Episode 31: Depraved Heart

Have you heard of a Depraved Heart Murder case? No, neither had we, but this case fits it to a tee, and thanks to the Depraved Heart Murder charge, the right man was convicted of murder in this case! Listen now and tell us what you think...

Transcript

0:13

Hey, all you true crime divas and dudes. I'm Tina, and thank you for joining us for this week's episode of your favorite true crime podcast, Deadly Divas. Hey, and I'm Sarah. And if you're new here, welcome. We break down a new true crime case for you every Friday Today's case is definitely one of the saddest stories we've discussed, not just because of the crime itself, but because of all the tragedy that surrounded it. The more I researched this, the more heartbroken I became for this whole family. So let's get started. A bright young woman with dreams of becoming a doctor, a respected oral surgeon with access to powerful and dangerous medications, a relationship that appeared normal on the surface, but would eventually unravel into allegations of manipulation, addiction, and control. And at the center of it all is a legal concept that many people have never heard of: depraved heart murder. It's a charge prosecutors believe fit this case perfectly, and I'll explain exactly what it means later in the episode. So to begin, let's talk about the victim in this case. Who was Sarah Jane Harris? She was the kind of person who made an impression on people, not because she was loud, not because she demanded attention, but because she was genuinely smart, and I mean really smart. In addition to her native English, Sarah spoke German, Spanish, and Russian, and she even knew American Sign Language. Can you imagine knowing that many languages? Like, how do you keep that in your brain? So my mom is fluent in several languages. Mm-hmm. And she's just one of those people that it's no effort. She just picks it up. Wow. So I think some people just find that easy. I like that she's a Sarah Jane and incredibly smart, though. Just like you. Just like me, but I don't speak that many languages. Right. So from a young age, Sarah had a passion for medicine, and she dreamed of becoming a doctor. She was particularly interested in anesthesiology, which, when you know how this story ends, is almost impossible to wrap your head around the truly tragic irony in that. Because the field she wanted to devote her life to would ultimately play a devastating role in her death. Now, friends and family describe Sarah as compassionate, driven, kind, and curious, the type of person who was always learning something new. And in 2020, she won the title of Miss Maryland Petite. Now, when people hear beauty queen, they often jump to assumptions, but from everything that's been reported, Sarah was not someone chasing fame or attention. In fact, she was reportedly surprised that she even won. People who knew her described her as completely humble and grounded, the kind of person who never fully realized how remarkable she actually was. And honestly, reading about Sarah made me think about how often we hear stories where someone had their whole life ahead of them. I mean, it's a phrase that we hear all the time. Right. But in Sarah's case, it feels especially true. She was not somebody who was just drifting through life. She had goals, plans, and dreams, and many things that she still wanted to accomplish, and she should have had decades to do that. But instead, she would die at just 25 years old, and the people who loved her would spend the next several years fighting to prove that her death was not simply an unfortunate accident. Breaks my heart 'cause my son's 25 right now. Oh, God, can you imagine? No. You don't even wanna imagine. No. So one thing that really struck me while researching this case is just how much tragedy Sarah's family had endured before Sarah's death, and I think that's important to understand because it provides context for everything that follows. Only about a year before Sarah died, her sister, Rachel, experienced a horrific trauma. Rachel's fiance actually died by suicide right in front of her. And I don't even know how you begin to process something like that. Mm-hmm. Most of us can't imagine seeing someone we love die, much less under those circumstances. So the emotional fallout from something like that, it does not affect just one person. It affects the entire family, the parents, the siblings, the friends, everybody. And the Harris family was trying to navigate this unimaginable grief. They were trying to support Rachel and help her heal, and they were trying to figure out what life looked like after this devastating loss. And this would become important later, because during these difficult years, one person began weaving himself deeper and deeper into the family's life, a man named Dr. James Ryan. At first, he appeared to be exactly what every family would hope for: supportive, successful, generous, and helpful, the kind of person who stepped up when people were struggling. In fact, during this difficult time, Rachel describes James as a major source of emotional and financial support. He put the family up