Speaker 1: BBC Studios. Hey everyone, it's Maggie. The usual warning before
Speaker 1: we dive in. As you all know by now, this
Speaker 1: is a series that deals with adult themes, and this
Speaker 1: bonus episode of Hands Tied will include references to violence
Speaker 1: and sex. So with that warning in mind, I'm really
Speaker 1: excited to introduce my colleague and friend, the producer of
Speaker 1: the series, Maggie Latham.
Speaker 2: Hi Maggie, Hi Maggie, how are you. I'm good.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for taking the time to do this.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: It's great to catch up with you. And here's all
Speaker 2: the latest.
Speaker 1: So yeah to Maggie's there's American Maggie and then British Maggie.
Speaker 1: And you know, we spend a lot of time immersing
Speaker 1: ourselves in the story and also getting a glimpse into
Speaker 1: Lizz's world and what she's been through. But now that
Speaker 1: we find ourselves at the end, there are still things
Speaker 1: that we can't stop thinking about. Things people told us,
Speaker 1: details we could only touch on, and conversations that didn't
Speaker 1: make it into the series. You know, Maggie, I know
Speaker 1: you had a lot of conversations with people and sometimes
Speaker 1: it just doesn't work out for a variety of reasons.
Speaker 1: They either don't want to talk or scheduling doesn't work out.
Speaker 1: But Maggie, you actually talked to one of the cops
Speaker 1: at the heart of the story, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I did. I tried to speak to him through the
Speaker 2: Paris County Sheriff's Office press office, because Sogeant Dusa is
Speaker 2: still employed. He's still working there, and they said, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: we'll reach out to him, and then one evening he
Speaker 2: wrung me up and we had a sort of forty
Speaker 2: minute chat. He didn't want to be interviewed on microphone,
Speaker 2: which is a real shame, but what he told me
Speaker 2: during that phone call was really really interesting.
Speaker 1: Before we get into the like nitty gritty of everything
Speaker 1: you talked about, just remind us who is sergeant do
Speaker 1: you say?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So, he and Detective Carousel were the lead detectives.
Speaker 2: They were bodies, They knew each other since childhood, and
Speaker 2: they both ended up working for Harris County Homicide Unit.
Speaker 2: And before I spoke to him, I've done quite a
Speaker 2: lot of research into the case, and one of the
Speaker 2: stories that came up was that he nearly died after
Speaker 2: being goreed by a bull on his farm, and he
Speaker 2: was sort of did make light of it and joked about,
Speaker 2: you know, all the near death experiences he had had
Speaker 2: as a cop, but actually the nearest he got to
Speaker 2: death was on his own farm. But yeah, it was
Speaker 2: a really sort of severe injury, and think he was
Speaker 2: really he was lucky to survive. So, you know, he
Speaker 2: was a veteran detective, and he was quite open about
Speaker 2: talking about the case, and we had quite a long
Speaker 2: phone call about it, and I was really hoping that
Speaker 2: he would agree to an interview. But after the phone call,
Speaker 2: he didn't want to do anything else.
Speaker 1: If you remember, like what were his versions of events
Speaker 1: that night.
