Speaker 1: BBCD.
Speaker 2: Hey, I'm Maggie. Just a quick heads up before we start.
Speaker 2: The series does contain some descriptions of violence and deals
Speaker 2: with adult themes. How many tattoos do you have a lot?
Speaker 3: I have a physics equation tramp stamp.
Speaker 4: I thought that would be funny, funny. I love a
Speaker 4: physics tramp stapp. High brow lowbrow.
Speaker 2: Is my love language, and that is the epitome of
Speaker 2: hy braw lowbrow.
Speaker 3: That would be kind of ironic.
Speaker 2: So what's the physics equations?
Speaker 3: The Dirac equation. It kind of brings like quantum physics
Speaker 3: and relativity together. It just like explains everything, and it
Speaker 3: kind of talks about like dark matter and I don't
Speaker 3: know antimatter. I can't even remember. It's been so long.
Speaker 2: I'm sitting next to Liz on her oversized, well loved
Speaker 2: teal colored couch in London, nodding my head, pretending I
Speaker 2: know exactly what the Dorac equation is. I have no
Speaker 2: idea what the Dorac equation is.
Speaker 5: I love.
Speaker 2: Liz starts to roll up her sleeve, showing me her
Speaker 2: other tattoos, her mood changing as she does.
Speaker 4: This is beautiful.
Speaker 3: It's just got touched up. But most of this was
Speaker 3: done by a Mexican toutoo artist, and it's hard to see.
Speaker 2: Liz pivots her body further, lifting the fabric up and
Speaker 2: revealing a kaleidoscope of colorful flowers inked on her arm.
Speaker 1: So there was like a rose up here for their
Speaker 1: last name.
Speaker 2: She's now Liz Melgar Rose, taking the name Rose from
Speaker 2: her husband Anthony. And there are others, each flower representing
Speaker 2: a different member of her family.
Speaker 6: And then these.
Speaker 3: Are for my parents and stergazer Lily's. This is my
Speaker 3: mom's birth flower. This is the sacred mind flower.
Speaker 2: This one, yeah, a deep purple aster with its brilliant
Speaker 2: yellow center. There's a violet a sunflower.
Speaker 3: This is my daughter's birth flower.
Speaker 4: My son's a chrysanthemum.
Speaker 3: And the poppies are my dad's. And then this is
Speaker 3: a simplest cheese or a miracle and those are used
Speaker 3: young Day of the Dead. So that's like me wearing
Speaker 3: my altar all the time.
Speaker 2: Her tattoos her altar are not just devotions to her dad,
Speaker 2: but to their shared my inheritage. Something she says, Jim
Speaker 2: was deeply proud of having grown up in Guatemala.
Speaker 3: When I was a kid, He was always trying to
Speaker 3: teach me about our culture and tell me I should
Speaker 3: be proud of where we've come from, and you know
Speaker 3: that we've come from nothing and look at where we are.
Speaker 3: And I really didn't appreciate it at the time. I
Speaker 3: really didn't. I was just oh, my god, Okay, I
Speaker 3: get it. I've heard the story a hundred times.
Speaker 4: What would he tell you about living in Guatemala.
Speaker 3: He would just talk about like the absolute poverty. He
Speaker 3: would always tell me that, you know, you don't know
Speaker 3: how good you have it or how lucky you are.
Speaker 3: My grandmother she used to live in like straw and
Speaker 3: mud houses that they would have to rebuild every year.
Speaker 3: Her first language was a Mayan dialect called Kikichi, and
Speaker 3: then she learned Spanish later on once she got older.
Speaker 3: But they were very, very poor. So when I was six,
Speaker 3: we went for six weeks and I remember that trip vividly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, tell me about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, we get there and in the middle
Speaker 3: of the courtyard there's like this shit and that's where
Speaker 3: everyone showers. But you know, I was like, there's no
Speaker 3: hot water. How am I going to take a bath?
