‘Her traumatic legacy’: American killer and fugitive lived 50 years in Alberta town

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This article was published 31/01/2025 (308 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CALGARY – For half a century, Diedra Glabus lived a quiet life in the small town of Taber, Alta., three hours southeast of Calgary.

She was married, had a family, worked as a Realtor and died three years ago at the age of 81.

It was only after her death that her secret life and her real name was made public.

Glabus was in fact a fugitive killer and prison escapee named Sharon Kinne in a case that began in the 1960s and stretched from Missouri to Mexico to Canada. 

Kinne, also known as Jeanette Pugliese and in Mexico as La Pistolera, was charged before her 25th birthday with killing her Missouri husband, her boyfriend’s wife and a man she’d picked up at a bar in Mexico. In the third killing, she was sentenced to 13 years in a Mexican prison but escaped in 1969 and wasn’t seen again.

“I would love nothing more (than) to one day sit across the table from her, and I would like to pick her brain,” said Sgt. Dustin Love of the Jackson County Sheriffs Office at a joint news conference with Kansas City Police on Thursday.

“It’s unfortunate we couldn’t catch her when she was alive. She was really good at what she did.” 

The two groups received an anonymous tip about Kinne in December of 2023.

“I have already extended my apologies to both sides of the family that we weren’t able to catch her during her life,” Love said. 

“It just so happens that someone had that tip and was not willing to release it until after her death.”

The Alberta RCMP was aware and provided assistance to the Jackson Country Sheriff’s office and Kansas City Police. 

“We helped co-ordinate, but ultimately they ended up being able to identify her through their own means without our assistance,” said Alberta RCMP spokesman Cpl. Troy Savinkoff.

“She was able to stay very, very low key over all those years and start a new life, a new relationship. It’s a pretty incredible story.”

An obituary for Kinne’s husband, Jim Glabus, said the couple moved to Taber in 1973 and owned a motel and started a Century 21 real estate agency.

Taber Mayor Andrew Prokop did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Kinne was the subject of the longest outstanding arrest warrant for murder in the history of Kansas City, Mo., and one of the longest outstanding felony warrants in U.S. history. 

Kinne’s family issued a statement after the news became public.

“We would like to state how happy we are that this chapter in our family history can be closed,” it read.

“Sharon was a woman that never faced the consequences of her actions, leaving them for her children to deal with. She caused great harm without thought or remorse. Hopefully, this closure will allow the family a chance to heal from her traumatic legacy.”

Savinkoff said it reads like a novel. 

“Someone will publish something.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on Jan. 31, 2025. 

— with files from The Associated Press