Photo: YouTube / Harris County Jail / GoFundMe
This love triangle turned into a deadly love square.
By Isaac Serna-Diez — Written on May 11, 2022
James Hargrove, a Texas man, was allegedly murdered by his 51-year-old wife, Karin Stewart, after bringing home his lover and telling Stewart that he was in love with her.
However, during Stewart’s initial court appearance on Monday, a woman who identified herself as Sandra Hargrove told several local news outlets that she was James Hargrove’s real wife.
James Hargrove was reportedly married to two women and dating another before his murder.
Sandra had no idea that her husband had been dating Stewart or had fallen in love with a third woman.
According to Sandra, she and James had been married for over 13 years, since 2009, but separated in November.
Despite the split, she said, they remained best friends, talked daily, and even considered a possible reconciliation.
“He’s still my husband,” Sandra told KPRC through tears. “I mean, we have grandkids, we have kids, we have nieces and nephews. That’s still my husband.”
Regardless of how close they were, they were not close enough for Sandra to be aware of the two other women that James, who has a long history of health issues, was seeing.
According to sheriff’s deputies, James had been in a relationship with Stewart for seven years and that the pair lived together on and off, as reported by KHOU11.
The 41-year-old woman that James had brought home witnessed the shooting and proceeded to run for her life, telling the police that she thought the two were in an open relationship and that James had wanted the two of them to meet.
The shooting had occurred on the 23600 block of Buttress Root Drive in the city of Spring, Texas, just after 2:20 a.m., according to KRPC.
Harris County police found James Hargrove with multiple gunshot wounds allegedly inflicted by his wife.
After being rushed to Houston Northwest Hospital, he succumbed to his injuries.
According to his wife Sandra, James had just recovered from COVID after spending four months in a coma. He was paralyzed for a year and had two heart attacks, a stroke, and kidney failure.
When she was questioned by police, Stewart said that she had opened fire on him in a fit of jealous rage after he revealed that he was in love with another woman, confessing to the crime.
Stewart remains in jail on a $75,000 bond and isn’t due back in court until August 17th.
ABC13 obtained court records that indicated Steward had been previously charged with felony battery in 2016 in Louisiana after allegedly running over her then-husband with a truck and dousing him with lighter fluid.
After the charge had been downgraded to a simple battery, Steward ended up pleading guilty in that case, but she likely won’t see the same thing happen this time around.
Fortunately, James’s unnamed lover was able to escape Steward unharmed, but his suffering spells heartbreak for his real wife, Sandra, who had no idea that any of this had been going on behind her back in the first place.
"It's not believable. Clearly, it is, because I'm here, but it's not believable," said a tearful Sandra Hargrove. "Because that's my husband. He's still my husband."
Isaac Serna-Diez is a writer who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics. Follow him on Twitter here.