For half a century, Diedra Glabus lived a quiet life in the Alberta small town of Taber, three hours southeast of Calgary.
She was married, had a family, worked as a realtor and died three years ago at the age of 81.
It was only after her death on January 21, 2022 that her secret life and her real name was made public.
Glabus was in fact a fugitive killer and prison escapee named Sharon Kinne in a case that began in the 1960s and stretched from Missouri to Mexico to Canada.
Sharon Kinne, 21, center, went on trial here for the fatal shooting of Mrs. Patricia Jones. She is shown here prior to the trial with her attorney Martha Sperry Hickman.
Photo by Bettmann Archive/Getty Images
Kinne, who married at 16, was living in a ranch home in the Independence, Missouri, area in March 1960 when her 25-year-old husband, James Kinne, was shot in the back of the head while napping. Independence is just outside of Kansas City.
The mother of two told police she had heard her 2-year-old daughter ask, “How does this thing work, daddy?” Then there was a gunshot.
Sharon Kinne said she ran into the bedroom and found the toddler holding her husband’s .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol. The death was ruled accidental.
But Kinne, also known as Jeanette Pugliese, and her husband had been having marital problems, and she was seeing other men, later court testimony revealed.
According to press reports and interviews with investigators, Sharon Kinne then met car salesman Walter Jones when she went to buy a new car with money from her husband’s life insurance and the sale of their home.
She tried to get him to break off the marriage.
“Of course he said no,” said Sgt. Dustin Love of the Jackson County Sheriffs Office at a joint news conference with Kansas City Police on Thursday.
Sharon Kinne then duped Jones’ wife, Patricia, into meeting with her in May 1960, after which she disappeared, Love said.
A massive search ensued for the woman. Love said Kinne was with another boyfriend when she acted surprised to find the woman’s body, which had been shot four times, saying, “I think that’s her.”
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She told the boyfriend not to tell police she was there but he did anyway, Love said.
On June 1, 1960, Sharon Kinne was charged with Patricia Jones’ murder. Police took another look at James Kinne’s death and a Jackson County grand jury indicted Kinne for that crime as well.
In June 1961, Sharon Kinne was tried in the death of Patricia Jones. And an all-male jury acquitted her to courtroom applause.
In January 1962, Sharon Kinne was convicted of killing her husband.
But, the Missouri Supreme Court later overturned the conviction because of improper jury selection. She was tried again, but jurors couldn’t agree on a verdict. She was released on bond, something Love said wouldn’t happen today.
“Our justice system has come a long ways in 65 years,” he said.
Sharon Kinne then fled to Mexico with a new boyfriend in September 1964, Love said. That same month, she picked up a man in a bar and went with him to a hotel. Around 3 a.m., gunshots were heard and Francisco Ordonez lay dead on the floor. Kinne got 13 years for killing Ordonez.
Ballistics tests proved prosecutors’ hunch that a gun found in Sharon Kinne’s Mexican motel was the one that killed Patricia Jones.
Before her apparent escape, she gave several interviews, and was known in Mexico as “La Pistolera,” which translates as “The Gunslinger.”
Sharon Kinne sits in her cell at police headquarters, Sept. 21, 1964, Mexico City, Mexico. She was being held in connection with Sept. 18 shooting of A Chicago man in local motel. Her left eye was blackened, although no explanation was given.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP
In a 1965 Saturday Evening Post interview, Kinne said: “I knew out there, out of Kansas City and Independence, that the world was going on its way someplace. And I wasn’t going anywhere.″
She escaped prison in 1969 and wasn’t seen again.
The trail went cold until law enforcement got a tip just over a year ago.
“I would love nothing more (than) to one day sit across the table from her, and I would like to pick her brain,” Love said.
“It’s unfortunate we couldn’t catch her when she was alive. She was really good at what she did.”
The two groups received an anonymous tip about Kinne in December of 2023.
“I have already extended my apologies to both sides of the family that we weren’t able to catch her during her life,” Love said.
“It just so happens that someone had that tip and was not willing to release it until after her death.”
The Alberta RCMP was aware and provided assistance to the Jackson Country Sheriff’s office and Kansas City Police.
“We helped co-ordinate, but ultimately they ended up being able to identify her through their own means without our assistance,” said Alberta RCMP spokesman Cpl. Troy Savinkoff.
“She was able to stay very, very low key over all those years and start a new life, a new relationship. It’s a pretty incredible story.”
Ultimately, the identification was possible because fingerprints from the Alberta funeral home that handled Kinne’s remains were compared to prints taken of Kinne at the time of the killings.
FILE – Sharon Elizabeth Kinne of Independence, Mo., refuses to have her fingerprints taken in Mexico City, Sept. 21, 1964. At left, trying to move her arm, fingerprint expert Guillermo Resendiz Ocampo, and at right is Lt. Angel Santamaria Lopez of the Federal Police.
AP Photo/Jack Rutledge, file
The investigation showed she married multiple times over the years, including in 1970 to a man named James Glabus in Los Angeles. She started families under several other names.
An obituary for Kinne’s second husband said the couple moved to Taber in 1973 and owned a motel and started a Century 21 real estate agency. Glabus died in August of 1979, in his late 30s.
An obituary for her third husband, William (Willie) Ell, said the couple was married in March of 1982. Ell died in 2011 at the age of 79.
Taber Mayor Andrew Prokop did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Kinne was the subject of the longest outstanding arrest warrant for murder in the history of Kansas City, Mo., and one of the longest outstanding felony warrants in U.S. history.
Mexico City officials looking on, Sharon Kinne (L) of Kansas City signs declarations made during formal questioning prior to the filing of formal charges in the fatal shooting of Francisco Parades Ordonez of Chicago.
Photo by Bettmann Archive/Getty Images
Kinne’s family issued a statement after the news became public.
“We would like to state how happy we are that this chapter in our family history can be closed,” it read.
“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.”
The families all want to remain anonymous and asked for privacy, authorities said.
Savinkoff said the situation reads like a novel.
“Someone will publish something.”
— with files from Heather Hollingsworth, The Associated Press
