Dave Cawley: The world had gone into lockdown. Covid-19 had exploded into a full-blown pandemic. Schools and businesses were shuttered. Streets in cities across the United States were eerily quiet.
It was the spring of 2020, but at least one business in Ogden, Utah remained open: Dave Moore’s sewing machine repair shop. Dave and his brother, who co-owned the business, were trying to keep up with a sudden surge in demand for their services.
Dave Moore: We were extremely busy during when Covid broke out because everyone was staying home making masks.
Dave Cawley: Dave’s shop was still located right where it’d been in October of 1985, on the night when Sheree Warren had disappeared. The bar on the other side of the parking lot, where Dave’d gone for a drink with his friend Cary Hartmann that night, was still there too. But it’d changed names and owners several times over the decades. There’s a small office tucked in the back of Dave’s shop. Dave was working in the office one day that spring of 2020 when he heard someone come through the door onto the sales floor.
Dave Moore: My brother was down on the floor and uh, Cary came in and my brother’s not real fond of Cary, said uh “let me see if he’ll see you.” So he came up and I just walked down real briefly, said “hi,” y’know, “what’re you doing?” And he basically gave me the story that he was living in a halfway house and somebody donated a bed and a small TV to him and that was basically the conversation.
Dave Cawley: A modest new beginning for Cary Hartmann. Cary had just returned to Ogden after spending 32 years in prison. Dave had struggled over those years to reconcile the charming Cary he’d once known with the secretive man Cary’d revealed himself to be.
Dave Moore: To be honest with you, I didn’t believe he did it until he was convicted.
Dave Cawley: They’d remained in contact for awhile, but fell out of touch during the ‘90s. Years later, Dave wrote a letter to Cary.
Dave Moore: Just to see how he was doing. Just to see what the situation was and I basically wanted to know what, “what’s wrong with you?” Y’know?
Dave Cawley: Cary had not responded. So when Cary dropped in unannounced on Dave at work in early 2020, Dave hadn’t felt too eager to renew their old friendship.
Dave Moore: Yeah. We’d both changed.
Dave Cawley: Cary and Dave had been together at the bar on the evening of Sheree Warren’s disappearance, almost 35 years earlier. Cary’d tried to use Dave as an alibi. So it’s interesting one of the first things Cary did after getting out of prison was check up on his old friend. Cary’d told the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole before leaving prison he’d anticipated a tough transition.
Cary Hartmann (from October 29, 2019 parole board recording): I know there’s going to be rejection when I go out there in one form or another. Now, when I can’t handle that, that’s a risky situation for me. I know who I can call to say “whoa, my self-esteem is in the dirt.”
Dave Cawley: I wonder if Cary’s self-esteem took a hit when he realized he could no longer count Dave Moore as a friend. Another old friend of Cary’s, Brent Morgan the taxidermist, told me he also wants nothing to do with Cary. Which is saying something, because Brent and Cary grew up together.
Brent Morgan: If you go back to friends, I can remember him the farthest back because of the association of my parents and his parents.
Dave Cawley: Cary’d written letters to Brent’s mom for years after his conviction. And Cary’s own mother, Donna Hartmann, had kept in touch with the Morgans as well.
Brent Morgan: Donna was always after mom and myself to go and visit him and there was a couple of time I thought about it and I just didn’t want to.
Dave Cawley (to Brent Morgan): Hmm.
Brent Morgan: Didn’t want to.
Dave Cawley: Cary’s mom, Donna Hartmann, had attended her son’s parole board hearings. She’d heard him say under oath he’d lied to his family about being innocent.
Cary Hartmann (from September 21, 2010 parole board recording): I was in denial. I couldn’t face up to what I’d done. I was wracked with guilt and shame.
Dave Cawley: But Brent Morgan told me Cary’d privately held to a different story: he hadn’t raped anyone and was only admitting to the crimes because otherwise, the parole board would never let him out of prison. Donna Hartmann died in 2013.
Brent Morgan: His mother went to her grave believing that he was innocent.
Dave Cawley: Cary’s dad, Bill Hartmann, had defended his son from the start. He’d paid Cary’s bail, put up his own money to fund DNA testing and also attended his son’s parole board hearings. But Bill Hartmann didn’t live to see Cary regain his freedom, either. Bill died in January of 2020, just two months shy of Cary’s release from prison.
Sheree Warren’s friend and former coworker, Pam Volk, hadn’t realized Cary was free when she and I met a year-and-a-half later.
Pam Volk: Is he out?
Dave Cawley (to Pam Volk): He is
Pam Volk: Oh, I didn’t know he was out.
Dave Cawley: Yeah, yeah.
Pam Volk: That honestly makes me a little nervous. Hmm, ‘kay. Well, interesting. And he lives in Ogden?
Dave Cawley: Yeah, he does. I know, because I paid Cary Hartmann a visit myself.
This is Cold, season 3, episode 10: Last Man Standing From KSL Podcasts, I’m Dave Cawley.
[Ad break]
Dave Cawley: Sheree Warren’s dad, Ed Sorensen, told Salt Lake City TV station KTVX in 2019 he hoped to someday learn what happened to Sheree.
Ed Sorensen (from October 16, 2019 KTVX TV archive): Sure I’d love to know what happened, but I don’t think we’ll ever find out.
Dave Cawley: Roy City police were at the time actively investigating Sheree’s disappearance. The cold case remained in the hands of detective John Frawley, who still has the case today. John told me meeting Sheree’s family had changed his perspective.
John Frawley: Kinda sobering feeling that this family they didn’t get any answers.
Dave Cawley: Those conversations were driving John and his fellow detectives to keep digging. They wanted to at last be able to tell Sheree’s dad, Ed Sorensen, they were bringing his daughter home.
John Frawley: I don’t know how to explain that other than we want answers just as much as anyone else. It’s important to us.
Dave Cawley: John had come to believe Cary Hartmann held those answers. And he’d wanted to ask Cary about it.
John Frawley: So, I went down to the prison twice and then I met with him at AP&P. So three times.
Dave Cawley: AP&P is short for Adult Probation and Parole. It’s a state agency in Utah responsible for supervising people after they’re released from prison. John told me these interactions with Cary hadn’t proved very fruitful.
John Frawley: You know, I’ve been in a room with some, with some interesting people during this career and he’s one of them. It’s just very different.
Dave Cawley: We’ve heard several people over the course of this season describe Cary has having two personalities. He could come across as debonair or devilish, depending on the moment. John didn’t tell me which Cary he encountered. Cary’s release hadn’t come without strings. He had to abide by conditions set by the parole board.
John Frawley: As part of his parole agreement he was mandated to submit to random polygraph.
Dave Cawley: A lie detector, about whatever police wanted to ask him about. Random polygraphs are a standard condition of parole in felony sex offense cases in Utah. The results aren’t typically admissible as evidence in court, but they can help investigators figure out if they’re on the right track. Cary Hartmann had never taken a lie detector test about his relationship with Sheree Warren. He might end up back in prison on a parole violation, if he refused to cooperate now. John Frawley had Cary in a corner.
John Frawley: Oh man, yeah. He does not, he’s not happy with me.
