WEBVTT - Good Grief — Sandy Beal E8 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:03.960 Before we begin, please note this series includes talk of 0:00:04.000 --> 0:00:15.720 suicide and sexual violence. Please take care while listening. It 0:00:15.840 --> 0:00:18.200 was it was just a strange turn of how it 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:25.680 all unfolded anothers right now. I know all the people 0:00:25.680 --> 0:00:29.600 feel difference. I'm just putting my feelings out there. This 0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:36.720 is a crazyness that we were told you can do it. 0:00:36.720 --> 0:00:39.280 It just didn't know a lot of things just didn't 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:42.320 so some of the stuff I'm about to tell you, 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:44.600 I mean, if you're pissed now, you're going to get 0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:48.560 even more piste off because I never knew anything and 0:00:48.680 --> 0:00:52.959 you never said it's it's like for you to hear 0:00:53.000 --> 0:00:56.480 all of this, well else not what I want to hear, 0:00:56.520 --> 0:01:01.200 but if it gil is what it is. Yeah, yeah, no, 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:19.319 I'm not fine. Bullshit. Yeah. Shot from My Heart Radio. 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:22.959 I'm Melissa Jolson and this is what happened to Sandy 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:32.280 Beale an I Heart original podcast, Chapter eight, Good Grief. 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:41.679 The first time I went to Maine to meet with 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:44.560 the Bell family. It was summer and the drive from 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:47.960 the airport was lush and green. It was on this 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:51.320 trip when Ronnie, Sandy's youngest brother, asked me what I 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:55.320 hoped to achieve with the podcast when Sandy's mother, Joanne, 0:01:55.520 --> 0:01:57.560 gave me the coat her daughter was wearing on the 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:00.320 night of her death, and when I first got real 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:03.720 sense of Sandy as a person, the Sandy the family 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:09.320 described to me, she was fearless. Five months later, I 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:12.120 flew back to Maine with my producer to see the 0:02:12.120 --> 0:02:15.640 Bells in person again. It was late fall and the 0:02:15.680 --> 0:02:18.320 trees were a mix of orange and brown and green. 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:22.240 I was returning under different circumstances than my first trip. 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:27.040 This visit had a particular objective to observe and record 0:02:27.200 --> 0:02:31.720 an emergency family meeting that Kim had called. Kim wanted 0:02:31.800 --> 0:02:33.720 to share with the Bells what she had come to 0:02:33.760 --> 0:02:38.120 believe was true that Sandy had died by suicide. The 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:41.160 meeting was set to take place at Sandy's brother Steven's home. 0:02:41.880 --> 0:02:45.320 To set the scene, imagine a tidy ranch style house, 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:50.040 a kitchen teeming with food, two small dogs running around underfoot. 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:57.280 I arrived before the rest of the family and made 0:02:57.280 --> 0:03:00.880 small talk with Stephen and his wife. Soon, Michael and 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:04.000 his wife showed up with Joanne, who was wearing suede 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:08.480 cowboy boots bedazzled with rhyan stones. We hugged, talked, about 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:12.680 booster shots and COVID variants, and we waited together for 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:27.040 Kim right I'm gone phoned in. I was like, Oh, 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:35.040 this is really You can hear the nervousness in Kim's 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:38.960 voice leading up to this meeting. She was really worried 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:41.280 about how the Beals would respond to what she had 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:44.040 to tell them. She didn't know if they'd see things 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:47.520 her way, or if they'd reject her position and judge 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:54.160 her for siding with the police. For decades, there's been 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:57.160 a collective story that they all agreed on around Sandy's 0:03:57.200 --> 0:04:01.520 death that whatever happened to Sandy, she hadn't died by suicide. 0:04:02.560 --> 0:04:05.480 Kim had previously been part of the group, In fact, 0:04:05.760 --> 0:04:08.840 the leader of the group, the one pushing to reopen 0:04:08.880 --> 0:04:14.120 Sandy's case, convinced that there was something there. Now, she 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:16.919 worried that she had blown Sandy's death up into something 0:04:16.960 --> 0:04:21.039 it wasn't and wasted their time, added extra pain to 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:25.120 their suffering. She knew the Bills loved her and were 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:28.280 appreciative of all her work, but there was a part 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:30.520 of her that was scared she would need to beg 0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:35.080 for their forgiveness. My notes are like I was really 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:37.040 hoping that I'd have time to sit down and get 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:41.520 really but it's it's just been too hard. It is, 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:50.560 do you have Within a few minutes of Kim's arrival, 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:53.799 the group migrated into the living room and took seats 0:04:53.839 --> 0:04:56.240 around a boom mic that I had brought. It was 0:04:56.279 --> 0:05:00.839 a strange dichonomy, the most intimate of conversations undertaken with 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:05.400 the knowledge that everything was being recorded. Kim sat in 0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:08.640 a large, pillowy recliner that seemed to swallow her frame. 