April 6, 2025 • 63 mins
When a welfare check on Sherry Harlan led the Snohomish County police to her tattered and bloody apartment, they knew something much more sinister had happened. But an investigation would soon uncover a murder twisted up in pagan magic.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is
not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
It's almost like he would rather live in his car
and spend his money on stupid things like games and
stuff like that instead of reality.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
This is season twelve, episode two and eighty five of
Sword and Scale, a show that reveals that the worst
monsters are real. Well, we got lots of goodies in
(00:44):
the store stored swordscale dot com. Lots of them are
on a deep discount because I need to get.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
Them out of my garage.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
We have this saying we throw around here a lot,
The worst monsters are real. It's not something we came
up with in a focus group or that someone threw
around in a water cooler discussion, something that would be
great for a T shirt. No, it's something that developed
a lot more organically than that. When you get hit
(01:51):
over the head with an idea over and over and
over again, even for the dumbest of us, something eventually sticks.
What happened on New Year's Day in Everett, Washington is
a great example of that. The misty city of Everett
was boasting its typical winter colors of gray and green,
(02:14):
nestled in Puget Sound. It's your typical Pacific northwest Port town,
where the drab, rainy skies are offset by the endless
green shrubbery and towering Douglas Fir trees, beautiful but super depressing.
Outside the Cedar Creek apartments, two officers arrived to do
(02:36):
a welfare check gun thirty five year old Sherry Harlan.
Speaker 5 (02:41):
She had grown up until she was a teenager in Oregon,
had moved to Washington with her mother. She was working
at j C. Penny and had just moved to a
new apartment.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
This is former Deputy District Attorney Craig Matheson.
Speaker 5 (02:58):
My name is Craig Matheson. I was a deputy Prosking
attorney for Snohomish County. I did that for thirty five
years and retired in June of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Shelley hadn't shown up for the last few shifts at
j C. Penny. One of my first jobs worked in
the men's underwear department, or a suit and everything. It's crazy.
You imagine young Mike Boudet in a suit at J C.
Penny selling you underwear. Neither can I anyway, Sherry's co
(03:29):
workers grew more and more concerned every time they tried
to call her because they weren't getting an answer. And
as we've heard before, this just wasn't like Sherry. Again,
I'm not sure who the type is that just disappears
and doesn't answer people. Oh right, that's me. That's me.
(03:50):
Don't call me anyway. She actually enjoyed working at JC Penny.
She had a lot of fun with her co workers,
who teased her about the awkward laugh she had. This
awkward laugh happened so often they decided to catch it
on video.
Speaker 6 (04:06):
Oh quaker laugh laugh, Sherry call the wheel, she can't sell.
They get it to the second part of the laugh.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Look, no, we didn't get the trigger warnings on this
episode incorrectly. That was not a wounded animal. That was
Sherry's laugh anyway. Sherry had left her shift at j C.
Penny on January first and hadn't been seen since. Her
coworkers called the police and asked for a welfare check.
(04:47):
On January fifth.
Speaker 5 (04:49):
Several uniform deputies showed up at the apartment complex, which
was the Cedar Creek Apartments, and the maintenance man on
duty at the apartment complex got his keys in a
loud law enforcement entry into Sherry's apartment, and once the
deputies entered the apartment, it became pretty clear pretty quickly
(05:14):
that they were not going to be dealing with a
missing person's case, but a homicide case.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Sherry's small, one bedroom apartment was a complete disaster.
Speaker 5 (05:24):
There was a heavy odor of bleach in the air
inside the apartment. There had been some linoleum that had
been cut off the floor of the kitchen in the apartment.
There had been an amount of carpeting that had been
cut off the floor in the bedroom of the apartment.
(05:48):
Inside the apartment bedroom where the carpeting had been cut
off on all four walls, there was blood spatter, so
essentially kind of in a three hundred sixty degree radius.
Law enforcement also found a t shirt that had would
appear to be a bloody footprint on it. There was
(06:09):
a futon mattress that appeared to have several cuts that
you might expect from a knife being plunged into it.
And there was a pair of gloves, the naitral gloves,
and one of them had what looked like tissue, and
when I say tissue, I mean human tissue on the
on the glove.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
But there was no sign of Sherry or her beloved dog, Roscoe.
She was gone. The deputies could tell that something horrific
had happened in her apartment. They slowly backed up, closed
the door to the crime scene, and called in the
higher ups. Fairy's welfare check had quickly turned into something
(06:51):
much more sinister. When detectives descended on the Cedar Creek apartments,
they got to work trying to figure out what happened.
Speaker 5 (07:01):
Detectives started fanning out and doing a canvas of neighbors
of Sherry's see whether they either saw something or heard anything,
and several of Sherry's neighbors indicated that they either heard
what sounded like a relatively loud, violent argument on Saturday morning,
(07:24):
which would have been January two, at approximately eight am.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Neighbors who shared the walls with Sherry all heard the
commotion during the early morning hours of January second, They
hadn't seen anything, but they confirmed that they all heard
Sherry fighting with someone, but it just sounded like a
heated argument. Cherry's blue Nissan should have been parked in
(07:50):
its regular spot outside the complex, but it was gone.
As officers examined the spot where she usually parked. Another
neighbor piped up, but.
Speaker 5 (08:02):
There was also a neighbor that saw a man who
met the description of Eric Christiansen kind of loitering around
Sherry's vehicle. What was important about this neighbor having seen
someone who met Christensen's description near Sherry's vehicle is by
the time law enforcement got there on the fifth that
(08:24):
car's gone. Christensen immediately became a person that law enforcement
wanted to talk to.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Eric Christensen was Sherry's boyfriend. They had to find him,
but it wouldn't be hard. Let's just say that the
guy didn't exactly blend in an effort.
Speaker 5 (08:41):
Eric Christensen was a big guy. He had to go
about six two sixty three. He was probably about two twenty.
He was balding and kept his hair cut very short,
almost to the scalp. He had a long chin beard
that he would typically braid. Would often wear kilts. He
(09:08):
claimed some Scottish heritage. When you saw him, you knew
who you were looking at.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Detectives soon got a call that Eric Christensen had been
spotted at a hospital in Monroe. Monroe was about twenty
miles from Sherry's apartment, but close to the guest house
that Eric rented on a rural property in gold Bar.
Detective Bets headed to the scene and found Eric outside
the hospital, his hand freshly stitched up, wearing his signature
(09:38):
mid calf Doc Martin's, and braided, go tee, what a look.
Speaker 5 (09:44):
You know they were building their case, so they weren't
there to arrest Christensen. But what they wanted to do
is get him, you know, tie him to some sort
of statement. Maybe he would admit to the crime, maybe
he would give them information to leave them in a
different direction. Betts had the presence of mind to essentially
do Matt on the street type of interview, got his
(10:09):
recorder out, asked Christian Sin, if he's willing to talk
to law enforcement, you know that they're out looking for
Sherry Harlan and Christianensen agreed.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Eric, I understand that you had a relationship with a
woman within the last month. Can you give me her name, please,
Sherry Ann Harlan, Okay? And how long have you known Sherry?
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Since? Airpril of two thousand and nine.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Forty one year old Eric had met Sherry on a
site called tagged, which is similar to just about every
other dating website out there.
Speaker 7 (10:46):
For in a relationship first, then we started living together.
That when was that? That was in March of the
same year. Both of us were actually living in our vehicles.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Eric and Sherry stayed with some friends in Everett for
a while, but it didn't work out. They had two
couples under one roof and a small apartment and we
know where that goes. Nowhere good, very fast. So they
found themselves back in Eric's car.
Speaker 7 (11:13):
We stayed at my MAMZDA three two three, and we
just parked from various places to places. And did the
two of you ever get another place together? We finally
did and that was thinking of August.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Okay, and where was that? I was in gold Bar?
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Cherry and Eric started renting a small guesthouse in gold
Bar on their friend's property. It was cramped, but they
made the best of it. Plus, anything was better than
living in a car.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Tell me about your relationship with Sherry during this period
of time.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Well, we've been dating. We're a boyfriend girlfriend, pretty serious.
Things did go astray? What is be serious to you? Well,
we're pretty We were together.
Speaker 7 (12:05):
Roughly i'd say twenty two hours of the day, really okay,
until she got our job working at Jasey Penny's.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
For a few months, Eric and Sherry spent every waking
moment together getting by on his disability checks, but that
was no longer sustainable. Unlike Eric, Sherry actually wanted to
work and was thrilled to get a full time job
at j. C. Penny. That's when things changed.
Speaker 7 (12:34):
We kind of like grew apart, but we were still together.
When round October I think it was.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Online okay, and telling me he said, there was no eventing.
You guys just grew apart. That okay, But did you
just continue to let thegether continued to be a couple.
Speaker 7 (13:04):
And so I went to jail for my warrants that
I had.
Speaker 5 (13:12):
When was that in November? I think it was November
fourteenth of two thousand and nine. He was sentenced to
do thirty days in jail for an unlawful possession of
weapons charge in Stahomish County. So from November fourteenth till
December eleventh of two thousand and nine, he had been
(13:33):
in jail on that weapons charge.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
And did the two of you communicate during the time
that you were in jail? Nope, she didn't come busy
you or anything like that.
Speaker 7 (13:41):
She claimed she tried to, but I didn't put the
way the Snowhowish County jail is you have to put
in a visiting request right for man, which.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
King County don't have to do that. Of course I
had a stranger of that, and I had no idea.
Did you ever try to call her? I couldn't get
no a number?
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Okay, So you got out of jail the first or
second week of December, and then what happened?
Speaker 7 (14:08):
I went back to Golbor and found out that she
had her own apartment in Evert because I call her.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Eric admitted that Cherry moved out after he went to
jail to serve time for unlawful possession of a firearm.
He told the detective that Sherry had been kicked out
for not helping out at the property or paying rent.
But it was during this time that Sherry's new friend,
Dan Young agreed to help her move.
Speaker 5 (14:43):
Cherry had met Dan Young on a dating platform several
months prior to her moving out of her habitation with Christensen.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Jerry had been transparent with Dan about her relationship with Eric,
and when he went to jail, they saw it as
a way for her to get away and get her
own place.
Speaker 5 (15:06):
Dan Young was an older guy. He was employed, He
had money. He helped. When Sherry had told him that
she wanted to move out of the home that she
was sharing with Christensen, he agreed to pay them both
the first in the last months rent at the apartment
complex that she moved into, and was the co signer
on the lease. He also purchased her a flat screen TV,
(15:28):
a block of knives, and some cookie implements to kind
of set Sherry up in the apartment.
Speaker 7 (15:35):
There was actually like a brief spreach and was Breek,
what where we'd actually broken up? And when I tried
to salvage it, and she said, fine.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Now is this before or after Christmas? Before? Before Christmas? All right?
So for a week he tried to establish the relationship.
Speaker 7 (15:54):
Yeah, I was mad. I was really mad at her?
And why were you mad because of her?
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Sure? Your daddy, ya tell me about that. We haven't
talked about that yet, Yeah, her sugar daddy.
Speaker 7 (16:06):
Now, the way I believe, if you're with somebody, you're
with somebody. If you have a sugar day, even though
it's not sexual, it's still cheating on a person.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
All right. That's the way I've been for all my
life that I can remember.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Now, What made you think that she had a sugar daddy?
