Original subtitles

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with a population of barely 100,

the folks of the farming village of Colon, Nebraska

have come to rely on each other.

- That's just the way it is.

People know each other and help out.

- We're just good folks with good hearts.

- But on a late summer evening in 2003,

that idyllic harmony is shattered

when the shocking murder of longtime resident

Sharron Erickson turns Main Street into a crime scene.

- There's a gun laying by her head

in a pool of blood.

- Someone had to get over that fence and cut the phone line.

- Everybody across the board was shocked.

- [Alan] And questions of who the killer may be

break communal bonds.

- People started pointing fingers at each other saying,

I bet he did it or he did it or he did it.

- In a town of 140 or less people, they're all suspects.

- It's hard to believe and accept the killer

probably was somebody living next door.

- Now, locals who once looked out

for each other are looking suspiciously

at each other.

[dramatic music]

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- On June 30th, 2003, I was on patrol.

It's evening time in the middle of the summer

and there's still plenty of sunlight.

I received a call from our dispatch center.

[tense music] [siren wailing]

- [Kyle] Our dispatch center indicated

that somebody in Colon had located a deceased female

and believed that she had committed suicide

and she's in a garage along Main Street.

- Main Street is one block long.

There's the bank and the post office and the restaurant

and bar, but there are houses there.

- [Kyle] I arrived at the scene,

made contact with the volunteer firefighters

and the ladies from the bank that were standing there.

The bank employees got a call from Sharron's family members

saying that she had missed their five o'clock phone call.

They had been asked to go over

and check on Sharron Erickson.

The garage was opened

and I could see the car inside

along with the deceased female.

She was on the left side of the car

with her head near the front left tire.

- [Alan] In the small town of Colon,

the coroner called in also happens to be

the local prosecutor.

- [Scott] I meet with the deputy that was first on the scene.

He shows me where the body is.

She was wearing what appeared to be like clothes

that she would be sleeping in, just like a pajama outfit.

There's a gun that is laying just by her head,

which is in a pool of blood

and it appears that maybe it's a self-inflicted gunshot.

She had a small purse.

We were guessing at that time, maybe that's

where she carried her handgun.

- [Kyle] I did notice that Sharron's shorts were pulled

down slightly on one side

and her tank top was pulled up just a li

exposing her stomach

and also noticed that there was a blood smear on the car.

- Sharron had been married, but was divorced,

didn't have any children.

It looked like it could have been a suicide.

- [Scott] We talked to everybody at the scene.

We learned Sharron had a very definitive routine.

Every morning about 8:00 AM she would go to the postmaster,

Rick Hartman, get her mail.

The post office was right next door to Sharron's residence.

She would talk to him for, you know, 15, 20 minutes, go over

to the bank, chit chat with the ladies, do her business,

and then go about her day from there.

- [Kevin] Sharron and her relative communicated at least

once a day and generally at five o'clock.

On the day her body was found,

her family member hadn't received a phone call

and then contacted the bank

and asked the employees if they had seen her.

And when they hadn't seen her,

then the family member requested

that they do a welfare check.

- [Scott] The bank ladies contacted Rick Hartman the

postmaster and asked if he had seen her earlier that day.

He said he did not see her.

So Rick Hartman actually had a key to her place.

- [Kevin] So they went to her home.

Her house was unlocked.

That was unusual.

There was an alarm going off.

- [Kyle] She had an alarm that went around

a door handle on the back door and they turned that off.

- [Scott] They can't find her in her residence.

Sharron's residence was on one side of the street.

Her garage where she kept her car

was actually across the street.

opened the garage door

and Rick Hartman found her body laying next

to her car in her garage.

- [Alan] Analyzing the tragic scene,

something catches the eye of investigators.

- We walk around to the back of the car

and the deputy says that he's concerned

because there's blood on the back of the bumper.

He couldn't explain why it was there.

We could never find a shell casing,

but we thought maybe it got tucked into her clothes

and we would find it at the autopsy.

- [Kyle] And then also found that there was no magazine

in the gun.

