The mysterious case of a US woman accused of killing three victims in Missouri and Mexico and then disappearing for decades has been solved, and it has a major Canadian connection.
At a news conference on Thursday, the Kansas City Missouri Police Department (KCPD) and the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office announced their investigations into fugitive serial killer Sharon Kinne, closing a case that began in the 1960s.
Officials revealed that in December 2023, each agency received a separate anonymous tip on Kinne, and when a pair of agencies learned they were both working the same case, they teamed up to fill in the blank spaces to learn where Kinne ended up.
The case began back in March of 1960 when Kinne reported hearing a gunshot while in the bathroom and found her husband, James Kinne, shot in the back of the head in their bedroom.
Police say she claimed their two-year-old daughter accidentally shot him while playing with a firearm. James was pronounced dead at a local hospital.
Later that year, in May, a woman named Patricia Jones went missing and was reported to be so by her husband. It was learned that the man was having an affair with Kinne, and after she claimed to be pregnant, the man ended the relationship.
That same month, Kinne met a former lover and took him to a road where she showed him the body of the Jones, who had been shot four times. When the man proposed going to the police, Kinne insisted he take her home first.
Kinne was later arrested on May 31, 1960, for the murder of Jones and her husband. She was later found not guilty by a jury for the murder of Jones that following June but was found guilty of the murder of her husband and was sentenced to life in prison in January of 1962.
KCPD
Her conviction was reversed in March of 1963 by the Missouri Supreme Court, granting her a new trial, and she was released on a $25,000 bond.
Once released, Kinne fled to Mexico in September of 1964 with her new boyfriend; however, her trouble with the law would not be over. On September 18, Kinne shot a man in a Mexico City hotel room and was arrested for murder.
She was convicted of his murder and was sentenced to 13 years in a Mexican prison. While incarcerated, she failed to show up to court for the murder of her husband, forcing Jackson County to issue a capias warrant for her arrest.
KCPD
In December of 1969, Kinne then managed to escape from a Mexican prison — and was never found.
Police say it was learned following an investigation that she later married a man in Los Angeles in February of 1970. When the anonymous tip came in regarding her in 2023, it was stated that Kinne went by “Diedra Glabus” and had died in January 2022 in Alberta, Canada.
“Through countless hours, forensic genealogy, and fingerprint analysis, it was discovered that Kinne and Glabus were indeed the same person,” police said in a news release, and on May 31, 2024, fingerprints confirmed the identity exactly 64 years after her initial arrest. Kinne died from natural causes on January 21, 2022 of natural caused.
“Luck was definitely on our side. In Canada they fingerprint deceased people when they’re being processed by the funeral homes, sometimes that happens under a contract with a business, we just really lucked out that those finderprints were taken,” said Sgt. Dustin Love, with the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office.
A grave on the Find a Grave website in the small town of Taber matches Kinne with a death date of January 21, 2022.
While living in Alberta, she appears to have had two husbands, James Thomas “Jim” Glabus and William “Willie” Ell, both who predeceased Kinne.
A spokesperson for the family released a statement regarding the break in the case, saying, “On behalf of Kinne family, we would like to state how happy we are that this chapter in our family history can be closed. Sharon was a woman that never faced the consequences of her actions, leaving them for her children to deal with. She caused great harm without thought or remorse. Hopefully, this closure will allow the family a chance to heal from her traumatic legacy.”
Police added that while Kinne’s disappearance drew worldwide attention, her whereabouts from 1969 to 1979 remain a mystery.