Dave Cawley: John called in an FBI agent with decades of experience as a polygraph examiner. The agent sat Cary down and asked him a series of questions about Sheree’s disappearance.
John Frawley: And he did fail that polygraph test.
Dave Cawley: Spectacularly, or so I’ve heard. Roy police have refused to give me any records related to the polygraph. The FBI won’t even acknowledge such a report exists, which would be comical if it wasn’t so frustrating. This put John in something of a tight spot. He’s told me the polygraph report is important, but he’s also not at liberty to discuss it in detail. He could only give me this three-word summary without getting into trouble.
John Frawley: It shows deception.
Dave Cawley: Cary’s performance at the polygraph went so poorly, it made John rethink his entire take on the Sheree Warren case. From that point forward, he no longer saw Chuck Warren as his prime suspect. I asked John if that was so, why hadn’t he just arrested Cary?
John Frawley: It doesn’t give me what I need because I have two persons of interest.
Dave Cawley: Chuck Warren’s unwillingness, or inability, to provide a clear story about where he’d been after Sheree disappeared meant John couldn’t completely count Chuck out.
John Frawley: Yep. The two persons of interest are still Charles Warren and Cary Hartmann.
Dave Cawley: Chuck Warren never showed much interest in what’d happened to his estranged wife Sheree in 1985. He’d just moved on with his life. In the last episode, we heard Roy police detective John Frawley’s 2015 interview with Chuck.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording): You say you can’t remember too much but, y’know, you’re doing pretty good. You—
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording): Well as you’re bringing it up, I can remember a few things.
Dave Cawley: John’d asked Chuck about Cary Hartmann.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording): Did you know about him at the time. I mean, did you know that she was dating him or?
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording): (Exhales) I can’t remember.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording): Can’t remember that?
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording): Uh, I, yeah, I just can’t remember if she—
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording): Ok.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording): —uh, when he got arrested it seemed like, then I heard something about that she’d been dating him.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording): That she’d been dating him, afterwards.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording): And I think that’s how I found out, but I don’t know.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording): After—
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording): She’d never said anything to me about it.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording): ‘Kay.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording): And I’d never asked her—
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording): Right.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording): —so, y’know, ‘cause I was dating a lot of girls at the time.
John Frawley (from June 23, 2015 police recording): Right.
Dave Cawley: In case you didn’t catch that, Chuck said he’d been “dating a lot of girls” when Sheree’d disappeared. But we also know Chuck’d reunited with his first wife, Alice, during that same period.
By the time of John Frawley’s interview with Chuck 30 years later, Chuck was living with his third wife, a woman named Willow. She’d sat by Chuck’s side while John questioned him. Willow’d interjected at one point, saying she wasn’t surprised to hear Chuck’d acted unconcerned when Sheree didn’t show up looking for her son on the night of her disappearance.
Willow Hendricks (from June 23, 2015 police recording): He’s been a pretty easy-going guy, too. So when she didn’t actually come pick him up at that time he probably wasn’t too worried about it. She’d be there eventually.
Dave Cawley: The first time I heard this audio recording, I thought Chuck and Willow shared an odd dynamic. Chuck and Willow had lived together for about 10 years, but had only been married a year or so at the time of the interview. And they didn’t stay married long. Three years later, in 2018, Chuck filed for divorce. Court records show Willow tried to lay claim to a lot of Chuck’s property, including stuff he’d bought well before they’d married. Willow also refused to move out of Chuck’s house. He twice filed eviction lawsuits against her. She left under protest in early 2020, but didn’t stay gone. Willow soon convinced her ex-husband Chuck to let her back into his heart, his life and his house.
You might be wondering who you’re supposed to root for in all this. Neither Chuck nor Willow seem very sympathetic. But there’s a revelation I found in the court records that puts their squabble in a different context. Chuck filed a third eviction lawsuit against Willow in September of 2020. It says:
“Willow was supposed to help Chuck as he had been diagnosed with dementia. Willow has not been giving Chuck his medications.”
Looking back, the beginnings of Chuck’s mental decline seemed apparent five years earlier, during his interview with detective John Frawley.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording): Well, I have trouble remembering how to say different words.
Dave Cawley: In the last episode, I told you how Willow was 27 years younger than Chuck. They’d met and moved in together years before the onset of Chuck’s memory problems.
Willow Hendricks (from June 23, 2015 police recording): He never used to be like this. “How do I do this, how do I do that.” Then he’d get frustrated with it.
Dave Cawley: But Willow had only married Chuck in a spur-of-the-moment Las Vegas Elvis chapel wedding after Chuck’s memory started failing. Willow Hendricks went to court herself. She asked a judge to appoint her as Chuck Warren’s legal guardian. That hadn’t sat well with Chuck’s brother and two sons, one of whom was also Sheree’s son. Court records show they intervened, trying to block Willow from taking control of Chuck’s assets. On February 1st, 2021, a judge declared Chuck “incapacitated.” Under the legal definition, that meant Chuck could no longer provide for his own protection, health or safety. His ability to evaluate information, make decisions and provide for the necessities of life were impaired.
Chuck’s dementia meant whatever he might’ve known about Sheree’s disappearance was locked away where even he couldn’t get to it. And if evidence were to somehow emerge proving Chuck’d killed Sheree, no prosecutor would ever charge him. Chuck wouldn’t be able to aid in his own defense, or even understand what he was accused of doing.
I learned about Chuck’s condition early in my research for this season. I realized I wouldn’t ever have a chance to interview him. I couldn’t, in good conscience, knowing Chuck lacked the cognitive ability to understand the questions I would ask. And it’s a terrible lost opportunity. From February of 2021 onward, Chuck Warren was off-limits in the search for answers about Sheree’s disappearance.
A couple of months later, in April of 2021, an investigator for the Weber County Attorney’s Office brought Cary Hartmann to an office in downtown Ogden. The investigator, Steve Haney, introduced Cary to a criminal defense lawyer named Michael Bouwhuis. Michael was a public defender, who’d represented thousands of clients over the years. Haney’d called both Cary and Michael here as part of a plan he’d conceived. He hoped he might coax Cary into admitting to Sheree Warren’s murder, by making Cary an offer he couldn’t refuse.
What I tell you next has never before been revealed: Steve Haney, the investigator, handed Cary a letter from the county attorney. It offered Cary immunity from criminal charges, if he revealed the location of Sheree Warren’s remains. A promise: take us to Sheree and we won’t charge you with her murder. This is what’s known as “transactional immunity.” It’s sometimes used to obtain testimony from witnesses or accomplices — see season 2 of this very podcast for an example — but it’s almost never provided to the primary target in a major criminal investigation like this.
The wording of the immunity offer was broad. There were no hidden “gotchas.” It was a literal get-out-of-jail-free card for Cary Hartmann. The letter even said this promise of immunity did not depend on the successful recovery of Sheree’s remains. So long as Cary told the truth about what he’d done and made a good faith effort to show where he’d left her body, he wouldn’t face any consequences. The county attorney had already signed the letter. All it needed to become binding was Cary’s own signature.
