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Speaker 1: Before we begin, Please note this series includes talk of

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Speaker 1: suicide and sexual violence. Please take care while listening. I

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Speaker 1: have dreams about Sandy for an entire year. She's been

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Speaker 1: in the back of my brain, never far from my

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Speaker 1: waking thoughts. The white coat she was wearing on the

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Speaker 1: last night of her life. It hangs in my closet.

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Speaker 1: I see it every time I get dressed. Her things,

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Speaker 1: her check book, her calendar, notes she wrote are laying

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Speaker 1: across my desk. Her handwriting is familiar to me. Now

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Speaker 1: there's a note Sandy wrote to herself that I have have

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Speaker 1: almost memorized. I've read it so many times. It helps

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Speaker 1: explain where her interest in policing came from and where

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Speaker 1: her career ambitions might have first begun. It's called My

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Speaker 1: Life as a Cop Freak. This is a real story

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Speaker 1: of my life as a cop freak. It goes back

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Speaker 1: to when I used to walk past the police department

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Speaker 1: to catch my bus for school. I was only fifteen,

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Speaker 1: and policemen would wave, smile and say hi. They looked

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Speaker 1: so good in that white county car and blue uniform.

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Speaker 1: I've always wanted a job where I could be looked

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Speaker 1: at with respect. They always seemed to have that sort

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Speaker 1: of ego with them. Then one day I got a

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Speaker 1: job at the local drug store and at nights we

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Speaker 1: had county policemen in there. I met three that were

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Speaker 1: really nice guys. First night I met Ray, a real nut.

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Speaker 1: He was short and looked a lot like John Denver.

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Speaker 1: He asked if I wouldn't mind a cold beer after work,

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Speaker 1: until I told him I was only seventeen. Then he

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Speaker 1: kind of said, we'll wait until you get older. After work,

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Speaker 1: my dad was there to pick me up. The next night,

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Speaker 1: a real young, great looking guy came up to me

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Speaker 1: and asked who I was. I could hardly believe what

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Speaker 1: he asked. He stayed by my counter all night, talking

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Speaker 1: about bullshit. I'm pretty sure Sandy was still in high

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Speaker 1: school when she wrote this note. The infatuation, the excitement,

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Speaker 1: the giddiness about attracting male attention. It reminded me of

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Speaker 1: how I felt about boys at that age. I'm not

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Speaker 1: sure exactly what Sandy meant by cop freak, but by

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Speaker 1: her own admission, she was one. She simultaneously wanted to

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Speaker 1: be liked by them and wanted to be like them.

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Speaker 1: She wanted to enter their world, where their uniforms try

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Speaker 1: on their egos, and at some point in her senior

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Speaker 1: year of high school she did. Sandy's family told me

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Speaker 1: that's when she set her sights on becoming a cop

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Speaker 1: and began training in earnest going on ride alongs with

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Speaker 1: local police, and according to her brother Michael, it all

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Speaker 1: started out okay. She had her heart sat on I'm

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Speaker 1: a police officer from the time she first mentioned it

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Speaker 1: all the way up through. You know, she had nothing

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Speaker 1: bad to say, probably a good year and a half

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Speaker 1: that she did the ride alongs whenever they got a

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Speaker 1: call that they went for, from speeding tickets to traffic accidents,

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Speaker 1: nothing nothing major. M if something major came up, I

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Speaker 1: think that she had to get dropped off. Ride alongs

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Speaker 1: are exactly what they sound like. A civilian rides with

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Speaker 1: an officer in their patrol car as they go about

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Speaker 1: their duties. The earliest record of one that Sandy attended

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Speaker 1: is marked in her calendar on March nine, Sandy would

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Speaker 1: have just turned eighteen and been in high school. Still,

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Speaker 1: based on my reporting, she would have accompanied one other

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Speaker 1: police officer on a shift that typically lasted from three

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Speaker 1: to eleven PM. I actually, you know, the way she

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Speaker 1: talked I actually kind of wanted to do one to myself,

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Speaker 1: just to just to see, you know, hey, what goes

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Speaker 1: on here? You know, what do you do when you

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Speaker 1: pull somebody? What do you do when you're you know,

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Speaker 1: you're in a bad situation? How how do things go here?

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Speaker 1: You know? I wasn't as enthused about that as she was,

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Speaker 1: but I did think it was kind of neat. But

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Speaker 1: Sandy's sudden interest in policing was a bit confusing to

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Speaker 1: her family, who had no ties to the profession. At first,

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Speaker 1: I was a little surprised, like, really, yeah, So she

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Speaker 1: was talking about these rid alongs and how she enjoyed them.

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Speaker 1: Some of the long she was saying that, you know,

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Speaker 1: they know it wasn't hundred said about board? What I

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Speaker 1: do we call She's saying, yeah, man, Jesus, guys, get

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Speaker 1: away with ship. Sandy didn't go into detail about what

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Speaker 1: kind of ship they got away with, but the Pig

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Speaker 1: County Police Department was notorious for its use of excessive force,

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Speaker 1: especially against the county's growing black population. Once a predominantly white,

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Speaker 1: working class county, the area saw a radical demographic shift

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Speaker 1: in the seventies as black families moved there from d C.

