Lester Holt (3:53)

It's still relatively rare that we see women as perpetrators in cases like this. You've covered a few, though. Lori Vallow, Pam Hupp, Sarah Hartsfield. Is this your specialty? Is this. Is this something you were able to look. And it seems like it's become a little blunt.

Keith Morrison (4:13)

You know, I interviewed Lori Valo some time ago, some months ago, when she was in jail awaiting trial for one of the murders that she was accused of committing. And she. First of all, she winks at the camera on the way in. She sits down, she turns on the charm like crazy. It's you. You can see why some people would have, you know, several husbands and. And. And lots of ability to attract men and. And their affections, but also that a woman might look at that same scene and say, oh, boy, somebody's getting snowed again. Because it's a technique that some people are able to use. There are. Men are. Men are good at it, too. They're just good at it, perhaps in a slightly different way. You know, I found it fascinating talking to the district attorney in Texas who. Who handled this case. Interesting woman. But she was of the view that it isn't often that you run into a sociopathic female, as you call it. But she said they're very good. They're very slippery, and they're very good at persuading men that they're as innocent as the driven snow. But she was convinced that a lot of them get away with things that we never hear about because they got away with them. And it takes a woman. She told me over and over again that it takes a woman to recognize that sort of behavior. In fact, in this case, it took three women.

Lester Holt (5:40)

Yeah, it's because this idea that Sarah has this somehow this pull over men. Can you describe what it was about her that made her so appealing?

Capital One Announcer (5:50)

Yeah.

Keith Morrison (5:50)

I asked the men who had had relationships with her, and there were lots of them. But those who would talk to us at least described somebody who was vivacious, who was the kind of person you would fall in love with immediately. They described beautiful woman. She could charm the birds out of the trees. Especially if the birds were male.

Lester Holt (6:09)

Yeah. When investigators look at Sarah's early relationships, they see the same cycle repeating, essentially. Intense, very intense emotional beginnings, followed by deception and then chaos. Once a relationship starts to fall apart, is that where the story really starts to shape for you? This. This pattern?

Keith Morrison (6:28)

Yes. And the pattern is you've described it perfectly. That's what would happen. She would attract a man, the man would fall for her. They would have a very intense first few weeks of the relationship. And then if they wanted to break off the relationship, that was no good. And so Sarah would take some sort of retaliatory action, attempting apparently to burn down Titus's house after he, you know, became engaged to another woman, or at least was discovered pouring gasoline all over his house. Then a boyfriend's house, her grandmother's house.

Lester Holt (7:03)

She was never charged with any of those cases, correct?

Keith Morrison (7:05)

No, she wasn't.

Lester Holt (7:06)

When I was watching this, I was. I was reminded of a recent interview I did for Dateline, True Crime Weekly, and where I interviewed an arson investigator and he talked about how difficult these cases are to prove.

Keith Morrison (7:18)

Yes, arson is very difficult to prove. There are so many different possibilities for the reason it may have happened. And in Sarah's case, it was always kind of slippery. There was always some kind of reason why you would suspect it was her, but not quite enough to charge her with something.

Lester Holt (7:33)

Well, let me ask you about David Bragg. She shoots and kills him, then claims self defense. At the time, police accepted that explanation. They didn't really look any further into it, did they?

Keith Morrison (7:43)

There was an investigation. It wasn't just like a one hour investigation. They went on, they looked at it, several agencies looked at it and came back with the ruling that it appeared to be self defense. But when this investigation looked into it more carefully, they could see that the relationship with David Bragg fit that perfect template that you can cannot leave me, David Bragg. You cannot break up this relationship. Only I can. And the way I can break it up tends to be something you wouldn't like.

Lester Holt (8:13)

Then he had David George.

Keith Morrison (8:15)

Yeah, David George took that long journey down to the place where the ex husband was living. Went up to the door, pushed the Doorbell. You can see him on a ring camera. He had a bouquet of flowers supposedly for the wife of her ex husband. Later on, he said he had no intention of ever shooting anybody. There was no charge.

Lester Holt (8:37)

And that's another case that wasn't really a part of the central case in this story.

Keith Morrison (8:43)

Right, exactly. However, often we'll follow cases and you know that somebody has behaved badly on a number of occasions and those situations cannot be brought up in a trial. All the prosecution can do is focus on the specific charge with which this, that this person is facing and the details only concerning that particular act, the illegal act that that person is on trial for. But there's a rule in Texas that you can use past bad acts in the prosecution of a case. And that is what made all the difference in this case about Sarah because they could. The prosecutor was able to bring up all of these things in her, in her past, all these relationships that had become violent. And the, you know, the combination of all of those things made it apparent to anybody who was sitting in that courtroom that this woman would be found guilty.