at a hotel, paid for food deliveries, and even supplied Rachel with a prescription for anxiety medication to help her cope, because, I mean, obviously, her life had just completely fallen apart. She wasn't sleeping. She wasn't eating. I mean- At the time, it seemed helpful, but looking back on it now, alarm bells going. Right. It's a red flag, knowing what we know. Mm-hmm. So he actually even offered Rachel a position at his dental office to help get her back on her feet. So I mean, he was, like, fully in this fully part of the family, doing everything he could. Being Mr. Savior. Right. Exactly, the savior. But appearances can be deceiving, and in this case, prosecutors would later argue that some of those seemingly generous acts served another purpose entirely, one that wouldn't become obvious until much later, unfortunately. And sadly, the family's tragedies were not over, not even close. Just 18 days before Sarah died, there was another devastating blow to the family. Sarah's brother, Christopher, died unexpectedly from a heart attack. He was only 38 years old. That's younger than so many people expect to lose a parent, let alone a sibling. Right. So imagine what the Harris family was experiencing at that point. They had already endured the trauma surrounding Rachel's fiance. Now they were grieving Christopher, and then, less than three weeks later, they would lose Sarah, too. I mean, it is almost impossible to comprehend that amount of loss in such a short period of time. And unfortunately, that grief would later become a major point of contention during the murder trial. Because the defense would argue that Sarah's emotional state after Christopher's death contributed to what happened. But prosecution saw it very differently, and we'll talk about that later. But first, we need to talk about this man who entered Sarah's life and turned it upside down, because that's where this story really begins. So in the summer of 2020, Sarah went to see Dr. James Ryan for something incredibly routine, a wisdom tooth extraction. That's it. Nothing unusual, just a dental procedure. And at the time, Ryan appeared to be a highly successful oral surgeon. He had decades of experience, a respected practice, and tons of professional credentials. The kind of person patients trusted without hesitation. Sarah, at the time, was 25, and Ryan was nearly 50. Wow. Right? And at first, their interaction was exactly what you'd expect, doctor and patient, nothing more. But according to investigators, that did not last very long at all After Sarah's procedure, Ryan began contacting her outside of a professional setting. In fact, very shortly after, he started texting her personally under the guise of checking up on her. But Sarah's mom said that it definitely felt a bit weird, and I agree. I mean, have you ever had your actual dentist text you and be like, "Hey, how are you doing?" Yeah, especially if it's somebody in their 50s and you're a 25-year-old, obviously attractive young lady. Yeah. It's, it's weird. It's creepy. Creepy. It's bad vibes. Yeah. So the communication actually did not stop. It continued, and it became clear that it wasn't just a quick check-in text. Eventually, Ryan even offered Sarah a job working in his office as a surgical technician. Now, on the surface, that might not sound alarming. People get jobs through professional connections all the time. But looking back, investigators would later see this as the beginning of a significant shift in their relationship. Ryan wasn't just becoming her employer. He had already been her doctor, and before long, he would become her boyfriend as well. And that is a tremendous amount of power concentrated in one person. Didn't I also hear that she wasn't even qualified for the job? Yeah, I mean, she had no formal training. Right. There was no interview. There was no like, "Here's my resume." It's just like, basically, "I think you're hot, and you're hired." Right. But it was a job that required specific training that she did not have, right? Right. Exactly. So think about it. This guy had medical authority over Sarah, professional authority, financial authority, and he was also more than 20 years older than her. So the power imbalance was enormous. Yet at the time, none of that seemed obvious. To outsiders, it simply looked like two adults entering a relationship. But prosecutors would later argue there was far more happening beneath the surface, and one revelation would completely change how many people viewed the relationship, a revelation so disturbing that even experienced investigators were stunned by it Investigators uncovered information that completely changed how many people viewed James Ryan. This is the point in the story where my stomach started turning. Because according to testimony and statements later presented in court, Ryan allegedly admitted that his interest in Sarah did not begin when she became his patient for that wisdom tooth removal. It did not begin even when she was an adult. It began years earlier, when she was around 14 years old. And he was... I don't know. I'm bad at math, but he probably would've been in his, like, 40s. 