The Search for Sheree | Purgatory | 7 AI transcript and summary - episode of podcast Cold
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Episode: The Search for Sheree | Purgatory | 7
Author: KSL Podcasts | Wondery
Duration: 01:07:17
Episode Shownotes
Investigator Shane Minor heads up the mountain behind Causey Reservoir in search of Sheree Warren’s remains. Cary Hartmann begins to accept responsibility for the crimes he was convicted of, and at long last agrees to speak with police about Sheree’s disappearance.Season 3 of Cold includes descriptions of rape, sexual assault,
murder and domestic violence. Please take care when listening.Follow Cold Season 3: The Search for Sheree wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all 10 episodes ad-free only on Amazon Music. Or you can listen early and ad-free on Wondery+ in Apple Podcasts or the Wondery App.Please support us by supporting our sponsors!BetterHelp: This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/COLD and get on your way to being your best self!Noom: Sign up for your trial today at Noom.com/COLD. And check out Noom’s first ever book, The Noom Mindset, a deep dive into the psychology of behavior change. Available to buy now wherever books are sold.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Summary
In this episode of Cold, titled "The Search for Sheree | Purgatory | 7," journalist Dave Cawley delves into the complex case of Sheree Warren, who vanished in 1985. Investigators, led by Shane Miner, search for Sheree’s remains while examining the troubling admissions of Cary Hartmann, a convicted suspect in the case. Hartmann acknowledges past assaults but his claims raise skepticism regarding accountability and honesty. The episode highlights the ongoing investigation into the intricate dynamics of domestic abuse and sexual violence, underscoring the need for closure for Sheree's family and the societal implications of unresolved cases.
Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (The Search for Sheree | Purgatory | 7) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.
Full Transcript
00:00:01 Speaker_06
This season of The Cold Podcast includes descriptions of rape, sexual assault, murder, and domestic violence. Please take care in listening. Kerry Hartman sat in shackles before Don Blanchard, a member of the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole.
00:00:21 Speaker_03
Are you ready to go ahead with this hearing today? I am.
00:00:24 Speaker_06
That's Kerry's actual voice.
00:00:26 Speaker_03
I do need to place you under oath. I realize the restraints make it so you're unable to raise your right hand. I will still administer the oath and expect you to accept that.
00:00:35 Speaker_03
Do you affirm your testimony to be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I do.
00:00:40 Speaker_06
It was March 28, 2000, nearly 15 years since the disappearance of Kerry's girlfriend, Shuri Warren, and eight years since his first appearance before the parole board. Back then, Kerry had denied having committed the rape that had sent him to prison.
00:00:55 Speaker_03
Initially, there appeared to be feigned memory loss problems in recalling events and what had transpired. That evolved into years of full denial that absolutely nothing had occurred, no sexual assaults whatsoever.
00:01:14 Speaker_06
Now, with the prospect of parole on the horizon in just a couple of years, Carey was ready to take responsibility.
00:01:21 Speaker_03
You think your victims enjoyed the sexual contact? Absolutely not.
00:01:27 Speaker_06
Dawn read an account of the crime into the record.
00:01:29 Speaker_03
When she awoke, you were in the apartment. We're turning off the TV. Approached her, told her to be quiet that you had a gun.
00:01:36 Speaker_06
I won't share the graphic details. The important part is this. Carrie, at long last and under oath, said it was all true.
00:01:45 Speaker_03
Is that a correct summary of what happened in that particular incident? Yes, sir, it is.
00:01:50 Speaker_06
Carried by that point served 12 and a half years on his 15 to life sentence. He had to do at least 15. But if the parole board believed he was sincere, they could let him out after that.
00:02:03 Speaker_03
Reports suggest a number of other sexual assaults that were carried out by you of a similar nature. Is that accurate? That's right.
00:02:14 Speaker_04
I committed that rape. It's disgusting and terrible. I didn't commit any more.
00:02:19 Speaker_06
Kerry's a bit tough to hear in this audio, but what he said was, I committed that rape, and it's disgusting and terrible, but I didn't commit any more.
00:02:28 Speaker_03
Well, what about the other rape you pled guilty to? That was one that was, I was charged with four.
00:02:34 Speaker_04
And that was drawn out of a hat, quite frankly. And if I pled to it, they were going to drop the rest of them. And I did this on the advice of my attorney. He said, Kerry, I don't think your mom and dad can live through
00:02:48 Speaker_04
and they were ready to go to trial on the other three. He said, it's time to use your head instead of your heart.
00:02:54 Speaker_06
Kerry said he'd only pleaded guilty to the second charge on the advice of his attorney, to spare his mom and dad the stress of another trial.
00:03:01 Speaker_03
I'll follow your advice. You're asking this board to believe that you pled guilty to an additional first-degree felony, clearly aggravating your sentence and your jurisdiction, just because your attorney thought it was a good idea.
00:03:15 Speaker_03
Not because you committed any other offenses.
00:03:18 Speaker_04
He told me I was going down for a long time. He told me I was going down for a long time.
00:03:22 Speaker_03
And he told me 5 years with an additional right won't make any difference in your case. It does make a difference. And your honesty and credibility makes a difference too. Yes, sir. I understand. And it's seriously suspected, this hearing. Yes, sir.
00:03:38 Speaker_06
Parole board member Don Blanchard wasn't having any of Kerry Hartman's denials. He wanted full accountability.
00:03:47 Speaker_03
I'll ask you one more time. Were there any other sexual assaults that you committed? I pled to that one, sir, because I did. Were there any other sexual assaults that you committed? No, sir, there were not.
00:03:59 Speaker_03
Inside of relationships or outside of relationships?
00:04:03 Speaker_04
Yes, sir, there were. The relationships I had, I used a forceful hand. I was abusive.
00:04:09 Speaker_06
It's been a while since we talked about Cary Hartman's marriages and the physical abuse his ex-wives described enduring. Cary waving it off as just a forceful hand undersells it. But Don was at a disadvantage here.
00:04:23 Speaker_06
The pre-sentence report provided to the parole board after Cary's rape conviction covered only that single case.
00:04:29 Speaker_06
Ogden Police reports relating to the other rapes Cary was suspected of committing were supposed to be in the parole board's files, but weren't.
00:04:37 Speaker_03
I know that there were some police reports available on those matters, but they weren't in our file.
00:04:42 Speaker_06
I'm not sure if the Ogden police reports never made it to the parole board or if the board had misplaced them over the years. Whatever the case, Don hadn't read them.
00:04:51 Speaker_06
And that meant Don wasn't able to challenge Kerry on the specifics of those other assaults.
00:04:56 Speaker_03
Tell me how you feel about the impact your behaviors had on victims in your case.
00:05:02 Speaker_04
I'm disgusted by it. I am so sorry for the pain. and the suffering and the humiliation I've caused my victims, their families and my families. And this didn't come to bear on me for a long time, except absolute full responsibility for my actions.
00:05:23 Speaker_06
Kerry said his actions were deplorable and disgusting, that he felt sorry for the suffering he'd caused his victims and his own family. He said he had been in ISAT for 10 years. ISAT was sex offender therapy.
00:05:36 Speaker_06
He had not been in that program for 10 years, not even close. As described in the last couple episodes, Carey had been twice booted from therapy over his behavior.
00:05:46 Speaker_04
I made mistakes, I admit them, and I've grown from them and moved on. I was a taker.
00:05:53 Speaker_06
Carey said he'd been a taker most of his life and had put on a ruse of being a good person while abusing people. Now, he said that was disgusting. But he said he had made great strides.
00:06:04 Speaker_04
I think I've made great strides lately. And when I mean lately, I mean the last year. I've done well in schooling. And I think I've shown that I can learn. I think I've shown that I can learn.
