Lead detective details phone data, deleted messages in Sarah Hartsfield’s insulin murder trial
The trial of Sarah Hartsfield, accused of murdering her fifth husband with insulin, takes an intriguing turn as prosecutors push to reveal hundreds of jail messages she sent to media outlets like KPRC 2 News.
Jurors in the Sarah Hartsfield murder trial are learning more about what she was doing on her cellphone hours before calling for help for her husband, Joseph Hartsfield, who was suffering from an insulin overdose in another room.
Sarah is accused of killing her fifth husband, Joseph, by injecting him with insulin. Prosecutors have stated that much of their evidence comes from the defendant herself, including texts, voicemails, and written explanations she has sent over the years.
On Tuesday, jurors heard from the lead investigator in the case, Detective Skyler Rocz, who said she first determined something wasn’t right with Joseph’s condition when she arrived at the hospital and spoke with Sarah and Joseph’s family members.
While testifying, Detective Rocz went into detail about Sarah’s phone records, which showed several inconsistencies in Sarah’s timeline of events about what happened when her husband was experiencing low blood sugar effects and what her cellphone says she was doing.
2:30 p.m. - Court resumes. Detective Skyler Rocz is still on the stand
Detective Rocz continued to walk jurors through phone downloads, texts and a timeline prosecutors say undercut Sarah’s account of what she was doing hours before Joseph was hospitalized. Rocz was shown Joseph’s obituary in court and said it listed Joseph’s cause of death as an “ischemic stroke,” which she thought was weird.
Rocz laid out the prosecution’s timeline for jurors:
- Started dating Nov. 2021
- Got married on Feb. 2, 2022
- Moved to Beach City in April 2022
- Relationship between Joseph and Sarah got worse from November to December 2022
- On Dec. 29, 2022 Joseph opened a new bank account and discussed divorcing Sarah
- Jan. 6, 2023 Joseph had a job interview and returned home from work, Sarah fed him a meal and Joseph went to bed. Joseph’s Dexcom reports show his alarms were going off for several hours before Sarah called 911
- Jan. 7, 2023 Sarah called 911 for Josephshow
Rocz also walked jurors through the iPhone “Apple Movement” data and other phone activity recovered in the download.
Rocz said the movement data showed steps recorded each hour that Sarah later claimed she was asleep, and that “during the 1 p.m. -2 p.m. hour, Sarah alleged she woke up and checked on Joseph and found him unresponsive,” but “per steps on the phone, the 1 p.m. - 2 p.m. hour is the only hour Sarah didn’t take any steps.”
Rocz also played messages from the morning of January 7 showing Facebook, grocery and banking app activity, deleted Safari searches, and a screenshot from Joseph’s phone, a Legacy Contact access key, saved to Sarah’s phone around 5 a.m.
“I believe Sarah created the Apple Legacy Contact and sent it to herself, allowing her to access his phone after his death,” Rocz said.
Prosecutors say those records and texts, including a message from Sarah that read “Omg … I’m about to call 911 … He’s breathing but won’t wake up … He’s gonna be so mad at me … but now I’m really scared,“ are all key to their timeline.
2:15 p.m. - Court goes on 15-minute break
1:20 p.m. - Court resumes after lunch. Detective Skyler Rocz remains on the stand
Detective Rocz remained on the stand Tuesday while prosecutors began to introduce a series of text messages and Facebook messages showing Sarah Hartsfield’s relationship with her husband’s family and her communications in the days leading up to his death.
The messages, between Hartsfield and several family members, friends, and even her husband, Joseph Hartsfield.
In the texts, Sarah told relatives that no one could see Joseph without her present and accused his family of disrespecting their marriage.
Prosecutors showed messages where Sarah discussed Joseph’s life insurance, asking who his beneficiary was and telling him to amend paperwork at work. In one message, she confirmed she was listed as his beneficiary.
Rocz also read Facebook messages between Sarah and a friend, where Sarah described Joseph’s blood sugar levels as dangerously high, accused him of ignoring medical advice, and complained that he was “slowly killing himself.” Those messages were sent the morning of Jan. 7, 2023, when Joseph’s blood sugar monitor was sounding for his low sugar alerts. Meanwhile, messages showed Sarah was actively texting and sharing videos while claiming she had been asleep on medication.
Investigators also recovered dozens of deleted text messages between Sarah and Joseph in the week before his death, some showing arguments and threats to kick him out of their bed.
Detective Rocz testified that despite Sarah’s claim she was asleep and on narcotics, her phone data and messages show she was awake, active online, and communicating with multiple people during her husband’s medical crisis.
11:40 a.m. - Court breaks for lunch
10:20 a.m. - Court resumes. Detective Skyler Rocz remains on the stand.
Detective Rocz testified about what she found on Sarah Hartsfield’s phone in the hours leading up to her husband Joseph’s hospitalization and death. When Detective Rocz asked for the phone, Sarah said, “Oh crap… so here’s the question, do I have to give you this without a warrant?” Detective Rocz said she then provided a copy of the search warrant, and Sarah said she would have provided it anyway. She was in the middle of typing a Facebook post, so Rocz said she “watched over [her] shoulder while she finished that,” then took the phone. Detective Rocz said she was concerned that things would be deleted from the phone, saying that Sarah was “scrolling up and down as if she was thinking about something.”
Detective Rocz said she then downloaded the phone and looked at Sarah’s activity throughout the morning of Jan. 7, 2023. Data from Apple movement showed steps taken each hour, including times Sarah said she was asleep. “During the 1p-2p hour, Sarah alleged she woke up and checked on Joseph and found him unresponsive,” Detective Rocz said, “but per steps on the phone, the 1p-2p hour is the only hour Sarah didn’t take any steps.” Other hours showed movement between 9 and 124 steps.