Speaker 7 (16:24):
Because when we were in the apartment in Everett for
that brief time, he had sent her four hundred and
fifty bucks.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
And how do you know that? Because she told me okay,
and she spent most of the money on my car.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Dan was a friend of Sherry's. He helped her out
by moving and setting her up in a new apartment.
But you also lent her money. As much as Eric
disapproved of this man in Sherry's life, he had no
problem using the funds Dan gifted Sherry for himself, elf
or his car. Then Dan bought Sherry a laptop, and
(17:05):
one day, after an afternoon of love making, Eric just
couldn't let the laptop go. Maybe it was the fact
that Dan could buy her something nice like a computer
that Eric simply couldn't afford. Anyway, it made him angry.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Because she was messing with it. And this was after.
Speaker 7 (17:27):
We had intercourse. After we had intercourse. Yeah, and I
was sitting there stooing.
Speaker 8 (17:31):
About it because it's not me right, I'm not a Christian,
I'm a wicked And then be like asking me to
become one.
Speaker 7 (17:44):
I'm one totally before Chevy's and to be asking me
to love poors.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Right, not happening, right?
Speaker 7 (17:51):
So I got up, I said, this was the last
time we're having sex, got dressed.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
She says, where are you going on? I said home.
Speaker 5 (17:59):
Christian claim to be a member of the Wickan Church
for want of a better term, and they went by
the name of the Aquarium Tabernacle Temple, commonly referred to
in the area as the tab.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Eric had been quote unquote serious Wickan for many years.
In fact, it was his whole identity. Usually people that
are really really stupid assume new identities from new things
they discover and find kind of weird and cool and different.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
You know.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
They want to be different because they're boring and dull,
so they adopt things like, you know, witchcraft and nonsense.
Maybe they start reading Satanic verses or something something edgy,
you know, and then that becomes their whole personality, because
what else is there anyway. Eric was one of these,
(18:59):
and Sherry had also joined the church a few months prior,
mostly because of Eric's influence.
Speaker 5 (19:07):
He was pretty serious about it, but in talking to
friends of his that were also part of the wicked church.
It was also pretty apparent that, in addition to the
belief system of WICCA, that Christensen was also going down
a darker a darker side.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
I did ask her, and what's going to happen? I
walked out that door.
Speaker 7 (19:33):
Yeah, she I wouldn't come back at all, and she
did not want to lose me, so she made a
little deal.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Eric was a talker, and when his pagan beliefs came up, something,
something shifted. A fire blazed in his eyes, sending a
chill down the detective spines. They needed to know more
about this deal that he made with Sherry, but nothing
could have prepared them for what came out of this
(20:08):
wickens Mouth. So now Homish County detectives were trying to
(20:42):
find out what happened to thirty five year old Sherry Harlan.
She hadn't been seen in days and her apartment was
a wreck. Police found ripped up carpet, bleached floors, blood spatter,
pieces of human tissue on a glove. It was clear
she'd been killed, but it was no trace of her
(21:04):
remains whatsoever. The last person to see her alive was
her boyfriend, Eric Christensen, a kilt wearing wicked with a
bald head and a ten inch braided goatee couldn't have
been him right anyway. When the detectives found Eric outside
the hospital with a hand injury, they started asking him
(21:26):
about Sherry. He was more than happy to talk about
how their relationship had gone downhill after she started taking
financial gifts from a friend called Dan Young. This this bastard,
this bastard that had you know, all this money for
stuff like laptops.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
You know.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Eric just wasn't happy about it, and he told police
that he had Sherry make a deal with him using
some of his coveted wicked rituals.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Tell me about this ceremony. I mean, I'm not a
wicked so I don't understand.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
So enlighten me. Okay.
Speaker 7 (22:02):
What it is you cast a circle and in that
circle is pure purity, okay, to where you can do
your ritual work, to where it's no U negative energy
is coming in.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
It's all positive energies. Right, So we put up a barrier, okay.
And so I was when we do all our good stuff, Well,
you go all your good stuff, okay.
Speaker 7 (22:28):
So I went with her. We went to across the
street to the walmart. So I grabbing because she didn't
have none of the ritual tools none. So what are
the ritual tools?
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Uh?
Speaker 7 (22:43):
Ritual tools are an athomi, which is a ceremonial dagger
which is only used for ceremony.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Okay, I'll bite.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
This is new to me, so I'm educating me. She
didn't have a wand which we use. We use a
wants to cast a circle.
Speaker 7 (23:02):
She didn't have no incense, no, no chalice, no instance burner,
no sea salt, no bowl of any kind.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Where do you get this stuff? There's actually a store
in every mall this sells all of it. Oh really? Yeah? Okay,
and right now I can't think of the name down.
Speaker 7 (23:23):
By Seers on the right hand side across the borders
Magical Gardens.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
That it's hard to take a ritual seriously when it
involves buying wands at a store next to Sears Magical Gardens.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
We went there.
Speaker 7 (23:37):
Then we went over with the dollar store to grab
a few more items. This is cheaper and a male
and female figure which represents the god and the goddess.
Speaker 9 (23:47):
Okay, and we grabbed the five channels of different colors.
You have grain, which is represents the birth on the earth,
yellow as air red as fire and then blew as water.
And then we had one more which is white, which
(24:08):
is a spirit.
Speaker 10 (24:10):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
So I set up the home, the alter and all.
Where did all this take place in her apartments? Okay?
And you remember what did this was? For some reason?
I think it's the eighteen dot all. Okay, So is
this the.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Same day that you found the computer and all that stuff?
So basically you find a computer.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
We talked and talked we did.
Speaker 10 (24:35):
Was it a conversation where she was trying to convince
you to not leave? And that's why you guys made
this pact.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
They returned to the apartment and Eric set up his
ritual space. But there was one problem. They needed a
church witness to bind the ceremony and make it real
that damn fine print.
Speaker 7 (24:56):
I called up my friend Ryan and out in a
ritual you do not have any electronic devices whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
None. So because of it was just being him, her
high called him up to be a witness for it.
And then who is this he called? Again? His name
was Ryan? Ryan was Ryan's name? I don't know. It
starts with the G, starts with a G. Yes, okay, And.
Speaker 7 (25:23):
So I asked him to participate and the term.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Okay, so Ryan participated via the telephone, the other telephone.
But what he did was he casting his own circle.
Speaker 7 (25:33):
Okay, he was all right, And I cast him the
one here, and then I conjured up the watchtowers to
watch over it so it won't no negative forces come
into it.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Right, Basically, the watchdogs and.
Speaker 7 (25:49):
The elements were the ones to witness it, and I
called upon the Lord and lady I called.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
The names I actually used was the Danu and the.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
Dagda, holding his wand in one hand and a dagger
in the other. Eric stood outside the invisible circle he
had just cast in their living room, or at least
he pretended to, because it was not a real circle.
He just invented it anyway. Sherry waited quietly beside him
and closed her eyes. Eric's friend was on speakerphone as
(26:24):
Eric looked up to the ceiling and began summoning his gods. Ooh,
we're going to have some company today, but out the
good China, I guess. As this was happening, the incense burned,
clouding the apartment with a musky thick smoke, potentially masking
(26:44):
some of the body odor. I would imagine Eric was
in a trance as he worked his magic ritual. Then
he turned to Sherry and pointed the wand at her.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
And then I haven't. I asked her, why are you here?
She told me that she was there because she wanted
to be there. She wanted to say no to sugar Daddy. Okay.
And I also asked her who does she want? She says, she.
Speaker 7 (27:19):
Wanted me, And then I took I had a pacific,
a pacific oil made for this, and I grabbed what
her zodiac element is, which air all right, instance, which
was powdered.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
I put it in there and mixed it with you oil.
Speaker 7 (27:37):
And what she had to do was she had to
confess what she was doing three times, okay, and she
had to prick her own blood her finger. She kidnaps
you too, so I had to do it.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (27:52):
And so she put three drops of her own blood
in this in this mixed year, yes, and.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Mix it off up and it's got burnt. Okay.
Speaker 7 (28:00):
Now, So what does that signify when you do that? Yeah,
signifies that you're totally willing to do that. You're giving
your own life essence.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Oh, okay to do this.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
I love the cops very banal, very ordinary. Oh okay,
the way it offsets the absurdity of what this guy's saying. Anyway,
after the blood Oh ritual was complete, Eric was satisfied
Cherry had admitted her transgression and committed her own life
(28:34):
essence to him.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
So what was the thing that she contested that there
would be no more sugar? Daddy was working?
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Eric explained that things went well for a while, even
though he found it strange that they were no longer
living together. Christmas came and went, and then Eric found
a message from Dan in Sherry's phone.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Talking about my religion on beliefs.
Speaker 7 (28:59):
I get into like an, I guess in a loracal mode,
and so I told her what does it mean by
no sugar day? She explained, okay, no sing, no uh,
no money. I said, I also use no communication.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
Eric said. They talked it out. He let that one slide.
Maybe she didn't get it. They're reconciled, but spent New
Year's Eve apart because Sherry had to work. The next day,
Eric picked her up from J. C. Penny. They had
a nice evening together. Then the next morning, when Sherry
went to have a shower, Eric took her phone and
(29:37):
started snooping. That's when he saw that Sherry had still
been talking to Dan. Oh man, what are the other
guys on the subreddic going to think?
Speaker 1 (29:49):
I said, you broke your oath? What do you mean?
What do you mean grabbed the phone? You broke your oath.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Okay, so you're holding your hand up like you're holding
the phone in front of her face.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
I had the phone into my hand. Okay, you broke
your oath, showing it to a right in her face.
You broke the oath.
Speaker 7 (30:05):
Smash they throw the fist, threw the phone off the piss.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Where did the phone land on the floor afterwards? Okay?
Did it hit a wall? Or yes? It did and
it broke.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
Eric threw a tantrum. He threw Sherry's phone across the
room and started berating her.
Speaker 7 (30:24):
And sold, you broke your blood off because that's what
it was, because she used her own blood.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Pretty much called her every name of the book. You
broke your oath. You're blilty. We are done.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Okay, so you're basically you're furious.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Oh I'm not bad. I could have been biting nails bad.
Speaker 7 (30:38):
So here behind man, But I can I know how
to control my anger, all right, if it goes a
little too far, I know exactly what my potentials are.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
And now she's broken her oath, So what does that mean.
Speaker 7 (30:52):
That means that she is no good. Her blood is garbage,
all right. Her blood buys my moldy sewish water.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Okay.
Speaker 7 (31:03):
And in the ancient texts ways she had become a warlock.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
She had become a warlock. Her blood was garbage. But
Eric said that he had not seen her since he
left that day. They had allowed fight. She slammed the
door and he left. As for the cuts on his hand,
Eric said that on his way back to gold Bar,
he was jumped by quote three Mexican guys unquote.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
How did you fight the three of them? Off with?
Speaker 3 (31:39):
After Eric's interview, the police thanked him for his time,
and he returned home, seemingly unbothered by the conversation. Then
detectives immediately called the prosecutor's office to expedite a search
warrant for Eric's house.
Speaker 5 (31:55):
Then I became involved. At that point we came to
the determination that we had probable cause both for a
search warrant of Christensen's home and for an arrest warrant
for Christensen.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
While police searched Eric's guest house for evidence, the interview,
as bizarre as it was, remained purely circumstantial. They needed more.
