Sharon Zachary: Impatient Heiress

Robert Rogers Dies at the Hands of a Friend
(“Prints Among Thieves,” Forensic Files)

Greed can take hold of just about anybody, whether it’s a teenager working a funnel cake concession with an overflowing cash box or a county treasurer eyeing the public coffers and thinking he really deserves to be paid for OT.

Sharon Zachary

Most people can shake off the temptation, even if they do create a few mental blueprints for absconding with the funds.

Prints among Thieves” tells the story of a respectable-seeming woman who followed her greed the whole way. She killed the man who stood between her and a pile of money. And she didn’t go about the homicide passively.

Curiosity stoked. Instead of “accidentally” leaving a tennis ball on the staircase or trying the Forensic Files tribute switcheroo of anti-freeze in a Gatorade bottle, Sharon Kay Zachary got up close and personal.

On April 26, 1996, she beat 80-year-old Robert Rogers to death in a bid to gain full access to his personal fortune.

short update to her story appeared on this blog last year, but Google has logged so many searches for her name lately that a longer treatment seems in order.

Cash king. For this post, I looked around for more intelligence on Zachary and also tried to find out whether Rogers’ estranged son ultimately ended up with his dad’s assets.

So let’s get started on the recap with additional information drawn from internet research:

Robert Rogers

Robert Rogers was a colorful old coot who made a small fortune in real estate and trucking in Battle Creek, Michigan. He enjoyed throwing cash around in public. Local thieves preyed upon him multiple times, but Rogers continued to store large sums of cash in his home and on his person.

He had grown up during the Great Depression and didn’t trust banks.

Rogers lived alone in a house on a huge plot of land in Emmett Township, Michigan. His wife had died a few years before he met Sharon Zachary.

Rogers and his only child, an adopted son named Donald, went for long stretches without communicating. When they were together, they argued a lot.

Like a daughter. But Robert Rogers found an agreeable surrogate child in Zachary, a 31-year-old neighbor he hired as a caregiver. He had trouble with his eyesight, so he put Zachary’s name on his checking account and gave her power of attorney to handle his financial transactions.

He also made her the sole beneficiary of his estate.

Forensic Files didn’t mention it, but newspaper accounts reported that Zachary, her husband, Mike, and teenage son, Josh, lived in a house they were in the process of buying from Rogers at the time of the murder.

After one of the robberies, Rogers moved in with the Zacharys for a while and the four became like family, according to “Love Thy Neighbor,” an episode of Mansions and Murders.

Robert Rogers’ house at 1015 Raymond Road has been described as a mansion

Seamy undercoat. Mike Zachary did some kind of work for a carpet retailer, but he tended to have periods of unemployment, according to Tom Headley, a retired Emmett Township police officer who appeared on Mansions and Murders.

Sharon worked as a used-car salesperson, which probably explains a lot.

She may have had persuasive charm, but she was lacking in the common sense department.

It was foolish enough of her to start helping herself to Robert Rogers’ money, but why did she call attention to the theft by buying a car, a truck, a boat, and furniture and taking her family to the Caribbean?

Diminutive killer. Those extravagances added up to about $65,000, according to Forensic Files, and she also transferred another $55,000 in funds to her bank accounts.

At some point, Rogers discovered the financial shenanigans and decided to revoke her power of attorney.

Before he had a chance, a 911 operator got a call from Sharon Zachary to report what looked like a burglary at Rogers’ house. (Her rather husky voice on the phone doesn’t really match the photos from that time; she looks bookish and petite.)

Trace Christenson covered the case for the Battle Creek Enquirer

Initial suspect. Police arrived on the scene to find a hole in a sliding glass door to Rogers’ house, disarray inside, and Robert Rogers lying dead on the floor, struck at least 25 times in the head with a heavy object. Someone had gone through his pockets.

Sharon Zachary probably figured the alienated son would take the fall for the old man’s death.

At first, investigators did focus on Donald Rogers.