Speaker 2: Well, to be fair to him, he hadn't kind of
Speaker 2: restudied the file or gone back through his notes or
Speaker 2: anything like that, so he was kind of talking off
Speaker 2: the top of his head. But I mean, he was
Speaker 2: in absolutely no doubt that Sandra was guilty. He hadn't
Speaker 2: kind of thought back over the years or maybe she
Speaker 2: didn't do it, or this little thing has been niggling
Speaker 2: away in the back of my head. There was nothing
Speaker 2: like that at all. He had a very sort of
Speaker 2: clear characterization of Jim and Sandy that Jim was sort
Speaker 2: of ambitious, He was really healthy. He was. I don't
Speaker 2: know if you remember this, but we came across this
Speaker 2: a few times, that Jim was really into his health,
Speaker 2: reducing his diet, he liked to go jogging, and he
Speaker 2: was really fit. But according to Duce Sandy, he said,
Speaker 2: this is his words, had let herself go. As we know,
Speaker 2: she had a lot of health conditions, but the trouble
Speaker 2: had been building up in their marriage, this is what
Speaker 2: Dusau was saying, and Jim had chosen their thirty second
Speaker 2: wedding anniversary to basically talk about their future, that he
Speaker 2: was planning to leave her or have a break, and
Speaker 2: that she knew that this was coming. She knew that
Speaker 2: it was on the cards, So the murder wasn't necessarily
Speaker 2: spur of the moment thing because she was sort of
Speaker 2: prepared for it. So that's what he said, which was
Speaker 2: surprising to me because having been through all the court transcripts,
Speaker 2: people that were closest to the Melgars gave evidence in
Speaker 2: courtant there wasn't one single person that said anything about
Speaker 2: their marriage being unhappy. But I think what Dousay was
Speaker 2: saying is that nobody really knows what goes on in
Speaker 2: a relationship other than the two people involved. That was
Speaker 2: the sort of tenre of what he was saying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I find that narrative so interesting, and I wonder
Speaker 1: if you know, part of what kind of makes people
Speaker 1: interested in this case too, is just how the crime
Speaker 1: scene was found. You know, it was a romantic evening,
Speaker 1: their wedding anniversary. There was still that strawberry and the
Speaker 1: tub of cream on the side of the jacuzzi, And
Speaker 1: it seems to me that in a lot of the narratives,
Speaker 1: and I think in this series we talked a lot
Speaker 1: about the power of storytelling and how the prosecution story
Speaker 1: and sort of do Say story too, created this narrative
Speaker 1: of there was this sort of like sexual undertone to things,
Speaker 1: and that.
Speaker 2: I thought that was really interesting that the police found
Speaker 2: sex toys under the pillow in the bedroom. Unsergeant du
Speaker 2: Say's theory was that, you know, he kind of painted
Speaker 2: Sandy's a bit of a sex siren, that she'd kind
Speaker 2: of lured Jim into this promise of sex, got him
Speaker 2: naked and was doing this seductive dance, so to speak,
Speaker 2: and then she sort of slushed his throat from behind,
Speaker 2: and that was again played out in the trial. So
Speaker 2: that's what he repeated that that's what he thought what happened.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was very much in the trial, which I
Speaker 1: think is a perfect segue for us to start talking
Speaker 1: about the jury. And as you know better than anyone else, Maggie,
Speaker 1: we tried really hard to speak to the twelve jurors
Speaker 1: who were on the case, you know, but there were
Speaker 1: a lot of wrong numbers, unanswered calls, messages ignored. But
Speaker 1: actually one of the people who we reached out to
Speaker 1: just got back in touch with us, and yeah, I
Speaker 1: talked to him yesterday. Oh yeah, he thinks that they
Speaker 1: came to the right verdict. But the the first thing
Speaker 1: he said to me is that he really wanted to
Speaker 1: believe that Sandy was innocent, and then when the actual
Speaker 1: deliberation happened, he didn't want to give any sort of sentence.
Speaker 1: He wanted to see if there was any way that
Speaker 1: there could be a mistrial. Like he felt really really
Speaker 1: bad putting a number to a prison sentence. You know.
Speaker 1: I asked what the most compelling evidence for him was,
Speaker 1: and you know, he thought the most suspect thing was
Speaker 1: the jacuzzie and the jacuzzi water. That picture was really
Speaker 1: really laser focus for him, where he didn't think that
Speaker 1: if people were sitting in a bathtub that the water
Speaker 1: would be that clear, if they were in the tub
Speaker 1: for that long, if they, you know, did all of
Speaker 1: the activities that they mentioned in that night, to him,
Speaker 1: wouldn't the bath water be dirty? When this juror was
Speaker 1: looking at the photo while it was presented in court,
Speaker 1: to him it felt suspect. I believe the picture that
Speaker 1: he's talking about could be the picture that we see
Speaker 1: where we see the clear bathwater and then at the
Speaker 1: bottom there's a knife. And you know, we didn't talk
Speaker 1: for super long because he was like en route to
