The decades-old criminal case of an Independence woman called one of the “most elusive serial killers” was closed this week when Jackson County Sheriff’s officials and the Kansas City Police Department confirmed she had died.
Sharon Kinne was accused of killing two people in Kansas City in 1960 and a third in Mexico in 1964. An anonymous tip called in to both agencies in December 2023 led authorities to her ultimate fate. Kinne died of natural causes in Alberta, Canada, in January 2022, where she was living under the name of Diedra Glabus, Jackson County Sheriff’s Sgt. Dustin Love said Thursday.
“It’s unfortunate that we couldn’t catch her while she was alive,” Love said. “She was really good at what she did. She hid really well. It just so happens that someone had that tip and was not willing to release it until after her death.”
Kinne’s life was a popular subject in true crime books and on TV shows and podcasts, and is one of the most-publicized cases in county history, Love said. Her family released a statement, saying they were happy that this chapter of their family history is now closed.
“Sharon was a woman that never faced the consequences of her actions, leaving them for her children to deal with. She caused great harm without thought or remorse,” the statement read. “Hopefully, this closure will allow the family a chance to heal from her traumatic legacy.”
Authorities confirmed Kinne’s identity through fingerprints and forensic genealogy searches, but DNA testing couldn’t be done, Love said.
In March 1960, Kinne and her husband were living in Independence when James Kinne was shot in the back of the head while napping. Kinne blamed her 2-year-old daughter and the death was ruled accidental. But later court testimony revealed that the couple was having marital problems and she had been seeing other men.
Newspaper accounts say Sharon Kinne then started a relationship with Walter Jones, whose wife, Patricia, was found shot to death. Kinne was charged in her death in June 1960. Prosecutors reopened the James Kinne death, and a Jackson County grand jury indicted Kinne for her husband’s murder.
Kinne was acquitted of Jones' killing in June 1961, but was convicted of killing her husband in January 1962 and sentenced to life in prison. The Missouri Supreme Court overturned the conviction sometime later, citing improper jury selection. The jury deadlocked at her retrial.
Kinne left for Mexico City in 1964. By September, she was arrested for murder after shooting a man in a hotel room, where a High Standard .22 caliber pistol was found. KCPD linked the ballistics to the Jones murder. Kinne was convicted of the Mexican man’s murder and sentenced to 13 years in prison.
While incarcerated, Kinne failed to appear in court for the murder of her husband James, which lead to the original arrest warrant issued by Jackson County.
Kinne escaped from a Mexican prison in December 1969 and was never found despite a wide search, KCPD officials said. Little is known about her life after that, though investigators discovered that Kinne married James Glabus in Los Angeles in February 1970. Kinne’s whereabouts from 1969 to 1979 remain a mystery, officials said.
