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Oxford EAGLE
March 25, 2005
Local family tragedy comes to violent end
By Loretta Winston
STAFF WRITER
The Yoknapatawpha County Sheriff's Department announced yesterday
that Adam and Alicia Hartigan, whose charred bodies were found in
the ruins of their fire-ravaged home on March 15, were the victims
of a murder-suicide. Adam Hartigan suffered a gunshot wound to the
back of his head and died before the fire started. Alicia Hartigan
then apparently turned the gun on herself, taking her last breaths
as the fire raged around her and her slain husband.
Two other bodies were recovered from unmarked graves in the woods
behind the Hartigans' Tara Estates home. Sheriff's Public Information
Officer Elizabeth Jones told reporters that official autopsy results on
those victims are not yet available, but the Coroner's Office has
tentatively identified them as the Hartigans' daughters, Denise and
Rita.
Denise Hartigan's severed head was discovered January 15, 2005 in
Taylor. Other body parts, which had been found in surrounding counties
in the preceding weeks, were later identified as Hartigan's. Rita
Hartigan had reportedly left Oxford in 1997 at the age of 17,
presumably to live with a boyfriend in Cleveland, Ohio.
The Sheriff's
Department believes Adam and Alicia Hartigan were responsible not only for
their own deaths, but for the death of their daughters as well.
According to Jones, the most convincing evidence that links the
Hartigans to the murder of daughter Denise is the
hacksaw found in the Hartigans' garage, which has been identified as
the tool used to sever Denise's head, feet and arms from her body
following her death, as well as the discovery of Denise's missing
suitcase in the shop behind the garage. Finding both items on the
Hartigan property contradicts statements made by the Hartigans from
the start of the investigation. Both parents claimed they
had not seen Denise since she left town in 1998.
Another piece of incriminating evidence was a letter reportedly found
hidden in Denise's suitcase. Written by Rita Hartigan around 1997, the letter was written to her
then-boyfriend,
Jimmy Riddle of Cleveland, Ohio, and alleged her father had sexually
abused her. Jones said no evidence to corroborate the abuse
allegations has been found to date.
The investigation into Denise Hartigan's murder has had many twists
and turns. Her reported involvement in the New Orleans voodoo community
led some Oxonians to speculate her death was part of a voodoo ritual.
Contributing to that theory was the apparent staging of a voodoo ritual
site near the location where her head was found.
Jones said, "There's been a lot of hocus pocus surrounding this
case, but the evidence indicates that Denise Hartigan's death was not
part of some strange voodoo ritual. Denise was murdered by one or
both of her parents. As awful and horrific as that is for us to
comprehend, that's the reality."
One of the early proponents of the voodoo connection was Grant
Sexton, Denise Hartigan's former fiancé. As the investigation
progressed, detectives learned Sexton was the person who picked up
Denise at the Memphis airport on December 22, 2004. During questioning,
Sexton admitted to taking Denise from the airport to his then-residence
at Coles Point, where he kept her until she fled in the early morning
hours while he was asleep.
Grant Sexton is being held in the Yoknapatawpha County Detention
Center on charges of kidnapping, false imprisonment and attempted
murder. However, he is not believed to have cooperated or participated
with the Hartigans in Denise's murder.
Meanwhile, many people following the case considered Denise Hartigan's old New Orleans flame
and mentor in the voodoo culture, voodoo high priest Glen Wilson, a.k.a.
Papa Bokor, to be a suspect in her death. Information allegedly found in
Wilson's New Orleans apartment suggested that the voodoo witch doctor had placed hexes on
various people close to Denise Hartigan, including her father and Sexton.
Investigators in Oxford and New Orleans have been unable to locate
Glen Wilson, despite Sexton's assertions that Wilson was in Yocona in
late February. Although Wilson remains at large, detectives discount his
involvement in Denise's murder.
"Papa Bokor has a colorful reputation, which is probably more
folklore and gossip than reality, but there is no evidence that
implicates him in this murder," Jones said.
Some have questioned how this investigation came to such a violent
end. Jones addressed those questions, saying "The Sheriff's Department
believes that Alicia Hartigan learned detectives were planning to
execute a search warrant at her residence on the day of the fire.
Fearing the outcome of that search, Mrs. Hartigan took drastic steps to
protect her husband and herself from the discovery of long-held family
secrets. She reportedly put a high importance on the perception of her
family in the Oxford community, and the possibility that the fate of her
daughters and the allegations against her husband could become public
knowledge was apparently more than she could bear. Perhaps she felt her
husband, who was suffering from a debilitating recurrence of cancer,
literally would not survive those revelations and she wanted to spare
him that pain and indignity. We will never know what her motivations
were -- either for her choice to end her husband's life and her own or
for her role in the deaths of her daughters."
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