GloucesterTimes.com – By Gail McCarthy – Staff Writer
While facing a life in prison for killing his estranged wife, the mind of Gloucester’s Dr. Richard Sharpe spun a web of ideas, from his alleged plot to hire a hit man to kill the prosecutor in his 2001 murder trial to the writing of a scientific paper about tissue regeneration.
Sharpe was found hanged from a bedsheet in his cell Monday night at the state prison in Norfolk, where he had previously been moved after an earlier apparent suicide attempt at MCI Cedar Junction in Walpole. Prison officials have not confirmed his death as a suicide, and the state Medical Examiner’s office has not determined the cause of death.