Murder trial in husband’s insulin death zeroes in on arson, murder plot allegations from wife’s past

The alleged arson of a family home.

The alleged arson of a family home. Allegations of a murder plot involving an ex-husband’s new wife. The fatal shooting of a fiancé in self-defense.

None of those events is central to the question of whether Sarah Hartsfield killed her most recent husband with a fatal dose of insulin in 2023. But at her murder trial in Texas’ Chambers County, east of Houston, prosecutors have focused almost as much on allegations from Sarah Hartsfield’s past as they have on the death of Joseph Hartsfield, 46.

In the week since the proceedings began, a series of witnesses have been called to the stand to recount a relationship history marked by death and conflict.

“You can just look at her overall history and you can tell that there’s a very evil side to her,” Chambers County Sheriff Brian Hawthorne told reporters outside the courthouse last week.

Sarah Hartsfield, a former Army sergeant, has denied that she killed Joseph Hartsfield, her fifth husband, or that she asked her fourth husband to kill her third husband’s new partner. She has described the 2018 shooting of her fiancé as self-defense, and she denied that she played a role in a fire that destroyed the Missouri home that used to belong to her grandmother.