- [Scott] In the evening, as the sun lowered,

it started shining into the garage opening

and at that point we noticed

that there was actually blood on the doorframe.

Deputy Coghlan opened the door

and then you could see on the inside the doorframe

that there was a noticeable amount of blood.

That totally changed the way we were looking at everything.

We both thought, okay, somebody else had to have done that

because she could not have shot herself

and then struggled with the door, shut the door

and then put herself in that position without blood

being in a different spot.

At that point, we realized it was not

a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

- [Alan] This isn't a suicide, this is a murder.

Now investigators explore the scene with new eyes,

looking for clues as to who could have done this

and outside Sharron's garage,

word spreads along Main Street.

- I was in the office when the people came in said,

did you hear about Sharron?

Sharron was found murdered.

I went, what?

Quiet little community that people always got along good.

It's scary and unbelievable.

- Oh, I couldn't believe it when the news came out.

Sharron lived on Main Street

and I lived one block off.

In our little community,

you just don't even think of those things.

That doesn't happen in Colon.

- [Don] Well, the first thing that comes to your mind

when you're thinking, who could have done it?

Well, anybody.

- [Alan] Frightened by her murder,

Colon's tight knit community wonders why anyone would kill

someone so well regarded as Sharron?

- [Kevin] I had a lot of interaction

with her at the treasurer's office.

Sharron Erickson was very well known in Colon

and she was well known in the county as she worked

for the county treasurer's office for over 30 years.

- [Don] Sharron Erickson had probably the highest standards

of anybody that worked at the courthouse.

She was always dressed properly, very cordial to people.

My kids got to know Sharron mostly when we'd go

to a convention 'cause Sharron liked to swim.

Sharron jumped in the pool

and of course my kids were in right with her.

- [Carlann] Sharron was bubbly.

She always had positive things to say about other people.

- [Don] This is the retirement party for Sharron

at the courthouse.

Everyone brought a dish and they had a cake.

It was just, wow, can you believe Sharron just retired?

And so that was really sad.

- [Alan] At Sharron's property,

some investigators keep speaking

with the locals while others head across Main Street

to begin a sweep of Sharron's home

where she recently installed added protection.

- [Scott] We found out

that Sharron had just constructed a new vinyl fence

within a few days of the crime happening.

- [Kevin] Friends of Sharron indicated that she was

pretty paranoid.

She was concerned about her safety,

the fact that she lived alone

and everybody in town knew she lived alone.

- [Scott] Law enforcement trying to figure out

what happened at the house.

We noticed that her phone line was cut.

- [Kevin] So someone had to get over that fence

and then they had to go there and cut the phone line.

So someone was somewhat familiar with either her

and/or her residence.

Inside of her home, you can see that it's neat,

but the back door had a pry mark on it.

Someone had tried to get into the house.

- [Kyle] We did find one object

that looked like maybe it could have been used

to pry the door open.

It was a cold chisel, heavy metal object kind of rusty

that was laying on the floor.

- [Alan] Moving into Sharron's bedroom,

investigators uncover more telling clues.

- [Kyle] We don't find any signs of struggle,

but we do see that there's a empty holster

that's sitting on a table.

It looked like she might have been in bed

and might have taken the gun out of the holster

and left in a hurry.

- [Kevin] Because the phone line was cut,

we were pretty certain something happened in the home first.

We believed that the clothes

that she had on, some small shorts, underwear

and a tank top may have been bedtime clothing.

We assumed she ran across to get into her garage

because she needed to escape

'cause she couldn't call for help.

Sharron didn't keep a large amount of cash

or any particular valuables in her home.

We discovered that there was cash in her purse.

So the assailant who was trying to get into their home,

it wasn't clear to us what they were going in there for.

- [Alan] Investigators look for answers

from Sharron's Main Street friends who found her body.

- [Scott] Everybody that's there is a suspect.

So we wanted to talk to the bank ladies and the postmaster.

- [Kyle] I asked the different people involved

to all write out a statement as to what happened.

