#18: The Angel of Death on Silver Leopard Farm

Full Episode Transcript

On the morning of Friday, March 24, 2006, Detective Richard Cote and Sergeant Sean Gallagher from the Epping Police Department arrived at a remote property in southeastern New Hampshire. The address—70 Red Oak Hill Lane—sat hidden behind trees, set back from the road.

The officers had been called to conduct a welfare check at The Silver Leopard Farm. But as they approached the farmhouse, something else caught their attention.

Smoke.

Several areas of the property were actively burning. Flames licked up from patches of scorched earth—one of them just twenty feet from the porch, where a mattress and box spring had been reduced to a blackened frame. Thirty-five feet away, a second fire burned inside a rusty metal barrel. Hay had been thrown over it, fueling the flames. The stench in the air was thick, foul, unmistakable.

As Sergeant Gallagher approached the burn pile, something caught his eye.

A bone.

It was sticking out of the hay—about three and a half inches long, with a jagged base, as though it had been crudely hacked. The top was rounded, like it had once belonged to a joint. It was slicked with something dark and soft, something that looked disturbingly like charred flesh. The sight made the officer recoil.

When Assistant Attorney General Peter Odom arrived two days later, smoke was still rising from the same barrel. The burn pit nearby was a few feet wide. Its center was layered with gray-white ash and bone fragments—shards so small they could’ve passed as broken teeth. Beneath the rubble, investigators found the warped skeleton of a mattress frame, its coils melted into a compressed shape. There were sticky patches fused to the metal. Later analysis would confirm what many of them already suspected: it was human tissue. Flesh and fat, burned into the springs.

Inside the rusty barrel, investigators pulled out a set of large pruning shears and a pair of hedge clippers. The handles were scorched. Nearby, a blade fragment—likely from a knife—had liquefied in the heat.

But it wasn’t just the remains that stood out.

Next to one of the burn piles, a wooden kitchen chair sat alone in the grass, positioned directly in front of the flames. Police believed someone had pulled it up to watch.

A rabbit was found in the underbrush, soaked in someone’s blood.

On the lawn, a third burn site was later uncovered. And beyond that, evidence of earlier fires—ash piles, melted zippers, and scraps of fabric—buried in the dirt behind the house. Investigators estimated they dated back to the previous fall.

A partially-burned DVD case lay in the grass, charred at the corners. The movie was Saw—a horror film known for its sadistic violence. The case had been rented from a local store, just days earlier.

Over the coming days, as investigators searched the land, it became clear that this wasn’t a spontaneous act of violence.

This was something else.

It was planned.

It was methodical.

And it had happened before.

Sheila Kay Bailey was born on July 4th, 1958, in Fort Payne, Alabama—a small mill town tucked in the Tennessee River Valley, where generations of families worked long hours in textile plants and life moved at a quieter rhythm. Her mother called her “Firecracker,” not only for her Independence Day birth but for the spark she seemed to carry from the start. The name would linger—and become more fitting than anyone could’ve imagined.

She was the youngest of six children, born to Manuel and Ruby Bailey. By the time Sheila arrived, the family was already stretched thin. Her older siblings were nearly grown. Her parents, already aging. Sheila and her sister Lynn often felt like afterthoughts—left behind in a house that was far from safe.

Their father, Manuel, was a domineering figure. Sometimes doting. Other times dangerous. Most weekends, after drinking, he’d erupt. He’d throw over the stove, empty the fridge, smash through the house in blind rage. Their mother would gather the girls and flee on foot, walking for miles in the dark to find safety at a relative’s. But she never called the police. Not once.

There was no protection. No real escape. Just silence and survival.

Both Sheila and Lynn would later speak, cautiously, of molestation in the home. Fuzzy recollections. Vague feelings that never quite left. Abuse was never openly discussed, but the message was clear: you didn’t talk about what happened. Not inside that house.

By her teens, Sheila had grown into a striking young woman. She dreamed of becoming a model or photographer, practicing poses in the mirror with her sister. But it wasn’t just vanity—she was expressive, sharp. Late at night, she wrote poetry—dark, unfiltered, laced with longing. Her journal became a kind of sanctuary. She once wrote, “It never leaves. It never hits. It never refuses to protect me.” It was the only place she felt in control.

She entered local pageants, read original poems aloud, and joined the Alabama State Poetry Society. But the confidence masked something brittle underneath. Her poems often described herself as fragile and misunderstood, yearning for escape, for a savior who might rescue her from her own story.

In the years that followed, she bounced between jobs and short-lived relationships. In her own words, she’d had her “share of bastard-ass men.” By her twenties, she had already been heartbroken more than once.

In late 1981, Sheila met a man named John Willis Baxter III. He was young, divorced, with a small daughter. They married on New Year’s Eve, just weeks after getting serious. It lasted six weeks.

Baxter’s daughter, Wendy, would later describe a frightening side to Sheila—sweet and polite when her father was around, but cruel when he wasn’t. Sheila would lock her in a small room with a pot for urination, threatening to kill her and her father if she told anyone.

After the divorce, Sheila began harassing John’s ex-wife Nancy—stalking her, slashing tires, scattering roofing nails in her driveway. The tension escalated until one day Nancy smashed Sheila’s head into a car bumper. Sheila was knocked unconscious. But she came back. Later, she pointed a pistol at Nancy and rammed her truck using John’s car. The local district attorney quietly gave Nancy a gun permit, remarking, “Sheila’s elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top.”

Months later, she met Ronnie Jennings while working at a burger drive-in. They eloped quickly. But again, on the day of the ceremony, Sheila broke down crying. “We shouldn’t have gotten married,” she said. The marriage spiraled fast.

Ronnie later said he feared for his life. He believed Sheila was unstable and deeply manipulative. Her journal entries painted a picture of resentment and self-pity—of feeling trapped. She accused Ronnie of violence, but he believed she was the aggressor.

They moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Sheila did well in hotel management, rising to assistant front office manager, but she was fired for inappropriate behavior with male guests. She started an affair with a married construction executive. He promised to leave his family. His father intervened. Sheila lost her job again.

Then came another crash. After a confrontation about a dead kitten Ronnie had accidentally stepped on, Sheila accused him of cheating. That night, she swallowed a bottle of pills in an apparent suicide attempt. She crashed Ronnie’s car and fell into a coma for eight days and was held in psychiatric care for nearly a month.

There, she claimed she had a vision—men in white, a bright light, and a sense of peace. But they sent her back. Without explanation.

She blamed Ronnie for having her committed. Their divorce was finalized in February 1986.

The following year, Sheila was determined to find something else—someone else. She placed a personal ad in The Globe. She wasn’t just looking for love. She was looking for a benefactor. Someone with stability. Money. A future.

Dr. Wilfred “Bill” LaBarre, a chiropractor in New Hampshire, answered. He was 60, a widower, kindhearted and lonely. He described himself as “not too tall.” Sheila sent him a letter and a topless photo. He was charmed. They met in March 1987. She never left.

At first, it was a kind of dream. The quiet of LaBarre’s Epping farm, the horses, the grass, the safety. Sheila ran naked through the fields, thrilled by the space, by the freedom. She started using his last name—Sheila LaBarre—even though they never married. She called herself “Cayce,” inspired by the psychic Edgar Cayce. She told people she was writing songs and planned to become famous.

She took over the rental properties, collecting rent and evicting tenants. At the clinic, she became known for being aggressive with patients who fell behind on bills. She cleared the debt—but made enemies.

When Dr. LaBarre’s cousin, Ed Charron, refused to pay rent on his apartment above the clinic, Sheila threatened his dog. Three days later, the dog was dead.

She bickered constantly with LaBarre’s daughter, Kelly. Wilfred, once upbeat, became withdrawn. He slept in the apartment above the clinic, trying to get away from Sheila. He once told someone: “She’s got too much on me.”

By 1995, Sheila was legally married again—this time to Wayne Ennis, a Jamaican handyman who had worked on the farm. Despite the marriage, she continued to live with LaBarre. She even drafted a prenup to ensure that she would retain control of the farm and life insurance if anything happened.

Her relationship with Ennis was violent. She beat him, cursed him, fired a handgun over his head. During one fight, she clawed her own neck and bit her lip, then called the police—accusing Ennis of assault. She once proposed that he kill Dr. LaBarre, saying they’d “be rich.” Ennis eventually fled. Their divorce was finalized in 1996.

Soon after, Sheila brought another man to the farm—James Brackett, a quiet, developmentally disabled patient of Dr. LaBarre’s. In 1998, during an argument, she stabbed him in the head with scissors. He refused to press charges and the case was dropped after he signed over power of attorney. He would later say Sheila told him, in court, “I’m playing the system.”

The violence continued. Beatings. Psychological abuse. She made Brackett pick up animal feces with his bare hands. Fired her revolver near him. Gouged his face. Chopped at his camper with an axe.

In private, her delusions worsened. She accused men in her life of being pedophiles. She began engaging in disturbing sexual fantasies with strangers on phone chat lines. Her behavior became more unpredictable. More paranoid.

In July 2000, she brought both Dr. LaBarre and Brackett to Alabama for her birthday. During the trip, Dr. LaBarre mentioned that when he died, the Epping farm would go to Sheila.

Five months later, on December 2nd, 2000, he was dead.

Sheila said she found him on the kitchen floor and believed it was a heart attack. At the funeral, she insisted on being listed as his wife on the death certificate. She told the funeral director she had a gun and knew how to use it. She sang an original song she had written for him. A neighbor who attended the service described it as “awful.”

She later claimed that Dr. LaBarre had died by snapping his own neck during an adjustment—a story no medical examiner found plausible. She demanded cremation. No autopsy was performed.

Afterward, Sheila went on a spending spree. She called LaBarre’s daughter to boast about finding hidden cash. She then moved full-time into the farmhouse. Alone.

The last person who could rein her in—who had any real control—was gone. There were no more rules. No boundaries.

Just the farm. And her.

And whatever it was she believed she was meant to do next.

After Dr. Wilfred LaBarre’s death in December 2000, whatever guardrails had kept Sheila LaBarre’s behavior in check were gone. The farmhouse in Epping, New Hampshire, became her domain—isolated, fiercely guarded, and increasingly unnerving to those who lived nearby.

Sheila’s delusions intensified. She began claiming she was a messenger of God. That after her suicide attempt and coma years earlier, she had crossed over—spoken with God and the apostles in Hebrew. She said she’d been sent back as an angel. Not for peace. But for vengeance.

“Vengeance is mine,” she told people. “Says the Lord.”

In her letters and journals, she repeated the same phrase: “God told me that pedophiles have to die.”

Some neighbors refused to speak about her. “She’s evil,” one of them said.

They had seen the young men. Quiet, vulnerable. Often developmentally disabled or struggling. Men who came to the farm and didn’t leave.

They had also seen the violence.

Daniel Webster Harvey, who lived nearby, said that Dr. LaBarre used to show up at his home after being run off the property by Sheila. And after LaBarre died, other men took his place—some of them arriving in decent shape, but later seen with bruises, red slap marks, gouges on their faces.

One man said Sheila had waved a gun at him. He spent the night sleeping in Harvey’s orchard.

A handyman who worked on the farm witnessed her beating a man with a red oak switch. That man was Michael Deloge. He had also seen her hit another young man—a slow-moving farmhand—for simply grinning. Then turned and hit Deloge again. Deloge, he said, often had scabs on his face that looked freshly reopened.

