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To get this episode of Forensic Tales ad-free, please visit patreon.com slash forensic tales. Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. Agawam, Massachusetts, a quiet town near the Connecticut border. In the early 90s, Agawam was home to just over 20,000 people.
where everyone knew everyone, especially Lisa Ziegert, an aspiring teacher who worked at a small card and gift shop in town. One evening while Lisa was working at the shop, someone walked in and attacked her, taking Lisa with them. And for the next several days, her loved ones and the police frantically searched for her. Who could have been behind this small town crime and why?
This is Forensic Tales, episode number 215, The Murder of Lisa Ziegert. ♪♪
Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell-Ariola.
Forensic Tales is a weekly true crime podcast covering real, spine-tingling stories with a forensic science twist. Some cases have been solved with forensic science, while others have turned cold. Every remarkable story sends us a chilling reminder that not all stories have happy endings.
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Before we get to the episode, we've got two new Patreon supporters to thank. Thank you so much to James W. and Dania J. for becoming the show's newest patrons. Now, let's get to this week's episode. Agawam, Massachusetts is a small town near the western Connecticut border. In the early 1990s, only about 20,000 people called Agawam home, a place where everyone knew everyone, and the Ziegert family were among them.
George and Dee Ziegert lived in Agawam with their three daughters and one boy. Lisa Ziegert was the second oldest and had a brother, David, and two sisters, Lynn and Sharon. Lisa and her siblings grew up incredibly close with their parents and siblings. In fact, the entire Ziegert family was described as being a very close-knit family who always stuck together. Growing up, Lisa had always been into education. She was a teacher, a teacher of the
She knew from a very young age that she wanted to grow up and become a teacher someday. In high school, she was extremely involved in the school's newspaper and played both the flute and saxophone in the concert band. After graduating from high school, she went on to college to get a degree in elementary education in 1990. Everything she had done so far was getting her ready for her ultimate goal, to become a teacher.
In 1992, Lisa was 24 years old and working as a teacher's aide in special education at a local middle school in Agawam. But she also had a second job, working at a small card and gift shop in town, Brittany's Card and Gift Shop on Walnut Street in Agawam. Since she wasn't making much money working as a teacher's aide, she went to work at a gift shop from 5 to 9 p.m. during the week.
So after Lisa finished her day at the middle school, she drove over to the gift shop to start her four-hour night shift there. This was sort of her daily routine, Monday through Friday. It was a pretty long day, but it worked out just fine for Lisa. At least in the short term, until she got a full-time position as a teacher. April 15, 1992 started like any other day for Lisa.
She started her day by working at the middle school, and then around 4.30 p.m., she drove to the card and gift shop to start her shift. She was scheduled to work that night, her typical shift, 5 to 9 p.m.,
Around 5.30 p.m., Lisa's sister Lynn said that she went to visit Lisa at the shop and chatted with her for about 30 minutes, something that Lynn said they did all the time. She would go to the card and gift shop and just hang out with her sister when she had no customers. According to Lynn, nothing seemed unusual that night and the shop was empty. So when Lynn left around 6 o'clock p.m., she said goodnight to her sister and drove home.
But when the morning came around on April 16th, something wasn't right. Around 8.45 a.m. on April 16th, one of Lisa's co-workers, Sophia Maynard, arrived at the gift shop ready to open for the day. But when she got there, she noticed Lisa's car was still parked in the parking lot.
This was a little strange because she should have been long gone by then, and she would never see Lisa's car in the lot overnight after she finished her shift. But she thought maybe Lisa had come back early that day to pick up a few extra hours. But once Sophia got inside the gift store, things got even stranger.
