Original subtitles

[Skyler] Joseph had no idea who Sarah was.

He wanted to be happy.

He wanted a partner.

Everyone was under the impression

that it was a wonderful relationship in the beginning.

[Skyler] Sarah being married five times

is the least suspicious part about Sarah, honestly.

All of Sarah's relationships seemed to follow this pattern.

When men try to leave Sarah... it ends badly.

[narrator] In September, 2025,

a remarkable murder trial is about to begin in Texas.

@ ...Scheduled to begin today

in the murder trial of Sarah Hartsfield.

@She's charged with killing herú husband, Joseph Hartsfield,

back in early 2023.

Julissa Garza live outside the courthouse now in Anahuac

with what we know about this very unusual case.

[narrator] 50-year-old Sarah Jean Hartsfield

is a mother of four from Texas.

She spent 20 years in the Army before retiring in 2017.

Yeah, hey Jacob, good morning, well, as you mentioned,

Sarah Hartsfield is under a microscope right now.

This is a case that many people have been following for years.

[narrator] The situation Sarah finds herself in today

stems from an incident in January 2023

when her husband Joseph suddenly falls seriously ill.

Joseph had diabetes,

@ he had type one diabetes andú he'd been diagnosed with it

since I think he was around 20 years old.

@ There's a lot of extensive monitoring and control

that needs to go intoú monitoring that illness.

[Kristin] He's a type one diabetic.

And if there's anything that made Joseph uneasy,

it was his blood sugar levels.

He was always likeú really anxious about it

and worried about it.

@ And this isn't a guy whoú really worried about a lot.

[narrator] In 2021, before he meets Sarah,

Joseph is rebuilding his life after a divorce.

Joseph Hartsfield was an outgoing,

kind of mischievous, fun, outdoorsy guy.

He lived in a trailer on his mother's property in Texas.

So, you know, he was independent,

but he was always looking for a partner.

[Mallory] Joseph never gave up on love.

He had previously been married.

He was divorced, and he had told his sister

that he wanted to find love again.

[Kristin] He wanted to have somebody in his life.

And so when Sarah comes along,

he's thrilled.

@He had been a parole officer,

which says a lotú about him, in my opinion,

@ that we weren't dealing with someone

who was ignorant to the ways of criminals.

You know, if you're a parole officer,

@ you're dealing with peopleú that have been in prison

@ and they have committed serious offences.

[narrator] Despite his positive outlook,

Joseph is never able to ignore the reality

of living with diabetes.

[Mallory] Joseph was frightened of being low.

He saw his dad pass out from low blood sugar

and he just never wanted to get to that point

where he didn't have control

and everyone was having to take care of him.

So he would intentionally make his blood sugar

be at a really high level

so that he would never risk being low,

so he would never risk going into that state

that he saw his dad in.

[Cheryl] If his sugar was registering too high or too low,

an alarm goes off.

It's like a Life Alert for diabetics.

[narrator] Any future partner of Joseph's

will have to live with the realities of his diabetes too.

[Veronica] This creates two different types of dynamics.

One, he might've been looking for a partner

who could kind of help support him

and help be kind of a caretaker to him

and help him manage his illness.

But it also leaves him a bit vulnerable

to someone in his life

where they now have a certain sense

of power or control over him

if they do take over that role

of supporting him with his medical needs.

[narrator] Joseph meets Sarah Jean Hartsfield online

in late 2021,

and their relationship moves at remarkable speed.

Just three months after first connecting,

the couple marry in February 2022.

Everyone was under the impression

that it was a wonderful relationship in the beginning,

that both Joseph and Sarah

had a wonderful time with each other

and they adored each other.

The problem with Joseph and Sarah was,

it was almost like a shotgun wedding without the pregnancy.

They met and married very quickly,

and that's always dangerous.

I mean, anybody can pretend to be who they're not

in a short span of time.

Joseph was the light of his mom's life,

loving brother to his sister and to his brother.

This is like a very tight-knit family,

an extended tight-knit family.

