Inset: Sara McQuilling (Louisville Police Department). Background: An area near where 64-year-old Jerry Cardin was found in Louisville, Kentucky (Google Maps).
A Kentucky woman will spend the next two decades behind bars for killing two men – one of whom was decapitated, his head never having been found.
Late last week, Sara McQuilling, 44, pleaded guilty to one count each of complicity to murder, complicity to manslaughter in the second degree, and theft, as well as two counts each of abuse of a corpse and tampering with physical evidence.
The plea concerned the September 2021 deaths of Douglas Brooks, 39, and Jerry Cardin, 64. The victims were discovered under the same mysterious set of circumstances, but with one major distinction. Both men were found deceased in the crawl spaces of their own homes.
But Brooks was decapitated. And his head has never been found.
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On Friday, McQuilling pleaded guilty under the Alford standard, according to a courtroom report by Louisville-based Fox affiliate WDRB.
An Alford plea allows criminal defendants to maintain their innocence on the facts of an allegation while simultaneously accepting that the state’s evidence would likely convince a judge or a jury of their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
The since-condemned woman’s defense attorney maintained her client’s innocence during the plea and sentencing hearing.
Additional details of the crime, as alleged by the state, were revealed in court documents obtained by local CBS affiliate WLKY.
The bodies were found in the same week.
On Sept. 23, 2021, in response to a requested welfare check, Louisville Police Department officers found Cardin shot to death and hidden in the crawl space of his home on Roosevelt Avenue in the West Buechel neighborhood. He is believed to have been killed three days prior.
Four days later, two more discoveries were made.
On Sept. 27, 2021, McQuilling was found driving Cardin’s truck. In the bed of the truck, police found a plethora of evidence used to put the woman behind bars. That evidence included surveillance footage allegedly showing McQuilling taking objects from Cardin’s home and placing them in the soon-to-be stolen vehicle.
During her initial arrest, McQuilling also allegedly admitted to shooting the older victim and stuffing him into the crawl space, according to police. The arrest citation also claims the defendant told officers she used a revolver in the crime. Such a gun was found in a black purse along with McQuilling’s health care identification cards, police said.
Also on Sept. 27, 2021, police found Brooks’ remains at his home on Woodbourne Avenue in the Highlands Douglass neighborhood. The younger victim had been stabbed to death and missing his head.
McQuilling stabbed Brooks, “acting alone or in complicity with another person,” sometime between Sept. 17-24 of that year, according to the plea agreement. The document goes on say the defendant, “either alone or with the help of another person, then decapitated Mr. Brooks and placed his body in a crawl space in the cellar of his house.”
No other defendants have been charged or are expected to be charged for the murders, prosecutors said. No motive has ever been floated by law enforcement as for why the men were killed.
McQuilling is a married mother of six.
In the aftermath of her arrest, her husband said little except that he stood by her, according to a contemporaneous report by WLKY.
The defendant’s longtime landlord, however, spoke up to express shock and dismay at the sad and violent turn of events.
“It shows you never truly know about an individual, no matter how much you like them, no matter what they seem like,” the landlord told the TV station. “You got to be careful, man, anymore.”
The convicted woman will be eligible for parole after serving 85% of her sentence.
“The case was mediated,” Jefferson County court administrator McKay Chauvin told Louisville-based NBC affiliate WAVE. “She pled guilty in exchange for a sentence of 20 years. She waived a separate sentencing hearing and should be on her way to the penitentiary to begin service of that sentence. My understanding from the mediator is that the victims’ families were present, and everyone was satisfied with the disposition.”
In June 2021, McQuilling went missing for exactly one week before being found safe, according to The Courier-Journal.
In December 2016, McQuilling was accused of stealing a police cruiser, according to WLKY.