Detective Rocz also testified that Sarah’s Safari search history had been deleted, but that embedded cookies showed activity. Searches included Bible verses, AirTag locks, relationship terms like “gaslighting” and “misogynistic,” and a “Snapped” episode about a woman who committed murder and fled. On Jan. 7, 2023, Sarah accessed multiple apps, including H-E-B, Facebook, USAA banking, Indeed, AramarkCareers.com, KWTX.com, ZipRecruiter, and Force.com, while she claimed to be under narcotic medication.
Detective Rocz said Sarah had images of Joseph on her phone from that morning, including several photos showing his chemical burns and videos with what appeared to be snoring. Detective Rocz also found messages appearing to be sent from Joseph’s phone, including a screenshot of his new bank account information, his driver’s license, and a photo of a Legacy Contact access key that was sent sometime in the 5 a.m. hour on Jan. 7.
“I believe Sarah created the Apple Legacy Contact and sent it to herself, allowing her to access his phone after his death,” Rocz said.
Joseph was admitted to the hospital hours later and died, with the 911 call placed at 2 p.m.
Detective Rocz said she reviewed outgoing calls and texts throughout the morning, saying Sarah was “busy” communicating with multiple contacts, including her children. She said that as Joseph was dying, Sarah appeared focused on his family “in a negative light” in her conversations.
Detective Rocz’s testimony relied on State’s Exhibits 76 through 82, documenting step counts, phone activity, Safari history, photos, and text messages.
10:06 a.m. - Court goes on 15-minute break
During the break, attorneys conferred with the judge about Detective Skyler Rocz confiscating Sarah’s phone.
9:20 a.m. - Dr. Enakuaa is dismissed. Detective Skyler Rocz, a former Chambers County Sheriff’s Office Detective, took the stand.
Detective Skyler Rocz, formerly with the Chambers County Sheriff’s Office, and the lead detective on the Hartsfield investigation, testified that she was called to Houston Methodist Baytown Hospital by investigator Yeatman after staff suspected foul play in Joseph Hartsfield’s condition. “Joseph was unresponsive when I arrived,” Rocz said. “He had brain damage.”
Detective Rocz told jurors she spoke to between 30 and 50 people, reviewed “hundreds of thousands of pages of records,” and spent months investigating the case. She also noted that this was her first major case, and she was only six months into being a detective when she landed this case. She said Sarah’s demeanor at the hospital was “very matter of fact” and said Sarah would appear to “remember she needed to be sad, but it seemed staged. Detective Rocz said Sarah “didn’t appear under the influence of narcotics,” although she said she was on medication from a recent surgery.
When Detective Rocz searched the home, she said the house “smelled,” was “disorganized,” and there were “five dogs and a cat.” “In the master bedroom, there was throw up on the bed,” Rocz testified.
“Sarah said there was a white comforter that Joseph was covered up in, but there was no throw-up on it.”
Detective Rocz said she found “eight to ten insulin pens” on the bedside table and a glass on the counter that Sarah said was for orange juice.
“At the bottom of the cup, it was completely dry,” Detective Rocz said. “There were black specks in it that appeared to be mildew, as if the glass had been sitting there for numerous days.”
She added that the bathroom “had a cat housed in it,” with “a large number of prescription bottles all over the counter” and that the cat “was using the bathroom on the ground because the litter box wasn’t cleaned.”
Detective Rocz said Sarah gave consent to search the home and “encouraged me to take evidence, including the insulin pens,” saying that it “made me feel like she knew there would be no evidence to get off of it.”
She testified that Sarah “joked” and “called Joseph a pig,” showing “no crying, no anything that would indicate she was having a hard time.”
Detective Rocz also read from Sarah’s voluntary written statement, in which she said, “Joe worked all night then went to a job interview… I made broccoli and rice… he had a small bowl, took insulin and went to sleep… I heard the Dexcom alerts going off… went to check on him around 1300… he was mumbling but not coherent… I opened his eyes and it was as if he was looking through me… around 1400, I called 911.”
Detective Rocz said Sarah later told her she “drove herself to the hospital” because she “wanted to have a car there,” even though she had said she was on narcotic pain medication due to the recent surgery she had.
9:05 a.m. - Dr. Souad Enakuaa, Joseph’s endocrinologist, is called back to the stand.
Dr. Souad Enakuaa testified via Zoom this morning, explaining how insulin works for the second time and what she believes happened to Joseph Hartsfield in his final hours. She said insulin is administered through either a short- or long-acting pen, both holding a maximum of 300 units.
“You can administer as much insulin as you want by continuing to twist the dial,” she said.
According to Dr. Enakuaa, data from Hartsfield’s Dexcom glucose monitor showed he was in a “critical hypoglycemic state,” with a glucose level around 55, from 4:30 p.m. on January 6, 2023, and remained that way for more than four hours.
“Patients who are that low usually need help increasing glucose; below 54 patients cannot help themselves,” she said.
The Dexcom data, she testified, stayed “flat, below 55 the whole time,” with “over 100 alerts” sounding alarms that she said are meant to save patients from going into dangerous lows.
Dr. Enakuaa testified that anything below 54 would cause unconsciousness.
“He was that low for 20 hours based on the data,” she said, adding that the Dexcom would have sounded “every 20 minutes.” She told jurors Hartsfield likely suffered brain damage from a diabetic coma caused by prolonged hypoglycemia.
Before being dismissed, she said plainly, “Below 54, scientifically speaking, he would be unconscious.”
9:00 a.m. - Court is back in session.
