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Karen Sharpe's survivors are expected to speak at the
sentencing.
Cross-dressing millionaire doctor on trial for
wife's murder
November 8, 2001
By Sam Handlin (Court TV)
Dr. Richard Sharpe was a millionaire. He was a cross-dresser,
who prescribed himself hormones to alter his body. He stabbed his wife
in the forehead with a fork. Then he killed her.
The details of the life of this wealthy dermatologist
have been talked about in social circles around Boston since July 14,
2000, when Sharpe gunned down his wife with a hunting rifle just yards
away while the couple's two small children slept nearby.
The doctor admitted he killed his wife but pleaded
not guilty by reason of insanity. Now a Massachusetts jury must decide
whether Sharpe is crazy or just an odd guy with a bloodthirsty streak.
Sharpe is charged with first-degree murder and faces
life in prison if convicted. The trial will be broadcast on Court TV.
Perfect on the Surface
Richard and Kathy Sharpe were teenage sweethearts who
married just three months after graduating from Shelton High School in
Connecticut and shortly after their daughter Shannon was born.
They shared a passion for medicine: While the former
studied to be a doctor, the latter enrolled in nursing school.
In 1985, the couple moved up to Boston so that Sharpe
could finish his studies at Harvard. After graduating, he went on to
establish a successful dermatology practice, teach at Harvard Medical
School, and form two small but profitable medical companies.
One of these ventures, a chain of hair removal
clinics called LaseHair, would prove profitable enough to give the
Sharpes a net worth of more than $2 million.
Karen never let on to her close friends that her
relationship had problems, or that her husband was dangerous and
unstable.
"You'd think, 'There they are again, the perfect
family,'" a next door neighbor and good friend of Karen Sharpe told
People magazine.
The Divorce
The couple's friends never heard about nights like
April 26, 1991, when Sharpe returned home to find his wife with another
man.
The doctor then became enraged when his wife asked
him for a divorce. The next morning, according to Karen Sharpe, he
stabbed her in the forehead with a fork.
Karen Sharpe fled the house, dragging their teenage
daughter Shannon with her. After his wife reported the incident to
police, Richard Sharpe was taken to an asylum, where he was diagnosed as
suffering from "major depression, with features of anxiety and schizoid
or other personality disorder."
But two days later, Sharpe's wife recanted her
statements to police, allowing her husband to return home.
There were many more instances that those outside the
family never heard about, according to court papers filed by Karen and
Shannon Sharpe, now 27, during the divorce.
"He grabbed my neck and continually slammed my head
against the wooden bed frame until I could no longer breathe," Shannon
claimed, recalling an incident when she was only 10-years-old. "My next
memory is my head hitting the stairs as he dragged me down the flight of
stairs screaming and battering me."
According to divorce documents, disturbing behavior
was the rule rather than the exception for the head of the household.
Karen said that her husband liked to cross-dress and
used his LaseHair facilities to remove all his body hair. He also
prescribed himself hormones and stole her birth control pills in an
effort to make his breasts grow. Shannon added that on several occasions
she discovered that her father had stolen her underwear for his own use.
Murder on the Doorstep
Karen Sharpe spent the night of July 14, 2000, on a
chartered boat in Boston Harbor, hanging out with friends.
Her husband had filed for divorce months beforehand
and she had readily agreed. She had taken out a restraining order
against him because of his erratic behavior and her suspicion that he
had hired a private investigator to follow her.
That's why it was strange and chilling when he came
to her door just before midnight shortly after she had returned home.
"What are you doing here?" she asked, according to
police reports.
Her husband answered by stepping into the house's
foyer and firing a single shot through her chest with a hunting rifle,
while their two small children slept in an adjoining room and Karen's
brother, his girlfriend and a babysitter looked on.
"Why did my father shoot my mother? Why did he do
that? I never ever want to see my father again," cried 7-year-old
Michael Sharpe in the aftermath, according to one witness.
Sharpe did not want to see the police, running away
to New Hampshire only to be found in a dingy motel less than two days
after the shooting. After his arrest, his eldest daughter made her
stance on the incident clear.
"It should be clear that I have no doubt in my mind
that my father's actions are unforgivable," said Shannon Sharpe to
The Associated Press.
Shannon and the two other Sharpe children, ages 6 and
8, have sued their father for $100 million. And the family's babysitter
has brought a $5 million dollar civil action against him, citing the
trauma of witnessing the murder.
The anger that his family feels toward him may not
have registered fully with Sharpe. In a letter that written to his
daughter last Valentine's Day, he said, "Dear Shannon, I loved your
mother. I miss her terribly. I cry every day. I want nothing but the
best for you, Mike, and Ali. The only thing that gets me through each
day is the thought that my children may need me."
The Prosecution's Strategy
Because Sharpe pleaded not guilty by reason of
insanity, the facts of the crime will not be disputed at trial. But
prosecutor Robert Weiner must convince the jury that despite Sharpe's
oddities and instabilities, he was sane when he killed his wife.
The prosecution will likely call the eyewitnesses to
the murder, as well as Shannon Sharpe to testify about her parents'
tumultuous relationship.
But the most important testimony will be from
psychiatrists and other experts, whom the prosecution will use to
convince the jury that Sharpe was lucid and could discern right from
wrong when he shot his wife.
While it is unlikely that Judge Christine McEvoy
would allow such testimony, the prosecution may try to somehow introduce
evidence that Sharpe recently offered a fellow inmate a million dollars
to help him escape.
The Defense's Strategy
Sharpe's defense team will likely try to downplay
some of the more sensational accusations about Sharpe's personal life
but also show that he was insane and not accountable for his actions.
"He wasn't a cross-dresser in the sense that he had
an alternative life style," says lawyer Joseph Balliro.
Balliro would not discuss trial strategy but said
that the defense would call at least one expert witness to testify to
Sharpe's insanity.
The Sharpes'
Marriage
(according to court documents)