Sheila’s behavior toward people in town became more hostile. She controlled Dr. LaBarre’s estate, even though they’d never legally married, declaring herself the executrix of his will. Legal fights followed. She sent lengthy, paranoid faxes to the Epping Police Department—ranting that the police were conspiring against her. That they wanted her vulnerable. That Chief Greg Dodge was obsessed with her.

She refused to let police onto her property, even when they arrived to conduct welfare checks. When asked about a human bone later found in a burn pile, she brushed it off.

“That’s from a rabbit,” she said. “Or a pedophile.”

She handed over a loaded 38 revolver without hesitation and signed the search form—but only after redacting parts she didn’t like. During interviews, her emotions would switch on and off—crying hysterically one moment, then dropping back into calm, flat affect when pressed for specifics.

Into this situation stepped Kenneth Countie.

Kenny was 24 years old, gentle and soft-spoken. He had grown up in Tewksbury, Massachusetts, not far from Boston. His mother, Carolyn, had once been a figure skater. His father coached youth hockey. Kenny had grown up on skates, idolizing his dad, and loved to sing along to music with enthusiasm.

There was no formal diagnosis, but Kenny struggled in school. Teachers said he was “a tad slow.” Other kids weren’t as kind. They called him names—“retard,” “stupid.” But Carolyn believed he was simply different. Possibly autistic. He had a bright smile, but didn’t like to be touched. He had trouble reading social cues. And she always wondered if that distance came from trauma—when Kenny was two, she had been in a serious car accident. She spent weeks in a coma, unable to speak or walk. Kenny had lost his mother at a critical time. And when she returned, things were never quite the same.

Still, Kenny was affectionate in his own way. He called his mother several times a day, came by her health club just to see her. He worked at a car wash in Wilmington and was well-liked, even if the paperwork side of the job gave him trouble. He tried hard. Wanted to do well.

He longed for independence. At one point, he joined the Army—against his mother’s wishes. She thought he wouldn’t last a week but at Family Day during basic training, she was stunned. He stood tall. Met her gaze. Looked confident.

But he didn’t graduate. He couldn’t manage the sit-ups, despite passing every other test. The rejection seemed to crush him. Whatever spark had formed was gone.

In February 2006, Kenny attempted suicide. His mother was devastated. Afterward, she became even more involved in his life—checking in more often, trying to build him back up.

Kenny, for his part, still wanted companionship. He used a dating service and started exchanging voicemails with a woman who had a Southern accent. She liked his voice. She seemed kind.

Her name was Sheila.

They agreed to meet on Valentine’s Day—February 14, 2006. Sheila offered to pay. Kenny didn’t have much. He didn’t drive to her farm; he left his van behind.

The bartender at the Hampton Beach restaurant where they met remembered Kenny waiting quietly. He assumed he was homeless. Then Sheila arrived—confident, overdressed. They didn’t look like a couple. She drank bourbon. Kenny ordered soda. Sheila dominated the conversation.

Later, they were seen having sex in her car in the parking lot.

It was a turning point for Kenny but not a happy one.

Not long after, his mother Carolyn received a confusing, frantic call. Kenny was crying. Said someone had called Sheila bad names. Carolyn couldn’t follow the story. Then Sheila got on the line.

“He’s fucking twenty-four years old. Leave him the fuck alone! We’re fucking happy!”

She hung up.

On Friday, February 17, 2006, Kenneth Countie left his apartment in Wilmington, Massachusetts. He told his roommate, Eric, that he was going to spend the weekend with a woman he had recently met—Sheila LaBarre. She lived on a farm in Epping, New Hampshire.

Kenny didn’t pack a bag. He didn’t take his van. Eric thought it strange but assumed he’d be back by Monday.

He wasn’t.

By Tuesday, Kenny’s phone was off. He didn’t show up to his job at the car wash. By Friday, February 24, with no word and his belongings still untouched at home, Carolyn filed a missing persons report with Wilmington police.

That same day, local police drove to the farm to conduct a welfare check. Sheila refused to let them inside. She said Kenny was naked and couldn’t be seen. Eventually, Kenny came to the door. He looked thin. Pale. But there were no visible signs of injury. Officers noted that he seemed anxious. Sheila remained confrontational and demanded they leave the property.

They did.

A month later, Kenny called his mother again. Said he had left the farm and was on his way home.

But he never arrived.

Three weeks later, on March 17, 2006, Kenny was seen one final time in public.

Surveillance footage from a Wal-Mart in Epping showed Sheila pushing him in a wheelchair. Kenny looked frail. He had bruises and scrapes on his face and hands. He did not speak. Sheila purchased two yellow fuel containers.

He was never seen again.

On March 23, Sheila called the Epping Police Department and spoke with a civilian staffer. She said Kenny had left her. That he was “gone.” She claimed he’d returned to Massachusetts. Her tone was casual. “He didn’t do anything anyway.”

Later that day, Carolyn Lodge called police again. She didn’t believe Kenny had left. She emphasized that her son would not have left his van, his clothes, or his medication behind. And he would never go days without calling her.

That night, at 1:00 a.m., Sheila called Sergeant Sean Gallagher.

She was crying. Ranting. Hysterical. She accused Kenny of being a pedophile. Then, without warning, she played a tape.

It was a recording of Kenny’s voice. He sounded weak. Muffled. Like he was in pain. He admitted to molesting children. Then he vomited. Sheila laughed and told the officer, “He’s faking.”

It was a disturbing call. Gallagher documented the details and began the process to obtain a search warrant.

By the next day—March 24—Epping police were back at the farm. The front gate was padlocked. That had never happened before.

Officers climbed the fence and approached the property.

They were immediately struck by the smell. A sharp, acrid stench. Burnt fabric. Something else.