40. Yeah. Yeah. So just fucking disgusting. Gross. Gross. And just let that sink in for a second. Sarah was 25 when she died. Ryan was nearly 50. And according to reports, Ryan admitted he'd been noticing her for roughly a decade. Now, obviously, we can never fully know what was going through his mind during those years, but what we do know is deeply unsettling and creepy as fuck. Mm-hmm. So according to testimony, Ryan told Sarah's mother that he had first seen Sarah at a neighborhood park when she was around 14, and that absolutely floored me. I mean, she was a literal child at a literal playground. And you tell her mother this? Right. So, and apparently this happened when they went on a vacation, I think it was to Miami, because he often took them on expensive, lavish trips as a family. And one night they were at dinner. Sarah had gone to bed, and it was, I think, just Dr. James Ryan, Sarah's mom, and Sarah's sister, and he had been drinking a lot. Mm. And this just kind of word vomited out of him. Mm. Yeah. So, uh, then there was this other detail that made my skin crawl. At one point, Sarah also worked in a toy store, and one day at work she was dressed as Elsa from Frozen. Ryan later admitted that he brought his own children to see her, not because they necessarily wanted to see Elsa, but because he wanted to see Sarah. And Sarah, again, was still very young at this point And then there was the restaurant. You take your children- I know out. Just a disgusting, disgusting man. So when Sarah later worked as a server in a restaurant, Ryan allegedly began frequenting the restaurant, specifically requesting her section. So the more you look at the timeline, the less this starts to feel like a chance romance, and the more it starts to look like fixation, a pursuit. He's wheedling his way in there bit by bit, yeah. Yeah, something that had been developing for years, like an absolute obsession. Now, to be clear, prosecutors were not arguing that these actions alone constituted a crime, but they certainly painted a picture. Mm-hmm. A picture that would later become incredibly important when trying to understand the dynamics of their relationship. Because if Ryan truly had been watching Sarah for years, then this was not a whirlwind romance. It was something much more calculated and much more disturbing. So by the summer of 2021, Sarah had moved into Ryan's home, and on paper, things probably looked pretty good. She was working in his practice, living with him, and building what appeared to be a future together. But behind closed doors, things were beginning to unravel, and Sarah's family started noticing changes. At first, maybe they were easy to explain away. Everybody gets tired, everybody gets stressed, and everybody has rough periods. But eventually, the changes became impossible to ignore. Sarah did not look like herself anymore. She didn't sound like herself, and she was certainly not acting like herself. The bright, energetic young woman her family knew seemed to be fading away, and the people who loved her were becoming increasingly worried. One of the most heartbreaking aspects of this case is hearing family members describe Sarah's physical decline. Because they knew something was wrong, they just did not know exactly what or why. Sarah reportedly lost an enormous amount of weight. At one point, she weighed about 120 pounds, and by the end of her life, that number had dropped to 83 pounds. Wow. 83 pounds, and she was 25 years old. Yeah. That's emanciated. Yeah. That is just astonishing. But it wasn't just her weight. Family members also described her as lethargic, sedated, confused, disoriented, and there were times when she seemed barely conscious. I mean, imagine seeing someone you love in that condition, and imagine watching them deteriorate right in front of you. At 25. Yeah. At 25, and she was this young, vibrant woman- just, a year earlier. Every time you asked what's happening, someone with a medical degree assures you that everything is under control, because that's exactly what James did. He had an answer for everything. Oh, Sarah's dehydrated. Sarah's exhausted. Sarah's anxious. Sarah needs treatment, and Sarah just needs fluids. There was always an explanation, and because those explanations were coming from a doctor, they carried weight, a lot of it. I mean, most of us are not physicians. Most of us don't know what severe drug sedation looks like. Most of us assume that doctors know what they're doing and have good intentions, and prosecutors would later argue that Ryan used that trust to his advantage. Mm. Now, there were actually multiple occasions when Sarah's condition became so alarming that family members feared something catastrophic was happening. On at least two occasions, Sarah's mother and sister reportedly found her in an extremely impaired state. In late October 2021, they went to check on Sarah after noticing her speech was extremely slurred on the phone, and they walked into a home her mother described as hell. Inside, they found an emaciated Sarah surrounded by IV bags, syringes, tourniquets, bloody paper towels, and drug vials scattered