They come together for holidays,

they come together for birthdays.

She wanted to get him away from his family,

and she did.

I mean, she used herú feminine wiles to do that.

[Skyler] They ended up finding a house here in Chambers County

and moved all the way over here,

which is about a two-hour drive

from where he's from.

[Cheryl] She wanted to move into this home

that they could not afford in Beach City.

He left his job as a parole officer

and began working at a refinery.

The refinery business does make more money,

obviously, than public service.

[Mallory] The relationship began to change

whenever they moved away.

It was a level of control that Sarah was exerting

over Joseph

and a level of distance,

@ not just physical distance,

@ but relational distanceú that she was trying to,

it looked like she was trying to create

between Joseph and his family.

[Cheryl] I believe what she started doing

was intercepting his phone,

blocking his family's phone calls,

making it to the point where if they wanted to talk to Joseph,

they had to talk to her first.

And I don't even know if he was aware of all of that

in the beginning.

I think his mother and sister started having doubts

about her fairly quickly.

[narrator] At Christmastime in 2022,

Sarah doesn't want Joseph to visit his family.

But on the 29th of December, he does.

Joseph doesn't get to go home for Christmas.

There is a fight at their house.

And he lets his family know

that he's going to come home after Christmas.

[Skyler] He told his mom and his sister

that he was going to be leaving Sarah

and he was going to be filing for divorce.

He had opened up a bank account.

His mom helped him open up a bank account.

@ He had tried to reroute hisúpaycheque to that bank account.

[narrator] When Joseph returns home to Sarah,

he leaves his mom a voicemail

to let her know he's arrived safely

with a twist.

[narrator] Joseph is joking,

but on January 7th, 2023,

his wife, Sarah Jean Hartsfield,

is forced to call 911.

@ Sarah had placed a call toú 911 saying that her husband,

@ Joseph, had low blood sugar.

EMS arrived on scene.

When they got there, they attempted to give him sugar

to try to raise his blood sugar.

[Kristin] So they rush Joseph to the hospital.

And it's there at the hospital

that the nurses become, at first, confused,

because they're doing the protocol

to treat him for what they think

may be going on with his diabetes.

And it's not working.

They knew that there had to be some sort of overdose

and insulin that was working against the glucose

that they were giving him,

because there is no way on God's green earth

that the amount of glucose they were giving him

would have not rectified the situation that he was in.

@[narrator] Glucose is designedúto rapidly raise blood sugar,

Yet even after repeated doses,

Joseph's remains dangerously low.

@ It's a very common thing forúsomeone to have low blood sugar.

@ You give them a glucose, it brings it back up,

@their insulin stabilizes, etc.

@ But his sugar, his levels,

@ would come back up to whereú they were supposed to be

@ and then all of a suddenúthey would drop dramatically.

and they had never seen that before.

The medical professionals were really suspicious

of the symptoms he was presenting

as soon as he was admitted to hospital.

@They seemed really inconsistent

with the type of diabetic attack

@ that they would typicallyúsee someone hospitalized for.

From their own expertise and their own experience,

the pattern of the illness that they knew

and the symptoms they were seeing just didn't align,

and that immediately made them feel

that something suspicious had happened.

Ultimately, the nurses become so suspicious

@that they alert the physicians, who then call police.

[narrator] Concerned they may be dealing with

more than a diabetic emergency, medics alert

the Chambers County Sheriff's Office.

Detective Skyler Rocz is dispatched to investigate.

[knocking]

[officer] Hello.

[narrator] The first person detectives turn to for answers

is Joseph's wife, Sarah Jean.

Sarah claimed thatú he gave himself insulin.

[Mallory] But she did say

that he didn't manage his insulin well.

She said that this was like a normal thing.

Sarah was adamant that she was sleeping when this happened.

She had absolutely no idea what was going on.

[Skyler] She would get up

and she would fill the glass with orange juice.

And then she would claim that she knew

that Joseph was awake, alert, and OK

because when she wouldú wake up a few hours later,

@ the glass would be empty

and she would get up and refill the glass.

