Become an Apple Subscriber or Patron to listen
On the afternoon of Tuesday, February 24, 1998, 41-year-old Elizabeth “Trudy” Calabrese, a mother of a 10-year-old daughter & a 6-year-old son, left the Living Springs Church in Glendale, Arizona in her truck to make a food delivery to a family in need. Little did she know that she would be driving to her death. In the process of doing something to help others, Trudy was sexually assaulted & beaten to death by a husband who was assisted by his wife while their four children ages twelve & under were there to witness the horrific attack.
Trudy was always known as a person who took great pleasure in helping others in need, someone who stood out like a shining light & kept her faith in God to the end. She was a breath of fresh air who managed to see the good in everything & every one, was quick to offer an encouraging word & always upbeat. Her brother, Ken Thommen, indicated that she was a loving mother who was always dedicated to her children.
Trudy had no way of knowing that as she packed up the truck & headed out with her food delivery, she was driving to the home of a monster. 31-year-old John Sansing had been on a four day bender of using crack cocaine. Throughout this time his wife, 27-year-old Kara Kay Sansing, had been using right alongside him.
Earlier in the day John called the Living Springs Church & requested a food delivery box for his family. Kara had been at work that day while John was home with their children. He contacted her several times throughout her shift, mostly to discuss his plan for getting his hands on more crack. As the calls continued, he told Kara that he’d gotten more crack, which he’d smoked, but assured her that he saved the rest for her. He also let her know about the food delivery box they’d be receiving from the church.
After Kara arrived home at about 3:20 pm, she & John smoked the remaining crack together. While their four young children, a 9-year-old girl & three boys ages 10, 11 & 12, were present, John told Kara that he planned to rob whomever popped by their house from the church to drop the food off.
A little after 4 pm, Trudy Calabrese pulled her truck in front of the Sansing’s rental home on the 3800 block of West Alice Avenue & entered the home carrying two boxes of food. As she came inside, she chatted with Kara in the kitchen while John signed the receipt to verify the delivery.
As Trudy turned to leave, John grabbed her from behind & shoved her to the dining room floor. With Kara’s help, he tied her to a chair & bound her wrists & legs with electrical wire. Trudy begged John not to hurt her & according to Kara, she fought a great deal.
While this was happening, the four Sansing children watched while Trudy screamed, Lord, please help me. I don’t want to die, but if this is the way you want me to come home, I am ready. She cried out to the children, begging them to call the police for help, but John demanded that they go into the living room to watch TV. She continued to cry for God’s help until John gagged her with a sock & placed two plastic bags over her head which he secured with additional cords & a necktie.
Using a wooden club, John struck Trudy over the head twice with enough force to break the weapon into two pieces & render her temporarily unconscious. While she lay motionless on the dining room floor, John took her keys & moved her truck to a nearby business parking lot.
As about ten minutes passed & John had yet to return, Kara & John later indicated that Trudy regained consciousness, however, a medical examiner later questioned this based on the severity of her head injuries. When John was back at the house, he dragged Trudy upstairs to his bedroom & raped her. Kara later testified to witnessing the rape & said that she heard her husband & Trudy speaking through the assault, something John would later dispute, referencing to the gag that was in place as well as her extensive head injuries. Kara indicated that while Trudy was being sexually assaulted, she was moving from the bedroom to the living room, as well as keeping an eye on the children & monitoring what husband was doing with Trudy.
After he finished sexually assaulting Trudy, John retrieved a knife from the kitchen & stabbed her three times in the abdomen. Kara described that he was grinding the knife inside of her body & the medical examiner later indicated signs that the knife had been twisted in Trudy’s abdomen. It was these stab wounds that led to her death, likely several minutes after she’d been stabbed. When he was sure she was dead, he left the bedroom & went to look out the window to be sure no one had seen what he’d done.
John then removed Trudy’s jewelry, leaving her body where it lay, dead in his bedroom, which he concealed under a pile of laundry for the next several hours. During this time he called a drug dealer & arranged to trade Trudy’s rings for more crack & arranged to sell her necklace for another stash. At some point, they fell asleep in the living room.