Cary, I’m told, seemed suspicious and skeptical. He didn’t know Michael Bouwhuis, this lawyer the cop Haney said was supposed to represent him. Besides, Cary already had his own lawyer, a fact Haney hadn’t realized. Cary called his attorney on the phone. They talked, then informed investigator Steve Haney they needed time to discuss the offer. Cary then left, taking the immunity letter with him.
About a week later, Steve Haney received a follow-up phone call from Cary’s attorney. The lawyer reportedly said Cary was not going accept the immunity offer. But here’s the thing, as far as I know Cary still has the immunity letter. And he could at any time sign it, walk into the Weber County Attorney’s Office, admit to killing Sheree Warren and face no consequences. But maybe Cary doesn’t need to do that. After all, why would he need immunity for something he’s insisted he didn’t do? Maybe Cary just doesn’t like talking to cops. Perhaps he’d feel more comfortable speaking with a reporter. Let’s find out.
[Ad break]
Dave Cawley: The air feels stifling. I sit in the driver seat of a small Honda crossover, pulled into a parking stall at an apartment complex not far from the mouth of Ogden Canyon. It’s the same place where Cary Hartmann lived at the time of his arrest in 1987. It’s the apartment complex where police’d found a gray suede jacket, possibly belonging to Sheree Warren, when they’d searched Cary’s unit in the rape investigation.
For some reason, Cary Hartmann chose to move back here in 2020, after he left prison, following a short stint at a halfway house. I step out of the car…
(Sound of car door)
Dave Cawley (from May 5, 2021 recording): Let’s go knock.
Dave Cawley: …and walk toward one of the three-story buildings. It’s the start of May, 2021 and Utah’s experiencing a spring swelter. Air conditioners whir as I pass by. I look at the numbers on the doors, counting up until I find the right one, stop and knock.
(Sound of door knock)
Dave Cawley: No answer. I look at the unit number again, comparing it to Cary’s public listing in the Utah sex offender registry. It’s the right place, I’m sure. But Cary doesn’t seem to be home. Or at least, he doesn’t answer the door. I expected this, and I’ve come prepared with a pen and notepad.
Dave Cawley (from May 5, 2021 recording): Ok, what is our date today?
Sheryl Worsley (from May 5, 2021 recording): It’s the fifth, Cinco de Mayo.
Dave Cawley: That’s the voice of my boss, Sheryl Worsley, who’s joining me on this outing.
Dave Cawley (from May 5, 2021 recording): Alright, let’s see. What do we want to say here? Uh, “Mr. Cary Hartmann”…
Dave Cawley: This isn’t the first letter I’ve written to Cary. I’d reached out to him once before, when he was still incarcerated. At that time, I was researching the murder of Joyce Yost for season 2 of this podcast. I’d come across the recording of William Babbel, aka Charlie the FBI informant. We heard from him back in episode 6.
William Babbel (from December 19, 1991 police recording): I was in a therapy group with Cary Hartmann. And I know Cary Hartmann’s story very well.
Dave Cawley: William Babbel had told the FBI Cary Hartmann killed Sheree Warren. But Babbel later switched up his story and told a South Ogden police detective a different guy, Doug Lovell, killed Sheree.
William Babbel (from December 19, 1991 police recording): He mentioned somebody, that he was afraid he was going to get questioned in a rape-kidnap-murder of somebody named Sheree Warren.
Dave Cawley: I’d wanted to know what Cary made of Babbel’s contradictory claims. Was William Babbel a liar? But Cary never responded to my first letter. So this is why I’m standing at Cary’s door. I’m carrying a transcript of the William Babbel police interview with me as I knock at Cary’s apartment. When he doesn’t answer, I tuck the transcript behind his screen door, along with the following note.
Dave Cawley (from May 5, 2021 recording): Mr. Cary Hartmann, my name is Dave Cawley. I am a reporter with KSL. I previously wrote you while you were still incarcerated, hoping to set up an interview regarding a story I was working on about the Joyce Yost case. I never heard back but would still like an opportunity to speak with you. I will be publishing a story next week that includes a claim Doug Lovell had some involvement with the disappearance of another woman whom you knew, Sheree Warren. I’ve included a copy of a police interview with a prison informant named William Babbel. I’d love to hear your thoughts about what William had to say. I look forward to hearing from you, Dave Cawley.
Sheryl Worsley (from May 5, 2021 recording): There you go.
Dave Cawley (from May 5, 2021 recording): So be it.
Dave Cawley: Then, Sheryl and I walk back to our car and crank up the A/C. I’m about to put the car in reverse when I glance at the rearview mirror and freeze.
“Act cool,” I say to Sheryl, “but take a look to our left.”
As she does, I reach down and switch off the ignition.
Dave Cawley (from May 5, 2021 recording): So we’re sitting in the car outside Cary Hartmann’s apartment, having just left a note in his, uh, door, telling him that we wanted to speak with him and Sheryl, what happened?
Sheryl Worsley (from May 5, 2021 recording): And he pulls up, backs into a parking spot and we’re like “we think that’s him.”
Dave Cawley (from May 5, 2021 recording): Yeah. I recognized the car driving past in the rearview, being a Chevy Avalanche, which was what was listed as one of his vehicles on the Utah sex offender registry and, and you watched him get out.
Sheryl Worsley (from May 5, 2021 recording): Yep. It looks like it’s him. So we’re going to give him a second to get our note and we’ll try again.
Dave Cawley (from May 5, 2021 recording): Give him a door knock.
Sheryl Worsley (from May 5, 2021 recording): Yep.
Dave Cawley: We decide five minutes seems fair: enough time to read letter and skim the transcript. We wait, watching the clock, then go knock on Cary Hartmann’s door a second time.
(Sound of door knock)
Dave Cawley: The door opens just a crack. I can see the lights are off inside. It’s dark, cave-like, as if blackout curtains cover all the windows. But enough light shines through the crack in the door to illuminate a face I recognize in the shadows.
Dave Cawley (from May 5, 2021 recording): Hey Cary—
Cary Hartmann (from May 5, 2021 recording): (Unintelligible)
Dave Cawley (from May 5, 2021 recording): Dave Cawley from KSL. I left you a note, uh, but then I saw you pulling in as we were getting ready to leave. Umm, can I talk to you for just a second?
Cary Hartmann (from May 5, 2021 recording): No, I don’t have anything to say.
Dave Cawley (from May 5, 2021 recording): Ok.
Cary Hartmann (from May 5, 2021 recording): You want to talk to me, you have to talk to my attorney.
Dave Cawley (from May 5, 2021 recording): Oh, who’s your attorney? I’d be happy to reach out.
Cary Hartmann (from May 5, 2021 recording): (Pause) Johnathan Porter’s my attorney.
Dave Cawley (from May 5, 2021 recording): Johnathan Porter? Ok, thank you, sir.
Sheryl Worsley (from May 5, 2021 recording): Thank you.
Cary Hartmann (from May 5, 2021 recording): (Unintelligible)
Dave Cawley (from May 5, 2021 recording): Got it.