She said that she was asleep

from approximately 5 o'clock in the morning until about 1 PM.

She said that she woke up at approximately 1 PM

and found Joseph unresponsive.

She did all these different things to try to help him.

I spoke with the family and I got all of their stories.

[narrator] Sensing there may be more to the story,

Detective Skyler Rocz

takes a closer look at Sarah Hartsfield's past.

Sarah didn't have the best upbringing

and she was introduced to a lot of things

that children shouldn't be introduced to.

[Cheryl] Sarah really thrived for a while in foster care.

And at some point, you know, she joined the military,

which a lot of wayward people do,

and it seems to help.

[Veronica] So while Sarah is having all these challenges

in her home life, she's managing to hold down

a career within the military.

This type of disconnect between volatility at home

and professionalism at work

is actually consistent with certain types of profiles.

[narrator] While Sarah maintains her career,

her personal life before Joseph has run anything but smooth.

She was married five times.

Sarah being married five times

is the least

suspicious part about Sarah, honestly.

[narrator] At her trial in September 2025,

the court will hear that Sarah Jean Hartsfield

has had a long history of troubled marriages.

@ [news] Now in this case,

@ prosecutors are pushing to bring up allegations

of past crimes thatnHartsfield allegedly committed.

They're trying to show a pattern of behavior.

Now we have other cases

that have been reopened in other states.

And I'm glad they have reopened those cases

'cause I feel like they're probably gonna find

a very same, similar scenario as to what we have.

[narrator] She first marries in 1993.

@[Mallory] Titus Knoernschild was Sarah's first husband.

Sarah and Titus wereú high school sweethearts.

@ They got married very young.

@ They split up pretty young.

[narrator] Sarah and her first husband's marriage

is marked by repeated breakups and reconciliations,

but ultimately ends because of infidelity, Sarah's.

Sarah had left Titus,

but whenever Titus moved on after she had left him,

bad things began to happen.

[narrator] Titus will later tell reporters

that during their separation,

Sarah warned he might not make it through,

and that she continued unwanted contact

that led him to obtain a no-contact order.

About eight months after they separated,

Titus had came home,

and his house was covered in gasoline.

Titus' wife saw Sarah running away from the trailer.

They had contacted the local law enforcement,

which had told him at the time

that there was no such thing as attempted arson.

And so essentially nothing was done from that situation.

[narrator] In 1996,

Sarah marries again to a man called Michael Traxler.

Even in her second marriage,

we see evidence of a pattern of abuse and violence.

@Very soon after entering intoúher relationship with Michael,

@ there's allegations ofú abuse on the part of Sarah,

@ and she's even arrested by the police

@because of domestic violence.

[narrator] After the assault charge is dismissed,

Sarah and her second husband divorce.

@ She later finds a fresh start in the Army,

where, while stationed in Alaska,

@ she meets fellow soldier Christopher Donohue,

@ the pair marry in 1999.

Chris Donohue'sú relationship with Sarah,

I think, is her most interesting relationship.

I think she genuinely was in love with him.

He was younger than her and they had children together

and he was gone a lot.

[narrator] Sarah and Chris are together for 17 years.

[Skyler] I'm not a hundred percent sure

why he stayed all 17 years.

I think the fact that

he was in the military the entire time

and they were taking deployments

and there was long periods of breaks

where they weren't together.

I also believe that them having four children helped,

because a lot of times people don't want to

break up their marriage and split their family

and their children apart.

[Mallory] He lived through intense emotional abuse.

And he lived through intense trauma

related not just to her and their relationship,

but related to their children.

Keeping the children from him, using the children against him,

terrorizing him with the children,

that's abuse.

And trying to control all of his behaviour all of the time.

I think he was scared that if he left,

it would be worse.

And I think that when he finally did leave, it was worse.

[narrator] Chris and Sarah divorce in 2017,

and he remarries in 2021,

while Sarah began the relationship

with a man called David Bragg.

David Bragg fell in love with her

and got pulled into her web.