When Trudy failed to turn up at home or back at the church later that evening, Pastor Becker from Living Springs Church called the Sansing home & spoke with John, looking for Trudy. He gave the pastor a false address & told him that she’d never arrived with their food.
A search began later that night when her husband, retired Air Force officer, Rosario Calabrese, reported his wife missing with the Avondale Police Department. Rosario & Trudy first met eleven years earlier while he was on duty in Germany & he asked her to dance.
Joanne Hiller, the secretary at the church, told investigators that a man who identified himself as John Sansing called the church shortly after noon on Tuesday, asking for food. He told her that he & his wife had only just secured jobs & they needed food for their family until their paychecks came through. It was Trudy who volunteered to deliver the food.
After John woke up in the middle of the night, he dragged Trudy’s body from the bedroom, down to the backyard & placed her in a narrow space between the back of his shed & his fence, concealing her remains with a piece of discarded cardboard & other trash. At least three of the four children saw her body in this location. At some point he washed the bloody club & hid the clothes he used to cover her body when it was inside a box in his bedroom. The children later told police that according to their father, he did it for the money which amounted to $1.25.
The following day, authorities located Trudy’s truck in the business parking lot where John had discarded it the previous day. Inside, they discovered a piece of paper with the Sansing’s correct address that conflicted with what he’d provided the pastor the night before.
With the correct address in hand, police headed to the home & found Trudy’s remains discarded behind the shed, her legs were sticking out from under the cardboard, her head still wrapped in a plastic bag which was bound in place with ligatures. As the plastic bag was stripped away, police discovered that she’d also been blindfolded.
When Trudy’s family learned that police located a body, they waited in agony until the victim’s identity was confirmed, hoping & praying it wasn’t her. After they were contacted early Thursday & notified that it was indeed Trudy, the family were left to find the right moment to notify her two children of their mother’s death.
About 100 friends & family gathered at the Calabrese’s church to remember the women who strove to live her religious beliefs.
One day after Trudy’s murder, John went to work & then drove to his sister, Patsy’s, home & told her what he & Kara had done to Trudy while he was high the night before. She called their father who eventually contacted investigators to provide them with his son’s location & despite the fact that John was aware that the police were headed in his direction, he made no attempt to flee. When they arrived at Patsy’s home, he was arrested without incident.
John Sansing was charged with first-degree murder, kidnapping, armed robbery & sexual assault. The State also provided notice of its intent to seek the death penalty. He was assigned two public defenders & went on to plead guilty to all charges on September 18, 1998 which meant Trudy’s family wouldn’t be forced to suffer through her murder trial.
During his court proceedings John apologized to the Calabrese family saying, If I had one wish in the world that would be to bring your wife back, but I can’t do miracles.. All I can do is give myself to the Lord.. hope I get to live.. I’m here to say I’m willing to take anything that comes to me.
The judge considered the circumstances associated with Trudy’s murder & after a three-day hearing, Sansing was sentenced to death. The Arizona Supreme Court affirmed his death sentence on direct appeal.
Meanwhile, Kara Sansing also admitted to helping her husband tie Trudy up & did nothing to stop him as he beat, raped & robbed her. Meanwhile, their four children heard the whole horrific ordeal from the other room. She pleaded guilty to first-degree murder & was sentenced to 25 years in prison without the possibility of parole. She later indicated that she pleaded guilty to spare her children any further pain. According to her public defender, Kara is a battered woman & failed to speak up or intervene out of fear of her husband’s potential for retaliation.
The Sansing’s four children were placed in the care of John’s sister, Patsy. They told police that their mother helped their father tie Trudy up & were aware that she was assaulted. When the police arrived at the home, it was in a horrific state, the floors littered with garbage & dog feces. A knife was found hidden under a couch cushion while the wooden club, now in two pieces from the brutal attack, was located under a sink.