She immediately noticed that none of the closing procedures had been done. The lights were still on, the radio was playing music, and she saw Lisa's wallet still sitting on the counter. She then started calling out Lisa's name over and over again, thinking that she was still somewhere in the shop. But no matter how many times she called out her name, Lisa never responded. When the co-worker got to the back room, she still didn't see Lisa. There was no sign of her.
but she noticed several boxes had been turned over and there appeared to be some scuff marks on the ground and walls, like someone had been in some type of fight. But again, no sign of Lisa. That's when the co-worker decided to run across the street to a nearby business to call the police. She also called Lisa's sister Lynn to say that her sister's car and personal belongings were all inside the shop, but she wasn't there.
At almost the same time the co-worker called Lisa's middle school, she also called Lisa's family. They were concerned because Lisa hadn't shown up to work that morning, which was extremely unusual. In all the time that Lisa had worked at the middle school, she never missed a single day. And if she was planning on being out, she always called. But no one heard from her that morning.
At this point, Lisa's mom and sisters are really worried. So they decided to drive down to the gift shop and meet with the police. And that's when everyone started to come up with different ideas about what could have happened. Since Lisa's car and all of her personal belongings were still inside the shop, the only theory that made sense was that someone had kidnapped her.
But the motive didn't appear to be a robbery. That's because all of Lisa's money and cards were still inside her purse. And the shop's cash registers still had all the money inside of it. So it wasn't money that they were after. They only seemed to care about Lisa. Then there was the evidence found in the store's back room. The fallen boxes and scuff and drag marks on the ground, like Lisa may have gotten into a struggle with someone.
It looked like someone was dragged from the store and out the back door. There were also traces of blood on some of the cards and balloons. So all of this pointed in one single direction, a kidnapping. Someone kidnapped Lisa from the card and gift shop that night, and now she was missing. The police immediately turned to the public for help, and almost instantly, they got some promising tips from the public.
One person called in saying that they went into the card shop around 8.20 p.m. and made a purchase. There was even a time-stamped receipt confirming this person's story. But the customer said everything seemed fine inside the shop. Lisa was the only one in there and she was the one who rang her up and she didn't mention anything. But then a second customer came in around 9 o'clock p.m. and didn't see anyone working.
They waited around for a few minutes, but when no one came out to help, they walked out. According to this customer, she heard some loud banging noises coming from the back room and just figured it was one of the workers. But she did find it a little strange that no one came out to help her. So based on these tips, the police put together a rough timeline of when Lisa may have been kidnapped. They knew her sister was there until 6 o'clock p.m. and said that everything was fine.
They also knew a customer made a purchase at 8.20 p.m. and also said everything was okay. But Lisa wasn't there when someone went to the shop about 40 minutes later. This is now around 9 p.m. And this customer said she heard loud banging noises. Another witness called into the police saying that she saw a man and a woman struggling in the backseat of a car in the parking lot in front of the gift shop around 9.15 p.m.
but she just thought it was two young people messing around, so she didn't report the incident. She described the car as a dark maroon color Blazer or Bronco, but couldn't get a good look at either the male or female inside the back seat. So at this point, it wasn't much help to investigators. Now, this was right around the same time the customer left the gift shop and the same time that Lisa was supposed to be ending her shift and closing the shop.
From inside the shop, the police collected several DNA samples. But back in 1992, there wasn't much they could do with it. There weren't any widely used DNA databases, and DNA testing itself was pretty limited. The only thing they could tell was that the unknown DNA all came from the same male. So they knew they were only looking for one suspect. Over the next few days, Lisa's friends and family were worried sick about her.
All the evidence pointed towards a kidnapping, and each day that passed meant their chances of finding her okay were getting smaller and smaller. There was even speculation about whether Lisa thought someone had been following her in the days before her disappearance. According to some of her friends, Lisa mentioned that she thought someone had been watching and following her, but didn't know who it was, and now she's missing.
But all of her family and friends worrying was about to end, and their worst fears were realized. After four grueling days of searching, a walker found her body in a wooded area off Route 75, about four miles away from the shop on April 19th, Easter Sunday. She was partially clothed with her skirt down around her ankles and her shirt pulled up to her neck.
