Murder by Email

October 25, 1996.
Behind a trailer in rural North Carolina, investigators notice a small mound of freshly turned earth. They dig less than three feet. A body is waiting.

What follows is not a typical murder investigation.

On a home computer in Maryland, police uncover hundreds of pages of emails-graphic, deliberate, impossible to ignore. In them, a woman describes, in escalating detail, how she wants to die. In return, a man explains exactly how he will make it happen. Dates are set. Travel is arranged. Nothing is hidden.

The woman is "Sharon Lopatka".
The man is "Robert Frederick Glass", a county computer analyst with no criminal record.
And the emails will become the most important evidence in the case.

What happened during the three days she spent with Glass will never be fully known. The medical examiner calls her death accidental. Prosecutors call it murder. The law says consent does not matter-but the emails say everything.

This is a true crime story built entirely from verified records: search warrants, court filings, police statements, and digital evidence that changed how murder is investigated forever. It is a case without heroes, without easy villains, and without simple answers.

At its center is a question that still unsettles courts, psychologists, and readers decades later:

"Can someone agree to be killed-and if they do, who is responsible?"

"Murder by Email" doesn't offer comfort.
It offers the truth-and the unease that comes with it.