A Texas woman will likely be spending significant time behind bars for killing her fifth husband with a surfeit of insulin.

On Wednesday, Sarah Jean Hartsfield, aged 50, was found guilty by a jury in Chambers County on a charge of murder concerning the death of her husband, Joseph Hartsfield, who was 46, in January 2023. You can find his obituary here.

Various aspects of the defendant’s past proved to be both a sideshow and used in the case against her by the time all was said and done.

“Her overall history shows a very evil side to her,” Chambers County Sheriff Brian Hawthorne stated to reporters outside the county courthouse as the murder trial commenced in Anahuac—a small town along the Gulf Coast, within the larger Houston metropolitan area.

The Chambers County Sheriff’s Office received a call from a hospital in Baytown following the death of Joseph Hartsfield, a Beach City resident, as the illness was considered suspicious, Law&Crime previously reported.

During the investigation, the sheriff’s office noted inconsistencies that increased the suspicion surrounding the illness and led investigators to suspect “foul play,” as detailed by Waco-based CBS and Telemundo affiliate KWTX when Sarah Hartsfield was arrested in February 2023.

The jury was presented with a range of evidence, including allegations unrelated to her husband’s death—such as her military background and never-pursued claims that she was linked to the arson of her grandmother’s home, according to a report by Houston-based NBC affiliate KPRC.

The prosecution also called the defendant’s own children to testify against her—a move that particularly vexed Sarah Hartsfield’s defense attorney, Case Darwin, according to KPRC.

In May 2018, the defendant shot and killed her then-fiance David Bragg in self-defense, Law&Crime previously reported.

Notably, however, Sarah Hartsfield was never charged in any of the preceding events singled out by the prosecution.

“She’s not on trial for being a bad person,” Darwin told the jury. “That doesn’t make you a murderer.”

During the trial, prosecutors suggested Joseph Hartsfield died as the combined result of his wife’s intentional neglect of his uncontrolled type 1 diabetes — and likely the intentional injection of insulin.

On the morning of Jan. 7, 2023, the husband’s blood sugar was dropping to dangerously low levels for several hours. While the wife claimed she was asleep at this time, prosecutors showed several pieces of data from her cellphone — activity on multiple kinds of apps and step-tracking software — which showed she was actually awake, active, and had waited quite a while before calling 911.

Over the course of that morning, the victim’s glucose monitor went off over 100 times — and the defendant received alerts on her phone.

Sarah Hartsfield, for her part, was on prescription narcotics on the day in question to recover from a recent surgery; prosecutors, however, juxtaposed her drugged state with the proven ability of the defendant to repeatedly use her phone, use Facebook, and even record her husband as he slowly faded out of existence before her eyes.

By the time medical personnel arrived, Joseph Hartsfield was in the throes of an insulin overdose.

While prosecutors acknowledged it was all but impossible to know whether the defendant herself had administered the fatal amount of insulin, the state aimed to leave jurors with the impression — and witnesses testified they believed — that she had done exactly that.

“The defendant made sure he got enough insulin so he couldn’t recover,” a prosecutor argued, according to a courtroom report by Houston-based Fox affiliate KRIV.

One of the deceased man’s friends, Ivan Boots, testified the defendant expressed concerns people would be able to determine the level of insulin in Joseph Hartsfield’s body. The same friend testified the victim often had high sugar — expressing surprise he would be hospitalized with low blood sugar levels, KRIV reported.

As the eight-day trial drew to a close, Darwin argued the state had failed to connect his client to her husband’s death, relying instead on “a story, a narrative,” about her character with a “kitchen sink” strategy. Admittedly, the defense attorney said, Sarah Hartsfield might have failed to render aid but said she had “no duty to act.” And, in a sharp break, insisted: “Joseph administered that insulin to himself” and that there was “absolutely no proof that Sarah administered insulin.”

As for the large amount of insulin likely responsible for the man’s death, the defendant had, in fact, offered several pens to law enforcement who arrived at the home in the initial stages of the investigation. But those pens were not collected into evidence.

“One hundred percent an error,” former Chambers County lieutenant Robert Hemmenway testified during trial.

The state acknowledged some of those deficiencies during its own closing argument — while stressing the weight of the evidence suggested Sarah Hartsfield intentionally killed Joseph Hartsfield.

“You get the picture,” a prosecutor summed up.

In the end, after an hour of deliberations, the jury did.

The sentencing phase of the case began more or less immediately after the defendant was convicted. She faces life in prison.