She had been stabbed a total of seven times, including stab wounds that were several inches long and several inches deep. One of them had even gone through her neck. At the autopsy, the medical examiner confirmed even more chilling details. On top of being kidnapped and stabbed, Lisa had also been sexually assaulted, and whoever had done this had ripped part of her skirt off. But she didn't go down without a fight.
The autopsy also revealed she had massive defensive wounds on her arms and hands. Lisa fought to the bitter end. Lisa's funeral was held three days later on April 21st. And even though the weather was terrible that morning and was pouring rain, over 1,000 people showed up to the church. Everyone in this small town wanted to pay their respects to both Lisa and her family. But they also wanted to find out who did this.
Almost instantly, people who lived in Agawam suspected whoever was responsible was a local. The wooded area where they found her body was so well hidden that whoever dumped her body there must have known that it was a good spot. It wasn't somewhere easily seen or found. Her body was found about 250 feet off the main road. So it had to be someone who was familiar with the area. But who was that person?
On October 27th, 1993, the TV show Unsolved Mysteries aired an episode on Lisa's murder, trying to generate some fresh new tips. But the show didn't really bring anything in, and neither did the police. Even though they had a pretty long suspect list in the beginning, no arrests were being made, and Lisa's case eventually turned cold. The lack of progress was shocking for the people of Agawam and the entire state of Massachusetts.
Many people thought that this would be an easy case to solve. Whoever did this should have been arrested within the first couple weeks of the investigation. But that's the exact opposite of what happened. This case was anything but an open and shut murder case. Years went by with no solid answers. And during this time, Lisa's family fought to keep her story in the news.
They knew the more people who kept hearing about it, the more tips they would receive. But it wouldn't be until many years later, in 2016, before there was any real movement. In September 2016, the district attorney's office released two composite sketches of the suspect. This was the first time the DA or the police had ever released any sketches.
So it was a huge deal when these two images were finally released. And they weren't your typical photos. The two pictures were created by Parabon Nanolabs, a private Virginia-based company that specializes in DNA phenotyping and genetic genealogy.
Using the unknown male DNA collected at Lisa's crime scene, Parabon Nanolabs used the DNA to create a composite sketch of how the suspect might look. The first photo was of how he looked back in 1992, and the second was an age-progressed photo to show how he might look in 2016, over 20 years later.
Remember, back in 1992, the only thing the police could do was say that all the DNA collected at the crime scene belonged to one person. So the only thing they knew for sure was that one person, presumably, was responsible for Lisa's kidnapping and murder. But now, by 2016, Parabon Nanolabs was able to use those same samples of DNA to conduct DNA phenotyping.
In other words, use the DNA to predict how the person might look from characteristics like eye, hair, and skin color. So using the DNA, they figured out the suspect was most likely from European descent and had fair to very fair skin. He most likely had brown or hazel eyes and brown or black hair. They could even say that he didn't have many freckles.
So with all this genetic information, Parabon Nanolabs created two separate sketches of how Lisa's killer might look based on his DNA. And in 2016, the district attorney took those images and circulated them out to the public to see if they could get any fresh leads. Not only did they get new tips, but the police also created a list of 11 possible suspects from these sketches.
Now here's how they identified these 11 men. One big factor was age. Lisa's killer couldn't be too old or too young to have committed the murder back in 1992. They also had to be alive at the time. Second, the police looked at who refused to submit DNA samples back in 1992.
Now, right after Lisa was killed, the police asked everyone from Agawam to submit a DNA sample so that they could be ruled out. They didn't have search warrants to get the DNA. They just relied on people coming forward to provide their DNA so that they could help move the case forward. And this seemed to work. A lot of men in town voluntarily went down to the police station and provided their DNA.
But not everyone. Some people refused to give their DNA to the cops. So in 2016 and 2017, the police looked at who refused to provide their DNA and considered that when creating their list of 11 suspects. After that, they looked to see who matched the physical description of the two composite sketches created by Parabon Nanolabs.
