Dr. Richard Sharpe was a millionaire. He was a cross-dresser, who prescribed himself hormones to alter his body. He stabbed his wife in the forehead with a fork. Then he killed her.

The details of the life of this wealthy dermatologist have been talked about in social circles around Boston since July 14, 2000, when Sharpe gunned down his wife with a hunting rifle just yards away while the couple's two small children slept nearby.

Richard Sharpe

The doctor admitted he killed his wife but pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Now a Massachusetts jury must decide whether Sharpe is crazy or just an odd guy with a bloodthirsty streak.

Sharpe is charged with first-degree murder and faces life in prison if convicted. The trial will be broadcast on Court TV.

Perfect on the Surface

Richard and Kathy Sharpe were teenage sweethearts who married just three months after graduating from Shelton High School in Connecticut and shortly after their daughter Shannon was born.

Karen Sharpe

They shared a passion for medicine: While the former studied to be a doctor, the latter enrolled in nursing school.

In 1985, the couple moved up to Boston so that Sharpe could finish his studies at Harvard. After graduating, he went on to establish a successful dermatology practice, teach at Harvard Medical School, and form two small but profitable medical companies.

One of these ventures, a chain of hair removal clinics called LaseHair, would prove profitable enough to give the Sharpes a net worth of more than $2 million.

Richard Sharpe in drag

Karen never let on to her close friends that her relationship had problems, or that her husband was dangerous and unstable.

"You'd think, 'There they are again, the perfect family,'" a next door neighbor and good friend of Karen Sharpe told People magazine.

The Divorce

The couple's friends never heard about nights like April 26, 1991, when Sharpe returned home to find his wife with another man.

The doctor then became enraged when his wife asked him for a divorce. The next morning, according to Karen Sharpe, he stabbed her in the forehead with a fork.

Karen Sharpe fled the house, dragging their teenage daughter Shannon with her. After his wife reported the incident to police, Richard Sharpe was taken to an asylum, where he was diagnosed as suffering from "major depression, with features of anxiety and schizoid or other personality disorder."

Michael and Alexandra Sharpe were just yards away when their father shot their mother

But two days later, Sharpe's wife recanted her statements to police, allowing her husband to return home.

There were many more instances that those outside the family never heard about, according to court papers filed by Karen and Shannon Sharpe, now 27, during the divorce.

"He grabbed my neck and continually slammed my head against the wooden bed frame until I could no longer breathe," Shannon claimed, recalling an incident when she was only 10-years-old. "My next memory is my head hitting the stairs as he dragged me down the flight of stairs screaming and battering me."

According to divorce documents, disturbing behavior was the rule rather than the exception for the head of the household.

The home where the "perfect" family lived

Karen said that her husband liked to cross-dress and used his LaseHair facilities to remove all his body hair. He also prescribed himself hormones and stole her birth control pills in an effort to make his breasts grow. Shannon added that on several occasions she discovered that her father had stolen her underwear for his own use.

Murder on the Doorstep

Karen Sharpe spent the night of July 14, 2000, on a chartered boat in Boston Harbor, hanging out with friends.

Her husband had filed for divorce months beforehand and she had readily agreed. She had taken out a restraining order against him because of his erratic behavior and her suspicion that he had hired a private investigator to follow her.

That's why it was strange and chilling when he came to her door just before midnight shortly after she had returned home.

Blood on the wall at the crime scene

"What are you doing here?" she asked, according to police reports.

Her husband answered by stepping into the house's foyer and firing a single shot through her chest with a hunting rifle, while their two small children slept in an adjoining room and Karen's brother, his girlfriend and a babysitter looked on.

"Why did my father shoot my mother? Why did he do that? I never ever want to see my father again," cried 7-year-old Michael Sharpe in the aftermath, according to one witness.

Sharpe did not want to see the police, running away to New Hampshire only to be found in a dingy motel less than two days after the shooting. After his arrest, his eldest daughter made her stance on the incident clear.

"It should be clear that I have no doubt in my mind that my father's actions are unforgivable," said Shannon Sharpe to The Associated Press.

Shannon and the two other Sharpe children, ages 6 and 8, have sued their father for $100 million. And the family's babysitter has brought a $5 million dollar civil action against him, citing the trauma of witnessing the murder.

Sharpe was captured by police two days after the shooting in a New Hampshire motel

The anger that his family feels toward him may not have registered fully with Sharpe. In a letter that written to his daughter last Valentine's Day, he said, "Dear Shannon, I loved your mother. I miss her terribly. I cry every day. I want nothing but the best for you, Mike, and Ali. The only thing that gets me through each day is the thought that my children may need me."

The Prosecution's Strategy

Because Sharpe pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, the facts of the crime will not be disputed at trial. But prosecutor Robert Weiner must convince the jury that despite Sharpe's oddities and instabilities, he was sane when he killed his wife.

The prosecution will likely call the eyewitnesses to the murder, as well as Shannon Sharpe to testify about her parents' tumultuous relationship.

But the most important testimony will be from psychiatrists and other experts, whom the prosecution will use to convince the jury that Sharpe was lucid and could discern right from wrong when he shot his wife.

While it is unlikely that Judge Christine McEvoy would allow such testimony, the prosecution may try to somehow introduce evidence that Sharpe recently offered a fellow inmate a million dollars to help him escape.

The Defense's Strategy

Sharpe's defense team will likely try to downplay some of the more sensational accusations about Sharpe's personal life but also show that he was insane and not accountable for his actions.

The defense concedes Sharpe, cuffed above, killed his wife but that he doesn't deserve a life prison term because he is insane

"He wasn't a cross-dresser in the sense that he had an alternative life style," says lawyer Joseph Balliro.

Balliro would not discuss trial strategy but said that the defense would call at least one expert witness to testify to Sharpe's insanity.