Dave Cawley: And that’s the entirety of my communication with Cary Hartmann. It struck me as odd Cary’d referred me to his attorney. At the time, I wasn’t aware Weber County had offered Cary immunity just a couple of weeks earlier. I did reach out to Cary’s attorney, by the way, but I received no response. Cary Hartmann won’t talk to me.
I did talk to former Ogden police detective Chris Zimmerman, the guy who’d made the rape case against Cary in 1987, around the same time I went to knock on Cary Hartmann’s door. Zimmerman told me he believes Cary’s paid his debt to society and deserves a chance to prove he’s a changed man. Zimmerman’s position surprised me. He’s not someone I expected would show Cary much sympathy. Zimmerman’s notes and reports include a lot of detail about what Cary reportedly did to his suspected victims back in the ‘80s. I haven’t shared all of what’s in them, mostly to avoid being salacious and to protect the innocent from additional trauma.
Zimmerman declined my request for an on-the-record interview, but I shared what he told me with former Roy police detective Jack Bell, the original investigator on Sheree Warren’s disappearance.
Jack Bell: What Zimmerman said about him doing his time is true. Because he has done more time for the rapes than he would for a manslaughter.
Dave Cawley: Cary’d spent 32 years in prison, more than double the 15-year minimum on his sentence. Over the course of this season, we’ve heard how the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole kept Cary in for a few reasons. They included Cary’s own refusal to accept responsibility for what he’d done.
Heather Nelson Cooke (from January 17, 1992 parole board recording): There is tremendous repression and denial going on. So strongly … that therapy would be completely a waste of time until there’s a change of, of your perception.
Dave Cawley: The parole board had at times feared Cary might revert to his past behaviors. And there was the matter of Cary’s possible involvement in the disappearance of Sheree Warren. But in the end, the parole board decided to send Cary back out into society. Jack Bell told me he doesn’t believe Cary Hartmann’s squared his debts.
Jack Bell: No I don’t feel like he’s done his time.
Dave Cawley: I also asked former Weber County Attorney Reed Richards, the prosecutor who’d first put Cary away, if he believes Cary’s paid his debts.
Reed Richards: Well, that’s an interesting discussion and I don’t know that I have an opinion on it.
Dave Cawley: Reed said he’d felt surprised, not that the parole board let Cary out, but instead that it kept Cary in as long as it did.
Dave Cawley (to Reed Richards): Why so? Tell me—
Reed Richards: Well, because it was 15-to-life. So generally people were doing 15 years and getting out. But I can say that if he had been convicted the same time of homicide and the rape cases, he probably wouldn’t have spent any more time than he spent.
Dave Cawley: You could make an argument Cary’s already received punishment for a crime he’s not been charged with. Would that mean Cary no longer bears responsibility, if he killed Sheree Warren?
Reed Richards: And I guess the other question is what would a court do with it anyway? Y’know, if you were to convict him now, he’s probably what, 75 or so?
Dave Cawley: Cary is 74 years old, at the time I’m recording this.
Reed Richards: Yeah. So what are they gonna do with him?
Dave Cawley: If prosecutors today charged Cary Hartmann with Sheree Warren’s murder based on the evidence at hand, and if that case went to trial and you ended up on the jury, odds are you wouldn’t hear a word about lingerie survey phone calls, the Ogden City Rapist investigation or the lies Cary told to the parole board over the years. Courts operate under rules of evidence. Those rules spell out what kind of information prosecutors can use to try and prove their case. The stuff I just mentioned would likely not be allowed, because it doesn’t directly tie in to Sheree Warren’s disappearance. And even if it did, a judge might still not allow it because of the risk it could prejudice the jury against Cary. This explains why the Weber County Attorney’s Office offered Cary Hartmann immunity. They were willing to give up on ever charging Cary, if it meant they might recover Sheree’s remains, for her family.
Reed Richards: Like with any person who’s lost a loved one, to have the body and know where the grave is pretty important. So yeah, I think there’s value in doing that even if you don’t prosecute.
Dave Cawley: But as we heard, Cary rejected the immunity offer.
Reed Richards: I’m not sure where you go at this point, unless you find the body somewhere. Umm, and even if you find the body, that doesn’t necessarily tell you who killed her.
Dave Cawley: That would depend on where. We have two likely suspects: Chuck Warren or Cary Hartmann. Finding Sheree Warren’s remains somewhere in the desert partway between Ogden and Las Vegas wouldn’t directly tie her death to either of them. On the other hand, finding Sheree’s remains buried in the back yard of Chuck’s house would clearly point toward him. Finding her remains on the mountain behind Causey Reservoir would point to Cary.
Most of my attention has so far focused on Causey, because we have a confluence of evidence all pointing that direction: it’s near where Cary Hartmann lured Heidi Posnien at the start of our story. It’s where his friends owned land and liked to hunt. It’s where the elk hunting guide Fred Johns spotted Cary four days after Sheree disappeared. And it’s where an anonymous caller reported finding a woman’s body…
Anonymous caller (from April 3, 1987 dispatch recording): I’m reporting a body that I found.
Dave Cawley: …remains that to this day have not been located. Let’s imagine that changed. Pretend somebody found Sheree’s remains on the mountain behind Causey, where the elk hunting guide sighted Cary Hartmann. How would we then interpret everything we’ve learned so far this season?
I’m now going to walk you through a step-by-step of what Sheree Warren’s murder could’ve looked like, based on the evidence and witness testimony we’ve gathered. There are gaps, which I will bridge with some speculation. Keep in mind: I’m not saying this is what did happen, I’m saying it’s one possible explanation of what could’ve happened.
On the evening of October 2nd, 1985, Sheree Warren walked out of an office building in Salt Lake City. She told Richard Moss, the man she’d been training, she was headed to Wagstaff Toyota to pick up her estranged husband.
Richard Moss: It was about 6:25 that we finally balanced and left the office. We got to the parking lot, she went to the west. I went north.
Dave Cawley: But Sheree’s husband, Chuck Warren, wasn’t waiting for her at Wagstaff. He’d changed his plans at the last minute and decided not to take his Toyota Supra from his home in Ogden to the dealership in Salt Lake City.
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording): I remember calling her to tell her I wasn’t coming.
Dave Cawley: Around that same time, Cary Hartmann dropped in at his friend Dave Moore’s shop in Ogden. Cary suggested they go grab a couple drinks at a bar across the way. Cary and Dave spent a couple hours at the bar, from about 6 to between 8 and 9 p.m. So Cary was at the bar when Sheree left her work 40 miles south in Salt Lake City.
Sheree would’ve headed toward Ogden, either straight from work or after realizing Chuck wasn’t waiting for her at Wagstaff Toyota. Given the drive time, Sheree would’ve arrived in the Ogden area around 7:30 p.m. at the earliest. Her daily routine was to meet Chuck at the Denny’s restaurant just off the I-15 freeway in Roy. But she’d been late getting out of work, so I don’t know if she would’ve gone there or not on this particular night. She didn’t have a cell phone, making it difficult to change plans on the fly. Chuck wasn’t at that Denny’s, in any case. He later told police he’d gone out for that “jog.”