Speaker 1: another job, and so I was talking to him while
Speaker 1: he was in the car. But the main thing also
Speaker 1: that he said, which I know we cover in the story,
Speaker 1: is that he wonders if he would have changed his
Speaker 1: mind if Sandy took the stand. Yeah, but you know,
Speaker 1: then in the same breath, he was like, but that
Speaker 1: could also go the opposite way, because when the prosecution
Speaker 1: grilled her like it could have made her seem even
Speaker 1: more suspect. So he was like, it's an impossible decision
Speaker 1: to make. And I think the juror Aaron Day said
Speaker 1: this too when I spoke to him, but I think
Speaker 1: it's a case that really stays with them. He thinks
Speaker 1: about it all the time, and he said that his
Speaker 1: girlfriend really loves true crime TV shows, and he says,
Speaker 1: sometimes this case comes up and he has to kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, relive it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I suppose from Julie's point of vie, it's interesting,
Speaker 2: isn't it that they would think that would it have
Speaker 2: made a difference if Sandy had taken the stand. But
Speaker 2: I think looking at, you know, the police interview that
Speaker 2: we watched them listen to multiple times, and one of
Speaker 2: her friends said this to me, she was I think
Speaker 2: it was Tommy said she was so worried about how
Speaker 2: she would come across. She's shy, and she doesn't come
Speaker 2: across as a kind of warm person, especially in that
Speaker 2: really high stakes, intense period that you know when you're
Speaker 2: on the stand. So I don't know if that would
Speaker 2: have helped. Yeah, I really don't know that.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's you'll drive yourself mad speculating. And I
Speaker 1: know Max Screst, Sandy's defense attorney, thinks about that all
Speaker 1: the time and it really weighs on him. But I
Speaker 1: think it kind of goes back to what I was
Speaker 1: talking about with Amanda is we do have these preconceived
Speaker 1: notions of how we expect people to act in stressful situations,
Speaker 1: especially women. In a lot of ways, we expect them
Speaker 1: to be crying in a certain way, to be showing
Speaker 1: grief in a certain way, and I think we kind
Speaker 1: of see that narrative of when people don't fit into
Speaker 1: what we believe is accurate presentation of grief, of guilt,
Speaker 1: of shame, then we start to develop different ideas on
Speaker 1: what that could be, and that that could, as you
Speaker 1: were saying, could have happened with sandyas people could read into,
Speaker 1: you know, her shyness as something else, or it's impossible
Speaker 1: to know what would have happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, did you ever I was really keen to
Speaker 2: speak to a woman. I mean, I don't know if
Speaker 2: it would necessarily make any difference, but I just I'd
Speaker 2: really like to have a take from female Jura because
Speaker 2: I just wonder if obviously it was a unanimous verdict,
Speaker 2: but I just wonder if that if their thoughts over
Speaker 2: the years would have changed at all, or you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: that it had any other thoughts.
Speaker 1: It's a great question, and unfortunately, the only people who
Speaker 1: picked up or called me back. Were men. Yeah, But
Speaker 1: it's a really interesting question, and I think that perspective
Speaker 1: would have been really interesting to hear. But in every
Speaker 1: person I've talked to, I do hear that they did
Speaker 1: feel like it was a very serious thing that they
Speaker 1: were deciding, depending on how you feel about the verdict
Speaker 1: that they reached. I did feel that each one of
Speaker 1: them they understood that this was a person's life, They
Speaker 1: understood that this was a person's family, but you know,
Speaker 1: they made the decision based on the evidence that they
Speaker 1: thought was most likely. So we're going to take a
Speaker 1: quick break after which we're going to talk about something
Speaker 1: that was really central to both Jim and Sandy's lives and,
Speaker 1: according to her defense team, one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: she's in prison now. So another really huge part of
Speaker 1: the story that we didn't really get to talk a
Speaker 1: whole lot about, but it was another thing that was
Speaker 1: used throughout the trial was Sandy and Jim's religion. They
Speaker 1: were both Jehovah's witnesses. For me, when we first started,
Speaker 1: the only thing I really knew about Jehovah's witnesses that
Speaker 1: they prophetized from door to door and that they don't
Speaker 1: celebrate holidays, Christmas, Birthdays, Halloween. So I'd love to just
Speaker 1: have a really top level understanding of the core beliefs
Speaker 1: for a Jehovah's witness.
Speaker 2: Well, Jehovah's witnesses. They believe in God, that God is
Speaker 2: called Jehovah, and they follow the teachings of the Bible.
Speaker 2: They believe that we're living in the end of days
Speaker 2: and that only a chosen few will be resurrected. So basically,
Speaker 2: death is not the end. Death is like a deep
Speaker 2: sleep awaiting resurrection. And this was relevant in the trial.
