Making a Serial Killer - Season 1, Episode 7 - Sheila LaBarre, The Peeler - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[SOMBER MUSIC] NARRATOR: Sheila LaBarre is a woman who knows how to get what she wants.
KEVIN FLYNN: Now, you can imagine older man in his 70s receiving a very naughty photograph
from a beautiful woman in her 20s. JAMES BOFFETTI: That's what she did. You know, she flirted and she snagged
them in like the black widow. It was a house of horrors. It was-- it was a place of torture.
KEVIN FLYNN: This ended up being the biggest police search in state history. They couldn't find anything except a pair of human toes.
JOHN ENCARNACAO: Is there somebody walking around with a limp that is missing some toes, or is that person gone?
NARRATOR: Were police investigating a missing person case, or a murder, or two murders, or three or more
as they interrogated Sheila LaBarre? [EERIE MUSIC] CAROLYN COUNTIE: Kenny wanted to be like anybody else.
He wanted to be loved. He wanted to be accepted, and Sheila searched for those that
had problems and she could tell that Kenny had problems in his speaking, in his thinking.
And that's how she went after him on a sex chat line. JAMES BOFFETTI: She's a pretty smart woman.
And so she's looking for men who no one's going to miss. I mean, that's sort of the point.
NARRATOR: February 14, 2006, Valentine's Day. KEVIN FLYNN: Kenny meets Sheila at a fancy bar
overlooking the ocean, and they have a few drinks. She drank. She was loud. She was obnoxious.
They move from the bar to the back seat of Sheila's car, where they have sex. NARRATOR: Within days, Sheila LaBarre lured Kenny
out to the farm in Epping. JOHN ENCARNACAO: This place is, you know, it was a little frightening,
because it was dark. It was kind of dingy. You know, it wasn't really made up very well, dirty.
CAROLYN COUNTIE: He thought everybody was good. He didn't see any bad in anybody.
He didn't think anybody could hurt him. And with Sheila, it wasn't a request. It was always a demand, and Kenny bowed down to demands.
He didn't know how to deal with them. When, you know, our eyes really opened, you know, we started seeing, you know,
evidence in the form of blood spatter. We located a number of bone fragments and bones,
both in the house as well as on the property. And a lot of the bone fragments that we found,
you know, it was tough initially, because those bone fragments were potentially animal bones.
But at some point, we did-- we were able to confirm some of the bones that we did take were human remains.
NARRATOR: Officer Encarnacao had been called to the farm, which was home to Sheila LaBarre.
Many times married, a magnet to a certain type of man. Was she responsible for the disappearance of Kenny Countie?
CAROLYN COUNTIE: Satan's child. She has no mer-- she-- she doesn't have a soul. She's-- she has no soul.
She's Satan's child. NARRATOR: There were many ways to view Sheila LaBarre-- a victim, an avenger, a cold-hearted killer of men.
And nobody knows how many men. Born in 1958, Sheila LaBarre learned how to play the system from an early age.
JAMES BOFFETTI: If she wanted something, then she would figure out a way to do it.
She was determined to get what she wanted and would do it whatever way-- so whether it's charm or it's with vile,
she would-- she would use it. She was a little different. Came across as a little different but friendly
until you crossed her. Sheila LaBarre was involved with quite a few men during her life.
She has like this odd sex drive. I mean, that's all she seems to know how to do.
She soothes herself with sex. She was very engaging, very nice, very appropriate
when she needed to be. And then she could turn on a dime and be extremely vicious.
KEVIN FLYNN: Sheila was born in a very small town in Alabama named Fort Payne. She was the youngest of six kids,
and Sheila's childhood was very troubled. Her older sister says that Sheila was the--
the subject of sexual abuse from her father and from other men. BRIAN FREDERICK: Unfortunately, for the men
who are attracted to LaBarre, she may see them as an extension of her father. Sheila has big dreams.
She wants to move out of this little town. She wants to become either a model or a country music singer.
She has some talent. She likes to draw. And so she's looking for a way to get out of her life.
And one of the ways that many girls do that in a small town is to marry a guy. NARRATOR: The potential husband who
fell into Sheila's sights, a man by the name of John Baxter. KEVIN FLYNN: Sheila was very young at the time.
She was about, I think, 18 or 19 years old when she married John. He was a lineman for the county, and he was recently divorced
and had a young daughter named Wendy. Wendy says that when John would go off to work
and Sheila had to play house mom, that Sheila would give her something to drink.
