An American woman who was tried in three killings before disappearing from a prison in Mexico more than 50 years ago has died in Canada, where she was living under an alias, authorities announced Thursday.
Sharon Kinne was charged before her 25th birthday with killing her Missouri husband, her boyfriend’s wife and a man she’d picked up at a bar in Mexico. Since she reportedly escaped a women’s prison on Dec. 7, 1969, her whereabouts had been a mystery, featured in podcasts, TV shows and even a book, “I’m Just an Ordinary Girl: The Sharon Kinne Story.”
But finally, through an anonymous tip, authorities were able to confirm that she died of natural causes on Jan. 21, 2022, in Alberta, Canada, where she had been going by the name of Diedra Glabus, said Sgt. Dustin Love at the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office in Kansas City, Missouri, during a news conference. All pending charges against her were dropped this week.
“I would love nothing more (than) to one day sit across the table from her, and I would like to pick her brain,” Love said. “So, yeah, it’s unfortunate we couldn’t catch her when she was alive. She was really good at what she did.”
Her family said in a statement, which was read aloud during the news conference, that the discovery brought closure.
“Sharon was a woman that never faced the consequences of her actions, leaving them for her children to deal with,” the statement said. “She caused great harm without thought or remorse.”
Kinne, who married at 16, was living in a ranch home in the Independence, Missouri, area in March 1960 when her 25-year-old husband, James Kinne, was shot in the back of the head while napping. Independence is just outside of Kansas City.
The mother of two told police she had heard her 2-year-old daughter ask, “How does this thing work, daddy?” Then there was a gunshot. Sharon Kinne said she ran into the bedroom and found the toddler holding her husband’s .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol. The death was ruled accidental.
But Kinne and her husband had been having marital problems, and she was seeing other men, later court testimony revealed.
According to press reports and interviews with investigators, Sharon Kinne then met car salesman Walter Jones when she went to buy a new car with money from her husband’s life insurance and the sale of their home. She tried to get him to break off the marriage. “Of course he said no,” Love said.
Sharon Kinne then duped Jones’ wife, Patricia, into meeting with her in May 1960, after which she disappeared, Love said. A massive search ensued for the woman. Love said Kinne was with another boyfriend when she acted surprised to find the woman’s body, which had been shot four times, saying, “I think that’s her.”
She told the boyfriend not to tell police she was there but he did anyway, Love said.
On June 1, 1960, Sharon Kinne was charged with Patricia Jones’ murder. Police took another look at James Kinne’s death and a Jackson County grand jury indicted Kinne for that crime as well.
In June 1961, Sharon Kinne was tried in the death of Patricia Jones. And an all-male jury acquitted her to courtroom applause.
In January 1962, Sharon Kinne was convicted of killing her husband. But, the Missouri Supreme Court later overturned the conviction because of improper jury selection. She was tried again, but jurors couldn’t agree on a verdict. She was released on bond, something Love said wouldn’t happen today.
“Our justice system has come a long ways in 65 years,” he said.
Sharon Kinne then fled to Mexico with a new boyfriend in September 1964, Love said. That same month, she picked up a man in a bar and went with him to a hotel. Around 3 a.m., gunshots were heard and Francisco Ordonez lay dead on the floor. Kinne got 13 years for killing Ordonez.
Ballistics tests proved prosecutors’ hunch that a gun found in Sharon Kinne’s Mexican motel was the one that killed Patricia Jones.
Before her apparent escape, she gave several interviews, and was known in Mexico as “La Pistolera,” which translates as “The Gunslinger.” In a 1965 Saturday Evening Post interview, Kinne said: “I knew out there, out of Kansas City and Independence, that the world was going on its way someplace. And I wasn’t going anywhere.″
The trail went cold until law enforcement got a tip in December 2023.
Ultimately, the identification was possible because fingerprints from the funeral home that handled Kinne’s remains were compared to prints taken of Kinne at the time of the killings.
The investigation showed that she married multiple times over the years, including in 1970 to a man named James Glabus in Los Angeles. She started families under several other names.
“Not only are the victims’ families affected by this, but so are her families,” Capt. Ronda Montgomery of the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office said.
The families all want to remain anonymous and asked for privacy, authorities said.
It isn’t entirely clear what happened in the 1970s, but she had been living in Alberta, Canada, since at least 1979, Love said. He said they are still seeking tips about her life, especially her whereabouts from 1969 to 1979.
“I have already extended my apologies to both sides of the family that we weren’t able to catch her during her life,” he said. “It just so happens that someone had that tip and was not willing to release it until after her death.”