Then came a breakthrough that set everything in motion. They
found Sherry's car.
Speaker 5 (32:25):
Sherry's car was located at approximately two pm later on
the same day that the search warrant was served on
Christensen's home, so the afternoon of January seventh. It was
found off of a place called Riader Road, and Rider
Road is a two lane road that leads off of
(32:47):
Highway to in the east part of Snohomish County. It
relatively quickly gets out into the woods and you're out
in the middle of nowhere before you know it.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Down Rider Road. The detectives descended upon Sherry's Nissan in
a desolate pit.
Speaker 5 (33:05):
And it's an old gravel pit that young kids will
go to party at, or people will do target shooting at,
you know, things of that nature. It was apparent from
the you know, the smell and the act of smoke
that was still coming out of it that it hadn't
been there long.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
Cherry's Nissan was a husk of a car. It had
been burned to a crisp just the bare metal bones
of the car remained as smoke swirled all around. Then
they saw something unforgettable.
Speaker 5 (33:35):
There appeared to be a human skull on the front seat.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
There it was the first piece of sherry or skull,
just sitting there like a message from whoever had done this.
Speaker 5 (33:51):
What was interesting when law enforcement ultimately went into the vehicle,
in the trunk of that vehicle, they found a stack
of cut up linoleum that appeared to be of the
same type of linoleum that was cut out of the
kitchen floor in Sherry's apartment. They also found a block
(34:12):
of knives that was consistent with the type of block
of knives that had been in Sherry's apartment, And they
found a big butcher knife in the passenger compartment of
the vehicle where the tip had been broken off it.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
The brutality of Sherry's death was becoming a parent. This
had been a violent, savage murder.
Speaker 5 (34:36):
The human skull that was located on the front seat
was ultimately taken by this county medical examiner and he
x rayed that and when x raying the skull, discovered
a knife tip in the skull, So it all kind
of matched up with The weapon that had been used,
(34:56):
at least to stab her in the head was a
knife from the knife block that had been on her
kitchen counter.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
It was clear that Sherry had been killed with the
knives Dan had gifted her. All signs pointed to Eric,
but there was no physical evidence linking him to the crime,
no confession, no proof. Detectives were left questioning was Eric
the killer or was someone else involved? Then an unexpected
(35:27):
phone call would below the investigation wide open. A man
named Ryan Guessm called this Snohomish County Sheriff's office and
said he needed to talk to someone. Ryan was one
of Eric's only friends and a member of the same
Wiccan church that Sherry and Eric belonged to. He was
(35:47):
the one Eric had called on the phone to witness
the blood oath. Ryan said that a few days after
the oath, Eric called him asking for help.
Speaker 11 (35:58):
He told him that he lost his keys in the car.
I said, okay, and he asked me, do you have
anything else?
Speaker 10 (36:08):
Get the lock open with? Did he say what car? No? Okay,
He just said do you say where it was? That's
been a parking ride? Okay? So did you Were you
able to help him with something.
Speaker 11 (36:20):
I was actually able to go home and get a
coat of hair.
Speaker 5 (36:25):
So Gusby showed up to help him get into the vehicle.
Speaker 12 (36:29):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (36:29):
And when he arrived, Christensen was standing outside of Sherry's
car and he you know, he'd he'd lock the keys inside.
Speaker 10 (36:37):
I went home. He called me on my cel phone
and said he'd got it open with his Leatherman, Oh, okay,
I don't know why he couldn't do that in the
first place. Yeah, I don't know, that's okay.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Mm.
Speaker 10 (36:50):
What happened after that? Then?
Speaker 11 (36:56):
As soon as we were he told me he started
open with the leather and he said.
Speaker 10 (37:00):
I need your help, okay, and what did you? And
I said with what? And He's like thread his body?
I'm like what body?
Speaker 11 (37:16):
At that point I was like, I'm shocked, right, because
I didn't I didn't rest right.
Speaker 10 (37:24):
Did you ask him what? What body? What?
Speaker 1 (37:26):
What?
Speaker 10 (37:26):
What was his repodit to that purse? Did he say
hers or did he say any? Said hers? He killed him?
When when he asked me for my help, I wasn't.
I was so distraught. I wasn't thinking clearly. So I
said yes.
Speaker 5 (37:41):
And as they started talking with him, initially, though it
became pretty apparent that Ryan had some criminal liability based
upon his actions after the murder in helping Christensen. We
needed to get Ryan legal counsel to make sure that
(38:01):
we were doing this correctly.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
Craig, the detectives, Ryan and his lawyer sat down as
Ryan gave his proffers statement, his account of what happened
to Sherry. As the only witness to the aftermath, his
story would be crucial at trial.
Speaker 10 (38:19):
He picked people. We went to the parking ride Monroe, okay,
and what was there? Her car?
Speaker 6 (38:24):
Her car?
Speaker 10 (38:26):
And then then from there, where'd you go?
Speaker 1 (38:29):
From there?
Speaker 10 (38:30):
We took off, went up to reader in what car hers?
And who drove me? And where was Eric?
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Seated in the passenger seat in the front, Ryan drove
while Eric directed him. Inside the trunk was Sherry. Eric
had cut her body up into pieces and stuffed her
bloody limbs into garbage bags.
Speaker 11 (38:53):
He took the parts out of the trunk into the
woods with a shovel, okay, and buried the parts and
brought the banks back to the car.
Speaker 10 (39:04):
Did you go with him into.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Do you know where you stop?
Speaker 3 (39:10):
Roughly, Ryan acted as a chauffeur around what did parts
of the county Eric would make him stop, then get
out with another body part and his shovel.
Speaker 10 (39:22):
Does he get back in the car at that point?
And what does he say to the next spot? Okay?
When did he tell you about the torso? After he
took it out of the trunk? What did he say?
He is a here's part of the torso. Okay? What
were you?
Speaker 11 (39:42):
How did you I didn't know what to think?
Speaker 12 (39:46):
Okay, So did you see what he did with the
plastic bag?
Speaker 10 (39:52):
Was put it in the trunk? Put it back in
the trunk? Okay? What was the next spot? Then?
Speaker 3 (39:57):
Ryan detailed every spot they went to there that afternoon,
repeating the same awful process of hiding Sherry's remains. As
Eric showed them off like trophies.
Speaker 10 (40:09):
He took out another bag. Okay, and this time I
was standing.
Speaker 11 (40:19):
On the driver's door, and he pulled that, pulled it
out of pulled body part out of the bag.
Speaker 10 (40:28):
Okay, could you recognize it? It was a thigh sigh Okay,
he chucked it over with the guardrail. It was the
upper leg without the meat, without the meat.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
As the process went on, Eric became less secretive and
started showing Ryan the parts in the bags. After Eric
threw Sherry's thigh over the guardrail. A car drove by.
Speaker 10 (40:54):
Now you you mentioned yesterday that somebody drove VIOLI. You
guys were there, Yeah, my mom? Okay, did you your mom? Yes?
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Wow?
Speaker 10 (41:04):
Was that planned? No? How spooky said, I don't know, so,
so I had to cover up. I don't know why
I did it. All I said was he's always going
in the bathroom when I was in the view.
Speaker 12 (41:21):
What made you not say, hey mom, take me home,
or hey mom, get me out of here.
Speaker 10 (41:28):
I don't know. Did you have any concerns at all,
or any reasons why you felt that you shouldn't do that? Not? Really,
it was again not thinking. Could so your mom did?
How long did your mom's day? Five minutes?
Speaker 3 (41:48):
Small town problems?
Speaker 4 (41:49):
Huh?
Speaker 3 (41:50):
Ryan's own mother drove by as the two scattered around
Sherry's body, and Ryan's mom stayed for five whole minutes.
Ryan stood there, swallowing his terror as he made up
excuses for his mom and prayed she would leave before
Eric came back with another bloody trash bag. When she
(42:10):
was gone, they continued driving around for the next few hours,
digging small graves for Sherry's bloody parts.
Speaker 10 (42:19):
What was his demeanor like, did he act like he
was sad about this or did he act like he
was bothered by it or anything he was acting like
it was? I just really don't know what to think.
I don't know how to explain it. Was he acting angry?
Was he acting happy? Was he asking? You know, different
people between happy and angry? Really? Okay, so he wasn't
(42:41):
acting sad about her? Respondent?
Speaker 3 (42:44):
No, According to Ryan, Eric did not seem upset. He
toggled between elated and frustrated, probably from having to dig
the wet, hard dirt. He clearly wasn't saddened to have
law Sherry. After Eric had had enough for that day,
(43:04):
he took Ryan back home and said he'd pick him
up again tomorrow. The next day, they got back in
the car with the remainder of the body and continued
their sick task. By this time, Eric started talking more
and more about what happened to Sherry and how she died.
Speaker 12 (43:24):
Is there anything else that he told you, Ryan, about
what happened in that apartment or what he did that
you can help us with.
Speaker 10 (43:32):
I really don't know much about it about.
Speaker 12 (43:34):
The apartment, okay, But I mean, did he share any
other information with you. He told you that why he
did it the let oath. Yeah, can tell me really
how we killed her? Only she just said was part
of it? Was part of her was in the car.
Speaker 10 (43:53):
We talked a little bit yesterday and you mentioned to
me that he used that he was using a knife,
that he had used it. Yeah, I'm not sure what
kind of knife. Okay, h how did you know this then?
About the knife? I'm sorry, I'm troubled. It's okay. She
actually did tell me Hughes the knife, but he didn't
(44:15):
specify what. He didn't tell me what kind of knife.
Speaker 3 (44:19):
After every single piece of sherry had been dispersed except
for her head, Ryan told Eric he was done, he'd
had enough.
Speaker 10 (44:32):
You didn't go to where he put the car around,
so you told him you're on your own. I told him,
you're on your own. I've done.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
Okay.
Speaker 10 (44:40):
Where was his reaction to that?
Speaker 12 (44:42):
Was like, okay, alright, and do you know what happened
with the car?
Speaker 10 (44:49):
And he goes, I'll have to find a spot to torture. Okay.
Do you know what body parts were left? If any?
Probably an arm and a head. Kay? Why do you
how do you know that? Cause if we only rid
of one arm, okay? Oh that one or one kill off? Okay?
Speaker 11 (45:10):
And those were the only two left, okay, So there
was two two left.
Speaker 10 (45:15):
Two body parts left, a head and an arm. Did
you see them?
Speaker 1 (45:18):
No?
Speaker 10 (45:19):
Do you know how he got the car there? He
drove it. And do you know how he got out
of there? He walked home? And how do you know this?
Speaker 11 (45:29):
Because he called me afterwards after it was torched.
Speaker 10 (45:33):
Okay, inside he is on his way home, he's walking, Okay.
Did he tell you what he did?
Speaker 11 (45:38):
He told me he doused the car and lighter fluid, kay,
and set on fire.
Speaker 10 (45:45):
Did he did he indicate why he put the head
in the front seat? No? Can you think of why
he would do that?
Speaker 13 (45:53):
Is there any significance to that particular action by him?
I don't know, cause we have all these other body
parts that are buried or thrown off a bancouts or whatever,
not easily found maybe by animals, was certainly not people. Yeah,
and then we find a torched car h with a head.
(46:18):
If you had to speculate, why did Eric do that?
Speaker 10 (46:22):
I don't know why. There's no religious reason, nothing like that.