It might have been brandy. It might have been NyQuil, and that she would put Wendy in the closet to kind
of keep her out of the way. Well, that kind of treatment did not sit well with John.
When he found out that that's what Sheila was doing, she-- he basically said, you're out of here.
So that was a pretty quick relationship. Sheila's second husband was a guy by the name of Ronnie Jennings.
He worked at a restaurant in town, and Sheila fell hard for him. But their relationship was pretty tumultuous.
She takes out her frustrations on Ronnie. She's abusive to him, and he decides that he doesn't want to be in the relationship anymore.
This crushes Sheila. NARRATOR: What happened next would have a profound effect on Sheila?
She overdosed on some medication. She got into a car accident. She went to a medical center.
KEVIN FLYNN: While Sheila was in the hospital, she had gone into a coma. She had these apparitions.
KEVIN FLYNN: She had recovered. But when she came back, she told everybody that she
had died and gone to Heaven. She came back as an angel. And I mean, it's-- it's--
it's-- it's pretty bizarre stuff. God had sent her back as an avenging angel. NARRATOR: What did Sheila believe she was avenging?
And how would this supposedly divine mission play out in the rest of her life? Yet again, Sheila was on the hunt for a man.
JAMES BOFFETTI: Sheila met Dr. LaBarre through a personal ad. I think it was in a newspaper.
KEVIN FLYNN: He was a widower. He lived on a horse farm in rural New Hampshire. He was very lonely after losing his wife
and-- and wanted companionship. And Sheila really wanted to leave the small town in Alabama
that she had been living in. She responded to this Lonely Hearts ad by sending a nude photo of herself.
Now you can imagine Dr. LaBarre, older man in his 70s, receiving a very naughty photograph
from a beautiful woman in her 20s. Wilfred LaBarre was much older. We don't know much about their intimacy
within the relationship. But in my opinion, he probably filled the role of a father figure for her.
JAMES BOFFETTI: We found photographs that I think maybe Dr. LaBarre had taken of her posing,
you know, in kind of a provocative way. But very-- she's very, very attractive. I think that that was something that appealed to him.
This farm was-- was quite remote. It was off of a side street for about a mile. KEVIN FLYNN: You know, it wasn't the kind of farm
where you were growing potatoes and you had to do a lot of hard labor. He just loved horses, and they would just sort of roam
around the pasture land. JAMES BOFFETTI: He was a chiropractor with a successful practice in Hampton
that he had this big piece of property here in Epping. And I think she liked all that.
They actually never married. She was considered a common law-- that's what she considered herself.
KEVIN FLYNN: She started to take over his chiropractic business. She became the office manager and basically ran off
all of the other employees that were-- you know, who could see through her. She separated Dr. LaBarre from his--
his grown kids. Basically, she worked to isolate Dr. LaBarre and to take over his life and his property.
NARRATOR: In the process, Sheila LaBarre was developing something of a reputation in the local town
of Epping, New Hampshire. KEVIN FLYNN: Sheila is a beautiful woman. She immediately gets attention in town
for wearing tight clothes. In fact, people around town gave her a nickname. They called her "Shelia the Peeler."
They were always hoping that she would maybe flash a little this or show a little bit of that.
And she got that reputation because, well, she had no problem coming to the door for deliverymen
wearing almost nothing. JAMES BOFFETTI: Neighbors would say that they wouldn't go near her.
They wouldn't approach her, because she was so-- she could be so volatile. NARRATOR: By now, Sheila had taken complete control
of Bill LaBarre's life. He'd signed over power of attorney to her, and she was running everything.
But things in the LaBarre's relationship were about to take a bizarre turn with the arrival on the scene of a man called Wayne Ennis.
Wayne Ennis is a migrant farm worker. He's looking for odd jobs, and he finds himself at Dr.
LaBarre's chiropractic office. And he's doing some work, and that's where he catches Sheila's eye.
NARRATOR: In fact, he doesn't just catch her eye. In spite of her continuing relationship with Wilfred,
Sheila now married Wayne Ennis, her third husband. What was so strange is that Sheila brings
Wayne Ennis to the horse farm, and the three of them now, Dr. LaBarre, Sheila, and her new husband Wayne
are all living together on this farm. Even when she was married to Wayne Ennis, Sheila kept her last name LaBarre.