It quickly went downhill.

They were supposedly engaged, redoing this home together.

And she had moved out because they were--

they were splitting up.

[narrator] At her trial in 2025,

investigators re-examine a 2018 incident

involving Sarah and David Bragg.

He had been out of the country for a military operation.

He had just flown in for one of the girls' birthdays.

She went into the home with David.

She was supposed to be afraid of him.

She had told her daughters that he had attacked her

and that she was going in to get clothes.

She initially told law enforcement

that there was a struggle

and that he took a gun from her

and that she had to shoot him in self-defence.

[Kristin] Sarah shot and killed David Bragg.

It's not up for debate.

She says she did it,

@ but she says she did it in self-defence,

that David was being aggressive toward her

and that she shot him.

[narrator] Eight months after David Bragg's death,

prosecutors conclude Sarah acted in self-defence.

In January 2019, the Douglas County Attorney

declines to file criminal charges.

The fact that she now has incidents in her life

where she seems to have gotten away with a more serious crime

might be making her feel somewhat untouchable

and give her a grandiose sense of her own abilities

to continue to get what she wants out of the situation

without any consequences.

[narrator] In 2019,

Sarah marries for a fourth time,

tying the knot with David George.

@ But despite her new marriage,

@ it seems she hasn't entirelyú let go of her third husband,

Christopher Donohue.

David George was her husband that she married

after David Bragg,

and she convinced David George

to go kill Chris Donohue's wife,

Heather Donohue.

@[Skyler] Sarah found out Chrisú was about to get remarried,

@ and she did not like that.

[Cheryl] She just has a way with men,

and she can convince them to do anything.

David George drove to Arizona

and showed up at Chris Donohue's residence

with flowers,

like garden gloves on his hands, a face mask, a hat, glasses on.

And his intent was to

deliver the flowers to Chris' wife,

and then he was going to kill her.

But whenever he rang the doorbell

and Chris Donohue answered, he changed his mind.

[narrator] George has since claimed he never intended

to carry out Sarah's alleged plan

and did not take a gun to the Donohues' home.

Thankfully, he backed out.

He didn't do it.

But he certainly considered it,

and he certainly drove all the way there with the gloves on.

This really speaks to both a sense of retaliation

and retribution against the people

that she's maybe felt have wronged her in her life.

It also shows a willingness to involve her current partners

in aspects of their life

that she would then to have control over.

If he committed this crime on her behalf,

she would then have something to leverage

over him in the future.

So on the one hand,

it's a way of getting back at her ex-husband,

and then on the other hand,

it's a way of her gaining more control

in her current relationship.

Sarah was investigated for this murder-for-hire plot,

but again, no charges were formally filed against her.

[narrator] According to the testimony at her trial,

Sarah's conflicts extend beyond former partners.

The jury hears about a suspicious fire

at her grandmother's house,

one that allegedly put her brother

and another relative in grave danger,

though no charges are ever filed.

[Skyler] Their grandmother had a huge part in raising them

and helped them financially.

Sarah had already been gone for years and years and years,

and Cody had been there day in, day out,

taking care of his grandmother.

And so their grandmother left everything to Cody.

Well, Sarah found out, and she drove up for the funeral.

She was not happy that she was not in the will.

And Cody didn't want to argue with her,

so Cody let her pull up with a U-Haul,

let her use her laptop computer to figure out

what things were valuable in the house and what things weren't.

And she loaded up the U-Haul

and took everything that was of value that she wanted.

And then later that night,

he was in the house with his nephew.

They woke up in the middle of the night

with the house being on fire.

[Cheryl] It burned to the ground,

they were lucky to get out.

I think it was a miracle that the little boy even

made it out.

Sarah's brother said something to her about it.

And she said, oh, I didn't know he was in there.

I mean, that's a tacit admission right there.

So it was like Sarah saying,

oh, I thought it was just y'all in there.

Sorry, I didn't want to kill the kid.

That was just her revenge.

If I can't have this house, then I'm just going to burn it down.

And she did.

