South Dakota v. Guthrie
Case Number:SD080
Offense: Homicide
Victim(s): Sharon Guthrie
Suspect(s): Bill Guthrie
In 1999, Bill Guthrie, the minister of the United Presbyterian Church in Woolsey South Dakota, found his
wife dead in an overflowing bathtub in South Dakota. This is a small town with farms and dirt roads and
the reverend lived with his wife, Sharon, in the parsonage next door to the church. Bill was known as a
strong man possessing great intellect regarding the bible. Sharon often helped husband with church duties
and the two were looking forward to the marriage of the 2nd daughter, Suzanne. Jenalu was their other
daughter who was already married. Just after dawn on May 14th, Reverend Guthrie called an ambulance
after he discovered his wife unconscious in the bathtub. CPR was performed by emergency personnel and
her heart was restarted. After arriving in the emergency room, blood was taken. Sharon never regained
consciousness while at the hospital; there were no signs of brain activity and died the following day.
Was it foul play, suicide, or an accident?
Today you all are investigators and must begin to dissect the potential crime. What clues would you look
for, who would you interview, and what investigations might you begin? Make a list of these potential
investigations and return it to Mrs. Cardellini. Afterwards she will give you more information to shed
light on these events.
South Dakota v. Guthrie
Continued
Bill’s account of the events the morning of Sharon’s death were are follows. When Bill left to go to the
church to say his daily prayers his wife was drawing the bath. After 10 minutes he returned and found his
wife face down in the overflowing bathtub. He was unsuccessful in pulling her body out of the tub so all
he could do was empty the water and turn her over before calling the ambulance. Emergency personnel
suggested she might have gone unconscious from a seizure or heart attack and there were no signs of
trauma or illness when the autopsy was done.
Fortunately emergency personnel had taken blood samples when she was 1st admitted into the emergency
room which makes analysis easier since she was still alive. Three medications were found in Sharon’s
blood. Two were drugs that had been prescribed to her and were in relatively low concentrations.
The 3rd drug was temazepam (a benzodiazepine) and it was found in high concentrations. This high level
of this drug would definitely render Sharon unconscious, so the cause of death was determined to be
drowning due a temazepam overdose.
Unfortunately the scene of the drowning hadn’t been preserved for evaluation. The neighbors had cleaned
up while the family was at the hospital. A bottle of temazepam was found, but had not been prescribed to
Sharon; it was Bill’s. Bill thought she accidentally ingested it while sleepwalking, but her daughters
don’t remember Sharon ever having a problem with sleepwalking. A few weeks before her death, Bill
had filled the prescription at one pharmacy then went to a 2nd pharmacy claiming he lost the 1st. Suzanne
thought her father killed Sharon, but Jenalu wasn’t convinced that he was guilty. Jenalu told investigators
that Sharon had taken Benadryl a few weeks earlier and accidentally overdosed requiring medical
attention. Jenalu believed the temazepam overdoes was an attention seeking act and the death was an
accident.
Investigators learned that the pastor had a mistress, a leading member of his former church in Nebraska.
The affair continued even after the Guthrie’s moved to South Dakota in 1997. When Bill took the new
job, he told the church council he needed to return to Nebraska on occasion for medical treatment for
impotency, thus continuing his visits to his girlfriend. After meeting secretly for months, his mistress
grew tired of hiding and said she’d call off the relationship if he didn’t leave his wife.
The church computer was confiscated in July to see if there was email evidence of the affair. An expert in
computer forensics checked the hard drive but nothing was revealed.
A suicide note was found and introduced by the defense found in a liturgy book in the church office. It
was typed on a computer and it was unsigned, dated May 13th, 1999 one day before Sharon’s death. It
was addressed to her daughter Suzanne. Computer investigators again searched the hard drive on the
church computer but there were no signs of the letter.
Now how should you proceed? Give Mrs. Cardellini a list of experiments and/investigations that you
would conduct. At this point you will assign roles to your group members.