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:11.680 Her feet didn't quite reach the floor, and she kept 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:15.320 readjusting her position, trying to get comfortable. I think that 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:18.040 the answers that I'm going to give you today will 0:05:18.320 --> 0:05:22.279 naturally make that a closing place. Anyway, there are still 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:27.400 some answers that need to happen, but I think as 0:05:27.400 --> 0:05:30.520 far as the story is concerned, it's shifted, and so 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:33.640 I'm hoping that we get more information after this, and 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:36.240 but we may not. So I just want to kind 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:38.360 of share with you what we've uncovered in the past 0:05:38.440 --> 0:05:44.679 few months since we saw you in June. Anyway, Armed 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:47.919 with her notes, Kim began recounting her conversation with Bernie. 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:50.440 She told them how she went in fighting with a 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:55.440 head of steam, arguing and asking critical questions. She told 0:05:55.440 --> 0:05:58.400 the family how they discussed Sandy's efforts to become a 0:05:58.400 --> 0:06:02.160 police officer and ride alongs that she did, likely as 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:06.200 part of an official Explorer program. And so I'm just 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:09.600 listening and I said, well, what about the Explorers program. 0:06:09.800 --> 0:06:12.120 I'm like, so explained that. He said it was a 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:15.400 way that we encouraged people in high school to come 0:06:15.800 --> 0:06:17.640 became cops seek for and they're having a hard time 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:21.160 recruiting new police officers, so they were going to the 0:06:21.240 --> 0:06:24.320 high schools, hence the ride along program and the Explorers. 0:06:24.320 --> 0:06:26.919 And I'm like, so, you have a girl that wants 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:29.400 to be a cop, and she's doing everything you guys 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:33.560 asked her to do. She told them how Bernie acknowledged 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:37.520 that there was likely serious sexual misconduct taking place, and 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:40.680 how she was disarmed by his compassion and his frankness. 0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:43.640 He said, if I was on the watch, they would 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:47.080 have all been terminated because I wouldn't have put up 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:49.000 with any of that. And I'm like, you know, if 0:06:49.040 --> 0:06:51.279 you you see all these questions that we have, everything 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:54.200 we've already talked about, no answers have been given. All 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:57.120 these different things that are discrepancies, and you can see 0:06:57.160 --> 0:06:59.839 from our point of view that we have questions. He's like, 0:06:59.839 --> 0:07:02.400 I absolutely see from your point of view all of this, 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:07.000 everything you're saying makes sense. I watched Kim as she 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:11.200 attempted to replicate her conversation with Bernie, trying to create 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:13.880 the same conditions that had led to her own awakening. 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:18.440 She spoke calmly and carefully, referring often to her notes, 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:21.200 before she got to the piece of evidence that had 0:07:21.240 --> 0:07:24.800 clicked everything into place for her. To help them visualize 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:28.120 the scene, she printed from the Internet a picture of 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:31.120 an old Ford Pinto, just like the one Sandy used 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:35.760 to drive. So if you look at this, this is 0:07:35.800 --> 0:07:40.920 the steering wheel, so it matches up if you were 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:43.880 to brace it. There here you can pass that if 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:46.640 you were to brace it. It's it just started feeling 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:50.560 like making sense to me that that she did use 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:53.040 that that's the only possible way that she could have 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:56.320 pulled that trigger, as if it was had support of something. 0:07:56.680 --> 0:07:58.600 But when he said that the gunpotter was on the 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:01.880 steering wheel and it was spray and back, and I'm like, 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:05.480 he goes they He said, Kim, we can't we can't 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:13.880 deny the trajectory of this. When when he said the 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:17.600 there's gunpowder on the steering wheel, that was kind of like, 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:21.880 that's kind of very futable. So it was almost like 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:24.600 a an Aha moment, like a wake up call of 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:34.959 oh my god, that could possibly really be true. At 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:39.079 this Kim pivoted away from the forensic evidence and started 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:42.760 speaking from her gut. She now had a new understanding 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:45.640 of Sandy and her last month, and she shared this 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:49.480 with the Beals, how she believed Sandy had been used 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:52.559 and abused by men in power, and how this had 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:56.719 broken her. I think someone was there before. I think 0:08:56.760 --> 0:08:59.760 she was alone then, And this is just my my 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:04.120 knowing her and thinking through the situation. It's dark, it's 0:09:04.160 --> 0:09:07.840 twenty seven degrees outside, she just had sex with somebody. 