So if they matched all three factors, age, refusal to give DNA, and close resemblance to the sketches, the cops put them on the list. And in the end, they ended up with 11 possible suspects. By 2017, investigators opened the case file again. This time around, they had two sketches and a suspect list.
So the first move was to get DNA samples from all 11 men on this list. They started by contacting each one of them and simply asking them for a sample of their DNA. But not surprisingly, most of them gave the police a big fat no. They didn't want to provide their DNA back in 1992, and they sure as heck wouldn't do it in 2017.
But just because they said no didn't mean they didn't have to. If one of these men refused, the police just went back to the district attorney. The DA went to a grand jury to get a search warrant requiring the men to provide their DNA because they were considered possible suspects in Lisa's murder. After testing 10 of the suspects' DNA, the police found themselves looking at one particular person.
Gary Shara, the second name on their list who checked all the boxes. In 1992, he was around 23 years old. Check. When he was asked to provide a DNA sample shortly after the murder, he refused. He said he didn't want to do it because he was worried about the cops being able to, quote, clone him. Check.
And third, he looked almost identical to the age-progressed image created by Parabon Nanolabs. Check. Prime suspect number one identified. On September 17, 2017, 25 years after Lisa's murder, the police knocked on 48-year-old Gary Shara's front door in West Springfield.
Just like the other 10 men on the list, they needed to get a sample of his DNA so that he could either be ruled in or ruled out. But when they got to his place, Gary wasn't home. Instead, the cops talked to his roommate, who said Gary wasn't there and that he would let him know that they stopped by and needed to talk to him. So after they left, the roommate called Gary and told him what just happened.
But instead of turning himself over to the police to provide his DNA, he did something that shocked everyone. For a lot of people, this was the first time they heard the name Gary Shara. But his name wasn't new to investigators. In fact, they had interviewed him a few times over the years while investigating Lisa's murder.
It all began in 1993 when his estranged ex-wife, Joyce, called in a tip saying that she thought her ex-husband might have had something to do with Lisa's murder and kidnapping. She said he was an extremely violent man and she just felt in her gut that he was somehow involved. According to her, anytime Lisa's name was mentioned on the TV or on the news, he would run to the TV and watch it.
He seemed like he needed to know everything the cops knew, but the police had their reasons to be suspicious of this woman's claims. For starters, this woman, Joyce and Gary, were completely estranged at the time. After Gary graduated high school, he and Joyce quickly married and had a son.
When Lisa was murdered in 1992, he, Joyce, and their son all lived together in Massachusetts, not far from where Lisa and her family lived. But sometime during their marriage, their relationship turned sour, and they found themselves in a really complicated and messy custody battle over their son. Gary wanted full custody, and so did Joyce.
So over the next seven years, Joyce and Gary were not only estranged, but also deeply entrenched in this legal custody battle. So when Joyce called in the tip saying that she thought Gary might have killed Lisa, the police had to wonder if there was any truth to what she was saying, or if this was just a scorned woman trying to take custody of their son. They had no idea whether her trip was actually credible or not.
Either way, the police decided to bring Gary in for questioning. They had investigated all the other tips, so this was no different. But when the cops sat down and spoke with Gary, he denied even knowing who Lisa was. He said he had never met her before and didn't know anything about her murder. So the police asked him for a DNA sample, but Gary said no. His excuse?
He was worried about the police being able to clone him if they got a sample of his DNA, so he wouldn't do it. This is where the cops' hands were tied. They didn't have a search warrant to get his DNA, and if Gary said he didn't want to do it, he didn't have to. So after his first interview, with no physical evidence linking him to any crime, Gary was free to go. He was once again interviewed by the police in 2002, and
He was nice and seemed to be cooperative, but when he was asked again for the DNA sample, he said the same thing he did back in 1991. He didn't want to be cloned. But what was even stranger than that comment, which is certainly strange, was how Gary showed up to the interview and what he wore. According to detectives, Gary showed up wearing gloves and a long coat.