Speaker 3: So my grandma got like one of those metal clothes,
Speaker 3: washing bins, and heated hot water on the stove so
Speaker 3: I could have a warm bath. And my dad said
Speaker 3: that as soon as we got there, I said, there's
Speaker 3: nothing cool to drink. I'm ready to go home.
Speaker 2: I mean understandable. I think I would feel the same
Speaker 2: way at age six. But as Liz gets older, her
Speaker 2: interest in her indigenous roots continued to grow, and after
Speaker 2: her dad's murder, that interest becomes a passion.
Speaker 3: I guess I'm trying to get to know the culture
Speaker 3: because I don't know. I guess it makes me feel
Speaker 3: more connected to my dad and my family.
Speaker 2: Liz is planning another test you to honor her kek
Speaker 2: Chi spirit.
Speaker 4: Do you know what you're going to get? Just a
Speaker 4: red band on your wrist?
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Cool. It's supposed to signify the blood that's been shed
Speaker 3: from the genocide of the Mayan people.
Speaker 2: A symbol to mark the oppression of the mind people,
Speaker 2: which is no doubt an incredibly heavy thing to have
Speaker 2: inked on your body. But this red band also symbolizes
Speaker 2: a message of resilience and survival against acts of cruelty,
Speaker 2: And if you've been through what Liz has, I can
Speaker 2: see why this message would resonate so deeply. She's already
Speaker 2: lost one parent, and to rewind back to the summer
Speaker 2: of twenty fourteen, she feels like she's about to lose another.
Speaker 2: It's been eighteen months since Jim's death. Liz is at
Speaker 2: the new home she shares with her mom and husband,
Speaker 2: a high of flyers from various lawyers in her hands,
Speaker 2: all offering to represent Sandy.
Speaker 4: I can't imagine what Liz is feeling.
Speaker 2: She's trying to come to terms with the loss of
Speaker 2: her dad and now this all while just becoming a
Speaker 2: mother herself.
Speaker 3: I just had my daughter, so I was kind of
Speaker 3: all over the place.
Speaker 2: Liz is likely sleep deprived adjusting to her new life
Speaker 2: as a mom. Maybe this is all a mistake. Could
Speaker 2: this really be happening. She keeps checking the records on
Speaker 2: the district attorney's website.
Speaker 3: Clearing the page and then searching for her name, like
Speaker 3: this has to be a mistake, and like doing the
Speaker 3: search a couple of different ways just to be sure
Speaker 3: that I had the right information.
Speaker 4: But it's no mistake.
Speaker 2: Sandy had been indicted for Jim's murder, and right now
Speaker 2: Liz is going to need every fiber of her keck
Speaker 2: che Warrior Spirit to keep her mom out of jail.
Speaker 2: I'm Maggie Robinson Katz and from BBC Studios and iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2: This is Hands Tied Episode five Warrior Spirit. Liz has
Speaker 2: entered what feels like a parallel universe. Her mom is
Speaker 2: no longer Sandy Melgar, but the defendant accused of first
Speaker 2: degree murder and things are about to get even worse.
Speaker 3: We all served to Houston together so that she could
Speaker 3: turn herself in and be processed. My mom was in tears,
Speaker 3: and she's never been rested before, She's never gotten in trouble.
Speaker 3: I was terrifying for her.
Speaker 2: At nine am on July twenty ninth, twenty fourteen, in Houston, Texas,
Speaker 2: Sandy is arrested and the formal indictment is read out.
Speaker 2: Sandra Melgar is accused of unlawfully, intentionally and knowingly causing
Speaker 2: the death of I may by and I quote, stabbing
Speaker 2: the complainant with the deadly weapon, namely a knife. Sandy
Speaker 2: is granted bail.
Speaker 3: You don't know what's going to happen. You don't know
Speaker 3: how to prepare for that. There is no one you
Speaker 3: can really talk to you because not everybody goes through that.
Speaker 3: You know, it's very isolating, it's very it's it's hard.
Speaker 2: I think we all have expectations of how justice moves
Speaker 2: from what we've seen on movies or on TV. You're indicted,
Speaker 2: then it's straight to court. But the truth is the
Speaker 2: legal system often moves really slowly.