I feel like I reached a point in my investigation

when I stopped being shocked.

Like, I kept digging because every time I turned a page,

there was something else.

We see this very clear pattern of both emotional volatility,

strong levels of control and coercion, intimidation,

fear and violence.

It's rare that we see women

who are the aggressor in relationships.

It's so rare that we hear men say,

I needed to get away from her.

I was scared she was going to kill me.

Sarah's relationships seem to follow this pattern.

They start with charm, right?

Then she becomes controlling,

and the men start to feel threatened

and that, you know,

"I need to get out of this relationship."

And as soon as that happens,

then she launches into the next stage,

which is violence.

[Mallory] When men try to leave Sarah, it ends badly.

You can't leave Sarah.

Sarah gets to leave you, but you can't leave Sarah.

And so as soon as she drove them to this point

where they were literally scared for their lives

and needed to get out,

that's when things got even worse for them.

Narcissists are always looking for a new supply,

something to keep their juices going, right?

Well, I think that was her.

I think her-I want to call it a kink--

was seeing how she could make other people suffer

and get away with it.

It was truly, I believe, what she lived for,

causing chaos.

[Skyler] Joseph had no idea who Sarah was.

Joseph had no idea he was husband number five.

@[narrator] In September 2025, prosecutors argue

@ Joseph Hartsfield's diabeticú crisis was no accident,

but part of a troubling pattern

that has followed Sarah Jean Hartsfield

@ throughout her adult life.

[news] When Joseph was planning to leave,

prosecutors say that Sarah did, quote,

"Whatever she could to stop it."

[narrator] Then in January 2023,

when Joseph suffered a diabetic emergency,

prosecutors argue that Sarah delayed calling for help.

[narrator] At Joseph's hospital bedside,

a photograph shows Sarah Jean Hartsfield in tears

as she clings to her husband.

The picture of a concerned wife.

Look at this woman, she's sad, she's scared, she's crying.

No way she could have done something like this.

[narrator] Aware of the allegations and tragedies

that have marked Sarah's past relationships,

Detective Skyler Rocz grows concerned

and obtains a search warrant for the Hartsfield's home.

[Skyler] We went to the residence.

It was very early hours of the morning at this point,

probably about four or five o'clock in the morning.

And when we get there,

the house is just a mess.

There's a grocery order on the table.

There's a whole lot of grocery bags

that have yet to be unpacked.

There were prescription pill bottles everywhere,

hundreds of them.

There was approximately 8 to 10 insulin pens

on Joseph's side of the bed.

And then in the kitchen,

there was a glass that was previously for orange juice.

We were there like about 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning

on January the 8th.

So we're about 14 hours in to this investigation, right?

And the bottom of the glass

had residual orange juice in it.

But it had been sitting there so long that it had solidified.

Like, it was stuck to the cup.

It was not liquid any longer.

And then there was also black specks of mould

growing on the sides of it and at the bottom of it.

Both of those things would indicate to me

that orange juice had not been in that glass

for at least a couple of days, maybe even a week or longer.

[narrator] The mildew in the orange glass

undermines Sarah's claim

that she had been tending to Joseph throughout the night,

keeping him supplied with fresh orange juice.

The first interview that I had with Sarah

at the hospital, I seized Joseph's cell phone.

@Okay, we're on Joseph's phone.

I pulled it out of evidence.

And that's when I found

the first few key pieces of evidence

@ that was very important to this case.

His driver's licence photograph,

his new bank account information,

a photo of their wedding day.

All of these things were screenshot

on Joseph's cell phone

and then sent in a text message

to Sarah's cell phone in the same minute.

At approximately 5:40-something in the morning,

so about 45 minutes into Sarah saying she was asleep

because remember, her story was

she went to sleep around 5 in the morning.

But also, more importantly, it contradicts the Dexcom records,

which shows that he had been significantly low

since about 6 to 8 PM the night before.

The likelihood of Joseph screenshotting this information

and sending it to Sarah is slim.