Speaker 1: How did how did Jim and Sandy become Jehovah's witnesses
Speaker 1: because neither Jim or Sandy were brought up in that religion, right.
Speaker 2: No, that's right. They converted through cold call. They were interested,
Speaker 2: they were both open to it, and they were adults
Speaker 2: when they converted.
Speaker 1: So when you say cold call, it was literally someone
Speaker 1: knocking on their door.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, just like we've probably all had the Jehovah's
Speaker 2: witness knocking on our door. But yeah, Sandy and Jim
Speaker 2: went door to door evangelizing, just like other Jehovah's witnesses.
Speaker 2: But I think that when Sandy got ill, she couldn't
Speaker 2: do it anymore, so she sort of didn't didn't go,
Speaker 2: but Jim carried on.
Speaker 1: And do you know how you know, being a part
Speaker 1: of the Jehovah's Witnesses, how that played a day to
Speaker 1: day role in the Melgar's life.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think religion was a really big part of
Speaker 2: their lives from what I think it was. Diana, Sandy's cousin,
Speaker 2: told me that because she lived with them for a
Speaker 2: bit and went to some Bible study classes with them.
Speaker 2: But all their friends were Jehovah's Witnesses. They went to
Speaker 2: Bible study classes quite often, several times a week. Jim
Speaker 2: was an elder in the congregation, which is a basically
Speaker 2: a sort of you know, one of the sort of
Speaker 2: mature people that would help sort out problems within that congregation.
Speaker 2: So he was had quite a lot of status within
Speaker 2: the church. Yeah, I think. I mean Sandy and Tammy,
Speaker 2: who we interviewed, both met at church. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: all Sandy's friends were members of congregation. I'm sure she
Speaker 2: did have I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty
Speaker 2: sure that Tammy had friends outside that. But they were
Speaker 2: really really involved and went to lots of parties and celebrations.
Speaker 2: There were lots of photo shown in court of celebration
Speaker 2: days that they went to with their friends from the church.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think it was really central to their life.
Speaker 1: And just a reminder, Tammy is Sandy's friend who saw
Speaker 1: her right after the interrogation. She was the one who
Speaker 1: was listening to the news report and then realized that
Speaker 1: that was Sandy's, that she knew them, and she really
Speaker 1: stuck by Sandy throughout that whole process.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and still goes to see her, still goes to
Speaker 2: see her in prison. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So how was their religion used in the court case.
Speaker 2: It's interesting actually remembering what Tammy said because she said
Speaker 2: religion it was totally irrelevant to what happened to Jim's death,
Speaker 2: but it became an important part of the narrative built
Speaker 2: by the prosecution to other Sandy. Well, that's definitely what
Speaker 2: the Innocence Project of Texas would say. So, one of
Speaker 2: Sandy's close friends was put on the stand as a witness,
Speaker 2: and the prosecution asked her lots of questions about being
Speaker 2: a Jehovah's witness and basically just sort of bullet pointed
Speaker 2: all these things that Jehovah's witnesses don't believe in that.
Speaker 2: Lots of other people, do you know Christmas? You don't
Speaker 2: believe in Christmas, you don't believe in birthdays, you don't
Speaker 2: believe in Easter. So I think the well, definitely, the
Speaker 2: defense's point was A it wasn't relevant, and B it
Speaker 2: was used to make samdy seem unsympathetic to portray as
Speaker 2: an unsympathetic, different, other type of person to the jury.
Speaker 2: So she's different to ask, therefore she's guilty.
Speaker 1: So I just want to read this one quote from
Speaker 1: Colleen Barnett's closing remarks, who was the prosecution attorney in
Speaker 1: the court case, and she said, I didn't really realize
Speaker 1: the depth of the religious issue because I didn't know
Speaker 1: that much about Jehovah's witnesses, and I didn't know that
Speaker 1: Jehovah witnesses didn't allow you to divorce. You cannot divorce
Speaker 1: unless someone is cheating, and it's very clear that Jamie
Speaker 1: was not that guy. If I get divorced, I get
Speaker 1: ostracized and I can't talk with my friends. But if
Speaker 1: I kill him and nobody finds out, I'm not ostracized
Speaker 1: and he's just asleep. It's really interesting that she says
Speaker 1: this last thing of he's just asleep, right, because that
Speaker 1: does directly play into some of the things that we've
Speaker 1: learned about Jehovah's witnesses and their beliefs, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So this whole question of divorce is really interesting.