I think it was a reminder that she would have power over Dr. LaBarre. Sheila has wrestled power of attorney from Dr. LaBarre,
so she stands to inherit anything if something befalls the doctor. And now, she's intimating to Wayne Ennis
that he needs to do something to hasten Dr. LaBarre's death. Wayne is very troubled by this.
So he goes to Dr. LaBarre and tells him what Sheila is planning, and he's fearful
as well for his own safety. Dr. LaBarre then drove Wayne to a bus station, got him on a bus, and he got out of town.
And Sheila never saw him again. I think that he provided her with a sense of stability.
Even though it was a difficult relationship, I think he was able to keep her in check in some ways.
When he died, I think she really began to slip into this course of conduct that was extremely self-destructive.
After Wilfred LaBarre's death, there's no structure in her life. She seems to deteriorate.
She's smoking marijuana on a daily basis. She basically falls to pot. This intense hypersexuality that's combined with all
this violence and aggression-- this-- it got-- it just sort of got out of control.
[EERIE MUSIC] NARRATOR: Alone on Dr. LaBarre's remote horse farm in rural New Hampshire, Sheila began trawling
sex chat lines for men. KEVIN FLYNN: She finds a guy named James Brackett. She brings him to the farm, and James,
at first, does the kinds of things that any farmhand would do. He's taking care of the horses.
He's helping out with other chores, but Sheila sees him as a boy toy. If you were somebody who was kind of lost in the world,
didn't have a home, didn't have a place to lay your head, and this woman comes up and offers you a job,
and a place to stay, and food, you know, I can see why people would get ensnared by that sort of--
of approach. Not only did he take care of the animals and do all the heavy lifting around the place,
but they had a sexual relationship. Sheila knows how to get what she wants out of a man.
But she is also cruel, and that is one of the things that she demonstrates with James Brackett.
She strikes him in the face with a scrubbing brush. She one time chased him off the property
and fired a shot over his head. She even chased him into a horse trailer that was in the barn,
and she chased him with an ax and tried to chop her way through the trailer, where he is huddled up inside.
NARRATOR: In desperation, James Brackett finally got back in touch with his family and found
a way to escape from the farm. He said that he really felt lucky to be safe. In fact, he has a vanity license plate on his truck,
and it says, "I am alive." That's what she did. You know, she flirted and she snagged
them in like the black widow. She tore you down. She spit you out. KEVIN FLYNN: Michael Deloge is sort of a lost soul.
He sees himself as a songwriter, as a poet. He had been married and had a kid, but that relationship fell apart.
He got into drugs and alcohol, and he found himself many miles from home. He was a guy that was down on his luck, that probably
was struggling with life. And she wanted him initially to-- to help with some chores around her farm.
The prospect of staying in a homeless shelter or going with this woman to a farm,
where he could get a nice warm bed, a steady job and sex-- well, that's a very easy decision to make.
Sheila talks him into believing things about himself and about his family. Sheila convinces Mike that growing up
he was sexually abused and that he is a pedophile. This whole routine of-- of talking about pedophilia with these guys
and accusing them that that somehow sexually aroused her. It was part of this-- this extremely perverse sexual game
that she played, and that became her excuse to abuse him, to physically abuse him.
The neighbors describe an incident in the winter, where coming down the wooden path from the horse farm,
they saw a man stumbling and bleeding from the head. It was Michael Deloge. And he just walked right past a neighbor
and said one word, "Sheila." NARRATOR: As quickly as he'd appeared on the farm, Michael Deloge disappeared.
It was time for Sheila LaBarre to find a new man to control. He would be Kenneth Countie.
His mother, Carolyn. His childhood wasn't good. It wasn't good. He had a learning disability, so he was a little slower
than the rest of his peers. And, you know, that would lead to trouble. He was-- Kenny was a very trusting guy,
but he was looking for his way in the world. NARRATOR: Carolyn had suffered serious injuries
in a car accident when Kenny was a young boy. CAROLYN COUNTIE: Oh, I was in a deep coma,
they say, for 45 days, but the doctor told me in and out for almost a year. I don't remember anything.
So Kenny really didn't have much of a childhood, because by the time I came out of the coma,
I had to keep going back and forth to the hospital. NARRATOR: Shuffled between various homes
while his mother recuperated, Kenny found it hard to get on with other children.