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Speaker 1: But as the racial makeup of the community changed, the

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Speaker 1: police department remained overwhelmingly white, the results of which were

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Speaker 1: often brutal for people of color. As one veteran cop

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Speaker 1: told The Washington Post at the time, quote, it was

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Speaker 1: a known fact that if you came into Page County

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Speaker 1: and made trouble, the police would kick your head in

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Speaker 1: simple as that. Here's a story from around the same

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Speaker 1: time Sandy would have been going on ride alongs in

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Speaker 1: Thomas Pete, a black man, was pushing a stalled car

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Speaker 1: in a seven eleven parking lot when several PG County

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Speaker 1: police officers arrived. Witnesses reported that, unprovoked, the officers began

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Speaker 1: beating Pete to the ground, cracking his head open. This

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Speaker 1: incident triggered a public conversation about police brutality, but ultimately

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Speaker 1: the police faced no real consequences. Like Sandy said, they

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Speaker 1: got away with ship. From My Heart Radio, I'm Melissa

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Speaker 1: Jolson and this is what happened to Sandy Beale and

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Speaker 1: I Heart original podcast, Chapter three, My life as a

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Speaker 1: cop freak growing up. She wasn't any different than us

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Speaker 1: getting in trouble. We had all three kind of seemed

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Speaker 1: to get in the same kind of trouble. After a while,

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Speaker 1: Sandy kind of her own way. Michael is in his

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Speaker 1: early sixties now and moves with a quiet and deliberate air.

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Speaker 1: He's warm, but also a little bit guarded, which makes

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Speaker 1: sense when you learn his backstory. He has lived through

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Speaker 1: the excruciating pain of losing two daughters, one to congestive

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Speaker 1: heart failure and another in a car accident. But Sandy

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Speaker 1: is the first loss of Michael's life, and it came early,

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Speaker 1: when he was a senior in high school. The two

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Speaker 1: siblings were close, both in age only a year apart,

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Speaker 1: and in the intensity of their relationship. With most of

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Speaker 1: her family. Sandy was tight lipped about her time with police,

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Speaker 1: but Michael was granted a rare glimpse of her world.

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Speaker 1: She graduated a year before me, and while she was

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Speaker 1: out of school, most of her time was spent with

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Speaker 1: work and with um, hanging out with the police department

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Speaker 1: and the ride longs and stuff like that, and then

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Speaker 1: going to these FLP lodges and hanging out with them

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Speaker 1: and drinking and stuff like that. He said, she said

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Speaker 1: they all were just let the hair down, when in

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Speaker 1: that FOP stands for fraternal Order of Police. It's the

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Speaker 1: largest professional police organization in the country. State level outposts

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Speaker 1: are called FOP lodges, and some, like the FOP Lodge

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Speaker 1: in Prince George's County, have a bar where officers can socialize.

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Speaker 1: That lodge, number eighty nine is where Sandy would go

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Speaker 1: to grab drinks with cops. Michael said the drinking age

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Speaker 1: was only eighteen back then. She talked about just going

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Speaker 1: through the club and hanging out and having a good time,

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Speaker 1: and the cops will bring her home. Half the time

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Speaker 1: they had been half drunk. When you're bringing her how

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Speaker 1: many cop cars? So I'm like, well, there you go.

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Speaker 1: The FOP lodge Sandy visited is still open today. I

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Speaker 1: haven't been there, but I looked at pictures online. On

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Speaker 1: the inside, it looks a bit like your average sports bar,

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Speaker 1: with carpeted floors, bare walls, and blinds pulled down over

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Speaker 1: the windows. It has eight flat screen televisions, two pool tables,

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Speaker 1: and a jukebox. The bar stays open until two am

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Speaker 1: Monday through Saturday, and on Tuesday's domestic beers are a dollar.

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Speaker 1: Is long as you were in law and enforcement, you

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Speaker 1: can go to this place. They just go there and

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Speaker 1: hang out and swap stupid stories and cheating their wives

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Speaker 1: and doing silly things like that. So it's about pretty much.

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Speaker 1: But I got out of it. But she was trying

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Speaker 1: to learn as much as she possibly could by going

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Speaker 1: on these ride alongs and hanging out with the police

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Speaker 1: and and you know, just taking things in and seeing

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Speaker 1: seeing just what goes on, how things are donned, you know,

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Speaker 1: so that when she was able to get into the academy,

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Speaker 1: she would have something, she would know what to expect,

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Speaker 1: what was coming down the line. At the time Sandy

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Speaker 1: was trying to become a cop, women accounted for only

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Speaker 1: two percent of sworn officers, and many of them worked

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Speaker 1: desk jobs. It was only in two the Prince George's

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Speaker 1: County started admitting women into the police Academy get Sandy

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Speaker 1: envisioned a place for herself there, even when there was

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Speaker 1: little indication that she would be welcomed. I wanted to

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Speaker 1: understand the climate she was operating within, and without being

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Speaker 1: able to talk to Sandy, I found the next best thing,

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Speaker 1: another woman who began policing around the exact same time,

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Speaker 1: Dottie Davis. It wasn't like it was my lifelong goal

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Speaker 1: to be a police officer. Um, I literally was looking

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Speaker 1: for an occupation that paid well and that was satisfying

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Speaker 1: to me, And so I started as a dispatcher, which

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Speaker 1: then led to me applying to a neighboring agency. Literally,