Speaker 2: And I think that according to the written word of
Speaker 2: Jehovah's Witnesses and what it says on the website, because
Speaker 2: I did go back to them and check about this,
Speaker 2: and they said that the only scriptural grounds for divorce
Speaker 2: is sexual immorality. The Bible encourages marriage mates to stay
Speaker 2: together even under less than ideal circumstances. Nevertheless, in extreme
Speaker 2: situations such as extreme physical vs. Islands, some Christians have
Speaker 2: decided to separate from a marriage mate. But it's that
Speaker 2: what it says on paper. And actually that doesn't mean
Speaker 2: that you'd actually murder your spouse instead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean, you know, you talked to both
Speaker 1: Liz and Tammy, and what did they say, as you know,
Speaker 1: Tammy's still are practicing Jehovah's Witnesses, and Liz was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Tommy said, she knows people who are divorced. She
Speaker 2: knows people who were in the religion who divorced. So
Speaker 2: people don't stay together through thick and thin, or just
Speaker 2: in cases of extreme physical abuse. So that's the reality
Speaker 2: is a bit different.
Speaker 1: Always, is what she said. The reality is always different
Speaker 1: for so many things. Yeah, you know, this was one
Speaker 1: thing that when I was writing to Sandy that I
Speaker 1: was curious to hear if if she's still practicing, she
Speaker 1: still is a Jehovah's witness, And she did tell me
Speaker 1: that it is something that gives her strength while she's
Speaker 1: in prison. I know Liz said the same thing, that
Speaker 1: her faith is something that does keep her going. And
Speaker 1: you know you talked to Tammy about this too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I talked to Tummy about Sandy's faith and
Speaker 2: this is what she told me.
Speaker 4: I do believe that Sandy would say her faith is
Speaker 4: what's keeping her going in prison.
Speaker 2: She is.
Speaker 4: I know for a fact that if anyone has a
Speaker 4: Bible question, they'll say, oh, I don't know, go ask
Speaker 4: miss Sandy. She'll know.
Speaker 2: So Also, Tummy said that after Jim died, her and
Speaker 2: Sandy would talk about it a lot, and obviously Sandy was,
Speaker 2: from Tommy's point of view, really really distraught. But one
Speaker 2: thing that gave a comfort was knowing that she would
Speaker 2: see Jim again in the resurrection, knowing that that wasn't
Speaker 2: the end, and that aspect of her faith really really
Speaker 2: helped her.
Speaker 1: We're going to take another quick break and when we're back,
Speaker 1: Maggie and I are going to talk about the defenses
Speaker 1: theory on what happened that night and December welcome back.
Speaker 1: So far, we've heard quite a bit about the prosecution's
Speaker 1: argument and what the jury made of it, but I
Speaker 1: also want to talk to you about what Sandy's legal
Speaker 1: team believe happened that Jim was killed and a home
Speaker 1: invasion gone wrong. Now, Maggie, I know you've done a
Speaker 1: ton of research into this, more than we could possibly
Speaker 1: fit into the series, and I'm sure you know everyone
Speaker 1: who's listening already knows. But what's a home invasion?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't have this phrase in the UK, so
Speaker 2: it was a new one on me. But it's basically
Speaker 2: a robbery in a house when people are at home.
Speaker 2: So there's people in the house. What do you call
Speaker 2: them burglaries? Well, there's no specific word because a burglary
Speaker 2: could be an empty house. Yeah, we haven't got a
Speaker 2: word for that.
Speaker 1: So interesting, but I'm curious to hear little bit about
Speaker 1: some of the people that you talked to who were
Speaker 1: on the ground during this time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I started off by going through all
Speaker 2: the archive of the Houston Chronicle, which is like the
Speaker 2: big regional paper, all the old stories that they covered
Speaker 2: at the time of the just the amount of home invasions.