00:06:18 Speaker_06
Carey had presented the board with a stack of positive letters from relatives, friends, and clergy. He said he had job offers and housing at the ready if he were to be released.
00:06:28 Speaker_06
He would return to Ogden, he said, and complete outpatient sex offender therapy there. He just needed a stamp of approval from the parole board.
00:06:38 Speaker_03
Do you also acknowledge, Mr. Hartman, that you're a master manipulator? I do, sir. Do you acknowledge that you're trying to manipulate this board?
00:06:46 Speaker_04
In believing me, yes, sir. I'm telling you from the heart, and I guess that's a form of manipulation. It's good manipulation.
00:06:56 Speaker_06
This is Cold, Season 3, Episode 7, Purgatory. From KSL Podcasts, I'm Dave Cauley.
00:07:08 Speaker_11
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00:08:29 Speaker_06
Kerry Hartman had told the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole he had committed one rape and one only. Board member Don Blanchard hadn't believed him.
00:08:39 Speaker_03
You absolutely are not here on one single, you are not being dealt with on one single sexual assault.
00:08:47 Speaker_06
But Don hadn't known the full story.
00:08:51 Speaker_06
In Episode 5, we talked about how Reed Richards, the prosecutor in Carey's case, had told the three other women Carey had been charged with assaulting their stories would be available to the parole board even if they didn't go to trial.
00:09:04 Speaker_02
All of that case material and all of the reports and so forth went down to the Board of Pardons.
00:09:09 Speaker_06
But as I said a bit ago, the Ogden Police reports relating to those other three cases weren't in the parole board's files. They'd probably just been misplaced in the eight years since Carey's first parole board hearing in 1992.
00:09:22 Speaker_06
But what matters is Don realized they were missing. He told Carey the board needed to find and review those reports before making a decision about whether Carey deserved to get out of prison.
00:09:33 Speaker_06
Don tracked the missing reports down in the weeks that followed. He read about Carey's lingerie survey phone calls and all the women who had come forward after his arrest to report having been assaulted by Carey.
00:09:44 Speaker_06
Don realized he needed to talk to Carey again.
00:09:48 Speaker_03
Hello. Hi. You're Mr. Carey Hart. I am.
00:09:52 Speaker_06
Carey was serving his time at the Iron County Correctional Facility, a jail in a town called Cedar City, almost 300 miles south of Ogden.
00:10:00 Speaker_06
Most parole board hearings occurred at Utah's two state prisons, but the board occasionally held hearings elsewhere, like at a jail called Purgatory, a little ways farther south of Cedar City.
00:10:12 Speaker_06
So that's where Carey once again went before Don Blanchard on July 28, 2000.
00:10:17 Speaker_03
Mr. Hartman, do you understand why this hearing is being reopened today? Yes, sir. I received a letter. Okay.
00:10:26 Speaker_06
For Kerry to land back in front of Don just four months after their last meeting wasn't normal.
00:10:31 Speaker_03
I'm concerned about the totality of your behavior and how many victims there have been and whether or not review of those reports, you suggested not being able to recall a lot of things.
00:10:43 Speaker_03
In fact, in these reports back when the officers were dealing with you in the late 80s, you
00:10:49 Speaker_03
Suggested struggling with your memory and having difficulties recalling things and and you would remember little pieces of information Yes, it's clear from the acknowledgements you made in these reports.
00:11:00 Speaker_03
You would only go so far and those acknowledgements and recollections and descriptions
00:11:06 Speaker_06
The Ogden Police Reports spanned hundreds of pages. I know because I've read them. And they paint a far broader picture of Carey's suspected activities during the 80s than even I've described in this podcast.
00:11:20 Speaker_06
Don had provided copies of those same reports to Carey.
00:11:23 Speaker_03
You've had a chance now to read through those. What did that do to your recollection and your memory about this period in your life?
00:11:33 Speaker_04
It brought it back to stark reality. I brought it back and I read over them and through them three or four times. I was shocked at my behavior but reminiscent of a person that was out of control.
00:11:48 Speaker_03
Do you acknowledge additional sexual assaults?
00:11:51 Speaker_04
Yes, sir.
00:11:52 Speaker_03
Besides the one rape you admitted to at the last hearing? Yes, sir.
00:11:56 Speaker_06
A remarkable and sudden improvement in Carey's memory.
00:12:00 Speaker_03
How many sexual assaults do you estimate you've committed?
00:12:04 Speaker_04
When I read through those, the four victims that I had, I recollected those and I read through them and read through them and read through them and there were much of them that I recognized and I own those.
00:12:20 Speaker_04
I'm responsible totally, absolutely, and I accept responsibility for them.
00:12:27 Speaker_06
Four victims. Cary had gone from admitting none, to one, to four. Exactly the number for which he had been charged, no more.
00:12:37 Speaker_06
And he had given up trying to blame those crimes on the other serial rapist, Blaine Nelson, who we heard from in the last episode. Don asked Cary about one of the other names contained in the police reports, not one of the four rape victims.
00:12:52 Speaker_04
No, that wasn't one of them.
00:12:55 Speaker_03
She was one that you made contact with through the lingerie surveys. Subsequently, she agreed to meet you for a drink. She didn't describe a rape, but she certainly described a sexual assault.
00:13:06 Speaker_04
I do remember that, yes, sir.
00:13:08 Speaker_03
Were you aggressive with her? Yes, sir, I was. Did that unfold as she described it?
00:13:12 Speaker_04
Yes, sir, absolutely.
00:13:14 Speaker_06
There were others, like a woman named Jean. I'm not using her last name out of concern for her privacy.
00:13:21 Speaker_03
There's one incident that dates back to 84. where a divorcee found your wallet out in the ditch bank outside of her house?
00:13:29 Speaker_04
I did read that.
00:13:31 Speaker_03
Had you been stalking her and watching her?
00:13:33 Speaker_04
That's right. I don't have any recollection of that whatsoever. I lost my wallet once at the Deseret Gym and it was stolen once and I don't have any idea how it appeared there.
00:13:43 Speaker_03
She described repeated incidents of having prowlers, hearing noises, seeing someone outside. Eventually she goes out to the ditch bank She finds your wallet with your ID in it.
00:13:55 Speaker_03
She calls the police, gives them your name, tells them she has the wallet, probably even told them that she suspected you were prowling. Remarkably, the police never come and pick up the wallet from her.
00:14:11 Speaker_03
Years later, all of these sexual assaults are coming out. She goes to the drawer where she's discarded that wallet, gets it out and turns it over to the police.
00:14:19 Speaker_04
I read that. Was she going to be a victim? No, absolutely not. I just didn't do that. I just wasn't there. I just wasn't involved in that.
00:14:30 Speaker_06
Don remained unconvinced Carey was telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
00:14:37 Speaker_03
I believe your memory was just as clear on those sexual assaults when I was talking with you in March and you denied them as it is today.
00:14:46 Speaker_04
Yes, sir.
00:14:46 Speaker_03
And that you admit absolutely only what is documented by records and that there are probably other victims and other sexual assaults that you recall very well, which are not documented in the records.
00:15:04 Speaker_03
It appears that your life, probably for the decade of the 80s, was almost consumed by orientation, interest in sex and sexual activity, and that was what drove your existence.
00:15:17 Speaker_04
You're absolutely right. You are absolutely right, sir.
00:15:21 Speaker_06
But Carey said he was a different man now. That he felt regret every single day for what he had done. He said he was committed to working in therapy to overcome his insecurities.
00:15:34 Speaker_06
But even there, he found himself tangled because sex offender therapy was no longer available where Kerry was living. The Utah Department of Corrections only offered sex offender therapy at the state's prison.
00:15:46 Speaker_06
It had contracted with third-party providers to make therapy available at a few county jails, but the contract at Iron County had expired. That meant if Kerry wanted therapy, he'd need to move to one of those other jails or the prison.