Speaker 3: You're on hold, you can't do anything, You're just in
Speaker 3: a holding pattern.
Speaker 2: Weeks turn into months, months turn into years.
Speaker 3: It never gets easier, but you learn to live with
Speaker 3: it and you learn how did you know? Yeah, have
Speaker 3: it be part of your life.
Speaker 2: In life, no matter how difficult March is. On the
Speaker 2: following summer in twenty fifteen, Liz and her daughter move
Speaker 2: out of Texas, thousands of miles away to Seattle after
Speaker 2: her husband, Anthony, lands a job there.
Speaker 3: I just tried to focus on my daughter really and
Speaker 3: I just felt like I didn't have a bandwidth to
Speaker 3: really deal with everything. I was just like, Okay, well
Speaker 3: this is how it's going to go. Now, like one
Speaker 3: foot in front of the other, what do we do?
Speaker 2: Sandy stays in Houston but tries to see Liz and
Speaker 2: her grandchild as often as she can.
Speaker 3: We actually spent a lot of time together. She spent
Speaker 3: a lot of time with my daughter, and I think that.
Speaker 5: Helped her a lot.
Speaker 2: And sixteen, four years after Jim's death and two years
Speaker 2: after Sandy's indictment, Liz is pregnant again.
Speaker 3: And my son was born, and she came and helped.
Speaker 3: She came and stayed with my daughter while I had
Speaker 3: him in the hospital.
Speaker 2: On the surface, Sandy's doing remarkably well.
Speaker 3: My mom is really good at like compartmentalizing, I guess,
Speaker 3: just pretending like that's not guess being in denial. I
Speaker 3: don't know, I don't know what you want to call it.
Speaker 3: But she's just good. I'm like, everything's fine.
Speaker 4: But everything's not fine. And Liz can see right through.
Speaker 3: It, obviously, like she was still under a ton of
Speaker 3: stress and still trying to process everything that happened and
Speaker 3: dealing with her own health not doing well, and stress
Speaker 3: also makes things worse, both the lupas and the epilepsy.
Speaker 3: So she struggled a lot.
Speaker 4: And what about Liz.
Speaker 2: She's filled with anxiety about the future. There might be
Speaker 2: some people who are listening who feel like accepting.
Speaker 8: The murder of your dad is horrible. That to accept
Speaker 8: that your mom killed your dad is way too horrible
Speaker 8: to entertain. So you can even like think about that possibility.
Speaker 3: But you have to, like, how can you not? You
Speaker 3: have to because it is a possibility, right, There's a
Speaker 3: ton of possibilities. Unfortunately, that is one. She's just a
Speaker 3: very warm and loving person. She's a mom. Like when
Speaker 3: you picture a mom, at least, I picture someone who
Speaker 3: gives you hugs and who's affectionate and who you can
Speaker 3: talk to and who you feel comfortable with.
Speaker 2: According to Liz, Sandy was always nurturing, constantly doting on
Speaker 2: her only daughter.
Speaker 3: You know, they're making you food, and they're feeding you,
Speaker 3: and they're making sure you're okay, and you know, it's
Speaker 3: just someone you can trust.
Speaker 4: Liz says.
Speaker 2: Sandy was the peacemaker of the family, especially during shall
Speaker 2: we say Liz's more rebellious years. She was always the.
Speaker 3: Buffer between me and my dad, and she was always
Speaker 3: telling my dad to just you know, it's okay, just
Speaker 3: give her some space. It'll be fine. I felt like
Speaker 3: my mother was somebody I could genuinely talk to, not
Speaker 3: about everything, but about most things.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of daughters feel that way about
Speaker 2: their mothers. They don't need to know everything like, you know,
Speaker 2: maybe the time you flirted with shoplifting when you were a.
Speaker 3: Little too old to be doing that.
Speaker 2: Just me.
Speaker 3: My mom is an incredibly calmon, easy going She never complains.
