CHAMBERS COUNTY, Texas – Two key witnesses testified before a Chambers County grand jury Thursday about the Sarah Hartsfield murder case as new documents emerged in the latest twist of the case getting national attention.
Hartsfield, 48, was indicted for murder Feb. 3 after her fifth husband died in a Baytown hospital in January due to “complications of toxic effects of insulin,” according to the Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office.
The grand jury, a group of 12 impaneled since January and through June, is the same one that indicted Sarah Hartsfield in February for murder. Proceedings of the grand jury are secret, and KPRC 2 was not allowed on the top floor of the courthouse where the case was discussed.
But only KPRC 2′s cameras were rolling outside the courthouse as two key witnesses showed up and were escorted in and out of the courthouse by a DA’s office investigator: Sarah Hartsfield’s oldest daughter, Ashley, and Houston Methodist Baytown Hospital emergency room doctor Eyitemi Oghogho, who is also named in search warrant documents in the case.
“We’re still investigating,” Chambers County District Attorney Cheryl Lieck Henry said, declining to speak about any grand jury proceedings.
When the grand jury indicted Sarah Hartsfield in February, the manner and means of the murder was unknown to the grand jurors, according to court documents.
On Thursday, new court documents filed included a handwritten letter from Sarah Hartsfield to Judge Chap B. Cain, explaining why she wants to fire her court appointed attorney Keaton Kirkwood.
“When I initially met Mr. Kirkwood, he said my case was defensible, reasonable doubt was there without question. He told me that when we ‘prevail’ we will sue all of them,” she wrote. “All of that sounded great at the beginning until the bond hearing. I didn’t know I could have character witnesses, or I would have. After the bond hearing he told me to expect to be in jail 2 ½-3 years until tried.”
She wrote that Kirkwood explained ‘all of them’ as the District Attorney’s Office, Lieck Henry, the Chambers County Sheriff’s Office, Sheriff Brian Hawthorne, and the county.
RELATED: ‘Crazy to proceed’: Chambers County husband murder suspect Sarah Hartsfield shares story from jail
Sarah Hartsfield wrote that Kirkwood told her to expect to lose her home, all contents, vehicles, and so on.
“The investigator told me the same thing when I told her I was afraid of losing everything I worked my entire life for,” she wrote. “He also said that the sheriff and DA are taking advantage of me and this case because next year is an election year and this matter will be their sounding board.”
In the letter, Sarah Hartsfield wrote that she has asked and volunteered to do a polygraph test, that she has asked for a speedy trial and a change of venue.
“My greatest issue is that Mr. Kirkwood is willing to drag this out for years, knowing I’ll have lost everything, will have no where to go when all is said and done, THEN will file a lawsuit,” she wrote.
She wrote that she has met with and is looking to retain an attorney, Ken Bigham, of Schulenburg, Texas.
On Thursday, Kirkwood filed a motion to withdraw as her counsel, writing that there is a conflict of interest that cannot be resolved.
“She is not willing or wanting to follow the advice of her legal counsel and has taken actions that have precipitated said conflict,” Kirkwood wrote.
He also filed a second motion to have her bond reduced.
Sarah Hartsfield also submitted a handwritten request to have her bond reduced once again. Judge Chap B. Cain lowered it from $5 million by $500,000 on March 1, when she pleaded not guilty. A hearing on the issues is scheduled for Monday.
“The investigation has taken us to other states, let’s just put it that way,” Lieck Henry said. “I’m hoping within the next year and a half to get Ms. Hartsfield tried.”
Her new bond is set at $4.5 million, which she has called “unconstitutional” in messages from her jail cell only to KPRC 2.
She wrote that the real story is “when a citizen with NO criminal history can be thrown in jail while they “think” I did something but aren’t sure and if DID do something they don’t know how.”
Minnesota authorities are getting close to the end of a re-opened investigation of Sarah Hartsfield, who in 2018 fatally shot her fiancée at the time, David Bragg, but she was never charged because prosecutors ruled it self-defense in January 2019.
“It’s about time I quit being vilified, by (Joseph Hartsfield’s) family, and by the public. I never deserved how I was treated... and Joe, our relationship, our marriage - our story ended way too soon and not by any wrong doing,” Sarah Hartsfield wrote in the messages. “If I’m guilty of anything, it’s picking horrible husbands.”