This is also supposed to be when Sarah is so high

from pain pills from her own surgery,

that she can't hear the alarms going off,

that he's dangerously low.

She let him lay there and struggle.

I think about,

could he, did he, like, was he having thoughts?

Like, was he asking for his mom?

Was he thinking, like,

I should have not come back?

I then went to the hospital where Joseph was at

and was being treated

and had a second interview with Sarah

where she told me a very similar story.

And I wanted to have that interview with her

because the second time that I talked to her,

I confirmed that she was not on any narcotic pain medication.

So she wouldn't be under the influence of anything.

At the end of the interview,

I told her that I was gonna be taking her cell phone.

And she said, "Oh crap."

And then she asked me, "So here's the question,

do I have to give you this without a warrant?"

And then that's when I produced the warrant

and I said, "Well, I do have a warrant."

You could tell that all the puzzle pieces

were starting to come together for her at that moment,

that she was starting to realize, like,

OK, you know what? They're on to me.

[narrator] Phone records appear to place Sarah active

and moving around the home

at a time she told investigators she was asleep.

[Cheryl] Joseph's Dexcom, his alarm or the app

was paired with Sarah's as well.

It went off like over 100 times, close to 200,

the best we can tell, and it's loud.

And she said she slept through it.

No, you didn't.

She ordered grocery,

and we know she got those groceries

because when law enforcement arrives,

those groceries are on her table.

[narrator] Eight days afterJoseph is admitted to hospital,

with Sarah's consent, doctors withdraw his life support.

[Mallory] They were so, so close to getting him out.

Jeannie, Joseph's sister, and her brother,

they knew that he was in danger.

They had this deep feeling that something wasn't right.

They had met that day,

the day that Joe went into the hospital.

And they were trying to come up with a plan to get him out.

They went home,

Jeannie was at her house,

and she gets a call from Sarah saying

that Joseph was in an ambulance on his way to the hospital,

his blood sugar was low.

At that point, I think probably Jeannie knew.

Because then she takes away

what could have been peace for his family

in the parting of his physical body at the hospital.

She kept them from him physically at the hospital.

And that is honestly the sickest part of all of it.

[narrator] On February 3rd, 2023,

less than a month after Joseph's death,

Sarah Jean Hartsfieldú is indicted for murder.

[Skyler] I told her she was under arrest.

She asked for what? I told her for murder.

@ And honestly, she didn'tú have much of a reaction.

She didn't cry.

She didn't act shocked.

She didn't act angry.

Was very void of emotion.

I read her her Miranda rights after arresting her.

She pled the fifth.

[narrator] In September 2025,

a Texas jury must decide

whether Sarah Jean Hartsfield is a devoted wife

caught up in tragedy or a calculating killer.

I thought, God, you know, forbid if she gets away with this,

there's really going to be no stopping her.

@ There was a lot of pressure on us for this case

and a lot of worry about, please, God,

@ let us get a jury that is not gonna be fooled

by the fact that she's a woman.

From Chambers County,

@day two of the insolent murderú trial of Sarah Hartsfield.

@ Today, the jury hearing witnessed testimony

from the mother ofúHartsfield's deceased husband.

[anchor 2] Hartsfield was accused of killing

her fifth husband, Joseph, back in 2023.

On one side, the defence, they are arguing

that Joseph Hartsfield's death

was the result of his own health problems,

while on the other side, the prosecution,

they are saying that Sarah Hartsfield isolated

and resented her husband eventually killing him,

telling the jury that Sarah and Joseph constantly fought.

Still, when Joseph was planning to leave,

prosecutors say that Sarah did, quote,

"Whatever she could to stop it."

[Mallory] This dude wouldn't even take a Tylenol.

Like, everybody he works with, his doctors are like,

"He's medicine-averse.

Like, he doesn't want to take medicine.

It's like not his thing."

And he's got threeú medicines in his system

@ that are drowsy inducing.

And they're all prescribed to her.

She had cooked his quote unquote favourite meal,

which I believe was broccoli, rice, cheese.