Speaker 3: It was always about other people, and you know, she
Speaker 3: just wanted everyone else to be okay. And I think
Speaker 3: she came last a lot at the time. But I
Speaker 3: think that's a lot of moms.
Speaker 2: I feel like throughout this podcast, we've talked a lot
Speaker 2: about Sandy's situation, but who she is, what she likes, dislikes,
Speaker 2: her favorite foods, you know, the things that make us us.
Speaker 2: All of that feels a little fuzzy to me. I
Speaker 2: want to see if I can understand her a bit
Speaker 2: more where she comes from, so I seek out some
Speaker 2: of her family.
Speaker 1: The age difference between Sandy and I is about thirteen
Speaker 1: fourteen years. We grew up together, so she was raised
Speaker 1: by my grandmother, as was I, So Sandy has always
Speaker 1: been in my life.
Speaker 4: Diana is Sandy's cousin.
Speaker 1: Her mom and.
Speaker 2: My dad were siblings, but in reality they're more like sisters,
Speaker 2: just like Sandy. Diana says she was abandoned by her parents,
Speaker 2: so they both grew up in Laredo, a town in
Speaker 2: Texas near the Mexican border.
Speaker 1: At any given point, that could be like seven kids
Speaker 1: in a tiny house. It was just fun for me
Speaker 1: having so many people around, so much love around.
Speaker 5: But it was difficult.
Speaker 1: We were poor and we struggled for food, and you know,
Speaker 1: we would go hungry. I could see pictures and look
Speaker 1: back on it now and see the conditions we were
Speaker 1: living in, how I was dressed, how malnursed I look.
Speaker 2: Sandy was Diana's role model, caring, reliable, sensible. She even
Speaker 2: taught Diana to drive.
Speaker 5: She was such a goodie two shoes, like I don't
Speaker 5: know how else to put it. She wasn't a rule breaker,
Speaker 5: you know. She we followed the law. She barely had
Speaker 5: a speeding ticket.
Speaker 2: Diana followed Sandy from Laredo to Houston and lived with
Speaker 2: her in Jim for a.
Speaker 4: Couple of years.
Speaker 2: She says it was her first experience of living in
Speaker 2: a peaceful home.
Speaker 5: Sandy and Jim, they had a good life, like they
Speaker 5: had made it, you know, out of the whole family,
Speaker 5: she was the first one to have a nice home
Speaker 5: and a good marriage, like we didn't grow up with,
Speaker 5: you know, examples of a good marriage. Besides my aunt.
Speaker 5: Everyone else was broken home. You know, my dad, his
Speaker 5: marriage didn't work out. Her mom, you know, their marriage
Speaker 5: didn't work out. So they were a perfect example of
Speaker 5: what we all strive to achieve one day, you know,
Speaker 5: the financial stability, the good marriage, you know. I it's
Speaker 5: just still so crazy that out of all of us,
Speaker 5: she is the one that ended up in this situation.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's unsurprising considering how much Diana revered Sandy, but
Speaker 2: you can't think of anyone less likely to murder their husband.
Speaker 5: It was devastating that anyone could think that she was
Speaker 5: capable of that, and that she would do something like
Speaker 5: that to Jim. And I think maybe she was afraid that,
Speaker 5: you know, we were going to think the same thing,
Speaker 5: But it just it never entered my mind that Sandy
Speaker 5: could be capable of that.
Speaker 2: But in the summer of twenty seventeen, Sandy's murder trial
Speaker 2: is finally scheduled, and Diana braces herself for what might
Speaker 2: come out in court.
Speaker 4: What if she got it all wrong?
Speaker 5: You know, I believe in science, I believe in evidence,
Speaker 5: I believe in law enforcement. And so before the how started,
Speaker 5: I prepared myself. I prepared myself for the possibility of
Speaker 5: Sandy actually doing this crime, Like I was not blind
Speaker 5: to the fact that it is possible, you know, And
Speaker 5: so I prepared myself that I'm going to be sitting there,
Speaker 5: you know, during the trial and I could find out
Speaker 5: Sandy is guilty. That's how I looked at it, because
Speaker 5: I was prepared to see the evidence, you know. I
Speaker 5: believe that if they charge someone that they have the
Speaker 5: evidence to back it up. And I thought, well, what
Speaker 5: am I going to do if she's guilty, Like, what
Speaker 5: am I going to do? And I knew that, Okay,
Speaker 5: if she's guilty, then she deserves to be in prison,
Speaker 5: and I'm not going to turn my back on her.