Shared animosity. While his father never lacked for cash, Donald had to work two jobs, a shift at General Motors and a part-time gig selling real estate. Donald had once tried, unsuccessfully, to get his father to give him power of attorney — a suspect move.

And the two men were short-tempered. One of their disputes allegedly got physical. All things considered, Donald must have seemed like the perfect patsy for Sharon Zachary.

But Donald had a solid alibi and passed a polygraph test.

Rogers family photo

“We argued, but it was just the way we got along,” Donald would later testify in court, according to the Battle Creek Enquirer.

Hidden mint. Meanwhile, detectives found a partial shoe print on a glass shard in the house that matched one of Sharon Zachary’s size 6½ sneakers. And next to a pond on Robert Rogers’ property, there was a set of house keys. A diver recovered a metal pipe that had been submerged in the pond but still carried a trace of Rogers’ blood.

After investigators uncovered Zachary’s financial misdoings, they theorized that she had bludgeoned Rogers to death, staged the scene to look like a burglary, and accidentally dropped her set of Rogers’ house keys while throwing the murder weapon into the pond.

Oddly, there was still more than $133,000 of cash stashed inside Rogers’ house. Zachary either missed it or didn’t want the risk of having to hide it somewhere. With Rogers dead, she’d inherit a great deal more from the will anyway. Newspaper accounts pegged the total at $500,000 to $750,000.

Out of the ordinary. Although the trial, which began in 1997, was no O.J. Simpson or Casey Anthony sensation, it did cause a stir in Battle Creek.

“In the 1990s, we had a boatload of homicides, but most of them were drug-related,” recalled Battle Creek Enquirer crime reporter Trace Christenson during a phone interview with ForensicFilesNow. “This one [the Robert Rogers case] was different so it was a bigger deal. And forensics was starting to be a new big thing at the time.”

Sharon Zachary in court

At the trial, defense attorney John Hofman described Zachary as a caring human being. “She is afraid of blood, she is a small person, and she would not do this,” he said, according to the Battle Creek Enquirer.

Jailhouse rat. But Calhoun County prosecutor David Wallace portrayed her as a woman in the throes of greed, “like a kid in a candy store.”

Zachary’s cell mate, an embezzler named Michelle McCormick, told the court that Zachary had confessed that she and Rogers argued about money and she killed him.

It came out that Zachary had once been accused of misappropriating funds from a car dealership, according to court papers.

Feeling flush. Nicholas Batch, a lawyer who had done work for Robert Rogers, testified that he advised Rogers against selling a house to the Zacharys because they weren’t “credit worthy” — more evidence that her plans exceeded her means.

Donald Rogers in his Forensic Files interview

A witness named David Garity testified that Zachary and her husband told him they could contribute $80,000 to a business the three wanted to start, according to the Battle Creek Enquirer.

But Zachary would never get a chance to follow through on the venture.

She received a guilty verdict for first-degree murder and armed robbery.

On September 15, 1997, Circuit Court Judge Stephen Miller gave her life without parole plus 15 to 30 years.

Goodbye to you. Her son, Josh, 18, cried in the courtroom when he heard the sentence, according to a newspaper account. (By the way, Sharon Zachary was 32 years old at that time. So did she — yikes — give birth to Josh at 14?)

Sharon Zachary proclaimed her innocence after the verdict. According to the Battle Creek Enquirer:

“This will not end until the day I go home,” she said. “I think she’s home now,” Donald Rogers said a few minutes later.

In 1998, Judge Miller denied Zachary’s motion for a new trial. In 2000, a Michigan court of appeals reaffirmed her conviction.

Low-to-medium risk. Today, she resides in Huron Valley Complex in Ypsilanti. She’s probably feeling a little cramped lately, as Michigan has consolidated all female prisoners into Huron Valley, making it the state’s only facility for women.

Sharon Zachary in a mugshot

There’s no shortage of adversity at Huron Valley.

In 2016, corrections officer Lauralie Herkimer complained of dangerous conditions in the facility, including ceilings so leaky that they shorted out the lights and employees so drained from working overtime that they had trouble doing their jobs.

