‘Monster’ dead months after conviction in 1996 murder of Grand Rapids woman
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — The suspected serial killer convicted of the 1996 murder of Sharon Hammack of Grand Rapids is dead.
Garry Artman, 66, died Thursday morning of lung cancer, according to Kent County Senior Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Blair Lachman.
Artman, a long-haul trucker, had served just three months after receiving a life sentence for the rape, stabbing and strangulation of Hammack, a 29-year-old mother of two.
“I’m glad we don’t have to support that monster (anymore),” said Hammack’s sister, Tina DeYoung, in a text exchange with Target 8 Friday morning.
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Artman was in the custody of the Michigan Department of Corrections in Jackson at the time of his death from natural causes.
Hammack, described by her sisters as a “beautiful soul” who was spirited and loved life, was pregnant with her third child at the time of her murder.
Artman hogtied Hammack and wrapped her in an electric blanket before dumping her along 76th Street near Kraft Ave. north of Caledonia. A delivery driver spotted Hammack’s body the morning of Oct. 3, 1996.
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It took 26 years to identify Artman as her killer. It took jurors a half hour to convict him.
Artman was unmasked as Hammack’s killer after the Kent County Sheriff’s Office submitted DNA from the 1996 crime scene to a firm that specializes in forensic genetic genealogist. A genealogist compared the crime scene DNA against samples uploaded to ancestry websites by people tracing their family trees. Through that process, the genealogist narrowed down the perpetrator to one of four sons of Wilfred and Donna Artman.
Kent County detectives took over from there, ultimately determining that Artman was the only brother with any ties to Grand Rapids. The long-haul trucker had lived just 5 miles from where Sharon Hammack was last seen near Division Avenue and Burton Street SW in Grand Rapids. At the time of the murder, Artman worked for a transportation company 4 miles from the site where Hammack’s body was found.
Artman was arrested in August 2022. He stood trial and was convicted in September of this year and was sentenced in October.
Hammack was among 17 murdered or missing women who were killed or abducted between late 1994 and late 1996 in and around Grand Rapids. Most of the victims were addicted to drugs and worked in the commercial sex industry.
Murdered or missing in Grand Rapids: 17 women, little justice
Crime scene DNA also tied Artman to the 2006 murder of a young woman in Maryland. Dusty Shuck, 24, was found beaten and stabbed to death on May 4, 2006, not far from a truck stop along I-70 near Mount Airy, Maryland.
Shuck’s mom, Lori Kreutzer, described her daughter to News 8 as “beautiful, happy, and mellow.”
The 24-year-old, a talented artist and mom to a young son, was in her early twenties when she began exhibiting symptoms of mental illness, according to her mom. Kreutzer said Shuck was ultimately diagnosed with schizophrenia and, despite her desperate efforts to convince her daughter to maintain her safety and stability through medication, Shuck would inevitably walk away from treatment centers and wander the country, vulnerable and on her own.
Artman was scheduled to go to trial for Shuck’s murder in Maryland following his conviction in Michigan, but the 66-year-old died before that could happen.
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