The Office Stalker

Sharon Phillips Bloom was born on November 4, 1951 in Chicago, the daughter of Ida and Leonard Bloom. She won a science award in her junior year of high school, danced in a troupe and had an essay about loneliness published in the Chicago Tribune when she was in ninth grade. She was Jewish and visited Israel. In 1981, aged about 30, she moved from Illinois to the Minneapolis area to work as a computer systems analyst for 3M in Woodbury.

About 1987 she met Dave Coffed while both were volunteering at KTCA TV, and within eighteen months they were living together in a small house in South Minneapolis that they were remodelling. From 1988 into 1989 she was harassed at work. Her car and house keys were taken from her desk several times and never returned, transparencies for a presentation vanished and reappeared, coffee was poured over her chair and her glasses were stolen. She began pinning her keys to her purse with safety pins. 3M arranged to install hidden cameras at her desk on November 5, 1989.

On November 2, 1989 she was last seen at about 11:30 a.m. standing outside the front entrance of the 3M building at lunchtime. She did not come home. Coffed reported her missing and found her Honda still in the car park. Police interviewed about a hundred co-workers, family members and friends, and learned of the harassment. Most had alibis. this part of the story is covered for now

On November 12, 1989, ten days after she disappeared, a farmer, Dennis Butter, was picking corn just after 3 p.m. when he found her body about 20 feet from a dirt road at the northern edge of his field. She was wearing a coat and blouse but no skirt or shoes; her glasses were nearby and her purse and belongings were gone. Her underwear and a man's black sock were wadded beside her stomach. She had been sexually assaulted and killed by about 15 blows to the head with a heavy rounded object, possibly a hammer.

details of the account remain covered until revealed About three to four hours in, a detective was paged and learned that the body had been found. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it

this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed In his briefcase police found 25 photographs, many of women in bathing suits and several of women sitting on a toilet. Most belonged to a 3M employee, Donna Sommerfeld Billick, who had not known they were stolen. The crime lab did not examine the house for blood.

A second search followed on September 5, 1990. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it In March 1992 a third search found a set of keys, one of them Sharon's Honda key, clipped to safety pins in a basement dresser, and keys to her Saint Paul condominium in the master bedroom and bathroom. Bloodstained carpet backing was found on the stairs to the basement. this part of the story is covered for now

details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it DNA testing at the time was inconclusive.

this part of the story is covered for now He turned himself in on December 1, 2000 and was held on $50,000 bail. In 2002 he claimed to have lost all memory, was found competent, and was hospitalised for an overdose of sleeping pills on the day he was due in court. details of the account remain covered until revealed

the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it Sharon's parents had both died before the hearing; a video of them from 1992 was played. this part of the story is covered for now Sharon is buried at Waldheim Cemetery in Forest Park, Chicago.