A Marion County judge rejected a request from Sarah Jo Pender, a woman once likened to a murderous cult leader from the 1960s, to modify her 110-year prison sentence so that she can be released.
The ruling by Marion Superior Court Judge Kevin Snyder was issued Jan. 5, a month after Pender appeared in court for a hearing on her request for sentence modification. The request, the latest in a years-long legal battle to overturn Pender’s double murder conviction, came with support from the attorney who prosecuted her and once called her the “female Charles Manson.”
Larry Sells, a retired Marion County deputy prosecutor, wrote in a letter supporting Pender’s request that the evidence against her has no “sufficient indicia of reliability and is highly suspect at best.”
“I know of no credible evidence that Sarah Pender actually shot anyone,” Sells wrote. “As a matter of fact, there is evidence she did not.”
Two decades earlier, Sells alleged that Pender had manipulated her then-boyfriend into shooting their roommates in Indianapolis with a 12-gauge shotgun and ammunition Pender had bought at a Wal-Mart. Pender acknowledged buying the weapon and helping her boyfriend dump the bodies of Andrew Cataldi and Tricia Nordman, saying she was in fear for her life. But she has long maintained innocence of the 2000 murders.
Over the years, Sells began to doubt much of the narrative about Pender — including the one he created — after evidence suggesting she may have been framed gradually came to light.
In 2013, Sells said the young woman he helped put behind bars more than a decade earlier did not get a fair trial, although he stopped short of saying Pender was innocent.
The comments, which are unusual for a prosecutor to make publicly, came after Sells discovered a “snitch list” that neither he nor Pender’s defense attorneys knew existed at trial. The handwritten list belonged to Floyd Pennington, a jailhouse informant who was the prosecution’s key witness against Pender. The list included names of people against whom the convicted child molester was willing to testify in exchange for a plea agreement. Pender’s name wasn’t on the list, but Sells said it proved Pennington would say anything to get a plea deal.
Pender’s former co-defendant and ex-boyfriend, Richard Hull, had also admitted that only he was involved in the crimes. He acknowledged setting up Pender by convincing a cellmate to write a fake letter making it appear she confessed to killing her roommates.
The confession contradicted Pennington’s testimony that Hull pulled the trigger at Pender’s behest.
In 2019, that former cellmate admitted writing the confession letter. Steve Logan, who initially denied the forgery, said in an affidavit that Hull “bullied, manipulated and coerced” him into writing it.
In 2023, Sells went even further.
In an interview with IndyStar, he said Pender was not guilty, at least not of murder. And the worst offense she did — helping Hull cover up the crime and dispose of the bodies — did not warrant the lengthy sentence she received, Sells said. By then, Pender had been incarcerated for two decades or half her life.
“If I’d known the stuff that I know now, I mean, there’s no way that I would have prosecuted her,” Sells said. “I’m so sorry that she’s been there, especially this long.”
In an interview with IndyStar in 2023, Pender said she bought the murder weapon after Hull asked her to do so, saying he wanted to go and shoot in the country. She recalled coming home later that day and finding Hull wrapping what looked like a body. Scared for her life, she did what Hull told her: Help him dump the bodies in a dumpster in downtown Indianapolis.
“It makes me feel sad that I’m still in prison, mostly for my family and for all the memories that I haven’t been able to make with them,” Pender said, a tissue in hand and not holding back tears. “It makes me angry at this system for not working.”
Her request for sentence modification noted Sells’ support and the “substantial concerns” around the integrity of her conviction. It cited her trauma from years of sexual abuse that caused a “destructive people pleasing behavior” and led her to associate with people like her ex-boyfriend. It also detailed her efforts to improve her life behind bars after escaping in 2008, a “singular blemish” in her prison record that led to five years in solitary confinement.
Pender has since participated in various community service and educational opportunities, according to her request. She has two job offers and a graduate studies program invitation, all of which she can pursue if released.
Pender asked the judge to cut her sentence to 45 years. This is time she’d already served with good time credit, meaning she would’ve been released if the judge granted her motion. The judge’s one-page decision denying the request did not explain the reasoning behind it. Tim Delaney, Pender’s attorney, declined to comment.
Steve Cataldi, one of the victims’ brother, said he was aware Pender sought sentence modification but “was pretty confident” it will be denied.
“She’s going to serve the rest of her life in prison,” Cataldi said. “That’s what she deserves.”
The decision was a huge blow to Pender’s family and supporters.
“I’m stunned,” said Kelsey Kauffman, a former correctional officer who led an educational program at the Indiana Women’s Prison and is one of Pender’s supporters. “I’m amazed that the criminal justice system works in such a way that when the prosecutor says that someone is innocent, that that doesn’t carry an enormous amount of weight.”
Pender’s father, Roland Pender, said denying sentence modification “in the face of all the new evidence” that has surfaced “seems cruel.”
“The Indiana justice system says once again, ‘We never make a mistake,'” Roland Pender wrote in an email to IndyStar.
Pender, now 46, is scheduled to be released in 2054.
Former IndyStar reporter Vic Ryckaert contributed. Contact IndyStar reporter Kristine Phillips at (317) 444-3026 or at kphillips@indystar.com.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Judge denies Sarah Jo Pender’s request to cut sentence in double murder case
Reporting by Kristine Phillips, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
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