental states. He recently appeared on Howard Stern show to conduct on-air therapy with a self-described alien abductee. That was in 2000. Dr. Avlo did Riley Martin's thing. 20 years ago, right? Yeah.

Yeah, that's about that time. Riley's dead. Now, after his conviction, Richard went to maximum security prison at Cedar Junction and Walpole. Uh-huh. Within weeks, he's talking to an inmate named Norman Watney, and he starts asking, you know, fucking, he started asking, how'd you get in here? How'd you get in here? and he found out that he's kind of a lifelong criminal or whatever. And this Norman Watney said,

he asked me straight out if I knew anybody that could take care of the DA. What? He wants to kill the district attorney? The highest attorney in the land. Want to kill DA Weiner. That's who he's after. So according to this Watney, Richard said he would only pay after he saw a specific item.

He said, I must see Weiner's obituary in the newspaper. before I'll pay you a dime though. A prison security, as we'll find out, there was a, basically, he went and told on him. Went and told on Richard. So then he wouldn't wear a wire, though. Right. So they had a guy listen, like concealed inside ductwork listening to they, they had a cop up there, listening to the conversation.

And he said that he heard Richard asking for this. And he said, he seemed pretty relaxed. Like this wasn't like a, oh, shit, I'm real nervous talking about it. Yeah. July, or January 2002, the Salem Probate Court approved a $5 million settlement on the wrongful death suit. Oh, for the family? Yep. According to the reports, most of what remained of the sharp fortune afterward estimated around a million dollars was directed to Michael and Allie, obviously, who were raised by Karen's sister and brother-in-law, with Shannon helping as well.

March 2002, Richard tries to kill himself in prison, but he's unsuccessful. He's going to keep trying that. His only visitor throughout all these years, one person keeps showing up for him. Miss Clitz, Clutz. It's DeFrucchio. Oh, it's her? Yeah, Linda DeFrucchio. Really?

The frupt. She keeps showing up. She visits him in prison. Don't worry. She's got ulterior motives. It's all right. She said she was the daughter of a criminal and had been visiting prisons long before Richard went into one, so she wasn't uncomfortable. She's familiar.

She's like, I got to find someone like my dad here, and I found him. She kept notes on whatever was at hand, post-its, napkins, a paper plate one time. These scraps of paper become a book that she's going to write later. What? Oh, yeah. She's there to write a book. Is her ex-husband the one that would hang out with him? No, no, no, no.

That was the SD, the musician guy. Got it, right, right. Yeah, yeah. This is just somebody. That's the business associate or owned her own shit. August 2007, he's on trial again for solicitating the murder of District Attorney Weiner, which is not good. The Commonwealth's case rests on Norman Watney, a Lawrence man who's serving seven to nine years for aggravated rape and assaults on correctional officers. You only get seven to nine for that? Great guy. He's, well, yeah, he's been in prison for nearly. 10 years and is due for release in December 2008. He was given a suspended sentence for aggravated rape in the early 90s.

Aggravated rape, suspended sentence. When he violated terms of his release, he was ordered to serve five to seven years, and he was given additional time for attacking correctional officers. Now, this Watney said that within weeks of Richard's arrival at Cedar Junction, he had asked Watney about the DA. Watney said, I said I'd look into it. I'd make a few phone calls. He told me money was no object.

At first, I didn't know if he was serious. He asked me if an assistant district attorney disappeared before his appeal, what would happen? He's literally trying to get, not as revenge, to help him in his appeal. I told him I didn't know. He asked me straight out if I knew someone who could take care of the DA. So now they, but this guy they put up here as a convicted rapist. who goes after corrections guards. So,

you know, it's a lot. Now, the two men eventually agreed, eventually agreed to $20,000 to do the job. Shit. Money's no object, 20 grand. According to Watney, though, he said he would only pay after he saw Weiner's obituary in the newspaper.

A prison security officer, Jeff Smith, testified he had monitored one conversation from inside concealed duckwork and said that was when he said, Sharp seemed pretty relax. Wattney said Sharp refused to make a down payment on a hit and wanted to read the obituary first. Watney reported his conversations with Sharp about killing Wiener to prison authorities, and that's how this came about. No money till I get the obituary.

No money till I get a clipping. His defense attorney, by the way, same defense attorney from his trial, attacked Watney all over the place, pointed out that he had lost all prison privileges just before he went to security, with the story. So this might have helped you get out of everything, get your commissary back. She told him that he had manipulated a vulnerable new prisoner as well. She told the jury that he fucked with some vulnerable new prisoner. Quote, he was prey to other criminals who knew what the system was about. He was a doctor. He was wealthy. He was a celebrity prisoner. An easy target. This lawyer said that Watney was a problem inmate who was just attempting to regain

privileges such as phone calls to his four children that have been taken away from him. Quote, he is a violent and threatening predator and he is proud of it. This so-called scheme makes no sense whatsoever and said the logic doesn't make sense. Appeals in Massachusetts first-degree murder cases are automatic. And Weiner was retiring from the DA's office anyway, so killing him would mean nothing. There's another guy going to show up. There's always another guy. Yeah.