Chuck Warren (from June 23, 2015 police recording): Uh, yeah. Yeah, I was out jogging. That’s what I was doing.
Dave Cawley: Maybe Sheree stopped at the Denny’s in Roy looking for Chuck. We know she didn’t go home because her mom, Mary Sorensen, said Sheree never showed up for dinner. Everything I’ve heard about Sheree suggests her top priority would’ve been picking up her son. So I believe she would’ve headed toward Chuck’s house. If you today ask your phone for directions from Roy to Chuck’s house in Ogden, it will route you up Ogden’s 7th Street. That’s where Cary Hartmann lived at the time.
Give a little more drive time to get from Roy to Ogden and we see Sheree could’ve driven past Cary’s basement apartment around 8 p.m. or a little after. That’s around the same time Cary’s friend Dave Moore told me they’d left the bar, meaning Cary could’ve already been home by the time Sheree hypothetically drove past his place. She could’ve seen his yellow truck parked in the driveway at the top of the stairs that lead down into the basement.
The two women who’d lived above Cary, the teachers Kaye Lynn and Mary, later told police they believed Sheree’d stopped there that night. They told detective John Frawley they’d overheard a loud argument.
John Frawley: And the argument was Sheree had found out Cary Hartmann was dating someone else. And then during this argument they heard a loud thud. And then Cary Hartmann cusses and then they don’t hear anything after that.
Dave Cawley: Cary had a history of using physical force against his romantic partners. He outweighed Sheree by at least 50 pounds. It’s possible a single blow could’ve knocked her unconscious or even killed her. I can imagine Cary then in a panic, wondering who else knew Sheree was at his place.
Sheree’s mom, Mary Sorensen, told police Cary’d called her at around 8 p.m. Cary’d asked where Sheree was. She told Cary Sheree’d intended to meet Chuck at the car dealership, then come home for dinner. But Sheree hadn’t showed up yet. As far as we know, Mary didn’t say anything to Cary about Sheree having plans to stop off at Cary’s apartment that night. So Cary would’ve presumably known he was safe, at least for a little while.
After hanging up with Mary, Cary could’ve wrapped Sheree in his black parka before taking her up the stairs from the basement apartment and placing her in his truck. Where to then? He would’ve needed somewhere dark and remote. Maybe Lost Creek, where Cary’d spent time deer hunting with his brother and cop buddies in the past. Lost Creek was an hour-and-a-half drive away, most of it on the interstate. Too far, and too risky. How about Causey? The secluded confines of Causey Estates were only 45 minutes from Ogden. The route, along Utah state highway 39, wound through dark canyons. And Cary knew his way around Causey Estates. He’d spent time there with friends, like the taxidermist Brent Morgan.
Brent Morgan: And, uh, there’s a locked gate.
Dave Cawley: Brent just happened to have loaned Cary his key to the gate at Causey Estates a couple of weeks earlier.
Dave Cawley (to Brent Morgan): Once he’s past the gate to get into Causey Estates, he can go up top.
Brent Morgan: That’s correct.
Dave Cawley: Ok.
Brent Morgan: That’s correct.
Dave Cawley: There’s no proof Cary visited Causey Estates on the night of Sheree’s disappearance. This is speculative and you should treat it with due skepticism. I don’t think it’s likely Cary would’ve spent too long at Causey Estates, if he’d gone there that night. It’s not likely he would’ve gone all the way up the mountain, because in this hypothetical scenario, Sheree’s car would’ve still been sitting on the street outside his place in Ogden. Every second it remained there, he would’ve been exposed. He would’ve needed a quick but safe drop site.
Brent Morgan: The thing you gotta understand about Cary is, he’s lazy, y’know, he’s not gonna do anything that’s too hard.
Dave Cawley: Cary’d spent the first part of that evening at the bar with his friend Dave Moore and Dave had owned a lot in Causey Estates at the time.
Dave Cawley (to Dave Moore): Pretty quiet back in those days?
Dave Moore: It was. Real quiet.
Dave Cawley: Cary would’ve known Dave’s lot at Causey Estates was unoccupied that night, making it a safe place to temporarily stash Sheree. Cary could’ve driven from his apartment in Ogden to Dave Moore’s lot in Causey Estates and been back home before 11 p.m.
Sheree’s mom, Mary Sorensen, told police she’d received a second call from Cary on the night of Sheree’s disappearance between 10 and 11. He’d again asked if Sheree’d made it home. Mary’d said no. In this hypothetical scenario, Cary could’ve made this second call to Mary Sorensen after returning from dropping Sheree’s body, using it to bolster his story: he hadn’t seen Sheree at all that night.
Next, Cary would’ve needed to get rid of Sheree’s car. He would’ve taken her keys and gone out to her Toyota Corolla.
Chuck Warren liked to go to Las Vegas. He’d honeymooned there, more than once. His brother told me Chuck’d gone to Vegas regularly. It seems plausible Sheree might’ve shared that detail with Cary. If so, it’s conceivable Cary might’ve chosen to take Sheree’s car to Vegas as part of an effort to frame Chuck. If Cary’d driven through the night he could’ve arrived in Las Vegas just before sunrise. A quick jog to the airport, a false name at the ticket counter and a breeze through the pre-9/11 security process could’ve put Cary on a plane and back in Salt Lake City by 9:30 a.m.
He would’ve then needed to get from Salt Lake to Ogden. A taxi cab’s one possibility, but I don’t think someone sneaking home from dumping murder evidence in another state would want to leave a random cab driver as a witness, if it could be avoided. A trusted friend or relative seems more likely to me, but to my knowledge no one’s ever come forward to say they picked Cary up at the airport. That’s one major hole in this hypothetical scenario.
Sheree’s mom, Mary Sorensen, reported her daughter missing to Roy police around noon on October 3rd, the day after Sheree’s disappearance. Her report landed on the desk of detective Jack Bell. Jack’d first tried to get ahold of Chuck Warren but couldn’t find him. Jack’d then turned his attention to Cary, placing a call to Cary around 2:30 p.m. Cary would later claim he called Jack, not the other way around. Cary said he made that call from work, but his timecard told a different story. It said Cary’d taken that day off. In any case, Cary’d arrived at Roy police headquarters around 2:45. He’d told Jack he’d gone to the bar with his friend Dave Moore the prior evening. Cary’d said he hadn’t realized Sheree was missing until that morning, when he’d supposedly talked to her mom on the phone. This contradicted what Mary Sorensen described, about getting two phone calls from Cary the night prior.
In this first interaction between Cary Hartmann and Jack Bell, Cary didn’t say Sheree was supposed to be waiting for him at his basement apartment while Cary was at the bar. That implausible story came later.
The first newspaper report of Sheree’s disappearance published the next day — Friday — two days after Sheree was last seen leaving her work. Cary’s upstairs neighbors saw the article, and recalled the loud fight they’d heard. One of them, Mary, taped a sympathy note to Cary’s door. Cary responded by grilling Mary about whether she’d seen Sheree at the house at any point during the last couple days.
Kira Hoffelmeyer (as Mary Courney from May 13, 1987 statement): He had been so convincing about how he felt about losing her.