CAROLYN COUNTIE: When it came time for sports, Kenny aced it, but he had problems with his friends
because he didn't speak properly. So they would tease him and taunt him. NARRATOR: As he reached adulthood,
Carolyn did her best to look out for her son. And then out of the blue, Kenny announced
he was planning to fulfill a childhood dream and join the army. CAROLYN COUNTIE: And I couldn't believe
he was going to do this, and I said, no, no, honey, you don't want to do this. And he said, no, Ma.
I'm going to. Kenny goes to basic training, and the family doesn't see him for several weeks until there's--
there's a weekend where they can come and visit while he's-- he's still in training.
And I'm looking around, and I couldn't find Kenny. So I went up to a soldier, and I tapped him and I said--
I said, do you know Kenneth Countie? I said, I'm looking for Kenneth Countie. I'm his mother.
And he looked at me and said, Ma, it's me. I didn't even recognize him. He had muscle.
He was handsome. And he stood proud. He was just-- I could see the life in his eyes.
NARRATOR: Days before the family were due to return for Kenny's graduation parade, terrible news.
She got a telephone call from the-- the unit commander saying that Kenny wasn't going to graduate.
And the day of graduation, my son was directing traffic. And at that point, I looked in his eyes, and they were dead.
They were dead. His self-esteem, anything he had was gone. It just all got taken away.
His world collapsed. And there was nothing I could do to pick him up, nothing. NARRATOR: And worse was to come for Caroline Countie.
CAROLYN COUNTIE: I got a phone call from the police saying that my son tried to commit suicide.
Kenny took some pills, and they took him to the hospital. So Kenny says, oh, by the way, I met--
I have a girlfriend. So Brian says, you do? And he said, yeah, yeah, he said, she's rich.
She has a big farm. She has a beautiful car, and she's 47 years old. So Brian looked and he said, what.
He said, Kenny, no. You don't want to be with a 47-year-old. There's ulterior motives there.
No, no. And Kenny looked, and he said, no. He said, you know, she loves me, and I love her.
And my son Brian said, you just met her. The pattern begins again. Sheila begins by trying to cut Kenny off from his family.
But Kenny's relationship with his mother is very different. They're very close, and they do check in every day.
So when Kenny is not returning mom's phone calls, that's a red flag. I was getting in touch with all the police departments
that I could possibly get a hold of. NARRATOR: Kenny had moved to Epping. After one of Mrs. Countie's calls,
they decide to visit Sheila LaBarre on the farm. KEVIN FLYNN: You know, interesting thing
about the Epping police department is that they would deal with Sheila quite a bit--
everything from marijuana charges to speeding to disturbing the peace to arguments with different neighbors and whatnot.
She says, he can't come to the door. He's taking a bath. They insist, and so Kenny comes to the door.
He's wearing a towel. He's wet. But he seems to be OK. And remember they can see his physical state.
He's, you know, almost naked. And that's why it's so troubling. NARRATOR: Troubling because less than two weeks later,
police had another very different encounter with Sheila LaBarre and Kenny Countie.
They got a report that there was a woman in Walmart taking pictures and that she had somebody in a wheelchair.
His hands were all cut up. One of them was immobile. His head was down. He was ashen in color.
Despite the fact that he looked like he was in distress, there was nothing for the officers to do.
He wasn't a minor. They couldn't take him into protective custody. CAROLYN COUNTIE: They asked Kenny if he was all right.
His head was hanging. He was drawn. And she told him to shut the F up. At that point, the police should have taken him.
They didn't. They watched her take him to the car and lift him from-- from the wheelchair into the car.
They watched. NARRATOR: Things had come to a head for Carolyn at a Sunday get-together for the family.
CAROLYN COUNTIE: Kenny never showed up-- that wasn't-- that wasn't Kenny. Kenny always showed up.
He was always 45 to an hour early. So when Kenny didn't show up, and I called his phone,
and he didn't answer, I knew. I knew. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat. I couldn't do anything.
I sat in a corner, and I just sat in a corner vegetating. As a mother, what do you do?
What do you do? Your-- your child's gone. What do you do? You have nobody to turn to.
NARRATOR: Desperate for help or information, Caroline once again turned to the Epping police,
begging them to make a welfare visit to the LaBarre farm. Trying to put her mind at rest, they phoned Sheila
and asked where Kenny was. Sheila says, he left, and I can prove it. And I can tell you why he left.
And so she plays over the telephone a tape recording that she made of Kenny. It was just--
it was just horrendous. I was dumbfounded. At that time, when I heard that tape I didn't want to see him anymore.