Everybody was very patient with the exception

of the postmaster, Rick Hartman.

A couple different times I had to ask him to step back

because he kept coming up close

to the garage or in the garage.

Kind of started wondering why he was inserting himself

so much in the situation.

The postmaster did a complete 180 degree flip.

He got angry

and said to me, if you're gonna arrest me,

arrest me, but I'm leaving.

- [Alan] Coming up.

- [Scott] This is something that was personal.

- [Kevin] People said, you need to check further

on where that neighbor was

because this person's not telling you the truth.

- Sharron was not one to shy away from conflict.

- [Scott] We started hearing rumors that the postmaster

and Sharron were more than friends.

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- [Alan] After 66-year-old retiree Sharron Erickson

is found dead in her Main Street garage

in Colon, Nebraska, authorities take note

of the postmaster's bizarre actions at the scene.

Is there something the postmaster is trying to conceal?

- [Scott] Rick Hartman was the postmaster.

His interactions stood out

because he was trying so much

to inject himself into the scene.

So we talked with the postmaster.

- Mr. Hartman was a postman for a number of years,

very friendly with Sharron, at her house all the time.

He said when she would go on vacation

or out of town, he would watch her place.

He had a key to her place.

But when you're interviewing somebody, their body language,

anything emotionally that's coming out, you're trying

to judge is this unusual or is it not unusual?

And his lined up on the unusual side.

- [Alan] Detectives' number one question is

where was Rick when Sharron was being murdered?

- [Kevin] The postmaster's alibi was that he was home.

His wife also came to the scene

and his wife confirmed that.

You have to be aware of how valid the alibi is.

Does that person have anything to gain

or lose by giving you bad information?

Do you think they're hiding something?

Do you think they're lying about something?

And Mr. Hartman's relationship with Sharron,

we weren't 100% sure what that was.

So he was involved in her life, I'll say that.

- What we're trained is not just to necessarily react

based on what somebody says right then.

So we made the decision to go ahead and release everybody

and then we would follow up later if we needed to.

- [Scott] We had the transport come in, bagged the body,

and then just took it into the autopsy.

We didn't finish up at the scene till about 5:30

or 6:00 the next morning.

[bright music]

- [Alan] The day after Sharron's body is discovered,

investigators first looked

to establish a timeframe

in which the murder must have occurred.

- [Scott] We were in contact with her family.

We learned that the day prior to the murder,

Sharron had met some family for supper

and she got home about 5:30.

So we knew the timeframe was about 5:30 in the evening

the day before

and up to when she missed her morning visit

to the post office, probably 8:00 AM the next day.

- Sharron was really good friends

with her cousin in Lincoln, Nebraska, and it was this cousin

who actually dropped her off at her home the evening

before Sharron was murdered.

- [Alan] After speaking with the cousin

who had nothing outta the ordinary to note,

investigators then begin extensively canvassing

the community of Main Street.

- [Kevin] So we have the bank personnel, the postman,

they're all suspects until we can exclude them.

We started out going door to door,

asking 'em if they heard a dog barking,

if they saw a light somewhere, heard a noise,

anything that was out of the ordinary.

- [Scott] Sharron had lived there a lot of years.

The Marrs' lived in the back

and kind of cattycorner from Sharron.

She knew the Marrs family.

There were a couple people in town that were, oh,

just nothing serious

but would get in trouble such as their son James Marrs.

- [Alan] James Marrs is 25 years old

and works as a farm hand in the area.

- [Kevin] When we talked to the family,

James Marrs was pretty cooperative in

answering questions.

His mom was cooperative.

The night of the homicide,

Marrs said he had been drinking in a bar in Wahoo

and then said he went to a friend's house

and then went home.

We talked to that friend and he confirmed Marrs' alibi.

His mom was up waiting for him

and verified that he came home.

James Marr's alibi checked out.

- [Alan] As the Main Street canvas carries on,

investigators learned Sharron kept a sharp eye on her street

and her neighbors.