That's like, we killed the big dream. drug dealer or the big terrorist. Okay. In four minutes, now they're replaced. Guess what? The new one is. There's always a new one, stupid. Always every time.

They don't go, well, fuck it. The leader got killed, so let's all pack her shit up and go home. Well, now they'll never do that ever, ever, ever again. Nope. Verdict comes in here. Not guilty. Really? Not guilty.

Because that guy's a scumbag. Yeah, it's just his word versus his. And they're like, two scumbags can't call it not guilty. All right. So he goes to MCI, Norfolk. He appeals the murder. The appeal is going on. It's being handled by an appellate lawyer named Michael Trafft.

He's talking back and forth with Trafft as a 2009 appeal is happening. An appeal is being set for 2009. January 5th, 2009, 726 p.m. He is found dead in a cell. God damn it. According to the Correction Department of Correction spokeswoman, quote, he tied a bed sheet to the top bunk. Of course he did.

His way was going out, was hanging. He knew he was going. He was not going to do the, he's not going to be there until he dies. He's going to die. Yep. And Robert Weiner, the guy he allegedly wanted to kill, said, whenever a person takes their own life,

obviously you feel badly for that person. But my true sympathy is with Karen Sharp. She died needlessly. Shot in the back. His lawyer was super surprised, actually. His lawyer said there was no indication that he was in any way despondent or at any contemplation of suicide.

No idea he was mentally ill. I mean, obviously he's fine in there. Yeah, must be going great. He had two documented suicide attempts prior to this, his lawyer said, but was still shocked. He's tried to kill himself before. He's stuck in prison forever. Two times in the joint. In the joint.

When they caught him, he was actively trying to kill himself. Super surprised. Sure. Open your fucking eyes. Shocking. Well, no. This lawyer says he suspects. foul play, as a matter of fact.

He said, I would be surprised that he committed suicide. So he said that they recently talked about that he had been tutoring other inmates. He told the newspaper that Sharp had been relatively positive in his communication. And another guy, a nationally known forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Michael Wellner, said, it is my hope that the local authorities conduct a careful psychological autopsy to ascertain the possibility of murder versus suicide. This guy gets cheated on and thinks every time that the guy was gay. It's super gay. She always wants to hang out with this guy.

He must be gay. Must be real gay. Wow. Other reactions, a partner in the law firm that represented Karen and the divorce said, he hoped Sharp's death brings some closure to this nightmare for the three Sharp children. Remember Alan Estes who wrote the ballad of Dr. Sharp? Yeah, yeah. He said, quote, how tragically it all went down.

He showed up at the door while the two kids are in the. the house and took their mother's life. I saw a very messed up person from day one and the song I wrote is one of desperation. Y'all want to hear it? And they're like, no, no, no. He's like, start strumming. It's on Spotify, y'all. I'm sure it is. An 80-year-old former patient of his said, quote, what does someone do with himself serving a life sentence? I just don't know. I thought of sending him some books at first, but I decided I just didn't want to do that. His wife is gone and someone's raising their children. The whole thing is terribly. sad.

Yeah. Haven't you ever seen the Rikers documentary? Anytime they ask them, what are you doing? They go, time.

Time, yeah. Yeah, I'm just sitting here doing time, man. It ain't easy to get through, but we're doing it. I think that's harder on smart people, too, because their brains work more. They can't just sit there and go,

duh, for an hour and pass the time. Yeah, some people can do that. Some people can't. So two books were published about the case. The first is, and this was quoted heavily through our story, John Glatt, G-L-A-T-T, is the author.

Twisted is the story. The book published in 2003, and this is how it opens. Quote, dark and brooding and given to uncontrollable fits of violence. Dr. Richard Sharp was a self-made millionaire who had earned $5 million from his various dermatology businesses.

Then, the jacket copy says he had a successful career, a selfless wife and three loving children. when high school sweethearts, Karen and Richard Sharp married. They shared an interest in medicine, a desire for family, and a dream for the future. For Karen, that dream became a nightmare. Oh, Jesus. Of course.

And he also says inside, says, quote, a heavy drinker who self-medicated with a cocktail of prescription medicines, the 45-year-old doctor was also a transvestite who got turned on by dressing in his daughter's underwear, even swallowing Karen's birth control pills to sprout womanly back. breasts on his slender body. Calm down. Those are some wild accusations. Yeah, that is 2003 there.