Dave Cawley: Those are Mary’s words from her written statement, read by a voice actor.
Kira Hoffelmeyer (as Mary Courney from May 13, 1987 statement): He told us at that time that he was sure it was her ex-husband.
Dave Cawley: The next day, on Saturday — three days after Sheree was last seen — Cary dropped by the home of his TV reporter friend, Larry Lewis. He asked Larry to go on a 3-wheeler ride looking for Sheree’s body. They’d taken the 3-wheelers into the foothills above the city. Larry would later say Cary’d said they didn’t need to look around Chuck Warren’s house because police had already done that, which wasn’t true.
Cary’d showed up at gatherings after Sheree disappeared, where her family prayed for her safe return. Detective Shane Minor had talked to people who said Cary’d claimed to be spending all his time searching for Sheree and handing out missing persons fliers.
Shane Minor: But then the question is, is he really, or is that just he wants people to believe?
Dave Cawley: He did pass some of the fliers around, to his friends and even his own brother, but remember, Cary’s upstairs neighbors ended up finding a full box of those fliers abandoned in his closet after he moved out, a year following Sheree’s disappearance.
Shane Minor: It seems like that would be pretty common. You would hear one side from Cary on what he’s doing, who he’s doing it with and everything they’re doing but then when you’d talk to the person he’s referring to, they’d describe it as quite a bit different, like none of that was taking place.
Dave Cawley: If Cary had left Sheree Warren’s body at Causey Estates on the night of her disappearance, he might’ve felt nervous in the days that followed, as he put on this ruse of searching for her. It was opening weekend of the annual elk hunt. Cary would’ve known many of the cabin owners of Causey Estates would be headed up the mountain. Cary might’ve decided to move Sheree deeper into the backcountry. It’s a theory his former friend, the taxidermist Brent Morgan, told me makes sense.
Brent Morgan: If he had access up there and could go up and down the roads, you can find the right place where you can 1-2-3 heave-ho and it’s gonna be in a spot where people aren’t gonna go.
Dave Cawley (to Brent Morgan): But it’s gotta be a place that he can—
Brent Morgan: Get to.
Dave Cawley: —hypothetically get a body to, right?
Brent Morgan: That’s exactly right. And there are places up there where roads go to those type of areas. But it’s a big area.
Dave Cawley: Cary at this time still possessed the key for the gate at Causey Estates he’d borrowed from Brent. Back in episode 4, Brent told us he’d tried to get his key back, but Cary’d dodged him for days, not wanting to return it. So Cary could’ve gone back to Causey Estates early on Sunday, October 6th — four days after Sheree disappeared — with his ugly yellow truck and another man. A man who resembled his younger brother, Jack. Because this is when the elk hunting guide, Fred Johns, would later say he saw Cary Hartmann trespassing on private property.
Cary could’ve retrieved Sheree’s body from Causey Estates and driven farther up onto the mountain behind Causey, to the middle of nowhere. Cary might’ve backed his truck into some trees off the side of the primitive dirt road. It would’ve provided cover as he transferred his his payload from the back of his truck to one of his 3-wheelers. From there, Cary might’ve gone off into the brush until he found a protected, private place to once again abandon Sheree’s body, this time for good.
Back in episode 4, we met a former Weber County Sheriff’s detective named Rod Layton. He’d led the search for the anonymous caller who reported finding a body near Causey.
Rod Layton: I was the lieutenant over investigations division when I left.
Dave Cawley: Rod told me in his experience, most crimes, and most criminals, are not complicated.
Rod Layton: Don’t give these people more credit than they deserve for being smart or being motivated ‘cause they’re not.
Dave Cawley: Rod said this same logic applies to killers who try to cover their crime by concealing the victim’s body. They tend to act irrationally, out of fear.
Rod Layton: And they’re not smart and they’re lazy.
Dave Cawley: This assumption is common in law enforcement circles, and for good reason. It keeps investigators from wasting time on fantastical theories. Keep it simple.
Rod Layton: Do I think that this guy went up there, y’know, carried the body back a mile? No.
Dave Cawley: But the assumption might break down if your suspected killer is a person who knows this is how cops tend to think. A person with police training. A person who knows to take that one bit of extra effort. So I’m going to challenge Rod’s assumption here, because evidence suggests Cary Hartmann had the training, the means and the mindset to be an exception to the rule.
We’ve now explored a hypothetical scenario involving Cary killing Sheree, then later enlisting the help of an accomplice to move Sheree’s body to a place it wouldn’t be found on the mountain behind Causey.
Moving a body is not a trivial task. I wasn’t sure if the 3-wheeled ATVs Cary owned in 1985 would’ve been up to the job. If the answer is no, the whole hypothetical falls apart. If the answer is yes, it suggests Sheree’s remains could be on that mountain today, in a place where no one’s yet bothered to look.
I decided to buy a 3-wheeler and conduct an experiment. I wanted to know if it was feasible for someone to use a machine like the ones Cary Hartmann had owned to move a body off-road, into the backcountry behind Causey. But first, some context. Three-wheeled ATVs hit the market at the start of the ‘70s. By the ‘80s, they were exploding in popularity.
Announcer (from 1981 Honda TV advertisement): Eleven years ago, Honda invented the ATC 3-wheeler and ever since, folks have been inventing new ways to use it.
Dave Cawley: Many hunters today will quarter a deer and haul it out of the forest on a four-wheeler. But I didn’t know if that would’ve been so simple with a more primitive 3-wheeler. Vintage 3-wheelers are narrower, weigh less and are more maneuverable than four-wheelers. People took them everywhere, cutting new trails and ripping up vegetation.
Richard Bingham (from February 24, 1986 KSL TV archive): It’s mainly the small all-terrain-cycles or ATCs that are at the heart of the problem. Popular with kids and adults alike, they’re fun to ride and go almost anywhere. They’re also dangerous.
Dave Cawley: Most 3-wheelers didn’t have suspension, meaning they couldn’t carry much weight and were rough to ride. They also had a tendency to tip, causing injuries or death. That’s why manufacturers stopped making them in 1987. But you can still buy old ones second-hand, which is what I did.
Former South Ogden police detective Terry Carpenter, who I met while working on the Joyce Yost case in season 2 of this podcast, was able to secure permission for me to access the private land on the mountain between Causey and Lost Creek Reservoirs: the slash in the percent sign. Terry and I met at Lost Creek one morning in July of 2022. I unrolled a large map of the area across the tailgate of Terry’s truck.
Dave Cawley (to Terry Carpenter): ’Kay. So we’re going to come up Killfoil all the way up to the corral, right?
Terry Carpenter: Right.
Dave Cawley: Then we’re going to hang a left.
Dave Cawley: Our target established, we headed up the mountain. Terry had the key to open the gate.
(Sound of chain rattling and metal gate hinges)
Dave Cawley: It was a long ride, nearly 15 miles one-way from Lost Creek. We came to the spot on the mountain where Fred Johns, the elk hunting guide, had told police he saw Cary Hartmann and another man — possibly Cary’s younger brother Jack — on the Sunday after Sheree Warren disappeared. Terry Carpenter and I stepped out into the clearing on the ridge.