Speaker 5: You know, She's been there my whole life, so I
Speaker 5: will support her however I can. But she definitely deserves
Speaker 5: to be in prison if that's what she did, if
Speaker 5: she's guilty of this. So that's how I went into
Speaker 5: the trial, knowing that I could get some devastating news.
Speaker 6: Mac and I wholeheartedly, without a doubt, believe in Sandra's innocence.
Speaker 2: This is, no doubt a helpful sentiment if you're going
Speaker 2: to defend someone against the murder charge, and Sandy's lucky
Speaker 2: She's got Allison Seacrest, who, along with her uncle Mac Seacrest,
Speaker 2: will be representing her in court.
Speaker 9: I was honored and delighted to step in and represent
Speaker 9: Sandy at trial.
Speaker 6: Mac is my uncle and like a second father.
Speaker 4: She lived with me and studied the law and learned
Speaker 4: to have a cook.
Speaker 6: I had a cook, Oh gosh, amazing salads, you know,
Speaker 6: lovely fish, all kinds of things. He's an amazing chef
Speaker 6: and more importantly, a great friend and excellent mentor.
Speaker 2: George McCall c Chris Junior, or Mac as he prefers
Speaker 2: to be called as in his late seventies. Now, he's
Speaker 2: one of the big guns of the Texas legal world.
Speaker 2: He's been practicing since nineteen seventy seven, and he wrote
Speaker 2: the book on law. No really, he's the author of
Speaker 2: O'Connor's Texas Criminal Codes plus a kind of Texan legal bible.
Speaker 2: And Alison is not only his niece but his protege.
Speaker 6: I had the opportunity to go to court with him
Speaker 6: when I was gosh, probably fourth grade or so, and
Speaker 6: just thought it was really fascinating seeing him interacting with
Speaker 6: judges and lawyers and his client.
Speaker 2: Alison cut her teeth as a prosecutor in the Harris
Speaker 2: County DA's office before going into private practice. After taking
Speaker 2: on Sandy's case, they request the Melgar police files and
Speaker 2: began acquainting themselves with the various details.
Speaker 6: We spent hours and hours with Sandy, hours and hours
Speaker 6: with her daughter and with other witnesses and family friends
Speaker 6: that we called, you know, as a young defense attorney,
Speaker 6: not the experience that my uncle had. Obviously, it was
Speaker 6: hard not to get involved. You know. I think a
Speaker 6: lot of doctors and lawyers and probably some other professions
Speaker 6: have to learn to compartmentalize and not become attached. But
Speaker 6: I like Sandy. We did a deep dive into all
Speaker 6: of her text messages and understanding what their relationship was like,
Speaker 6: what a sweet, loving family, and it wasn't possible for
Speaker 6: us to not get emotionally involved.
Speaker 2: But soon mac Alison, Liz and Diana, we'll see how
Speaker 2: this will all play out in court.
Speaker 1: A local mark case.
Speaker 2: That grabbed national attention is headed.
Speaker 7: To trial Jerry's selection starting today in the trial of
Speaker 7: Sandra Melgar, who's accused of murdering her longtime husband then
Speaker 7: trying to cover it up.
Speaker 2: The media circus picks into high gear and presents viewers
Speaker 2: with a familiar setup of a lurid them fatale murder trial.
Speaker 7: This is a case that began in twenty twelve and
Speaker 7: Sandra Melgar stands accused of murdering her husband, hi May Melgar,
Speaker 7: then staging a home invasion as a cover up. It
Speaker 7: happened on December twenty third in northwest Harris County. Sandra
Speaker 7: and her husband were both found tied up. He was
Speaker 7: found dead, stabbed thirty one times in a closet. She
Speaker 7: was found bound in a bathroom.
