An Indiana woman will spend most - if not all - of the rest of her life in prison after killing and dismembering a man in Ohio that she reportedly believed had ruined her marriage. Sarah Buzzard, 30, received a life sentence on Jan. 20 for the aggravated murder of Ryan Zimmerman, 21, according to Dayton CBS affiliate WHIO, as part of a plea deal that allowed her to avoid a death sentence. Mercer County Common Pleas Court Judge Jeffery Ingraham handed down the sentence to Sarah Buzzard, 30, that had been negotiated in a plea agreement that spared her the death penalty for killing Ryan Zimmerman, 21, of Columbus.
She will be eligible for parole after 30 years. In the event Buzzard is released from prison, she would be placed on parole under supervision of the parole board for five years to life.
A grand jury had indicted her in September on two counts of aggravated murder, two counts of murder, three counts of kidnapping, assault, abduction, tampering with evidence, grand theft auto, possessing criminal tools and two counts of abuse of a corpse, the Lima News reported.
Discovery of Remains and Identification
On the afternoon of Jan. 5, 2016, a person walking on the west side of Grand Lake St. Mary's State Park in Mercer County, Ohio found skeletal remains and called police, the Mercer County Outlook reported. The body had been dismembered at the neck, and the arms and at the legs; police were never able to recover the head, the arms below the elbows, or the legs below the knees.
Zimmerman's partial skeletal remains were found by a woman walking her dog on Jan.
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In June 2020, the partial remains were identified, with the help of DNA evidence, as belonging to Zimmerman. His father had reported him missing on Nov. 17, 2015 after the city of Columbus notified the family that his car had been impounded, but they couldn't reach their son. Zimmerman who had told his family he was moving to Columbus in August 2015 to live with friends, last spoke to his family on Sept. 25, 2015. His car was impounded two days later.
Sarah Buzzard : An Unexplained Murder
Arrest and Confession
Jail records indicate that Buzzard was arrested on Aug. 25, 2021. Police attempted to arrest her wife, Naria Jenna Whitaker, 33, later that the same day at the couple's home in Marion, Indiana, but Whitaker died by suicide, shooting herself shortly after police arrived, the Outlook reported.
Police said Buzzard confessed to strangling and then dismembering Zimmerman and using her car, a 2007 Toyota Corolla, to transport his remains, reported Fort Wayne CBS affiliate WANE. She then sold the car, but police tracked it down prior to her arrest and were able to recover evidence from it.
Motive and Relationships
During her guilty plea in Dec. 2021, prosecutors explained Buzzard's alleged motive for the crime, as reported by the Celina Daily Standard. According to prosecuting attorney Matthew Fox, Zimmerman had been using social media as a means to begin "exploring his sexuality and sexual preference," and in the spring of 2015, began corresponding with Buzzard's husband (who had responded to a sexually-themed Craigslist ad that Zimmerman had placed). He then began speaking to Buzzard as well.
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At some point, the husband invited Zimmerman to move to Columbus to live with him and Buzzard and have an "intimate relationship" with the husband. Zimmerman moved in on Aug. 6, 2015.
Whitaker - the woman who police believe participated in the murder of Zimmerman - had already been living with Buzzard and her husband since July 2015 and had an "intimate relationship" with Buzzard. Whitaker in July 2015 moved in with Buzzard and Buzzard's then husband at their Columbus apartment and was engaging in an intimate relationship with Sarah Buzzard, according the stipulation of facts in Buzzard's guilty plea that she had signed. Buzzard and her husband later divorced before Buzzard and Whitaker were married, according to the document. Whitaker reportedly died of a self-inflicted gunshot on Aug.
On Sept. 25, 2015, Buzzard's husband checked into a hotel in downtown Columbus with a fifth party visiting from Athens - about 84 miles southeast of Columbus - and didn't check out until Sept. 27. Buzzard allegedly killed Zimmerman while her husband was at the hotel with the unidentified person.
Zimmerman was not seen after that weekend. Police and prosecutors say Buzzards now-ex-husband is not suspected in his murder.
Buzzard and her husband filed for divorce in Nov. 2015 and, two months later, their marriage was officially over. She married Whitaker less than two weeks later. After her arrest, prosecutors said, she confessed to being angry at Zimmerman for ruining her marriage and said she and her then-husband had repeated arguments about him.
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The Murder and Aftermath
When her husband was away, she knocked Zimmerman down after he exited their home's bathroom and then held him in a chokehold until well after he lost consciousness. Whitaker, she told them, helped her dismember Zimmerman, clean up the scene and dispose of his body parts.
She allegedly told police that she and Whitaker drove Zimmerman's body parts to multiple locations besides the park where his torso was found, including several different gas station dumpsters.
Court Proceedings and Statements
During her plea agreement this month, Buzzard read a statement, acknowledging she was a "flawed person." Buzzard on Thursday characterized herself as a good person hoping for a second chance. She said she accepts responsibility for the role she played in Zimmerman's death.
"Not a day goes by that I do not wish for a chance to take it all back,” she said, according to the Mercer County Outlook. “I accept responsibility in the role I played in Ryan’s death and I will live everyday for the rest of my life attempting to redeem myself through positive actions and deeds.”
Buzzard claimed she is not a monster or a threat to society, not an evil force that deserves to be locked away forever.
Fox, the prosecutor, took issue with part of her statement. Fox addressed the change in details from Buzzard's initial account compared to statements provided during a pre-sentence investigation and statements made to the court on Thursday.
"She claims, as I said a moment ago, she is a flawed person," he told the court, the Lima NBC affiliate WLIO reported. "Well, aren't we all flawed?
During an Aug. 25, 2021, interview in Marion, Indiana, from which the stipulation of facts was drafted, Buzzard had taken full responsibility for Zimmerman's murder, Fox said. Buzzard had also told law enforcement that Zimmerman's killing was an accident and had caused her to ruin her life, Fox said.
In the pre-sentence investigation, however, Buzzard changed course, claiming that Whitaker had had enough and Whitaker had planned to kill Zimmerman, Fox said. Following through with this revised account of events, Fox said Buzzard did nothing to save Zimmerman.
Warren Zimmerman also noted that his other son, Ray, had a special bond with Ryan. Ryan was good to his brother, teaching him many things, playing video games and watching movies with him, the father said.
The court on Thursday also heard from Ryan's sister, Amanda Moran via a live video. She and Ryan were ten years apart in age. Ryan was smart, sweet and spoke well beyond his age, much like her own son, she said.
Fox argued that Buzzard deserves a more sever sentence than the one laid out in the plea agreement. Many cases are resolved through such negotiations where both sides compress their positions, Fox said, noting the process has significant value to the legal system, community, victims of crime, loved ones and legal representatives.
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