everywhere, which Rachel immediately gathered and photographed. And just over a month later, on December 3rd, Rachel went to the house again after another slurred phone call and found conditions that were even worse than the first time. While searching the ground floor, Rachel discovered more drug bottles, an IV pole, a saline bag, IV needles, and fresh bloody footprints on a kitchen mat. And this left her so distraught that she left without even speaking to her sister. And I know, I know, when you hear all this, you wonder why authorities were not called immediately. But remember who was there. James Ryan, the doctor, the authority figure, the person everyone had been conditioned to trust, and like you said, Sarah, the savior. Mm-hmm. So Ryan reportedly reassured the family that Sarah was simply dehydrated. He claimed that he was giving her IV fluids at home. And according to reports, he discouraged involving law enforcement. Oh, shocker. Right? He discouraged any outside intervention whatsoever. He said that everything was fine and everything was under control, except it wasn't. And looking back now, those moments feel chilling, because Sarah's family was seeing evidence that something was seriously wrong. They just didn't yet know how wrong So when investigators eventually searched Ryan's home, what they discovered mirrored exactly what the family previously reported. The home shockingly resembled an unauthorized medical facility. They too found the IV bags, the syringes, the tourniquets, and the drug vials, items that you would typically associate with, like, a doctor's office or a hospital. And by itself, a doctor possessing medical supplies isn't necessarily suspicious, but prosecutors argued that this was very different. This was not ordinary medical storage. This was evidence of ongoing drug administration occurring inside the home. And the addition of the bloody paper towels and bloody footprints was, of course, even more disturbing. These were all signs that procedures had been occurring outside any legitimate medical setting. One investigator would later describe the scene as resembling a rogue operating room. And I mean, let that sink in. Like, that is a phrase right out of some kind of gruesome horror movie. Yeah. Operating rooms are literally designed around safety, monitoring equipment, emergency response, layers of protection. You remove those protections, and you are left with something potentially very dangerous. And according to prosecutors, that's exactly what happened here. So one of the themes that comes up repeatedly in this case is control. Not loud control, not obvious. The kind of control that is harder to see, the kind that develops gradually. Prosecutors argued that Ryan became central to nearly every aspect of Sarah's life. He was her employer, her boyfriend, her medical provider, the person supplying medications, the person explaining symptoms, and the person deciding what treatment she needed. He was the person reassuring everyone else that everything was okay, and that is a frightening amount of influence for one individual to have, especially when there are no independent checks on that power, and especially when the person holding that power is the same person whose actions are causing the problem. So as Sarah became increasingly dependent on him, her world grew smaller, and the people around her became more worried. And unfortunately, the worst was still ahead, because investigators would soon uncover exactly what substances Sarah had been exposed to. And once toxicologists started examining the evidence, the case took an even darker turn. So when Sarah died on January 26th, 2022, investigators were faced with a question that would ultimately define this entire case. What exactly had happened inside that house? Because from the very beginning, James Ryan had an explanation. Of course. Mm-hmm. In fact, he had a narrative ready to go. According to Ryan, Sarah had struggled with depression. She was grieving the loss of her brother, who had passed very recently. She had access to medications, and he suggested that what happened was essentially a tragic overdose, just a heartbreaking accident. Wait a minute, she had access to medications? Yeah, so what he claims, and this is on the body cam footage, what he claims is that she stole these medications from his practice. From him, okay. Which just makes me sick- Yeah because you've murdered this girl, and now you're accusing her of being a thief. Her of the, yeah. So investigators were not entirely convinced, because as they started looking deeper into the evidence, things were not adding up, and one of the biggest red flags came from the drugs they found in Sarah's system. Now, y'all, we're gonna talk about a few medications here, but I'm gonna try to keep it simple as I butcher the pronunciations. Because it's important to understand what these drugs are and how they work, and why prosecutors believed they were so dangerous. So the first drug was propofol. You may not recognize the name, but you've probably heard of it before without realizing it. Propofol is commonly used as an anesthesia to sedate patients