Near the porch, a mattress and box spring were reduced to blackened coils. A second burn site near a hay pile was still smoldering. A metal barrel stood nearby. Flames still flickered.

Then they saw it: a jagged bone, about three and a half inches long, sticking out from the ashes. It appeared to have soft tissue still attached.

Detective Richard Cote examined it closely. The bone looked human. And burned.

Inside the farmhouse, investigators found bloodstains. On the floor. On the walls. Pruning shears and hedge clippers with their plastic handles melted from heat. A nearly empty bottle of bleach. Bone fragments and what may have been a tooth under the bed.

As the search expanded, forensic teams located additional burn sites on the property. More fragments. More teeth. Some bones had been broken. Others had been shattered by heat. A fire marshal’s dog detected accelerants, confirming suspicions that diesel fuel or similar agents had been used.

The remains were badly destroyed, but some fragments were large enough to be tested. Though DNA had largely been compromised, bone structure and dental analysis indicated the remains belonged to an adult male in his twenties.

The conclusion was unofficial, but it was clear. Kenneth Countie was dead.

What remained was to prove how he died—and who was responsible.

Then came the tapes.

Inside the house, police found more than 300 cassette tapes. Some were in boxes. Others were scattered around the living room, bedroom, and garage. In total, over 1,000 hours of recordings.

Sheila had recorded everything. Conversations. Rants. Voicemails. Her own singing. Hours of silence. And hours of degradation.

Some of the tapes were labeled with names. Others weren’t.

On one, she interrogated Michael Deloge. Her voice was aggressive. She accused him of killing her rabbits. Of abusing her animals. Of being evil. Deloge barely responded. He gave one-word answers. Sounded defeated. Broken. She told him he had to die.

Another tape, recorded just weeks earlier, was worse.

Kenneth Countie’s voice could be heard. He sounded sick. He sounded frightened.

Sheila screamed questions at him. Accused him of being a pedophile. Of hating his mother. Of working with Satan. Of corrupting children.

Each time, Kenny answered with a quiet, exhausted, “Yes.”

At one point, he gagged. Then vomited. Then passed out.

Sheila’s voice didn’t change. “He’s faking,” she said. “Kenneth Countie is faking throwing up. Kenneth Countie is now faking that he fainted.”

Kenny never denied the accusations. But it was clear he wasn’t confessing of his own free will. He was repeating whatever she told him to say.

Investigators later found a typed document dated March 10. It was titled “Power of Attorney.” In it, Kenny supposedly granted Sheila the right to record him and share the tapes with Massachusetts authorities. The language was legalistic but incoherent. It bore Kenny’s name, but the phrasing matched Sheila’s writing patterns. It was a fabrication.

Sheila had manufactured consent.

A state police investigator later testified that Sheila had screened phone calls from dating services. If a man sounded assertive, she deleted the message. If he sounded insecure or passive, she called him back.

She picked her targets carefully.

One detective described the tapes as a blueprint—a record of Sheila’s routine. Lure vulnerable men. Break them down. Accuse them of monstrous crimes. Record their forced confessions. Justify the punishment. And erase the evidence.

Dr. Roger Gray, the defense psychologist, told the court that the recordings captured a slow mental decline. That Sheila had convinced herself she was doing the work of God. That her rage came from childhood trauma and delusions of divine purpose.

But the court did not find that explanation sufficient.

The defense eventually conceded: there was no evidence that Kenneth Countie or Michael Deloge had ever harmed a child. No accusations. No charges. No witnesses. Nothing.

The confessions were false. They were forced. They were recorded by Sheila to justify murder.

In one of the final recordings, Sheila can be heard mocking Carolyn Lodge. She says, “Your mother is going to learn real quick not to fuck with me. I will torture her.”

By then, Kenny’s voice had nearly disappeared. What remained was a whisper. A shell of a young man who had once been gentle, hopeful, and trusting.

Now gone.

What police found in that farmhouse wasn't just the aftermath of violence—it was evidence of a calculated process. One that had played out before. And would likely have played out again.

And there were more tapes to go through.

And more bones to find.

Following the discovery of charred remains at the Farm, Sheila LaBarre’s behavior shifted noticeably. Though she had long skirted suspicion and maintained control over those around her, by late March 2006, her carefully maintained facade was beginning to crack. And as police began circling closer to the truth, she made a decision that would trigger a full-scale manhunt.

During the welfare check on the evening of March 24 Sheila wasn’t home, though her cars were on the property. She returned shortly after 6 p.m., cool and unfazed, and when asked what was going on, simply replied, “What’s the meaning of all this?” She gave inconsistent explanations. First, she claimed Kenneth was in the bathtub. Then, when questioned about the bone in the fire, she said it was from a cremated rabbit—before changing her story again, adding, “Well, it’s either a rabbit... or a pedophile.” Officers noted her demeanor: calm, confident, even smug. No evidence was seized that night. Sheila was warned not to disturb anything on the property. She responded with a smile and said, “I won’t touch anything.”

By the following day, March 25, the situation had escalated. Epping Police returned—this time with a search warrant limited to the exterior grounds. They found Sheila outside, now covered in ash and soot. When she saw them approach, she ran inside, locking the screen door behind her. Eventually, she came back out, crying softly and repeating, “Oh no… I’ve been expecting you.” She guided officers to the burn sites. When asked directly about the bones inside a plastic Wal-Mart bag, she said plainly: “Countie’s in the bag.” She claimed to have been burning a rabbit and some clothes, but also conceded there were “too many bones” for that to be plausible.

Despite these statements, there still wasn’t enough to arrest her. Sheila voluntarily accompanied police back to the station for questioning. She brought her pet rabbit, Snooky, with her. Over the course of a two-hour interview, she denied harming Kenneth, provided no usable information, and refused to elaborate further. She was released.