0:09:08.280 --> 0:09:12.040 She's alone, she's trying to get out, and I think 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:15.360 the trying to get out was possibly the straw that 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:17.480 broke the camel's back, and she just said fuck it. 0:09:18.360 --> 0:09:23.040 Joanne had been listening intently. Now she interrupted, I think 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:26.600 you're right. I think the last hurrah was she was 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:30.040 trying to get out. Joanne's words they rushed out of 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:32.440 her as though they had been waiting to be released. 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:37.040 I think she just said a kid, she had already 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:40.720 been rejected, she had already had the abortion. And I 0:09:40.760 --> 0:09:44.720 think the whole thing just blew up. And maybe I'm wrong, 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:50.360 and uh, I kept that tomorrow itself for a look. Now, 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:57.240 I did not expect to hear Joanne agree with Kim 0:09:57.280 --> 0:10:00.720 and acknowledge so openly that she believed if Sandy had 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:03.880 died by suicide. And I got the sense that Kim 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:07.440 had given her permission to say the hard part out loud, 0:10:08.040 --> 0:10:12.439 and that it came as a tremendous relief. The room 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:15.800 was quiet. Everyone seemed to be reflecting on the Sandy 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:19.240 that they knew, each of them conjuring their own memory 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:22.280 of Sandy and trying to square Kim's new story with 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:27.719 their own. And then Stephen broke the silence. Well, I'm 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:33.560 gonna be the man out. I dispute what the guy says. 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:36.839 I'm flat asked the spear that I don't think she'd 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:39.720 put the goddam gone on a steering oil. And yes, 0:10:39.760 --> 0:10:42.079 they can replicate it, they don't want to replicate it. 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:44.439 I can put a man on a goddamn who and 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:47.959 they could replicate that. I know I'm saying Sandy did 0:10:48.080 --> 0:10:51.720 not shoot herself. I'm gonna go to my freaking grave 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:56.960 saying that. You know, and it's compelling. I'll give you that. 0:10:57.480 --> 0:11:00.160 You know, the guys trying and I get that he's 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:03.880 trying to be empathetic with our situation. But you know, 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:09.520 I'm sorry he's selling. I ain't buy it. No Thick again, 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:25.080 I'm sorry. Sorry. Stephen left the room upset, but about 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:29.880 five minutes later he came back and rejoined his family. Uh, 0:11:30.320 --> 0:11:32.440 trust me, in folks, I'm not trying to you know, 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:38.640 it's nothing about anybody. I take issue with what it 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:41.000 is or trying to say. And you know, and I 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:45.520 understand if you know other people don't share my stance. 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:48.520 I get it. You know this is something that I 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:51.000 you're right there, I gotta graph with all my own 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:56.640 Right now, I don't see it yet. You know, maybe something, 0:11:56.679 --> 0:11:59.080 it might take something, a little something else to make 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:02.120 me see the light. You know, maybe I'm seeing what 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:05.160 I want to see. I don't know. Could be, but 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:08.640 right now I do not know. You're not going to 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:12.880 convince me that she did it. As the family continued 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:15.960 to talk, the sun streaming in the windows and filling 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:18.480 the room with light. It felt as though I was 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:21.480 seeing them shift and adjust their beliefs in real time, 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:24.840 torn between two versions of an event that had to 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:29.160 find their lives. Even Joanne, who had sounded so sure 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:34.360 at first, vacillated returning back again to the police dug 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:37.600 and all the sketchy behavior she witnessed in the aftermath 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:41.760 of Sandy's death. Sometimes she seemed to travel this distance 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:46.720 between suicide and murder in the same breath. Stephen was 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:50.320 the most vocal about his views, while his brothers Michael 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:54.840 and Ronnie quietly contemplated the situation without giving much away. 0:12:55.600 --> 0:13:00.959 They listened, nodded, winced at times, and then Ronnie spoke 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:08.880 up in his calm and reserved way, Well, you know, 0:13:09.040 --> 0:13:16.480 for forty four years and nine months, we've tried like 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:21.160 every scenario. Did she did, she not, she didn't, Why 0:13:22.679 --> 0:13:29.880 she didn't, Who's responsible? We don't know. Then, I guess 0:13:29.880 --> 0:13:33.920 we're never gonna know. Even if somebody come forward today, 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:39.040 yeah I did it. No one's going to jail, especially 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:46.040 an other than guys. Yeah, pops, right, Yeah, So in 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:50.480 my mind, I think we've come to the end of 0:13:50.480 --> 0:14:09.560 the room. When loves the girl I watched the Bills 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:12.920 leave that meeting with Kim with a demanding task ahead. 