before surgeries and other medical procedures. It's a drug that can make someone lose consciousness incredibly quickly. We are talking seconds. And while it can be very safe when used properly, there's a huge caveat. It requires monitoring, constant monitoring, because one of the risks is respiratory depression, meaning that your breathing can slow down or even stop. That is why patients receiving propofol are usually surrounded by trained professionals, doctors, nurses, anesthesia providers, a whole team of people. That's why on your medical bill, sometimes the anesthesia costs more than anything else, because they literally have to monitor you from the second you go under to come up, don't they? And they have to pay all these different people. Right. Right. Exactly. So, and there's also that slew of equipment monitoring your oxygen levels with emergency gear nearby just in case, and there are safeguards everywhere when administering a drug like this, and for good reason. Now, imagine taking those safeguards away. Imagine administering powerful sedatives inside a private residence. No monitoring equipment, no emergency response team, no hospital. That is where things become very dangerous. Then investigators found evidence involving ketamine Ketamine is another powerful drug. It is used medically for anesthesia and pain management, but it can also produce feelings of detachment from reality, confusion, disorientation, and even unconsciousness. And then there were the benzodiazepines, drugs like diazepam, AKA Valium, which is used to treat anxiety, and midazolam, which is a more potent Valium that is also used for sedation. Again, these medications do have legitimate medical uses, but are we seeing a pattern here? This man was pumping Sarah full of sedatives round the clock, and I can't think of a more blatant way to exert power and control over a person. And when you start combining multiple sedating substances together, the health risks, of course, increase exponentially, especially for someone who is already physically weakened and their weight has plummeted, especially when the person administering the drugs knows exactly how dangerous they can be. At 83 pounds, I mean, those drugs were way too powerful. Definitely. Definitely. And he was just pumping her full of them round the clock, no regard. That's like a child weight. Right, exactly. Yeah. And that's what made this case so different. The prosecution was not dealing with someone who did not understand the risks. They were dealing with a literal doctor, someone whose entire career had been built around understanding these medications, someone who knew precisely what could happen when they were misused, and that fact would become incredibly important later. So while investigators were working through evidence, somebody else was conducting an investigation of her own, Sarah's sister, Rachel. Good for Rachel. Yeah, I mean, honestly, Rachel deserves a tremendous amount of credit for the conviction in this case because she refused to stop asking questions. She refused to simply accept the explanation that she was being given, which is that this was just a tragic accident. And if you're a major consumer of true crime like us, you know how many cases have been solved because one family member refused to let something go. If anything doesn't feel right, trust your gut. Exactly. And that person, for this case, was Rachel. She began digging through Sarah's digital accounts, trying to understand what had really been happening in the months before her death, because Ryan had, like, completely taken her away from her family. They had no contact That's right. They had to go over there- Mm-hmm to see her, and then I heard Rachel describe it one time as like a drug den. Right, a drug den. Mm-hmm. Exactly. And eventually Rachel actually gained access to Sarah's laptop and her cloud accounts, and what she would find would change everything. Investigators would later describe the messages Rachel uncovered as a... in slow motion. That's chilling. Mm-hmm. And when you hear some of these messages, it's hard to argue with that description. The text painted a picture that looked very different from the story James was telling. One message reportedly showed James offering Sarah an injection that would eliminate anxiety within seconds, not therapy, not counseling, not addressing the root cause, an injection. I mean, can you imagine going to your loved one and saying that you're struggling with anxiety and their first response is to sedate you intravenously? Let me give you an injection that'll take it all away in seconds. In other words, you'll pass out and not be able to think about it. Right. I mean, that is the biggest red flag alert- Yeah, no in the universe. Thank you. And another message became particularly important. According to prosecutors, James appeared to acknowledge administering ketamine to Sarah while she was asleep. Ooh. Think about that for a second, while she was asleep, and who knows if he was doing this regularly and then maybe not telling her, or telling her, but, like, she's so sedated and out of it that she doesn't even