Killing of Sharon Lopatka

Sharon Rena Denburg was the first of four daughters born to Orthodox Jewish parents Mr. and Mrs. Abraham J. Denburg. They were members of the Beth Tfiloh Congregation, Abraham being a cantor at the synagogue. Lopatka married construction worker Victor Lopatka in Ellicott City, Maryland, in 1991, and relocated with him to a ranch-esque tract house in Hampstead, Maryland, during the early 1990s. The first website she hosted, "House of Dion", was for selling home décor guides by mail for seven dollars. More than 50 messages that showed her sexual desire of being tortured to death were discovered by The News & Observer. For 14 years until May 1996, Glass was married to his wife Sherri, and the couple had two daughters and one son. Through email, Lopatka presented Glass her fetish of being tortured, while he sent messages about how he would fulfill her fantasy. Police discovered close to 900 pages of emails between the two during the investigation of Lopatka's death. ==Killing and investigation==

On the morning of October 13, 1996, Lopatka informed her husband, Victor, that she was going to Georgia to meet acquaintances. She also left him a note, which said that she would not return home and requested him not to track down Glass. The note also read, "If my body is never retrieved, don't worry: know that I'm at peace." County investigator D. A. Brown said that Lopatka's body might never have been found had it been buried in the woods behind Glass's house. Glass pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and sexual exploitation charges on January 27, 2000, and was sentenced to 36–53 months in the Avery-Mitchell Correctional Institution. He was also sentenced to an additional 27 months for federal charges of second-degree minor exploitation, to be served consecutively. Glass was found dead of a heart attack in prison on February 20, 2002, at the age of 51, one month before he was to finish his state sentence and begin his federal sentence. ==Influence==

The Lopatka case was reportedly the first in which a murder suspect was put in custody by a police department mainly because of evidence from emails. ==Cultural references==

The case inspired the film Downloading Nancy (2008), which premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and had a wider release in 2009. Interviews with screenwriter Lee Ross indicate he was aware of the Lopatka case and found it "dark, horrible ... and intriguing". ==See also==