Photo Courtesy of Chambers County Sheriffs Office
A woman who fatally shot a man from Douglas County nearly five years ago has now been charged with killing her husband in Texas.
According to the criminal complaint, Sarah Jean Hartsfield of Chambers County, Texas, is being held on a $5 million bond after the death of her latest husband, 46-year-old Joseph Hartsfield.
He was reportedly her fifth husband, but not the first man to die while in a relationship with the woman in question.
In the shooting back in 2018 in Garfield, Minnesota Hartsfield was not charged in the death of her then boyfriend, David Bragg. An investigation determined that she was acting in self-defense. Hartsfield was not charged in the shooting.
However, Douglas County Attorney Chad Larson now says “our investigation is considered ‘active’ once again” in the shooting death of Bragg.
Minnesota Prosecutors are reopening and looking at the 2018 case of which Sarah Hartsfield shot and killed her fiancé during a reported domestic disturbance.
In 2019, The Douglas County Attorney’s Office decided not press charges against Sarah Donohue — now Sarah Hartsfield – after she shot and killed her then-fiancé David Bragg inside a home in Garfield, Minnesota.
Prosecutors ultimately ruled the incident a self-defense shooting.
The report stated: Deputies responded to a home in Garfield on May 9, 2018 for the report of a domestic disturbance during which shots were fired.
At the scene, they found Bragg dead inside the home.
According to the letter from the Douglas County Attorney in 2019, Donohue had claimed that Bragg assaulted her and open fired at her.
She responds by shooting at him, killing him.
At the time, prosecutors said that evidence seemed to support Donohue’s version of the events.
“The facts reveal that Mr. Bragg discharged his firearm at Ms. Donohue from a close proximity while the two were engaged in an altercation that had become physical,” wrote Douglas County Attorney Chad Larson.
“Under the circumstances, 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.
Therefore, I am declining to file criminal charges against Ms. Donohue in relation to Mr. Bragg’s death.”
The Chambers County Sheriff’s Office in Texas stated Donohue, also known as Sarah Hartsfield, was indicted on murder charges in the death of Joseph Hartsfield in Chambers County, Texas.
That determination however, is under reexamination after Donohue is accused of killing another romantic partner, her current husband.
“I would say very unusual,” Chambers County Sheriff Brian Hawthorne shared.
“I’ve been a law enforcement officer all my life, and so for the last ten years, I’ve been the sheriff of the county. It’s definitely the first one like this.”
The investigation started in January when authorities were called to a local hospital for a “suspicious illness” of an emergency room patient.
Investigations revealed “inconsistencies, and other determining factors, made the illness appear even more suspicious in nature.”
Her late husband, Joseph Hartsfield, was transported to the emergency room at Baytown Houston Methodist Hospital on the evening of Jan. 7.
Ultimately, the patient, identified as Joseph Hartsfield, died from circumstances that deputies say involved “foul play”.
“I appreciate the hard work of the deputies and detectives who followed their instincts and identified the suspicious circumstances surrounding Mr. Hartsfield’s death that could have been labeled as ‘death due to illness’ instead of murder,” stated Sheriff Hawthorne in his release.
Joseph Hartsfield’s manner of death although ruled a homicide, his cause of death has not yet been released.
After the death, Texas prosecutors say they were looking further into Donohue’s past, which includes multiple names.
“We’re putting a puzzle together, and we need all the pieces,”
Chambers County District Attorney Cheryl Swope Henry said, adding she’s never seen anything like this in her 30-year career.
Sheriff Hawthorne agreed.
“I think there’s I think there’s probably a lot more going on with Sarah Hartfield than just this single incident or the two incidents,” Sheriff Hawthorne stated.
“I feel like there’s other things that we’re revealing from other back past relationships. It may reveal other things about her.”
With that, Minnesota prosecutors are also taking a second look at 2018 shooting case.
In a media release, Douglas County Attorney Chad Larson wrote:
“Our investigation is considered ‘active’ again because we are following up on new information that the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office received on Tuesday regarding the 2018 shooting. For that reason, we are unable to process data requests from the media and I am unable to comment further at this time pursuant to Minnesota law.”
Mark Anthony of KXRA contributed to this news story.