00:16:01 Speaker_06
He had told Don during their earlier meeting he couldn't do that without putting his own life at risk.
00:16:07 Speaker_04
I stayed in Iron County for protection. What kind of protection reasons? Being a police officer.
00:16:13 Speaker_03
I stayed where I was at for those reasons. Well, Mr. Hartman, do you think you really have those kinds of problems? I have in the past.
00:16:23 Speaker_06
Carey's excuse of staying put for protection wasn't going to fly if he ever hoped to get a shot at parole. Don said he'd have to complete therapy.
00:16:33 Speaker_03
All of your prior sex offender therapy and prior therapy up to now, if I understand correctly, it's dealt with your admitting to one victim. Is that right? Primarily, yes, sir. In my mind, that whole process has to start all over again. I understand.
00:16:54 Speaker_06
Kerry's hopes must have dimmed in that moment.
00:16:57 Speaker_03
Anything else you wish to say before this hearing is closed today?
00:17:01 Speaker_04
I appreciate the board's indulgence. I thank you.
00:17:06 Speaker_06
In the weeks that followed, the parole board members voted to keep Kerry incarcerated. They said he couldn't get out until he disclosed all his victims. Listening back to these recordings from more than 20 years ago, I noticed something.
00:17:23 Speaker_06
In neither did anyone bring up the name Sheree Warren. A few episodes back, we met Ogden Police Detective Shane Miner. He'd played a part in the search for the serial rapist who had terrorized women across Ogden in the mid-80s.
00:17:40 Speaker_06
That's when he had first met Carrie Hartman. We got a lot, quite a few calls once Carrie Hartman was arrested. Some of those calls were tips from people who told Ogden Police Carrie might have killed his girlfriend, Sheree Warren.
00:17:54 Speaker_06
Shane had never met Cherie himself, but he had taken up her cold case years later in 1998. Kind of started a new investigation or started all over with it.
00:18:04 Speaker_06
Shane had spent the better part of two years trying to track down witnesses, especially people who had known Cherie.
00:18:10 Speaker_16
I started putting down names and then I'd work on those when I had time, try to locate addresses. Progress came slowly. A lot of the interviews would be in the evening. And off the clock.
00:18:21 Speaker_16
No one's going to sign off on the overtime if it's not an active case that you're working, so... Still, Shane had felt driven to do the work.
00:18:30 Speaker_06
The Sheri Warren case felt like a sliver under Shane's skin. The irritation of the unresolved mystery irked him any time he brushed against it. He wouldn't feel right until the sliver came out, until he had solved the case.
00:18:44 Speaker_06
So Shane kept picking away at it. It was very time consuming. He believed someone must have the missing piece that could lead him to Cherie's remains. But the passage of time complicated that. 14, 15 years go by and you just start to forget.
00:19:02 Speaker_06
In 2000, Shane left Ogden PD to take a position as investigator for the Weber County Attorney's Office. He remained a cop, but worked on behalf of prosecutors, making sure their cases were airtight, and he took the Cherie Warren case with him.
00:19:17 Speaker_06
Shane's notes mention a phone call he received that summer from Don Blanchard, the parole board member you've just been hearing. Don called Shane after talking to Carrie, because Don wanted to know more about Carrie's girlfriend.
00:19:32 Speaker_06
Shane realized the board wasn't seeing the complete picture. It didn't know what he, Jack Bell, and other detectives had learned about Cary Hartman's possible role in the disappearance of Cherie Warren.
00:19:44 Speaker_06
And looking at all the information we had, it was a lot of information that was never Never provided. Never provided because Carey hadn't been charged with a crime related to Cherie's disappearance.
00:19:57 Speaker_06
In the eyes of the parole board, Carey's crime was sexual assault, not murder. And even when it came to the sexual assault... Every chance he had, he denied doing anything.
00:20:08 Speaker_16
He was wrongly convicted. He'd never done anything. So that was his take on it. And then later on, he finally started to admit what he was convicted of.
00:20:17 Speaker_16
But he didn't admit to anything else other than that information that he knew he could have been charged with.
00:20:22 Speaker_06
Shane suspected Cary Hartman had killed Cherie Warren. But suspicion wasn't enough. He needed to prove it. The simplest way would be to get Cary to confess. But he was already looking at life sentences on what he'd already done.
00:20:36 Speaker_06
Cary had no incentive to admit to killing Cherie if he had done it, so Shane couldn't count on a confession.
00:20:43 Speaker_06
The next best proof would be to find Cherie's remains, perhaps in a place Kerry had visited in the days after Cherie's disappearance, the mountain behind Qazi Reservoir. But that's such a vast area that you described. Shane thought he had more time.
00:21:00 Speaker_06
Don told Shane it'd be a few years yet, but Carey would go before the board again. If he'd completed his therapy by then, he'd likely win parole.
00:21:10 Speaker_06
Don said if all else failed, Shane could ask the parole board to hold what's known as an evidentiary hearing. That's a formal meeting focused on evidence, any evidence, not just about the rape cases.
00:21:23 Speaker_06
Shane could then tell the board members anything he had learned that might tie Carey Hartman to Cherie Warren's disappearance.
00:21:30 Speaker_06
Shane wanted to keep Carey incarcerated as long as possible, both to protect the public and to buy more time for his investigation. He believed Carey still harbored secrets about Sheree Warren, but he was running out of options on how to get answers.
00:21:50 Speaker_06
For investigator Shane Miner, the prospect of Kerry Hartman winning parole added a ticking clock to his search for the remains of Cherie Warren. All of the problems along the way of just sitting down and working on this and staying focused on this.
00:22:06 Speaker_06
He knew if he didn't push for answers about what had happened to Cherie, no one would. Shane had talked to Roy Police Captain Jack Bell about his May 1987 conversation with an elk hunting guide named Fred Johns. Okay, so who is Fred Johns?
00:22:24 Speaker_06
I've mentioned Fred a few times before. He's the guy who had reported seeing Carrie on the mountain behind Qazi Reservoir the Sunday after Cherie disappeared. I knew Fred Johns from the Arden area. Fred had a reputation as a pool hustler and a gambler.
00:22:40 Speaker_06
Shane had heard Fred was prickly about police. He wasn't sure what to expect when he tracked Fred down in April of 2001.
00:22:49 Speaker_16
Fred was living up in Mountain Green and went up and talked to him about the statement he had made to Bell about seeing Hartman in early October of 1985, just to lock that down for the report.
00:23:01 Speaker_06
Fred died in 2019, so you're not going to hear from him in this podcast. What I tell you next comes from Shane's formal report and his own personal recollection of their conversation.
00:23:13 Speaker_06
He basically went through that same story that he went through with Bell. That story went like this. On the Sunday following Cherie's disappearance, Fred was on the ridge between Causey and Lost Creek Reservoirs. Think back to our percent sign.
00:23:30 Speaker_06
Causey in the upper left, Lost Creek in the lower right, and a mountain between them. Midway between the two reservoirs, on top of the mountain, is where Fred Johns said he saw Cary Hartman.
00:23:43 Speaker_06
And recalled seeing him that first week in October, I believe it was, the first week of the elk hunt. The land belonged to a family of sheepherders named the Wilds, and it was some of the best elk hunting ground in the western United States.
00:23:57 Speaker_06
Wilds was the people's last name that owned the property that leased the hunting rights to Johns. In other words, Fred Johns paid the wilds for exclusive access to their property during the elk hunting season.
00:24:09 Speaker_06
Fred would then turn around and market his services as a guide. If hunters wanted to bag an elk on the wild property, they had to first pay their dues to Fred. Or trespass and risk having an armed and irate Fred Johns chase them off the mountain.
