An Indiana high school softball coach plotted the murder of her ex-fiancé with the help of one of her former players – and later testified that she only went along with the teen’s plan because she thought it was an innocent chemistry experiment.
A new episode of 48 Hours, “Coached to Kill,” that aired Saturday, shone a light on the horrific murder of Shea Briar, who was found clinging to life on a rural road in Indiana on January 12, 2020.
Briar, 31, was taken to the hospital, where medics discovered a bullet wound on his back.
“There was no exit wound … It was actually in his heart,” Jay County Sheriff’s Detective Ben Schartz told 48 Hours. “He passed away.”
Kristi Sibray, an acquaintance of Briar’s former fiancée, 29-year-old Esther Jane Stephen, soon reached out to authorities to share some alarming information, the episode revealed.
Sibray, a former police officer, told detectives that in the months leading up to Briar’s murder, Stephen would come over with her 19-year-old assistant coach, Shelby Hiestand, and confide in her about problems she was having with Briar.
After the couple broke off their engagement, Briar filed a court petition to establish parenting time for the daughter they shared.
“He wanted to provide for her… and he just really wanted to have some visitation,” Briar’s mother, Tracy Hoevel, told 48 Hours.
However, Stephen was unhappy about Briar’s efforts to be involved.
“She didn’t want to share the baby. That was her baby. That was her child,” Sibray said.
Sibray told investigators that Stephen would bring up ways to get rid of Briar, but that she didn’t think anything of it at the time.
“I just really thought she was venting. I did not think that was for real,” Sibray told 48 Hours.
At one point, Sibray said Stephen and Hiestand told her they put pills in Briar’s tea.
“They crushed up ibuprofen, I believe… And he did drink the whole glass, but nothing happened to him,” Sibray said. “I’m like, ‘are you serious?’...I didn’t even believe her…Because I just could not see her doing that.”
However, Sibray became skeptical of those conversations after learning of Briar’s murder.
“I felt like I failed because how did I miss this? How did I miss these signs?” Sibray said.
After speaking with Sibray, authorities questioned Stephen and Hiestand. While both initially denied involvement in Briar’s murder, they later admitted they took him to that rural road where Hiestand shot him in the back.
Stephen and Hiestand were arrested and charged with murder. Both pleaded not guilty and when Stephen went to trial, she blamed Hiestand.
While on the stand, Stephen insisted she didn’t want Briar dead – and that Hiestand had the idea of putting pills in his drink as part of a chemistry experiment.
The trial spanned three days before the case went to the jury, according to CBS News.
Stephen was sentenced to 55 years in prison, which is the recommended sentence for murder in Indiana.
When Hiestand went to trial in 2021, she also received a 55-year sentence for murder.
The 48 Hours episode “Coached to Kill” aired on CBS Saturday and is available for streaming on Paramount+.