Then the second book is Linda DeFrucchio's Cornered. That's Conard, Dr. Richard J. Sharp, as I knew him. A 266-page memoir is what it is. Not a reconstruction of the crime. A story of their friendship is what it is. Her jacket copy says, quote, he was someone whose genius she admired immensely, a business associate, dear friend,

who committed a terrible crime. Both of those things were true at the same time. That's the problem with Richard Sharpe. She also explained on the advice of her literary lawyer. She changed almost all the names, and in some cases, people's professions and towns. She also cut out what she called very juicy details that she thought could be read,

that her lawyer thought could be read as damaging and libelous. So you're not getting shit out of her except if she liked this guy. Nothing. Linda's a little odd, by the way. In the same interview, she describes the first time she saw Richard's home in Gloucester, which is the big house that they lived in before that. And he said, before he was incarcerated, Richard Sharp lived in a gorgeous house near the sea in Gloucester Mass.

The first time I saw it, I recognized it as the house I've always dreamed of. after he was incarcerated, I had the chance to buy it, and I did. She bought his house? She bought his fucking house, dude. She is like weird. That's a weird lady right there. Something with that lady. In my opinion, allegedly.

That's a little strange. So there you go, everybody. That is when a Massachusetts. What a fucked up story. It's a fucking wild story. And some lady gets shot for nothing. I mean, honestly, she should have left. out of it. After the alarm clock.

Yeah. Well, then again, she was a 17-year-old pregnant girl, so maybe not. She's not going to leave them. She left when he said, I want you to talk. Yeah. If only, if only, he just wouldn't only that one night. You know what I mean? No ovulation occurs. Something happening to stop that whole thing. So anyway, there you go.

If you enjoy that show, get on whatever app you're on. And tell us about it. Tell the world about it. More importantly. Please, it helps so much. We don't know why. but just give us five stars on whatever app. Netflix, double thumbs up, is the way to do that. So thank you for doing that. Thanks for watching.

Thanks for hanging out with us. It's really awesome. And if you're listening, you can watch us on Netflix. Yeah. And if you're watching us on Netflix, you can listen. We have over seven, this is episode 743. So there's so many episodes to listen to. Check them all out.

Also, head over to shut up and give me murder.com. Right. Get your tickets for live shows. Come see us at a live show. This weekend, if you're listening, listening right when it comes out. October 16th, San Jose, California. Get your tickets.

The next night, October 17th, Sacramento, California. Get your tickets. Those will be different shows, by the way. Two totally different murder stories. So you can go to both and hear two crazy shows and other some people doing that. So have a caravan from fucking San Jose to Sacramento. It's fun.

A bunch of people come from Dallas, too. That's so weird. Yeah, that's cool. Then November the 13th, Terrytown. That one's almost sold out, but there's a few tickets left for that. Then in Boston on November 14th, Medford actually, just outside Boston. That's the show there. So that is shut up and give me murder.com. Get your tickets for that. Follow on social media at small town murder on Instagram at small town pot on Facebook. Patreon is the place to be. Patreon.com slash crime in sports. That's where you get all of the bonus material.

anybody, $5 a month or above, you get every goddamn thing we could possibly muster and put out into the world. You get, as soon as you subscribe, hundreds, almost 400 back bonus episodes you've never heard before, then new ones every other week,

one crime in sports, one small town murder, and you get them all this week, crime in sports, when pilots fail. Oh, my. It was small plane, and I don't like plane crash shit, so it's not that. These are small plane things

that happen at sporting events, sending people running, from the stands from flames and everything else. It's pretty fucking crazy stuff. Then for Small Town Murder, scary movies we're going to talk about. It's October. Scary movies, horror movies,

our favorites, our least favorites, which ones are supposed to be good, which ones aren't? Better errors than other errors. It'll be a discussion of scary movies. So check that out, see if your tastes align up with ours. Either way,

Patreon.com slash crime in sports is where you get all that. And on top of everything, you get everything we put out. all of our shows, all ad-free as well. Crime and Sports, Your Stupid Opinion, Small Town Murder, all ad-free. And then on top of that, you get a shout-out, which is right goddamn now. Jimmy, hit me with the names of the people who would never steal our undergarments or shoot us for no goddamn reason.

Jimmy, hit me with them right fucking now. This week's executive producer of Gary Howard checking out of... Gary... Baileyton, Tennessee? What fuck is that? Gary's getting around. Nate and Ashley Gess. Happy, I don't know if that's a birthday or anything.

I don't think so. Curtis in Jackson, Tennessee. Where's that? I don't know. Thanks Curtis, Tennessee. Happy hours in Indianola, Mississippi, wherever the fuck that is. Jesus, everyone is in the middle of nowhere this week. Wow.