(Sound of bird song)
Dave Cawley: Standing there in the summer sun, I tried to imagine what reason Cary might’ve had for coming to this isolated spot four days after his girlfriend vanished. He’d reportedly told Fred Johns, the hunting guide, he was looking for elk. But as we’ve heard from Cary’s own brother…
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording): What did he hunt, to the best of your—
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording): Deer.
Bill Daines (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording): —present recollection. Just deer?
Jack Hartmann (from January 27, 2006 subpoena recording): Just deer.
Dave Cawley: So was Cary stalking elk or had he harbored more sinister intentions? To test whether an old 3-wheeler could’ve carried a human body from this roadside clearing deeper into the forest, I needed an object similar in size, shape and weight. I pulled three bags of rock salt out of Terry’s truck. Each one weighed 40 pounds. I spread a set of painter’s coveralls on the dirt, then poured the 120 pounds of rock salt into the coveralls through a zippered opening on the chest.
Dave Cawley (from July 1, 2021 recording): (Grunts)
(Sound of salt pouring)
Dave Cawley: Sheree’s driver’s license listed her as five-foot-five and 115 pounds.
Dave Cawley (from July 1, 2021 recording): So this is about as much as a human body would weigh: 120 pounds of rock salt. And it is not easy to move.
Dave Cawley: Terry and I lifted the simulated body onto the rack mounted on the back of my 3-wheeler.
Dave Cawley (from July 1, 2021 recording): One, two, three.
Dave Cawley: I’m a reasonably fit guy but this task felt more difficult than I’d anticipated…
Dave Cawley (to Terry Carpenter): I’ll come around this side. You got it?
Dave Cawley: …not just because of the weight. The simulated body proved unwieldy.
Dave Cawley (from July 1, 2021 recording): Ok. That is a two-person job. You are not doing that alone.
Dave Cawley: I’ve never moved an actual deceased human body, so I’m not sure how well this approximated reality. But a second set of hands made a huge difference. I’m not sure I could’ve managed on my own. With the simulated body in place, I fired up the 3-wheeler’s small engine and headed down the dirt road.
Having so much additional weight over the rear axle took pressure off the single front tire, which in turn made steering less effective. The engine felt sluggish. The rear tires rubbed on the plastic fenders. But the frame didn’t bottom out. And with enough extra throttle, the 3-wheeler did go.
I rode about a quarter mile to a place where I knew from my research an old Jeep trail forked off from the road. Maps from the ‘80s show the trail descending into a canyon called Pete Nelson Hollow. This was one of the places I believed it was plausible Cary Hartmann might’ve gone on that Sunday so many years ago. It appeared evident the Jeep trail hadn’t seen use in a long time. Trees had fallen across the path and the underbrush had reclaimed the old tire tracks. I decided not to try and ride down it myself, because of the risk of getting stuck. Instead, I scouted the old trail on foot.
Dave Cawley (from July 1, 2021 recording): This would be a pretty tough path to get a 3-wheeler down. You could do it, but you’d need to be a pretty good rider. And with the extra weight from a body, it would not be a fun ride.
Dave Cawley: That might’ve been different in 1985, when the path wasn’t so overgrown. The old ATV trail ended at a set of springs, where water rose out of the ground and created a series of murky pools. These springs feed into Causey Reservoir. They were surrounded by thick fields of a poisonous plant called false hellebore. I crashed through it…
(Sound of footsteps through underbrush)
Dave Cawley: …finding it so dense I couldn’t see down past my own waist.
Dave Cawley (from July 1, 2021 recording): You might walk by a human body in this kind of environment and be 10 feet away from it and not ever see it.
Dave Cawley: Emerging on the other side of the hellebore patch, I saw meadows of dandelions and clear views farther down into the canyon. If I’d been on the 3-wheeler, I could’ve easily kept riding.
Dave Cawley (from July 1, 2021 recording): It’s hard to describe without being up here and seeing this landscape just how futile it feels if you were trying to find a human body up here.
Dave Cawley: Still, I found myself getting sucked into the moment. I wanted to abandon my experiment and instead wander, searching for Sheree. I knew the odds of finding anything were slim. But irrational hope sometimes leads the mind astray. What if, I wondered, I just happened across a chip of bone or fragment of cloth? Some remnant. But no. No delusions of grandeur. I hiked back to the 3-wheeler with a newfound knowledge of what I’d only suspected before: human remains could easily go undetected in these mountain meadows.
Dave Cawley (from July 1, 2021 recording): And it’s possible, I believe, somebody could have driven a 3-wheeler down from the ridge into this opening.
Dave Cawley: If Cary Hartmann killed Sheree Warren, my experiment suggests it’s plausible he could’ve used one of his 3-wheelers to move her body into the backcountry on this mountain, beyond where police might bother to look. But maybe there’s another explanation for what Cary was doing here, four days after Sheree Warren disappeared. It’s a question I would very much like to ask him. And Cary, if you’re listening, you have an open invitation to come give your answer.
[Ad break]
Dave Cawley: When I first met former Roy police detective Jack Bell, we didn’t start off talking about the Sheree Warren case. Instead, Jack opened our conversation by talking about another case I wasn’t familiar with from the mid-‘80s.
Jack Bell: (Laughs) It’s a, a strange story. We had a, we had a serial bank robber.
Dave Cawley: This robber had committed hold-ups at a few banks and a pharmacy. He was a smooth operator, who’d worn a suit and trench coat. He didn’t make the ignorant mistakes many novice criminals do.
Jack Bell: We knew, had a pretty good hunch that this bank robber was an ex-cop, or a cop, y’know? He knew too much about how we did business.
Dave Cawley: Detectives hadn’t had much to go on aside from a photo that didn’t show the man’s face and a brief audio recording of his voice. Jack’d began to look — and listen — suspiciously at his fellow officers. He honed in on one particular guy he often saw working out at the city’s gym. One day, Jack made a surreptitious tape recording of this suspect.
Jack Bell: Taped this guy and turned it over to the FBI and their voice comparisons and, yeah. “I think you’re on the right track, this is, sure sounds like it.”
Dave Cawley: Jack’d grown more and more certain he had his man. But he had no evidence to support that, just a theory.
Jack Bell: Lo and behold.
Dave Cawley: The guy from the gym was not the bank robber. Jack’d been wrong. Hard evidence, including a confession, ended up pointing to a different guy, a former Roy City police officer named Boyd Wilcox.
Jack Bell: And his voice was perfect.
Dave Cawley: I didn’t at first understand why Jack wanted me to know about the mistake he’d made in the search for this bank robber, since it was unrelated to the disappearance of Sheree Warren. It wasn’t until more than two hours later in our conversation Jack came back to it.
Jack Bell: It’s like I told you about that bank robber. I mean, I left that gym that day convinced I had the right guy.
Dave Cawley: Jack was trying to warn me: be careful about what you think you know. Don’t let your theories get too far in front of your facts. The hypothetical scenario we’ve discussed in this episode probably does that. It requires some assumptions that go beyond the available evidence.
