Dorothy Glaser, Jerome ‘Jerry’ Glaser: Watch ‘Your Worst Nightmare’s’ Take On A Georgia Murder Tonight On ID
Dorothy Glaser, the woman who killed her husband, Jerome “Jerry” Glaser, in their Georgia home decades ago, inspired the next shocking episode of Your Worst Nightmare, a hit crime documentary series on Investigation Discovery.
Dorothy Glaser’s case wasn’t one that made many headlines, but that doesn’t mean her case wasn’t just as heinous. Glaser was put in prison after it was proved that she shot and killed Jerome Glaser following a previous attempt failed. The murder was unsolved until Glaser tried to have her brother-in-law killed. For her crime, she still sits in a Georgia correctional facility, according to Georgia Department of Corrections’ website.
In the dramatization of tonight’s Your Worst Nightmare episode, entitled “The Devil Went Down To Georgia,” Investigation Discovery fans will learn that Dorothy Glaser had one goal only — to see her husband Jerry dead so that she could collect on the hefty insurance policy. The attempt on his life occurred just weeks before he was finally gunned down in his own home.
According to court records provided by Case Law, Jerome “Jerry” Glaser returned home one night after attending a game, where he was confronted in his hallway by an intruder. The intruder fired a shot, which struck Jerry, leaving him with a minor injury. He survived the attack, but after that, Jerry was not the same. He grew paranoid and even became depressed. He knew that the bullet he endured was meant to kill him, and he was sure that the intruder would come back to finish the job.
The police never could find out the identity of the would-be killer. To protect himself, Jerry Glaser slept very little and even bought a gun just in case they came back. He often slept on the couch and refused to leave his house because he was deathly afraid that someone was out to get him. Sadly, the person who wanted to see him buried six feet under lived right under his roof.
Dorothy Glaser couldn’t take it anymore. She needed Jerome dead, so she devised a plan to do it herself. Investigators say that in October 1985, Dorothy shot Jerome dead with his own gun. Her story was that she had come home to find him asleep on the couch, stating that he became disoriented and was unsure of who she was. Startled, he took out his gun to shoot her, but she managed to put up quite a tussle, even managing to get a hold of the gun to shoot him in self-defense.
The Houston County police didn’t buy her story from the get-go. Her explanation did not line up with the findings of the autopsy report, which initially found the death to be a homicide. According to the Malefactors Register, Dorothy Glaser disagreed with the finding and asked for a coroner’s inquest, which ultimately led to a jury finding the death to be accidental.
After that ruling, Dorothy Glaser was free. She also collected on that $250,000 life insurance policy, but her greed led her to conspire to murder her sister’s husband. To put her plan in motion, she needed someone who was willing to kill him, and she believed that family member Bobby Spargo was perfect for the job. Instead, Spargo alerted police of her vicious plot. Dorothy Glaser was eventually arrested and charged in her husband’s death.
Reading the Glaser case is like watching an episode of Unsolved Mysteries. And although this type of crime seems far-fetched or like something out of a movie, there are many cases just like it. In the case of Florida socialite Lee Goldsmith, she tried to have her son-in-law killed because he was a blue collar worker who wasn’t good enough for her daughter. There is also the bizarre case of Jelka Pesic, a grandmother who had her own daughter-in-law gunned down in broad daylight. Both cases inspired made-for-TV movies, Mother Knows Best and The Perfect Mother.
Don’t forget to make time to check out the case of Dorothy and Jerry Glaser tonight on Your Worst Nightmare on Investigation Discovery. In past weeks, we’ve written about two other cases that inspired Your Worst Nightmare episodes. Read up on the case of Mary Stauffer and Jeffrey Gorton.
[Image via Georgia Department of Corrections]