- Sharron was said not to be one

that would shy away from conflict.

- [Kevin] Sharron would complain from time to time about people

that would stay up too late because she was on Main Street

and there was a bar across the road.

Someone would leave the bar, radio would be loud,

rev their car up, but they were all pretty minor things

that just happened in a small community.

the one neighbor whom Sharron

had a deeper dislike for was the one closest

to her new fence.

- [Scott] We learned that Sharron had a argumentative,

contentious relationship with the trucker next door.

They weren't the best of friends

and then we heard from other people

that Sharron really did not like him.

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- [Alan] Detectives learned Sharron Erickson had some

run-ins with a trucker next door.

Could this Main Street resident be responsible

for ending Sharron's life?

- Right next to Sharron's residence,

there was a trucker that had a shop.

He would park his vehicles there, do a lot

of work on his semi, which is loud.

and they would both tell each other what they thought.

She had a number of conversations with a trucker.

Can you turn that off earlier?

Can you not park here?

- [Scott] In speaking with a trucker, he said

that Sharron liked her peace and quiet

and at times he would maybe antagonize Sharron on purpose.

- [Alan] Detectives pressed the trucker

asking where he was the night of June the 30th.

- [Kevin] The trucker said the night

of the homicide he was in another state,

had receipts at a truck stop.

- [Alan] The trucker promises to

return with receipts, but until then, he remains a suspect.

One of many in the eyes of detectives and townsfolk alike.

- [Don] People on Main Street started pointing fingers

at each other saying, I bet he did it

or he did it or he did it.

And so people got labeled and people had to live with that.

So if you knew Sharron,

then you could be a suspect very easy.

- And if it is somebody in town, then that means

that they're still there.

- [Kevin] I knew most of the people in Colon, there's some

people that you just go, there's no way.

And then there are other people that you go,

I can see a possibility here.

You hope you're wrong,

but you wonder if the killer's watching you.

You wonder if the killer's doing something

to cover up evidence

and then you always wonder, what am I missing?

- [Alan] Detectives find that new leads

are difficult to come by,

but one week since her murder, Sharron's autopsy concludes

and the results cause investigators to ask

what kind of killer are they facing?

- [Scott] Everybody in law enforcement, myself included

at that point,

we're leaning to somebody shot her

and just dropped the gun there.

We attended the autopsy

and we learned that there actually was not even a gunshot.

There was no bullet hole.

It was actually ruled that she died from strangulation.

Everybody across the board was shocked.

- [Kevin] And then she had blunt trauma to her head.

So it was pretty clear that she was confronted,

beaten, and then strangled.

- [Scott] They did a sexual assault swab

and they sent those in for testing.

But once you realize that strangulation

was the cause of death, you start thinking

this is something that was personal.

Strangulation doesn't happen in a few seconds.

It takes a while for that to happen.

So somebody had to be up close with her

and determined to make sure that they ended her life.

- Strangulation can be motivated by very intense emotions,

be it power, control, anger, retaliation, even revenge.

- [Alan] With the cause of death revealed

as an exceptionally brutal strangulation,

Saunders County detectives huddle up with renewed vigor.

- [Scott] We had a few days where we were theorizing on

what could have happened.

Who have we all talked to at the scene?

three block radius, which essentially is the whole town

in Colon and who could be a potential suspect

from that pool?

is the trucker with whom Sharron had a beef.

- [Kevin] You wonder if there's maybe something

that's more hostile.

- [Alan] But when investigators follow up,

the trucker provides proof

he was far from Main Street the night of Sharron's death.

- [Kevin] The trucker was in another state.

He had receipts at a truck stop.

So we were able to prove

that he was completely out of state.

Didn't have to worry about a timeline.

- [Alan] Now with the trucker cleared,

investigators still don't have a top suspect,

but when results from the DNA swabs come in,

they wonder if their luck is about to change.

- [Scott]

that was discovered on the swab.

It really made people wonder

what actually happened.