Speaker 10: Melgar originally had told investigators that she blacked out in
Speaker 10: a bathroom and woke up tied up in a closet,
Speaker 10: but nearly two years later she was arrested and charged
Speaker 10: with murder. Now Melgar has been free on a fifty
Speaker 10: thousand dollars bond. If convicted of murder, she faces up
Speaker 10: to like in prison.
Speaker 2: On Thursday, August twenty seventeen, the State of Texas Versus
Speaker 2: Sandra Jean Melgar begins Harris County Criminal Justice Center, Franklin Street,
Speaker 2: Downtown Houston. A busker greets the study flow of people
Speaker 2: as they climb the stone steps and pass through the
Speaker 2: glass doors of the imposing twenty one story building. Attorneys,
Speaker 2: journalists Jim and Sandy's family including Liz, Anthony and Diana,
Speaker 2: and members of the public all wait in line at
Speaker 2: the airport style security. Laptops are laid neatly in trays,
Speaker 2: pockets emptied. Today the line is longer than usual. A
Speaker 2: noisy knot of law students join the line. They've just
Speaker 2: finished their bar exams and for the first time in months,
Speaker 2: they've got some downtime. What better way to spend it
Speaker 2: than setting in on the opening day of what promises
Speaker 2: to be an extraordinary case.
Speaker 3: It was just like one of the most surreal moments
Speaker 3: of my life. It just felt like this, like a
Speaker 3: snowball that just was gathering momentum.
Speaker 2: Liz attempts to navigate the swirling frenzy of the media.
Speaker 2: Cameras aren't allowed inside the courtroom, so the TV crews linger.
Speaker 3: In the hallway, and there's just this camera guy from
Speaker 3: one of the news stations and he's just like he
Speaker 3: hits somebody in the head of his camera. My husband
Speaker 3: is trying to get him the way to block him.
Speaker 3: The guy's walking backwards and my husband's like in front
Speaker 3: of us I'm trying not to trip over my crutches.
Speaker 2: As if things aren't complicated enough covering from surgery and
Speaker 2: hobbling around on crutches.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's just like it's just pure chaos in
Speaker 3: this whole way. And I mean I'd never experienced anything
Speaker 3: like that before.
Speaker 2: But Liz isn't allowed to watch the trial because she's
Speaker 2: going to be called as a witness.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, they put you in a witness room and
Speaker 3: you just have to sit in there all day, every
Speaker 3: day and wait because you don't know when you're going
Speaker 3: to be called.
Speaker 2: Liz is going to miss the moment she's been waiting
Speaker 2: years for when the detectives finally reveal their evidence against
Speaker 2: her mom, why they think Sandy killed her dad, even
Speaker 2: though she was.
Speaker 4: Found with her hands tied.
Speaker 2: It's the same for Sandy's cousin Diana, who's also being
Speaker 2: called as a witness.
Speaker 5: That devastated me because I wanted to hear the evidence firsthand.
Speaker 5: I wanted to see it. I didn't want to read it.
Speaker 5: I wanted to see what the jury was going to
Speaker 5: see and hear. I wanted to exp experience it just
Speaker 5: like they're going to.
Speaker 2: And so the State of Texas versus Sandra Jean Melgar
Speaker 2: finally begins. First, they need to select a jury, feeding
Speaker 2: even more breathless coverage in the press.
Speaker 10: Both the prosecution and the defense spent the morning going
Speaker 10: through sixty five prospective jurors. But after going through that
Speaker 10: selection process, it couldn't come up with a group of
Speaker 10: twelve that they were looking for. Sandra Melgar is charged.
Speaker 2: Both sides get a chance to quiz potential jurors, trying
Speaker 2: to weed out anyone with a conflict of interest or
Speaker 2: an obvious bias. If you've read MAXI Christ's book, you'll
Speaker 2: know that the legal term for this is war dyer.
