“It was the only way I could save him,” the voice told her. “It was the only way.”
EPILOGUE
HAVING CONFESSED TO THE MURDERS OF PERRY Nelson and Glen Harrelson, Sharon Nelson and Gary Adams are now behind bars in “his and her” prisons in Canon City, Colorado. There had been no trial, no public stoning of a woman who stopped at nothing to get what she wanted. Sharon pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder, telling the world she had forfeited her right to a pair of murder trials to spare her children, Others speculated that she feared the death penalty. Gary Adams held out longer than his lover, insisting through his attorney that he was not guilty of anything.
But in the end, he also pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder when it was confirmed love-of-his-life Sharon would testify against him. He also made one last mistake concerning the whereabouts of the gun used to kill Glen Harrelson. Gary told a jailhouse snitch where he had hidden it. Authorities returned to the Dude Ranch and found the firearm under the porch steps. Ballistics proved an exact match.
Both Sharon and Gary took the easy way out: plea-bargains spared the state the expense of lengthy trials and ensured the love struck pair would never face the executioner.
And yet it wasn’t over. The obsession that led the two to kill for passion and money still lingers.
Sharon continues to wonder if Gary had ever loved her enough to divorce Nancy. It is a question she still asks, a decade after her arrest. She now says her confession was a big mistake, a manipulation by the authorities. She is a battered woman who had feared for her life. She is a victim.
Gary says he still loves Sharon and remains surprisingly blunt about his involvement in the crimes. While Gary concedes that he killed Glen Harrelson, he remains less forthcoming about his exact role in the murder of Perry Nelson. Yes, the ice blue-eyed killer admits, he tried to drown Perry that night in Clear Creek. Yes, he smashed his head with a rock.
“But he was alive, when I saw him last. He was alive,” he said.
Neither Gary nor Sharon will be eligible for parole until they are in their mid-eighties.
And while the pair were picked up and put in jail within hours of Sharon's Pizza Hut confession, the road to justice for others was a slow one. The surviving Nelson children—including Misty and Danny—filed a claim against the insurance companies that paid off Sharon, the killer of their father. As more information came to light, it appeared that insurance investigators were quite suspicious of Sharon Nelson. They held their cards to their chests, however. They never informed the police about what they had uncovered: that Perry had not left Trinidad alone the night he disappeared; that Sharon had purchased five of six policies within six weeks of the murder; that Gary moved in within days after Perry's disappearance; that she immediately sold off many of her husband's belongings and assets. If the insurance companies had been more forthcoming with the authorities, Sharon and Gary might have been prosecuted years before and Glen Harrelson’ s life might have been saved.
“This isn’t a case of twenty-twenty hindsight, piecing a murder together six years later,” said the Denver attorney representing Perry Nelson's children. “These facts are so obvious and transparent it would have been like pulling on a loose end of a ball of yam. The only people who knew all these facts and these patterns were the insurance companies.”
The fight for the insurance benefits that should have never found their way into the killer's hands was drawn out for almost a decade. There were several reversals, culminating with the original verdict finally being upheld in the summer of 1996.
The payout, plus interest, was divided equally among Perry Nelson's five children. For Lorri, of course, it was never about money. No mountain of dollars could replace her father. No cash could compensate her son and daughter for the absence of their grandfather.
No money could ease her broken heart.
And yet life goes on down in Trinidad and the surrounding Colorado communities touched by Sharon Lynn's selfish kind of evil. Her children, her neighbors, her friends… and her men… none can forget her.
Though they try. God, they try.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS & NOTES
IT IS IMPORTANT TO SAY HERE THAT THIS BOOK would not have been possible without Rod Colvin. Rod, a fine author and skilled journalist, had a passion for this story for many years. I am so grateful he entrusted his voluminous research material to me, much of which is the basis for this book. Rod, many thanks for your incredible research and the support you gave along the way. You are a great writer and an even better friend.
Others to whom I am indebted for their support of this project: literary agent Susan Raihofer of Black, Inc., New York; Charles Spicer, editor at St. Martin's Press, New York; Lucy Stille, film agent at Paradigm, Los Angeles. Also, thanks to readers and friends Paula Bates, Tina Marie Brewer, James Glenn Schwichtenberg, June Wolfe, Daniel Leonetti, Cliff Cernick and Patti Soloveichik.