Nelson Sharon Lynn - The confessions of an American Black Widow: a true story of greed, lust and a murderous wife

A TRUE STORY OF GREED, LUST AND A MURDEROUS WIFE

GREGG OLSEN

St. Martins Paperbacks

NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

For Lorri

THE CONFESSIONS OF AN AMERICAN BLACK WIDOW
Copyright 1998 by Gregg Olsen.
Cover photograph courtesy Judy Farson.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address St. Martins Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

ISBN: 0-312-96503-6 Printed in the United States of America St. Martins Paperbacks edition / June 1998 10 9 8 7 6 5 4

Dramatis Personae

Sharon Lynn Douglas Nelson Harrelson Ministers wife, doctors wife, firemans wife, murderer

Mike Fuller minister, Sharons first husband

Rochelle Fuller (Mason) eldest daughter of Sharon and lover

Denise Fuller daughter of Sharon and Mike

Craig Sharons lover in North Carolina (not the father of Rochelle)

Perry Nelson Optometrist, Sharons second husband, victim

Julie Nelson Perrys first wife

Tammi Nelson, Kathy Nelson, Lorri Nelson (Hustwaite) daughters of Julie and Perry

Danny Nelson son of Perry and Sharon

Misty Nelson daughter of Perry and Sharon

Gary Starr Adams Carpenter, Sharons pretend husband (mountain meadow wedding), murderer

Nancy Adams Garys first wife, mother of their two children (a grown daughter and a teenage son)

Buzz Reynolds Rancher, Sharons lover and pretend husband (pool party wedding reception)

Glen Harrelson Firefighter Sharons third legal husband, victim

Andrea Harrelson Glens first wife, mother of Todd and Tara Harrelson

Important Others:

Barbara Ruscetti Perrys office assistant in Trinidad

Judy Douglas Sharons oldest sister

Elaine Tygart Detective, Thornton Police Department

Glen Trainor Detective, Thornton Police Department

TWENTY YEARS HAD PASSED SINCE IT ALL STARTED.

Two decades had come and gone.

Seven thousand, three hundred days had become permanently etched in a young womans memory.

And still the saga of her fathers brutal murder had not come to a complete resolution.

Lorri Nelson Hustwaite took a deep breath when she got on the phone to hear the news; the conclusion to a yo-yo of heartache and hope in her familys search for closure. She and her three sisters and brother had filed suit against insurance companies that had paid Lorris one-time stepmother more than $200,000 in life insurance benefits. Another insurance company had already paid the children $50,000 in an out-of-court settlement.

"The Supreme Court affirmed the decision," said the voice of her sister Tammi over a line stretching from Tammis house in Redlands, California, to Whitefish, Montana, where Lorri and her family of four made their home. The Colorado Supreme Court had agreed that a consortium of insurance companies had been negligent in making the huge payouts to Sharon Lynn Nelson. The insurance companies had, in fact, gathered enough evidence to make the woman a suspect in the murder of her husband, Perry Nelson. Yet the companies had done nothing with their suspicions. At least, not enough.

"Its finally over," the older sister said.

At 33, Lorri wanted more than anyone to believe that the words were true. The blond wife and mother of two had been through so much. She dropped the phone and went to hug both her husband and a family friend who was visiting at the time. She felt joy tempered with sadness. Lorri had never said good-bye to her father.

Whatever labels affixed to herBlack Widow, ambitious gold digger, insatiable slutshe was a killer. Much more, but never less than that. If Sharon envisioned her life as one big movie, in which she was the star, she was mistaken. If she thought she could sweep away the hurt left as a grim remnant of her insatiable greed, she was wrong.

Dead wrong.

Lorri saw it. Others did, too. Yet no one had been able to stop Sharon. No one could even slow her down. From the ranchers, to the deputy, to the office secretary who suspected the worst, none could do a thing to bring the woman to justice.

In the end, only she could do it to herself. It was so fitting. It was almost funny, if it had not been so tragic.

Only Sharon Lynn could screw herself.

In Canon City, Colorado, in a prison that rivals the best the world of punishment has to offer, Sharon repeats her broken-record claim that she is innocent. The frosted-coiffed babe in the orange coveralls didnt do anything wrong. This is a free country. She is an American, for Gods sake. She was misunderstood. She made bad choices, but she wasnt a killer.

She asks herself over and over how it turned out so bad for her.

"What good has all of your goddamn wanting to be good and moral gotten you, Sharon? What has it gotten you? I cant answer that yet. Sometimes part of me wants to be the biggest bitch in the penitentiary. When someone is talking at night, go down the hall and say, You goddamn motherfucking slut why dont you shut your goddamn mouth? I cant do that, because my anger and the words would cause that person hurt. There are times when this whole thing gets to me so bad that I want to turn into the bitch that everyone thinks I already am. I dont know how to do it with no conscience. I wish I could. It would make my time so much easier, I think."

Yet one summer afternoon in 1996, it suddenly no longer mattered what Sharon hoped, wished or wanted. It didnt matter one bit about her at all. As the dust settled on a two-decade-long nightmare of sorrow and dreadful consequences, Lorri Nelson Hustwaite was finally able to rest knowing her stepmother had riot gotten away with everything. She could finally say good-bye.

FOR A PLACE WITHOUT AN OCEAN, THERE IS nowhere in the world more lovely than landlocked Colorado. Mountains of unbelievable mass spray upward from spruce-covered foothills with exhilarating force. Stands of birch and aspen shimmer; their leaves moving like silver schools of fish. Snow clings to the tops of the highest peaks throughout the warmth of summer. Rocky Mountain high. John Denver. Coors Beer. The Broncos. Rugged. West. Unspoiled.

Folks who live in Colorado know all of that. Old-timers and newcomers alike know that theirs is the state that holds truest and firmest to the call of the Old West. Colorado is western without the trendy goofiness of California; the granola zealotry of Oregon; the drippy weather of sodden Washington.

And forget Utah, Coloradans opine. Utah, they know, is its own planet.

While those who ran other state tourism boards tell postcard printers to "punch up the color," no such effort is needed for the images of the Rocky Mountain State. Skies are sapphire, rich and deep. Look to the heavens day or night and feel a sense of falling up. Foaming rivers hastily ran through chiseled chasms like Christo-inspired aquamarine ribbons stretched from boulder to boulder, canyon wall to canyon wail.