I didn't want to talk to him, because I didn't realize what Sheila was all about until I heard his voice.
And his voice became-- she did all the talking. His voice became "yes," "no." And it was very robotic.
But Sheila did all the talking. She was very nasty, and she was telling him what I did to him.
And what he did to me, and it was very, very graphic. NARRATOR: It was the same routine Sheila had used
before with Michael Deloge. KEVIN FLYNN: On the tape, the officer could hear Kenny becoming weaker.
And at one point, he heard Kenny vomit. And then he thought he heard Kenny faint, because Sheila
was saying, get up. You can't fake fainting. Officers, the next day, went to Sheila's farm
to look for Kenny. And she's angry that the cops were there on the property, but she lets them come into the house
and see that Kenny is not there. NARRATOR: Kenny might not have been, but there was plenty more to alarm the officers.
They had no warrant though and left. A young man was missing. His older lover was playing sadistic recordings
down the phone to police. Just what could officers expect to find when they returned to the farm?
In previous run-ins with Sheila LaBarre, police officers had come up against a seductive
side of her character. KEVIN FLYNN: Sheila was so provocative, she would come on to them.
She would flirt with them in really inappropriate ways that they felt they needed a second officer there
to be a witness that nothing inappropriate happened. JOHN ENCARNACAO: I was involved in the Sheila Barr case
from the onset when a search warrant was obtained for the residence at the LaBarre farm.
I was one of the primary responders, who processed the crime scene there. She was certainly unique, you know, and you look at her--
master manipulator, cunning, but yet gentle. She comes across with empathy, you know, apathetic at times,
but she can turn her personality very quickly. When they got there, Sheila was not home, so they
walked around a little bit. It was really a large piece of property, and you know, we didn't really understand
how big it was until we were able to get out and walk around. KEVIN FLYNN: And they found a burn barrel.
There was a fire going inside. So they went over and took a look inside. We knew that there was a missing individual.
KEVIN FLYNN: And what they found in there was a human bone, and on the knob of the bone was some human flesh.
So now, they are very worried about what has happened to Kenneth Countie. There was some indication that he had been murdered
on the property and that we were going to be looking for remains of his body. JAMES BOFFETTI: This is an unforgettable case.
Before I joined the Attorney General's Office, I was a public defender for 14 years.
So I did a lot of cases. I did homicide cases, some fairly notorious homicide cases.
The set of facts here are extraordinarily unique. I thought that we were really going to have our work cut out
for us because the size of the property, the buildings that were there, and it really only got worse when we actually
got into the residence. If I remember correctly, the fire was-- was right out here
in the front yard. We had a crew to begin documenting the scene, and-- and that's exactly what we did, you know.
We began with our photographs and photography. Started taking a look to see, you
know, exactly where we needed to possibly focus more attention to. And our work began, which you know,
it ended up lasting a number of weeks. 100 acres, quite a lot of space to hide things.
It was certainly-- certainly a place that I would not want to live in. The inside of the house was so decrepit
that it was unsafe to go in. Sort of like, you know, Sheila herself, that house had just fallen apart.
As we really examined things closer, that's when, you know, our eyes really opened.
You know, we started seeing evidence. The more that we dug, the more we found. And really the worse it got.
KEVIN FLYNN: This ended up being the biggest police search in state history. They patrolled as much of it as they could,
looking for any evidence of a crime, maybe bones that are the remains that had been scattered someplace.
Some of the evidence we found was blood spatter evidence. There was a lot of blood in-- in that-- in that house.
NARRATOR: The evidence didn't just come from inside the house. In the burn barrel where officers had spotted what
they thought was a human bone, more worrying evidence was uncovered. It was tough initially because those bone
fragments were potentially animal bones, but at some point, we did-- we were able to confirm some of the bones
that we did take were human remains. They couldn't find anything except a pair of human toes.
NARRATOR: With the search widening across the farm, officers now dredged the septic tank that served the house.
We were concerned that she may have been flushing evidence at the last minute, and we were able to find some evidence
that was incriminating. It was the driver's license of Michael Deloge. And this let investigators think they may be
looking for more than one body. NARRATOR: Even if officers were now looking for the remains
of Kenny Countie and Michael Deloge, the bones in the fire pit presented them with a mystery.
KEVIN FLYNN: They didn't belong to Kenny, and they didn't belong to Michael Deloge.