John Sansing had an extensive criminal record in Salt Lake City, Utah, but had only spent 45 days in jail prior to murdering Trudy. Records indicate that he pleaded guilty to second-degree felony burglary in 1985 & in 1987 he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor spousal abuse & to third-degree felony burglary. In 1993 he pleaded guilty to aggravated assault.
John initially told investigators that he never planned to rob or harm Trudy as she delivered the food, however, Kara’s statements contradicted this as when she came home from work, he told her his intentions. He indicated that after he raped & beat her so badly, he decided to kill her to end her suffering.
According to Kara’s adoptive mother, she ran away from her abusive home while living in Bangladesh & ended up homeless & in jail at age 10 in Calcutta, India. She met John fifteen years prior & the two entered a life of addiction & theft to fuel their drug addiction. Reports indicate that they actually stopped using a few months before Trudy’s murder, found religion & regularly attended church until they relapsed shortly before the murder.
Despite the senseless brutality that his wife was subjected to, Rosario was a forgiving man who indicated that he cannot hate the people charged with brutalizing & killing his wife, I believe they are on drugs & don’t know what they are doing. I know they have to pay the price before God, but I don’t know what to feel. A faithful man, much like his wife, he indicated that through it all, his faith had not faltered. He recalled the last time he saw his wife as she left the church on that fateful day as she drove off with a smile on her face. Trudy was a positive, happy person who was always smiling & trying to do God’s work & according to Rosario, this is how he wants her to be remembered.
Moving forward to 2014 & a then 47-year-old Sansing, who’d been in prison for sixteen years for Trudy’s murder, was charged with first-degree murder in the death of a 78-year-old widow who was found strangled & beaten in her Salt Lake City, Utah home in 1991, Lucille Johnson. A murder that happened 7 years before Trudy’s murder.
When Lucille’s daughter came to her mother’s home on February 1, 1991, she discovered her mother, who’s bloody face was covered by a pillow. Her attack left her with a fractured skull, 24 broken ribs & numerous blows to the head. The grandmother had just visited a sick friend in the hospital & brought food over for another neighbor who was also ill. No one could understand who would possibly hurt such a kind & loving person.
Lucille’s family waited more than 20 years to learn the identity of her killer which was eventually solved, thanks to DNA left behind at her home. At the time of her murder, Lego pieces were found scattered in the entryway of her living room as well as her driveway, toys that she kept at her house to entertain her grandchildren.
Her case was reopened in 2013 & investigators tested the DNA found under Lucille’s fingernails which was a match to John Sansing, who would have been 24-years-old at the time of the murder. Fingerprints found on the Legos were a match to Sansing’s son, who would have been 5-years-old at the time.
This painted a chilling picture that while John Sansing, who had no previous relationship to Lucille, was bludgeoning the 78-year-old woman, his child was playing with her Legos in the living room. According to her family, Lucille kept a meticulous home & would have never had the Legos out unless her grandchildren were visiting. They also indicated that she would have never allowed a stranger into her home & theorized that maybe he used his 5-year-old as a ploy to allow him to gain entry.
Police were uncertain as to the motive of the crime, but Lucille’s necklace & ring were missing. While he remained on Arizona’s death row, Sansing pleaded guilty to Lucille’s murder.
John Sansing is proof that monsters exist among us, hiding behind the facade of a father & a husband.
References:
- Deseret News: Churchwoman is brutally slain
- ABC 15 Arizona: Death Row Diaries: Church volunteer bringing food to family killed in 1998
- Newspapers: The Arizona Republic: Good deed goes bad
- Newspapers: The Arizona Republic: Mother of 4 pleads guilty in Calabrese rape-murder
- Newspapers: The Arizona Republic: Good samaritan killed for $1.25
- FindLaw: State v. Sansing
- United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit: John Edward Sansing v. Charles L. Ryan
- NBC News: 23-year-old Utah murder solved with help of DNA, Lego bricks
- ABC News: Lego fingerprints helped solve cold case murder
- People: A slain widow, a ‘barely human’ killer & how scattered Legos revealed chilling detail about killer’s young son
- NIJ: What you can’t see might solve the case
