Craig Matheson
Appearances
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
Christensen claimed to be a member of the Wiccan church, for want of a better term, and they went by the name of the Aquarian Tabernacle Temple, commonly referred to in the area as the Tab.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
He was pretty serious about it. But in talking to... friends of his that were also part of the Wicca church. It was also pretty apparent that in addition to the belief system of Wicca, that Christensen was also going down a darker, a darker side.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
She had grown up until she was a teenager in Oregon, had moved to Washington with her mother. She was working at JCPenney and had just moved to a new apartment.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
My name is Craig Matheson. I was a deputy prosecuting attorney for Snohomish County. I did that for 35 years and retired in June of 2024.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
Then I became involved at that point. We came to the determination that we had probable cause both for a search warrant of Christensen's home... and for an arrest warrant for Christensen.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
Sherry's car was located at approximately 2 p.m. later on the same day that the search warrant was served on Christensen's home, so the afternoon of January 7, it was found off of a place called Reeder Road, and Reeder Road is a two-lane road that leads off of Highway 2 in the east part of Snohomish County.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
It relatively quickly gets out into the woods, and you're out in the middle of nowhere before you know it.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
And it's an old gravel pit that young kids will go to party at or people will do target shooting at. You know, things of that nature. It was apparent from the smell and the act of smoke that was still coming out of it that it hadn't been there long.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
What was interesting when... Law enforcement ultimately went into the vehicle. In the trunk of that vehicle, they found a stack of cut up linoleum that appeared to be of the same type of linoleum that was cut out of the kitchen floor in Sherry's apartment. They also found a block of knives. that was consistent with the type of block of knives that had been in Sherry's apartment.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
And they found a big butcher knife in the passenger compartment of the vehicle where the tip had been broken off it.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
The human skull that was located on the front seat was ultimately taken by this county medical examiner and he x-rayed that and when x-raying the skull, discovered a knife tip in the skull. So it all kind of matched up with the weapon that had been used at least to stab her in the head was a knife from the knife block that had been on her kitchen counter.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
So Gesme showed up to help him get into the vehicle. And when he arrived, Christensen was standing outside of Sherry's car, and he'd locked the keys inside.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
And as they started talking with him initially, though, it became pretty apparent that Ryan had some criminal liability based upon his actions after the murder in helping Christensen. We needed to get Ryan legal counsel to make sure that we were doing this correctly.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
Gesme didn't have any real criminal history. He wasn't somebody that we dealt with either law enforcement or the prosecutor's office. We knew he was telling the truth because he was actually able, ultimately, to lead law enforcement to the various body parts.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
Several uniformed deputies showed up at the apartment complex, which was the Cedar Creek Apartments, and the maintenance man on duty at the apartment complex got his keys and allowed law enforcement entry into Sherry's apartment.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
But this is not a guy with history, but he certainly had criminal exposure for rendering criminal assistance after the fact by helping dispose of the body. So to make sure that we got his testimony for trial, we ultimately offered him immunity for truthful testimony at trial.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
Inside of Christensen's home, they found a pair of blue jeans that had fairly extensive blood spatter on it. They found a pair of tennis shoes that had apparent blood spatter on it. But what was mostly interesting to law enforcement about these shoes is that the tread on the bottom of the shoes matched the bloody footprint that was found at Sherry's apartment.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
And what they found inside the vehicle was a number of blood transfer stains on various parts of the car. Then a couple of rings that had been put in like the ashtray. And on the interior of the rings there appeared to be blood inside of those also. They also located what appeared to be essentially a shopping list for cleaning items. Garbage bags, bleach, mop, gloves, things of that nature.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
It's difficult to get inside of Eric Christensen's brain, but I have to believe that a lot of it was that even for a guy like that, doing what he ultimately did to the body had to be pretty shocking. That what had occurred was so disturbing to even him that. It kept him from being meticulous in his cleanup, or he just didn't care, or he thought he had talked his way out of it the previous day.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
And once the deputies entered the apartment, it became pretty clear pretty quickly that they were not going to be dealing with a missing persons case, but a homicide case.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
I don't know, but I was just glad that it was there when the police showed up.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
So our theory of the case that was, you know, borne out, I think, pretty well by the, you know, the hard evidence that we were able to demonstrate at trial was that Christensen was already very sensitive about the subject of Dan Young, the sugar daddy. This was a guy that worked, that had money, and wasn't shy about spending it on Sherry Harlan.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
Christensen claimed a shoulder injury and had been on disability for months. He didn't work.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
