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Sheila LaBarre - God's Avenging Angel · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

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Discretion is advised. This is ten minuted murder. Kenneth County met Sheila Labar
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in two thousand and six through a personal lad posted in the newspaper. Now,
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if you're younger than a certain age, that one sentence can be pretty
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confusing. Before tender and bumble and hinge, people met people through newspaper personal
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ads. Apparently their first date was on Valentine's Day, which is pretty bold,
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and only a few days later, Sheila asked Kenneth to move in with
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her, which he accepted. At twenty four years old. Kenneth was more
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than twenty years younger than Sheila. He was known to have a low eye
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que that made him behave in a way that his family described as childlike.
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He didn't question why Sheila had asked him to move in so quickly with her.
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Instead, he was excited to start a new life with the older woman
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he was smitten with. Kenneth had always been a trusting guy, someone who
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saw the best in everyone, and that included Sheila. Sheila did not share
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Kenneth's optimism. She spent her childhood being abused both physically and sexually by her
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father and his friends, and as an adult she struggled to have normal relationships
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with others. She had been married and divorced several times, and when her
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most recent wealthy partner suddenly died suspiciously, Sheila had inherited his farm in New
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Hampshire, the same farm where she'd invited Kenneth to live with her. The
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last time Kenneth was ever seen alive, he was in a wheelchair being pushed
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through a nearby walmart by Sheila. The store's employees, who had met the
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couple before, noticed that Kenneth was very pale and appeared to be ill,
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and that he had a large amount of bruises and cuts on his arms,
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hands, and face. Shortly afterward, Sheila phoned the local police station and
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played them a strange audio recording in which Kenneth appeared to admit that he was
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a pedophile. The police weren't convinced that this call was credible, but because
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they were familiar with Sheila and her erratic behavior, it did make them concerned
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for Kenneth's safety. Later that week, police arrived at Sheila's home to do
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a welfare check on Kenneth, but it was too late. Sheila Labar took
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advantage of my son. Kenneth's mother said he was a kind, caring,
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gentle young man who could not socially defend himself. She was a master of
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evil who deliberately tortured him. Sheila Labar stripped my son of all of his
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dignity and self worth, and in the end she murdered him. When the
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officers arrived at the farm, they saw Sheila standing over a burn pile of
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garbage. The officers believed that they saw a large bone and maybe a pair
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of shoes in the pile, making them even more concerned for Kenneth, But
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when Sheila asked them to leave the property, they apparently had no choice.
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Without her consent, they couldn't investigate any further without a search warrant, even
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though they had a reason to believe that she was currently in the process of
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disposing of human remains. They came back later with a warrant, but by
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then Sheila had been able to destroy most of that evidence, and the large
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bone and sneakers were nowhere to be found. Investigators were faced with the task
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of searching Sheila's farm for evidence, all one hundred fifteen acres of it.
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They found hundreds of rabbits, running wild inside the house, which is weird
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but not a crime, I guess. But they also located Kenneth's bone fragments,
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blood spatter in multiple rooms, a charred mattress covered in bloodstains, burnt
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hedge clippers and pruning shears, and a knife that had been partially melted in
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the fire. But when they drained the septic tank, they found a birth
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certificate belonging to a missing man, Sheila's previous boyfriend, Michael Deloche, who
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had been last seen in two thousand and five. She had attempted to get
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rid of this evidence by flushing it down the toilet. Like Kenneth, Michael
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had lived at the farm with Sheila. The last person to see him before
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his disappearance was a farmhand who had seen Michael being beaten by Sheila. Shortly
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afterwards, that same farmhand saw Sheila setting fire to a mattress outside of the
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farmhouse, and he never saw Michael again. Forensic analysis of dried blood in
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Sheila's bedroom was tested against a sample of Michael's mother's blood, and it was
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a match. Sheila filed for an insanity defense in resp bons to the murder
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charge against her, but she also decided to waive indictment and plead not guilty
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to another crime, the two thousand five murder of Michael Deloge. Possibly this
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was more of a risk than Sheila realized at the time. If she was
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found to be sane, she faced life behind bars. Because Sheila had now
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pled not guilty by reason of insanity to both crimes, she had officially implicated
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herself and Michael's death as well as Kenneth's, there would be no chance for
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her to argue that she had not been the one to kill Michael. She
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could do was argued that it had been because of her mental illness. That
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meant that at trial, the prosecution didn't need to prove that she had killed
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both men, They only needed to convince the jury that she had not been
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insane. Sheila's defense attorneys argued that she had been severely mentally ill and that
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her mental illness had led her to kill both men. Several recordings that Sheila
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had made were played for the jury, including recordings of her attempting to interrogate
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Michael and Kenneth about their supposed pedophilia. A forensic psychologist testifying for the defense
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stated that the recording showed that Sheila suffered from delusions or a schizophrenic disorder,
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which had caused her strong belief that Michael and Kenneth were pedophiles. The psychologists
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also shared that Sheila believed she had been resurrected by God after she almost died.