00:24:26 Speaker_06
Fred jealously guarded the wild property during the hunt. He would spend those weeks in September and October living out of a shack on the mountaintop. He would charge people to come in.
00:24:36 Speaker_16
He ran like an outfitter's up there and do these guided hunts up on that property.
00:24:42 Speaker_06
Fred also parked an RV a few miles from his shack. On the opening weekend of the 85 Elkhunt, Fred was driving the dirt road between the shack and the RV when he noticed something. Tracks in the dirt he hadn't seen the night before.
00:24:56 Speaker_06
Then he ran across Hartman and somebody that he thought was his brother up there. Cary Hartman with his pickup truck, a pair of three-wheel ATVs, and another man on the mountain just four days after Sheree Warren's disappearance.
00:25:11 Speaker_06
Cary only had the one brother, Jack Hartman. Jack had stood in the police lineup with Cary before the rape trial, along with their lookalike cousin, David Hartman. This was not a case of mistaken identity. Fred knew Cary.
00:25:27 Speaker_16
He knew Hartman from high school, I believe, and I think he even told me that they lived together for a short period of time, so he knew Cary Hartman.
00:25:36 Speaker_06
Way back in Episode 1, I mentioned how Fred had kicked Carrie out of his house after Carrie came on to Fred's wife in the mid-70s.
00:25:43 Speaker_06
Fred didn't deny that bit of bad blood when he talked to Shane Miner, but it didn't seem like reason enough for Fred to fabricate this sighting of Carrie on the mountain. Told me how he had seen him in the afternoon.
00:25:55 Speaker_06
That, to me, would seem pretty suspicious.
00:25:59 Speaker_16
Yeah.
00:26:01 Speaker_06
Fred told Shane he had stopped, stepped out of his truck, and asked Kerry what he was doing there. Kerry had allegedly said he had gone down off the ridge to the north, toward Qazi Reservoir, looking for elk.
00:26:13 Speaker_06
Fred had been skeptical of this because, as I said, he had driven by that same spot earlier and had not seen Kerry's truck there. Fred told Shane precisely where the sighting had happened.
00:26:25 Speaker_16
How he referred to it was the right-hand fork of the Gildersleeve Canyon.
00:26:29 Speaker_06
The spot Fred described was at a clearing, where the dirt road passed by the heads of two canyons, one to the north, the other to the south. Shane wanted to see it for himself, but he couldn't just drive up onto that property without permission.
00:26:44 Speaker_06
It was privately owned, deep in the mountains, and protected by gates.
00:26:49 Speaker_16
After I talked with Fred, I asked him if he would take me up and show me exactly where it was he'd seen him, and he agreed to do that. So it was sometime later when the snow allowed.
00:27:02 Speaker_06
The ridge Fred described sits at just over 8,000 feet above sea level. Winter drapes that mountain with deep snow every year. Some years, the snow might thaw by the end of April.
00:27:13 Speaker_16
But you're usually going into the end of May or June before you can get up there and access a lot of that area.
00:27:20 Speaker_06
That's how it was in the spring of 2001. Shane wasn't able to go up with Fred until the end of May. He took me up where he had access to the property right there by Lost Creek. Remember, this was more than 20 years ago.
00:27:34 Speaker_06
Shane didn't have a GPS unit to track the journey. He had to rely on a more primitive technology, the odometer. I kind of identified it off of mileage.
00:27:45 Speaker_06
I've compared Shane's mileage notes against maps and confirmed the precise spot of the Fred John's sighting.
00:27:52 Speaker_06
The route Shane took to get there is probably not the same one Carrie Hartman would have used on that Sunday in October of 85, if Fred John's information was correct.
00:28:02 Speaker_06
There are several other ways to get up onto that ridge, including from Kazia Estates. Cary had at least three friends who owned property in Causey Estates.
00:28:14 Speaker_06
And remember, in episode four, Cary's friend Brent Morgan, the taxidermist, told us he had loaned Cary his key to the gate at Causey Estates that fall.
00:28:23 Speaker_06
And even that Lost Creek area, which I think Lost Creek, there's two or three different places that you could have access.
00:28:30 Speaker_06
I know it's difficult to picture this without seeing it on a map, but Causey and Lost Creek are on opposite sides of the mountain. Again, they are the two circles in the percent sign. Cary could have potentially gained access from either side.
00:28:44 Speaker_06
Could have gotten around the gate and gotten onto that property. Could have accessed it. There's a dirt road that crosses over the mountain, connecting the two reservoirs. And it's on that road Fred Johns said he saw Carrie.
00:28:59 Speaker_06
But between the two reservoirs. You got thousands and thousands of acres up there. It's the kind of place where if you had enough time and determination, you might hide a body and expect no one would ever find it.
00:29:15 Speaker_06
That's why Shane needed to go to the precise spot where Fred Johns said he had seen Cary Hartman.
00:29:24 Speaker_16
He showed me the area where he was back then at, where he had talked to him.
00:29:29 Speaker_06
The ridge at that spot is only a hundred or so feet wide, with canyons falling away on either side. Shane poked around, hoping to stumble upon something that might convince the parole board Carrie Hartman was guilty of more than just sexual assault.
00:29:46 Speaker_06
We'd heard that parole was coming up. There was a lot of information. I got thinking about it. Like the forensics of human decomposition. the tissues that make up a human body break down after death.
00:29:59 Speaker_06
The speed of that breakdown depends on the climate, whether the body's buried, and so on. Eventually, a body will reduce to nothing but bones, and those bones will come apart, a process called disarticulation.
00:30:12 Speaker_06
So Shane didn't expect to find Sheree Warren's complete body, or even her skeleton. He knew if Shuri had been left on the mountain after more than 15 years, he would be lucky to find even a few small scattered bone fragments.
00:30:27 Speaker_06
But then maybe he didn't need Shuri's body itself. Something as simple as her earrings or necklace might suffice, and those wouldn't decompose. Shane also knew Shuri's purse had never been found.
00:30:41 Speaker_06
And of course, there remained the question of the two coats. Carrie Hartman had repeatedly said Sheree had left his apartment on the morning of her disappearance wearing his black parka.
00:30:52 Speaker_06
Sheree's mom, Mary Sorenson, believed Sheree had left her house that morning wearing a gray suede jacket. Police had found the gray suede jacket in Carrie's apartment.
00:31:04 Speaker_06
So if Shane were to find Carrie's black parka on the mountain, it might suggest Carrie had wrapped Sheree's body in the coat before dumping her there. But luck didn't shine on Shane that day. No bones, no necklace, no parka. He didn't find anything.
00:31:28 Speaker_06
Shane Minor wasn't the type to give up easily. He decided to call in the Cadaver Dog Cavalry.
00:31:34 Speaker_16
made arrangements with Wally Hendricks, who was with Duchesne County Sheriff's Office.
00:31:40 Speaker_06
Wally Hendricks was, at the time, the top search dog cop in the state of Utah. He had had some success on finding some bodies, so I contacted him.
00:31:49 Speaker_06
Wally mustered up seven dogs and handlers, all of whom drove to meet Shane early one Saturday morning in June of 2001. Their trucks rattled up the route Fred Johns had shown Shane.
00:32:01 Speaker_06
The back of Shane's truck was packed with enough soda, chips, and sandwiches to feed a Little League team. But instead of aluminum bats and leather baseball gloves, the coolers were flanked by shovels and mesh screens.
00:32:15 Speaker_06
Shane came prepared to sift for bone fragments if the dogs caught whiff of a gravesite.
00:32:21 Speaker_16
We hit that hillside with the dogs just to see if we could kick anything out. But again, that was 15 years, 16 years after the fact.
00:32:29 Speaker_06
Shane didn't dare hope, but he stood by and watched as the dogs worked down from the ridge.
00:32:36 Speaker_16
They kept going, so I think we went off the top and went down into that canyon and they went quite a ways down in the canyon and did a pretty diligent search.