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Speaker 1: I was watching the officers, the troopers that I was dispatching,

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Speaker 1: the calls for service, and I was thinking I could

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Speaker 1: do that. First of all, I'm an avid runner, and

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Speaker 1: um my father was against Smith. So I've been shooting

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Speaker 1: since I was eight and reloaded new ammunition since I

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Speaker 1: was nine. I grew up in what I believed to

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Speaker 1: be kind of a paramilitary household, where the only way

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Speaker 1: you responded to my parents was yes or and no,

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Speaker 1: may am. So if you can put everything but I

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Speaker 1: just said, together, I think about what I recruit classes

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Speaker 1: like in the academy. Man, I loved it. Dottie has

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Speaker 1: retired from policing, but she spent over thirty years with

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Speaker 1: the Fort Wayne Police Department in Indiana. She started as

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Speaker 1: a patrol officer, moved up to sergeant, then lieutenant, captain,

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Speaker 1: and finally deputy chief. My very first, very first training

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Speaker 1: officer told me to get in the car, don't touch anything,

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Speaker 1: and shut up. If I need anything from you, I'll

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Speaker 1: tell you. And I was like, this is going to

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Speaker 1: be a really long eight hours. It wasn't a very

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Speaker 1: welcoming environment for a female, but I learned early on, um,

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Speaker 1: you're probably not going to be heard. If Dottie had

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Speaker 1: been attempting this journey just a few years earlier, it's

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Speaker 1: likely she would have been shut out. But in nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty four, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, which prohibited

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Speaker 1: employers from discriminating workers on the basis of sex. In

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two, Congress extended the law to local and

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Speaker 1: state governments. In practice, that meant women could no longer

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Speaker 1: be excluded from important jobs like policing and firefighting. Still,

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Speaker 1: local police departments continued to deny women jobs by issuing

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Speaker 1: height and weight requirements that many couldn't meet. In nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventy seven, the Supreme Court ruled that the use of

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Speaker 1: heightened weight as a screening mechanism was unlawful discrimination. And

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Speaker 1: so we were still as two babies, if you will,

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Speaker 1: we were still being looked at as pilot projects, um

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Speaker 1: to see whether or not we were going to be

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Speaker 1: able to be successful and hold our own While removing

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Speaker 1: these barriers made it easier for women to become police officers,

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Speaker 1: they still had to face workplace environments that were indifferent

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Speaker 1: to their ambitions or even outright hostile. A detective and

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Speaker 1: I were writing the elevator back up to the detective Bureau,

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Speaker 1: which was on the second floor, and he pinned me

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Speaker 1: against the elevator wall and tried to kiss me, and

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Speaker 1: I shoved him off of me and started yelling at him.

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Speaker 1: And then I went into the detective bureau, went to

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Speaker 1: the captain and said, I'm not riding with him anymore.

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Speaker 1: He just pinned me against the elevator tried to kiss me,

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Speaker 1: and I'm not putting up with that. And what happened?

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Speaker 1: He got nothing other than told leave her alone. Some

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Speaker 1: of the behaviors Dotty described for obviously predatory, others seemed

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Speaker 1: designed to simply undermine women and keep them from getting

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Speaker 1: too comfortable in their positions. So as much as I

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Speaker 1: love to shoot, I had a firearms instructor that would

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Speaker 1: stand over my shoulder. I mean I could like next

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Speaker 1: to my body and he would tell me to squeeze

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Speaker 1: the trigger like you were squeezing a nipple. And I

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Speaker 1: know I'm looking at your face. I wanted to bark

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Speaker 1: because it was just so ridiculous that he would even

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Speaker 1: say that, and of course it threw me off my

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Speaker 1: game horribly, which I don't know if that's what he

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Speaker 1: wanted because he didn't want a female to be the

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Speaker 1: top gun. Dottie emphasized how isolating it was to be

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Speaker 1: one of the two, a woman in a sea of

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Speaker 1: male cops. And honestly, it's not that much different today

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Speaker 1: currently around of sworn law enforcement officers or women. That means,

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Speaker 1: in many precincts across the country, it's not uncommon to

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Speaker 1: be the only woman on a shift, the only woman

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Speaker 1: in a division. That isolation can have a corrosive effect.

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Speaker 1: It is very easy for you to lose your identity

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Speaker 1: and i'd have fit in and become one of the boys.

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Speaker 1: And I learned that no matter how much rank you

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Speaker 1: have or time and grade, you are never going to

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Speaker 1: be one of the boys. And you have to continue

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Speaker 1: to maintain your identity and be sure of who you

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Speaker 1: are because they will eat you out. When Sandy's body

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Speaker 1: was found, there were two small books in her possession,

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Speaker 1: address books that she used to keep track of the

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Speaker 1: people she met. I have them now, and I've spent

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Speaker 1: the last year pouring over them, trying to see what

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Speaker 1: they can teach me. I've cataloged each of the names

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Speaker 1: and researched their identities. Alongside her classmates at Bladensburg High,

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Speaker 1: her neighbors and seat Pleasant, and her colleagues from the

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Speaker 1: department store are another category of acquaintances, police officers. Every

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Speaker 1: few pages, the name of a cop appears, either a

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Speaker 1: PG County Police officer or a Maryland State trooper, along

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Speaker 1: with their phone number. Examining her handwriting, it's hard to

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Speaker 1: tell if these cops were her friends or professional contacts.

