After Sarah Hartsfield was indicted on a charge of first-degree murder in the death of her husband in Texas this year, authorities in Minnesota said it would re-examine another death — her 2018 fatal shooting of a former fiancé.
After the indictment, the district attorney’s office in Chambers County, Texas, said investigators were seeking information about her previous names — Hartsfield had been married four times before — and the sheriff whose office investigated the case made an ominous claim about the earlier relationships.
“Everybody wants out of it because they fear for their life,” he told NBC affiliate KPRC of Houston last month.
Hartsfield has pleaded not guilty to the murder charge and is being held in lieu of $4.5 million bond. Her lawyer didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment; he has said Hartsfield maintains her innocence “and will assist in the investigation of her husband’s untimely death.”
Here’s what we know about Hartsfield’s former partners.
Titus Knoernschild
Titus Knoernschild met Hartsfield when he was a junior at a small-town high school in Missouri in 1991. They married two years later, and their divorce was finalized in January 1996, he said.
While they were separating, Knoernschild said, she appeared to threaten him.
“I’m very surprised I got out of the marriage alive,” he said.
Knoernschild’s wife, Angela, said Hartsfield remained an unwanted presence in their lives in the decades after her husband’s divorce.
“She was like a bad penny — every time you’d turn around, she’d be there,” she said. “She doesn’t do it to confront you. She does it to remind you she’s there.”
Michael Traxler
Hartsfield next married Michael Traxler. In a brief interview, Traxler said their relationship was “super short” and in the “rearview mirror.”
“I haven’t spoken to her in 15 years,” he said.
Ryan Donohue
Hartsfield’s son, Ryan Donohue, said his father met Hartsfield in Alaska and married her in 1999. They had…
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