Sarah Pender Escaped Prison for 4 Months Until a Neighbor Recognized Her From “America’s Most Wanted”. Inside Her Life NowEmily Blackwood,
Sarah PenderCredit: WRTV Indianapolis; ABC News Studios
Sarah Pender and her then-boyfriend, Richard Hull, were accused and later convicted of killing their roommates in 2000
Pender denied murdering them and has attempted to appeal her conviction
She later escaped prison in 2008 but was caught after an episode of America’s Most Wanted featured her
Sarah Pender lived as a fugitive for four months in 2008.
On Oct. 24, 2000, Pender’s boyfriend, convicted felon and drug dealer Richard Hull, murdered their roommates, Andrew Cataldi and Tricia Nordman, in Indiana with a gun she had purchased. Although she was convicted of the double homicide, she has maintained her innocence and attempted to appeal her conviction.
In the midst of her prison sentence, Pender escaped from the Rockville Correctional Facility in August 2008, per The Indianapolis Star. She remained on the run for four months until a neighbor recognized her from an episode of America’s Most Wanted and she was apprehended in Chicago.
Pender later became the subject of the Hulu docuseries Girl on the Run: The Hunt For America’s Most Wanted Woman and spoke about the crimes and her life in prison. Meanwhile, Hull was sentenced to 75 years for Cataldi and Nordman’s deaths in 2003.
So, where is Sarah Pender now? Here’s everything to know about her double homicide conviction and prison escape.
Pender was convicted of murdering her roommates in 2002
Sarah Pender in ‘Women Behind Bars’ on September 26, 2013.Credit: TV/Shutterstock
On Oct. 24, 2000, Hull killed Cataldi and Nordman with a shotgun Pender had purchased for him earlier that day, The Indianapolis Star reported. The murders took place at the home they all shared in Indianapolis.
Though Pender wasn’t at the house at the time of the killings, she rode with Hull as he disposed of the bodies in a dumpster. They were both arrested days later.
Hull admitted to the murders and later pleaded guilty, and Pender’s case went to trial. The primary evidence against her consisted of two alleged confessions: one she supposedly made to Hull in a handwritten letter he later admitted was fake, and another to convicted child molester Floyd Pennington, with whom she became pen pals in prison.
In July 2002, Pender was found guilty of double-homicide and the following month, she was sentenced to 110 years in prison.
She escaped from prison six years later
Sarah Pender.Credit: WTHI-TV
Though she admitted to witnessing her ex-boyfriend dispose of Cataldi and Nordman’s bodies and buying him the gun, Pender has maintained her innocence in their murders.
She has tried to appeal her conviction multiple times, but to no avail, telling a judge in December 2025 that she didn’t want “to die in prison,” WRTV reported.
So, with the help of Correctional Officer Scott Spitler and former cellmate Jamie Long, Pender escaped from Rockville Correctional Facility on Aug. 4, 2008, per The Indianapolis Star.
Though her accomplices were arrested and convicted soon after, she lived on the run for four months on the north side of Chicago under the name Ashley Thompson.
Then, America’s Most Wanted profiled Pender in an episode. A neighbor of hers in Chicago recognized her after watching a rerun and tipped off the police, who captured her on Dec. 22, 2008.
After her capture, Pender spent five years in solitary confinement
Sarah Pender.Credit: WRTV Indianapolis
When Pender returned to prison after her escape, she was placed in solitary confinement for five years at the Indiana Women’s Prison.
The convict wrote about her conditions in a February 2014 essay for the nonprofit Solitary Watch and claimed she remained in isolation for a year after her punishment for escaping had ended.
“I am confined to my cell 22 hours each day, and the other 2 hours am handcuffed and escorted 25 feet down the hallway to another locked room for ‘recreation and exercise,’ ” Pender wrote.
The prosecutor who convicted her recanted
Larry Sells.Credit: WRTV Indianapolis
While assisting in research for Steve Miller’s 2011 true crime novel Girl, Wanted: The Chase for Sarah Pender, deputy prosecutor Larry Sells found new evidence in Pender’s case: a “snitch list” that Pennington had written.
According to The Indianapolis Star, Sells believed that the document should have been given to Pender’s lawyers during her trial. As a result, he concluded that Pender had been wrongfully convicted and should be granted a new trial.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that there definitely exists a reasonable doubt as to Sarah’s culpability in the case,” Sells told WRTV in January 2023. “I have learned things since Sarah Pender’s trial and conviction in 2002 that convince me that important evidence presented at her trial was tainted and that her murder convictions should be set aside.”
The retired prosecutor added, “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.”
Pender is currently serving 110 years at the Indiana Women’s Prison
Sarah Pender in ‘Girl on the Run: The Hunt for America’s Most Wanted Woman’.Credit: ABC News Studios
Eventually, Pender was returned to the general inmate population at Indiana Women’s Prison in Indianapolis, where she’s continuing to serve her sentence. According to the Indiana Department of Correction, her earliest release date is Jan. 12, 2054.
Her sister, Jenifer Pender, started a Change.org petition for a clemency hearing after a prisoner named Steve Logan admitted in a 2019 affidavit to forging the purported written confession from Pender that Hull submitted.
The 2020 petition said that Pender was nicknamed “plant whisperer” in prison and that she had been accepted into a master’s program at Evergreen State University in Washington.
Her clemency hearing was postponed during the COVID-19 pandemic, but Pender petitioned in December 2025 to lower her sentence to 45 years, including time served. The Indianapolis Star reported that if the petition was granted, she would be free with approval.
The judge denied her request in January 2026.
Source: Crime
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