And also C.C.'s' grandma. Thank you guys for what you're doing. We can't do without you. Other producers this week. Peyton Meadows, Liz Vasquez, and Janice Hill. Thank you. Matthew Shamblin. Cassidy Guerrille.

David would know last name. Killing Time. Smith with no last name. Hanora Gaffney Levitt. Gail Lena Martin, Nicole Dexter, Beck Dufrin, Dufferin, Jacob Sessions. Tammy would know the last name. Shelby Huggins.

Gribbs chuggled. Nikki Hoarth and Susan Glines. Luke Routier. Elizabeth Brickhouse, Caitlin Ament, D. Block, Gail Boyce, Eric Bebe, Mike Smathers, Crystal Kirschaw, Louis Sinclair, Christina, a local low-budget doctor.

Oh, we don't want those. Let's get the high-budget ones when we can. Who you're going to call, Labuster? Deer would no last name. Lisa would no last name. Psycho Cupcake. Mickey would know last name. Andy Marcy, Marseille, Valerie Rydell.

Emma would know last name. Nikki Huffett, Hufft, who fed. She's all lacquered up. Alexis Grunig. Ryan Turner, Jason Garish, Garish, maybe. Travis Peterson. Amanda Sutherland,

Kristen Crippen. Yeah. You got it. Brandy Spees, perhaps. Maybe it's spies, but it's probably Spees based on just our history of knowing how that word is pronounced.

Shauna Quavis, Jenny Hill, Liv Brasino. Jessica would know the last name. Lynn Gurkin. Gerking. Whatever it is. Aha.

That could be pronounced jerking. That's a jeerkin. Oh, that could go a lot of different ways. Maggie Kerkowski, Cat Attorney, Cat Attorney, Jesse Sensible, Tara would know last name, Chris would no last name, John Crisp, Kristen Champ, Eric the Cleric, Melanie would know last name, Sherry Meeks, Joe Luskey, Daniel Gilbert, Andrew Dewey, Jen would no last name, Connor would know last name, Brian Taylor, Nevin would know last name, Brian Kite, Haywood Jablomi, James. Oh, wow, that's a deep friend. Giblome, perhaps. I don't know if it's Ghiblama. Of the Newport Ghiblomies? I believe so.

Okay, good. That's excellent. Yeah, there's a lot of of them in that family all named Haywood. It's very amazing. Brian Titus. Kendall Joe, Doris, Zisco, Xizzo, Zixo, stay lost. Vanessa Reed, Yvette V.

Brooks M. Marcus Lee, Kelly Hawkins. Archie would know last name. M.J. would know last name. Dittman, Michelle Turner, Mama Mary, Sarah would know last name, Dan Spanky, Michael Linville, Lauren Meyer, Rebecca Hasey, John Martin, Neil Reynolds, Christine Tinsley, Paxie Monroe, Rochelle Elizabeth, Emily Pivot, Pivot, Pivot, Michael Peterson, Nicole Boone, Heather Dorn, say it again. Isn't that the staircase guy, Michael Peterson? Yes. That's why The Peterson's

They're a Murdering group I'll bet there's more Peterson murderers than fucking Jblomys Than the Jablomy family There are Jablomys Heather Dorn

Angela Riley Matt Brock Sophie Gory Yeah Yeah Gory Matt Dimes Is that an L. L. Slezo?

Ryan Walton, Day Day, Day, Day, Catherine, Hubenthal, Jennifer Tripp, Michael Stabil, Stabile, Melinda, Melinda Minor, Karen, Coplein, Snow White, James. Snow White is now a producer of this show. She woke up. She really has an interesting podcast. She started one with those fucking eight dudes. Is it eight, eight, right? Seven. Seven.

Eight including her. It's an eight-sum when they get together, but there's only seven of them. Snow White and the eight dwarves. Yeah, you know, all eight of them. Snow White, the seven dwarves and fucking Kevin Hart. You wonder why I don't depend on your statistical knowledge. I'm pretty good at numbers. That's great.

I said, Jennifer Tripp, I did. Catherine Copeland, Snow White, there she is. Kelsey Coron, Karen, perhaps. Hutch, 86, Morgan Zon. Tyler Grazel. Carrie. Curry Hodges. Carrie Hodges.

Anthony Parsons, Stan Phillips, Christopher Zervos, Debbie Shalay, Shalee, Chely, Chely, Marcos, Quincoza, Kinkosa. And all of our patrons, we love you. Thank you so much, everybody. You have goddamn wonderful bastards. You're unbelievable. You're unbelievable. We appreciate the shit out of you and everything you do for us.

And it's going to say to us, but nobody does anything. to us. They're just for us. That's good. We appreciate that. So thank you for doing that. Thank you for coming back week after week after week. You want to find us. Real easy to do that. Shut up and give me murder.com is the place to find that. Keep coming back and seeing us again. And until next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure. Bye.