Reported by: Jessica Noll
Web produced by: Jessica Noll
Left for dead, Carolyn Marksberry found the strength to free herself from the duct tape that bound her and crawl from her home to her neighbor’s house.
There the Warsaw, Ky. woman – bloodied from stab wounds – banged her head against the door to get the neighbor’s attention.
“It always struck me what a strong woman she is,” said Commonwealth’s Attorney Linda Tally Smith, who prosecuted the man who raped and tried to kill Marksberry, did murder two of her children and left another child for dead.
Smith believes that strength was drawn from the fact that she still had a child who needed her. With that child suffering from stab wounds but safely at a friend’s house nearby and her two youngest still inside the house stabbed to death, Marksberry fought to live after the intruder had gone.
On Aug. 23, 2002, Marco Allen Chapman left Marksberry’s family shattered and broken and struck terror in the heart of a rural community in Gallatin County.
Smith prosecuted Chapman for his heinous crimes. In the six years since the murders, she’s talked with him, heard his account and seen and known all he’s done. Her description of Chapman is simple if not chilling: “evil with a conscience.”
“He accepted responsibility without making any excuses, which is very unusual. He had a lot of remorse,” Smith said.
In the brutal attacks, Chapman stabbed Cody Sharon, 6, and Chelbi Sharon, 7, to death. He tried to kill Courtney Sharon as well, stabbing her multiple times. But Courtney, who was 10 at the time, played dead until Chapman left and then fled to a friend’s house nearby for help.
Smith said Chapman had only one thing in mind the day he attacked the family: money.
“There was no motivation for it,” said Smith. “I think he went there with one purpose in mind: He needed money.”
“He got there and had other ideas and then needed to eliminate the witnesses.”
Kentucky State Police Detective Todd Harwood, the lead investigator on the case since 2002, knows the details of the Chapman’s crime intimately.
On the day of the attacks, Chapman arrived at Marksberry’s home shortly after 4 a.m. He knocked on the door and told Marksberry that he was leaving the state. He asked to use her phone.
Chapman then tied her up, raped her, stabbed her and her children and robbed the family. The first dispatch call about trouble at the home came at 6 a.m.
In a small town where everyone knew the Marksberrys-Sharons, Warsaw was shaken to its core.
“The community was in shock,” said Gallatin County News editor Kelley Warnick, who has lived in Warsaw for 30 years and was the first reporter on the scene that summer day.
“[It was] brutal, indescribable murders in this town.”
Warnick will be one of nine media witnesses in the execution Friday.
“I’m sure [the family] is anxious just to move on and make it as normal as possible,” he said of Marksberry, Courtney, now 16, now a thriving high school student who plays soccer, and other family members.
Closure could be as close as witnessing the execution, the end of the man’s life who committed such heinous crimes against their family.
Smith confirmed that family of the victims Cody and Chelbi will witness the execution. However, the prosecutor could not say whether Marksberry and Courtney will be among the witnesses.
Chapman’s execution will be justice for some.
“If the death penalty is ever an appropriate sentence, this is the case,” said Smith. “[It’s a] punishment that fits the crime.”
Chapman, according to the prosecutor and the case that’s unfolded over the past six years, agrees.
“If he wanted to take his own life, he could. He believes death is the appropriate sentence,” said Smith. “He’s the first to say he can’t live with himself with what he did.”
Still Chapman’s execution cannot fill the void for the family.
“Hopefully at some point in time they’ll have peace,” Smith said, “but it doesn’t fill the hole that exists.”