register it or remember it, and then maybe she decides to inject herself again. Not realizing, right, and isn't ketamine one of the highly addictive ones that's often abused- Mm-hmm by drug addicts- Yeah I believe? Very, very, very addictive drug, yeah. And I mean, I'm just your average citizen, and I know that the danger with something like this cannot be overstated. But as a doctor, James was even more aware of that, so his conduct is absolutely unforgivable. And by the way, this was not just a one-time thing. Investigators found messages discussing obtaining and using these drugs repeatedly. But perhaps most significantly, there were communications from the night before Sarah died. According to testimony, Sarah requested ketamine. James reportedly replied that he would bring some home. Those messages became powerful evidence for prosecutors because they suggested active participation, active involvement, not simply knowledge after the fact. And also, that completely blows his whole, "Oh, she was stealing," out of the water. Right. I mean, it's one thing to be like, "Hey, honey, can you pick up dinner on the way home or, or some milk?" "Hey, honey, bring me some ketamine." I s- I mean, and I think that just shows you how far gone she was, he was, and just the situation in general was that they were discussing it so openly just like, like you said- Right pick up some milk. And, and she wouldn't have asked him to bring it home if he wasn't providing it for her- If he hadn't gotten her- Already hooked and- Yeah did. Right. But, but I'm saying that, like, had she, had she been stealing it, she wouldn't have been like, "Hey, can you bring me some home?" She would only say that if he was the one that regularly bought it for her. Exactly. Exactly. The scumbag. So with all these text messages, suddenly the defense narrative of an independent overdose became much harder to accept because prosecutors now had something they hadn't previously possessed: documentation, a digital timeline, evidence preserved in black and white. And that evidence would eventually become one of the most powerful components of the trial. Like, at very minimum, he's the supplier. Mm-hmm. Exactly. So on the morning Sarah died, a 911 call came from the James home in Clarksburg, Maryland. James told dispatchers that Sarah was unresponsive. He said he was performing CPR, and he described a medical emergency, and first responders rushed to the scene. But by then, it was already too late. Sarah Harris was dead at just 25 years old. 25, the age where most people are just beginning their adult lives, building careers, making plans, talking about where they'll be 10 years from now. But Sarah never got that chance. And when police arrived on the scene, James claimed that this was an accidental overdose, and again, that she had been stealing medications from his practice. Meanwhile, her family was left trying to understand how a healthy young woman had gone from vibrant and ambitious to dead in a doctor's home. The answer, prosecutors argued, was not a single decision. It wasn't one injection. It wasn't one bad night. It was a pattern, a pattern that had been developing for many longer. And that's where we get to the legal concept that made this case so unusual. Because James wasn't charged with first-degree murder, he wasn't accused of planning Sarah's death. Instead, prosecutors pursued something called depraved heart murder When people hear the word murder, they usually think of intent. Somebody plans a killing, somebody wants another person dead, somebody deliberately sets out to end a life. But that's not what prosecutors argued happened here. James Ryan wasn't accused of plotting Sarah Harris's death. He wasn't accused of lying in wait. He wasn't accused of carrying out some elaborate murder scheme, and that's where the depraved-heart murder charge comes in. And before researching this case, I wasn't very familiar with it myself. In fact, I had never heard the term before. I hadn't either. Depraved-heart murder is a legal theory used when someone engages in conduct that is so reckless, so dangerous, and so indifferent to human life, the law treats it as murder. The key word here is indifference. Not necessarily intent to kill, but an extreme disregard for whether someone lives or dies. So think about somebody firing a gun into a crowded room. Maybe they don't specifically target one person. Maybe they don't wake up planning to kill somebody, but they are engaging in conduct that is so obviously dangerous that if someone dies, the law may treat it as murder. And prosecutors argued that's exactly what happened here, not because James wanted Sarah dead, but because he repeatedly engaged in conduct that he knew could kill her, and that's where his profession became so important. Because this was not an ordinary person experimenting with medications they did not understand. This was an oral surgeon, a doctor, someone trained in anesthesia, someone who knew exactly what these drugs could do, someone who knew what could happen when respiratory depression occurs, someone who understood the risks better than anyone. Prosecutors