How a Slain Mom’s Purse Led Investigators to a Suspect Before Case Took Yet Another Turn

The kids were eating pizza when Sherri Malarik left the Cantonment, Fla., home that Sept. 20, 2001, night. Her husband later told investigators that before leaving, she went into the backyard and told him she was going to the store and would be back soon. The mom of five never came back. 

The following morning, the 34-year-old was found shot twice in the head with a .25 caliber handgun, her body “crumpled” on the floorboard of the family minivan parked outside the Winn Dixie supermarket less than three miles from the residence, according to the criminal complaint later filed against her husband in the case and reviewed by PEOPLE.

But something about the crime scene did not sit right with Escambia County Detective Buddy Nesmith, he recalls in a new episode of People Magazine Investigates: The Soccer Mom Murder, premiering Monday, Nov. 11 at 9/8 C on ID/Investigation Discovery and streaming on Max.

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It was a brutal crime scene, Nesmith says, with Sherri “unnaturally shoved into the floorboard for concealment.” Crime scene photos show her blood on a children’s Bible in the minivan.

Yet, there was no blood on the pavement — a surprising finding, given the circumstances of the shooting. 

“So we have a crime scene somewhere,” Nesmith recalls thinking. But “this is not the crime scene.”

In the days after Sherri’s death, investigators zeroed in on her husband, Greg Malarik. Investigators allegedly found gunshot residue on his hands and pants, per the criminal complaint filed in 2020 that charged him with second-degree murder while in a domestic violence situation. (In 2023, a jury acquitted him in the case.)

Ultimately, investigators came to believe Sherri had been shot outside the family home, with her children and other relatives inside. Nesmith says he believes “some blood did seep out of that car” and into the yard, but forensic testing was limited at the time, constraining the case.

While executing a search warrant at the home, investigators found something else that gave them pause, Nesmith tells People Magazine Investigates: Sherri’s purse was stuffed inside a bedroom drawer.

“Nobody’s more surprised than we are when we find Sherri’s purse with her credit cards and her checkbook,” Nesmith recalls. “I don’t know a woman in the world who goes to the store without her purse or her wallet, now that’s just the bottom line.”

People Magazine Investigates: The Soccer Mom Murder premieres Monday, Nov. 11 at 9/8 C on ID and streams on Max.