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Speaker 1: Some entries include official titles and others are written more casually.

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Speaker 1: The number for the fo P Lodge is also in there.

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Speaker 1: And then there's the list in the back of the book,

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Speaker 1: thirteen names long. In black ink, Sandy wrote down a

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Speaker 1: series of three digit numbers, each one adjacent to a

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Speaker 1: last name. As far as I can tell, they're all

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Speaker 1: PG County Police officers, and the numbers identify their police cars.

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Speaker 1: When I first flipped through Sandy's address books, it wasn't

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Speaker 1: clear to me how a high school student would know

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Speaker 1: so many police officers. That change once I connected with

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Speaker 1: one of the PG County cops from Sandy's books. Ray.

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Speaker 1: That's Ray from the drug Store Ray, the John her

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Speaker 1: look alike from Sandy's note My Life as a Cop Freak.

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Speaker 1: Ray's name appears in her books a few times, along

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Speaker 1: with a phone number, an address, and what appears to

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Speaker 1: be his police car number. Ray told me that he

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Speaker 1: doesn't remember Sandy, but he did have an idea why

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Speaker 1: she was able to go on so many ride alongs

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Speaker 1: as a teen. As he explained, Sandy was likely part

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Speaker 1: of the Police Explorer program in Prince George's County, which

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Speaker 1: launched in nineteen seventy six. The program allowed teens to

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Speaker 1: shadow police officers at work and try out or explore

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Speaker 1: the job to see if they might want to pursue

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Speaker 1: a career in law enforcement. I hadn't heard of Police

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Speaker 1: Explorer programs, so I did some research. Turns out they

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Speaker 1: now exist all over the country. They began in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifties as part of the Boy Scouts of America.

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Speaker 1: Although side note they're now run by a subsidiary called

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Speaker 1: Learning for Life. Girls weren't allowed to join in until nineteen.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy six, the Boy Scouts received a grant

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Speaker 1: from the federal government to promote the program, and it worked.

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Speaker 1: A lot Of new posts, as they're called, cropped up

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Speaker 1: all around the country, including one in Prince George's County.

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Speaker 1: Based on my reporting, I believe that Sandy joined the

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Speaker 1: Prince George's County Explorer program in its very first year,

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Speaker 1: when she was a senior in high school. Sandy would

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Speaker 1: have been one of the first generation of trainees, though

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00:18:41,800 --> 00:18:44,520
Speaker 1: I wasn't able to confirm this, as a spokesperson for

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Speaker 1: PG County Police said they were unable to locate a

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00:18:47,760 --> 00:18:51,760
Speaker 1: record of participants from that year. The program is still

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Speaker 1: active today, open to those aged fourteen to twenty. When

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Speaker 1: I checked recently, there were about ninety current members. There's

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Speaker 1: an established set of rules around who can join and

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00:19:03,000 --> 00:19:06,400
Speaker 1: what requirements you need to meet, but back in its

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00:19:06,440 --> 00:19:10,600
Speaker 1: early days, it wasn't such an official program. Ray didn't

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Speaker 1: want to be recorded for the podcast, but he did

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Speaker 1: offer some helpful context. He told me that he was

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Speaker 1: part of the p G County Explorer program when it

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Speaker 1: first began, and as he described it, the program was

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Speaker 1: pretty loose and disorganized. Officers didn't receive any specialized training

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Speaker 1: before being placed with teens, and there were very few rules.

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Speaker 1: You recalled chaperoning a ski trip to Pennsylvania with a

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Speaker 1: bunch of teenagers in the Explorer program. When he went

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00:19:39,600 --> 00:19:42,000
Speaker 1: to check on a group of girls in a hotel room,

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00:19:42,280 --> 00:19:45,600
Speaker 1: knocking on their door, he discovered they were smoking pot.

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Speaker 1: That was his queue to quit the program. I understood

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Speaker 1: from Ray that the point of his story was to

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Speaker 1: illustrate that he saw the Explorer program as a risk

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Speaker 1: to his career. The potential for things to go wrong

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00:19:59,720 --> 00:20:03,280
Speaker 1: was is too high, and so he left. He was

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00:20:03,320 --> 00:20:07,680
Speaker 1: looking out for himself. But it made me wonder who

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00:20:07,760 --> 00:20:15,160
Speaker 1: was looking out for Explorers like Sandy. Over the past year,

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Speaker 1: I've tried to connect with every cop in Sandy's address

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Speaker 1: books that I could track down. I've sent emails, letters,

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00:20:22,560 --> 00:20:26,919
Speaker 1: and messages on social media. Few responded to me, but

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00:20:27,000 --> 00:20:29,080
Speaker 1: I did manage to talk to a couple of police

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00:20:29,080 --> 00:20:34,200
Speaker 1: officers whose names corresponded with Sandy's records. There was one

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00:20:34,240 --> 00:20:37,440
Speaker 1: PG County police officer in particular, though, who I really

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00:20:37,480 --> 00:20:41,760
Speaker 1: wanted to speak with, Bob. Sandy listed him as her

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00:20:41,800 --> 00:20:45,920
Speaker 1: emergency contact. She also noted his birthday and his name

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00:20:45,960 --> 00:20:49,879
Speaker 1: pops up on occasion in her calendar too. I thought

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00:20:50,320 --> 00:20:53,359
Speaker 1: if any of these cops were Sandy's friend, if anyone

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00:20:53,400 --> 00:20:56,520
Speaker 1: could provide some insight into her life, it would be Bob.

