Woman Arranged Death Via E-Mail She Went To Meet Man She Asked To Sexually Torture, Kill Her

When Sharon Lopatka got off the train in Charlotte on Oct. 13, she knew danger and even death awaited her.

The Maryland woman had arranged to meet a man whom she had asked to sexually torture and kill her, according to court papers made public Tuesday.

“If my body is never retrieved, don’t worry, know that I’m at peace,” Lopatka wrote, warning her family not to attempt to find her.

Maryland investigators traced her steps to her grave using e-mail messages she traded with Robert Glass, a Caldwell County, N.C., man now charged with killing her about Oct. 16.

The hundreds of pages of e-mail messages offer investigators a rare insight into a bizarre case. They are still sorting through 870 pages of e-mail communications found on Lopatka’s computer, said Sgt. Barry Leese of the Maryland State Police. Caldwell County investigators are doing the same thing to Glass’ computers from his work and home.

The messages, expected to be sorted out within the next 10 days, paint a picture of a bizarre arrangement in which a woman who ran her own Internet business used the worldwide computer network to arrange her own death.

They also reveal that Lopatka had previously used the Internet to make a similar inquiry about her torture and death, Leese said.

That individual refused to comply with Lopatka’s death wish, said 25th District Attorney David Flaherty Jr., who said he plans to ask a grand jury next month to indict Glass on first-degree murder charges.

“We’ve got a lot of evidence that indicates it’s premeditated murder,” Flaherty said Tuesday. “He gave a statement that indicated it was something different. He gave a statement indicating what happened and how she died …”

Asked if Glass called Lopatka’s death an accident, the district attorney said that was a “fair characterization.”

Attorney Neil Beach, appointed to represent Glass, called the search warrant affidavit misleading.

“I don’t believe he’s guilty of what he’s charged with,” Beach said.

Lopatka, 35, was found in a grave beside Glass’s Collettsville-area mobile home Friday. A preliminary autopsy found she died of strangulation.

Glass, 45, is being held without bond in the Caldwell County Jail. He was fired from his job as a computer systems analyst with Catawba County government.

Glass, recently separated from his wife, and Lopatka, who was married, communicated on the Internet for about seven weeks.

Investigators believe they met in a sexually oriented “talk group” on the computer network, Leese said. The Internet has become a meeting place for people with an interest in sexual fetishes and practices.

According to a search warrant affidavit for Glass’ home, the e-mail messages contain conversations between “Nancy,” the e-mail address for Lopatka, and “Slowhand,” the e-mail address for Glass.

Their messages, which Flaherty described as “vulgar,” led Maryland investigators to request the search warrant.

The affidavit said Lopatka took a train from Baltimore’s Penn Station to Charlotte on Oct. 13, when the two met about 9 p.m.

“Additional e-mail messages described in detail how Slowhand was going to sexually torture the missing person and ultimately kill her,” the affidavit says. “Slowhand made reference to committing these acts at his residence.”

Lopatka had told family members she was going to visit friends in Georgia, but left a note that said she was “not returning and asked her husband not to go after the one who did this to her,” the affidavit says.

Her husband, Victor Lopatka, filed a missing person’s report Oct. 20.

The computer whodunit began with an observation by a Maryland trooper.

A Maryland state trooper taking a missing person’s report noticed a computer in the home, Leese said. After learning from family members that the 35-year old woman spent a lot of time on the computer, the trooper called in Leese and his computer unit.

They took the computer with the family’s consent. Back at the office, investigators transferred the information on Lopatka’s hard drive to one of their computers. Specially designed computer programs allowed them to duplicate everything on that drive - including copies of deleted messages.

Starting with the most recent e-mail correspondence, investigators quickly found communications between Lopatka and someone in Caldwell County.

Because investigators had the e-mail addresses of both correspondents, they went to companies providing Internet access to get records showing the true identities of the correspondents.

“After about 24 hours, we had enough information to go to North Carolina and get a search warrant,” Leese said. Once investigators broke down the door of Glass’s green-and-white single-wide trailer near Collettsville, they found some of Lopatka’s clothes and her suitcase, Leese said.

A subsequent search of Glass’ yard uncovered a mound of freshly turned dirt topped with weeds pulled out of the ground by their roots.

“The dirt was a different color, so it was not too difficult to tell it was fresh,” Leese aid.