Lester Holt (9:33)

All right, we'll take a break. When we come back, Keith is going to play some extra sound from his interview with the investigator in this case and also hearing her describe what Sarah Hartsfield wanted done with Joe's ashes after she was convicted. We'll be right back.

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Lester Holt (11:58)

Keith, you know, you described so many instances where Sarah is able to, you know, charm or talk or cajole, whatever she would do to get out from these things. Do you think when it came to the death of Joe that she somehow believed she could work her way out of that one too?

Keith Morrison (12:13)

Well, I suspect that was the case. You know, we can't know what really was in her mind. Among the cases in her past, I suppose the one regarding Joe was easier potentially to solve. But Detective Rock certainly had to drill down on it and was able to find out that in the many hours before Joe's death, while he was having a diabetic crisis and his alarm was going off every five minutes to tell Sarah that her husband was in diabetic shock, she claimed that she was asleep on the couch because she had just recently had surgery and therefore she just didn't wake up when the alarm went off. But when she was able to get access to Sarah's phone, she discovered at the times that Sarah claimed that she was asleep on the couch. She was actually up walking around making calls to other people, doing this, that and the other. Certainly she wasn't asleep and certainly she would have heard all of those alarms when they went off and chose to do nothing about it, which kind of formed, I think, the basis for the charges against her.

Lester Holt (13:23)

Let me ask you about the children. Very often in cases like this, children are kind of left with a choice, you know, which parent are they going to back or support in this, the children were really pivotal. Ultimately in this case they were.

Keith Morrison (13:38)

And I felt for them so deeply to have to go through life the way they did. It sounded like a pretty difficult way to grow up. The children that I talked to though seemed to be, you know, remarkably well adjusted or at least able to talk about what happened to them very clear headed way.

Lester Holt (13:56)

But as we know, Sarah actually appeals to Ashley for her support.

Keith Morrison (14:02)

Sure, they had a complicated relationship, those two. I think that Sarah really tried to manipulate Ashley for years and years and clearly and was obviously trying to do that in their conversations from the jail, the recordings that we heard, it was an Effort to guilt Ashley into doing something on her mother's behalf. But at that point, Ashley was beyond it and she wasn't going to get involved.

Lester Holt (14:28)

Yeah. Her mom apparently says this isn't looking procedural. I think that came up during a. A voicemail. How damaging was that that particular message was?

Keith Morrison (14:38)

It was part of a pile of things. You know, I think it was an indication that she was aware of the fact that there was a strong case against her, that she understood what that case was. So, you know, did it point to her guilt? Perhaps it did. I think the prosecutor was able to use that attitude as part of the case. It was an interesting trial, fascinating case to look into. And, yes, another one of those cases where there was a woman who did some bad things.

Lester Holt (15:15)

All right, we have an extra clip that didn't make the broadcast.

Keith Morrison (15:17)

Yes. And the voice is Lynn Marie Garcy, who was the private investigator the defense brought in as an assistant to help with the case, to see how the jury was reacting, to make recommendations about how Sarah should behave in the courtroom. There was an attempt, I think, by the defense to at least gain a sense of what the jury was thinking so that they could come up with some sort of defense for Sarah. Oh, there was a story about Joe's ashes. She had a request. Tell me that one, if you don't mind.

Lynn Marie Garcy (15:57)

Well, I guess it has nothing to do with her case anymore, but she wanted him to be thrown in the trash can after she was convicted. And the four of us, we have hearts, and we have a little bit.

Keith Morrison (16:11)

More.

Lynn Marie Garcy (16:14)

Integrity than that, and we're not doing that. And so my understanding is that his sister got the ashes. Yeah, she just wanted thrown in the trash can. That's pretty ice water in the veins to me.

Keith Morrison (16:30)

Yeah. Truly, it's taking retribution to its ends.

Lester Holt (16:34)

Ice water in the veins. I think it's a pretty good description.

Keith Morrison (16:37)

It is.

Lester Holt (16:38)

It is.

Keith Morrison (16:38)

She was, I think, frankly, horrified by this particular defendant. And she said she was relieved by the. And here's somebody working for the defense, but she was relieved by the fact that Sarah was convicted. She said she didn't. Didn't know what would happen if Sarah got out. And she says, well, I'm not too worried because I have a pew pew. I said, what are you talking about? A pew pew. She carries a gun. It being Texas, you carry a what?