Speaker 2: There were so many headlines about people dying in home invasions,
Speaker 2: people being shot in home invasions, home invasion gangs targeting
Speaker 2: residents who kept cash at home. There was just stacks
Speaker 2: of them. And through that I found Mike Glenn, who
Speaker 2: is a veteran reporter. He worked on the Houston Chronicle
Speaker 2: for twenty years. He's now the Pentagon reporter for the
Speaker 2: Washington Times, and he was in Houston when Jim was murdered.
Speaker 2: And what he told me was really illuminating.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's hear a little bit of your conversation with
Speaker 1: Mike Glenn, the reporter.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's a rough town. It has murders and
Speaker 3: crime and break ins, and there are lots of guns
Speaker 3: in the city. It's a rough town. It can be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So it kept you very busy as a crime reporter.
Speaker 3: I mean, and really that's all I did, you know,
Speaker 3: for almost twenty years is covering crime, and you know,
Speaker 3: there was so much of it that you would just
Speaker 3: go from scene to scene to scene. People would ask
Speaker 3: me how many like dead bodies quote unquote have you
Speaker 3: seen on the job, And I said, I stopped counting.
Speaker 3: I really, I have no idea how many murder scenes
Speaker 3: or murder victims I've seen. I mean murder victims, car fatalities,
Speaker 3: that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: So how did it work?
Speaker 4: Then?
Speaker 2: Do you do you get tipped off by the police.
Speaker 2: Did you listen to police radio and then turn up
Speaker 2: at the house.
Speaker 3: A lot of police radio. I'd multiple scanners. I had
Speaker 3: scanners in my car, I had scanners in my office,
Speaker 3: and I would hear something going on and I would,
Speaker 3: you know, jump in my car and rush down. That
Speaker 3: was my mindset. You know, you get there first, and
Speaker 3: you get there as fast as you can because that's
Speaker 3: where most of the information comes in the first moments
Speaker 3: of the scene. Because as you know, I don't know
Speaker 3: if it's the same in the UK, but you know
Speaker 3: in US television news, especially the local variety, you know,
Speaker 3: if it bleeds, it leads.
Speaker 1: So what can he tell you about the violent home invasions.
Speaker 2: I mean, the thing that really shocks me is that
Speaker 2: he said these crimes were just so run of the mill,
Speaker 2: so normal, that he didn't even bother turning up with them.
Speaker 2: I mean, he was the crime reporter, but he was
Speaker 2: overwhelmed with the amounts of crime, so he couldn't report
Speaker 2: on all of them.
Speaker 3: In Houston, with my experience of violent home invasions were
Speaker 3: pretty common events. And then unless there was something some
Speaker 3: other variable involved, if somebody was murdered during it, or
Speaker 3: if it was in a particularly upscale neighborhood, very rare,
Speaker 3: that's really the only way that would really peauk my interest.
Speaker 3: It's not that I, you know, disregarded, is the fact
Speaker 3: that I had so many other events on my plate
Speaker 3: that I had to deal with. The thing in Houston
Speaker 3: is that in my experience, that's only my experience, so
Speaker 3: I can't even say if it's absolute, But by my experience,
Speaker 3: most home invasions there was usually some kind of connection
Speaker 3: with the victim or somehow or they were involved in
Speaker 3: drug trafficking. A lot of the home divisions I covered
Speaker 3: were drug traffickers because they would try to go there
Speaker 3: to rob a drug dealer. That happened a lot. You
Speaker 3: kick the door down, rob a drug dealer. It was
Speaker 3: very rare when these home invasions where the victim was
Speaker 3: some kind of completely anonymous, you know, citizen who had
Speaker 3: no connection at all.
Speaker 1: Did he cover the Belgar's case at all.
Speaker 2: No, So again, you know, like you said, there was
Speaker 2: so common that that would have just been another kind
Speaker 2: of run of the mill home invasion from his point
Speaker 2: of view, So he didn't cover it. But from what
Speaker 2: he told me, it clearly didn't fit into the usual
Speaker 2: home invasion pattern that was rife in Houston at the time,
Speaker 2: because home invasions didn't normally involve knives.