00:32:45 Speaker_16
It felt bad because they're volunteers and they're doing this on their own just trying to help out, but we put a good day's worth of work up there with those dogs.
00:32:57 Speaker_06
But once again, Shane came up empty. Sheree Warren wasn't within a stone's throw of the spot on that mountain ridge. I've had the opportunity to observe a few different cadaver dog searches in my time as a journalist.
00:33:11 Speaker_06
Nowadays, both dogs and their handlers wear GPS tracking devices when they search. This allows investigators to come back later and verify the precise locations checked and see any gaps in the coverage.
00:33:24 Speaker_06
There are no GPS tracks like that for this cadaver dog search of the spot on the mountain between Causey and Lost Creek. And that's a problem now, 20-plus years later, as I try to piece together exactly where the dogs went.
00:33:37 Speaker_06
Would that have been down into Gildersleeve? I believe so. If the dogs only searched to the south, into Gildersleeve, they might have missed the mark. The canyon to the north is called Pete Nelson Hollow. I've talked about it before.
00:33:52 Speaker_06
Pete Nelson Hollow is where the lost hunter from the 1940s, Rudolph Bertinoli, wandered down through a snowstorm and ultimately died. Bertinoli's bones had remained there 43 years before being found.
00:34:06 Speaker_06
Cary Hartman could have traveled into Pete Nelson Hollow on his three-wheeler. And if so, a cadaver dog search down the opposite direction into Gildersleeve would have been pointless. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.
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00:36:34 Speaker_06
I'm standing on the tarmac at the Morgan County Airport, south and east of Ogden on the backside of the Wasatch Mountains. It's late September of 2021, and wildfires across the Western U.S. have filled the air with smoke.
00:36:49 Speaker_06
A motor engages behind me, lifting a hangar door to reveal a collection of single-engine airplanes. One of them, a little white and blue two-seater with a bubble canopy, belongs to my dad.
00:37:03 Speaker_06
I've been coming up to this airfield in the town of Mountain Green since I was a kid. My dad always seemed to know everyone here.
00:37:10 Speaker_09
How are you? You getting ready to go fly? Yeah. Good. It's beautiful up there.
00:37:17 Speaker_03
The colors are gorgeous.
00:37:19 Speaker_06
Through the haze, I can make out a blast of red and gold draped across the eastern slopes of the Wasatch Mountains. Autumn leaves are at their prime. But we're not out to admire the scenery today.
00:37:32 Speaker_06
We're on a mission to take a look at the canyons behind Qazi Reservoir.
00:37:37 Speaker_09
We roll the plane out of the hangar and fire up the engine.
00:37:55 Speaker_06
The idea of inspecting the land around Kazi from the air isn't mine. I stole it from retired investigator Shane Miner. You don't like flying so much, from what I understand. No. No.
00:38:07 Speaker_06
But Shane took to the air 18 and a half years on from Cherie Warren's disappearance, and three years following the failed cadaver dog search, still hoping he might find some sign of her on the mountain behind Kazi Reservoir.
00:38:22 Speaker_06
On the morning of May 24, 2004, Shane and a fellow investigator named Rob Carpenter, along with a state trooper named Stan Olson, took off in the Utah Department of Public Safety helicopter.
00:38:34 Speaker_16
It was a very pleasant flight. The pilot did a wonderful job, was a great guy, but too small of planes for me. Or helicopters.
00:38:45 Speaker_06
They headed east, following the South Fork of the Ogden River. They crossed over top of the Meadows Campground, the place Cary Hartman had tried to meet Heidi Posnien way back in 1971. Then the chopper crossed over Qazi Dam. It banked to the right.
00:39:02 Speaker_13
Okay, this is the road we want to follow right here, right? Yes, I believe so. Yeah, this is Qazi State up here.
00:39:09 Speaker_06
A video camera recorded the flight as the chopper followed the dirt road south from the dam into Skullcrack Canyon, over the gate that blocks the way into Causey Estates.
00:39:19 Speaker_13
This is Causey Estates up here? That's what that's called? Yes, it's private landowners that have it. Pretty.
00:39:28 Speaker_06
The chopper climbed, following the slope of the mountain.
00:39:31 Speaker_13
This would have been the road that I think he had access to. So, I mean, there's unlimited places where he could have dumped her along here.
00:39:39 Speaker_14
Hard to think, like a bandit, you know, would you have picked a characteristic turn or rock or tree or something as a landmark?
00:39:50 Speaker_06
Shane snapped photos out the window as the helicopter crested the top of the mountain south of Kazi.
00:39:56 Speaker_06
It turned east, crossing over Box Spring, the place where the taxidermist Brent Morgan had had his wedding in 1984, a year before Cherie Warren disappeared. The chopper followed a dirt road that snaked along the top of a ridge.
00:40:11 Speaker_06
It approached the place where Fred Johns, the elk hunting guide, had said he had seen Kerry Hartman.
00:40:17 Speaker_13
It's got to be right up along this road here, about a mile. Right around in there.
00:40:24 Speaker_06
The place Fred said Kerry had taken his three-wheelers the Sunday after Cherie Warren disappeared.
00:40:32 Speaker_13
Hey Rob, does this look about it right over here off to the right?
00:40:35 Speaker_06
Picking out a specific place from the air can prove really difficult.
00:40:40 Speaker_14
Then where would we have gotten the dogs out? That's my question.
00:40:46 Speaker_06
But after a moment of confusion, Shane recognized the spot.
00:40:50 Speaker_13
Yeah, I think this is it right here off to the right. That little clearing there? Yes. Be backed in by that piece of snow right there. That's where he was seen at, and then he took off and went back out the same way we came up and wasn't seen again.
00:41:07 Speaker_06
Investigator Rob Carpenter had also been there on the day of the cadaver dog search.
00:41:11 Speaker_14
When we came up here with those dogs, there was health signs everywhere on this drainage right here.
00:41:17 Speaker_06
They weren't expecting to find Cherie Warren's body on this flight, because scattered bones would be all that remained after so many years. Those would be too small to see.
00:41:26 Speaker_06
Instead, they were documenting the various routes someone could have used to reach the site on the ridge back in October of 85.
00:41:33 Speaker_13
Could you get in from that Croydon side without a key? No, it's gated off on that road that goes up the Lost Creek. Oh, okay.
00:41:41 Speaker_06
Nowadays, you can do a lot of this kind of work using high-resolution aerial imagery, available for free on the internet. But when it comes to investigations, there's no replacement for putting your own eyes on a place.
00:41:54 Speaker_16
So we got it documented. It was a smooth day.
00:41:57 Speaker_06
I mean, it was a great flight. And hovering in a helicopter over a remote mountain forest... There's some elk down there. ...does bring some fringe benefits.
00:42:06 Speaker_14
Boy, that elk just sprayed real quick. Didn't like the head I chopped there, huh?
00:42:10 Speaker_16
I think the pilot knew that I was a little nervous about it, so he went out of his way to make it comfortable.
00:42:15 Speaker_15
Beautiful and practically impossible to search. Just because of the amount of land up there.
00:42:33 Speaker_06
thousands and thousands of acres, incised with canyons and cliffs, choked with thick brush, known to only a select group of herders and hunters. Much of Utah's mountain land is national forest, open to the public.
00:42:49 Speaker_06
But this mountain between Causey and Lost Creek Reservoirs is private, mostly owned by two neighboring ranches, Deseret Land and Livestock, and what was formerly known as Basin Land and Livestock.
00:43:03 Speaker_06
Hunting those ranches today is a pay-to-play experience, limited to just a handful of weeks each year. Someone can't just go exploring for a body up there on a whim.
00:43:15 Speaker_06
When Shane had taken cadaver dogs on that mountain, they had centered their search at the site pinpointed by their witness, the elk hunting guide Fred Johns.
