ANAHUAC, Texas – The Chambers County woman who’s been married five times and is accused of killing her most recent husband, Joseph Hartsfield, will remain in jail on a $4.5 million bond after pleading not guilty to his murder on Wednesday.
Sarah Hartsfield, 48, appeared in Chambers County District Court in a jumpsuit from the jail via Zoom. She appeared to cry a couple of times while talking about the death of her husband and her past fiancée during the nearly two-hour hearing.
Hours after the hearing, the Chambers County Sheriff placed Hartsfield on suicide watch after she was found to have self-inflicted wounds to her wrists.
Sheriff Brian Hawthorne said the wounds were not severe enough for medical professionals to do anything beyond bandaging them and providing medication to prevent infection. The suicide watch will last until further notice and evaluation, he said.
The judge, prosecutors, and defense attorney all appeared in person but Sarah chose to participate in the hearing from the jail, down the street from the courthouse.
Her defense attorney Keaton Kirkwood asked the court to reconsider her $5 million bond.
Sarah told the court she could maybe scrape together enough money to pay a $1,000 bond.
But Judge Chap B. Cain of the 253rd District Court only reduced her bond by $500,000 to $4.5 million, which her defense attorney said she still won’t be able to pay.
“It’s unfortunate that the judge didn’t lower the bond to be more reasonable,” Kirkwood said. “The discovery is lacking in this case. There’s no medical examiner report, there’s no police report, and so we’re just working with what we have right now.”
According to search warrant affidavits obtained by KPRC 2 News, Sarah waited an hour to call 911 after finding her husband, Joseph Hartsfield, unresponsive on Jan. 7. Both of their phones received several alerts about his blood sugar dropping dangerously low in the middle of the night. Sarah told investigators she put out a cup of juice for him and later went to get jam to put in his mouth to raise his blood sugar.
But when she came back to the bedroom, he had vomited on himself and she tried to open his eyelids but they were “staring through her,” according to the affidavit.
When interviewed by investigators, Sarah allegedly started crying and said she felt guilty because she “normally takes better care of him.”
But during the court hearing on Wednesday, Sarah called diabetes an “individual responsibility” and said she’d sometimes try to remind Joseph, but that he’d get angry if she tried to tell him anything.
Despite treatments at the hospital, nothing seemed to work to keep Joseph alive.
“It just seemed very odd, like the things we were doing were not helping and it should have helped,” a nurse told investigators in the affidavit. “Something wasn’t right. We kept giving this man so much sugar and it kept dropping.”
According to the documents, Joseph told several of his family members he was scared Sarah would try to kill him. In the days before he was rushed to the hospital, he traveled to his hometown where he opened a new checking account. He also made arrangements to stay with another family member because he said he planned to file for divorce from Sarah.
That family member also told investigators Joseph would come to work extra early to avoid Sarah and because of their arguments. Family described their relationship as “toxic.”
During Wednesday’s hearing, Chambers County District Attorney Cheryl Lieck Henry brought up that Sarah didn’t allow Joseph’s family to see him in the hospital.
Joseph’s cause of death still hasn’t been released by the Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office. Sources have told KPRC 2 that investigators believe he overdosed on insulin.
According to the affidavit, detectives found eight to 10 insulin pens next to his side of the bed.
Sarah also told investigators she was on narcotics at the time because of a surgery she had in late December.
Prosecutors grilled Sarah about her past during Wednesday’s hearing, including the 2018 fatal shooting of her Minnesota fiancée, David Bragg. It was initially ruled self-defense, but days after she was indicted by a Texas grand jury, Minnesota prosecutors reopened the investigation.
Sarah said in that incident, she went into their Garfield, Minnesota home with two guns to get clothes for her kids to stay with their father after he surprised them. She said Bragg was upset their father was visiting outside of scheduled visitation and an altercation ensued, telling the court she took a “beating of her life” for letting her kids see their father. She said it was all happening so fast and as she ran up the stairs to get away from him, and said her only chance at surviving was to fire at him.
She claimed she wasn’t afraid when she went into the house, but also told the court that she left her phone in the car with her children before going inside and told them to call the police if she didn’t make it out of the house quickly.
As of Wednesday morning, the case was still open, the Douglas County, Minnesota Attorney’s Office told KPRC 2.
Sarah and her next husband David George then purchased the home to live in where she fatally shot Bragg.
“Isn’t that a little morbid?,” Lieck Henry asked Sarah during the court hearing.
Sarah explained it was the only place they could afford and she had been putting money into renovations.
Prosecutors also brought up a 2021 murder plot, in which court documents state the FBI investigated Sarah for allegedly forcing her ex-husband David George to travel to Arizona to kill the new wife of another ex-husband, Christopher Donohue.
According to documents obtained by KPRC 2 News, Sarah Hartsfield allegedly told George he wasn’t allowed back in their home until he carried out the plot.
Prosecutors stressed that Sarah is a flight risk and doesn’t have any ties to Chambers County, adding that the state believes Sarah is a danger to the community.
Kirkwood expressed concern the prosecution is trying the case in the media and that a jury may already be tainted, citing social media posts from the Chamber’s County Sheriff’s Office and District Attorney’s Office doing interviews about the case.
Sarah’s next court date hasn’t been set.
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