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Jan 26, 2024

The ‘accident’ that became a Gilbert murder case

Mark Ponsati claimed his wife died in a fall at their Gilbert home. Police

Mark Ponsati claimed his wife died in a fall at their Gilbert home. Police proved otherwise. (Special to AFN)

No one outside of Mark Eric Ponsati knows what exactly happened the night he beat his wife to death in their Gilbert home. As far as the State of Arizona is concerned, the truth died with Sherri Ponsati.

But Mark Posanti man will spend the next two decades in state prison for her murder, which he staged as a slip and fall in the master bathroom.

Ponsati, 42, received the maximum sentence after a jury in March convicted him in the second-degree murder of 33-year-old wife on Sept. 7, 2017. With credit for time served, his release date is Sept. 7, 2042.

His sentencing on May 19 ended a case that Gilbert police quickly unraveled after examining the couple's Val Vista Lakes home. But what will never end is the pain of Sherri's murder on her two children and her mother.

"I think about her every day, multiple times a day," said Susan Klausch, Sherri's mother. "I think about the kids and how could he do this to the mother of his kids and his wife. It's unbelievable."

Klausch flew from Wisconsin to attend the sentencing and read a victim impact statement. "Losing Sherri has changed my life forever," Klausch told the judge. "The pain of living without Sherri is unbearable. How can there be any solace in his conviction for any of us?"

Klausch said she will never hear her firstborn's laughter or see her smile.

She described her daughter as a warm and happy-go-lucky person whose childhood nickname "Sher Bear," stuck with her throughout her life. Klausch called Sherri her "ray of sunshine" who always looked at the bright side of things.

Sherri's life

Sherri Mae Springhuth was born in Wisconsin and raised in a tight-knit family in Johnson Creek – current population 3,574.

She was working at a nonprofit group home, which served people with intellectual and developmental disabilities when she met Ponsati on an online dating site in September 2008.

Ponsati, who had finished serving in the U.S Air Force, was in his last semester studying law at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

They married in June 2010, a month before Ponsati was to start his commission as an U.S. Army judge advocate. Their daughter, Maddie, was born the following year and son, Max, five years later.

Sherri and the kids followed Ponsati as he moved from job to job both in the military and private sector, living in Hawaii, Alabama and Connecticut.

The family arrived in Arizona in July 2016 after Ponsati found work as an in-house attorney with a helicopter manufacturer in Mesa.

The young family first stayed with Sherri's Aunt Eva and Uncle Joe Springhuth in Val Vista Lakes and later found a home to rent less than a mile away on Jamaica Way.

By all accounts – those of her family members, friends and her own Facebook page, Sherri was a devoted mother to Maddie and Max.

She also was passionate about animals and became an accomplished author, penning a children's book, "Wilbert's Blue Whale Tale," which teaches children about endangered species. She dedicated the book to Maddie and Max.

In June 2017, she submitted her second children's book about a rhino to a publisher.

Sherri soon became the family's breadwinner, working for a cardiology provider after Ponsati was fired six months into his new job.

Four days before her death, Sherri posted on her Facebook page, "We’ve been in Arizona for a year now, so guess what time it is… time for another cross country move… never a dull moment."

Ponsati had a job offer in Kentucky and the family was packing up for the move.

The call for help

The 911 call came into Gilbert dispatch at 9:58 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 7, 2017.

"Oh my God, oh my God," Ponsati said on the recording. "I just found my wife. I think she's dead."

At first Ponsati said he didn't know what had happened and that his wife was not breathing. Then he told the dispatcher that Sherri "slipped and fell" and hit her head.

"There's children in the house," he said. "I believe she's dead. She's in the bathroom and there's water and soap everywhere and blood. Oh my God, Oh my God, my children, my children."

The dispatcher instructed Ponsati to perform CPR, which he refused to do.

"She's purple," he said. "I know what death looks like. I’m an Afghanistan veteran. She's gone."

He told the dispatcher not to have the fire truck blare its horn coming to the house as he didn't want his kids traumatized.

The first responder who arrived was Officer Kyle Peterson, now a sergeant. He had to push his way into the bathroom because Sherri's legs had blocked the door. He immediately noticed the entire floor was slippery.

He checked for Sherri's pulse and didn't find one or a heartbeat. He did 20 chest compressions before EMTs took over.

Sherri was rushed to Banner Gateway and after 20 minutes of continued resuscitative attempts, including intubation, she was pronounced dead at 10:50 p.m.

The investigation

That night Ponsati agreed to go down to the Police Department for an interview and the house was searched. Sherri's aunt and uncle arrived at 11:17 p.m. and collected Maddie and Max, who were then 6 years old and 18 months, respectively. They are believed to have been sleeping through the ordeal.