Jack Bell: You’ve gotta be broad. You can’t narrow it down, unless there’s absolutely evidence that somebody is guilty and it’s right there.
Dave Cawley: But narrow it down is exactly what Jack’d done at the start of the Sheree Warren case. He’d focused so much attention on Sheree’s estranged husband, Chuck Warren, he hadn’t seen the subtle signs Cary Hartmann might instead be responsible. Jack and I have talked several more times since our first meeting. He’s admitted he loses sleep after each of our conversations.
Jack Bell: None of us like to fail. And I feel like I failed.
Dave Cawley: Jack hadn’t at first noticed how Cary’s story shifted a little with each retelling.
Jack Bell: All Cary’s stories about her waiting there for him with candles and wine.
Dave Cawley: Jack hadn’t caught the significance of Cary slipping in references to Sheree staying over at his place in the middle of the week, even though that contradicted what Sheree’s parents said about her routine.
Jack Bell: He wants everybody to know this is her normal procedure and how much this lady’s in love with him, supposedly.
Dave Cawley: Cary’d made repeated references to Sheree wearing his black parka on the morning of her disappearance, but Jack hadn’t picked up on the potential significance of that. I’ll admit, that one’s not super obvious. It hadn’t seemed suspicious until police later found a gray suede women’s jacket in Cary’s apartment. It’s the “tale of two coats” we’ve discussed multiple times this season. And it leaves Jack wondering what other clues might’ve slipped under his nose during those critical early days.
Jack Bell: What did I miss? What did I miss? What did I miss? How many times have I asked myself that question?
Dave Cawley: Former Ogden police detective Shane Minor shared a similar sentiment with me, when we spoke about the search for Sheree.
Shane Minor: You’d hate to miss it and there’s been cases where I’ve worked and I’ve missed things and then you go back and when you realize what you missed, it’s like “I won’t make that mistake again.”
Dave Cawley (to Shane Minor): Do you think this case is solvable?
Shane Minor: I think it’s a long shot but, hate to say it’s not. I think there’s a chance.
Dave Cawley: What would solving it look like? Is it just getting the answer? Is it getting a conviction? Is it finding a body?
Shane Minor: Well, my opinion on that would be, I think it’s solvable but an effective prosecution I think would be extremely difficult at this point in time.
Dave Cawley: We might someday get a definitive answer to the question “what happened to Sheree Warren.” But the window of opportunity to hold anyone accountable is rapidly closing.
Consider what might happen if a prosecutor were to try and charge Cary Hartmann with murder today, based on the current evidence. They would first have to clear the hurdle of convincing a judge probable cause existed to believe Cary committed the crime. The circumstantial evidence we’ve uncovered in this podcast likely achieves that. But it’s not likely to meet the higher standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt required for a criminal conviction.
In the U.S. justice system, the accused are presumed innocent unless and until they’re proven guilty. It’s up to the prosecution to present that proof. It doesn’t have to be absolute proof, but it must be enough to convince a judge or jury no other reasonable explanation exists. Apply that standard to what we know of Sheree Warren’s disappearance. Could a serial killer have abducted Sheree off the streets of Salt Lake City? Unlikely, but not impossible. That’s doubt, but maybe not reasonable doubt. Could Chuck Warren have killed Sheree in anger over their stalled divorce? Maybe he set up their meeting at Wagstaff Toyota as part of a plot. That’s doubt, and it’s reasonable, given what we know about how Chuck attacked his first wife with a tire iron during their divorce.
Convincing a judge or jury beyond a reasonable doubt Chuck Warren or Cary Hartmann killed Sheree would require more than just good a theory. It would take hard proof. Investigator Shane Minor spent years trying to find that proof.
Dave Cawley (to Shane Minor): I’m not going to ask you to say a name but do you feel like you know who is responsible in this case?
Shane Minor: I think so. I think there’s one person knows exactly what happened. And I don’t think that person’s gonna admit to it. Maybe on his dying death bed. But I doubt it.
Dave Cawley: I don’t think Shane was talking about Chuck Warren. Sheree’s ex-husband Charles “Chuck” Warren died on October 22nd, 2022, as a result of his dementia. Chuck’d lived most his life in Ogden, aside from a brief stint in Roseville, California during the ‘70s, working for the railroad. He had one brother, Richard, but they hadn’t been close for much of Chuck’s life. They only reconciled in Chuck’s later years. Richard told me Chuck’d been a car nut, whose favorite pastime had been taking long road trips all across the American West.
Chuck Warren’s death occurred very late in the reporting process for this podcast. It underscored to me Sheree Warren’s case runs a very real risk of soon becoming unsolvable. Earlier in this episode, you heard Sheree’s dad, Ed Sorensen, say he didn’t think he would ever know the truth of what happened to his daughter. Ed was right. He passed away in December of 2021.
John Frawley: People involved in the case are passing away. That’s, that’s happening.
Dave Cawley: That’s again the voice of Roy police detective John Frawley.
John Frawley: So yes, I, the clock is ticking, absolutely.
Dave Cawley: At the time I’m recording this, Cary Hartmann is still alive. He is the last man standing. And the evidence suggests Cary has never been fully forthcoming about his actions during the days surrounding Sheree Warren’s disappearance. Detective John Frawley told me he’s not giving up, but he needs our help.
John Frawley: If someone interacted with Sheree Warren, Cary Hartmann or Charles Warren on October 2nd, 1985 and maybe they haven’t spoken to law enforcement, I would love to speak to them. Our ultimate goal is, y’know, getting a case filed and prosecution.
Dave Cawley: My job as a journalist is a bit different than a detective’s, or a prosecutor’s or a judge’s. I’m not trying to make an arrest, to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt, or to decide guilt or innocence under the law. My role is to uncover and report truth. So as we bring our story to a close, allow me to share the truth I’ve found while investigating Sheree Warren’s case.
As I speak to you now, I’m looking at a picture of Sheree from 1970 or so, when she was about 10 years old. Sheree is staring into the camera lens. I see youthful curiosity and determination in her eyes. Sheree’s life held so much potential. She grew up and was just finding her own path when someone stole that life from her.
I’ve had a few people say to me “boy, Sheree sure knew how to pick ‘em” or “she had poor taste in men,” as if her murder was somehow her own fault. We have to stop doing that. Stop putting the blame on women when they’re lied to, manipulated or abused by the people who are supposed to love them.
More than half of the women who die by homicide in the United States each year are killed by a man who’s either their current or past intimate partner. Sheree had both a current partner and a past partner who became plausible suspects in her death. So I can’t tell you who killed Sheree, but I can say she’s not responsible for the heartless actions of the two men in her life. Sheree’s estranged husband, Chuck Warren, should’ve shown a bare minimum of human concern about her welfare. But he didn’t. He acted as if her disappearance came as a favor.
Sheree’s short-term boyfriend, Cary Hartmann, role-played the part of a respectable man while steering the investigation away from himself and terrorizing an entire community of unsuspecting women. We can only imagine what he subjected Sheree to during their brief time together.
Abuse in relationships doesn’t always lead to murder, but there are stories like Sheree’s where everything escalates until there’s no coming back.
We have to do better than this. That is my truth.