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00:20:57,680 --> 00:21:00,600
Speaker 1: Bob didn't want to be recorded for the podcast, but

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Speaker 1: he confirmed that he worked in the Explorer program at

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00:21:03,440 --> 00:21:05,680
Speaker 1: the time that Sandy would have been in it. He

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00:21:05,840 --> 00:21:09,760
Speaker 1: recalled taking students on ride alongs, but he couldn't explain

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Speaker 1: why his birthday and phone number were written in Sandy's books,

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Speaker 1: or why she would deem him important enough to list

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Speaker 1: him as her emergency contact. He, like Ray, said he

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Speaker 1: didn't remember her. This became a recurring theme in my reporting.

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Speaker 1: To my surprise, none of the cops I spoke to

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Speaker 1: remember Sandy, at least they said they didn't. They didn't

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Speaker 1: even remember that a police trainee had died by suicide,

336
00:21:39,960 --> 00:21:44,120
Speaker 1: something I thought would leave an impact. Sandy, it seemed,

337
00:21:44,320 --> 00:21:47,800
Speaker 1: had been invisible to them. I wondered what that said

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00:21:47,840 --> 00:21:52,920
Speaker 1: about how she was treated when she was alive. I'm

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00:21:52,920 --> 00:21:55,040
Speaker 1: going to play the second part of my interview with

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00:21:55,119 --> 00:21:59,240
Speaker 1: Detective Shosselsky, now the PG County police officer who handled

341
00:21:59,280 --> 00:22:02,480
Speaker 1: Sandy's case, because I think it speaks to this question

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00:22:02,720 --> 00:22:07,000
Speaker 1: of how police interacted with Sandy, Shelski told me about

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00:22:07,080 --> 00:22:11,320
Speaker 1: something unusual that occurred right after her death. Let me

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00:22:11,320 --> 00:22:17,520
Speaker 1: say this nice found lying after him with the police

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00:22:18,119 --> 00:22:25,200
Speaker 1: officers if their names in the book, Shelski is referring

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00:22:25,200 --> 00:22:28,320
Speaker 1: to Sandy's address books which were discovered in the car

347
00:22:28,359 --> 00:22:31,480
Speaker 1: with her. Were these just Prince George's County police or

348
00:22:31,520 --> 00:22:36,080
Speaker 1: with these state troopers County Okay? Why were they calling

349
00:22:39,800 --> 00:22:45,480
Speaker 1: she listed them as one of her friends. What was

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00:22:45,520 --> 00:22:48,240
Speaker 1: their motivation though for calling? Like? Were they trying not

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00:22:48,320 --> 00:22:55,320
Speaker 1: to get in trouble professionally, personally or like? And you

352
00:22:55,600 --> 00:23:00,280
Speaker 1: estimated about ten people called you. Did they it to

353
00:23:00,359 --> 00:23:05,200
Speaker 1: having relationships with her? Pretty much? It was pretty clear

354
00:23:05,440 --> 00:23:11,000
Speaker 1: who wasn't really a part of my investigation. But when

355
00:23:11,000 --> 00:23:17,400
Speaker 1: they heard that she had killed herself, being will what

356
00:23:17,520 --> 00:23:20,239
Speaker 1: was their end goal to calling you? They wanted to

357
00:23:20,240 --> 00:23:24,960
Speaker 1: see if she had made any mention of them in

358
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Speaker 1: case it came out in some way they wanted to

359
00:23:27,560 --> 00:23:33,040
Speaker 1: head to like not necessarily well, I don't know, well

360
00:23:33,080 --> 00:23:36,120
Speaker 1: now what I had to be? You know, they were

361
00:23:36,160 --> 00:23:42,080
Speaker 1: sexually involved with her. Did any of the police that

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00:23:42,200 --> 00:23:48,120
Speaker 1: called you express sadness about her death? No? Very nurse

363
00:23:49,600 --> 00:23:55,560
Speaker 1: a personal stress were stressed, and that there was perhaps

364
00:23:55,600 --> 00:23:59,600
Speaker 1: there's something written with their name for the obvious reason.

365
00:24:02,480 --> 00:24:05,119
Speaker 1: What did you make of her spending all this time

366
00:24:05,119 --> 00:24:08,960
Speaker 1: and having sexual relationships with police officers? I knew it

367
00:24:09,040 --> 00:24:13,360
Speaker 1: was going to be a stink. I didn't imagine years

368
00:24:13,480 --> 00:24:21,440
Speaker 1: later stink is going to come. I want to slow

369
00:24:21,480 --> 00:24:24,159
Speaker 1: down here because this is really important and the audio

370
00:24:24,240 --> 00:24:28,200
Speaker 1: is not great. Detective Selski is a little blase and

371
00:24:28,280 --> 00:24:31,080
Speaker 1: his delivery. But what he told me is that while

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00:24:31,119 --> 00:24:35,639
Speaker 1: he was investigating Sandy's death, ten PG County police officers

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00:24:35,720 --> 00:24:38,119
Speaker 1: called him to find out if their names had been

374
00:24:38,160 --> 00:24:42,120
Speaker 1: linked to Sandy. And this wasn't an off handed comment either.