argued that despite all of that knowledge, he continued administering dangerous combinations of sedatives to Sarah over and over again until she died. Now, again, the prosecution's theory wasn't based on one injection. It wasn't based on one bad decision. It was based on a pattern, a pattern that stretched across months. They pointed to Sarah's dramatic weight loss, the repeated incidents where family members found her heavily sedated, the IV equipment scattered throughout the house, the text messages discussing drugs and injections, the evidence that Sarah was receiving medication outside of any legitimate medical setting, and perhaps most importantly, Ryan's own knowledge. Because prosecutors argued that James Ryan knew better. He wasn't making mistakes because he lacked training. He had decades of experience, and according to the prosecution, that made his actions even more dangerous. The prosecutors essentially argued that every warning sign was there, and James just ignored them, or worse, he caused them. Because by this point, Sarah obviously was not thriving. She was not healthy, and she was not improving. She was becoming thinner, weaker, more dependent on him, more heavily sedated, and yet the drug administration continued According to prosecutors, that wasn't negligence anymore. That was not carelessness. That was reckless disregard for human life, and that is again where the depraved heart murder charge comes in. But of course, the defense saw things very differently. They argued that Sarah was an adult and that she made her own choices, that she struggled emotionally following the death of her brother, and that she actively sought out medications herself. The defense painted a picture of a tragic addiction, not a homicide. According to James' attorneys, Sarah was responsible for her own drug use, and they argued there was no evidence that James intended to harm her. In fact, they claimed he was trying to help her, trying to support her through grief and mental health struggles. And this is where the water really starts to get muddied because unlike many murder cases, there wasn't a smoking gun. There wasn't surveillance footage showing an attack. There was not a confession. And the jury had to decide whether James' actions crossed the line from reckless medical misconduct into murder. And that is a massive distinction. Because if prosecutors couldn't convince the jury that Ryan's conduct demonstrated an extreme disregard for human life, then the murder charge could fail entirely. So as the trial unfolded, jurors heard testimony from toxicologists, medical experts, investigators, and family members, and perhaps most emotionally, Sarah's closest loved ones. They heard about the vibrant young woman that Sarah had once been. They heard about her dreams, her ambitions, and her plans for the future. And they heard about the devastating decline prosecution presented text messages, medical evidence, and drug records, and testimony designed to show that Ryan repeatedly exposed Sarah to life-threatening risks despite fully understanding the consequences. Meanwhile, the defense continued arguing that Sarah's death was a tragedy, but not a murder. So for weeks, jurors were asked to answer a question that had never been easy. At what point does reckless behavior become criminal murder? And eventually, they would have to make a decision, one that would forever change James Ryan's life. So after weeks of hearing the testimony and reviewing the mountains of evidence and wrestling with one of the most unusual legal theories many jurors had likely ever encountered, the jury finally reached a decision, and it was a decision that sent shockwaves through the courtroom. James Ryan was found guilty, not of manslaughter, not of negligent homicide, guilty of second-degree depraved heart murder. And that's important because the jury wasn't saying Ryan made a mistake. They weren't saying he was careless. They were not saying he simply exercised poor judgment. They concluded his conduct rose to the level of murder. The jury accepted the prosecution's argument that James's actions demonstrated an extreme disregard for human life. And honestly, that's a pretty remarkable outcome when you consider how unusual this case was, because there wasn't a traditional murder weapon. There wasn't a clear moment where prosecutors could point and say, "That's when he killed her." Instead, they argued that Sarah's death was the result of months of dangerous conduct, months of administering powerful drugs, months of creating dependency, months of exposing her to risks he fully understood, and ultimately, that jury agreed. So for Sarah's family, the verdict represented something they had spent years fighting for: accountability. Not because a guilty verdict can bring Sarah back, nothing could do that, obviously, but because they believed the truth about what happened to her had finally been recognized. Throughout the investigation and trial, Rachel, Sarah's sister, had been relentless. And remember, she's the one who found the 200 pages of text messages that held the key to justice in this case. She is the one who