He missed, but the police, who just happened to be around the corner when he was opening fire on the two, caught him relatively shortly after he took the shots. And he said something to the effect of, where I come from, when a woman cheats on you, you shoot them. And the only reason they're alive is because my front sights are off. He ended up doing 12 years on two counts of assault one.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
There was a heavy odor of bleach in the air inside the apartment. There had been some linoleum that had been cut off the floor of the kitchen in the apartment. There had been an amount of carpeting that had been cut off the floor in the bedroom of the apartment. Inside the apartment bedroom where the carpeting had been cut off,
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
The morning of January 1st, 2010, Sherry had been complaining about a stomach ache. And Christensen left and went to the Walmart, which is just up the road from the apartment, to buy her some stuff for her stomach. While Christensen had been gone, Sherry and Dan Young had been texting back and forth.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
One of the last text messages from Sherry had been her complaining about her stomach ache, and the very last text that Dan Young had sent back to Sherry, and the last text that she'd ever received, was a text that said substantially words to the effect that That's what being with two guys will do to you. It'll give you a bad tummy, LOL. So Christensen gets back from Walmart.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
Sherry's in the shower. And being a jealous, possessive guy like he is, he goes to her phone. And he sees that text string, particularly this last one where it appears that, you know, Sherry and Dan are kind of laughing at him being a cuckold. And he decided to kill her.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
Cause of death was difficult for the medical examiner to determine because of the state of the body. However, he was able to find on the torso three stab wounds in her back, two of which would have been fatal in and of themselves if they had occurred while she was alive. And there was also the stab wound to her head that left the knife tip embedded in her skull.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
For the most part, Christensen was pretty stoic, but there were a couple of times... particularly when we were talking about the text string from Sherry's phone when Dan Young was testifying about his relationship with Sherry, where he was obviously angered by what he was hearing.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
I felt bad for the jurors. The law enforcement and myself deal with, you know, ugly, gnarly stuff all the time. And this was bad for us. I can't imagine what your typical normal citizen was feeling like when they came in to the courthouse, got selected for this jury, and then sat for 16 days. watching just this parade of horrible, you know, that we spun out for them.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
And then, you know, thanks for your service. We'll see you later, you know, as they head out the door. Like I said, there are images from this thing that I'll never get out of my head. I can only imagine, you know, some of the jurors might have similar issues.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
On all four walls, there was blood spatter, so essentially kind of in a 360-degree radius. Law enforcement also found a T-shirt that had what appeared to be a bloody footprint on it. There was a futon mattress that appeared to have several cuts that you might expect from a knife being plunged into it.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
The verdict had been announced when the jail staff were leading him back to the holding cell. He kind of cackled in a very loud fashion. It was kind of spooky. I'm not sure whether it was something that he really felt or he was just trying to be macho and kind of play the part. But yeah, he was laughing as he was walked out of the courtroom.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
And there was a pair of gloves, those nitrile gloves, and one of them had what looked like tissue. And when I say tissue, I mean human tissue on the glove.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
Detectives started fanning out and doing a canvas of neighbors of Sherry's, seeing whether they either saw something or heard anything. And several of Sherry's neighbors indicated that they either heard what sounded like a relatively loud, violent argument on Saturday morning, which would have been January 2 at approximately 8 a.m.,
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
But there was also a neighbor that saw a man who met the description of Eric Christensen kind of loitering around Sherry's vehicle. What was important about this neighbor having seen someone who met Christensen's description near Sherry's vehicle is by the time law enforcement got there on the 5th, that car is gone. Christensen immediately became a person that law enforcement wanted to talk to.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
Eric Christensen was a big guy. He had to go about 6'2", 6'3". He was probably about 220. He was balding and kept his hair cut very short. almost to the scalp. He had a long chin beard that he would typically braid, would often wear kilts. He claimed some Scottish heritage.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
you know, they were building their case. So they weren't there to arrest Christensen, but what they wanted to do is get him, you know, tie him to some sort of statement. Maybe he would admit to the crime. Maybe he would give them information to lead them in a different direction. Betts had the presence of mind to essentially do a man-on-the-street type of interview. Got his recorder out,
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
asked Christensen if he's willing to, you know, talk to law enforcement, you know, that they're out looking for Sherry Harlan. And Christensen agreed.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
In November of, I think it was November 14th of 2009, he was sentenced to do 30 days in jail for an unlawful possession of weapons charge in Snohomish County. So from November 14th till December 11th of 2009, he had been in jail on that weapons charge.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
Sherry had met Dan Young on a dating platform several months prior to her moving out of her habitation with Christensen.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
Dan Young was an older guy. He was employed. He had money. He helped when Sherry had told him that she wanted to move out of the home that she was sharing with Christensen. He agreed to pay both the first and the last month's rent at the apartment complex that she moved into and was the co-signer on the lease.
Sword and Scale
Episode 285
He also purchased her a flat screen TV, a block of knives, and some cooking implements to kind of set Sherry up in the apartment.