Speaker 3 (46:29):
Ryan then took the police to every place where he'd
watched Eric dig a grave for Sherry. They collected every
piece of her until they finally had a whole woman again.
But Ryan's edgy demeanor cast a shadow of doubt. Had
he really just been an observer in all of this?
(46:53):
The police still had to tie the physical evidence back
to Eric. The last place to investigate was his own property,
and they hoped he'd leave something bloody behind. What had
(47:36):
started as a welfare check on Sherry Harlan had quickly
become a murder investigation. Detectives were suspicious of her boyfriend,
Eric Christensen, who had admitted to getting into a fight
with Sherry after she broke a blood oath during a
wicked ritual. Now his friend and fellow Wickan Ryan guess Me,
(47:59):
had admitted that he helped Eric scatter shehrys severed body parts
around the county.
Speaker 5 (48:06):
Gusmy didn't have any real criminal history. He wasn't somebody
that we dealt with, you know, either law enforcement or
the prosecutor's office. We knew he was telling the truth
because he was actually able, ultimately to lead law enforcement
to the various body parts. But this is not a
guy with history. But he certainly had a criminal exposure
for rendering criminal assistance, you know, after the fact, by
(48:31):
helping dispose of the body. So to make sure that
we got his testimony for trial, we ultimately offered him
immunity for truthful testimony at trial.
Speaker 3 (48:43):
The police now had Eric in custody and at his home,
their search warrant turned up even more pieces of incriminating evidence.
Speaker 5 (48:52):
Inside of Christensen's home, they found a pair of blue
jeans that had fairly extensive blood spatter on it. They
found a pair of tennis shoes that had apparent blood
spatter on it. But what was mostly interesting to law
enforcement about these shoes is that the tread on the
(49:15):
bottom of the shoes matched the bloody footprint that was
found at Sherry's apartment.
Speaker 3 (49:23):
On top of all the blood soaked items in Eric's
dingy guesthouse, they also searched as car.
Speaker 5 (49:30):
And what they found inside the vehicle was a number
of blood transfer stains on various parts of the car,
then a couple of rings that had been put in
like the ashtray, and on the interior of the rings
there appeared to be blood inside of those Also, they
also located what appeared to be essentially a shopping list
(49:53):
for cleaning items garbage bags, bleach mop gloves, that nature.
And then he also found a number of receipts from
various stores.
Speaker 3 (50:06):
Eric left evidence everywhere, a shocking amount for someone so calculating.
He caught linoleum out of the floor, yet left his
cleanup list in his car. Maybe Eric thought he had
more time, Maybe he was just a little clumsy. I
don't think he ever anticipated that Ryan would turn on
(50:26):
him the way that he did. But I've found late
in life that all those sayings we learned as a
kid have a lot of truth and a lot of
learnings to be derived from, you know, sayings like there
is no honor amongst thieves or murderers.
Speaker 5 (50:46):
It's difficult to get inside of Eric Christensen's brain, but
I have to believe that a lot of it was
that even for a guy like that, doing what he
ultimately did to the body had to be pretty shit.
That what had occurred was so disturbing to even him
that it kept him from being meticulous in his cleanup.
(51:07):
Or he just didn't care, or he thought he had
talked his way out of it the previous day. I
don't know, but I was just glad that it was
there when the police showed up.
Speaker 3 (51:18):
Like all criminals facing trial in Washington, Eric was granted
the right to a speedy trial in Washington. Speedy means
sixty days. Not sure why they've adopted that definition, but
it is what it is. Craig and his team had
a solid theory of exactly what had happened to Sherry
(51:40):
and enough physical evidence to nail Eric.
Speaker 5 (51:44):
So our theory of the case that was, you know,
born out I think pretty pretty well by the you know,
the hard evidence that we were able to demonstrate a
trial was that Christensen was already very sensitive about the
subject of Dan young daddy. This was a guy that worked,
that had money and wasn't shy about spending it on Sherry.
(52:07):
Harlan Christensen claimed a shoulder and injury and had been
on disability for months. It didn't work.
Speaker 3 (52:15):
Eric was clearly a fucking loser in case you haven't
figured that out yet. He had no income and barely
a home. He was also a convicted felon. He was
a wicked Do I have to say more? Anyway? In
nineteen ninety he was convicted of statutory rape and forgery
and Oregon he served his prison time, and he moved
(52:38):
up to Seattle. He was supposed to be a registered
sex offender in Washington, which he was not, probably because
a lot of those states over on the West Coast,
they they just don't give a shit about crime, and
especially crimes involving sex offenders for some reason. Not sure
(52:58):
why that is anyway. In nineteen ninety four, he tried
to kill his ex girlfriend by shooting her and her
boyfriend with a rifle. This is a guy that should
have never been out on the streets after that. But hey,
you don't want me to talk about politics, so I
guess I won't.
Speaker 5 (53:15):
He missed. But the police, who just happened to be
around the corner when he was opening fire on the
two caught him relatively shortly after he took the shots,
and he said, you know something to the effect of
where I come from, when a woman cheats on you,
you shoot them, and the only reason they're alive is
(53:39):
because my front sights are off. He ended up doing
twelve years on two counts of assault.
Speaker 1 (53:45):
One.
Speaker 3 (53:46):
It was in the Washington prison that Eric discovered the
Wiccan religion and the Aquarian Tabernacle church. Why is it Aquarian?
I don't know, go down that rabbit hole yourself if
you want to leave me out of it anyway. Behind bars,
he immersed himself in pagan beliefs, becoming obsessed as easily
(54:08):
obsessed people do. After his release, he met Sherry on
that app called tagged, which nobody's ever heard about, and
just eleven months later he would kill her.
Speaker 5 (54:20):
The morning of January first, twenty ten, Sherry had been
complaining about his stomach ache, and Christensen left and went
to the Walmart, which is just up the road from
the apartment, to buyers some stuff for her stomach. While
Christensen had been gone, Sherry and Dan Young had been
(54:45):
texting back and forth. One of the last text messages
from Sherry had been her complaining about her her stomach ache,
and the very last text that Dan Young had said
back to sharing the last text that she'd ever received,
was a text that said, substantially words to the effect
(55:07):
that that's what being with two guys will do to you.
It'll give you a bad tummy. Lol. So Christensen gets
back from Walmart, Sherry's in the shower, and being a jealous,
possessive guy like he is, he goes through her phone
and he sees that text string, particularly this last one
(55:28):
where it appears that you, Sherry and Dan are kind
of a lot laughing at him being a cuckold, and
he decided to kill her.
Speaker 3 (55:37):
Craig believed that Eric attacked Sherry as soon as she
got out of the bathroom. He grabbed a butcher knife
from the kitchen and went into a white hot rage.
Speaker 5 (55:48):
Cause of death was difficult for the medical examiner to
determine because of the state of the body. However, he
was able to find on the torso three stab wounds
in her back, two of which would have been fatal
in of themselves if they had occurred while she was alive,
and there was also the stab wound to her head
(56:10):
that left the knife tip embedded in her skull.
Speaker 3 (56:16):
When Eric showed up a trial, he had finally shaved
his signature ten inch goatee and put on a nice suit.
You know, put on a nice suit every now and then.
Speaker 4 (56:26):
It's nice.
Speaker 3 (56:27):
It's good for you, it's good for your health. Eric
was unrecognizable. He was still evil, of course, all that
evil bubbling below the surface, but at least he had
the proper attire.
Speaker 5 (56:38):
For the most part, Christiansen was pretty stoic, But there
were a couple of times, particularly when we were talking
about the text string from Sherry's phone when Dan Young
was testifying about his relationship with Sherry, where he was
(56:59):
obviously angered by what he was hearing.
Speaker 3 (57:02):
Cherry's friends and family were all there. She had a
lot of mourners. Vigils had been held in her honor,
and the whole community mourned for this kind hearted girl
with a funny laugh and curly hair. Because of that,
Craig was very careful when selecting pictures of the crime scene.
(57:23):
There were over one thousand graphic images of Sherry's body parts,
her skull, and the murder scene. Craig managed to narrow
it down to an essential one hundred images to spare
her family and the jurors.
Speaker 5 (57:39):
I felt bad for the jurors. The law enforcement of
myself deal with you know, ugly gnarly stuff all the time,
and this was bad for us. I can't imagine what
your typical normal citizen was feeling like when they came in,
you know, to the courthouse, got selected for this jury,
(58:01):
and then sat for sixteen days watching just just this
parade of horrible you know that we spun out for
him and then you know, thanks for your service. You know,
we'll see you later, you know, as they head out
the door that, like I said, there are images from
this thing that I'll never get out of my head.
I can only imagine, you know, some of the jurors
(58:22):
or might have a similar, similar issues.
Speaker 3 (58:25):
It was a tense sixteen days in that courtroom, but
in the end the jury came back with a guilty verdict.
Eric would spend almost fifty years behind bars, which is
probably where he should have been for his entire useless life.
One day, we'll have an AI that will tell us
(58:46):
if you're predisposed to become an Eric, and we can
just throw you in there from birth. Won't that be great?
Speaker 5 (58:53):
The verdict had been announced. When the jail staff were
leading him back to the holding cell, he kind of
cackled in a very loud fashion. It was kind of
kind of spooky. I'm not sure whether it was something
that he already felt, or it was just trying to
be macho or and you know, kind of play the part.
But yeah, he was laughing as he was walked out
(59:15):
of the courtroom.
Speaker 3 (59:16):
Anyway, Eric, this hateable character that we've spent an hour
telling you about it was a deadbeat, if you haven't
figured that out by now, a dead beat cloaking himself
in wicked beliefs to project a false sense of power,
a sense of power that he probably felt he didn't
have really, because he's just a powerless dork, you know,
(59:42):
kind of like most of us. Some people can't handle
the reality that were mostly just powerless dorks, so they
come up with these stupid ideas. Eric's pagan identity and
spirituality weren't expressions of faith whatsoever. They were just ways
for him to pique cock, to pretend to be something
(01:00:03):
he isn't. Now Sherry started to pull away, he used
their shared religion, twisting its teachings to tighten his grip
on her. Beneath his facade, there was nothing real to
begin with, just a sad, pathetic, useless bag of blood
and guts that's just continuously performing to build up their
(01:00:27):
own ego because they know they know deep down inside
how useless they actually are. When Cherry finally found her independence,
Eric snapped his ego couldn't handle it. He butchered her,
and then he attempted to get rid of her in
the most vile way possible. As for Ryan, the one
(01:00:49):
who ratted out Eric, well, Ryan wasn't so innocent after all.
Though he traded immunity for his testimony. He was later
convicted of child molestation and twenty nineteen. Are you surprised?
In twenty twenty four, he petitioned the Snowhemish County Courts
to change his last name to Creed so that no
(01:01:11):
one will know that Ryan Creed from Washington is a
child molester. Ryan Creed, by the way, is spelled r
y A n c r ee D in case you're
doing a search. Sherry Harlan led a simple life. She
had her own troubles, but kept to herself and tried
(01:01:34):
her best to make ends meet. She was a lost
woman who got mixed up with a very very deranged man.
Sherry was Eric's final victim, but her death is a
stark and very real reminder in this world there is
such a thing as monsters, and they look exactly like
(01:02:00):
Eric Christensen. All right, that's gonna do it for another one.
If you want to check out our award winning amazing
TV show, you can do so at swordscale dot com.