Police, recognizing the volatility of the situation, informed Sheila she would not be allowed to return to the farm. She made it clear she didn’t intend to. She mentioned, almost in passing, that she planned to go “far from Epping.” That same weekend, she contacted her friend Pam Paquin to make arrangements to sell her horses and rabbits.

What followed was a period of disappearance and uncertainty. Sheila was officially missing. She had fled the area with minimal trace, and by the end of March, her exact whereabouts were unknown.

Then came a break.

On March 27, four days after the welfare check, Sheila was spotted hitchhiking in Manchester by a truck driver named Steven Martello. He picked her up and gave her a ride to Boston. During the trip, Martello became uneasy. Sheila was erratic, talked about violence, and at one point said something that deeply unsettled him: “God said that pedophiles have to die.” He noticed reddish stains on her shoes and socks, which he believed were blood. Not long after dropping her off, he saw a news report identifying her as a suspect in a murder investigation. He contacted authorities, but at that time, there was still no active warrant out for her arrest.

That changed on March 31, when a formal warrant was issued charging Sheila K. LaBarre with the first-degree murder of Kenneth Countie. The charges alleged that she had not only killed him, but had incinerated his body. With that, the search widened into a national manhunt.

It would end just two days later.

On April 2, police located Sheila at a strip mall in Revere, Massachusetts, at the Northgate Plaza. She had altered her appearance—her hair was dyed a reddish copper color—and was using the alias “Cayce Washington.” When veteran officer Steven Moscato approached her, she initially denied being Sheila LaBarre. But when presented with a newspaper clipping showing her face, she quietly said, “That’s me.” At the time of her arrest, she was carrying roughly $30,000 in cash and a $50,000 cashier’s check. She was taken into custody without incident.

Once in custody, Sheila leaned fully into the narrative she had begun building days earlier: that her actions were not murder, but justice.

She claimed she had been sent by God to destroy evil. Specifically, she said she had been chosen to rid the world of pedophiles.

Sheila would later claim the confession recordings were made voluntarily, that she had obtained legal consent, and that she had even hired a polygraph examiner to verify Kenneth’s confession. She insisted the tape was real, and that it proved everything.

But investigators, prosecutors, and eventually the jury would come to see the tape for what it was: a coerced confession, extorted through fear, isolation, and physical abuse. The defense conceded that there was no evidence Kenneth Countie had ever molested anyone.

Sheila handed over a suicide note during her arrest, once again repeating her claims. In it, she stated Kenneth had threatened to kill himself if she played the tape. She wrote that she hadn’t harmed him, but also didn’t feel remorse for what had happened. In her words, “He was a pedophile. He’s gone. And I don’t feel bad.”

The evidence began piling up against her. Hundreds of audio tapes were recovered from her home, some containing disturbing conversations with other men, including Michael Deloge, who had vanished months earlier. The tapes made it clear: this was not an isolated incident. It was a pattern.

And the search of her property was only beginning.

Following Sheila's arrest, law enforcement launched what would become the largest search operation tied to a murder case in New Hampshire history. Nearly two hundred officers were brought in to comb through the farm and surrounding land—more than 100 acres in total. Officers fanned out in shoulder-to-shoulder lines, sweeping open fields, wooded trails, and even neighboring properties to which Sheila had access.

Inside the home, the discoveries were even more unsettling. Technicians found microscopic blood evidence throughout the house: on chairs, stairwells, and in the upstairs bathroom. Stains ranged from fresh smears to old droplets layered beneath dust. A knife stained with what appeared to be blood was recovered from a dining room cupboard.

The burn sites, too, continued to yield evidence. Additional fire pits and ash dumps were discovered, some dating back to the fall of 2005. In them were clothing fragments, zippers, and bone fragments too degraded for immediate identification.

At one point, speculation grew that another man, James Brackett, may have been among Sheila’s victims. Brackett, a mentally disabled man, had lived on her property for nearly eight years and had suffered frequent, brutal abuse at her hands. Sheila had stabbed him with scissors, scratched his face, gouged his eyes, and repeatedly threatened to kill him. Yet, in a rare stroke of survival, Brackett had escaped. He later even acquired a vanity plate reading “IMALIVE” and would later testify at Sheila’s trial

“I had to get out of there before she killed me,” he said. “After I saw the news, I thought I was lucky to be alive. That could have been me.”

Sheila had once told him she planned to throw him into a swamp or feed him to crocodiles. She even fired a revolver at him during one of her rages.

In the end, while suspicions lingered about other possible victims, only two men—Kenneth Countie and Michael Deloge—were officially recognized as victims of Sheila LaBarre.

And yet, one unsettling detail remained. During the investigation, a set of unidentified human toes was discovered on the property. Their origin has never been publicly disclosed.

Sheila LaBarre would later stand trial for two counts of first-degree murder. She pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

The tapes, the remains, the confessions—all of it would be laid bare before a jury.

But long before the verdict came, the chilling outlines of her crimes were already clear.

Sheila LaBarre wasn’t an avenging angel. She wasn’t sent by God.

She was something else entirely.

At the center of Sheila LaBarre’s crimes were two men whose lives were marked by vulnerability long before they ever crossed paths with her. Both came to her looking for connection, care, or simply a place to belong. What they found instead was manipulation, cruelty, and, ultimately, death.

Kenneth Countie was twenty-four years old when he met Sheila LaBarre through a dating service. He lived with his mother in Massachusetts, struggled socially, and had difficulty reading the intentions of others. According to those who knew him, he was trusting, naïve, and deeply lonely—a man looking for a fresh start. When Sheila expressed interest, he responded immediately. She came across as warm, confident, and affectionate. She told him she owned a large horse farm, that she was wealthy, and that she could offer him something he had never really known before: independence, love, and purpose. Kenneth took the offer. Within days, he had packed his belongings and moved north to Epping, New Hampshire.

