Dateline NBC
Sarah Hartsfield's trial begins. A mistrial in Mississippi. Plus, how to avoid spam texts and calls.
02 Oct 2025
Chapter 1: What are the details of Sarah Hartsfield's murder trial?
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Good morning. It's time for the Dateline morning meeting. So kind of bombshell here. Our producers are swapping tips and story ideas. What did the daughter plead guilty to? We don't have a motive either.
She leaves a pretty hefty inheritance to split, about a million dollars.
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Chapter 2: What is the significance of the mistrial in Mississippi?
Since the sheriff made a statement, he's now been named a witness and witnesses are not allowed to make statements. So we will not be hearing from him until after trial.
Opening statements got underway Tuesday morning and the prosecution laid out its case against Sarah.
That's right. Prosecutor Mallory Barrios said Sarah and Joe seemed very happy at first. She mentioned it was a whirlwind romance and that that whirlwindness of it all sort of concealed Sarah's true nature. And the prosecutor said the volume of evidence is by Sarah's own doing, that she Can't help, Sarah, can't help but explain what she did.
She told Joe to pay attention to what she says and what she doesn't say and pay attention to the timing. And like most cases on Dateline, this one is circumstantial. There were only two people in the house when Joe's insulin dropped, Sarah and Joe. So there are no other witnesses. And they are not expecting any smoking gun or DNA or anything like that.
How did the defense handle its opening statement?
The defense said Joe administered the toxic dose of insulin himself, that he wasn't good at taking care of himself. And that was just an example of that. At the time of his death, Sarah was not in a normal state of mind, they said. She had had surgery and was on narcotics. And so she couldn't really help him.
And they said that how she handled Joe's crashing blood sugar level was not good, but it wasn't a crime.
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Chapter 3: What updates are there on the cases of Donna Adelson, Nicholas Rossi, and Sean Combs?
The state's first witness was the victim's mother, Helen Hartsfield.
Joe's mom was very emotional, and she testified how the couple would often argue. They would argue about Joe and money. In some instances, the fighting was so bad, Sarah would even lock Joe out of their house.
The prosecutor asked Joe's mom about the day he was rushed to the hospital and asked her if she was surprised.
And she answered she wasn't surprised, that she figured something would happen to her son. She testified that her son, towards the end, appeared fearful. She also mentioned how Sarah told her once that she had shot and killed a man in self-defense. And that knowledge remained in the back of her head as she worried about what would happen to her Joe.
Joe's mom was getting emotional, Susan, talking about...
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Chapter 4: How do spam texts and calls affect consumers financially?
him in the hospital. And you say that also Sarah at the defendant's table was tearing up, too.
She was. I mean, she was definitely looking emotional.
On cross, Joe's mom was asked about what you mentioned, Susan, about that shooting and self-defense that she said Sarah had told her about.
That's right. Sarah's defense attorney wanted Helen to confirm that Sarah was never arrested or charged in the shooting of her ex-boyfriend. And so she did. She wasn't. That was, you know, she got a ruling of self-defense. So there was no criminal charges.
Well, Susan, we're expecting the trial to last, what, about two more weeks-ish? Okay. Everything goes super fast in Texas. We will certainly be keeping an eye on this one, Susan. Talk to you again about it. Sure thing. Thanks for having me. Coming up, three members of a Mississippi family were charged with murder. Only one of them went to trial. This week, it came to a dramatic conclusion.
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My name is Andrew Goldman. No story I've encountered in my 30 years as a journalist has gripped me by the throat, quite like the murder of Martha Moxley and conviction of Michael Skakel.
I thought I understood the case. It was a decades-long story about the powerful and the privileged seemingly getting away with murder. But I discovered a much darker, more shocking tale than I ever could have guessed.
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Chapter 5: What tips can help avoid falling victim to spam texts?
My next guest is Dateline booking producer Rachel White. She has been in the courtroom every day of his trial and is here to bring us up to speed. Thanks so much for joining us, Rachel.
Thanks for having me.
Rachel, before we go any further, tell us more about the victim here, Kirby Carpenter.
Chapter 6: What are the common types of spam calls and how can they be identified?
Sure. His kind of defining characteristic, other than being a very successful businessman, was that he was a loving father of two, very involved in both of his children's lives. He was a rare metals dealer and collector. He owned a liquor store. And he was involved in a lot of different businesses and had a lot of success fairly young. Tell us about his relationship with Caitlin Spence. Sure.
So he started dating Caitlyn back in 2020. And a few months later, she moved into the Tippah County home where he lived. And then Caitlyn got pregnant and gave birth to their daughter in July of 2022. Caitlyn's parents came to help out with the baby from out of state? That's right. They ended up staying through November 29, 2022, when they finally drove back to Virginia.
And the very next day, Kirby Carpenter was killed? Correct.
Chapter 7: What steps should you take when receiving suspicious messages?
So Caitlin says she woke up the morning of November 30th and dropped the baby off at her friend's house because she had to go to work. And then Caitlin ran some errands in the evening. Kirby had gone to Kroger to get groceries. Investigators say that when he pulled into their house, someone gunned him down. And they say that Kirby's body was then covered in a tarp.
Chapter 8: How can you report and block spam messages effectively?
It wasn't until two days later on December 2nd that Caitlin discovered Kirby's body there. Rachel, Caitlin called 911 and authorities started investigating right away, of course. What are the initial theories from law enforcement as to who and what might have happened to him and why?
I think that they very quickly started looking at the Spence family, but they also had to realize that Kirby's businesses put him out there. He was very well known and he had a lot of money and he dealt a lot in cash. They really had to do a lot of work and look at everyone.
OK, clearly police dismissed that theory about a robbery because they arrested Caitlin and her parents, Jeff and Karen Spence. You know, what led them to the whole family? So Jeff and Karen Spence returned to Mississippi the day after Caitlin said that she discovered Kirby's body.
Kirby's family told investigators that they noticed that the codes on the safes where he stored valuables had been changed, and they began to theorize that the Spences had stolen some of those valuables. Kirby's mother said she saw Jeff Spence placing bags of Kirby silver in the back of his car that day. There was also something that one of Kirby's former employees told police.
He said that at Kirby's funeral, Caitlin allegedly told him, quote, "'Daddy killed Kirby.'" Rachel, break down what authorities think each person did. Mother, father, daughter. So prosecutors say that Jeff was the one who pulled the trigger. They allege that Karen and Caitlin knew about the plot to some degree and hid their knowledge from police. So after a year of being in custody...
Caitlin turned on her dad and took a plea. Her mom, Karen, also took the plea, as we mentioned at the top. What changed? We don't really know what changed. Caitlin ultimately pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of accessory to murder after the fact. She was preemptively sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Karen Spence took an Alford plea, meaning she didn't admit guilt, but she did concede there would be enough evidence against her for a conviction on a lesser charge, which was accessory after the fact to grand larceny. And she ended up getting a 10-year sentence, but that was suspended. So instead, she'll get five years probation. Jeff Spence finally went on trial last week.
Tell us about the opening statements. So the prosecutor kept his opening statement relatively short. He gave a brief timeline of the day that Kirby was killed, and then he talked about a possible motive. What was his motive? It's an old story. Money. Greed. And what about the defense's opening statement?
So Jeff Spence's attorney focused on putting doubt into the timeline. Remember, we said earlier that Jeff and Karen drove home to Virginia, which is about nine, 10 hours away, the day before Kirby's murder.
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