CHAMBERS COUNTY, Texas – After a grand jury indicted Sarah Hartsfield for the murder of her husband Joseph Hartsfield, she got locked up in the Chambers County Jail with a $5 million bond.
Her bond has been lowered three times since, including Friday, when Chambers County Judge Chap Cain reduced it again to $2 million.
The decision came after her defense attorney, James Reeves, presented case law to the court that he said demonstrated examples of “abusive” bonds.
“While we’re moving in the right direction, I still think that’s a very high bail in this case,” Reeves told only KPRC 2 after the hearing. “When someone makes an accusation against you, no one waits to see the evidence. They just assume that the accusation is 100% accurate and they just go and convict you in the court of public opinion.”
As she entered the courthouse, she didn’t have much to say as only KPRC 2′s cameras were rolling. When asked, she said she didn’t know what she hoped for during the hearing.
NOW: Sarah Hartsfield has arrived at the Chambers County courthouse for a hearing in her murder case. She didn’t have much to say as she walked in.
Posted by KPRC2 Bryce Newberry on Friday, October 6, 2023
Helen Hartsfield, the mother of Sarah Hartsfield’s deceased husband, told only KPRC 2 she was “heartbroken” with the decision to lower bond and that it felt like the “justice system has failed.”
Hartsfield, who has been married five times, is accused in the death of her most recent husband, who died in January due to “complications of toxic effects of insulin,” according to the Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office. His manner of death remains undetermined.
“This isn’t your straightforward homicide case. There’s no firearm. There’s no knife or club or strangulation,” Reeves said.
Prosecutors in Minnesota continue reviewing a 2018 case in which Hartsfield killed her fiancé David Bragg in a shooting ruled self-defense at the time. KPRC 2 has reached out for an update.
During Friday’s hearing in Chambers County, Hartsfield testified that two of her four cars have been repossessed during her time incarcerated. She told the court her only assets remaining are the two cars and the Beach City home the couple shared.
She also told the court she has no friends or family who would be willing to post bail for her.
“Most bondsmen I’m familiar with will want some type of assets that you pledge to the bondsman should bail be forfeited for some reason. And in this case, that would be somewhere around $2 million,” Reeves said. “I think the end result, even with the reduction of $2 million, is going to be that she’s going to remain in jail.”
Assistant District Attorney Eric Carcerano said the state still considers Hartsfield a danger and that she shouldn’t be on the streets. He said she continues changing her story while on the stand and that she’s “playing games.”
Carcerano noted a September phone call Hartsfield made from her jail cell to a former cellmate’s mother, in which she told that person her new attorneys were too focused on getting her under contract and not on actually doing the work on her case. But Hartsfield said Friday she didn’t take issue with her attorneys.
Reeves and Ken Bigham became Hartsfield’s defense attorneys in June, two months after Hartsfield tried 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,” Hartsfield wrote in a letter to the judge at the time. “My greatest issue is that Mr. Kirkwood is willing to drag this out for years, knowing I’ll have lost everything, will have nowhere to go when all is said and done, THEN will file a lawsuit.”
Carcerano said Hartsfield also called a bail bondsman in July. He said she told him that she’d never been in trouble her whole life and that her case had been turned into a “circus.”
In July, she allegedly told that bail bondsman that she could raise $200,000 to post bond, but Hartsfield testified Friday that her ability to do that has since changed due to a presumed drop in her credit score.
Hartsfield has maintained her innocence from jail in several messages to KPRC 2.
“It’s about time I quit being vilified, by his 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 wrongdoing,” she wrote in an April message.
Reeves said Hartsfield is “not happy” that she has to stay in jail awaiting trial, but that she’s keeping a positive mental attitude.
The next court date is scheduled for February. The case could go to trial as soon as May 2024.
Watch KPRC 2′s investigative documentary The Two Sides of Sarah, which digs deeper into Sarah Hartsfield’s past, revealing new details about her background and the string of exes she’s left behind.
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