Speaker 3: I've been on a couple of stabbing crimes, and that
Speaker 3: was usually because that was a weapon of opportunity at
Speaker 3: the sign. You know, somebody picks up a steak knife
Speaker 3: from the cutlery drawer and goes at it. But if
Speaker 3: you're a respectable criminal in Houston and you want to
Speaker 3: break in, you use a gun or multiple guns. They
Speaker 3: really they don't want to kill anybody because in Texas
Speaker 3: that turns it into a death penalty case. So they
Speaker 3: would tie these people up quite often as long as
Speaker 3: they weren't struggling. In my experience, the invaders were looking
Speaker 3: to grab the drugs and the money, not so much
Speaker 3: to leave a bunch of bodies around.
Speaker 2: Just going deeper into the same issue. That's when I
Speaker 2: found out about this task force that had been set up.
Speaker 2: So it was because the home invasion problem was so
Speaker 2: big in Houston at the time, a special task force
Speaker 2: was set up with a lot of different partners, So
Speaker 2: Houston PD were involved, federal agencies were involved. But I
Speaker 2: found the guy that led that task force. He's called
Speaker 2: Ron Oliver, who's a retired ATF special agent that's the
Speaker 2: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and his intelligence
Speaker 2: told him that it was a group of Colombian immigrants
Speaker 2: who were sort of behind these violent home invasions. He
Speaker 2: told me that they were often in the country illegally
Speaker 2: and carried fake IDs, and he worked to try and
Speaker 2: crack the crews that were carrying out the invasions, get
Speaker 2: them quickly through the court system, and then deport them.
Speaker 2: So that was the sort of strategy behind it. There
Speaker 2: were other crews, other gangs. He didn't actually call them gangs,
Speaker 2: he called them cruise that were not Colombians, but that
Speaker 2: was his particular target. So here was Ron Oliver chasing
Speaker 2: these Colombian gangs. And Liz had read independently about a
Speaker 2: home invasion that happened in the residential area very similar
Speaker 2: to the one that her mum and dad lived in,
Speaker 2: and it was led by a Colombian woman and there
Speaker 2: was a photo fit image of her in the paper,
Speaker 2: and when she showed it to Sandy, she said, Sandy
Speaker 2: was like, oh, this looks a bit like the woman
Speaker 2: that she remembers sort of catching a glimpse of just
Speaker 2: before she was tied up. So, you know, Liz thought
Speaker 2: there might be a link with the Colombian home invasion
Speaker 2: gangs and thinking that maybe they were behind what happened
Speaker 2: to her parents. But when I talked to Ron Oliver,
Speaker 2: he again said there were some similar patterns.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Again, they targeted people who had cash, but it was
Speaker 2: very rare for them to use knives. They didn't start people.
Speaker 2: They generally shot people, and they were pretty sophisticated. They
Speaker 2: often target a particular household and watched them for several days,
Speaker 2: knew when people were coming and going, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: So it seems to me like, yes, it was a
Speaker 1: rampant problem during this time. Yes, there were homes that
Speaker 1: were targeted, and there was one ring that was more
Speaker 1: violent than the other. But still, to these two people
Speaker 1: who you talk to, not everything lined up or didn't
Speaker 1: fit the patterns for what happened in the Malgar's case.
Speaker 2: Is that right, Yeah, I mean there were a lot
Speaker 2: of patterns that did fit. So for example, the fact
Speaker 2: that there wasn't any break in. They would often rush
Speaker 2: the door using a ruse like a fake delivery, or
Speaker 2: they used a woman to knock on the door, so
Speaker 2: that was you know, there were no signs of a
Speaker 2: break in at the Melgars, which made police think that
Speaker 2: it couldn't have been a home invasion. But that just
Speaker 2: isn't the case because in a lot of these other
Speaker 2: home invasions there weren't there wasn't a sign of a
Speaker 2: break in. It was very common for them to tie
Speaker 2: people up. They used robe ties, telephone cords, zip ties.
Speaker 2: Sometimes they came equipped, but other times they used what
Speaker 2: was to hand. They would take pillar cases off the
Speaker 2: bed to load up the stolen goods. They were after cash, firearms, jewelry.
Speaker 2: Remember that in the Mailgars, there was that green and
Speaker 2: black backpack which was actually lizes from the childhood.
