Bio

Sharon Kinne was born Sharon Elizabeth Hall on November 30, 1939, in Independence, Missouri. Her parents, Eugene and Doris Hall, were devout members of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When Sharon was in junior high school, the family relocated to Washington State, but returned to Missouri by the time she was 15.

In the summer of 1956, Sharon was 16 when she met James Kinne, a 22-year-old student at Brigham Young University, at a church function. The two began dating until James returned to BYU that fall. Eager to secure a partner with prospects, Sharon wrote to James claiming she was pregnant. He left school and married her on October 18, 1956. Their marriage license falsely stated that Sharon was 18 and a widow — she had told people she had previously been married to a man who died in a car accident while they lived in Washington, though she refused to discuss it further. The following year, the couple held a second, more formal ceremony at the Salt Lake Temple after Sharon completed the process of joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

After the wedding, they moved to Provo, Utah, where James resumed his studies. He later paused his education and the couple returned to Independence. There, Sharon worked babysitting and in local shops while James worked as an electrical engineer. Sharon claimed to have suffered a miscarriage but soon became pregnant again. In the fall of 1957, they welcomed their first child, a daughter named Danna.

Sharon was a lavish spender who wanted a life beyond what James's income could provide. They first rented a home near his parents before eventually building their own. As James worked night shifts, Sharon spent her days shopping and began having extramarital affairs. By early 1960, James was considering divorce over her spending and suspected infidelity. On March 18, 1960, he raised the subject with his parents, and discussions turned to custody and alimony. Around the same time, Sharon reportedly joked to a friend that he should kill her husband for her.

Murder Story

On March 19, 1960, James Kinne was found shot in the back of the head inside their Independence home. Sharon told police that their two-year-old daughter, Danna, had been playing with James's .22 caliber pistol while he napped and accidentally fired it. With no witnesses and limited physical evidence, police ruled the death an accidental homicide. Sharon subsequently collected approximately $29,000 from James's life insurance policies and used some of the money to purchase a powder-blue Ford Thunderbird from a car dealership on April 18, 1960. The salesman who sold it to her was Walter Jones — and within weeks, the two had begun an affair.

Sharon wanted Walter to leave his wife, but he refused. When she told him she was pregnant with his child, he ended the relationship entirely. Shortly after, Walter's wife Patricia — a 23-year-old file clerk who was five months pregnant — vanished on May 26, 1960, after agreeing to meet with Sharon under false pretenses. Sharon had called Patricia claiming Walter was having an affair with her "sister" — a sister who did not exist. Patricia's body was found the following day, May 27, in a secluded area off Phelps Road near Interstate 70. She had been shot four times with a .22 caliber pistol.

Sharon was arrested on May 31, 1960, and charged with the murders of both Patricia Jones and James Kinne. Investigators could not locate the murder weapon. Sharon refused to sign a written statement or take a lie detector test. Patricia's trial came first, beginning in June 1961. The all-male jury, citing too many loopholes in the prosecution's case, acquitted Sharon — and astonishingly, one juror asked for her autograph as she left the courtroom.

Sharon's trial for the murder of James began in January 1962. After three days of testimony, the jury convicted her and she was sentenced to life in prison. In March 1963, the Missouri Supreme Court reversed the conviction on procedural grounds and released her on a $25,000 bond. Her second trial, in 1964, was declared a mistrial after it emerged that one juror had previously retained a law partner of the prosecutor. A third trial deadlocked 7–5 in favor of acquittal. She was awaiting a fourth trial when, in September 1964, she left for Mexico with a new boyfriend.

In Mexico City, on September 18, 1964, Sharon shot and killed a man named Francisco Paredes Ordoñez in a hotel room, wounding a hotel employee who entered after hearing gunshots. She claimed self-defense, but police believed the killing was intentional. A ballistics test revealed the gun was the same weapon used to kill Patricia Jones in 1960 — but Sharon could not be recharged for that crime, having already been acquitted. She was tried and initially sentenced to 10 years in a Mexican prison in October 1965. Prosecutors appealed the sentence as too lenient, and it was subsequently extended to 13 years.

On December 7, 1969, Sharon escaped from the Mexican prison with the help of a former secret service agent and several ex-prisoners, taking advantage of lax security and unmanned guard towers. A wide manhunt was launched but proved unsuccessful. An outstanding murder warrant in Jackson County remained active for decades, becoming one of the longest-standing felony warrants in U.S. history.

Sharon then began a new life entirely. On February 2, 1970, she married a man named James Thomas Glabus in Los Angeles, California, and by 1973 the two had settled in Taber, Alberta — a quiet prairie town approximately 121 miles (195 km) southeast of Calgary. Together they ran a local motel before later working as realtors. Sharon became known to her neighbours as a bridge-playing, community-minded local figure. She lived openly under the name Diedra "Dee" Grace Glabus for 49 years.

Glabus died of natural causes on January 21, 2022, at the age of 82. Neither the Canadian authorities nor her neighbours had any idea who she really was.

In December 2023, both the Jackson County Sheriff's Office and the Kansas City Police Department independently received anonymous tips directing them to Taber and to the woman known as Diedra Glabus. Each agency began its own investigation without knowing the other was doing the same. Under Canadian law, investigators are permitted to obtain fingerprints from deceased persons who have a criminal record — but because Diedra Glabus had no criminal record in Canada, that avenue was legally closed. However, the local funeral home had preserved fingerprints from her remains as a keepsake for her family, which were processed through a private company based in Independence, Missouri — the very same jurisdiction where Sharon's outstanding warrants had been held for over five decades. Jackson County investigators secured a court warrant to obtain those prints. On May 31, 2024 — exactly 64 years after Sharon's first arrest on that same date in 1960 — the FBI conclusively matched the prints to Sharon Kinne's records on file. DNA comparison through forensic genealogy, using samples from Sharon's surviving children, further confirmed the identification.

On January 30, 2025, the Kansas City Police Department and the Jackson County Sheriff's Office held a formal joint press conference to publicly announce their findings, officially closing one of the longest-running fugitive cases in U.S. history. All outstanding warrants were vacated. Sharon Kinne was classified as a confirmed serial killer responsible for three murders — never having faced full justice for any of them.