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- [Alan] Swabs taken from Sharron Erickson's autopsy

reveal she had not only been beaten

and strangled but sexually assaulted,

deepening the mystery for detectives.

- [Scott] So you start theorizing.

Did the sexual assault occur at the residence

and they got in a fight and they ran across the street?

Or did the assault occur only at the garage

and the strangulation occurred from there?

- [Alan] Armed with this new intel,

detectives urgently shuttle the swab from Sharron's autopsy

to the lab hoping it will yield a DNA profile of the killer.

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the Med center in Omaha, Nebraska.

It will be a few weeks

before we could possibly get just the profile back,

but once we determined that there was semen located,

and anytime you see a strangulation,

it becomes more personal.

You're up close with somebody

and you're in contact with them.

who would be personally associated with Sharron.

- Then we started asking for swabs

just so we had 'em on file.

- [Alan] Based on the new sexual homicide profile,

detectives turned their sights on Sharron's male friends

and the talk in town points to one man.

- [Scott] We started hearing rumors that maybe the postmaster

and Sharron were more than friends.

- Folks around town who'd sit around the coffee shop

and say, well, I wonder who did it.

His name would pop up.

- [Don] I was golfing with the postmaster at the time

and he said it was just terrible the way he was treated

by some people, shunned and scared of him.

You have compassion for him,

but it's hard to make a conclusion

because maybe he did it.

- [Alan] Investigators put Postmaster Rick higher

on their suspect list when he shows up

one place in particular, Sharron's estate sale.

- [Scott] You always hear about the onlookers at a scene

that are actually the ones that did it.

We were wondering would the killer show up

at the estate sale and look at her items

or you know, just want to be there to see what's going on.

So we decided that we're going to get a list of everybody

that attends the estate sale

and find out who's buying Sharron's property.

- [Alan] The day of the estate sale detectives discover

Rick Hartman is in attendance

and he's keen on one specific item.

- [Scott] Law enforcement called

and said, we saw the postmaster buying the bed mattress.

- [Kevin] The fact that we were trying to determine the level

of his relationship with Sharron

and then he bought her bed at the auction.

You have a sexual assault.

- [Scott] So you start wondering if he knew

that there could be some DNA from him on the mattress.

- [Alan] Because of their discovery,

detectives bring back Rick for

another round of questioning.

- [Kevin] When we talked to him about that,

what was even more unusual is he denied

that he purchased the bed.

Why would he be trying to conceal that information?

- [Alan] Detectives pressed Rick on his purchase

of Sharron's mattress, finally getting him to fess up.

- [Kevin] He said he had some kids that were leaving home,

going to college and bought it for them,

but he just did a number of things that caused us

to second guess everything he was telling us.

- [Alan] Then a call from the lab

about Sharron's autopsy swabs

breathes new life into the hunt.

- [Scott] The lab was able to get a DNA profile from the swab.

We run it through the database,

which was a little bit smaller in 2003

because not all felony convictions were

required to submit.

We didn't have any matches at the time.

We just had a DNA profile.

So if we find our guy

and he's a match,

we're gonna be pretty sure we have the right suspect.

- [Alan] The killer's DNA has yet to be compared

to swabs previously collected, a pain sticking process.

And as the months roll by, no matches come back from the lab

leaving investigators with no proof

to pin Sharron's murder on anyone.

- [Kevin] We looked into every lead we had.

We were in Colon probably every day.

We just didn't have anything.

Your fear is that how long is it gonna go?

- [Scott] We were always actively involved,

but at some point you realize

that you're gonna start losing potential witnesses

or information

and it's just not gonna be easy to solve.

- [Kevin] You certainly don't want somebody out there

who's capable of beating someone,

strangling 'em and sexually assaulting 'em.

- [Lisa] We still had no answers into

who committed this crime against Sharron.

You wanted to know that Sharron, her family

and her friends would be able to get some justice in knowing

who did this and maybe why.

- [Alan] The Main Street regular

who investigators keep coming back to

is the man who knew Sharron best, Rick Hartman.

