Crime + investigation
Joe Hartsfield’s death in January 2023 led investigators to look back at how his wife's fiancé died five years earlier.
Chambers County Sheriff's OfficeWhen Joe Hartsfield died following an insulin overdose, his wife Sarah displayed her grief on social media. A new detective assigned to investigate learned that the widow, an Army veteran, shot dead another love interest five years earlier, and her other partners had been placed in dangerous situations.
Now, with Sarah sentenced to life behind bars, investigators have decided to reexamine her past.
Monster in My Family
A riveting series that delves into the world of infamous serial killers as the family members of the killers reach out to the families of the victims.
Sarah Smith’s first marriage was in Missouri at age 18 in 1993 to high school sweetheart Titus Knoernschild and lasted two years. According to Knoerschild, Sarah cheated on him with his best friend, who became her second husband..
Knoernschild described his and Sarah’s marriage as “rocky” to ABC 13 and said “as it got ugly, she told me that, not to be surprised if I don't make it through this."
Knoernschild's current wife, Angela, testified that after the divorce, Sarah allegedly splashed gasoline on a trailer where the Knoernschilds were babysitting one night, as she’d seen Sarah leaving the area. Sarah was never charged, and Angela told jurors, “I was scared.”
Sarah then married Michael Traxler, who described their union to NBC News as “super short.”
At age 22, Sarah enlisted in the Army, where she met Chris Donohue. They were married in 1999 and raised four children while stationed at Fort Hood in Texas. When the couple was deployed to Iraq in 2007, foster parents cared for the children. They confided in the foster mom, Barbara Stuart, how their mother was a rigid disciplinarian with a short temper. Stuart told NBC’s Dateline, “She would get mad at me because she was very adamant that they line up like little soldiers and say, ‘Yes, ma'am,’ ‘No, ma'am,’ ‘Yes, sir,’ ‘No, sir.’”
Son Ryan Donohue recalled to Dateline the time he broke a wall hook at age 10. “She had the belt in her hand. She`s just swinging, doing her thing,” he said. “And after a while, she throws the belt to the side, and she just starts punching me in the face. And it was so bad that I had bruises from my whole face down, and from my shoulders to my ankles. And I missed school for a whole week.”
When Sarah’s grandmother died in 2014, she expected a big inheritance. Instead, her grandma bequeathed her home to Sarah’s brother, Cody Smith, who had cared for her. Sarah proceeded to appropriate as many possessions from the house as she could. Soon after, the house was engulfed in flames. Smith and his 8-year-old nephew Xander were inside. They made it out, suffering from smoke inhalation.
She denied any involvement and was not charged. Her late fiancé's mother, Doris Jean Swart, later testified that Sarah confessed to burning her brother’s house down so that Cody wouldn't have it.
Sarah reconnected with a childhood friend named Brian Altis at her grandma’s funeral. She told him that she and Chris were getting divorced, Altis recalled to Dateline. The two had an affair for two years. Sarah and Chris didn’t divorce until 2017 when he found out about her affair with David Bragg, who she met while she and Bragg worked on a construction project in Fort Hood.
Roth was convicted in 1992 after two wives died.
Roth was convicted in 1992 after two wives died.
After a brief courtship, Sarah and Bragg got engaged. Although his family thought Sarah was charming, they cautioned that he was moving too quickly. Sarah convinced the family that she was wronged in her marriage to Chris, who they believed was her first husband.
Sarah moved to Garfield, Minn., to start a new life with Bragg. They bought a fixer-upper with the intention of investing their own sweat equity. Sarah became bothered by his renovation pace.
On May 9, 2018, Sarah claimed the couple engaged in a shoot-out in their home after Bragg got mad at her for letting her third ex-husband visit her daughter outside of visitation hours. Bragg allegedly fired first and she shot him in self-defense, resulting in Bragg’s death. After questioning her, authorities declined to press charges. The Douglas County District Attorney’s Office concluded that “Ms. Donohue was justified in shooting Mr. Bragg as a matter of self-defense as she was facing lethal force and had no reasonable possibility of retreating from the threat.”
Within months of Bragg’s death, Sarah began dating David George. They exchanged wedding vows in the summer of 2019.
However, her third husband, Donohue, still loomed in her life. According to an affidavit in support of a request for a restraining order filed by Donohue, Sarah allegedly wanted George to kill Donohue’s wife and devised a plan to carry it out. The affidavit claims Sarah put the hit out in hopes that Donohue would be too busy mourning to focus on getting custody of their kids. Sarah told George she wouldn’t let him come home until he completed the deed, per the affidavit. George told Dateline he hoped “Sarah Jean would come to her senses and know that was not going to happen.”
Sarah filed for divorce in April 2021 and denies the alleged murder plot .
The same year as her divorce with George, Sarah met Joseph Hartsfield online. They were married February 2, 2022, and she joined him in Texas. By the end of the year, Sarah was complaining about the relationship and told a friend she had a plan to get out.
On January 7, 2023, Hartsfield, who had diabetes, was hospitalized for having dangerously low blood sugar levels. There was too much insulin in his system. He fell into a diabetic coma. Eight days after he was admitted, Sarah made the call to disconnect his ventilator.
She mourned his loss with saccharine notes on Facebook, posting on January 30, “My husband, my friend, everything.... I miss you every minute of every day Sweetheart. I find myself wondering if you can die from a broken heart.”
Detective Skyler Rocz, who’d been on the job for six weeks when Sarah's case crossed her desk, learned of Sarah’s relationship history and secured a warrant for her arrest. On February 3, 2023, Sarah was indicted on a first-degree murder charge, to which she pleaded not guilty. She was convicted and sentenced on October 9, 2023 to life in prison. Following her conviction, authorities began revisiting her claims from previous incidents, including the death of Bragg.
Capt. Alfonz Markovics, Sarah’s Army supervisor, said, “Rare is it when a military intelligence person goes off the rails, but when they do, it’s a train wreck.”
Utah doctor Martin MacNeill’s true nature was exposed after he fatally drugged his wife in 2007, revealing a trail of fraud and abuse.
The security guard spent 88 days as a suspect after the 1996 act.
Jason Schaefer died from gunshot wounds to the head and back.
The series asks if neurodegenerative disease erases murder.
Lifetime's 'The Dating App Killer' is based on her experience.
Eric Mercado was a longtime editor at Los Angeles. He has contributed to The Hollywood Reporter, Capitol & Main, LA Weekly and numerous books. Mercado has written about crime, politics and history. He even travelled to Mexico to report on the Tijuana drug cartel and was a target of a hit on his life by a gang in L.A.
We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! A&E reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.