But what he walked into was not the promise of a new life. It was isolation.

Once on the property, Kenneth was cut off from everyone who cared about him. The 115-acre farm was secluded, surrounded by dense woods and accessible only by a long, winding road. He had no car, no phone of his own, and no way of leaving without her permission. And over time, as Sheila's control tightened, she began reshaping his identity. She renamed him “Adam LaBarre.” She told others that she was in charge of his finances, his medical decisions, even his mail. To some, she referred to him not as a partner, but as her ward—someone she was “taking care of.”

Kenneth Countie’s final days were marked by confusion, sickness, and visible injury. When he was last seen in public—at a Wal-Mart in Epping—he was heavily bruised, with cuts on his face and a blank, vacant stare. Surveillance footage captured the two of them walking through the store. Sheila moved with purpose. Kenneth lagged behind, seemingly disoriented, as if unsure of where he was or why. One employee later said he appeared “drugged or brainwashed.” Not long after, he vanished.

Before Kenneth, there was Michael Deloge, a quiet, unassuming man who had met Sheila while staying at a homeless shelter. Like Kenneth, Michael had a history of instability and mental health issues. He too had been drawn in by Sheila’s outward charm and the promise of stability. She offered him a place to stay, companionship, and work on the farm. He accepted.

What happened to him over the following months mirrored what would later happen to Countie. Sheila stripped him of autonomy, isolated him from the outside world, and accused him of grotesque crimes with no basis in fact. According to multiple witnesses, she referred to Michael as mentally ill, unstable, and dangerous. She presented herself as his caretaker while beating him behind closed doors. He eventually disappeared. When asked about his whereabouts, Sheila said he was in Florida. Or at another hospital. Or simply out of touch. She kept his name on utility bills for years after he was last seen alive.

There was a pattern to how Sheila chose her victims.

She sought out men who were vulnerable—socially isolated, intellectually disabled, or in financial distress. Many had nowhere else to go. Some were recruited through dating services or phone lines where Sheila specifically listened for men who sounded insecure, passive, or eager to please. She offered them what they lacked: affection, attention, stability. She played the role of savior, benefactor, or romantic partner—whatever they most needed her to be. Once they accepted, she closed the trap.

On the farm, her control became absolute. Victims were cut off from family. They were manipulated, degraded, accused, and physically assaulted. Sheila beat them, screamed at them, and demanded obedience. She threatened them with knives, guns, or simply with the promise that no one would come to save them. In some cases, she forced them to perform humiliating tasks—like picking up animal waste with bare hands or groveling on tape. She reshaped their identities, sometimes even legally. And as she wore them down, she began building her justification.

She called them pedophiles. Over and over again.

It became her framework—her rationale for violence. Her defense for the horror.

But the accusations were hollow. Her own lawyers eventually admitted there was no evidence to support any of her claims. Kenneth Countie had no criminal history. Michael Deloge had never been charged with any such offense. These were not predators. They were victims. She made them into monsters to excuse what she had done.

The story of James Brackett provides a chilling glimpse into what might have happened to others—had they not escaped.

He stayed because he had nowhere else to go. Eventually, after an arrest for domestic violence, he was removed from the property. Years later, when Sheila was finally arrested and her crimes came to light, James testified at her trial. He said he had watched the news and realized, “That could have been me.”

Others had lived at the farm too.

Neighbors recalled seeing a rotation of men come and go—usually quiet, always under Sheila’s watch. Some left without explanation. Others, like Kenneth and Michael, never left at all. During the search of the farmhouse, police found clothing and belongings that didn’t match any known victims. An FBI profiler noted in paperwork that a set of unidentified human toes had been found among the remains on the property. The source of those remains was never made public.

One former partner, Wayne Ennis, seemed to vanish completely. Sheila told neighbors he had “gone back to Jamaica,” though his sudden disappearance raised suspicions. It was only after the investigation began that officials confirmed Ennis had in fact been deported in 2002 for overstaying his visa. He was alive and living in St. Elizabeth Parish. But his story, like James Brackett’s, showed the danger of proximity to Sheila LaBarre. He had once lived under her roof. He had been threatened, manipulated, and reportedly asked to commit murder on her behalf. And then, one day, he disappeared—lucky, perhaps, that it was only out of the country.

In the end, only two murder victims were confirmed. But the reach of Sheila’s violence extended further—into lives disrupted, identities destroyed, and families left without answers. Her pattern of abuse was sustained, intentional, and targeted. She identified men who couldn’t fight back. Then she took everything from them: their names, their freedom, their dignity—and eventually, their lives.

And for every confirmed victim, there is the lingering question:

Were there more?

In early 2008, nearly two years after her arrest, Sheila LaBarre appeared in a Brentwood courtroom and formally changed her plea. She was no longer denying the killings—instead, she claimed she wasn't responsible for them. Not in the eyes of the law. Her plea was not guilty by reason of insanity.

By entering that plea, LaBarre wasn’t just acknowledging the deaths of Kenneth Countie and Michael Deloge—she was also asking the jury to believe she hadn’t known what she was doing when she ended their lives. That she’d been too mentally ill to grasp right from wrong. During her statement to the court, she stunned those in attendance by admitting to both killings, even though she hadn’t been formally charged in connection with Deloge's disappearance. When Judge Peter H. Nadeau explained the legal implications of her plea—that she and her defense team now carried the burden of proving her insanity—Sheila nodded and said, "I do. Because I was."

Her attorneys didn’t dispute the deaths. Their argument rested entirely on her state of mind.