(01:02:22):
Highly recommend it if you're a true crime fan.
Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is
not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
It's almost like he would rather live in his car
and spend his money on stupid things like games and
stuff like that instead of reality.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
This is season twelve, episode two and eighty five of
Sword and Scale, a show that reveals that the worst
monsters are real. Well, we got lots of goodies in
(00:44):
the store stored swordscale dot com. Lots of them are
on a deep discount because I need to get.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
Them out of my garage.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
We have this saying we throw around here a lot,
The worst monsters are real. It's not something we came
up with in a focus group or that someone threw
around in a water cooler discussion, something that would be
great for a T shirt. No, it's something that developed
a lot more organically than that. When you get hit
(01:51):
over the head with an idea over and over and
over again, even for the dumbest of us, something eventually sticks.
What happened on New Year's Day in Everett, Washington is
a great example of that. The misty city of Everett
was boasting its typical winter colors of gray and green,
(02:14):
nestled in Puget Sound. It's your typical Pacific northwest Port town,
where the drab, rainy skies are offset by the endless
green shrubbery and towering Douglas Fir trees, beautiful but super depressing.
Outside the Cedar Creek apartments, two officers arrived to do
(02:36):
a welfare check gun thirty five year old Sherry Harlan.
Speaker 5 (02:41):
She had grown up until she was a teenager in Oregon,
had moved to Washington with her mother. She was working
at j C. Penny and had just moved to a
new apartment.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
This is former Deputy District Attorney Craig Matheson.
Speaker 5 (02:58):
My name is Craig Matheson. I was a deputy Prosking
attorney for Snohomish County. I did that for thirty five
years and retired in June of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Shelley hadn't shown up for the last few shifts at
j C. Penny. One of my first jobs worked in
the men's underwear department, or a suit and everything. It's crazy.
You imagine young Mike Boudet in a suit at J C.
Penny selling you underwear. Neither can I anyway, Sherry's co
(03:29):
workers grew more and more concerned every time they tried
to call her because they weren't getting an answer. And
as we've heard before, this just wasn't like Sherry. Again,
I'm not sure who the type is that just disappears
and doesn't answer people. Oh right, that's me. That's me.
(03:50):
Don't call me anyway. She actually enjoyed working at JC Penny.
She had a lot of fun with her co workers,
who teased her about the awkward laugh she had. This
awkward laugh happened so often they decided to catch it
on video.
Speaker 6 (04:06):
Oh quaker laugh laugh, Sherry call the wheel, she can't sell.
They get it to the second part of the laugh.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Look, no, we didn't get the trigger warnings on this
episode incorrectly. That was not a wounded animal. That was
Sherry's laugh anyway. Sherry had left her shift at j C.
Penny on January first and hadn't been seen since. Her
coworkers called the police and asked for a welfare check.
(04:47):
On January fifth.
Speaker 5 (04:49):
Several uniform deputies showed up at the apartment complex, which
was the Cedar Creek Apartments, and the maintenance man on
duty at the apartment complex got his keys in a
loud law enforcement entry into Sherry's apartment, and once the
deputies entered the apartment, it became pretty clear pretty quickly
(05:14):
that they were not going to be dealing with a
missing person's case, but a homicide case.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Sherry's small, one bedroom apartment was a complete disaster.
Speaker 5 (05:24):
There was a heavy odor of bleach in the air
inside the apartment. There had been some linoleum that had
been cut off the floor of the kitchen in the apartment.
There had been an amount of carpeting that had been
cut off the floor in the bedroom of the apartment.
(05:48):
Inside the apartment bedroom where the carpeting had been cut
off on all four walls, there was blood spatter, so
essentially kind of in a three hundred sixty degree radius.
Law enforcement also found a t shirt that had would
appear to be a bloody footprint on it. There was
(06:09):
a futon mattress that appeared to have several cuts that
you might expect from a knife being plunged into it.
And there was a pair of gloves, the naitral gloves,
and one of them had what looked like tissue, and
when I say tissue, I mean human tissue on the
on the glove.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
But there was no sign of Sherry or her beloved dog, Roscoe.
She was gone. The deputies could tell that something horrific
had happened in her apartment. They slowly backed up, closed
the door to the crime scene, and called in the
higher ups. Fairy's welfare check had quickly turned into something
(06:51):
much more sinister. When detectives descended on the Cedar Creek apartments,
they got to work trying to figure out what happened.
Speaker 5 (07:01):
Detectives started fanning out and doing a canvas of neighbors
of Sherry's see whether they either saw something or heard anything,
and several of Sherry's neighbors indicated that they either heard
what sounded like a relatively loud, violent argument on Saturday morning,
(07:24):
which would have been January two, at approximately eight am.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Neighbors who shared the walls with Sherry all heard the
commotion during the early morning hours of January second, They
hadn't seen anything, but they confirmed that they all heard
Sherry fighting with someone, but it just sounded like a
heated argument. Cherry's blue Nissan should have been parked in
(07:50):
its regular spot outside the complex, but it was gone.
As officers examined the spot where she usually parked. Another
neighbor piped up, but.
Speaker 5 (08:02):
There was also a neighbor that saw a man who
met the description of Eric Christiansen kind of loitering around
Sherry's vehicle. What was important about this neighbor having seen
someone who met Christensen's description near Sherry's vehicle is by
the time law enforcement got there on the fifth that
(08:24):
car's gone. Christensen immediately became a person that law enforcement
wanted to talk to.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Eric Christensen was Sherry's boyfriend. They had to find him,
but it wouldn't be hard. Let's just say that the
guy didn't exactly blend in an effort.
Speaker 5 (08:41):
Eric Christensen was a big guy. He had to go
about six two sixty three. He was probably about two twenty.
He was balding and kept his hair cut very short,
almost to the scalp. He had a long chin beard
that he would typically braid. Would often wear kilts. He
(09:08):
claimed some Scottish heritage. When you saw him, you knew
who you were looking at.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Detectives soon got a call that Eric Christensen had been
spotted at a hospital in Monroe. Monroe was about twenty
miles from Sherry's apartment, but close to the guest house
that Eric rented on a rural property in gold Bar.
Detective Bets headed to the scene and found Eric outside
the hospital, his hand freshly stitched up, wearing his signature
(09:38):
mid calf Doc Martin's, and braided, go tee, what a look.
Speaker 5 (09:44):
You know they were building their case, so they weren't
there to arrest Christensen. But what they wanted to do
is get him, you know, tie him to some sort
of statement. Maybe he would admit to the crime, maybe
he would give them information to leave them in a
different direction. Betts had the presence of mind to essentially
do Matt on the street type of interview, got his
(10:09):
recorder out, asked Christian Sin, if he's willing to talk
to law enforcement, you know that they're out looking for
Sherry Harlan and Christianensen agreed.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Eric, I understand that you had a relationship with a
woman within the last month. Can you give me her name, please,
Sherry Ann Harlan, Okay? And how long have you known Sherry?
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Since? Airpril of two thousand and nine.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Forty one year old Eric had met Sherry on a
site called tagged, which is similar to just about every
other dating website out there.
Speaker 7 (10:46):
For in a relationship first, then we started living together.
That when was that? That was in March of the
same year. Both of us were actually living in our vehicles.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Eric and Sherry stayed with some friends in Everett for
a while, but it didn't work out. They had two
couples under one roof and a small apartment and we
know where that goes. Nowhere good, very fast. So they
found themselves back in Eric's car.
Speaker 7 (11:13):
We stayed at my MAMZDA three two three, and we
just parked from various places to places. And did the
two of you ever get another place together? We finally
did and that was thinking of August.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Okay, and where was that? I was in gold Bar?
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Cherry and Eric started renting a small guesthouse in gold
Bar on their friend's property. It was cramped, but they
made the best of it. Plus, anything was better than
living in a car.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Tell me about your relationship with Sherry during this period
of time.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Well, we've been dating. We're a boyfriend girlfriend, pretty serious.
Things did go astray? What is be serious to you? Well,
we're pretty We were together.
Speaker 7 (12:05):
Roughly i'd say twenty two hours of the day, really okay,
until she got our job working at Jasey Penny's.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
For a few months, Eric and Sherry spent every waking
moment together getting by on his disability checks, but that
was no longer sustainable. Unlike Eric, Sherry actually wanted to
work and was thrilled to get a full time job
at j. C. Penny. That's when things changed.
Speaker 7 (12:34):
We kind of like grew apart, but we were still together.
When round October I think it was.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Online okay, and telling me he said, there was no eventing.
You guys just grew apart. That okay, But did you
just continue to let thegether continued to be a couple.
Speaker 7 (13:04):
And so I went to jail for my warrants that
I had.
Speaker 5 (13:12):
When was that in November? I think it was November
fourteenth of two thousand and nine. He was sentenced to
do thirty days in jail for an unlawful possession of
weapons charge in Stahomish County. So from November fourteenth till
December eleventh of two thousand and nine, he had been
(13:33):
in jail on that weapons charge.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
And did the two of you communicate during the time
that you were in jail? Nope, she didn't come busy
you or anything like that.
Speaker 7 (13:41):
She claimed she tried to, but I didn't put the
way the Snowhowish County jail is you have to put
in a visiting request right for man, which.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
King County don't have to do that. Of course I
had a stranger of that, and I had no idea.
Did you ever try to call her? I couldn't get
no a number?
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Okay, So you got out of jail the first or
second week of December, and then what happened?
Speaker 7 (14:08):
I went back to Golbor and found out that she
had her own apartment in Evert because I call her.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
Eric admitted that Cherry moved out after he went to
jail to serve time for unlawful possession of a firearm.
He told the detective that Sherry had been kicked out
for not helping out at the property or paying rent.
But it was during this time that Sherry's new friend,
Dan Young agreed to help her move.
Speaker 5 (14:43):
Cherry had met Dan Young on a dating platform several
months prior to her moving out of her habitation with Christensen.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Jerry had been transparent with Dan about her relationship with Eric,
and when he went to jail, they saw it as
a way for her to get away and get her
own place.
Speaker 5 (15:06):
Dan Young was an older guy. He was employed, He
had money. He helped. When Sherry had told him that
she wanted to move out of the home that she
was sharing with Christensen, he agreed to pay them both
the first in the last months rent at the apartment
complex that she moved into, and was the co signer
on the lease. He also purchased her a flat screen TV,
(15:28):
a block of knives, and some cookie implements to kind
of set Sherry up in the apartment.
Speaker 7 (15:35):
There was actually like a brief spreach and was Breek,
what where we'd actually broken up? And when I tried
to salvage it, and she said, fine.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Now is this before or after Christmas? Before? Before Christmas? All right?
So for a week he tried to establish the relationship.
Speaker 7 (15:54):
Yeah, I was mad. I was really mad at her?
And why were you mad because of her?
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Sure? Your daddy, ya tell me about that. We haven't
talked about that yet, Yeah, her sugar daddy.
Speaker 7 (16:06):
Now, the way I believe, if you're with somebody, you're
with somebody. If you have a sugar day, even though
it's not sexual, it's still cheating on a person.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
All right. That's the way I've been for all my
life that I can remember.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Now, What made you think that she had a sugar daddy?
Speaker 7 (16:24):
Because when we were in the apartment in Everett for
that brief time, he had sent her four hundred and
fifty bucks.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
And how do you know that? Because she told me okay,
and she spent most of the money on my car.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Dan was a friend of Sherry's. He helped her out
by moving and setting her up in a new apartment.