Speaker 2: The potential jurors are reminded that the defendant, Sandy is
Speaker 2: innocent until proven guilty, and that it's the prosecution's job
Speaker 2: to prove her guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. But what
Speaker 2: they don't have to prove is motive, which isn't quite
Speaker 2: how I remember it from all those courtrooms dramas I've watched.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm looking at you Law and Order Detective
Speaker 2: Olivia Benson, where whole episodes revolve around exposing someone's motive.
Speaker 2: But this is real life, and there's no legal requirement
Speaker 2: to prove motive.
Speaker 4: You can find someone guilty of murder without ever knowing
Speaker 4: why they did it.
Speaker 2: So the potential jurors are asked, could they convict someone
Speaker 2: without a motive, and some say they do have a
Speaker 2: problem with that and are upfront about it, admitting they
Speaker 2: wouldn't be able to find someone guilty without knowing their motive,
Speaker 2: so they're out. Others don't make the cut for other reasons.
Speaker 2: They're into day two of the trial before they finally
Speaker 2: select eight men and four women who will sit in
Speaker 2: judgment of Sandy Melgar.
Speaker 9: It's part of my life, part of my history. I
Speaker 9: got called into something I didn't want. I resent it,
Speaker 9: but I was to do it. I did it because
Speaker 9: that's of my civil responsibility. That's what I would want
Speaker 9: the government to protect me and make sure if I
Speaker 9: was in her situation and somebody was there protecting me.
Speaker 3: Once they picked all the jurors that were gonna sit,
Speaker 3: I just remember my cousin saying, there they go. Those
Speaker 3: are the people that have your mom's life in their hands,
Speaker 3: And that's when it hit home.
Speaker 2: Liz watches the jurors file in before we're treating to
Speaker 2: the cold airless witness room, like I kept.
Speaker 3: I was like trying to look at them and like
Speaker 3: get a read on them or figure out like please, please,
Speaker 3: just be a good human, do the right thing. That's
Speaker 3: what made it real, Like that was the moment.
Speaker 2: Once again, she'll be drawing on every ounce of her
Speaker 2: Kekchi warrior spirit to get her through the nerve shredding
Speaker 2: days ahead.
Speaker 11: It was made to be a sensationalis trial, I think
Speaker 11: because it was so unusual.
Speaker 4: What will the jurors make of her?
Speaker 11: Mom Sendra Melkar herself would limp into the courtroom every morning.
Speaker 11: When we sat down, she usually put her head down
Speaker 11: and she didn't look at us very much.
Speaker 4: And how will they determine Sandy's fate?
Speaker 11: I want to believe somebody is innocent until the state
Speaker 11: can prove them guilty. And is the state doing their
Speaker 11: job improving this person guilty? And we all place that
Speaker 11: at the forefront of our deliberations and our discussion, saying
Speaker 11: let's do this the way we're supposed to.
Speaker 9: We're here to decide innocent or guilty.
Speaker 4: That's next time on Hands Tied.
Speaker 2: You've been listening to Hands TIEDE, a new eight part
Speaker 2: true crime series from BBC Studios and iHeart Podcasts. New
Speaker 2: episodes will be released weekly, so subscribe, follow on the
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts so you
Speaker 2: don't miss out. If you like the show, please help
Speaker 2: us by spreading the word or giving us a five
Speaker 2: star review. I'm Maggie Robinson Katz and the producer is
Speaker 2: Maggie Latham. Sound design and mix is by Tom Brignoll.
Speaker 2: Our script consultant is Emma Weatherall production support is from
Speaker 2: Dan Martini, Elena Boutang and Mabel Finnegan Wright and our
Speaker 2: production Executive is Laura Jordan Rawl.
Speaker 4: The series was developed by Anya Saunders and Emma Shaw.
Speaker 2: At iHeart, the Managing Executive Producer is Christina Everett, and
Speaker 2: for BBC Studios, the Executive Producer is Joe Kent. James
Speaker 2: Cook is the creative director A Factual for BBC Studios
Speaker 2: Audio and the Director of Audio at BBC Studios is
Speaker 2: Richard Knight.