refused to accept the explanation that was... she was initially given. And without that determination, it's entirely possible this case would have unfolded very differently. So her role in this case cannot be overstated. And there are so many cases where family members sense something is wrong, but don't have the evidence to prove it. But Rachel kept looking, and because she kept looking, investigators ended up with some of the most compelling evidence presented at trial. The Harris family had already endured unimaginable loss before Sarah died. They had buried loved ones. They had survived trauma that would devastate most families, and then they lost Sarah on top of that. So while the verdict couldn't heal that pain, it did provide a measure of validation, a recognition that Sarah's death wasn't simply written off as an unfortunate accident So after the conviction came sentencing, and this was another moment where the court had to grapple with the seriousness of Ryan's actions. The judge ultimately sentenced James Ryan to 45 years in prison. Good. Yes. In delivering the sentence, the court emphasized the enormous position of trust Ryan held. Because at the end of the day, that's one of the themes that runs through this entire case: trust. Sarah trusted him. Her whole family trusted him, and patients trusted him. And prosecutors argued that he abused that trust in one of the worst ways possible, not only because he was Sarah's boyfriend and her employer, but because he was a doctor, a person whose professional obligation was to protect patients from harm, not expose them to it So even after the verdict, debate surrounding this case did not disappear. In fact, in some ways, it intensified. Some people viewed the conviction as a landmark example of accountability. They believed James' medical training made his conduct especially dangerous, and that the jury reached the correct conclusion. Others questioned whether murder was the appropriate charge. They argued the case was more complicated and that addiction played a role, that Sarah exercised agency in her own decisions, and that criminal responsibility wasn't as straightforward as prosecutors suggested. Now, I think it's important to acknowledge that reasonable people can disagree about legal theories. I mean, that's part of why this case generated so much discussion. But regardless of where someone lands on the legal argument, one fact remains unchanged. Sarah Harris is no longer with us. A 25-year-old woman with enormous potential lost her life, and that is the tragedy at the center of this story. Not the courtroom battle, not the legal debate, Sarah. And what stayed with me most after researching this case was not actually the verdict. It was Sarah herself and her potential. All the languages that she spoke, that career that she dreamed about, and the future she was building, and how dramatically her life changed in such a short period of time. How a chance meeting with one person ended in her death. And when we talk about true crime, it's easy to focus on the shocking details, the trials, the evidence, the headline. But behind every case is a real person, and Sarah deserves so much more than the ending she got. This case also serves as a reminder that danger does not always look the way we expect it to. Sometimes it's not a stranger. It's not obvious. Sometimes it comes wrapped in credentials, authority, expertise, and trust. And that's part of what makes this story so unsettling because the very person Sarah should have been safest with became the person ultimately responsible for her death. And that is the tragic case of Sarah Harris and the depraved heart murder. Final thoughts? So going back to where you were saying, that it doesn't always look the way that you think it will look. Mm-hmm. I think as well it's important to say that it doesn't always have a knife or a gun. Exactly. Exactly. And it doesn't always happen in one instant. Like, you shoot somebody, that just happens in one instant, but you can slowly kill somebody for sure. And had she not met him, she would still be alive. Exactly. Had she not met him, she would still be here. And that's why he's guilty of murder. I agree. I think that the jury got it right. Mm. And I'm glad that he got 45 years, which is basically the rest of his life, because he was already in his 50s. Um, I think that this was just a nasty, nasty man, and he's where he belongs. But yeah, when you hear murder, you just automatically kinda think, oh, a dark back alley and a gun. Something short and quick and instant, and sometimes it's not. I've been even taking notes as we've been talking. But we're on a long episode now, so let's save it for the after show, 'cause this is gonna be a good after show. Yeah. I have quite a few things for the after show. So subscribers, we will see you guys in the after show with plenty of hot takes and other details about this case, and otherwise we will see you next week and don't forget to follow us on social media. We are on TikTok and Facebook at Deadly Divas True Crime. Catch us out there. And till next time, stay safe and be divas. Good night, deadly. Bye.