So who is it? There's a set of toes that don't belong to either of our victims. Is there somebody walking around with a limp
that was missing some toes? Or you know, is that person gone? JAMES BOFFETTI: I think that she was engaging
in this systematic torture, so it would be sexualizing and then-- and then accusing, and then
controlling them, and then torturing them, killing them, and incinerating them. It was a house of horrors.
It was-- it was a place of torture for human beings and for animals. It's amazing how beautiful this piece of property
actually is-- the open fields, and you know, the quietness. You know, this is-- this is New Hampshire,
but to imagine what went on on the piece of property and inside this house is-- it's unbelievable.
Predominantly our attention was focused on the house, because that's where we were finding the majority
of the-- of the evidence. Literally, we-- we pumped the septic system by hand, and we screened it back into the septic tank.
And that's how we found pieces of bone as well as a-- an ID. NARRATOR: The evidence against Sheila LaBarre was mounting.
James Boffetti believed he had enough to arrest her for at least the murders of Kenny Countie
and Michael Deloge. But then a new problem. While investigators are searching Sheila's property
for evidence of Kenny and for any other foul deed, Sheila cannot come to the farm.
She needs to go someplace else, but they just don't want to let her out of her sight.
So state police have some detectives tail her, but Sheila is pretty savvy. Sheila has an escape plan.
She withdraws a lot of money. She starts going by an alias. She calls herself Casey, which is actually her middle name.
At one point, she had made her way down to Boston. She's learned the game, and so she
can still use what sexual powers she has left to get what she wants. And what she wants right now is a ride to Boston.
JOHN ENCARNACAO: She met up with a individual in Boston and spent the night with him, three nights with him,
I believe it was, in a hotel kind of laying low. You know, and she was just kind of out on the run
away from New Hampshire, certainly away from the farm. She had this intense hypersexuality called
paraphilia that caused her to be violent and aggressive, and in some ways this was sexually charging for her.
NARRATOR: The driver who stops to pick her up is a man by the name of Steve Martel.
With no idea of the potential danger he's in, Steve enjoys his time with the woman he knows as Casey.
They have sex in the hotel together. I guess it's her way of thanking him for the ride.
You know, it wasn't until later that night, Steve sat down and watched the nightly news that he
realized who it was that he had picked up and who he had had sex with. And he told investigators, if you want to find Sheila, well,
she's in Massachusetts now. NARRATOR: The realization that a double murderer, maybe a serial killer, was on the loose
sparked a major manhunt. Sheila, meanwhile, was up to her old tricks. Got a new problem, get a new man.
At 48 she could still make the magic work. With police all over New England looking for her,
she's holed up with a guy by the name of Kenneth Washington. She throws herself at him and is able to basically
move into his apartment, trading sexual favors for the room. When Kenneth Washington sees Sheila's face on the TV news,
he realizes who he has let into his home. That's when he calls the cops and says,
I think I've got who you're looking for. NARRATOR: Sheila is arrested, finally in custody, accused of the murder of Michael
Deloge and Kenny Countie. Shelia-- Shelia was evil. She was conniving. NARRATOR: Was she also a serial killer?
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] She was no doubt an elitist, a driver seat personality. She was cunning and cooperative, and it was--
it was frightening to be honest with you. JEFF LADIEU: And she came out very aggressively.
She wanted to dominate the conversation. She immediately asked for credentials. Who are you?
Why are you here? So we-- we showed her our-- our IDs. We explained who we were and the fact
that we were from New Hampshire, and we were from the state police. I knew right out of the gate that she was not
going to be warm and inviting. She was super-intelligent. Knew the right things to say.
Knew the right things to do, how to position herself. As we-- as we had a discussion, she moved herself closer to me,
engaging in the conversation, and enough that my partner, who was sitting back listening, was, like,
almost kicking me under the table, saying, whoa, you know, this is-- she's-- she's trying to turn the tables on us,
you know? And she was very good. She made it obvious by her body language, you know,
that she was comfortable being around me. After some time, she had gotten closer and closer to the point
where she was sitting right in front of me and our legs were almost touching. And we started out three feet apart.
I mean, she was flirtatious with me in a way that was just bizarre. And the fact that she couldn't help doing it,
even in this situation, it was-- for me it was-- it was fairly pathetic. NARRATOR: In court, charged with two murders,
as the cops tried to get to the bottom of the identity of the bones found in the burn pit,
Sheila adopted an unexpected line of defense against the charges of murdering Michael
Deloge and Kenny Countie. She admitted that she did the conduct, in other words,
that she killed these two men, but she said at the time that she was insane and not criminally liable.