He didn't even touch the water bottle given to him during the interview. So if a person didn't want the police to have his DNA, it was him. But once again, Gary was free to go. Twelve years later, in 2014, Gary's ex-wife Joyce passed away. So the police couldn't go back and speak with her again.
But Gary still remained on their suspect list. And by 2017, he became the prime suspect. When the police went to Gary's place to issue the arrest warrant for his DNA in 2017, his roommate said he wasn't home. But later on, they found out as soon as his roommate told him the cops stopped by and wanted his DNA, Gary called up his current girlfriend.
After separating from Joyce, Gary started dating one of his old high school girlfriends. The two had recently rekindled their relationship and started dating after seeing each other at a high school reunion party. So after he found out about the cops showing up at his front doorstep, he called his girlfriend and asked her if he could come over and spend the night.
At first, she thought this was a little weird. Gary had never asked to come over and spend the night at her place during the work week. He sometimes stayed over on the weekends, but never during the work week. So she thought this sounded odd, but of course, she said yes anyway. So that night, Gary stayed at his girlfriend's house, avoiding the police. The next day, his girlfriend got up early to go to work while she said Gary stayed in bed.
Around 4.30 p.m., she returned home, but Gary wasn't there, but his watch and wallet were still sitting on the kitchen counter. She decided to wait around a little bit to see if Gary would come back. Maybe he just went out for a few minutes to run an errand. She even went upstairs to take a shower, but when she came back downstairs, she noticed something on her coffee table. On the table was one of Gary's clipboards with three handwritten letters.
The first one was addressed to her. Part of it read, quote, I've been dreading the day I'd need to write this letter for almost as long as I can remember. First off, I love you. I hope you never doubt that. Now the hard part. You are going to find out some awful things about me today. They will tell you I abducted and murdered a young woman 25 years ago. It's true. All of it.
I had no intention of killing her when I grabbed her, but events spun out of my control. And in the eyes of the law, it's all the same. I have never regretted anything so much. I was young and headstrong and foolish. Emphasis on the last part. End quote. He also said later on in the letter, quote, I've never really been or felt normal. From a very young age, I was fascinated by abduction and bondage.
I could never keep it too far from my mind for too long. On that fateful day, I let myself do something terrible. I hated what happened. I despised myself. I thought of turning myself in hundreds of times over the years, but I truly am a coward." The second letter on the table was a copy of Gary's last will and testament. In the will, he gave 30% of his assets to his mom, girlfriend, and brother.
Then the final 10% was supposed to go to his roommate. Then finally, the third letter was addressed to Lisa's family directly. That letter was the shortest of all three and only had four sentences. One of them being, quote, I hope knowing who and knowing I am gone will bring you closure and peace. I am truly sorry, end quote.
Not only did Gary himself write this letter directly to Lisa's family, but it also seemed like a suicide note. When he said, knowing I am gone, can only mean one thing. After he finished writing those letters, he was planning on committing suicide. But that's not what happened. Yes, Gary did try to kill himself by taking too many over-the-counter pain pills, but he chickened out.
He was too scared to take his own life, but not scared enough to take Lisa's. After the girlfriend found the letters, she immediately went to the police department. One, she was worried Gary might try to kill himself like he insinuated in the letters. But two, she needed to report what was in the letters. He admitted to murdering Lisa Ziegert. But when she got to the police station, there wasn't much that she could tell them.
She said she didn't know where Gary was or how they could find him. It wasn't until around 9.30 p.m. that night that they received a tip that his car was parked at the hospital. And that's when they found out about the suicide attempt. On his car's dashboard, they found another note that read in part, quote, "...to whomever finds my body, I apologize for any psychological trauma."
