MOTIVES: Murder-For-Hire

Years ago, the person who said that marriages start in bed and end up in court wasn't thinking of murder. Those were the good old days. Today, a few marriages end up with one of the parties in court, and the other in the morgue. Wives engineer the deaths of their estranged husbands out of fear they will be left penniless following the divorce. For women trapped in bad marriages, murder, compared to divorce, is quicker and a lot more satisfying.

On July 13, 1995, Kerry Voit, his wife Sharon and their three daughters were watching television in the den of their home. Dr. Voit, stating that he was tired and wanted to retire for the night in that room, switched off the TV. This enraged his wife, and in the scuffle that ensured, Sharon took a punch in the eye. Dr. Voit suffered scratches on his arm, and came away from the fight with a bruised leg. Sharon ordered her husband out of the house. When he refused to leave, she phoned the police.

The deputies who responded to the domestic disturbance received conflicting stories from the Voit daughters. Two of the girls sided with their father, the third with Mrs. Voit. The officers decided not to arrest anyone, but ordered Dr. Voit to leave the house for 72 hours. He spent the next few nights in Harwood Heights at his mother's house.

In 1999, Sharon mentioned to her daughter's coach thats she wished she could find someone to have her husband "taken care of" but they all dismissed it as a joke. She started making inquiries about his life insurance policy and murder-for-hire and her husband found out and decided to take it a little more seriously, he told his friends and also reported to the police and the police decided to enter a case as an undercover hitman. Sharon responded to the advert and requested a meeting and made a deal to kill her husband. Meanwhile Sharon claimed that Dr. Voit had forced Sharon to have video-taped, three-way, cocaine-laced sex with him and his friend, she also claimed also told Dr. Nowak that her husband, during "violent" sexual intercourse, would hold a pillow over her face against her will.

The undercover police made tapes and video recording that they presented to the court when they arrested Sharon.

If this murder was successful, would it have been a justified killing?

Actual Mugshot of Sharon Voit