CRIME HUNTER: Did sex-obsessed couple's amorous antics lead to murder?

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Few things say California like a mop of golden blond hair. It’s in the Golden State’s DNA.

Leggy Sabrina Limon, now 46, had the hair, the sparkling white teeth, a slinky body, and a sex drive to beat the band.

The Bakersfield housewife and regular church-goer met her husband Robert Limon when they were teenagers in their native Arizona.

And like a lot of people, they pulled up stakes and headed for California after high school.

Blood on the tracks

He got a high-paying job with the Santa Fe Railroad, she raised two kids.

But that Norman Rockwell mosaic was blasted to pieces on Aug. 17, 2014.

In the busy Santa Fe rail yards on the outskirts of Bakersfield, Robert Limon was shot multiple times and died alone beside the tracks.

At first, detectives were left scratching their heads as to why someone would want to ventilate the well-liked family man. Happily married, two kids, an affluent lifestyle. What could have gone wrong?

But behind the Limon’s “just folks” image, a face put forward for their family and friends’ consumption, there was a boiling cauldron of passion and sexual obsession. Cops began looking behind the facade.

One of the hobbies the couple shared in Bakersfield – best known for the raucous country sounds of Buck Owens and Merle Haggard – was swinging. The Limons both had big sexual appetites

Not being judgy, but despite the fun of carnal capers, sometimes things go south for “couples who like to play.” One falls in love with another sex partner, scuttling their marriage. There’s endless anecdotes about horny hubbies who encouraged their wives to experiment only to be served with divorce papers because she liked the action more than he did.

Sabrina told detectives that in 2008 the twosome opened up their marriage and began swapping sexual partners and going to orgies with other couples in their quiet neighbourhood.

Sabrina and Robert Limon obsessed with sex

“We opened our marriage bed and changed the dynamics of our sacred bond,” Sabrina said, adding they both became obsessed with sex.

But as mentioned earlier, a problem emerged. Sabrina had developed a deep emotional bond with one of her bonk buddies. This, hubby Rob decided, was against the rules and he put the kibosh on his wife’s hormone-charged hijinks.

There was a reason for her away games. The horny housewife later said her husband had become obsessed with online porn and would spend hours trolling for smut.

That’s when a conservative, born-again and baby-faced firefighter walked into Sabrina Limon’s life. They first met when she was handing out samples at Costco in 2012.

Jonathan Hearn was 11 years younger but they clicked. He asked for her phone number and she readily gave it to him.

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Hearn was tired of sharing Sabrina

Within months their torrid sexual affair had set both their lives ablaze. For two years the pair slithered around Bakersfield, having sex wherever and whenever they could. And, as was to be expected, not everyone could swallow the burgeoning love triangle.

Hearn, who knew his lover was married, was tired of sharing her. As he would later testify, the couple came to a dark conclusion: “Bob had to go.”

The couple had first tried to take out Robert Limon in July 2014 with arsenic-laced banana pudding, but Sabrina had a last minute case of the jitters.

However, the matter was far from concluded.

Within a month, Robert Limon got a one-way ticket to the morgue, courtesy of Hearn and a handful of lead in the rail yards.

Depending on the situation, homicide investigations can be remarkably easy. In the majority of murders, the killer and victim are known to each other. So, for Bakersfield cops, first stop was Sabrina.

Hearn was busted that November but it took two years to put steel bracelets on the merry widow.

Sabrina Limon told her first-degree murder trial that while she was a promiscuous vixen, she was no killer. Hearn had already pleaded guilty and the DA took the death penalty and life in prison off the table if he would rat out the hormone-charged housewife.

Was Sabrina ready to quit swinging?

Sabrina’s three-week trial was an orgy of moral excess, sprinkled with lurid tidbits. She claimed she loved her husband despite the rampant cheating.

The jury didn’t nibble and she was convicted of first-degree murder, solicitation of murder, conspiracy to commit murder and accessory to murder.

Ironically, Hearn testified that the reason he and Sabrina connected was her desire to ditch the swinging lifestyle. Hubby didn’t want to give it up.

“Hearn saved his own butt,” Limon’s attorney Richard Terry told the Bakersfield Californian. “It’s hard to fathom how they found her not guilty of attempted murder but involved with the murder.”

Sabrina Limon’s California dream came to a crushing end. She was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 26 years in the slammer.

ADDENDUM

In 2022, Limon’s appeal was pulverized when a judge ruled she would continue serving a life sentence. Her legal eagles argued there was insufficient evidence to convict her and also tossed the boy toy triggerman, Jonathan Hearn, under the bus.

“Evidence independent from Hearn’s testimony conclusively connected (Limon) with Robert’s murder. The prosecution established that appellant was deeply in love with Hearn both before and after he killed her husband,” the court wrote, adding the kinky femme fatale repeatedly lied to cops.

bhunter@postmedia.com

@HunterTOSun