That same year, a prison guard was charged with involuntary manslaughter in the death of 25-year-old inmate Janika Edmond.

On the bright side, the Department of Corrections has designated Zachary as Level II — on a scale of I to V — security-wise, suggesting that she has behaved herself well enough while behind razor wire.

Inflammatory situation. Incidentally, the house where she killed Robert Rogers continued to generate interest after the murder.

“There were rumors that there was more cash hidden in the house, and they had some issue with people going through the house,” Christenson said. “I don’t think they ever found anything.”

In March 2015, the property made news again.

It burned down in what newspapers described as a suspicious fire. No one was living in the house at the time.

Photo of the book Forensic Files Now
Book instores
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The owner was listed as Donald Rogers.

So it looks as though Donald succeeded in supplanting Sharon Zachary as his father’s heir and received his rightful inheritance.

That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers. RR 


Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube or Amazon Prime.

5 Forensic Files Killers Who Can’t Hurt You Now

Relax, These Heartless Souls Are Out of Commission

With so much cruelty portrayed on Forensic Files, an update that gives a little peace of mind seems in order for this week.

Stacey Castor, who murdered her husband with anti-freeze, then attempted to frame her own daughter Ashley Wallace
Stacey Castor

1. Stacey Ruth Castor
Prison: Bedford Hills, New York
DOB: 7/14/67
FF episode: Freeze Framed
Crime: Murder, attempted murder
Victims: David Castor, Ashley Wallace
Outlook: Deceased.
Stacey murdered husband David Castor in 2005 by feeding him antifreeze via a soft drink and a turkey baster, then staged his death to look like a suicide. She subsequently attempted to frame her own daughter Ashley Wallace for the crime by forging a confession note, then slipping her a lethal dose of pills to make it look as though she’d committed suicide; fortunately, Ashley got help and survived. Stacey might have killed her previous husband, Michael Wallace, as well, but no charges were filed. She died of a heart attack in a jail cell on June 11, 2016. She would have been eligible for parole at age 87 — but I wouldn’t trust someone like her at any age.

Sharon Zachary

2. Sharon Zachary
Prison:
Huron Valley Complex, Michigan
DOB: 08/05/1965
FF episode: Prints Among Thieves
Crime: Murder, robbery
Victim: Robert Rogers
Outlook: In prison for life, no parole.
The caretaker of the very crotchety and cash-rich Robert Rogers, Sharon Zachary was already in the will, but she couldn’t wait. The 5-foot-1-inch-tall Battle Creek, Michigan, native started helping herself to his money early, then used a pipe to beat the 80-year-old multimillionaire to death in hopes of gaining total access early.

Shannon Agofsky

3. Shannon Agofsky
Prison: Terre Haute USP, Indiana
DOB: circa 1971
FF episode: Stick ’em Up
Crime: Robbery, murder
Victims: Dan Short, Luther Plant
Outlook: On death row.
Shannon, 18, and his brother Joseph, 23, abducted bank president Dan Short, forced him to unlock the vault in the State Bank of Noel in Missouri, and stole $71,000 on October 6, 1989. Instead of wearing masks to hide their identities, the thieves bound the 52-year-old banker to a weighted chair and threw it into Oklahoma’s Grand Lake. While serving prison time for Short’s murder, Shannon killed fellow inmate Luther Plant in an exercise cage in 2001 and faces the death penalty. In the meantime, he’s active on Facebook. (Joseph Agofsky was convicted of the robbery but not the murder; he died in jail in 2013.)

Lynn Turner

4. Lynn Turner
Prison:
Metro State Prison, Atlanta
DOB: 7/13/68
FF episode: Cold Hearted
Crime: Murder
Victims: Glenn Turner, Randy Thompson
Outlook: Deceased.
The rather benign-looking mother of two poisoned her 32-year-old common-law husband by sneaking antifreeze into his food, in a bid to collect the firefighter’s $35,000 life insurance payout. After Randy Thompson’s death, it came to light that her previous husband, police officer Glenn Turner, had met his end in a similar way and she had received $150,000 from his insurer. She was convicted of both murders and given life in jail. The prison routine didn’t suit Lynn Turner, and she took her own life via an overdose of propranolol in her cell on August 30, 2010.