- [Kevin] We were trying to figure out the extent

of his relationship with Sharron.

He agreed to a polygraph,

but the polygraph was inconclusive,

so he naturally was one that we wanted to exclude with DNA.

Mr. Hartman submitted a DNA sample.

- [Alan] Then knowing they could be just one step away

from cracking the case, a new tip surfaces,

putting a different Main Street neighbor,

one who lives just a stones throw away from Sharron

back in the crosshairs,

the 25-year-old farmhand, James Marrs.

- [Kevin] James Marrs, who lived right behind her,

the individual that was providing the James Marrs alibi.

We started hearing that James asked him to confirm

that he was at his house

if the police came and asked questions.

Other people said,

you need to check further on where James Marrs was

because this person providing the alibi

is not telling you the truth.

The alibi for James Marrs started to lose credibility.

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- [Alan] Having just received a tip

that James Marrs may have manufactured his alibi,

detectives mobilized to obtain his DNA.

- Initially, Marrs' alibi

or where he was that night, checked out.

Marrs had indicated that

after the bar that he went to a friend's house.

We heard from many people that James had asked that friend.

If the police asked where I was that night,

you need to tell 'em that I was here.

As the investigation proceeded, we talked to that friend.

The individual that was providing the alibi

wasn't very credible

and never admitted to lying about the alibi.

The people that James Marrs associated with

were no strangers

to law enforcement in the community.

Although James wasn't brought in

and interrogated, he submitted a DNA swab.

to the lab joining the swab collected from Rick Hartman

hoping one will match the murderer's DNA.

- [Kevin] Our top suspects were Mr. Hartman and James Marrs.

Mr. Hartman had a close friendly relationship

with Sharron Erickson.

The fact that he was at her house all the time,

purchased her bed and he's being evasive.

James Marrs was on the list for a number of reasons.

One, he was out drinking that night

and James Marr's parents' home, where he resides

is right behind Sharron's house.

When we suspected that he was lying about his alibi,

that raised the concern even more.

But we were also wondering, is there someone

that we've completely missed?

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- [Alan] Then after tracking down leads

for 10 relentless months,

detectives finally get the call they've been waiting for.

- I get a phone call from the Med Center

and they tell me they had a DNA match.

I actually had to stop and think about it.

Did I hear that right?

She tells me that they actually got a match with a sample

that was taken from Sharron.

- [Kevin] She said they've got a match

and that it matched James Marrs.

The DNA hit was enough to arrest him,

but there was still some investigation that needed

to be done with James Marrs.

- [Alan] James Marrs is arrested

for the murder of Sharron Erickson.

Investigators bring Marrs to the station

and attempt to get him to confess.

- [Kevin] James Marrs was brought into an interview room.

He didn't volunteer anything.

His confession came bits and pieces.

Well, I didn't remember that,

and then he would eventually say it.

So it wasn't like he just finally said,

yeah, here's what I did.

He did a line of cocaine with a friend.

James came home.

He was hoping to find some gas money

and beer money, so he went to Sharron Erickson's home,

jumped the fence, cut the phone line,

and was kicking her back door in when the alarm went off

and then she confronted him.

- [Scott] And her gun was not loaded.

She probably brandished the weapon to scare James.

- [Kevin] She recognized who he was, called him

an ass****, told him to get out of her backyard.

When she called him an ass****, his demeanor changed.

You could just feel it when he said,

"I told her, go ahead and shoot me."

And when she didn't fire, he started beating her

and then she ran into her house.

He jumped the fence again and he saw the garage door go open

and he knew that she was going to get into her car

and go for help.

where he admitted that he told her to shoot him again.

And when she didn't, he started beating her again

and then strangled her.

Everything he was saying fit the entire aspect

that we'd investigated,

but he would not admit to the sexual assault

and almost started to shut down in his confession

when I went to that.

- [Scott] James said he was breaking in to steal something.

I don't know that the assault was intended initially,

but I think that it happened

because the opportunity was there.

Sometimes you never know those answers.