375
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Speaker 1: Selski told me this detail in two different phone interviews.

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Speaker 1: He wouldn't tell me the names of the men who called,

377
00:24:49,040 --> 00:24:52,280
Speaker 1: which made this claim hard to fact check, but I

378
00:24:52,320 --> 00:24:57,240
Speaker 1: believed him the way he divulged this information though it

379
00:24:57,359 --> 00:25:00,400
Speaker 1: was like a gossipy aside, not something that he thought

380
00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:04,439
Speaker 1: should warrant any further investigation. But it sounded like a

381
00:25:04,480 --> 00:25:07,399
Speaker 1: big fucking deal to me. In my line of work

382
00:25:07,560 --> 00:25:11,720
Speaker 1: reporting on domestic violence and sexual assault, this scenario of

383
00:25:11,760 --> 00:25:15,920
Speaker 1: a teenager having intimate relationships with upwards of ten adult men,

384
00:25:16,600 --> 00:25:19,800
Speaker 1: let alone police officers who were supposed to be training her.

385
00:25:20,560 --> 00:25:25,000
Speaker 1: It rang every alarm bell in my body. I started

386
00:25:25,000 --> 00:25:27,600
Speaker 1: this project wanting to find out what happened the night

387
00:25:27,680 --> 00:25:30,960
Speaker 1: Sandy died, but as I got deeper into the reporting,

388
00:25:31,400 --> 00:25:34,479
Speaker 1: I had more and more questions about exactly what happened

389
00:25:34,480 --> 00:25:38,360
Speaker 1: when she was alive, specifically when she was hanging out

390
00:25:38,400 --> 00:25:43,280
Speaker 1: with cops on these unsupervised ride alongs. I knew I

391
00:25:43,320 --> 00:25:46,520
Speaker 1: had to tell the Bills what Schelski said because it

392
00:25:46,560 --> 00:25:49,919
Speaker 1: confirmed their gut instinct that the cops were hiding something.

393
00:25:50,720 --> 00:25:57,679
Speaker 1: It just wasn't what they had thought. The family was

394
00:25:57,760 --> 00:26:01,000
Speaker 1: heartbroken to learn about these pg con the police officers,

395
00:26:01,359 --> 00:26:06,400
Speaker 1: who Shallski said spoke so callously after her death. Here's Kim,

396
00:26:06,520 --> 00:26:10,720
Speaker 1: her cousin. Well, until you guys uncovered all of that,

397
00:26:11,600 --> 00:26:15,240
Speaker 1: I think that I had a sense in naivete where

398
00:26:16,080 --> 00:26:19,119
Speaker 1: I just really believed that all of these people that

399
00:26:19,160 --> 00:26:21,159
Speaker 1: she had the names of were just nice people and

400
00:26:21,200 --> 00:26:24,600
Speaker 1: we're her friends. And that snapped me out of my

401
00:26:25,440 --> 00:26:29,760
Speaker 1: believing in the kindness of these people, that they're really

402
00:26:29,800 --> 00:26:33,399
Speaker 1: just trying to cover their butts. Like me, Kim hadn't

403
00:26:33,440 --> 00:26:36,639
Speaker 1: known exactly what to think about Sandy's address books and

404
00:26:36,680 --> 00:26:40,160
Speaker 1: the list of cops she was collecting. She had settled

405
00:26:40,240 --> 00:26:43,840
Speaker 1: on a generous interpretation that the officers in the books

406
00:26:43,960 --> 00:26:46,960
Speaker 1: were Sandy's mentors who helped her as she tried to

407
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:50,399
Speaker 1: pursue a career in law enforcement. Now she had to

408
00:26:50,440 --> 00:26:54,280
Speaker 1: contemplate something more nefarious. Now. I don't know what her

409
00:26:54,359 --> 00:26:56,800
Speaker 1: thinking might have been. Then, I do know that she

410
00:26:57,440 --> 00:27:02,200
Speaker 1: was very um, happy, lucky, and maybe she thought that,

411
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:06,400
Speaker 1: you know, with sex, pame power. So she was probably

412
00:27:06,440 --> 00:27:09,240
Speaker 1: pretty enamored that any of them would be interested in her.

413
00:27:09,520 --> 00:27:12,040
Speaker 1: And she probably saw it as Wow, these people that

414
00:27:12,880 --> 00:27:16,160
Speaker 1: have some authority and power are interested in me. And

415
00:27:16,240 --> 00:27:19,040
Speaker 1: she probably hoped that there was more to it than

416
00:27:19,080 --> 00:27:21,479
Speaker 1: it was. But she was a kid, and she was naive,

417
00:27:22,040 --> 00:27:25,160
Speaker 1: even though she thought she knew more than she did.

418
00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:29,679
Speaker 1: But when ten of them are are asking is my

419
00:27:29,760 --> 00:27:32,640
Speaker 1: name in there? There are some fishy stuff going on.