Colvin “Butch” Hinton

5. Colvin “Butch” Hinton
Prison: Hays State Prison, Georgia
DOB: 09/18/1960
FF episode: Ring Him Up High
Crime: Sexual assault, murder
Victims: Shannon Melendi, Tammy Singleton
Outlook: In prison for life, no parole. SEE CORRECTION BELOW.*
Authorities should have never released Hinton after he attempted to rape 14-year-old Tammy Singleton in 1982. But the sexual predator won freedom after just two years. He got a gig as an umpire at a softball game, where he met 19-year-old Emory University sophomore Shannon Melendi on March 26, 1994. He abducted, raped, and strangled her, then burned her body. Afterward, he took his unsuspecting wife out to dinner at an Olive Garden and gave her as a gift a ring stolen from Melendi. It took a decade for authorities to figure out what happened and convict Hinton.
*Correction and update: Thanks to reader Chi for the correction notice. This inmate is actually up for a parole review in 2018. Shannon Melendi’s family has started a petition asking for Hinton’s parole request to be denied.
March 2020 update: No parole for Hinton. He’s still in Hays State Prison (thanks to reader Marcus for writing in with the good news).

That’s all for this post. Until next week, cheers. RR

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Murderers in Size-XX Genes

Homicides by Gender
(Forensic Files)

We Americans sure do like women who kill. That is, we like to watch them and read about them.

To market dime novels, publishers used flattering drawings, like this one, of Belle Gunness
To market tawdry books based on real crimes, publishers used romanticized drawings, like this one of Belle Gunness in the early 1900s. See below for a photo

It’s not just a recent phenomenon. A century before Casey Anthony and Jodi Arias delivered ratings for HLN, the story of Belle Gunness, a Norwegian-American who killed her suitors, husbands, and even her own offspring, sold fanciful paperbacks for enterprising publishers.

Genuine evil. Forensic Files has brought us many a memorable modern-day murderess, including Stacey Castor, who poisoned her husband and then tried to blame the crime on her daughter. And Sharon Zachary, who beat to death the old man she was paid to take care of; she was in his will and couldn’t wait. Sixteen-year-old Idaho resident Sarah Johnson, who shot her parents to silence their objections over her relationship with an older boy, was another memorable one.

And Dante Sutorius, the newlywed who seemed charming until she got greedy and executed her husband for life insurance money, made a colorful subject for “A Second Shot at Love.”

Not that the media coverage these types of crimes receive has ever fooled viewers into thinking that women are going berserk out there, mowing down anyone standing in the way of their ambitions. Most homicides are committed by men. But I got curious about exactly how the numbers break down by gender.

Below, the results of a little research.

Relative trouble. Only 20 percent of people who killed family members were female, according to the most recent (2005) numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Narrowing it down to spouse murderers, women committed just 17 percent of those crimes. Of those Americans who killed a boyfriend or girlfriend, women were slightly more heavily represented, at 25 percent. Most spouse murderers — of either gender — were over 35 years of age. (Maybe it takes a while to build up homicidal fury.)

Men committed 90 percent of murders overall — that is, any homicides, regardless of whether the victim was a stranger, acquaintance, friend, love interest, or spouse.

Getting quantitative. Recent statistics on male vs. female convictions for spouse homicide were hard to come by, but a 1995 BJS study of cases in the 75 most heavily populated U.S. counties reported that women were five times more likely to beat murder raps. Juries acquitted 31 percent of wives, but only 6 percent of husbands.

Belle Gunness, seen here with her children, murdered dozens of people in the early 1900s.
Brawny Indiana farmer Belle Gunness, seen here with her children, got away with dozens of murders from 1884 until  authorities caught on in 1908

Please leave a comment if you find any other interesting homicide stats or have a theory about why women commit way fewer murders (and are more likely to escape conviction when they do) than men. RR


 

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