But you also lent her money. As much as Eric
disapproved of this man in Sherry's life, he had no
problem using the funds Dan gifted Sherry for himself, elf
or his car. Then Dan bought Sherry a laptop, and
(17:05):
one day, after an afternoon of love making, Eric just
couldn't let the laptop go. Maybe it was the fact
that Dan could buy her something nice like a computer
that Eric simply couldn't afford. Anyway, it made him angry.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Because she was messing with it. And this was after.
Speaker 7 (17:27):
We had intercourse. After we had intercourse. Yeah, and I
was sitting there stooing.
Speaker 8 (17:31):
About it because it's not me right, I'm not a Christian,
I'm a wicked And then be like asking me to
become one.
Speaker 7 (17:44):
I'm one totally before Chevy's and to be asking me
to love poors.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Right, not happening, right?
Speaker 7 (17:51):
So I got up, I said, this was the last
time we're having sex, got dressed.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
She says, where are you going on? I said home.
Speaker 5 (17:59):
Christian claim to be a member of the Wickan Church
for want of a better term, and they went by
the name of the Aquarium Tabernacle Temple, commonly referred to
in the area as the tab.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Eric had been quote unquote serious Wickan for many years.
In fact, it was his whole identity. Usually people that
are really really stupid assume new identities from new things
they discover and find kind of weird and cool and different.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
You know.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
They want to be different because they're boring and dull,
so they adopt things like, you know, witchcraft and nonsense.
Maybe they start reading Satanic verses or something something edgy,
you know, and then that becomes their whole personality, because
what else is there anyway. Eric was one of these,
(18:59):
and Sherry had also joined the church a few months prior,
mostly because of Eric's influence.
Speaker 5 (19:07):
He was pretty serious about it, but in talking to
friends of his that were also part of the wicked church.
It was also pretty apparent that, in addition to the
belief system of WICCA, that Christensen was also going down
a darker a darker side.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
I did ask her, and what's going to happen? I
walked out that door.
Speaker 7 (19:33):
Yeah, she I wouldn't come back at all, and she
did not want to lose me, so she made a
little deal.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Eric was a talker, and when his pagan beliefs came up, something,
something shifted. A fire blazed in his eyes, sending a
chill down the detective spines. They needed to know more
about this deal that he made with Sherry, but nothing
could have prepared them for what came out of this
(20:08):
wickens Mouth. So now Homish County detectives were trying to
(20:42):
find out what happened to thirty five year old Sherry Harlan.
She hadn't been seen in days and her apartment was
a wreck. Police found ripped up carpet, bleached floors, blood spatter,
pieces of human tissue on a glove. It was clear
she'd been killed, but it was no trace of her
(21:04):
remains whatsoever. The last person to see her alive was
her boyfriend, Eric Christensen, a kilt wearing wicked with a
bald head and a ten inch braided goatee couldn't have
been him right anyway. When the detectives found Eric outside
the hospital with a hand injury, they started asking him
(21:26):
about Sherry. He was more than happy to talk about
how their relationship had gone downhill after she started taking
financial gifts from a friend called Dan Young. This this bastard,
this bastard that had you know, all this money for
stuff like laptops.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
You know.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Eric just wasn't happy about it, and he told police
that he had Sherry make a deal with him using
some of his coveted wicked rituals.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Tell me about this ceremony. I mean, I'm not a
wicked so I don't understand.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
So enlighten me. Okay.
Speaker 7 (22:02):
What it is you cast a circle and in that
circle is pure purity, okay, to where you can do
your ritual work, to where it's no U negative energy
is coming in.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
It's all positive energies. Right, So we put up a barrier, okay.
And so I was when we do all our good stuff, Well,
you go all your good stuff, okay.
Speaker 7 (22:28):
So I went with her. We went to across the
street to the walmart. So I grabbing because she didn't
have none of the ritual tools none. So what are
the ritual tools?
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Uh?
Speaker 7 (22:43):
Ritual tools are an athomi, which is a ceremonial dagger
which is only used for ceremony.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Okay, I'll bite.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
This is new to me, so I'm educating me. She
didn't have a wand which we use. We use a
wants to cast a circle.
Speaker 7 (23:02):
She didn't have no incense, no, no chalice, no instance burner,
no sea salt, no bowl of any kind.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Where do you get this stuff? There's actually a store
in every mall this sells all of it. Oh really? Yeah? Okay,
and right now I can't think of the name down.
Speaker 7 (23:23):
By Seers on the right hand side across the borders
Magical Gardens.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
That it's hard to take a ritual seriously when it
involves buying wands at a store next to Sears Magical Gardens.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
We went there.
Speaker 7 (23:37):
Then we went over with the dollar store to grab
a few more items. This is cheaper and a male
and female figure which represents the god and the goddess.
Speaker 9 (23:47):
Okay, and we grabbed the five channels of different colors.
You have grain, which is represents the birth on the earth,
yellow as air red as fire and then blew as water.
And then we had one more which is white, which
(24:08):
is a spirit.
Speaker 10 (24:10):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
So I set up the home, the alter and all.
Where did all this take place in her apartments? Okay?
And you remember what did this was? For some reason?
I think it's the eighteen dot all. Okay, So is
this the.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Same day that you found the computer and all that stuff?
So basically you find a computer.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
We talked and talked we did.
Speaker 10 (24:35):
Was it a conversation where she was trying to convince
you to not leave? And that's why you guys made
this pact.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
They returned to the apartment and Eric set up his
ritual space. But there was one problem. They needed a
church witness to bind the ceremony and make it real
that damn fine print.
Speaker 7 (24:56):
I called up my friend Ryan and out in a
ritual you do not have any electronic devices whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
None. So because of it was just being him, her
high called him up to be a witness for it.
And then who is this he called? Again? His name
was Ryan? Ryan was Ryan's name? I don't know. It
starts with the G, starts with a G. Yes, okay, And.
Speaker 7 (25:23):
So I asked him to participate and the term.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Okay, so Ryan participated via the telephone, the other telephone.
But what he did was he casting his own circle.
Speaker 7 (25:33):
Okay, he was all right, And I cast him the
one here, and then I conjured up the watchtowers to
watch over it so it won't no negative forces come
into it.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Right, Basically, the watchdogs and.
Speaker 7 (25:49):
The elements were the ones to witness it, and I
called upon the Lord and lady I called.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
The names I actually used was the Danu and the.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
Dagda, holding his wand in one hand and a dagger
in the other. Eric stood outside the invisible circle he
had just cast in their living room, or at least
he pretended to, because it was not a real circle.
He just invented it anyway. Sherry waited quietly beside him
and closed her eyes. Eric's friend was on speakerphone as
(26:24):
Eric looked up to the ceiling and began summoning his gods. Ooh,
we're going to have some company today, but out the
good China, I guess. As this was happening, the incense burned,
clouding the apartment with a musky thick smoke, potentially masking
(26:44):
some of the body odor. I would imagine Eric was
in a trance as he worked his magic ritual. Then
he turned to Sherry and pointed the wand at her.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
And then I haven't. I asked her, why are you here?
She told me that she was there because she wanted
to be there. She wanted to say no to sugar Daddy. Okay.
And I also asked her who does she want? She says, she.
Speaker 7 (27:19):
Wanted me, And then I took I had a pacific,
a pacific oil made for this, and I grabbed what
her zodiac element is, which air all right, instance, which
was powdered.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
I put it in there and mixed it with you oil.
Speaker 7 (27:37):
And what she had to do was she had to
confess what she was doing three times, okay, and she
had to prick her own blood her finger. She kidnaps
you too, so I had to do it.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (27:52):
And so she put three drops of her own blood
in this in this mixed year, yes, and.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Mix it off up and it's got burnt. Okay.
Speaker 7 (28:00):
Now, So what does that signify when you do that? Yeah,
signifies that you're totally willing to do that. You're giving
your own life essence.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Oh, okay to do this.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
I love the cops very banal, very ordinary. Oh okay,
the way it offsets the absurdity of what this guy's saying. Anyway,
after the blood Oh ritual was complete, Eric was satisfied
Cherry had admitted her transgression and committed her own life
(28:34):
essence to him.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
So what was the thing that she contested that there
would be no more sugar? Daddy was working?
Speaker 3 (28:42):
Eric explained that things went well for a while, even
though he found it strange that they were no longer
living together. Christmas came and went, and then Eric found
a message from Dan in Sherry's phone.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Talking about my religion on beliefs.
Speaker 7 (28:59):
I get into like an, I guess in a loracal mode,
and so I told her what does it mean by
no sugar day? She explained, okay, no sing, no uh,
no money. I said, I also use no communication.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
Eric said. They talked it out. He let that one slide.
Maybe she didn't get it. They're reconciled, but spent New
Year's Eve apart because Sherry had to work. The next day,
Eric picked her up from J. C. Penny. They had
a nice evening together. Then the next morning, when Sherry
went to have a shower, Eric took her phone and
(29:37):
started snooping. That's when he saw that Sherry had still
been talking to Dan. Oh man, what are the other
guys on the subreddic going to think?
Speaker 1 (29:49):
I said, you broke your oath? What do you mean?
What do you mean grabbed the phone? You broke your oath.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Okay, so you're holding your hand up like you're holding
the phone in front of her face.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
I had the phone into my hand. Okay, you broke
your oath, showing it to a right in her face.
You broke the oath.
Speaker 7 (30:05):
Smash they throw the fist, threw the phone off the piss.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
Where did the phone land on the floor afterwards? Okay?
Did it hit a wall? Or yes? It did and
it broke.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
Eric threw a tantrum. He threw Sherry's phone across the
room and started berating her.
Speaker 7 (30:24):
And sold, you broke your blood off because that's what
it was, because she used her own blood.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Pretty much called her every name of the book. You
broke your oath. You're blilty. We are done.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Okay, so you're basically you're furious.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Oh I'm not bad. I could have been biting nails bad.
Speaker 7 (30:38):
So here behind man, But I can I know how
to control my anger, all right, if it goes a
little too far, I know exactly what my potentials are.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
And now she's broken her oath, So what does that mean.
Speaker 7 (30:52):
That means that she is no good. Her blood is garbage,
all right. Her blood buys my moldy sewish water.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Okay.
Speaker 7 (31:03):
And in the ancient texts ways she had become a warlock.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
She had become a warlock. Her blood was garbage. But
Eric said that he had not seen her since he
left that day. They had allowed fight. She slammed the
door and he left. As for the cuts on his hand,
Eric said that on his way back to gold Bar,
he was jumped by quote three Mexican guys unquote.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
How did you fight the three of them? Off with?
Speaker 3 (31:39):
After Eric's interview, the police thanked him for his time,
and he returned home, seemingly unbothered by the conversation. Then
detectives immediately called the prosecutor's office to expedite a search
warrant for Eric's house.
Speaker 5 (31:55):
Then I became involved. At that point we came to
the determination that we had probable cause both for a
search warrant of Christensen's home and for an arrest warrant
for Christensen.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
While police searched Eric's guest house for evidence, the interview,
as bizarre as it was, remained purely circumstantial. They needed more.
Then came a breakthrough that set everything in motion. They
found Sherry's car.