00:43:22 Speaker_16
I was putting a lot of faith in those dogs. And if something had been dumped, hoping that it wouldn't be, too far down in, and if we were in the right location, and if we came up with a bone or something.
00:43:36 Speaker_13
We hit this whole side of the hill here, a couple hundred yards in both directions, and worked down towards the bottom of this, you know, to what would be kind of logical to drag a body.
00:43:48 Speaker_13
Just hoping to hit a bone or something, but never came up with nothing. After he was seen, though, he could have drove back out and dumped her any place. Any place, yeah, moved her, whatever.
00:43:59 Speaker_06
A bit earlier, I mentioned not knowing exactly where those cadaver dogs went. Shane's description here of a couple hundred yards suggests they didn't go far.
00:44:09 Speaker_06
But again, when Fred Johns first told Detective Jack Bell about seeing Cary Hartman at that spot the weekend after Cherie Warren disappeared, Fred said Cary had been loading up his three-wheelers.
00:44:23 Speaker_06
Three-wheeled ATVs were all the rage during the 70s and 80s. They were especially popular among hunters, who could use them to pull their kills out of the woods. A mule deer and a human can weigh about the same.
00:44:37 Speaker_06
So it stands to reason, if a three-wheeler can pull a deer out of the brush, it might also be capable of moving a human into it.
00:44:47 Speaker_16
If you got off that dirt road and used some type of an SUV to get down in those canyons, it'd be like worse than looking for a needle in a haystack, unless you knew exactly where that was.
00:44:59 Speaker_06
Pete Nelson Hollow, the canyon that drops to the north from the spot on the ridge, runs three miles before reaching the Wright Fork-South Fork Ogden River behind Qazi Reservoir.
00:45:09 Speaker_06
It'd be tough to get a three-wheeler all the way down there, but taking a body even a quarter mile or so off the dirt road would significantly decrease the chance of anyone stumbling across it.
00:45:20 Speaker_06
Unless you're right on top of it, I think it's going to be real easy to miss. Shane's helicopter flight in 2004 had achieved what he had set out to do.
00:45:29 Speaker_06
He had photographed the points of interest on our percent sign, Qazi Reservoir, the cabins of Qazi Estates, the dirt road running the slash of the percent sign over the mountaintop, and Lost Creek Reservoir on the far side.
00:45:43 Speaker_06
I wanted to go one step further. That's why I asked my dad to take me up in his plane all these years later.
00:45:50 Speaker_06
I wanted to not only see the landscape for myself, but also ask, if I were trying to hide a body in this corner of the world, where and how exactly would I do it? I've flown over this landscape now three times.
00:46:05 Speaker_06
Once in KSL's helicopter, Chopper 5, and twice with my dad.
00:46:09 Speaker_13
There's the state.
00:46:13 Speaker_06
Flying over that mountain is about the only way to put eyes on the area without driving, hiking, or horse-packing across miles of rugged, privately-owned mountainside.
00:46:23 Speaker_12
This road we're crossing over... Yep. ...would be the one that he would have used.
00:46:30 Speaker_06
I've spent more hours than I care to admit studying maps and aerial images of the Qazi area, trying to memorize the landmarks, working out possible routes for a three-wheeler. thinking about where someone might've dropped a body.
00:46:45 Speaker_12
Okay, so that's the spot, right? We just flew right over top of where they said he was parked. Okay. So he would've gone potentially down the canyon to the left. So can we circle around here? Uh-huh, right here.
00:46:56 Speaker_06
The upper reaches of Pete Nelson Hollow are covered in stands of quaking aspen that explode like fireworks during the fall.
00:47:04 Speaker_12
Wow, that's remarkably pretty. Yeah, yeah. There are a couple of springs right up top here. One of the things I noticed looking at the topographic map is there was, at one point, a little ATV road that went down to those springs.
00:47:18 Speaker_06
There's a path that cuts through the trees, leading into the upper reaches of Pete Nelson Hollow, about a quarter mile from where Fred Johns reported seeing Cary Hartman.
00:47:28 Speaker_12
I'm curious if you could get a three-wheeler down there. I'm thinking you definitely could. Oh yeah, yeah.
00:47:36 Speaker_06
I came away from these flights believing it's plausible Cary Hartman could have hidden Sheree Warren's body on that mountain behind Qazi Reservoir.
00:47:44 Speaker_06
And I believe Shane Miner's cadaver dog search more than 20 years ago probably missed the mark by sticking too close to the road.
00:47:53 Speaker_06
The evidence suggests Cary Hartman could have used an ATV, a three-wheeler, to move Sheree's body to a concealed spot on that mountain, just far enough out the cadaver dogs couldn't find it.
00:48:05 Speaker_06
But any good hypothesis deserves to be challenged by experiment. Which means before our season's done, I'll need a three-wheeler and access to the mountain behind Kazi.
00:48:19 Speaker_06
The Utah Board of Pardons and Parole scheduled Kerry Hartman for a re-hearing on September 20th of 2005.
00:48:25 Speaker_06
It had been five years since the back-to-back hearings you heard at the start of this episode, where Kerry had bombed his chance to take accountability.
00:48:35 Speaker_06
During those five years, investigator Shane Miner had expended a lot of effort, but made little progress in his search for the remains of Shuri Warren.
00:48:44 Speaker_06
Shane knew the information available to the board didn't include the circumstantial evidence linking Carey to Cherie's disappearance.
00:48:51 Speaker_16
It was just the individual rape cases and that was it.
00:48:55 Speaker_06
Because again, Carey hadn't been charged with a crime connected to Cherie's disappearance, let alone convicted of one.
00:49:03 Speaker_16
And we have this information that would indicate he's done a lot more than what he's been charged with. And it's stuff he's never come clean with.
00:49:12 Speaker_06
Kerry had cleared the significant hurdle of serving 15 years on his 15-to-life sentence. He stood a good chance of at last winning parole.
00:49:22 Speaker_06
Reed Richards, the prosecutor who had put Kerry in prison, told me he'd anticipated Kerry would only serve the minimum, 15 years.
00:49:30 Speaker_02
In fact, that was the time where they had mandatory incarceration and mandatory length of stays. And so that was very unpopular with the prison, of course, that you had to mandate how long they stay.
00:49:42 Speaker_02
And so they generally would look at that minimum time, and that's when they cut people loose.
00:49:46 Speaker_06
Kerry had done enough time to qualify for release, unless the parole board decided it had good reason to keep him in. Under Utah law, the parole board wields broad authority.
00:49:58 Speaker_06
The board has the ability to consider more than just the crime that sent a person to prison when deciding how long that person should remain in custody. Shane believed the parole board had a blind spot in Kerry Hartman's case.
00:50:12 Speaker_06
There's just a lot of information that started to come out.
00:50:15 Speaker_16
that I felt maybe the board should be aware of that.
00:50:18 Speaker_06
With five days to go before Kerry's rehearing, Shane Miner sat at his computer and started to type. I have hesitated writing this letter, he began, because I know there is nothing you can do.
00:50:30 Speaker_06
But at the same time, I feel compelled to at least provide you with information concerning Kerry Hartman. Shane went on to summarize the story of Sheree's disappearance. He explained his role in the Ogden City Rapist investigation back in the 80s.
00:50:45 Speaker_06
He described how publicity of Carey's arrest in that case had led to a flood of tips, including some about Sheree. But, he wrote, Carey was by that time in custody, represented by counsel, and unavailable for questioning.
00:51:00 Speaker_16
He never answered any questions about his relationship with Cherie. When asked about it, he only volunteered what he wanted Jack Bell to hear at the time she disappeared, and that was it.