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC] We know that she was engaging with other men and that they just happen to escape.
So very well, there could have been others that had been killed the same way. JOHN ENCARNACAO: There was potentially
others that haven't been identified at this point, making her a serial killer. There was DNA that was found that was not
associated with these two victims or other men that we could identify. She would pick them up and bring them home.
And then they would just disappear. They'd be there for a while. And if it didn't work out, then they would go off on their way.
Some of them would just literally run away, but that's not the type of person that's going to go to the police filing a police report.
But it's likely, given her pattern, that she tortured Michael and eventually killed him and burnt his body
and got rid of the remains just as she did with-- with Kenneth Countie. She had the body cremated very quickly.
There was not a formal investigation. There was not an autopsy done. And at that point, you know, she had-- she had assumed--
and she had-- she had legal documents that were basically leaving his property to her.
NARRATOR: The jury at Sheila LaBarre's trial in June 2008 threw out her defense that she was not guilty of murder
by reason of insanity. She's currently behind bars, serving two consecutive life sentences without the possibility
of parole. She didn't really think she was insane. Later, she would-- she would tell someone in prison, right,
thank God, I never wanted anybody to think that I was insane. This was a ploy to, you know, perhaps escape the State
Penitentiary and maybe be sentenced to a mental health institution, where she might have
thought she'd have it-- she'd have a better-- a better life. NARRATOR: If Sheila LaBarre wasn't insane
when she murdered Michael Deloge and Kenny Countie, why did she do it? Would she put it down to the abuse she suffered as a girl?
BRIAN FREDERICK: LaBarre was abused sexually by her father, and this could have set her up in life to feel inadequate.
We know that she was seeking to rid the world of child molesters, right? That she saw them as a scourge on the face of the planet.
And so yeah, if you-- if you happened to be attracted to Sheila LaBarre, watch out.
She has some serious psychological problems, and potentially abused as a child. I know that there was some reports of what her childhood
was growing up, but there was certainly something in her past that triggered this behavior.
NARRATOR: It was a twisted view of men and sex that LaBarre imposed on her innocent victims, victims
like 24-year-old Kenny Countie. You know, he came from a good family, and he hooks up with this woman.
And he moves up here, and she brainwashes him. And then, he's dead, and-- and the circumstances
of that death, you know, are just so painful that-- yeah, it's a case that I don't think that any of us
will ever forget. I promised Kenny that I'd fight for him, because nobody did, that he wouldn't be forgotten.
When Sheila murdered him, she burnt everything in the pit. I never had a body. I never had closure.
I never had anything. Their worst nightmare came true, and their loved ones are gone because of that.
CAROLYN COUNTIE: And I was like a mouse looking-- looking for a way out, couldn't find one.
Couldn't find one. And to this day, I still can't find it. Still can't find it. How she could have taken a human life and did what
she did to him, and laugh at it. He was somebody's child. He was my child. So I would have taken that bullet.
I would have taken that stabbing. I would have taken that poison. If I could have my son back, I would have--
I would have taken anything to let him live. [SOMBER MUSIC] [INTENSE MUSIC]

When a series of men go missing, all roads lead back to a farm in New Hampshire and one woman. What detectives find in their search of the property leaves them speechless.

A true crime series that focuses on what makes killers do what they do, taking insights from scientific experts, detectives and survivors.

Brief Summary

Sheila LaBarre manipulated and murdered vulnerable men, leading to a shocking investigation and her life sentence for their deaths.

Key points

Sheila LaBarre's Manipulative Nature. Sheila LaBarre expertly lures men into her life, exploiting their vulnerabilities.
Kenny's Troubled Childhood. Kenny Countie's upbringing was marked by instability and challenges.
Sheila's Dark Transformation. After losing her husband, Sheila spirals into self-destructive behavior.
Kenny's Descent into Danger. Kenny Countie's relationship with Sheila leads him down a perilous path.
Sheila's Manipulation Unveiled. Sheila's voice became robotic as she manipulated Kenny, revealing her true nature.
Discovery of Human Remains. Officers uncover human remains in a burn barrel, escalating the investigation.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

She was always a demand, and Kenny bowed down to demands.

Describing Kenny's relationship with Sheila.

3:04WatchJul 29, 2022

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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