Speaker 5 (32:25):
Sherry's car was located at approximately two pm later on
the same day that the search warrant was served on
Christensen's home, so the afternoon of January seventh. It was
found off of a place called Riader Road, and Rider
Road is a two lane road that leads off of
(32:47):
Highway to in the east part of Snohomish County. It
relatively quickly gets out into the woods and you're out
in the middle of nowhere before you know it.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Down Rider Road. The detectives descended upon Sherry's Nissan in
a desolate pit.
Speaker 5 (33:05):
And it's an old gravel pit that young kids will
go to party at, or people will do target shooting at,
you know, things of that nature. It was apparent from
the you know, the smell and the act of smoke
that was still coming out of it that it hadn't
been there long.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
Cherry's Nissan was a husk of a car. It had
been burned to a crisp just the bare metal bones
of the car remained as smoke swirled all around. Then
they saw something unforgettable.
Speaker 5 (33:35):
There appeared to be a human skull on the front seat.
Speaker 3 (33:39):
There it was the first piece of sherry or skull,
just sitting there like a message from whoever had done this.
Speaker 5 (33:51):
What was interesting when law enforcement ultimately went into the vehicle,
in the trunk of that vehicle, they found a stack
of cut up linoleum that appeared to be of the
same type of linoleum that was cut out of the
kitchen floor in Sherry's apartment. They also found a block
(34:12):
of knives that was consistent with the type of block
of knives that had been in Sherry's apartment, And they
found a big butcher knife in the passenger compartment of
the vehicle where the tip had been broken off it.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
The brutality of Sherry's death was becoming a parent. This
had been a violent, savage murder.
Speaker 5 (34:36):
The human skull that was located on the front seat
was ultimately taken by this county medical examiner and he
x rayed that and when x raying the skull, discovered
a knife tip in the skull, So it all kind
of matched up with The weapon that had been used,
(34:56):
at least to stab her in the head was a
knife from the knife block that had been on her
kitchen counter.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
It was clear that Sherry had been killed with the
knives Dan had gifted her. All signs pointed to Eric,
but there was no physical evidence linking him to the crime,
no confession, no proof. Detectives were left questioning was Eric
the killer or was someone else involved? Then an unexpected
(35:27):
phone call would below the investigation wide open. A man
named Ryan Guessm called this Snohomish County Sheriff's office and
said he needed to talk to someone. Ryan was one
of Eric's only friends and a member of the same
Wiccan church that Sherry and Eric belonged to. He was
(35:47):
the one Eric had called on the phone to witness
the blood oath. Ryan said that a few days after
the oath, Eric called him asking for help.
Speaker 11 (35:58):
He told him that he lost his keys in the car.
I said, okay, and he asked me, do you have
anything else?
Speaker 10 (36:08):
Get the lock open with? Did he say what car? No? Okay,
He just said do you say where it was? That's
been a parking ride? Okay? So did you Were you
able to help him with something.
Speaker 11 (36:20):
I was actually able to go home and get a
coat of hair.
Speaker 5 (36:25):
So Gusby showed up to help him get into the vehicle.
Speaker 12 (36:29):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (36:29):
And when he arrived, Christensen was standing outside of Sherry's
car and he you know, he'd he'd lock the keys inside.
Speaker 10 (36:37):
I went home. He called me on my cel phone
and said he'd got it open with his Leatherman, Oh, okay,
I don't know why he couldn't do that in the
first place. Yeah, I don't know, that's okay.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Mm.
Speaker 10 (36:50):
What happened after that? Then?
Speaker 11 (36:56):
As soon as we were he told me he started
open with the leather and he said.
Speaker 10 (37:00):
I need your help, okay, and what did you? And
I said with what? And He's like thread his body?
I'm like what body?
Speaker 11 (37:16):
At that point I was like, I'm shocked, right, because
I didn't I didn't rest right.
Speaker 10 (37:24):
Did you ask him what? What body? What?
Speaker 1 (37:26):
What?
Speaker 10 (37:26):
What was his repodit to that purse? Did he say
hers or did he say any? Said hers? He killed him?
When when he asked me for my help, I wasn't.
I was so distraught. I wasn't thinking clearly. So I
said yes.
Speaker 5 (37:41):
And as they started talking with him, initially, though it
became pretty apparent that Ryan had some criminal liability based
upon his actions after the murder in helping Christensen. We
needed to get Ryan legal counsel to make sure that
(38:01):
we were doing this correctly.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
Craig, the detectives, Ryan and his lawyer sat down as
Ryan gave his proffers statement, his account of what happened
to Sherry. As the only witness to the aftermath, his
story would be crucial at trial.
Speaker 10 (38:19):
He picked people. We went to the parking ride Monroe, okay,
and what was there? Her car?
Speaker 6 (38:24):
Her car?
Speaker 10 (38:26):
And then then from there, where'd you go?
Speaker 1 (38:29):
From there?
Speaker 10 (38:30):
We took off, went up to reader in what car hers?
And who drove me? And where was Eric?
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Seated in the passenger seat in the front, Ryan drove
while Eric directed him. Inside the trunk was Sherry. Eric
had cut her body up into pieces and stuffed her
bloody limbs into garbage bags.
Speaker 11 (38:53):
He took the parts out of the trunk into the
woods with a shovel, okay, and buried the parts and
brought the banks back to the car.
Speaker 10 (39:04):
Did you go with him into.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Do you know where you stop?
Speaker 3 (39:10):
Roughly, Ryan acted as a chauffeur around what did parts
of the county Eric would make him stop, then get
out with another body part and his shovel.
Speaker 10 (39:22):
Does he get back in the car at that point?
And what does he say to the next spot? Okay?
When did he tell you about the torso? After he
took it out of the trunk? What did he say?
He is a here's part of the torso. Okay? What
were you?
Speaker 11 (39:42):
How did you I didn't know what to think?
Speaker 12 (39:46):
Okay, So did you see what he did with the
plastic bag?
Speaker 10 (39:52):
Was put it in the trunk? Put it back in
the trunk? Okay? What was the next spot? Then?
Speaker 3 (39:57):
Ryan detailed every spot they went to there that afternoon,
repeating the same awful process of hiding Sherry's remains. As
Eric showed them off like trophies.
Speaker 10 (40:09):
He took out another bag. Okay, and this time I
was standing.
Speaker 11 (40:19):
On the driver's door, and he pulled that, pulled it
out of pulled body part out of the bag.
Speaker 10 (40:28):
Okay, could you recognize it? It was a thigh sigh Okay,
he chucked it over with the guardrail. It was the
upper leg without the meat, without the meat.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
As the process went on, Eric became less secretive and
started showing Ryan the parts in the bags. After Eric
threw Sherry's thigh over the guardrail. A car drove by.
Speaker 10 (40:54):
Now you you mentioned yesterday that somebody drove VIOLI. You
guys were there, Yeah, my mom? Okay, did you your mom? Yes?
Speaker 1 (41:02):
Wow?
Speaker 10 (41:04):
Was that planned? No? How spooky said, I don't know, so,
so I had to cover up. I don't know why
I did it. All I said was he's always going
in the bathroom when I was in the view.
Speaker 12 (41:21):
What made you not say, hey mom, take me home,
or hey mom, get me out of here.
Speaker 10 (41:28):
I don't know. Did you have any concerns at all,
or any reasons why you felt that you shouldn't do that? Not? Really,
it was again not thinking. Could so your mom did?
How long did your mom's day? Five minutes?
Speaker 3 (41:48):
Small town problems?
Speaker 4 (41:49):
Huh?
Speaker 3 (41:50):
Ryan's own mother drove by as the two scattered around
Sherry's body, and Ryan's mom stayed for five whole minutes.
Ryan stood there, swallowing his terror as he made up
excuses for his mom and prayed she would leave before
Eric came back with another bloody trash bag. When she
(42:10):
was gone, they continued driving around for the next few hours,
digging small graves for Sherry's bloody parts.
Speaker 10 (42:19):
What was his demeanor like, did he act like he
was sad about this or did he act like he
was bothered by it or anything he was acting like
it was? I just really don't know what to think.
I don't know how to explain it. Was he acting angry?
Was he acting happy? Was he asking? You know, different
people between happy and angry? Really? Okay, so he wasn't
(42:41):
acting sad about her? Respondent?
Speaker 3 (42:44):
No, According to Ryan, Eric did not seem upset. He
toggled between elated and frustrated, probably from having to dig
the wet, hard dirt. He clearly wasn't saddened to have
law Sherry. After Eric had had enough for that day,
(43:04):
he took Ryan back home and said he'd pick him
up again tomorrow. The next day, they got back in
the car with the remainder of the body and continued
their sick task. By this time, Eric started talking more
and more about what happened to Sherry and how she died.
Speaker 12 (43:24):
Is there anything else that he told you, Ryan, about
what happened in that apartment or what he did that
you can help us with.
Speaker 10 (43:32):
I really don't know much about it about.
Speaker 12 (43:34):
The apartment, okay, But I mean, did he share any
other information with you. He told you that why he
did it the let oath. Yeah, can tell me really
how we killed her? Only she just said was part
of it? Was part of her was in the car.
Speaker 10 (43:53):
We talked a little bit yesterday and you mentioned to
me that he used that he was using a knife,
that he had used it. Yeah, I'm not sure what
kind of knife. Okay, h how did you know this then?
About the knife? I'm sorry, I'm troubled. It's okay. She
actually did tell me Hughes the knife, but he didn't
(44:15):
specify what. He didn't tell me what kind of knife.
Speaker 3 (44:19):
After every single piece of sherry had been dispersed except
for her head, Ryan told Eric he was done, he'd
had enough.
Speaker 10 (44:32):
You didn't go to where he put the car around,
so you told him you're on your own. I told him,
you're on your own. I've done.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
Okay.
Speaker 10 (44:40):
Where was his reaction to that?
Speaker 12 (44:42):
Was like, okay, alright, and do you know what happened
with the car?
Speaker 10 (44:49):
And he goes, I'll have to find a spot to torture. Okay.
Do you know what body parts were left? If any?
Probably an arm and a head. Kay? Why do you
how do you know that? Cause if we only rid
of one arm, okay? Oh that one or one kill off? Okay?
Speaker 11 (45:10):
And those were the only two left, okay, So there
was two two left.
Speaker 10 (45:15):
Two body parts left, a head and an arm. Did
you see them?
Speaker 1 (45:18):
No?
Speaker 10 (45:19):
Do you know how he got the car there? He
drove it. And do you know how he got out
of there? He walked home? And how do you know this?
Speaker 11 (45:29):
Because he called me afterwards after it was torched.
Speaker 10 (45:33):
Okay, inside he is on his way home, he's walking, Okay.
Did he tell you what he did?
Speaker 11 (45:38):
He told me he doused the car and lighter fluid, kay,
and set on fire.
Speaker 10 (45:45):
Did he did he indicate why he put the head
in the front seat? No? Can you think of why
he would do that?
Speaker 13 (45:53):
Is there any significance to that particular action by him?
I don't know, cause we have all these other body
parts that are buried or thrown off a bancouts or whatever,
not easily found maybe by animals, was certainly not people. Yeah,
and then we find a torched car h with a head.
(46:18):
If you had to speculate, why did Eric do that?
Speaker 10 (46:22):
I don't know why. There's no religious reason, nothing like that.
Speaker 3 (46:29):
Ryan then took the police to every place where he'd
watched Eric dig a grave for Sherry. They collected every
piece of her until they finally had a whole woman again.