00:51:13 Speaker_06
Shane wrote about how he and Detective Chris Zimmerman had dropped in on Carey at the Sanpete County Jail following his conviction, in the hopes of asking him about Sheree.
00:51:23 Speaker_16
Zimmerman and I went down in 88 after he had gone to prison just to see if he had talked to us about that and he wouldn't talk to us. Got up and walked out of the room.
00:51:32 Speaker_06
He explained how over the course of nearly 20 years, investigators had talked to multiple jailhouse informants who had claimed to have heard Carey making incriminating statements, but none of it had ever led them to a body.
00:51:46 Speaker_06
The investigation is continuing at a slow pace, he wrote. He stopped short of asking the board to take any specific action, but concluded by saying, quote, I felt this is information that you should be aware of.
00:52:03 Speaker_06
He signed his name at the bottom and sent the letter to the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole.
00:52:16 Speaker_09
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00:52:28 Speaker_09
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00:52:43 Speaker_06
Shane Miner's letter found its way into the hands of a man named Kent Jones.
00:52:47 Speaker_05
My name is Kent Jones. I work as a hearing officer with the Board of Pardons.
00:52:51 Speaker_06
Kent conducted Kerry Hartman's 2005 re-hearing at the Central Utah Correctional Facility, a state prison located in the town of Gunnison.
00:53:00 Speaker_05
I think this is the first time you've been in front of a hearing officer, but it's basically the same as if it was a board member.
00:53:07 Speaker_06
They went through the formalities.
00:53:08 Speaker_05
Kerry, I have your prison number as 18553, correct? Yes. OK.
00:53:13 Speaker_05
Kerry, I'm going to be reviewing kind of the life and times of Kerry Hartman in a few minutes, and then I'd like you to respond to some of the questions I have, so I need to place you under oath.
00:53:24 Speaker_05
If you would, raise your right hand and I'll swear you in. Do swear or affirm the information you're about to give.
00:53:29 Speaker_06
Kent summarized the crimes for which Kerry had been charged and asked if Kerry admitted to them. Kerry said he did. Kent gave Kerry an opportunity to make a statement.
00:53:40 Speaker_05
I'd like to turn it over to you for a few minutes.
00:53:42 Speaker_06
Kerry used the time to talk about how out of control he had been in the years before his arrest. He said it had started with financial problems and a sense of pride that had kept him from asking his father for help.
00:53:56 Speaker_06
The more I strived to put my finances together, he said, the deeper in the hole I got. I used pornography and masturbation to try and climb out of a hole, to make myself feel better. It didn't work.
00:54:13 Speaker_06
From there, he said he had tried to regain control by seeking out, quote, lonely and vulnerable women. I stalked them. I broke into their homes. I followed them. and I sexually assaulted them.
00:54:31 Speaker_05
How did you meet these women?
00:54:35 Speaker_06
Sometimes I saw them in a dance club or a private club and followed them home. Kent noted this candor was a significant change, since Carey had for so long insisted on his innocence.
00:54:47 Speaker_05
Carey, why have you waited nearly 20 years to talk about this? Are you getting tired of the time? Are you just coming to grips with some things? Why did you put on this facade for so many years when your mom and dad were struggling to protect you?
00:55:08 Speaker_05
Even religious people would swear to their deaths that you were innocent. Is it just kind of coming to a head now?
00:55:20 Speaker_06
I lived in such denial. I thought I couldn't be a bad person, and I couldn't do this, and I convinced people, and I manipulated them, and I coerced them into believing."
00:55:33 Speaker_06
Carey said that had changed once he had decided to approach treatment with an earnest heart after his last parole hearing.
00:55:41 Speaker_06
He had left Iron County, where he had lived for more than a decade, and transferred to another jail in far-flung San Juan County. The move had allowed him to once again enter sex offender therapy.
00:55:53 Speaker_06
He still had eight months to go in the program, but he said he was on track to graduate. His disciplinary record had improved. No more pornography, no more dirty audio tapes. He was working as head cook in the jail's cafeteria.
00:56:09 Speaker_06
If granted release, he said, he would move back in with his parents, who were by then 80 years old, and get a plumbing job in Ogden. Kent expressed some hesitation with that plan.
00:56:20 Speaker_05
I guess I'm concerned about the long history of sexual deviance, even prior to when you were arrested. Wasn't there some indication you were doing some telephone obscene stuff years and years before that?
00:56:36 Speaker_06
I was involved in making unsolicited phone calls at random. I called up women and made sexual comments and sexual innuendos over the phone.
00:56:45 Speaker_05
— How did you come up with those names? — In a phone book?
00:56:52 Speaker_06
— Kent pointed out other troubling details from Carey's records.
00:56:55 Speaker_05
— That's where we come to some of the other concerns. According to here, you may have been doing a lot of wife-swapping. On one of your honeymoons, you brought a prostitute to the room to have her do a threesome.
00:57:10 Speaker_05
On another occasion, when he was in the San Diego area, you brought a young Marine to have him have sex with your wife while you watched.
00:57:19 Speaker_06
Carey didn't deny the allegations made by his ex-wives, for the most part.
00:57:24 Speaker_05
You liked violence while having sex? I wasn't a violent person, but I was a violent person.
00:57:31 Speaker_06
I wasn't a violent person, but I was, I was a violent person. I was abusive, and I hit them, and I'd slap them, and I'd push them. But I wasn't a violent person during sex.
00:57:46 Speaker_05
It's kind of interesting that you're saying you're not violent, and then you just tell me that you are hitting them. That's violent, isn't it?
00:57:56 Speaker_06
I wasn't a sexually violent person, but I was abusive, yes sir, absolutely. Carriot admitted to entering women's homes and forcing them into sex by threat of violence. He'd admitted to physically battering his wives.
00:58:11 Speaker_06
But if we're to believe him here, he was a gentle lover. Kent didn't let that slide.
00:58:18 Speaker_05
So could you consider some of your ex-wives as being victims?
00:58:22 Speaker_06
Absolutely. Kent rattled off the names of Kerry's ex-wives and former girlfriends, asking one by one about the details of what he had done to them.
00:58:31 Speaker_05
Did you put a .357 to her head and try to have her have sex with your friend? I remember having a gun in the drawer and bringing it out, waving it around. I don't remember putting it to her head.
00:58:44 Speaker_06
I don't remember putting it to her head. If she said that's what happened, that's what happened. Kerry at one point tried to dodge one of these questions by saying, I think anyone that was involved with me when I was in my sexual deviancy is a victim.
00:59:02 Speaker_06
And although no one said it then, I'll point out Sheree Warren was involved with Kerry Hartman during his, quote, sexual deviancy.
00:59:10 Speaker_05
How about a woman by the name of Jean? Have you ever heard her name before?
00:59:17 Speaker_06
That's not true. Jean's name had come up during Carrie's prior board hearing in 2000, the hearing you heard at the start of this episode.
00:59:25 Speaker_05
I think she had reported that she saw a prowler outside her window. She went out and found your wallet by the window. Do you recall losing a wallet when you were doing some window peeking years ago? I do. Do you know who you was watching?
00:59:42 Speaker_05
I think her name was Jean.
00:59:44 Speaker_06
It's a small detail in the grand scheme of this story, but in that earlier recording, you heard Carey insist he had lost his wallet at the gym, saying he had no idea how it had ended up outside Gene's house.
00:59:59 Speaker_06
So either he'd been lying then, or he was lying now.
01:00:03 Speaker_05
What I'm trying to do, Carey, is I think that there's a lot of other victims there that you hadn't previously disclosed. Do you see where I'm fishing, what I'm trying to do? Aren't there others there? You're an intelligent guy. I think you got 121 IQ.
01:00:20 Speaker_05
You're not dumb. You're a brilliant guy. It just seems to me, Kerry, you're not really being honest with me.
