Skyler Rocz had been a detective for all of six weeks when she obtained a “once-in-a-lifetime case,” she mentioned.
A deputy’s telephone name that January day three years in the past prompted Rocz to analyze 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 rapidly turned way more sprawling and complicated as Rocz found an online 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 capturing 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 Hassle with Sarah” on “Dateline” at 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT tonight.
In her first media interview in regards to the case, Rocz informed “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 useless horse,” Rocz, 30, mentioned she was informed. “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 mentioned, that final result might have been completely different.
“It will have been one other injustice,” she mentioned.
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 mentioned.
“My first callout ever was on this case,” Rocz mentioned.
Now an investigator with the Chambers County District Legal professional’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 therapy.
Hospital workers weren’t positive why, she mentioned, although they thought there could have been an excessive amount of insulin in his system. The lifesaving treatment helps individuals 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 reason behind 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 mentioned she’s “devastated” by the loss. At trial, her attorneys mentioned that Joseph Hartsfield seemingly brought on his personal dying as a result of he didn’t correctly handle his diabetes.
‘Weird’ conduct on the hospital
Rocz mentioned her suspicion that the person didn’t die by accident sharpened after her Jan. 7 go to to the hospital.
There, she realized 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 pretend. One minute, she acted casually, Rocz mentioned, the subsequent she would “crumple her face and act as if she was unhappy for like 15 seconds.”
“Everyone has completely different responses to trauma,” Rocz mentioned. “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 mentioned she realized that he’d deliberate on leaving his spouse and had not too long ago 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 realized that Sarah Hartsfield had informed the kin about how she fatally shot a former fiancé, Rocz recalled, and the detective discovered a couple of safety order that barred Sarah Hartsfield from contacting her two youngest kids.
Sarah Hartsfield has mentioned 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 expenses have been forthcoming in Bragg’s dying, although the case stays energetic.
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 informed him Sarah Hartsfield wished his spouse useless so he’d be too distracted to see their kids.
An FBI agent who investigated the allegations mentioned he corroborated the account, however federal prosecutors rejected the case after the fourth husband mentioned that Sarah Hartsfield had performed no position. 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. But it surely wasn’t till she began sifting by way of Joseph Hartsfield’s cellphone that the detective’s supervisors got here to suppose one thing is perhaps “bizarre” with the case, she mentioned.
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 photograph, particulars for the checking account he’d not too long ago opened and a key for his Apple Legacy Contact, which allowed her to entry his telephone knowledge after his dying.
Rocz mentioned she used the small print gathered from that machine 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 remaining hours.
Earlier than Joseph Hartsfield was hospitalized, Sarah Hartsfield mentioned that she’d been asleep and on a narcotic ache treatment for a latest surgical procedure. However the knowledge from her telephone confirmed that she was on the machine nearly each hour, Rocz testified.
The detective discovered that Sarah Hartsfield’s latest web search historical past had been deleted, Rocz informed “Dateline,” and she or he discovered textual content messages displaying that Sarah Hartsfield argued consistently along with her husband. She wished him out of the home, Rocz mentioned, and she or he wished out of the wedding.
On Feb. 3, 2023 — practically a month after Rocz was referred to as out to the hospital — Sarah Hartsfield was indicted in her husband’s homicide. After a trial that centered 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 mentioned about listening to the responsible verdict. “I used to be simply thanking God that that is over.”
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