420
00:27:33,640 --> 00:27:36,560
Speaker 1: I don't know. It feels disgusting to me. Really, I

421
00:27:36,560 --> 00:27:39,960
Speaker 1: don't know how they live with themselves. Kim had believed

422
00:27:40,040 --> 00:27:42,960
Speaker 1: the police swept Sandy's case under the rug because of

423
00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:47,000
Speaker 1: her involvement with Doug, the state trooper. She suspected that

424
00:27:47,080 --> 00:27:50,080
Speaker 1: Doug was in the ployard that night. That Doug held

425
00:27:50,160 --> 00:27:53,679
Speaker 1: all the answers the family desperately yearned to hear. But

426
00:27:53,840 --> 00:27:57,119
Speaker 1: now there were other possibilities, And then you know, it

427
00:27:57,160 --> 00:28:00,240
Speaker 1: could have been any of those other guys too. But

428
00:28:00,800 --> 00:28:03,120
Speaker 1: man with that kind of power and that kind of

429
00:28:03,600 --> 00:28:10,080
Speaker 1: ability to manipulate and be charming and grooming her, how

430
00:28:10,200 --> 00:28:13,159
Speaker 1: overwhelming for an eighteen year old girl to try to

431
00:28:13,200 --> 00:28:19,040
Speaker 1: sort all that out, The immense pressure and shame she

432
00:28:19,160 --> 00:28:23,560
Speaker 1: must have been under at the time. It's really sad.

433
00:28:27,520 --> 00:28:31,800
Speaker 1: It's sad. It's just sad. So I do believe they

434
00:28:31,960 --> 00:28:48,320
Speaker 1: have equal responsibility and hurting her. There have been few

435
00:28:48,360 --> 00:28:51,400
Speaker 1: times in my career or my perspective on a story

436
00:28:51,600 --> 00:28:56,000
Speaker 1: has changed so quickly. Kim initially asked me to investigate

437
00:28:56,040 --> 00:28:59,880
Speaker 1: Sandy's case because of my experience reporting on domestic violence,

438
00:29:00,360 --> 00:29:05,240
Speaker 1: specifically domestic violence homicides. Sandy's family was worried that she

439
00:29:05,280 --> 00:29:09,360
Speaker 1: had been killed by her boyfriend, but my conversation with

440
00:29:09,440 --> 00:29:13,480
Speaker 1: Shashelski opened up a whole new line of reporting as

441
00:29:13,520 --> 00:29:15,960
Speaker 1: I tried to make sense of the calls that flooded

442
00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:19,760
Speaker 1: in after her death. On the one hand, it provided

443
00:29:19,800 --> 00:29:23,960
Speaker 1: some evidence that Sandy might have been struggling emotionally keeping

444
00:29:24,040 --> 00:29:27,360
Speaker 1: secrets that would have been profoundly isolating for the team,

445
00:29:28,440 --> 00:29:31,880
Speaker 1: And on the other it hinted at a larger conspiracy

446
00:29:32,160 --> 00:29:36,920
Speaker 1: involving many cops with a lot to lose. It all

447
00:29:36,960 --> 00:29:39,880
Speaker 1: reminded me of a story Joanne told me the first

448
00:29:39,920 --> 00:29:44,200
Speaker 1: time I met her in the summer of one. It's

449
00:29:44,240 --> 00:29:47,880
Speaker 1: about one of Sandy's friends. Her name is also Sandy,

450
00:29:48,480 --> 00:29:57,400
Speaker 1: Sandy Sheridan. According to Joanne, Sandy Beale and Sandy Sheridan

451
00:29:57,600 --> 00:29:59,800
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time together in the months before

452
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:03,800
Speaker 1: Andy died. Despite my best efforts, I've never been able

453
00:30:03,840 --> 00:30:07,080
Speaker 1: to find her, but Joanne told me she called shortly

454
00:30:07,120 --> 00:30:10,880
Speaker 1: after Sandy died. She called me right up. She said,

455
00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:14,840
Speaker 1: what happened all those cards that we collected of different cops.

456
00:30:15,480 --> 00:30:18,800
Speaker 1: Sandy Sheridan explained that she and Sandy Beale had been

457
00:30:18,840 --> 00:30:22,440
Speaker 1: collecting business cards of all the cops they met, But

458
00:30:22,520 --> 00:30:26,080
Speaker 1: when Joanne looked through her daughter's belongings, there was only

459
00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:29,760
Speaker 1: two cats in her belongings that then laid out on

460
00:30:29,800 --> 00:30:34,000
Speaker 1: the table for us to say. Sandy Sheridan told Joanne

461
00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:37,200
Speaker 1: one more thing that local police had been told to

462
00:30:37,240 --> 00:30:40,560
Speaker 1: stay away from the funeral, and as far as Joanne

463
00:30:40,560 --> 00:30:44,320
Speaker 1: could tell, they did. I wasn't sure what to make

464
00:30:44,360 --> 00:30:47,880
Speaker 1: of these claims. At first they felt a little conspiratorial,

465
00:30:48,760 --> 00:30:52,840
Speaker 1: but after learning about those calls to Shahlski, it seemed

466
00:30:52,840 --> 00:30:56,000
Speaker 1: a lot more likely that the stories were true. I

467
00:30:56,040 --> 00:30:58,280
Speaker 1: ain't got no reason to really not trust the cops.

468
00:30:58,560 --> 00:31:00,720
Speaker 1: But there's you know, ship ain't add enough. You know

469
00:31:00,840 --> 00:31:03,840
Speaker 1: I've always had that was ship just ain't adding up.