At the center of the defense’s case was psychologist Dr. Roger Gray, who had interviewed LaBarre several times. His testimony painted a portrait of deep psychological damage stretching back decades—starting in childhood. He described a girl who grew up with an abusive, alcoholic father and a mother who offered no protection. He said Sheila had been molested repeatedly. According to Gray, the trauma fractured her understanding of the world. She began seeing threats everywhere. She believed herself surrounded by pedophiles, rapists, and people out to harm her. Her worldview, he said, was shaped by delusions—and by a fear that, sooner or later, someone would kill her.

Gray described her actions as psychotic, even desperate. He suggested that Sheila's visit to Wal-Mart with a visibly bruised Kenneth Countie wasn’t an attempt to hide what she’d done—it was, in his words, a “cry for help,” a “test to see if anyone would stop her.” He said she spoke of dreams in which her victims forgave her—dreams where Kenneth and Michael came back to thank her for what she’d done. Gray concluded by saying Sheila LaBarre was the most profoundly disturbed person he had ever evaluated.

But the State had their own expert—Dr. Arthur Drukteinis—who offered a different view. Yes, Sheila had mental health problems. But no, they did not excuse her actions. In his view, the claims that she’d been sent by God to punish pedophiles were just that—claims. He called her “sadistic,” someone who used mental illness as a shield for her violence. He said she might have believed parts of her story, but she still knew what she was doing. And she knew it was wrong.

The prosecution’s argument didn’t rely on psychological jargon. They focused on Sheila’s behavior—how calculated it had been. Assistant Attorney General Anne Rice described her as violent, manipulative, and coldly in control. She pointed out that Sheila had gone to great lengths to destroy evidence, even burning and flushing remains to avoid detection. In closing arguments, Prosecutor James Boffetti called her a predator—someone who preyed on men who couldn’t defend themselves. He dismissed her claims of divine justice as nothing more than a cover. The truth, he said, was far simpler: Sheila LaBarre enjoyed inflicting pain.

Then came the tapes.

Over five days, the courtroom heard hours of recordings pulled from LaBarre’s farm. More than three hundred cassette tapes had been recovered—some recorded phone calls, others captured disturbing conversations between Sheila and her victims. One tape played in court featured her interrogating Michael Deloge, pushing him to admit to animal abuse and sexual crimes. He responded in short, dazed fragments. Another tape captured her speaking to phone-sex hotlines, asking men if they liked children, or if they’d been molested themselves. She used these calls, prosecutors argued, to find new victims.

But it was the tapes featuring Kenneth Countie that left the courtroom shaken.

In one, Sheila screamed accusations. She demanded he confess to molesting children—his siblings, nieces, even his own mother. Kenneth’s voice was muffled, flat, barely audible. He sounded dazed. Sick. At one point, he vomited. Sheila could be heard in the background dismissing it—calling it fake. She shouted over him, threatening to torture his mother, vowing that he would suffer. In the gallery, Kenneth’s mother sat still, her face expressionless as the words played through the courtroom speakers. His father walked out.

Alongside the audio, jurors were shown video footage. In one clip, Sheila sat in a police interrogation room, cradling a rabbit in her lap. When the animal urinated on her, she didn’t flinch. She simply wiped her pants and kept speaking. Another video showed officers confronting her with the discovery of human remains on her property. Sheila responded with a blank stare, then laughed. She denied everything.

By the time both sides had finished presenting their cases, the jury had heard hundreds of hours of tape, listened to days of expert testimony, and been shown physical evidence from the farm. Their task was not to determine whether Sheila had killed two men. It was to decide whether she had done so while legally sane.

They deliberated for two days.

On June 20, 2008, the jury returned its verdict. First, in the case of Michael Deloge: Sane. Guilty of first-degree murder. Then, for Kenneth Countie: Sane. Guilty of first-degree murder.

There was no reaction from LaBarre. She sat quietly, her hands folded. Across the room, the families of both victims broke down. One mother whispered to the other: "We got it." The response: "It's over."

Under New Hampshire law, the sentencing was automatic. There was no debate, no negotiation. Sheila LaBarre was sentenced to two consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole.

Some who saw her that day said she looked relieved.

Later, she reportedly told her attorneys, “I never wanted anyone to think I was crazy.”

It was a moment that seemed to contradict everything the defense had argued—and a moment her own lawyer called "the clearest sign of how deeply disturbed she really is."

Sheila LaBarre was sent to the New Hampshire State Prison for Women, where she remains to this day.

There was no appeal.

There was no apology.

Only silence.

The trial was over. The verdict had been read. But the echoes of Sheila LaBarre’s crimes didn’t fade with the closing of the courtroom doors. In Epping, in the homes of the victims’ families, and within state institutions—questions lingered. Grief remained. And in many ways, the damage was only beginning to settle in.

The town of Epping had never seen anything like it.

Chief Greg Dodge, a veteran of the police department, said plainly that no one in town had experienced a crime this depraved before. Epping was a quiet New England community, the kind of place where people felt safe leaving their doors unlocked and kids rode their bikes down the street without concern. That changed in 2006. The discovery of human remains on LaBarre’s 115-acre farm triggered the largest criminal search in state history, involving nearly 200 officers covering thousands of acres. Helicopters flew overhead, news crews flooded in, and locals watched their neighborhood turn into a crime scene. A few neighbors admitted they were too frightened to even speak her name aloud. One woman whispered, “She’s evil.”

Even now, some residents avoid talking about the case. The farm, once known for its white fences and open fields, became a symbol of horror.

For the families of the victims, closure was complicated—and incomplete.

No one embodied that anguish more than Carolyn Lodge, Kenneth Countie’s mother. She made the trip from Massachusetts to Epping again and again. At the edge of the Silver Leopard Farm, she planted a small shrine: flowers, trinkets, little items that Kenny had loved. She spoke to him there. It became her way of reaching out to a son who, in her words, had been “within fingertips’ reach” and still lost.

