American physician, a dermatologist at the Cape Ann Medical Center in Gloucester, MA. Separated from his wife of 27 years, Karen, on the night of 7/14/2000, he apparently snapped. At 11:15 PM he walked up to her front door and in front of Karen’s brother, his girlfriend and a baby sitter, shot her in the chest with a rifle. His two kids were sleeping in another room.
Karen Hatfield Sharpe was born 10/03/1955 in Mount Clemens, MI. They were married in 1973 and Karen studied nursing while Richard completed his education and opened a practice. They had three kids, Shannon, Michael and Alexandra. Financially successful, they lived in an upscale neighborhood and Michael had several million in the bank from his hair-removal clinic and skin-care products. Though Karen had kept up a good front, it came out that Richard was a strangely tormented man who had brutalized her for years. He had assaulted her, strangled her and had tried to poison their eldest daughter. He was a secret cross-dresser who took female hormones in an attempt to grow breasts. The couple had separated five months prior, despite Richard’s threat that he would kill Karen if she left him.
The murder trial began in October 2001 in which Sharpe’s lawyers used the insanity defense. They portrayed Karen as a cruel woman who had affairs and who left Richard as soon as she got his millions. They said that he had suffered from years of childhood abuse that left him with a fierce desire to succeed.
On 12/31/2001, he settled a wrongful-death suit with Karen’s family for $5 million in Salem, MA.
On March 5, 2009 at about 7:30 PM he was found hanging from bed sheets in his prison cell in Norfolk, MA. He was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead at 8:11 PM.