01:00:28 Speaker_06
Kerry pushed back, saying he hadn't before considered his ex-wives as victims, but everything else he had disclosed in therapy. He had no other victims to report. Kent had one other name to ask about.
01:00:44 Speaker_05
I come up with another name when I'm researching this, and I can't retry your case. I'm not a prosecutor, but I want full understanding of everything.
01:00:56 Speaker_05
So I was in contact with a Weber County official because I wanted to figure out this one name, Cherie. And I guess I'm a little concerned about that. That was a girlfriend of yours in 1985. She disappeared and has never been seen since.
01:01:20 Speaker_05
They think you have somehow been involved with some foul play with her disappearance. At the time, they sought your help and you tried to look for her.
01:01:34 Speaker_05
And it wasn't until after your arrest, I think in 86 or 87, that they started thinking that maybe you were connected with him.
01:01:43 Speaker_05
Many years later, they ask you, but you adamantly denied talking to or didn't want to talk to him, and you walked out of an interview. And I guess I'm concerned about that, Carrie.
01:01:55 Speaker_05
I just wonder as to whether or not she's dead somewhere, and you had anything to do with her death or her disappearance.
01:02:03 Speaker_05
And I would imagine that officials might be looking at this to reopen it as a cold case murder investigation to see if you're somehow involved with it. Are you willing to talk to some of the law enforcement officials about her disappearance?
01:02:22 Speaker_06
I had nothing to do with it.
01:02:23 Speaker_05
Did you have an argument with her on the night she disappeared?
01:02:31 Speaker_06
She disappeared from Salt Lake City, and I was in Ogden.
01:02:35 Speaker_08
I was surrounded by people the whole time.
01:02:37 Speaker_06
I was surrounded by people the whole time, morning and night, until I reported it. Interesting Carey said he reported Cherie missing because that's not how it happened, at least according to Detective Jack Bell's notes.
01:02:52 Speaker_06
They say Cherie's mom, Mary Sorenson, first reported her missing. Then Jack Bell called Carey, not the other way around. It was a subtle shift in the story, but no one challenged Carey on it.
01:03:06 Speaker_06
Carey told parole board hearing officer Kent Jones he just wanted a chance to be the good person he knew he could be out in society. Kent promised the board would take it all into account.
01:03:19 Speaker_05
You've done an enormous change from five years ago, disclosing a lot of different things that you've done. But I just don't know that you're completely honest yet. And I would encourage you to talk to the Weber County people.
01:03:35 Speaker_05
If, in fact, they think that you are involved with her disappearance, it might be to your best to be just as honest as you possibly can with them, because I get the information from this investigator that they've got a lot more on you than what you think.
01:03:51 Speaker_05
Okay? Good luck, Carrie.
01:03:57 Speaker_06
Investigator Shane Miner received a cassette tape in the mail days later.
01:04:02 Speaker_16
I talked with Ken Jones, who was the hearing officer. Then he sent me a copy of the hearing. Shane listened to the tape with great interest. In that hearing, Hartman admitted to the cases he was charged with.
01:04:16 Speaker_05
Did you, in fact, rape her? Okay.
01:04:19 Speaker_16
According to Hartman, he was more than cooperative with law enforcement regarding Sheree Warren.
01:04:28 Speaker_06
whereabouts are documented. I'm the person that reported her missing. I worked with Detective Jack Bell for over a year and a half trying to look for her.
01:04:38 Speaker_16
But then he would only refer to Jack Bell as contact with Jack Bell. He forgot to mention the fact he wouldn't talk to us about her. So Jones kind of put him on the spot and said, so you're willing to talk with law enforcement about that?
01:04:49 Speaker_05
Kerry, I would encourage you to talk with any of the Weber County people that might come down and talk to you.
01:04:58 Speaker_06
And he said he would. Carriot had a little other choice. Defying the board of pardons would likely mean serving a maximum sentence.
01:05:08 Speaker_05
You've already got a life sentence on you. And if you hope for any release in the future, whether it's now or 20 years from now, my guess is it's better that you attempt to disclose that now instead of trying to do what you've done in the past.
01:05:25 Speaker_05
and lived under a cloak of deceit.
01:05:28 Speaker_06
And so, 20 years after Cherie Warren's disappearance, Carrie Hartman would finally face a formal interrogation about the night she disappeared, thanks to some pointed prodding from the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole.
01:05:42 Speaker_06
I think it was because of that, it's the only reason he agreed to talk with us. Shane Miner, who had helped finger Carrie as one of the two Ogden City rapists, had a date with a man he suspected of Sheree Warren's murder. on the next episode of Cold.
01:06:33 Speaker_06
My special thanks in this episode to Utah Board of Pardons and Parole Records Officer Allison Tormundson and the staff at the Utah State Archives.
01:06:41 Speaker_06
They patiently and persistently worked with me for two years to locate all of the parole board audio you've heard in this podcast. This part of the Cherie Warren story couldn't have been told without their help, and I'm thankful for it.
01:06:54 Speaker_06
If you have information about the disappearance of Cherie Warren, now is the time to share it. You can reach me by emailing cold at ksl.com or contact the Roy City Police Department at 801-774-1063.
01:07:10 Speaker_06
I also want you to know, if you've experienced abuse or sexual violence, you're not alone. There are trained experts ready to listen and help.
01:07:18 Speaker_06
In the United States, survivors of rape and sexual assault can connect to free resources through the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network at RAINN.org.
01:07:30 Speaker_06
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse in any form, you can reach the National Domestic Violence Hotline at thehotline.org. Cold is a production of KSL Podcasts and Wondery, in association with Workhouse Media.
01:07:52 Speaker_06
Cold is researched, written, and hosted by me, Dave Cauley. Audio production and sound design by Ben Kebrick and Aaron Mason. Mixing and mastering by Ben Kebrick.
01:08:03 Speaker_06
Michael Bonmiller composed our main theme, with additional music this season by Allison Leighton Brown.
01:08:09 Speaker_06
My personal thanks to our editorial team, Amy Donaldson, Andrea Smartin, Ryan Meeks, Becky Bruce, Kira Farrimond, Kellyanne Halverson, Josh Tilton, and Felix Bunnell.
01:08:21 Speaker_06
For Amazon Music and Wondery, Managing Producer Candice Manriquez-Wren, Producer Claire Chambers, Senior Producer Lizzie Bassett, and Executive Producer Morgan Jones. Special thanks to Kale Bittner and Alison Vermeulen.
01:08:36 Speaker_06
with Workhouse Media Executive Producers Paul Anderson and Nick Piniella. And for KSL Podcasts, Executive Producer Cheryl Worsley. For pictures and more, go to our website thecoldpodcast.com and follow us on social at The Cold Podcast.
01:08:53 Speaker_06
Most of all, thank you for listening.
01:09:00 Speaker_01
Hey, it's Dan Taberski, and my team and I are excited to share that our series Hysterical has been named Apple Podcasts Show of the Year for 2024.
01:09:08 Speaker_01
From Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, Hysterical dives into one of the most shocking outbreaks in American history, a medical mystery that had ripple effects well beyond the tight-knit community where it began.
01:09:18 Speaker_01
In 2011, the girls at one high school in upstate New York began exhibiting a bizarre mix of neurological symptoms. Ticks and twitches and strange outbursts. Question is why? Was it mold in the school buildings? Was it a contaminated water source?
01:09:32 Speaker_01
Or what if the cause of the contagion wasn't coming from their physical environment at all? As their symptoms got worse, their search for answers brought a media firestorm down upon their small town.
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And soon enough, the entire nation was trying to solve the medical mystery. From Dr. Drew to Erin Brockovich.
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Believed by some to be the most severe case of mass hysteria since the Salem witch trials, Hysterical is a podcast about the desire to be believed and what happens when the world tells you it's all in your head.
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