Girl on the Run: The Hunt for America’s Most Wanted Woman - What do we know about Sarah Jo Pender's crimes? Details explored 

Girl on the Run: The Hunt for America’s Most Wanted Woman is Hulu's latest 3-part true-crime docuseries that revisits the October 2000 case, where an Indiana woman named Sarah Jo Pender was sentenced to 110 years in prison for the murders of her two roommates.

The official synopsis for Girl on the Run: The Hunt for America’s Most Wanted Woman reads as follows:

Follows the story of Sarah Pender, convicted of double murder in 2000, who escaped from an Indiana maximum-security prison in 2008 and evaded capture for months as America's Most Wanted Woman.

Sarah Jo Pender's case gained national attention when she escaped in August 2008, becoming the only woman to be ranked on the U.S. Marshals’ 15 Most Wanted Fugitives list at the time. After a hunt of almost five months and multiple reruns of the TV program America’s Most Wanted, Pender was eventually recaptured in December 2008 and she continues to serve her time in prison.

More on Girl on the Run: The Hunt for America’s Most Wanted Woman in our story.

Girl on the Run: The Hunt for America’s Most Wanted Woman revisits Sarah Jo Pender's crimes

A Lawrence Central High School graduate, Sarah Jo Pender, lived with her boyfriend Richard Hull and two roommates, Andrew Cataldi and Tricia Nordman. In October 2000, both Cataldi and Nordman were found dead in their Indiana apartment, which they shared with Pender and Hull. Neighbors' initial testimonies and Pender's purchase of a shotgun (on the morning of the double homicide) made her and Hull the prime suspects in the killings.

Girl on the Run: The Hunt for America’s Most Wanted Woman revisits Sarah Jo Pender's case, which came to national attention after she escaped from the Rockville Correctional Facility in August 2008 with the help of a prison guard. Initially, Pender maintained that she was innocent. She revealed that after a heated argument (about a dr*g deal gone wrong) between Hull and Cataldi, she left the house, only to find him loading the dead bodies in his pickup truck. Pender claimed that she accompanied Hull in disposing of the bodies because she was scared for her life.

Girl on the Run: The Hunt for America’s Most Wanted Woman will shed light on then-Marion County Deputy Prosecutor Larry Sells' efforts, who relied on a letter written by Pender and testimony of a fellow inmate (and Pender's penmate) Floyd Pennington, to convict her of the crimes. Following this, Pender was sentenced to 110 years in prison.

Girl on the Run: The Hunt for America’s Most Wanted Woman will explore the chaos behind Sarah Jo Pender's case

Sarah Jo Pender's case was deeply tied to the only hard evidence against her, the letter she allegedly sent to Richard Hull, which read as follows:

"I wish I could go back and change the events of that night. Drew was so mean that night. I just snapped. I didn't mean to kill them. It must have been the acid. [...] When you said you would try to take the blame, I knew then that you loved me deeply. At first I thought you would tell, but you stuck to your promise."

The letter clearly proved that Pender coerced Hull into taking the blame for her crimes, which earned her the nickname of 'female Charles Manson.'

Girl on the Run: The Hunt for America’s Most Wanted Woman will explore the chaos behind Pender's conviction, especially the controversy behind the letter, which was later proved to be a forgery. In a signed affidavit, Hull confessed that the letter was forged by a fellow inmate named Steve Logan. These claims were practically confirmed when a detective found Hull and Logan's fingerprints on the said letter, which was printed, as opposed to the eighty other letters Pender wrote in cursive to Hull.

These discrepancies forced Sells to reevaluate his initial case against Pender, as he said in a statement:

“I never had anything like this happen in any case I ever prosecuted before. It took a long time for me to come to the conclusion I’ve come to now … Justice is long overdue for Sarah Pender. Unfortunately, the legal system has to date failed her, but that grievous error can and should be corrected.”

As Girl on the Run: The Hunt for America’s Most Wanted Woman gears up for a Hulu release, Pender continues to fight for a sentence reduction with a team out of Georgetown University's "Making an Exoneree" program working to exonerate her.

You can stream Girl on the Run: The Hunt for America’s Most Wanted Woman on Hulu.

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