470
00:31:05,120 --> 00:31:08,400
Speaker 1: That's one thing I did tell the detective and that

471
00:31:08,520 --> 00:31:10,680
Speaker 1: other guy. I told him, I said, you know what

472
00:31:10,840 --> 00:31:14,760
Speaker 1: really burns my ask is she wanted to be just

473
00:31:14,920 --> 00:31:18,960
Speaker 1: like one of you. She wanted to be liked by them,

474
00:31:19,080 --> 00:31:22,320
Speaker 1: and she wanted to be like them. And at some

475
00:31:22,400 --> 00:31:25,640
Speaker 1: point between her innocent flirtations with cops at the drug

476
00:31:25,720 --> 00:31:29,640
Speaker 1: store and her body being discovered on a cold February morning,

477
00:31:30,480 --> 00:31:35,680
Speaker 1: something went horribly wrong. Whatever happened to her while she

478
00:31:35,800 --> 00:31:39,680
Speaker 1: was in the Explorer program, I think it's unlikely she

479
00:31:39,840 --> 00:31:43,200
Speaker 1: was the only one. I asked p G County for

480
00:31:43,280 --> 00:31:48,000
Speaker 1: any records related to complaints of inappropriate sexual behavior within

481
00:31:48,040 --> 00:31:53,000
Speaker 1: the Explorer program from s to now. They told me

482
00:31:53,000 --> 00:31:56,160
Speaker 1: that a search of the current internal affair system uncovered

483
00:31:56,160 --> 00:31:59,720
Speaker 1: no complaints, and that to search an older system, I

484
00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:02,120
Speaker 1: would need to give them the officer's name in question.

485
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:05,600
Speaker 1: I've passed along a list of names in Sandy's books,

486
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:09,200
Speaker 1: and I'll let you know what we hear. But here's

487
00:32:09,240 --> 00:32:11,720
Speaker 1: what I found when I searched for old news articles

488
00:32:11,760 --> 00:32:17,440
Speaker 1: about the Pig County Explorer program. In just five years

489
00:32:17,480 --> 00:32:21,479
Speaker 1: after Sandy died, a veteran Prince George's County police officer

490
00:32:21,800 --> 00:32:24,480
Speaker 1: took a sixteen year old on a ride along. The

491
00:32:24,560 --> 00:32:27,560
Speaker 1: girl ended up attending the police academy and becoming a

492
00:32:27,600 --> 00:32:32,480
Speaker 1: police officer, fulfilling the dream that Sandy had. But thirteen

493
00:32:32,560 --> 00:32:36,240
Speaker 1: years later, after she joined the sex crimes unit, she

494
00:32:36,400 --> 00:32:38,840
Speaker 1: reported that she had been raped by her mentor on

495
00:32:38,920 --> 00:32:42,320
Speaker 1: one of the many ride along she attended. The officer

496
00:32:42,440 --> 00:32:46,960
Speaker 1: was later convicted of child abuse. I think Sandy was

497
00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:50,960
Speaker 1: a victim too. I think her desire to be a cop,

498
00:32:51,680 --> 00:32:57,360
Speaker 1: her teenage infatuations, and her inexperience they all coincided to

499
00:32:57,440 --> 00:33:06,600
Speaker 1: leave her open to exploitation. That's next week. Well, this

500
00:33:06,760 --> 00:33:11,080
Speaker 1: is the whole thing about predation. It works better for

501
00:33:11,120 --> 00:33:14,600
Speaker 1: the predator if your victim is vulnerable. And what more

502
00:33:14,680 --> 00:33:19,280
Speaker 1: vulnerable plays than you know, a desperate young person trying

503
00:33:19,360 --> 00:33:25,760
Speaker 1: to start a Korean law enforcement I'm not done digging

504
00:33:25,760 --> 00:33:28,720
Speaker 1: into this story, and i have more questions about what

505
00:33:28,800 --> 00:33:32,880
Speaker 1: happens in police Explorer programs. If you have ever been

506
00:33:32,920 --> 00:33:35,920
Speaker 1: part of a police youth program or participated in a

507
00:33:36,040 --> 00:33:39,080
Speaker 1: ride along, or you witnessed or experienced some sort of

508
00:33:39,120 --> 00:33:43,320
Speaker 1: inappropriate sexual conduct, please email me at what Happened to

509
00:33:43,360 --> 00:33:48,120
Speaker 1: Sandy Beale at gmail dot com. What Happened to Sandy

510
00:33:48,160 --> 00:33:51,800
Speaker 1: Beale is hosted by me Melissa Jolson. It's written and

511
00:33:51,840 --> 00:33:56,080
Speaker 1: produced by me and Katrina Norvell. It's edited by a Bussafar,

512
00:33:56,680 --> 00:34:01,040
Speaker 1: Josh Fisher, and Mary Do. Sound design by Aaron Kaufman.

513
00:34:01,880 --> 00:34:05,800
Speaker 1: Jason English is our executive producer and Merissa Brown is

514
00:34:05,800 --> 00:34:09,560
Speaker 1: our associate producer. To find out more about the investigation,

515
00:34:10,000 --> 00:34:13,719
Speaker 1: follow me on Twitter at q U A S I

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00:34:13,920 --> 00:34:17,440
Speaker 1: am A d O. Thanks so much for listening