Initially, police considered it a death investigation and Ponsati was not a suspect.

According to police, Ponsati claimed there was no history of marital problems or any recent arguments with his wife.

However, in the days following Sherri's death, police received calls from numerous family members and a close friend that "detailed a very tumultuous marriage that included a lengthy separation and allegations of infidelity by Ponsati," police reports state.

Family members told police that Ponsati had threatened to kill Sherri if she tried to leave him.

After collecting more evidence, it turned into a homicide investigation and Ponsati was arrested a week later on Sept. 14 on a second-degree murder charge. Bail was set at $1 million.

After numerous continuances and other delays Ponsati's trial began Jan. 23.

The detective

Det. Michael Bishop testified at the trial that when he arrived at the home around 11:30 p.m. Sept. 7, several things in the bathroom struck him as odd.

"When I looked in there and I saw the blood on the tile outcropping from the bathtub, that is when I personally said this is not right," said Bishop, who retired in June 2022.

"If someone slips and falls and hits their head on an object as they fall," he testified, "you wouldn't expect to see blood on an object because something, some force has to be used to break the skin to cause the bleeding.

"So if you slip and fall and hit your head on an object and then go down to the floor, the blood's going to be on the floor, not on the object."

The blood stain on the 2-foot-high marble outcropping indicated to Bishop that Sherri's head "remained in contact with the item for a period of time."

Another red flag was how little soap was left in the gallon bottle of blue bubble bath found uncapped lying on its side.

The level of soap remaining in the bottle was well below the spout, which would have been impossible if it had tipped over accidentally, according to the detective.

According to Bishop, Ponsati "attempted to destroy evidence" by washing the clothes he and his wife each wore "in the time leading up to the injury."

Bishop also noticed other things in the house: a mattress on the living room floor that showed only one side was disturbed. The bed in the master bedroom also showed signs of a single person sleeping on it – an indication that the two adults in the home were sleeping in separate places.

At the trial, he was asked to comment on Ponsati's demeanor that night.

Bishop commented that people react differently to trauma, so he tries not to put too much weight on crying, emotions and how people act.

But with Ponsati, Bishop said, "He would put a tissue to his eyes as soon as he would lose any composure," Bishop said.

"I never saw tears. I remember not recalling a lot of tears. Other officers noticed his behavior as odd – the fact that he had very emotional outbursts and then quick recovery and talking normally."

Ponsati takes the stand

At trial Ponsati clung to his original assertion that Sherri's death was an accident.

He said he tried to have a "romantic night" with his wife the night she died and that the two were in "flirtatious moods." He also told police that the couple was planning to have a third child.

He ran a tub of water with bubble bath and played Despacito on his cell phone, which he set on the vanity.

After the two got in the tub, Ponsati said he eventually became sleepy as he had taken a sleeping pill after dinner. He claimed he was addicted to sleeping pills – taking up to six a day and Lorazepam for anxiety.

"When I left the bathtub, I kissed Sherri and she said something like ‘I’ll be there soon.’ That was the last time I saw her. I went to bed and fell asleep."

He said he woke up at 9:52 p.m. to find Sherri not in bed. Seeing the light under the bathroom door, he went over and tried to open it but it was blocked.

"I opened the door slowly and finally I do see it is her on the floor," Ponsati testified. "She looked like she toppled from the ledge onto the bathtub and slid down."

He said Sherri's right shoulder and head were pushed up against the tub and that her eyes were opened.

"I feel my blood pressure falling and the blood run out of my face," he said. "I feel my blood turn to ice. I almost faint. I cannot believe it."

Ponsati said he called his wife's name and as he approached her, he noticed water on the slippery floor.

"I stepped over her to get away from the spill," he said. "Her body is separating the bathroom into slippery and non-slippery."

He claimed he tried to follow his CPR training and put his head to her chest to see if Sherri was breathing or if there was a heartbeat.

"My training kind of stopped at a crossroad," he said. "There is a contradiction, which is I need to do CPR. She needs to be flat on the floor and her head straight. But my training also said if there's a spine injury, you don't move a person."

He said he was in over his head in rendering medical help and looked for his phone to call 911. He said he went to the bedroom, where it normally was but couldn't find it.

He said he "freaked out and was bewildered" and it didn't cross his mind to run over to a neighbor's home to use the phone.

"I thought I was alone," he said. "I went back into the bathroom and now have to prioritize – oxygen to the brain trumps injury to the spine."