She sat through every day of the trial, listening to hours of tape that included her son’s final, tormented moments. At times, she collapsed in tears. But she remained there. In her statement to the court, Lodge said:

“Sheila LaBarre took advantage of my son, who was a kind, caring, gentle young man who could not socially defend himself... She was a master of evil. Sheila LaBarre stripped my son of all his dignity and self-worth, and in the end, she murdered him.”

Her voice broke when she said, “Oh Kenny, I did everything in my power to save you.”

Michael Deloge’s mother, Donna Boston, also took the stand. She wept as she defended her son’s name, rejecting the accusations Sheila had made. “One hundred percent not true,” she said through sobs. When the guilty verdict was finally read, Boston leaned toward Lodge and said, “We got it.” Lodge answered with a whisper: “It’s over.”

The case triggered broader questions across New Hampshire.

The killings raised urgent concerns about how the state protects people like Kenneth and Michael—adults with disabilities, mental illness, or histories of homelessness and addiction. Both men had been visibly vulnerable. In Kenneth’s case, his cognitive impairment was known. He struggled socially, and his mental capacity was described as being close to that of a 12-year-old.

Yet even after police officers saw him in public with bruises, burn marks, and clear signs of abuse, he wasn’t removed from the situation. Detective Richard Cote later admitted that he regretted not stepping in. Lynn Noojin, Sheila’s own sister, asked why police hadn’t intervened more aggressively when they saw the warning signs. For many observers, the tragedy underscored systemic failures in how the state identifies and intervenes in cases involving at-risk adults.

And there were other questions—darker, harder to answer.

From the early days of the investigation, there were suspicions that Sheila’s crimes extended beyond Countie and Deloge. Police and neighbors alike noted a pattern: men would arrive at the farm, spend time with Sheila, then disappear. Chief Dodge told investigators there were “others” who had lived with her. At least one or two of them, he said, hadn’t been seen in a long time. Neighbors, too, recalled men coming and going—Wayne, Jimmy, Mikey—and some weren’t sure where they’d ended up.

One unsettling clue came during the forensic search of the property: an unidentified set of human toes, reportedly discovered among the remains. That detail, part of an FBI profiler’s notes, was ultimately barred from court. But it added to the speculation that the true number of victims may be greater than what the jury heard. To this day, no public identification has been made.

The author who chronicled the case later wrote:

“No one except Sheila can say with any certainty what actually happened to those men.”

And Sheila LaBarre has never said a word.

Throughout the trial, and in the years since, she has shown no remorse. No apology. No moment of reflection. In court, she was known for alternating between eerie calm and sudden hostility—smiling at the cameras one moment, glowering at the victims’ families the next. When the tapes of her abuse played, she often sat unmoved. Her lawyers claimed she was incapable of conventional guilt. Prosecutors argued that wasn’t the issue—that she simply didn’t care.

After her sentencing, she surprised even her own defense team. Instead of expressing sorrow or regret, Sheila turned to her lawyers and said, “I never wanted anyone to think I was crazy.” One of her attorneys later called it the most revealing comment she had ever made. To him, it wasn’t just denial—it was a glimpse into her priorities. She wanted to be seen as sane. Not evil. Not broken. Just in control.

Whether that comment was madness or manipulation—no one can say for sure.

But for the families she devastated, for the men who vanished into her orbit, and for the town she upended, the impact of her crimes has never gone away.

Sheila LaBarre’s crimes defy easy explanation. They weren’t driven by impulse, or even chaos. What made them so unsettling—so difficult to process—was the clarity with which she acted. Her violence was structured. Her justifications rehearsed. She believed she had been chosen. That she had a purpose. That cruelty could be a form of righteousness.

In her own words, she was an avenging angel sent by God. Her mission, she claimed, was to seek out and destroy pedophiles. But those she accused—those she murdered—had no history of abuse, no evidence against them, no charges. They had only one thing in common: they were vulnerable. Isolated. Easy to control. Men with mental or emotional challenges. Men who didn’t fight back.

Sheila built a system around that belief. A logic that placed her above others. She saw herself as judge and executioner, not bound by truth or law, but by her own distorted sense of justice. In her version of the world, anything she did was justified, because her victims were guilty—because God had told her so. And if the world didn’t see it that way, it was wrong.

The language she used—about missions, punishment, purity—allowed her to rewrite reality in her favor. She spoke with calm certainty in court. She told her lawyers she never wanted people to think she was crazy. She didn’t see herself as out of control. She saw herself as right.

But her sense of righteousness was only a cover. It allowed her to frame cruelty as necessity. To torture as though it were discipline. To record the very suffering she inflicted—hundreds of hours of it—and label it evidence.

On those tapes, her voice is loud and certain. Her victims’ voices are not.

Kenneth Countie, barely audible, tries to answer her questions. He’s heard gagging. Vomiting. Apologizing. She accuses him of faking it—of manipulating her—while he’s audibly breaking down. His words come out slurred, slow, muffled. The physical toll of what he endured—beatings, poisoning, isolation—is clear in every strained breath. But she keeps pushing. Insisting. Demanding. Until he says what she wants to hear.

Sheila forces Kenneth to confess to crimes he didn’t commit. She tells him to say he raped children. That he hates his mother. That he’s proud of what he’s done. He doesn’t argue. He just repeats the words. Quietly. The sound of someone with no strength left.

In court, when the tapes were played, Kenneth’s mother sat through it. She said she had to. That she owed it to him. His father walked out. Other members of the public gallery wept.

And still, Sheila showed no remorse. No shame. She sat quietly. Watching. Listening.

After the verdict, she was given two life sentences without the possibility of parole. She’ll never be released.

But the recordings she made still exist.

Hours of her voice. Of their voices. Of the violence and the fear.

Sheila LaBarre remains in prison.

But the screams she recorded still echo.