Published: December 29, 2008 11:58 am         

Local business man gets 20 years for slaying

Gary Thomas Sharron, 61 admits to killing Billy Jones in 1972, and escaping from Alabama custody to live for nearly 30 years on the run, but he denies the 2006 murder of Sammie Joe Hawkins in Kerens.

Sharon pled guilty to the slaying of Hawkins recently and was given a 20-year sentence.

“I felt I had to plead to this charge, otherwise, I’d get life without parole,” Sharron said, expressing a lack of faith in his court-appointed attorneys. He spoke in vague terms about Hawkins, alluding to danger for himself or his family if he “snitched.”

Dressed in an orange jail-issued jump suit, his hands cuffed, Sharron spoke rapidly through the jail’s intercom system, and initially refused to answer any personal questions, holding out hope for a tell-all book deal.

However, he did reveal that the lost decades of his life were mostly spent in Texas.

“I love the people of Texas, the native people of Texas. I’m not fond of transplants, even though I am one,” he said.

Sharron recounted that he spent five years in Los Angeles, a year in Houston, and several years in the Metroplex, including Irving, Lake Dallas and Garland. Finally, though, he found a comfort zone on the banks of Cedar Creek Lake, flitting between small towns like Mabank, Seven Points and Tool as his mood changed.

Henderson County property and business records for his alias, Glenn Boelter, date back to 1998. He ran a business installing raised access floors for computer wiring. That earned him enough to have a custom-built house on the lake, and to buy the restaurant, Chattahoochee BBQ, named after the Alabama river of his boyhood.

“I did fine until the twin towers went down, and I went with them,” he said, referring to the post-Sept. 11, 2001 economic crash.

Holes in history

Detectives said other police departments arrested Sharron over the years, but never made the connection, a claim Sharron denies.

“I’ve never been arrested in 30 years,” he said. “I was on my p’s and q’s.”

Calls to various Henderson County police departments turned up one citation, but no arrests.

However, Sharron is an accomplished liar who successfully eluded authorities for nearly three decades, so it’s not surprising that contradictions did turn up in his stories.

For example, Sharron gives two different accounts of his 1977 flight from Alabama custody. It began, he said, after only two years into his sentence when he was put into a work-release program that allowed five-day furloughs every three months. It was on one of those trips home that he became angry at his wife over how she was raising their son.

“I got on a plane to Dallas, Texas,” he said. “I was mad. I had to get away.”

Later, Sharron said he planned his escape.

“I thought about it for years, and what it would take to be out and not be apprehended,” he said.

“Anyone can do it if they use what’s between their ears,” Sharron claimed. “You’ve got to have a plan, and not just Plan A. In addition, you’ve got to have a Plan B. And in addition to that, you’ve got to have a Plan C.”

Sharron boasted that he became an expert at predicting the behavior of others.

“Ninety percent of the time you have to be around the corner, looking back at them,” he said. “You’ve got to stay ahead. I learned how to read people, and to pick and choose friends.”

Fear wasn’t something he would admit to, although he did say the first years were the most stressful.

“Probably the first couple of years I was leery,” Sharron said. “After that, I knew I had it made. Once I got the ID.”

Creating the past

Sharron became “Glenn Boelter” before fingerprints were required. He flew to Mobile, Ala., in the late 1970s to obtain a drivers license, aware that he could take his driving test get a license on the same day without a background check. Armed with the Alabama license, he got a Texas license easily, which he used for “years and years,” he said.

Sharron said one regret of his escape was not seeing his mother in the last years of her life, or being able to attend her funeral.

Almost in the same breath, Sharron said he didn’t regret being a full-time father to his sons.

After settling in Texas, Sharron brought his first son from Alabama to live with him.

“He’s been with me the entire time. He’s 40 years old now,” Sharron said.

Sharron also started a new family, and produced a second son.

“But (if I’d stayed) I wouldn’t have a 28-year-old son, and I wouldn’t have been able to raise him,” he said.

Error in judgment

Investigators and Sharron agree that his crucial mistake was saving parts of his old life. Sharron, as Glenn Boelter, was already in the Navarro County jail when deputies searched his storage unit, discovering a briefcase containing transcripts from Sharron’s 1975 murder trial. They sent their suspect’s fingerprints to the FBI’s national database, and Glenn Boelter was revealed as an escapee from Alabama named Gary Thomas Sharron, who was five years older than he claimed.

“When I got here and they fingerprinted me, they never would have known until they went through my storage unit,” Sharron said. “Had it not been for that 100 percent illegal seizure, I’d still be on the road.”

Sharron said he kept the papers because he didn’t think his first trial was fair, and he wanted to appeal the sentence. He claims he knifed Billy Jones out of self-defense in the 1972 bar fight. He didn’t explain how an escaped prisoner living under an assumed name in another state could appeal.

“I do feel remorseful for what happened to that young man, Dec. 22, 1972. Not a day has gone by that I’m not thinking about what happened,” Sharron said. “He was 21, a baby, just got back from Vietnam.”

Double time

Where Sharron will go first isn’t clear. Texas officials say Alabama may have him, while Alabama officials say think he belongs in Texas. Sharron must serve at least 10 years in Texas, half his 20-year sentence. He owes Alabama about 21 years.

“Considering he’s already in Texas custody, Texas would have first dibs. I’m not sure we immediately want him back,” said Brian Corbett, with the Alabama Department of Corrections.

Sharron predicts he’ll stay in Texas.

“Alabama’s not going to come get me. They don’t want to feed me,” he said.

Members of Sammie Hawkins’ family are satisfied that wherever Sharron goes, he probably won’t enjoy freedom again.

“I was very, very, very happy,” said Cathy Watson, Hawkins’ sister. “I’d have liked him to get the death penalty, but I’m pleased with what he got.”

Sharron credits his first prison sentence, short as it was, with changing him.

“I needed to be put in prison,” he said of his younger self. “I was an ignorant young man. I learned a lot being in prison — respect for other people and patience. I was a loudmouth. I jumped on people. I’d fight all the time. When I came out, I was a different person.”

     

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