He said he was concerned with Sherri's head dropping from the tub onto the tile floor so he positioned a wooden plaque under her head to shorten the fall as he moved her body.

He said he prepared to give Sherri mouth-to-mouth and positioned a "plastic tray, kind of Tupperware thing" under her neck to tilt her head backwards.

"What hit me most was the smell – made me feel faint. … The smell was bad and I could not do mouth-to-mouth because of the blood there.

"I’ve never been around blood much. I’m not Rambo or nothing. In the Army I was a paper-pusher, a desk jockey. I don't hunt. I’m not used to blood."

Ponsati said he instead did chest compressions while "thinking this is not how you learned CPR. You have to do CPR."

He said he thought of using a turkey baster to suck the blood out.

He said he rummaged through the downstairs kitchen drawer and couldn't find the baster and began to panic. But he did see a spatula and "somehow I thought I could use it to shovel the blood out of her mouth."

He said entering the bathroom he rushed toward Sherri and the spots there that were originally dry were now slippery and he fell and had the "wind knocked out of me."

"I was kind of stunned, my left side hurt," he testified. "My elbow felt like electricity going through it.

"I see her nose and I don't understand what I am seeing at first. The nose was fine but now there was a horrible gash across it. It took a second to realize I caused that gash when I fell on top of her. I broke my fall with that handle...the handle of the spatula caused the horrible gash."

He said he didn't tell 911 or cops that he had fallen on his wife, fracturing her nose due to his "botched rescue."

When dispatch asked him to do CPR, Ponsati said to himself, "Hell no. I’m not going near Sherri anymore. I feel like a bull in a china shop. I needed to protect her from me now but I can't say that to 911. So, what comes across is that I am giving up on her."

Sherri's death explained

According to the county Medical Examiner, Sherri had "multiple blunt force injuries," including abrasions to the back of the head, neck and upper back, rib and skull fractures and the nose injury. The report added that "a strangulation/asphyxia component additionally contributing to death cannot be excluded."

Her death was ruled a homicide.

Bishop, who attended the Sept. 12 autopsy, noted that the bruising to Sherri's spine and brain were "consistent with violent shaking."

The trial

The defense argued that Sherri's medical history of cardiac arrhythmia could have caused her to faint and fall and that she could have fallen more than once.

"Additionally, she had some type of bone challenge," defense attorney Thomas Henager said. "She had normal thinness to her occipital skull bone ….behind the eye so that a fall or a fall on top of her potentially could cause a more fatal situation than it could be for somebody who doesn't have this issue."

"If this man murdered his wife, why in the world would he tell 911 that he wasn't going to do CPR?" he said. "Why would he tell 911 anything other than, ‘I attempted to do it or I’m attempting to do it?’"

Henager also disputed the prosecutor's argument that Sherri's neck injury could have been caused by strangulation, saying "she would have had bright red eyes, some bleeding in the eyes."

He reminded the jury that the ME determined the broken ribs were caused by CPR efforts.

Testimony painted Ponsati as quick to anger. Witnesses said he broke Sherri's things although he claimed he never hit anyone other than a bully when he was 15.

Prosecutor Joshua Clark told the jury that Sherri wanted out of the marriage but wanted to wait until the children were older. Sherri had previously left her husband twice and went home to Wisconsin. She even consulted with a divorce attorney.

Ponsati also "wanted out of that marriage and he didn't want a divorce and if she was off the playing board, he could move on with his life," Clark said.

"This was not a fall," he said. "This was an attack. Sherri Ponsati did not die by accident."

He said that while Sherri was on medication for a heart condition, she did not have a history of fainting or falling "yet somehow she fell so many times in this bathroom that it killed her."

"The defense's experts were all about possibility, not about probability and all of them even admitted that an assault by another person is more likely, more frequent than a fall," Clark said.

"And none of them could point to evidence that is recorded by the Gilbert Police Department that supports any theory of multiple falls.

"Two people went into that bathroom, one came out alive and the other was carried out with too many injuries to be explained by an accident."

More about Ponsati's character became public later during the victim impact statements.

Stacy Wolf, a close friend and former roommate of Sherri's, claimed Ponsati had a "violent temper with Sherri, their children, and pets."

"On several occasions, Sherri would have to apologize for his behavior," Wolf said. "Sherri shared with me often of Mark's sexual deviations and the pain that it caused her in their marriage.

"He hired prostitutes and made her engage in sexual behavior with which she did not feel comfortable and (he) was obsessed with pornography," Wolf added.

"She shared that for hours on end, Mark would lock himself in their bathroom to watch porn. She was concerned that he had a problem with child pornography as well. He often covered her head with pillows during times of intimacy to avoid having to look at her."

