When Desiree Sunford was discovered shot to death inside her Washington home, the brutality of the crime left investigators searching for a motive that was not immediately clear.
Desiree, a middle-school art teacher known for riding a Harley and restoring classic cars, was widely admired by students, colleagues and friends. One coworker remembered her as the kind of “cool teacher” whose classroom felt like a safe haven, while those close to her said she had been looking forward to the future she was building with her husband, military veteran Scott Sunford.
That life was cut short on April 7, 2013, when Desiree was found dead on the floor of the couple’s home, wearing only underwear.
“She had obviously suffered multiple gunshots,” retired Yakima County Sheriff’s Deputy Ed Labeck said during the June 18 episode of Dateline: Unforgettable. “I can see a lot of trauma, a lot of blood…it was obvious to me that person wanted to make sure she was dead.”
What Happened to Desiree Sunford?
As investigators worked through the crime scene, they also began questioning Scott about where he had been and what had happened in the hours before Desiree was found.
Scott told authorities he had been away attending a funeral and decided to spend the night at a friend’s home rather than drive back in poor weather. The following day, he said, he received an alert from the couple’s home security system. After he could not get Desiree on the phone, he contacted 911.
When Scott returned to the house, however, he did not enter. Instead, he remained near his car with a gun drawn, aiming toward the residence.
He later explained that he was afraid of what might be waiting inside, but investigators found his reaction difficult to reconcile with the circumstances.
“It just was not the normal response,” retired Yakima County Sheriff’s Detective Dave Johnson told Dateline, “for an individual thinking his wife was hurt or in danger.”
As detectives securitized Scott’s account, they wanted to learn more about the friend with whom he had spent the night. Scott identified her as Paige Blades, a woman who he said had been romantically involved with him—and Desiree.
Who Is Paige Blades?
Paige, then 23 and a single mom who worked at a processing plant, told investigators that she met the Sunfords in 2011. What began as a friendship, she said, evolved into a three-way sexual relationship.
“I was accepted as a part of their marriage,” Paige told detectives. “I slept in their bed, I shared food costs, I cooked, I cleaned.”
According to Paige, Desiree was comfortable with the arrangement until seven months before her death, when she became increasingly possessive of Scott. As tensions flared, the group sex fizzled, although Paige said she and Scott had continued having sex behind Desiree’s back.
When news of Desiree’s alleged private life reached her friends, they were in disbelief. Those doubts only deepened, one friend told Dateline, after observing what she described as Scott’s upbeat demeanor at her funeral.
Investigators heard similar anecdotes about Scott, but suspicion alone wasn’t enough to consider him a suspect—especially since DNA found at the crime scene didn’t belong to him.
Evidence finally came in the form of text messages between Desiree and Paige.
“He was not being very honest with us,” said Johnson, “about his relationship with his wife…or Paige.”
The messages, sent more than a year before Desiree’s murder, showed a close relationship that occasionally blurred boundaries.
“Honestly, I did enjoy that night,” Desiree wrote in one message. “There are aspects there that are different with a woman than a man.”
Paige responded, “I very much miss having a woman to play with.”
Other times, Desiree expressed frustration about spending so much time with Paige and some messages indicated that Desiree had no idea that Paige and Scott were intimate.
As Desiree wrote, “You two doing anything sexual would bother me.”
Paige answered, “He and I doing anything sexual is out of the question.”
The final straw for Desiree was a message from Paige that read: “If you ever die and he needs a wife, I’m half convinced that would be me.” After that, Desiree told Paige to distance herself from her marriage.
By then, detectives believed they had uncovered a source of conflict in Desiree’s personal life, but no direct leads to her killer.
Then, 14 months after Desiree’s death, an anonymous tip came in: The killer was a man named Marty Grismer. When police traced the phone call, it led back to Paige.
Why Did Marty Grismer Kill Desiree Sunford?
Paige told detectives that Marty was a coworker she had briefly dated but he was now remarried and they were just friends. Still, said Paige, he continued pursuing her and even paid her bills.
According to Paige, weeks before the shooting, she got pregnant. When she confided in Marty, she said he became convinced that Scott was the father and believed that once Desiree found out, Desiree would stand in the way of Paige and Scott’s future.
Paige told police that Marty had recently confessed to killing Desiree, so that she and Scott could be together.
Paige said she was stunned by Marty’s alleged confession, especially since Scott had already moved on with another woman—but according to Paige, Marty had recently offered to “take care of her, like I did the last one.”
Detectives found the motive strange, however they dug into Marty’s background.
They learned that Marty had been suspended from work for bringing a gun barrel into the plant. Detectives later obtained it from Marty’s boss and sent it to a lab for testing.
The results showed that the gun barrel was the same one that was used to kill Desiree.
When detectives brought Marty in for questioning, he described his relationship with Paige as “complicated,” but not sexual. He also denied killing Desiree.
Marty then turned the tables on Paige. He alleged that Paige had been in possession of his gun—with that same barrel—at the time of the murder and accused her of being the killer.
Scott and Paige were never charged with a crime, and Paige has denied any involvement in Desiree’s murder.
“It’s incredibly unfair that I risked my life to do the right thing,” she told Dateline, “and I’m being crucified for existing.”
Detectives ultimately didn’t believe Marty’s story, and in Nov. 2014, he was arrested for first-degree murder.
In Dec. 2017, he accepted a plea deal to reduce the charge to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
