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Skyler Rocz had been a detective for all of six weeks when she acquired a “once-in-a-lifetime case,” she stated.
A deputy’s telephone name that January day three years in the past prompted Rocz to research Sarah Hartsfield, a former U.S. Military sergeant whose husband — her fifth — had been admitted to a Texas hospital in a diabetic coma that hospital staffers discovered suspicious.
That investigation shortly grew to become much more sprawling and complicated as Rocz found an internet of allegations from Hartsfield’s previous, together with an alleged homicide plot involving her third and fourth husbands — an accusation she denies — and the deadly taking pictures of a onetime fiancé that Hartsfield has described as self-defense.
Hartsfield, 50, has not been charged with any crimes associated to these circumstances. However Rocz’s investigation led to a homicide conviction for Hartsfield final yr within the January 2023 dying of Joseph Hartsfield, 46.
For extra on the case, tune in to “The Bother with Sarah” on “Dateline” at 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT tonight.
In her first media interview concerning the case, Rocz instructed “Dateline” that her direct supervisors on the Texas sheriff’s workplace the place she labored on the time have been skeptical that there was a case.
“I used to be beating a lifeless horse,” Rocz, 30, stated she was instructed. “I simply needed to disagree.”
A former commander on the Chambers County Sheriff’s Workplace confirmed Rocz’s account.
Rocz saved investigating and took her findings to the district lawyer, who obtained a homicide indictment towards Sarah Hartsfield within the weeks after her husband’s Jan. 15 dying. However had the detective initially listened to her direct boss, she stated, that end result may have been totally different.
“It could have been one other injustice,” she stated.
An unresponsive affected person
When she was summoned to the hospital east of Houston the place Joseph Hartsfield was taken on Jan. 7, 2023, she’d been a detective since November 2022 and was in her first week on name as an investigator with the sheriff’s workplace, she stated.
“My first callout ever was on this case,” Rocz stated.
Now an investigator with the Chambers County District Lawyer’s Workplace, Rocz labored for the Phoenix Police Division earlier than touchdown a job in 2020 as a deputy with the Chambers County Sheriff’s Workplace.
Joseph Hartsfield had been admitted to the hospital in an unresponsive state. He was diabetic, and his blood sugar had crashed, Rocz recalled, however he wasn’t responding to remedy.
Hospital workers weren’t certain why, she stated, although they thought there might have been an excessive amount of insulin in his system. The lifesaving medicine helps folks with diabetes regulate their blood sugar however has additionally been used as a difficult-to-detect homicide weapon.
The Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences later attributed his explanation for dying to problems from poisonous results of insulin. His method of dying was undetermined. At trial, prosecutors argued that Sarah Hartsfield killed her husband with a deadly dose of insulin.
Sarah Hartsfield has maintained her innocence within the dying and stated she’s “devastated” by the loss. At trial, her attorneys stated that Joseph Hartsfield doubtless precipitated his personal dying as a result of he didn’t correctly handle his diabetes.
‘Weird’ habits on the hospital
Rocz stated her suspicion that the person didn’t die by chance sharpened after her Jan. 7 go to to the hospital.
There, she discovered that Sarah Hartsfield discovered her husband unresponsive at 1 p.m. however waited an hour to name 911. And to Rocz, Sarah Hartsfield’s demeanor appeared faux. One minute, she acted casually, Rocz stated, the following she would “crumple her face and act as if she was unhappy for like 15 seconds.”
“All people has totally different responses to trauma,” Rocz stated. “However sometimes, the response isn’t that weird to the place it’s like, we’re informal, then we’re not, after which we’re informal, then we’re not.”
From Joseph Hartsfield’s household, the detective stated she discovered that he’d deliberate on leaving his spouse and had lately opened a brand new checking account with out his spouse’s title on it within the a part of Texas the place his household was from. She discovered that Sarah Hartsfield had instructed the kin about how she fatally shot a former fiancé, Rocz recalled, and the detective discovered a few safety order that barred Sarah Hartsfield from contacting her two youngest kids.
Sarah Hartsfield has stated that she shot David Bragg in 2018 in self-defense. That account was initially supported by the native prosecutor’s workplace, although after she was charged with homicide in Joseph Hartsfield’s dying, the investigation into Bragg’s dying was reopened. Testimony at Sarah Hartsfield’s trial indicated that no fees have been forthcoming in Bragg’s dying, although the case stays lively.
The restraining order was linked to an alleged murder-for-hire plot involving Sarah Hartsfield’s third and fourth husbands. At her trial, the third husband testified that the fourth husband instructed him Sarah Hartsfield needed his spouse lifeless so he’d be too distracted to see their kids.
An FBI agent who investigated the allegations stated he corroborated the account, however federal prosecutors rejected the case after the fourth husband stated that Sarah Hartsfield had performed no function. Sarah Hartsfield has denied the allegations. She has not been charged in reference to the alleged plot.
What the cellphone confirmed
Rocz wound up investigating these and different accusations linked to Sarah Hartsfield’s previous. However it wasn’t till she began sifting by means of Joseph Hartsfield’s cellphone that the detective’s supervisors got here to suppose one thing is likely to be “bizarre” with the case, she stated.
There, Rocz discovered messages despatched from his telephone to Sarah Hartsfield’s the morning of Jan. 7, hours earlier than Joseph Hartsfield was hospitalized.
Included within the messages was his driver’s license, a marriage picture, particulars for the checking account he’d lately opened and a key for his Apple Legacy Contact, which allowed her to entry his telephone knowledge after his dying.
Rocz stated she used the main points gathered from that system to acquire a search warrant for Sarah Hartsfield’s telephone. And what the detective discovered there was at odds with the assertion Sarah Hartsfield offered to authorities about her husband’s ultimate hours.
Earlier than Joseph Hartsfield was hospitalized, Sarah Hartsfield stated that she’d been asleep and on a narcotic ache medicine for a current surgical procedure. However the knowledge from her telephone confirmed that she was on the system nearly each hour, Rocz testified.
The detective discovered that Sarah Hartsfield’s current web search historical past had been deleted, Rocz instructed “Dateline,” and she or he discovered textual content messages displaying that Sarah Hartsfield argued always along with her husband. She needed him out of the home, Rocz stated, and she or he needed out of the wedding.
On Feb. 3, 2023 — practically a month after Rocz was known as out to the hospital — Sarah Hartsfield was indicted in her husband’s homicide. After a trial that targeted as a lot on Sarah Hartsfield’s previous because it did on her fifth husband’s dying, she was convicted of first-degree homicide in October and sentenced to life in jail.
“I form of felt a bit of weak to my knees,” Rocz stated about listening to the responsible verdict. “I used to be simply thanking God that that is over.”
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