Wolf also claimed that "Sherri had countless miscarriages between her two children."

"I believe that this was a result of domestic violence," she wrote. "I begged Sherri not to marry this man for fear of what became reality."

The children

Maddie, 12, and Max, 7, were basically orphaned on Sept. 7, 2017. The children initially lived with the Springhuths, who are in their 60s, for nearly six months until Joe Springhuth's cancer returned. He died a couple of years later.

Eva Springhuth in her victim impact statement described the effect the ensuing trauma had on the children, especially Maddie. She said she wanted to tread carefully in telling Maddie what had happened to her mother and it was agreed that the little girl would go to school as planned, giving her a normal life for a little bit while the family and Ponsati had time to grieve.

That, however, didn't happen.

Ponsati went to the guestroom where Maddie was sleeping and "in less than a minute, she jumped out of bed, came running to Uncle Joe and screamed, ‘My mom's dead’" Springhuth said.

"In that moment her life was forever changed. What loving parent would not allow their child to be a normal little girl for one day more, two days more, before destroying her world?"

Although Ponsati claimed he told Maddie that her mother couldn't be with her anymore and disclosed nothing about the circumstances surrounding her death, Springhuth said that was not so.

Shortly after sending Maddie off to the school, she said she received a call from the guidance counselor saying that the little girl "knew a whole lot more about how her mother died and was acting it out in vivid detail in front of teachers and other kids her age."

Maddie would say that her dad heard a loud boom and went looking for her mom and found her in the bathroom.

"‘She fell and hit her head on a pointy thing,’ Maddie would say and then pretend to slip and fall. ‘Her brains and blood were everywhere,’" Springhuth recounted to the judge.

And when she confronted Ponsati about it, he replied, "‘Well, she asked and I wasn't going to lie to my daughter,’" Springhuth said.

She said Maddie for the next two months would act out virtually the same scene for anyone and everyone, friends and strangers alike, over and over.

"Eric had complete and utter disregard for Maddie's emotional trauma and the immeasurable pain and suffering, which he intentionally inflicted on her," she wrote. "Eric spared Maddie nothing."

Sandy Robinson, Sherri's first cousin, said Max was diagnosed with autism shortly after he and Maddie went to live with extended family members in Wisconsin.

"Max requires extensive 24/7 supervision and care, special learning support, therapies and accommodations," Robinson told the judge. "It is likely Max will never have the capacity to live on his own and may be with his adoptive parents for life."

Maddie is actively under the care of therapists, counselors and more to help her work through the trauma. She is living in a Montana boarding school that specializes in behavioral disorders.

"More than five years later, Maddie is still struggling in many ways," Robinson said.

Dozens of family members and friends wrote of the impact of Sherri's death to them.

"The day Sherri was murdered, my life changed," wrote Danielle Lucio, a close friend of Sherri's for almost two decades. "It will never ever be the same."

Lucio, who also testified at the trial, said she withdrew from life and sank into depression.

"She was the one I called the night before she was murdered," Lucio said. "I still cannot erase her number from my phone. There is no one to fill that void."

A mother's grief

Klausch not only has to live with the loss of her daughter but also Ponsati's betrayal.

"In the beginning of their marriage, I was very close to him," she said. "We had a great relationship."

She said it wasn't until the third or fourth year into the marriage that the relationship started deteriorating.

"When Max was born I went out to see Max and I wasn't out there not even 24 hours and she said she wanted to come home with me and lived with us for about three to four months," Klausch said. "And so I said, ‘sure.’"

She said Sherri confided that her husband was cheating.

"She would find pictures of prostitutes on Eric's phone," Klausch said. "So there was infidelity going on in the relationship."

She said the family begged Sherri not to return to Ponsatti

"The last time she stayed with us, he told her if she didn't come back he would kill the whole family," she said. "So she felt she had to go back.

She said she asked her daughter a million times if there was physical violence in the marriage but was told no.

"Sherri was not that forthcoming with everything," Klausch said. "I don't really think she was truthful with a lot of stuff. Her friends shared with me things she told them that I never knew about.

"She didn't want us to worry about stuff. She wanted people to be happy. That is the kind of attitude that she had."

She said as a nurse, she was skeptical when she learned from Ponsati that Sherri died from a slip and fall.

"He kept saying over and over to me again, ‘I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,’" she recalled. "And he was doing his fake crying.

"It was so far out there. I thought they would find him guilty. He's a very sick, sick man."

A GoFundMe account has been set up to help Maddie and Max Ponsati. To donate, go to gofundme.com/f/support-sherris-loved-ones

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