Capital One Announcer (17:05)

Pew pew. Sorry.

Lester Holt (17:10)

Yeah, I sat up for that one as well. A pew pew.

Keith Morrison (17:13)

Yeah.

Lester Holt (17:15)

I think a large part of this story is about accountability. Will we see what's the likelihood? We'll see some of these other investigations bear fruit.

Keith Morrison (17:25)

Well, a couple of them have been open. The shooting of David Bragg particularly. I'm quite interested to see what happens with regard to that one. But jurisdictions in other areas are having a look. Will they come up with anything? At this stage? It's hard to know. A good deal of that evidence may have disappeared. Some of those people have died. It seems to me somewhat unlikely that there'd be further charges, but certainly those departments are aware now and have been looking into it.

Lester Holt (17:58)

All right, Keith, well stay right where you are. We have some questions in here from social media. We're going to give you a chance to answer some and to weigh in some of what the viewers are pointing out. We'll be right back.

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Lester Holt (19:46)

Okay, now for some social media questions. Most of them, frankly, are comments, but here's one from NC Trigger 85. She goes, wow, not too many Dateline cases get under my skin as much as this one did. She is evil incarnate.

Keith Morrison (20:03)

Whether somebody's evil or not, they I don't know. She's bad to the bone. I like to think of it. But she did have a pretty rough upbringing and she was eventually sent to foster care, which was probably the only good family she had over the course of that time.

Lester Holt (20:19)

Here's Giris Herndon. I carry a pew pew. I like that lady. She's hilarious. He writes.

Keith Morrison (20:26)

Yeah, she was hilarious. She was also, no nonsense, very, very bright lady. I loved also her advice when Sarah came into the, into the courtroom with a Bible, she said, you got to get rid of it immediately. Are you crazy? They're going to know what a hypocrite you are immediately.

Lester Holt (20:41)

Well, that's. I was going to point that out. She talks about the Bible. She also talks about the fact that immediately her impression was the jury hated this woman.

Keith Morrison (20:51)

Yes.

Lester Holt (20:51)

Which is not a good start to your trial.

Keith Morrison (20:53)

No, no.

Lester Holt (20:55)

Here. Beatrice Pembrough picked up on. She says that always baffles me why previous bad actions aren't allowed at trial. Usually. That's the point. And I think a lot of us, you know, will watch a lot of trials and we kind of want a case where the jury gets to hear everything about a person.

Keith Morrison (21:15)

You do, you do. I find it frustrating. I was called for jury D once and expressed that frustration to the judge when I was asked the question whether I could, you know, they asked a series of questions about whether you could serve on a jury. And I said, yeah, but I guess, sir, but boy, I sure want to know the whole thing about that person. I get very frustrated when a case happens and you hear about the. So many things, even about the specific incident are not allowed in court. So the jury doesn't get to hear that stuff drives me crazy. And I wasn't allowed on the jury, of course, but it's a good point.

Lester Holt (21:53)

So It's Mike H. 1990, who writes, Sarah's the type of person that makes you stay single and enjoy every single life forever. Okay, well, we'll leave him to his opinion on that.

Keith Morrison (22:04)

Sure.

Lester Holt (22:06)

And then here Candace Smith wants to know, did she kill her 10 year old brother too?

Keith Morrison (22:11)

Well, I was sure curious about that. I don't think it's possible. I think that she was with her foster family when that happened. I think, but it's a little unclear. There's a whole kind of overlap period where you're not sure where something happened. The incident involving her brother is very strange, but it seems unlikely she could have done it. Yeah.

Lester Holt (22:36)

Vicki Irby weighs in. So proud of these ladies and their team. Obviously referencing the fact that it was an all lady team that really, really brought this case ultimately to justice.

Keith Morrison (22:47)

And they take pride in it, too, by the way. They were.

Lester Holt (22:50)

Yeah.

Keith Morrison (22:51)

Yeah.

Lester Holt (22:51)

Clearly they do. Well, that's it for talking DATELINE this week. Thanks everyone, for listening. If there's a case you want us to cover or you have a question for our team, reach out anytime at social DATELINE NBC. You can also leave us a voicemail. The number is 212-413-5252. Or you can send us a voice memo and a dm. In the meantime, we'll see you Friday for an all new DATELINE on NBC. Thanks, Keith.

Keith Morrison (23:18)

Thank you, Lester. It's nice to see you.

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