Speaker 1: The bag that had the Xbox in it, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's right. And it had twenty items of
Speaker 2: Sandy's jewelry as well that was found in the garage,
Speaker 2: So you know, could that have been another similarity? Was
Speaker 2: that of another parallel But they always had guns, that's
Speaker 2: the thing that Ron Oliver said. They would pistol whip people,
Speaker 2: they would threaten them at gunpoint, and people were shot
Speaker 2: and killed. He doesn't remember any stabbings at all. Stabbing
Speaker 2: is a really of intimate, visceral thing that can go wrong,
Speaker 2: so it's not really the type of thing that a
Speaker 2: professional gang would do. Yeah, that's what he said.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And you know, I think that this is the
Speaker 1: hard thing about stories like this is we may never
Speaker 1: know exactly what happened. And this is exactly why we
Speaker 1: dive in and talk to experts and talk to our
Speaker 1: sorts of different people on it.
Speaker 2: But as we heard last week, you know, this case
Speaker 2: is not set in stone. Things are moving all the time.
Speaker 2: Things are changing. I mean, for Liz it's incredibly slow,
Speaker 2: but things are changing. For example, the DNA with the
Speaker 2: hair could be quite significant.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they are allowed to test the DNA that are
Speaker 1: to test the hairs that we're found in Jim's hand.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And what really strikes me about that is it
Speaker 2: was Liz that brought that to the attention of the
Speaker 2: Innocence Project when we were on the phone on that
Speaker 2: conference call with them. They had sort of looked, I mean,
Speaker 2: not through any fault of theirs, but they'd overlooked the
Speaker 2: hair just because the case is so complex and it's
Speaker 2: gone back over so many years. But Liz, with her
Speaker 2: sort of very clever brain, remembered the hair. She remembers
Speaker 2: the details, and the Innocence Project of Texas and Sandy
Speaker 2: is so lucky to have Liz. She's the one that's
Speaker 2: been across it from day one and she's still there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I actually forgot about that, I mean, and that that
Speaker 1: is where like, Liz is such an incredible investigator and
Speaker 1: has really combed through this entire case, and I can
Speaker 1: only imagine what an asset she is to the Innocence Project,
Speaker 1: where she knows it in and out.
Speaker 2: She is her mother's strongest advocate, isn't she.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she is for sure. So in kind of wrapping
Speaker 1: up this conversation is there anything that you'd like to share,
Speaker 1: any final thoughts on working with a story or.
Speaker 2: I mean, you just can never imagine being in the
Speaker 2: situation that Liz is in, you know, losing your mother
Speaker 2: and your father in those sort of circumstances and having
Speaker 2: to pick up the pieces of your life and try
Speaker 2: and carry on after that. It's just so difficult to imagine.
Speaker 1: For sure. Yeah, very well said, I think that that
Speaker 1: is exactly true, and it's just a shame that, you know,
Speaker 1: she never got to fully grieve both her mom and
Speaker 1: her dad, and she just has to fight every single
Speaker 1: day and continues to fight.
Speaker 2: Well, now I was working with you, Maggie, Yeah, you too, Thank.
Speaker 1: You, Thank you so much, Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: doing this. It was really great.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It made me feel like we were on our like
Speaker 1: constant phone calls just figuring out this story. So it
Speaker 1: was good to relive that with you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1: As I said in the last episode, will continue to
Speaker 1: follow away that happens, so please stay subscribed and I'll
Speaker 1: bring you any updates when I can. But I want
Speaker 1: to end the series with a thought from Liz. We
Speaker 1: caught up with her recently and she told us she's
Speaker 1: thinking about moving back to the US, to California one day,
Speaker 1: to a house big enough to have relatives stay and
Speaker 1: big enough to have Sandy live with her and her
Speaker 1: family when she gets out of prison. Thank you again
Speaker 1: for listening to the series. I'm Maggie Robinson Catz signing
Speaker 1: off you've been listening to Hands Tied. I'm Maggie Robinson
Speaker 1: cats And the producer is Maggie Latham. Sound design and
Speaker 1: mix is by Tom Brignoll. Our script consultant is Emma
Speaker 1: Weatherall production support is from Dan Martini, Elena Bautang and
Speaker 1: Mabel Finnegan Wright. And our production executive is Laura Jordan Raul.
Speaker 1: The series was developed by Anya Saunders and Emma Shaw
Speaker 1: at iHeart. The Managing Executive Producer is Christina Everett, and
Speaker 1: for BBC Studios, the executive producer is Joe Kent.