- [Dr. Casey] Even killers have their own strange moral codes.

For some, a murder could be justified,

but a sexual attack, no, it was impulsive,

it was base, it was animalistic,

and it's something of which he's ashamed.

- [Alan] With Marrs in custody,

Main Street residents are relieved

and yet deeply saddened to hear

that Sharron's accused killer is one of their own.

- [Carlann] Our son had gone to school with James Marrs

and never in my life would I have dreamt that he could have

been involved in anything like that.

It is heartbreaking.

It's not just the person that gets murdered, it's the family

that's involved is hurting too.

- [Don] I knew his family when I met his dad at the Gas & Shop.

I said, I'm very sorry to hear what's going on.

And you could tell that he was

very, very remorseful.

You always think, well, why did it happen?

I mean, it doesn't make any sense,

but at the time, a young man thought it did.

- [Kevin] I thought it was important that he admitted it.

I realized family, neighbors maybe don't want to believe it,

but this guy's an evil person.

- [Alan] The Marrs' confession

is also vitally important for trial.

- [Kevin] You can't rely just on the DNA, you have

to have other evidence and circumstances.

- [Alan] As the prosecution preps for court,

there's a huge problem.

- [Scott] Unfortunately, James Marrs never established

that he was waiving his right to an attorney.

That confession ended up being suppressed

and we are not able to use that for a trial.

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[eerie music

[eerie music]

- [Alan] The prosecution team has just learned

James Marrs' confession

for murdering Sharron Erickson cannot be used in court.

- Marrs never established

that he was waiving his right to an attorney.

We can't use anything from that interview,

but we were able to determine that everything

that he said fit with all of the evidence we had.

First, we were able to tie him to the scene

through the DNA match.

- And there was a tool

that was found at the scene we believe was used

just to break in the house and cut the phone line.

We found the tool belonged to James Marrs' dad.

- [Scott] We also determined that James had to ask someone

to generate an alibi for him that wasn't factual.

- [Kevin] And that there were additional personal confessions

that we had with other inmates.

Marrs talked to six different cellmates.

He bragged about what he had done.

- [Alan] Two years since Sharron Erickson's murder,

James Marrs learns his fate.

- [Scott] James Marrs was charged with first degree murder

and we proceeded towards trial with those charges.

We talked with the family.

The part that would've been harder to prove

with the first degree would be some of the intent.

They understood the challenges that a trial would have,

so we decided to a plea offer of second degree murder.

We knew that we could still get justice for Sharron

and her family through that plea.

- [Alan] Unlike first degree murder, the charge

of second degree murder doesn't include premeditation.

- [Scott] James Marrs accepted that plea offer

and pled guilty to the second degree murder.

- [Lisa] That day also happened to be Sharron's 69th birthday.

So for family and friends, they did get a little bit

of resolution in that they were in court that day

that he took that plea agreement.

[somber music]

- [Alan] In early 2006, James Marrs is sentenced

to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

And with Sharron's killer behind bars for good,

life in Colon continues on forever changed.

- [Kevin] You think you're an innocent little community

and all of a sudden you have this horrific thing

that's not supposed to happen in a small town.

And when it does, then you gotta deal with it.

- [Scott] I think people start wondering, do I really know

that person and not specifically just Mr. Marrs?

Do I really know my neighbor

and are they capable of something?

- Well, it broke my heart for one thing

because Sharron had a lot of things she could have done yet,

and she was just really starting to enjoy her retirement

and that was all taken from her then.

- [Don] A neighbor kills a neighbor.

You have that suspicion that maybe that could happen to you.

I'm sure people have that in the back of their mind,

but I do not.

Colon drew together.

They embraced each other

and I think as a close knit community,

they did a phenomenal job.

- [Alan] For current residents and Sharron's loved ones,

her Main street murder remains an unimaginable tragedy.

Her life of community service and its unfathomable end

serve to remind us all that every moment is a gift

and no act of kindness too small.

For it's been said

we make our friends, we make our enemies,

but God makes our next door neighbors.