Sarah Buzzard

Sarah Elizabeth Buzzard was living in Columbus, Ohio, in 2015 with her husband and their friend, Naira Jen Whitaker.

Publicly available information about Buzzard's early life is limited. She later moved to Marion, Indiana, where she was living with Whitaker when she was arrested in August 2021.

Buzzard's life became connected to Ryan Zimmerman after Zimmerman moved from Kentucky to Columbus in August 2015. He had met Buzzard's then-husband online and moved into the apartment they shared. Whitaker was also living with them.

Buzzard and Whitaker developed an intimate relationship while Buzzard was still married. Buzzard and her husband filed for divorce in November 2015, and their marriage was formally dissolved in January 2016. Buzzard married Whitaker shortly afterward.

Buzzard's only confirmed murder was the killing of Ryan Zimmerman.

Zimmerman was 21 when he was killed in Columbus in September 2015.

According to Buzzard's later confession, she was at the apartment with Zimmerman while her husband was away. When Zimmerman came out of the bathroom, Buzzard knocked him down and placed him in a chokehold.

She continued choking him after he lost consciousness and ultimately killed him.

Buzzard subsequently dismembered Zimmerman's body with assistance from Whitaker. The women transported and disposed of portions of his remains at multiple locations.

Buzzard used strangulation to kill Zimmerman.

According to her confession, she knocked Zimmerman down and held him in a chokehold until he died.

The killing was followed by extensive efforts to conceal the crime. Buzzard and Whitaker dismembered the body and transported the remains away from the Columbus apartment.

Some remains were disposed of in dumpsters and other locations, while the majority were taken toward Indiana and eventually left in Mercer County, Ohio. Investigators later determined that a saw had been used to dismember Zimmerman's body.

Zimmerman was reported missing by his parents in November 2015.

On January 3, 2016, a woman walking her dog discovered human remains near the mouth of Coldwater Creek, east of U.S. 127 in Mercer County, Ohio. The remains had been dismembered, but investigators were initially unable to identify the victim.

The case remained unsolved for several years.

In June 2020, an Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation analyst connected the unidentified remains to Zimmerman's 2015 missing-person report. DNA testing involving his parents subsequently confirmed his identity.

Investigators then began reconstructing Zimmerman's movements and examining his online communications and connections in Columbus.

Evidence eventually led investigators to Buzzard and Whitaker.

On August 25, 2021, police arrested Buzzard in Marion, Indiana. During questioning, she confessed to killing and dismembering Zimmerman.

Investigators then went to arrest Whitaker. When officers informed her that she was going to be arrested, she pulled a handgun from her purse and died by suicide. Police stated that no officer fired a shot.

Buzzard was initially charged with multiple offenses, including two counts of aggravated murder, murder, kidnapping, abduction, felonious assault, tampering with evidence, grand theft of a motor vehicle and abuse of a corpse.

The aggravated-murder charges carried the possibility of the death penalty.

Rather than proceed to trial, Buzzard reached a plea agreement with prosecutors.

On December 23, 2021, she pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated murder. The second aggravated-murder charge and the remaining charges were dismissed as part of the agreement, which removed the possibility of a death sentence.

On January 20, 2022, Buzzard was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years. She was credited with time already served in jail.

The relationship between Buzzard, Zimmerman and Whitaker was an important part of the case.

Zimmerman had moved into the Columbus apartment after meeting Buzzard's husband online. Whitaker was already living with the couple and had developed an intimate relationship with Buzzard.

According to investigators, Buzzard became increasingly angry with Zimmerman and blamed him for problems in her marriage. During her police interview, Buzzard said that she believed Zimmerman had contributed to the breakdown of her relationship with her husband.

Investigators later established that Buzzard's husband was not involved in Zimmerman's murder. He had been away from the apartment during the weekend when Zimmerman was killed, and investigators confirmed his whereabouts.

Buzzard told investigators that she killed Zimmerman because she was angry and because of the problems surrounding her relationship with her husband. In a later account of her interrogation, investigators described her motive as being connected to her relationship with Whitaker and her fear of losing that relationship.

Zimmerman's remains were scattered across multiple locations. Only portions of his remains were recovered, and some parts of his body have never been found.

The investigation was ultimately solved nearly six years after Zimmerman's disappearance, largely through DNA identification, digital evidence and the reconstruction of his connections to Buzzard and Whitaker.