Over two decades after an Indiana jury sent Sarah Jo Pender to prison for the shotgun murders of two roommates, one of the key figures who helped secure that verdict says he no longer feels confident the case was handled fairly — a startling reversal now spotlighted in a new Hulu true-crime series.
Pender, now 46 and serving a 110-year sentence at the Indiana Women’s Prison, is the central subject of “Girl on the Run: The Hunt for America’s Most Wanted Woman,” a docuseries streaming on Hulu . The production revisits the 2000 killings of Andrew Cataldi and Tricia Nordman in Indianapolis, Pender’s high-profile 2008 escape from custody, and the lingering dispute over whether the evidence used to convict her crossed the line from persuasive to unreliable.
The series includes interviews with investigators and with Pender herself, while also featuring retired Marion County deputy prosecutor Larry Sells — the trial lawyer who, during sentencing in 2002, famously described Pender as the “female Charles Manson” as he argued she had driven her boyfriend to kill.
Tom Pearson, a producer on the project, said he did not expect to find Sells questioning his own work so openly. “The ‘female Charles Manson’ label was first put on Sarah by Larry Sells, who was the prosecutor that sent her down for 110 years,” Pearson told Fox News Digital. “Part of the series is an interview with Larry Sells in which he talks about how this is the only murder case he prosecuted that he regrets prosecuting. Evidence came to light after the trial, and it’s his position now that he doesn’t think that she got a fair trial.”
Pearson said the documentary lays out sharply divided opinions about Pender’s personality and culpability. He described her as “very clever.” “She’s very articulate. She’s very eloquent, and she’s very persuasive. But there are two very distinct camps. There are her family and her supporters who would say that she’s charming. And there are those in law enforcement and the Department of Corrections who’ve described her as manipulative.”
The case began in 2000 when Pender was dating Richard Hull, described as a drug dealer. According to reporting by The Indianapolis Star, Hull killed Cataldi and Nordman inside the home the couple shared with them in Indianapolis. Hull said an argument over money spiraled into violence and that he used a shotgun Pender had bought for him.
Prosecutors did not claim Pender pulled the trigger; instead, they contended she was the driving force behind the crime, alleging she influenced Hull and helped steer events toward murder. Pender was not at home at the moment the shootings occurred, but The Indianapolis Star reported she went with Hull afterward as he dumped the victims’ bodies in a dumpster and did not alert authorities. Both were arrested within days.
Pearson said the relationship between Pender and Hull was brief before the killings. “Sarah’s own take on it was that when she met Richard Hull, he offered her protection and love,” Pearson said. “They enjoyed spending time together. But it was within 12 weeks of their first meeting that the double homicide took place. And so, there was a very short window of time between meeting Richard and the murders taking place.”
Hull was later convicted and, in 2003, received a 75-year sentence. In Pender’s trial, the state leaned on testimony and circumstantial evidence to portray her as the dominant partner who engineered the violence — a theory that helped earn her conviction on two counts of first-degree murder in 2002.
Some of the material presented to jurors has since been attacked as untrustworthy. During the investigation, Hull’s attorney produced a handwritten letter said to be from Pender that appeared to admit guilt; Hull later acknowledged the document was fake. Another controversial piece involved Floyd Pennington, a convicted sex offender who exchanged letters with Pender while incarcerated and told police she had admitted manipulating Hull. Pennington’s reliability has been widely questioned, though court records indicate jurors also heard other testimony and circumstantial details beyond those disputed claims.
At sentencing, Sells argued Pender had pushed Hull to kill her roommates in a dispute tied to drugs and money, branding her the “female Charles Manson.” Years later, he has described his change of heart in blunt terms. “When I looked back and saw how I misinterpreted the evidence based upon my lack of information that I didn’t gain until later, I just felt horrible about that,” Sells said.
The case took on a second life in 2008, when Pender escaped from Rockville Correctional Facility with help from Correctional Officer Scott Spitler and a former cellmate, Jamie Long. Pender’s flight lasted four months; Pearson said she avoided common mistakes made by fugitives.
“Most escaped prisoners do the same thing, which allows them to be caught,” Pearson said. “They hang out with their friends, and they see their family. Sarah didn’t do any of those things. She dyed her hair, she took steps to change how she looked. She got glasses, although she didn’t have a prescription for glasses. But I think the thing that she did to evade capture is to keep moving and cut off contact from the people that an escaped prisoner would normally reach out to.”
Spitler and Long were arrested and convicted for their participation in the breakout. During her time on the run, Pearson said, Pender lived on Chicago’s North Side under the name Ashley Thompson and relied on disposable phones and outside assistance. “She used burner phones,” Pearson said. “She used a phone once and then threw it away. She also had an extraordinary network of women on the outside who were helping her. Several former prisoners went out of their way and risked their own freedoms to help Sarah keep ahead of law enforcement.”
Pearson also said Pender formed a relationship with an older businessman he described as “well-to-do,” who became her financial backer. “The truth is that they both had something to gain from the other,” Pearson said. “This man, Tom, essentially gave Sarah places to stay, but in return, he was expecting a relationship with her. Ultimately, it’s up to the audience to decide who was actually in control of their relationship.”
Pender has argued that the “manipulator” label has often been used to assign her blame for other people’s decisions, including the escape. “It was widely reported that Sarah was a manipulator and manipulated the guard into helping her,” Pearson said. “I think a lot of people would take the view that it was the guard’s responsibility not to help a prisoner escape. In the documentary, she puts that as quite a clear example of when the label of manipulator is being placed on her for the misdeeds of other people.”
Her run ended after “America’s Most Wanted” featured her case. Pearson said a neighbor recognized her and contacted police, leading to her arrest in 2008. She then spent five years in solitary confinement at the Indiana Women’s Prison.
