GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — A jury was seated Monday morning in the trial of a man accused of killing a woman and dumping her body along a metro Grand Rapids road nearly 27 years ago.
Garry Artman, 65, was arrested in August 2022 and charged with the rape and murder of Sharon Hammack, who was found dead on Oct. 3, 1996.
In his opening statement, Kent County Senior Assistant Prosecutor Blair Lachman said the evidence will show Artman, who was previously imprisoned for rape, had a "strong hatred" for women and was "obsessed with redemption." Artman wrote about not feeling guilty about raping women, the prosecutor said.
"We don't really know he wrote that," defense attorney John Pyrski rebutted when he gave his opening statement.
He said because Hammack was a sex worker, investigators don't know for sure whether or not she consented to have sex with Artman. And, Pyrski added, there are no witnesses to point the finger at Artman.
The jury in his murder trial consists of 10 men and four women. Judge Scott Noto anticipated the trial would take about a week. Prosecutors were slated to call 14 witnesses. The defense did not intend to call any.
A forensic genealogist tracked Artman down by comparing DNA from the Hammack crime scene to public ancestry databases. That led them to the sons of Wilfred and Donna Artman. Investigators said Garry Artman was the only one who had ties to Grand Rapids. He lived about 5 miles from where Hammack was last seen alive and about 8 miles from where her body was found — bound, strangled and stabbed — along 76th Street near Kraft Avenue.
Family recalled Hammack, a 29-year-old mother of two who was pregnant, as a "beautiful soul," and a loving and fun sister. But she struggled with drug abuse, they said, and turned to sex work as a result.
Artman, a long-haul trucker, is also accused of murder in Maryland, where the body of 24-year-old Dusty Shuck was found in 2006.
He has been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.