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After overdosing on prescription medication and taking her car out for a drive,
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Sheila passed out and crashed, spending more than a week comatose in the hospital.
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During that coma, Sheila had a vision. She believed that she had
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died, and when she woke up, she was sitting at the table surrounded
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by bearded men, one of whom she believed was God. God told Sheila
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that he was going to send her back to Earth as an avenging angel because
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she hadn't completed her life's purpose. He ordered her to get revenge on the
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kind of men that had abused her throughout her childhood by hunting down, torturing,
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and killing pedophiles. Throughout the investigation, police found no evidence that either
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Michael or Kenneth were attracted to children or engaged in any pedophilic activities at all.
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Sheila's defense attorneys used this as a part of their argument insisting that there
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was no way that Sheila could have become convinced that both men were pedophiles if
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she were sane. The forensic psychologist for the state testified about his assessment of
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Sheila. He told the court that he had interviewed Sheila for several hours at
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a time on three separate occasions, and that he had also done an in
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depth review of Sheila's case file more than eight thousand pages. During this assessment,
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he'd found plenty of disturbing information about Sheila. She suffered from fits of
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rage and had a long standing obsession with pedophilia and pedophiles, and the forensic
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psychologists admitted that Sheila's obsession may have led to isolated psychotic episodes, but he
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did not believe that there was sufficient evidence that Sheila murdered her victims due to
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mental ill The forensic psychologist played the court snippets from some of his interviews with
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Sheila, and one recording, Sheila states that Kenneth's death had been an accident
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and that she had decided to burn his body to prevent his mother from seeing
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it, not because she was trying to hide evidence. In another recording,
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Sheila states that she was essentially forced to murder Michael because he was terrorizing her
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by torturing and killing her pet rabbits, a completely different story from Sheila's previous
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insistence that she'd killed Michael because he was a pedophile. Sheila answered questions well,
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she tried to explain away evidence that made her look bad. The forensic
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psychologist said, that is not what someone sees over many hours in a person
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who is psychotic. On the twentieth of June two thousand and eight, the
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jury reached their verdict after thirteen hours of deliberation. They found that, despite
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her claims, Sheila Labar had been sane at the time she killed both Michael
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and Kenneth. In response, the two victims families began to clap and cheer.
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Kenneth's mother, Carolyn said, this is for my son. For two
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years, my son cannot rest. Now he can rest. Many people involved
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in the case believe that Michael and Kenneth weren't Sheila's only victims. Although Sheila
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has denied any role in the mysterious death of her previous partner, Bill,
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his death conveniently resulted in Sheila taking ownership of his farm, and during the
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search of Sheila's property, investigators discovered another piece of evidence, the skeletal remains
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of three human toes. Forensic testing revealed that the toes did not belong to
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either of Sheila's confirmed victims, but the DNA of the toes didn't match any
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profiles that the police had on file. Either someone conveniently died on the farm,
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only leaving three toes behind, or all of Sheila's crimes have yet to
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be discovered. That is Ten Minute Murder for today Brief and been Jible True
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Crime. I'm Joe the host, and thank you for listening today. If
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have to go searching for it every single time. Connect with me on social
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this episode, please leave a rating and review on Apple, Spotify, Audible,
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any place that's possible. I really do appreciate your positive feedback and our
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email. Question today, Joe, in your opinion, why do you think
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there were so many more known serial killers in the seventies, eighties, and
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even nineties than there are now? Macy and Lewisburg And I tell you,
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Macy, I think it's because of technology and investigation techniques that are used by
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law enforcement. There's so much better than they were in the past. Killers
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during those years, during those eras were able to go on longer and find
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more victims before police were able to figure out who they were and where they
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were. Now, I think that after one or two murders, technologies become
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so advanced that they get caught themselves. They do stupid things they make them
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get caught. There are obviously exceptions to that, because you still hear about
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it from time to time, and many of those cases that you hear about
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are the serial killers that are targeting sex workers or addicts on the street.
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Those don't seem to get investigated with the same vigor as a missing white suburban
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housewife. But for the record, I'm no expert in the area of police
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investigation technology or techniques from then to now, so this is just me hazarding
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and educated guests based on the hundreds and hundreds of cases that I've read.
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Okay, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening
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to ten minute Murder