But Ryan's edgy demeanor cast a shadow of doubt. Had
he really just been an observer in all of this?
(46:53):
The police still had to tie the physical evidence back
to Eric. The last place to investigate was his own property,
and they hoped he'd leave something bloody behind. What had
(47:36):
started as a welfare check on Sherry Harlan had quickly
become a murder investigation. Detectives were suspicious of her boyfriend,
Eric Christensen, who had admitted to getting into a fight
with Sherry after she broke a blood oath during a
wicked ritual. Now his friend and fellow Wickan Ryan guess Me,
(47:59):
had admitted that he helped Eric scatter shehrys severed body parts
around the county.
Speaker 5 (48:06):
Gusmy didn't have any real criminal history. He wasn't somebody
that we dealt with, you know, either law enforcement or
the prosecutor's office. We knew he was telling the truth
because he was actually able, ultimately to lead law enforcement
to the various body parts. But this is not a
guy with history. But he certainly had a criminal exposure
for rendering criminal assistance, you know, after the fact, by
(48:31):
helping dispose of the body. So to make sure that
we got his testimony for trial, we ultimately offered him
immunity for truthful testimony at trial.
Speaker 3 (48:43):
The police now had Eric in custody and at his home,
their search warrant turned up even more pieces of incriminating evidence.
Speaker 5 (48:52):
Inside of Christensen's home, they found a pair of blue
jeans that had fairly extensive blood spatter on it. They
found a pair of tennis shoes that had apparent blood
spatter on it. But what was mostly interesting to law
enforcement about these shoes is that the tread on the
(49:15):
bottom of the shoes matched the bloody footprint that was
found at Sherry's apartment.
Speaker 3 (49:23):
On top of all the blood soaked items in Eric's
dingy guesthouse, they also searched as car.
Speaker 5 (49:30):
And what they found inside the vehicle was a number
of blood transfer stains on various parts of the car,
then a couple of rings that had been put in
like the ashtray, and on the interior of the rings
there appeared to be blood inside of those Also, they
also located what appeared to be essentially a shopping list
(49:53):
for cleaning items garbage bags, bleach mop gloves, that nature.
And then he also found a number of receipts from
various stores.
Speaker 3 (50:06):
Eric left evidence everywhere, a shocking amount for someone so calculating.
He caught linoleum out of the floor, yet left his
cleanup list in his car. Maybe Eric thought he had
more time, Maybe he was just a little clumsy. I
don't think he ever anticipated that Ryan would turn on
(50:26):
him the way that he did. But I've found late
in life that all those sayings we learned as a
kid have a lot of truth and a lot of
learnings to be derived from, you know, sayings like there
is no honor amongst thieves or murderers.
Speaker 5 (50:46):
It's difficult to get inside of Eric Christensen's brain, but
I have to believe that a lot of it was
that even for a guy like that, doing what he
ultimately did to the body had to be pretty shit.
That what had occurred was so disturbing to even him
that it kept him from being meticulous in his cleanup.
(51:07):
Or he just didn't care, or he thought he had
talked his way out of it the previous day. I
don't know, but I was just glad that it was
there when the police showed up.
Speaker 3 (51:18):
Like all criminals facing trial in Washington, Eric was granted
the right to a speedy trial in Washington. Speedy means
sixty days. Not sure why they've adopted that definition, but
it is what it is. Craig and his team had
a solid theory of exactly what had happened to Sherry
(51:40):
and enough physical evidence to nail Eric.
Speaker 5 (51:44):
So our theory of the case that was, you know,
born out I think pretty pretty well by the you know,
the hard evidence that we were able to demonstrate a
trial was that Christensen was already very sensitive about the
subject of Dan young daddy. This was a guy that worked,
that had money and wasn't shy about spending it on Sherry.
(52:07):
Harlan Christensen claimed a shoulder and injury and had been
on disability for months. It didn't work.
Speaker 3 (52:15):
Eric was clearly a fucking loser in case you haven't
figured that out yet. He had no income and barely
a home. He was also a convicted felon. He was
a wicked Do I have to say more? Anyway? In
nineteen ninety he was convicted of statutory rape and forgery
and Oregon he served his prison time, and he moved
(52:38):
up to Seattle. He was supposed to be a registered
sex offender in Washington, which he was not, probably because
a lot of those states over on the West Coast,
they they just don't give a shit about crime, and
especially crimes involving sex offenders for some reason. Not sure
(52:58):
why that is anyway. In nineteen ninety four, he tried
to kill his ex girlfriend by shooting her and her
boyfriend with a rifle. This is a guy that should
have never been out on the streets after that. But hey,
you don't want me to talk about politics, so I
guess I won't.
Speaker 5 (53:15):
He missed. But the police, who just happened to be
around the corner when he was opening fire on the
two caught him relatively shortly after he took the shots,
and he said, you know something to the effect of
where I come from, when a woman cheats on you,
you shoot them, and the only reason they're alive is
(53:39):
because my front sights are off. He ended up doing
twelve years on two counts of assault.
Speaker 1 (53:45):
One.
Speaker 3 (53:46):
It was in the Washington prison that Eric discovered the
Wiccan religion and the Aquarian Tabernacle church. Why is it Aquarian?
I don't know, go down that rabbit hole yourself if
you want to leave me out of it anyway. Behind bars,
he immersed himself in pagan beliefs, becoming obsessed as easily
(54:08):
obsessed people do. After his release, he met Sherry on
that app called tagged, which nobody's ever heard about, and
just eleven months later he would kill her.
Speaker 5 (54:20):
The morning of January first, twenty ten, Sherry had been
complaining about his stomach ache, and Christensen left and went
to the Walmart, which is just up the road from
the apartment, to buyers some stuff for her stomach. While
Christensen had been gone, Sherry and Dan Young had been
(54:45):
texting back and forth. One of the last text messages
from Sherry had been her complaining about her her stomach ache,
and the very last text that Dan Young had said
back to sharing the last text that she'd ever received,
was a text that said, substantially words to the effect
(55:07):
that that's what being with two guys will do to you.
It'll give you a bad tummy. Lol. So Christensen gets
back from Walmart, Sherry's in the shower, and being a jealous,
possessive guy like he is, he goes through her phone
and he sees that text string, particularly this last one
(55:28):
where it appears that you, Sherry and Dan are kind
of a lot laughing at him being a cuckold, and
he decided to kill her.
Speaker 3 (55:37):
Craig believed that Eric attacked Sherry as soon as she
got out of the bathroom. He grabbed a butcher knife
from the kitchen and went into a white hot rage.
Speaker 5 (55:48):
Cause of death was difficult for the medical examiner to
determine because of the state of the body. However, he
was able to find on the torso three stab wounds
in her back, two of which would have been fatal
in of themselves if they had occurred while she was alive,
and there was also the stab wound to her head
(56:10):
that left the knife tip embedded in her skull.
Speaker 3 (56:16):
When Eric showed up a trial, he had finally shaved
his signature ten inch goatee and put on a nice suit.
You know, put on a nice suit every now and then.
Speaker 4 (56:26):
It's nice.
Speaker 3 (56:27):
It's good for you, it's good for your health. Eric
was unrecognizable. He was still evil, of course, all that
evil bubbling below the surface, but at least he had
the proper attire.
Speaker 5 (56:38):
For the most part, Christiansen was pretty stoic, But there
were a couple of times, particularly when we were talking
about the text string from Sherry's phone when Dan Young
was testifying about his relationship with Sherry, where he was
(56:59):
obviously angered by what he was hearing.
Speaker 3 (57:02):
Cherry's friends and family were all there. She had a
lot of mourners. Vigils had been held in her honor,
and the whole community mourned for this kind hearted girl
with a funny laugh and curly hair. Because of that,
Craig was very careful when selecting pictures of the crime scene.
(57:23):
There were over one thousand graphic images of Sherry's body parts,
her skull, and the murder scene. Craig managed to narrow
it down to an essential one hundred images to spare
her family and the jurors.
Speaker 5 (57:39):
I felt bad for the jurors. The law enforcement of
myself deal with you know, ugly gnarly stuff all the time,
and this was bad for us. I can't imagine what
your typical normal citizen was feeling like when they came in,
you know, to the courthouse, got selected for this jury,
(58:01):
and then sat for sixteen days watching just just this
parade of horrible you know that we spun out for
him and then you know, thanks for your service. You know,
we'll see you later, you know, as they head out
the door that, like I said, there are images from
this thing that I'll never get out of my head.
I can only imagine, you know, some of the jurors
(58:22):
or might have a similar, similar issues.
Speaker 3 (58:25):
It was a tense sixteen days in that courtroom, but
in the end the jury came back with a guilty verdict.
Eric would spend almost fifty years behind bars, which is
probably where he should have been for his entire useless life.
One day, we'll have an AI that will tell us
(58:46):
if you're predisposed to become an Eric, and we can
just throw you in there from birth. Won't that be great?
Speaker 5 (58:53):
The verdict had been announced. When the jail staff were
leading him back to the holding cell, he kind of
cackled in a very loud fashion. It was kind of
kind of spooky. I'm not sure whether it was something
that he already felt, or it was just trying to
be macho or and you know, kind of play the part.
But yeah, he was laughing as he was walked out
(59:15):
of the courtroom.
Speaker 3 (59:16):
Anyway, Eric, this hateable character that we've spent an hour
telling you about it was a deadbeat, if you haven't
figured that out by now, a dead beat cloaking himself
in wicked beliefs to project a false sense of power,
a sense of power that he probably felt he didn't
have really, because he's just a powerless dork, you know,
(59:42):
kind of like most of us. Some people can't handle
the reality that were mostly just powerless dorks, so they
come up with these stupid ideas. Eric's pagan identity and
spirituality weren't expressions of faith whatsoever. They were just ways
for him to pique cock, to pretend to be something
(01:00:03):
he isn't. Now Sherry started to pull away, he used
their shared religion, twisting its teachings to tighten his grip
on her. Beneath his facade, there was nothing real to
begin with, just a sad, pathetic, useless bag of blood
and guts that's just continuously performing to build up their
(01:00:27):
own ego because they know they know deep down inside
how useless they actually are. When Cherry finally found her independence,
Eric snapped his ego couldn't handle it. He butchered her,
and then he attempted to get rid of her in
the most vile way possible. As for Ryan, the one
(01:00:49):
who ratted out Eric, well, Ryan wasn't so innocent after all.
Though he traded immunity for his testimony. He was later
convicted of child molestation and twenty nineteen. Are you surprised?
In twenty twenty four, he petitioned the Snowhemish County Courts
to change his last name to Creed so that no
(01:01:11):
one will know that Ryan Creed from Washington is a
child molester. Ryan Creed, by the way, is spelled r
y A n c r ee D in case you're
doing a search. Sherry Harlan led a simple life. She
had her own troubles, but kept to herself and tried
(01:01:34):
her best to make ends meet. She was a lost
woman who got mixed up with a very very deranged man.
Sherry was Eric's final victim, but her death is a
stark and very real reminder in this world there is
such a thing as monsters, and they look exactly like
(01:02:00):
Eric Christensen. All right, that's gonna do it for another one.
If you want to check out our award winning amazing
TV show, you can do so at swordscale dot com.
(01:02:22):
Highly recommend it if you're a true crime fan.
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