Murder.com by Christopher Berry-Dee, Steven Morris Page B
Authors: Christopher Berry-Dee, Steven Morris
Ads: Link
suicide site.
SHARON LOPATKA’S CYBER WORLD
‘Hi! My name is Nancy.
‘I am 25 have Blonde hair, green eyes am 5’6 and weigh 121. Is anyone out there interested in buying … my worn … panties … or pantihose….??? This is not a joke or a wacky Internet scam. I am very serious about this. If you are serious too you can e-mail me …!’
M ESSAGE POSTED BY S HARON L OPATKA IN AN AREA OF THE INTERNET WHERE SEXUAL EROTICA IS THE MAIN TOPIC
‘I don’t know how much I pulled the rope… I never wanted to kill her, but she ended up dead.’
B OBBY G LASS ON THE MURDER OF S HARON L OPATKA
T here’s not much to Lenoir, North Carolina, a town of 14,000 at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The monument to the Daughters of the Confederacy in the town square watches over another losing battle, this one economic. Downtown slips silently into the embarrassed embrace of loan companies, storefront churches and used-clothing shops. The stagnant centre is skirted by highways, busy chain stores and fast-food outlets. It would not be quite right to say people in Lenoir are surprised at killings in their midst because they get around six murders a year, even if they could not have dreamed up the scenario that follows.
Rural America no longer is, and maybe never was, quite so sheltered as its apple-pie image suggests. ‘People think that, because this is a small town, these things don’t happen. It’s not true. We have people here no different than the big cities,’ said Brenda Watson, who owns the Carolina Cafe at 209 Main Street. ‘And I wouldn’t let my kids walk alone here at night.’
Indeed, former district attorney Flaherty claims, ‘Most of the murders are love triangles, but when Lopatka lost her life she also lost her anonymity, and she was none of the things she claimed to be.’
In fact, according to her autopsy report she was dark-haired with dark eyes set into a heavy face and five foot ten and 189 pounds when she died. And, far from the wild video star she claimed to be, she lived her life quietly in a ranch-style home in Indian Court, a cul-de-sac in the quiet, hilly town of Hampstead, Maryland, where children play tag in front yards, dogs tease the postman and deviancy is a failure to join recycling efforts.
When Lopatka graduated from Pikesville High School inBaltimore in 1979, her name was Sharon Denburg. She had many friends and was a member of the volleyball and field hockey teams. During her junior and senior years, she was a nurse’s aide, a library aide and a singer in the school’s chorus.
‘She wasn’t an outcast or anything of that nature,’ said Steven Hyman, who attended school with her. ‘She was about as normal as you can get. I think making her this weird loner is just some media thing.’
Sharon Denburg was the oldest of four daughters born to Mr and Mrs Abraham J Denburg in 1961. The family lived in a suburb of Baltimore. Sharon Denburg’s parents were devout Orthodox Jews, who were active in the Beth Tfiloh, Baltimore’s largest Orthodox Jewish synagogue, where Abraham was a cantor. Sharon had been active in sports, sang in the school choir and was perceived by classmates to be ‘as normal as you can get’, reported the North Carolina
News & Observer
on 3 November 1996.
In 1991, Sharon wed Victor, a Catholic construction worker from Ellicott City, but her parents did not approve. A former high-school classmate told the
Washington Post
on 3 November 1996 that the marriage was Sharon’s ‘way of breaking away’. Sharon moved with her husband to a small, ranch-style tract house in Hampstead in the early 1990s. They had no children.
Sharon started up several small internet business ventures from her home to make some extra money. She made a new friend, Diane Safar, who lived near by, and the two of them put together a 30-page booklet on home decorating and country crafts entitled
Dion’s Secret of Home Decorating Guide
.
‘Here we were decorating our houses one
SHARON LOPATKA’S CYBER WORLD
‘Hi! My name is Nancy.
‘I am 25 have Blonde hair, green eyes am 5’6 and weigh 121. Is anyone out there interested in buying … my worn … panties … or pantihose….??? This is not a joke or a wacky Internet scam. I am very serious about this. If you are serious too you can e-mail me …!’
M ESSAGE POSTED BY S HARON L OPATKA IN AN AREA OF THE INTERNET WHERE SEXUAL EROTICA IS THE MAIN TOPIC
‘I don’t know how much I pulled the rope… I never wanted to kill her, but she ended up dead.’
B OBBY G LASS ON THE MURDER OF S HARON L OPATKA
T here’s not much to Lenoir, North Carolina, a town of 14,000 at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The monument to the Daughters of the Confederacy in the town square watches over another losing battle, this one economic. Downtown slips silently into the embarrassed embrace of loan companies, storefront churches and used-clothing shops. The stagnant centre is skirted by highways, busy chain stores and fast-food outlets. It would not be quite right to say people in Lenoir are surprised at killings in their midst because they get around six murders a year, even if they could not have dreamed up the scenario that follows.
Rural America no longer is, and maybe never was, quite so sheltered as its apple-pie image suggests. ‘People think that, because this is a small town, these things don’t happen. It’s not true. We have people here no different than the big cities,’ said Brenda Watson, who owns the Carolina Cafe at 209 Main Street. ‘And I wouldn’t let my kids walk alone here at night.’
Indeed, former district attorney Flaherty claims, ‘Most of the murders are love triangles, but when Lopatka lost her life she also lost her anonymity, and she was none of the things she claimed to be.’
In fact, according to her autopsy report she was dark-haired with dark eyes set into a heavy face and five foot ten and 189 pounds when she died. And, far from the wild video star she claimed to be, she lived her life quietly in a ranch-style home in Indian Court, a cul-de-sac in the quiet, hilly town of Hampstead, Maryland, where children play tag in front yards, dogs tease the postman and deviancy is a failure to join recycling efforts.
When Lopatka graduated from Pikesville High School inBaltimore in 1979, her name was Sharon Denburg. She had many friends and was a member of the volleyball and field hockey teams. During her junior and senior years, she was a nurse’s aide, a library aide and a singer in the school’s chorus.
‘She wasn’t an outcast or anything of that nature,’ said Steven Hyman, who attended school with her. ‘She was about as normal as you can get. I think making her this weird loner is just some media thing.’
Sharon Denburg was the oldest of four daughters born to Mr and Mrs Abraham J Denburg in 1961. The family lived in a suburb of Baltimore. Sharon Denburg’s parents were devout Orthodox Jews, who were active in the Beth Tfiloh, Baltimore’s largest Orthodox Jewish synagogue, where Abraham was a cantor. Sharon had been active in sports, sang in the school choir and was perceived by classmates to be ‘as normal as you can get’, reported the North Carolina
News & Observer
on 3 November 1996.
In 1991, Sharon wed Victor, a Catholic construction worker from Ellicott City, but her parents did not approve. A former high-school classmate told the
Washington Post
on 3 November 1996 that the marriage was Sharon’s ‘way of breaking away’. Sharon moved with her husband to a small, ranch-style tract house in Hampstead in the early 1990s. They had no children.
Sharon started up several small internet business ventures from her home to make some extra money. She made a new friend, Diane Safar, who lived near by, and the two of them put together a 30-page booklet on home decorating and country crafts entitled
Dion’s Secret of Home Decorating Guide
.
‘Here we were decorating our houses one
Similar Books