End quote. After Gary was arrested in 2017, he spent the next two years behind bars. He wasn't allowed out because a judge granted no bail in his case. And it's almost a mystery why it took so long, because it seemed like the police and prosecutors had everything they needed. They had Gary's DNA that matched the DNA collected from the crime scene,
He matched the composite sketch created by Parabon Nano Labs. He had been interviewed twice by the police and considered a suspect right from the beginning, and now they had a confession letter he wrote to his girlfriend and Lisa's family. It was a virtual slam dunk. By 2019, Gary had been in custody for a little over two years, but instead of taking his case to trial, he decided to plead guilty.
In exchange for the two charges of sexual assault and kidnapping being dropped, Gary agreed to plead guilty to only one count of first-degree murder. And in September 2019, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Gary Shara will never see the light of day again for what he did to Lisa Ziegert back in 1992.
After Gary's sentencing hearing, Lisa's father, George, released a statement, quote, End quote. There's no way of knowing what Gary's exact motive was that day without asking him directly.
but some people speculate whether he may have become obsessed with her after seeing her at the card shop one day. Inside Gary's possessions, the police found a music box that he had purchased from the same exact card and gift shop where Lisa worked. So many people wonder if he had become obsessed with her and decided to make her his target. Even after 20 years, he kept that music box.
One of the many strange details about this case is that this is the only crime Gary is believed to have committed. The police don't think he did anything before Lisa, and they don't think that he did anything afterward. In fact, after murdering Lisa, Gary went on to live a completely normal life. He had regular jobs working in customer service. He had long-term girlfriends.
He had friends who all described him as being one of the nicest guys in the entire world. He just seemed like an ordinary guy. He certainly didn't come across as this murderous sex offender. Gary likely preyed on Lisa that night because she was alone. He went into the card and gift shop and knew that she was the only one working. He tried to kidnap her by leading her to the back room, but she fought back.
and the two struggled in the back room, knocking boxes over and leaving scuff marks on the door and walls. Lisa even tried to fight back by punching and scratching Gary, as evidenced by the defensive wounds on her arms and hands, but he was too strong for her. Once he got her out of the shop, the two continued to struggle inside his car.
This lines up perfectly with what the witnesses said, who saw a man and woman fighting in the backseat of the car in the parking lot around 9.15. Even after he dragged her outside, she continued to fight. After he sexually assaulted her and stabbed her seven times, he drove to that remote spot and dumped her body, a spot only four miles away from the card shop. Then a few days later, her body was discovered on Easter Sunday morning.
Clearly, Gary felt remorse about what he did, but not enough remorse to ever turn himself in. Although he claimed in his letters that he didn't intend to murder Lisa, and he regretted it, he never had the courage to come forward and confess to what he did. He didn't even have the courage to follow through on his suicide attempt. Instead of taking his own life, like he did with Lisa, he decided to kill Lisa.
He backed out and drove straight to the emergency room so that doctors could save him. But he never showed Lisa that kind of mercy. Lisa Ziegert was a young 24-year-old woman doing everything she could to make her dream come true, to become a teacher. And to make that happen, she took a second job working at a card and gift shop to make a little extra money. But that decision ultimately cost her everything.
Fortunately, new DNA advancements and DNA phenotyping led investigators to catch a killer over 20 years later. Justice may have been delayed because of a lack of forensic tools available to law enforcement in 1992, but all of that changed years later.
Today, Lisa's mom, Dee, hopes that this same type of DNA testing can be used to help solve other cold cases, just like her daughter's, and help catch more killers, especially the cowards. To share your thoughts on this story, be sure to follow the show on Instagram and Facebook. To find out what I think about the case, sign up to become a patron at patreon.com slash forensic tales.
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We'll have a brand new case and a brand new story to talk about. Until then, remember, not all stories have happy endings. Forensic Tales is a Rockefeller Audio production. The show is written and produced by me, Courtney Fretwell-Ariola. For a small monthly contribution, you can help create new compelling cases for the show, help fund research, and assist with production and editing costs.
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or send me an email at Courtney at ForensicTales.com to find out how you can become involved. For a complete list of sources used in this episode, please visit ForensicTales.com. Thank you for listening. I'll see you next week. Until then, remember, not all stories have happy endings.