And as a diabetic, one of the worst foods you can eat is rice.

I mean, it turned straight into sugar.

We think what she did was added her own medication

surreptitiously to his food.

I think she had Xanax and painkillers,

chopped it up in his food, made him eat it,

told him you've got to eat, you know.

And because it caused him to sleep,

that's when she was able to inject him with so much insulin

without him being aware.

The person who's so freaking terrified

of low blood sugar that they intentionally run high

doesn't overdose himself on insulin.

It doesn't happen.

There's only two people in the house.

He's drugged and he's overdosed on insulin.

[narrator] The prosecution's case

is that Sarah made sure Joseph got enough insulin

that he couldn't recover.

[Mallory] She puts so much insulin in his system,

and then she just sits back and waits.

She killed him in the way that he was most afraid of dying.

And that...

[bleep] me off.

[narrator] The judge allows prosecutors to explore

Sarah's turbulent history with former husbands and partners,

including the fatal shooting of David Bragg,

which she claims was in self-defence.

The prosecution was allowed to talk about

@ all these other men andú the death of David Bragg.

The defence didn't like that.

They tried to fight it, but the judge let it in.

[narrator] Sarah's own children also testify against her.

[Kristin] They were all afraid of her.

Her own children end up telling police

that their mom is crazy, that she has admitted things to them

about wanting to kill some of her husbands,

that she was abusive to them as well,

that she had told the kids, what happens in this house

stays in this house.

And the kids lived in a traumatic, violent household.

It's rare that we see children turn on their parents,

but her children knew that their mother was not stable.

Not only not stable, abusive.

[Mallory] I don't take it for granted that the kids

were willing to talk.

I know for some of them, it was the hardest decision

they probably have ever made.

It probably weighs on them.

[Cheryl] People like her, they just can't help themselves.

You know, they're so used to talking their way out of it.

And look at her. She's been talking her way out of stuff

for over 40 years.

And so I was really surprised that she did not testify.

But it was so one-sided as far as the evidence goes.

At that point, all four of her children had gotten up there.

When your children start testifying against you

and you don't have one single solitary witness

to come to your defence,

I think she knew she was sunk.

[narrator] On October 8th, 2025,

jurors return a unanimous verdict.

@ [news] And breaking now in Chambers County,

a jury has found Sarah Hartsfield

guilty of murder.

She was convicted this afternoon of killing

her fifth husband, Joseph.

He was a diabetic who died reportedly

from insulin toxicity.

I do think that Sarah was surprised with the verdict.

Honestly, she didn't show it in her face,

but I truly believe

that she had gotten away with so much for so long

that she didn't think this would be a possibility.

[narrator] Sarah Jean Hartsfield is sentenced to life in prison

for Joseph's murder

and will first be eligible for parole in 2053.

Joseph married the female version of Ted Bundy,

except the thing about Sarah

was that she didn't pick strangers.

She only went after people that she knew.

[narrator] Sarah's conviction renewed scrutiny

of David Bragg's 2018 shooting death.

A case Douglas County authorities reopened

following her indictment.

Though no further charges have been brought.

Police in Minnesota,

they're kind of like on the record

of having to open this case back up again,

because it was a point in the trial.

And so there is obviously a high level of suspicion now

about Sarah's involvement.

People are naturally questioning

whether Sarah acted in self-defence with David Bragg,

or was this murder?

@ [news] The case triggered investigations

into other incidents in her past,

including the shooting and killing

@ of her fiancé back in 2018,

which she claimed was self-defence.

Every criminal slips up at some point,

and she slept up when she came to Chambers County.

I was terrified that if she didn't get stopped here,

we knew she was going to do it again.

It was a matter of who it was going to be.

Because Sarah is very obsessed with punishment.

She's obsessed with punishing people.

It's not just ex-lovers.

That's-to reduce Sarah to this woman who's,

like, obsessed with men is-- that's selling her short.

That's not an accurate depiction of Sarah.

She is

as close to villainous as they come.

She's a lot more complex than

just a black widow.