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Woman tells parole board convicted sex offender stalked, harassed her

Oct 8, 2024, 7:05 AM | Updated: 10:36 am

OGDEN — A Weber County woman urged the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole on Monday not to release convicted sex offender Cary Hartmann for a second time.

“He is a predator,” Kate Bell said.

Bell described first meeting Hartmann, 76, at the Vasa Fitness on 12th Street and Washington Boulevard in early 2021. She initially thought Hartmann was a kind, older man in need of friendship, but their interactions soon took an unwelcome turn.

“He would say sexual things to me, as far as, ‘You are so sexy. You are so pretty. You’re going to someday get hurt because of your prettiness,'” Bell said.

Hartmann’s comments even grew threatening over time, Bell said, making her feel unsafe.

“He said that Satan had visited him the night before and that I was going to get hurt and that I needed to watch my back,” Bell said.

Bell attempted to distance herself from Hartmann, but she said he was persistent and repeatedly asked her for her phone number. When she refused, Hartmann allegedly showed up at the retail store where she worked and asked to speak with her. Bell wasn’t there, and Hartmann allegedly became upset.

On another day, a man called the store and asked to speak with Bell by name. The caller, who refused to give his name, asked Bell if the mannequins in the store window were for sale. She said no.

“Then he went on to the underwear that the mannequin may be wearing, or that I was wearing, personally. And I just hung up,” Bell said, in an interview with KSL TV.

COLD contacts Cary Hartmann

KSL’s COLD podcast contacted Cary Hartmann on May 5, 2021, in an effort to interview him about the unsolved disappearance of his girlfriend, Sheree Warren, on Oct. 2, 1985. Hartmann declined.

Hartmann reportedly approached Bell at the gym a day or so later and told her his name would soon be appearing in the news because he had a troubling past, including having spent more than 30 years in prison on convictions of sexual assault and rape.

“I started googling and searching and I was so distraught,” Bell said.

Bell and her husband spoke to a neighbor who worked for the Utah Highway Patrol. That trooper contacted Ogden police, who in turn connected Bell with an investigator from the Weber County Attorney’s Office named Steve Haney.

Haney was, at that time, investigating Hartmann in connection with the Sheree Warren cold case. He went to speak with Bell, and during that interview asked if she had received any strange phone calls. Haney wasn’t surprised when Bell said yes, because Haney knew Cary Hartmann had a history of making obscene calls.

Cary Hartmann’s criminal history

Previous reporting by COLD revealed Cary Hartmann’s first arrest occurred in the summer of 1971, after he made threatening phone calls to a Huntsville woman. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge and served a sentence of 6 months probation.

Hartmann went on to serve as a reserve officer in the ranks of the Ogden Police Department from 1980 to 1983. Only a few years later, in 1987, Ogden detectives arrested Hartmann on suspicion of rape. They believed Hartmann stalked and assaulted numerous women inside their own homes.

Several of the alleged victims in those cases told police they’d received obscene phone calls from a man who claimed to be conducting a survey about lingerie shortly before they were attacked.

Hartmann stood trial in one of those cases, and was convicted by a jury of aggravated sexual assault, a 1st degree felony. He subsequently pleaded guilty to a charge of rape in another case, also a 1st degree felony. The convictions carried a sentence of 15 years to life in prison.

Hartmann made repeat appearances before the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole during his three decades in custody. At first, he denied any responsibility for the crime that sent him to prison, but later admitted to it and other criminal offenses.

During a 2019 parole board hearing, Hartmann said he turned to pornography when he felt low and “that led to cruising for women and choosing women to make victims.” The parole board released Hartmann from prison 6 months later.

Hartmann met Kate Bell at the gym about a year after that.

Google Voice number

Weber County Attorney’s Office investigator Steve Haney suspected the man who’d made the anonymous call to Kate Bell might be Cary Hartmann. He attempted to confirm this by retrieving phone records for Bell’s workplace. Haney told KSL he found a call listed on the date and time Bell described.

“It was a Google Voice number,” Haney said. “It’s an app that you can download to your phone, and then you can make phone numbers through that app which will assign you a random phone number with an out-of-state prefix.”

Haney said Google Voice numbers were largely untraceable at the time in 2021.

Utah Adult Probation and Parole, the agency responsible for supervising Hartmann while he was out of prison, obtained a search warrant for Hartmann’s phone in early 2024. An investigator allegedly found evidence showing the Google Voice app had been downloaded and deleted multiple times. However, investigators were never able to definitively link Hartmann’s phone with the obscene call to Kate Bell.

“Cary’s a chameleon,” Haney said. “He is the ultimate conman.”

The ‘biggest mistake’ Cary Hartmann ever made

AP&P agent Brandon Adair told the parole board on Monday that the review of Hartmann’s phone also uncovered pornography. Parole conditions prohibit sex offenders in Utah from possessing or viewing pornography. Adair arrested Hartmann in April and returned him to prison.

Hartmann said that had come as a shock.

“This 6 months I’ve spent in prison has been the scariest part of my life, and I’ve done a lot of time,” Hartmann said. “It’s made me realize that I don’t want to be an old man sitting in a jail cell and die alone.”

Hartmann admitted to violating the terms of his release during his 4 years on parole.

Suspect in Utah cold case back in prison on unrelated parole violation

“I was a stupid old man,” Hartmann said. “I watched pornography. It was the biggest mistake I ever made.”

The AP&P agent, Brandon Adair, told the parole board that pornography wasn’t Hartmann’s only problem while he was out of prison.

“We had him removed from a culinary school, we’ve had him removed from a pickleball court due to his discussions with other females,” Adair said. “It was his mouth that got him in trouble.”

Hartmann denied stalking or harassing Bell. His attorney told the board she did not believe investigator Steve Haney had proved Hartmann made the obscene phone call to Bell. She urged the parole board to release him as quickly as possible.

The Utah Board of Pardons and Parole did not make a decision on Hartmann’s status during the hearing. The board has the power to keep Hartmann in custody for the rest of his life, if it so chooses.

Bell said she chose to speak out, hopeful that sharing her story about Hartmann might protect others.

“He has not changed, and just because he’s older doesn’t mean he’s not a threat to society,” Bell said.

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Woman tells parole board convicted sex offender stalked, harassed her