Amber Lea Runau
The victim in a fatal stabbing this week has been identified as 72-year-old Sharon Gayle Adler of Gassville.
Authorities were called to Adler’s home along Elm Street Tuesday afternoon, shortly after 1:30, by 21-year-old Amber Lea Runau, advising a 911 dispatcher she had stabbed the homeowner.
Runau is being held in the Baxter County Detention Center, with electronic jail records indicating she is charged with first-degree murder, with bond set at $1 million.
Captain Everett Uchtman with the Gassville Police Department tells KTLO, Classic Hits and The Boot news the two women were well acquainted. Uchtman says Adler had served as a babysitter for Runau and her older sister, Anna.
Anna Renae Runau
Anna Runau is serving a 20-year sentence in the Arkansas Department of Correction, after entering a no contest plea in 2016 to a charge of criminal attempt to commit first-degree murder.
In August 2015, the then-18-year-old Anna Runau and a 17-year-old female accomplice were accused of luring a Salem man to the public launch ramp at Buzzard Roost.
Once at the marina, Anna Runau stabbed the victim seven times. Law enforcement reported the two teens planned to steal the man’s truck and drive to Indiana.
Wednesday afternoon, Captain Uchtman said Amber Runau had recently become homeless. He said she arrived at Adler’s home Monday evening, where she remained until Tuesday afternoon.
Uchtman said the two had shared a Meals on Wheels-delivered lunch. He said Adler was a stroke survivor, who had been left with paralysis on her left side. She navigated between a wheelchair and her recliner. It was in her recliner where Adler was reportedly stabbed.
Earlier, Everett said Amber Runau called 911 from inside Adler’s home, explaining what had occurred. She met officers in the driveway, where she repeated the same story to them that she had provided to 911.
Uchtman said Amber Runau described the developments leading up to the stabbing in the living room of the residence matter-of-factly. He said she told officers she became upset when she could not fix a picture frame and took it out on the victim, stabbing her with a butcher knife. He says there was no sign of struggle in the residence or on either the victim or Amber Runau. Uchtman says the victim was dead when officers arrived.
He says Amber Runau has no prior criminal record.
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