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:16.199 They could choose to believe what Kim now believed, that 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:19.680 Sandy died by suicide, or they could continue with the 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:23.200 story they believed for decades, and I can understand why 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:27.480 they take the latter route. Both stories were compelling, both 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:31.360 were possible, and the journey to replace a long held 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:35.480 belief with something new and contradictory is not an easy one. 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:39.880 I think that we faced this kind of crossroads many 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:43.760 times in life, and we you know, again, we're given 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:47.680 the choice between the safety of holding onto what we 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:51.960 know or the ambiguity of releasing what we thought we 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:56.960 knew and reaching for something a little more adequate, recognizing 0:14:57.040 --> 0:15:01.600 that that that process is not a comfortable one. Robert 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:04.760 Niemeyer is a professor of psychology at the University of 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:09.720 Memphis and an authority on bereavement in grief. Well, of course, 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:13.120 this is a larger question that goes beyond grief and bereavement. 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:17.640 We can hold onto our own views, sometimes almost in 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:21.640 a kind of hostile stance of refusing to accept the 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:28.720 alternative story, and that's the path of defensiveness and sameness 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:33.320 and anger and resistance. But the other is the path 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:39.080 of grieving, may be coming to terms with the reality 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:43.000 of tragedy in life and the impermanence of love and 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:49.360 the ambiguity of of our position as human beings. Kim 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:52.280 let go of what she had believed, and it was 0:15:52.360 --> 0:15:55.600 really painful. She told me that she felt as though 0:15:55.680 --> 0:16:00.560 she was grieving Sandy's death all over again. For a family, 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:05.240 I understood the cost of changing their minds to accept 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:09.120 that Sandy had died by suicide required them to redefine 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:12.920 their understanding of her as a person and, by extension, 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:18.240 their relationship to her. It often, especially in the case 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:23.400 of traumatic loss, shakes up our assumptive world, as we 0:16:23.480 --> 0:16:26.680 call it. That whole world of assumptions about how life 0:16:26.920 --> 0:16:30.080 is or should be. Our sense of justice, our sense 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:33.280 of control, our sense of the reality we thought we 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:36.880 were living, or the reality of a loved one we 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:41.840 thought we knew, can be deeply unsettling, as we have 0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:46.360 to essentially revise our life narrative, the story of who 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:51.480 we are and whose we are, in the context of 0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:56.640 often a significant and and and soul shattering loss. The 0:16:56.760 --> 0:16:59.360 dramatic thing for them, of course, is that they have 0:16:59.480 --> 0:17:04.439 experienced the shattering of their narrative, their story, not once, 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:09.359 but twice, forty or four years apart. Robert explained to 0:17:09.359 --> 0:17:13.160 me that grieving a suicide often brings up complicated feelings 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:17.760 for families, such as guilt and anger the failure to 0:17:17.840 --> 0:17:22.680 protect or save that person, particularly if we are a parent, 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:26.800 particularly if we are an older sibling, where we feel 0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:31.640 some duty of care toward this vulnerable person, and somehow 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:37.320 we missed the signals. We we didn't have the you know, 0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:39.840 the deep understanding of what was happening for them at 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:42.600 the time that might have led us to make a difference. 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:46.480 All of that is denied us, and so we're left 0:17:46.520 --> 0:17:51.840 with a struggle to realign the relationship with them, um 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:54.440 and to figure out how they fit into our lives. Now. 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:03.920 What I hope it brings though, is compassion of her 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:08.680 as the young woman she was attempting to move into 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:11.760 a life that had its own audacious and probably chaotic 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:19.560 and likely complicated dimensions. Ironically, they have ended up having 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:22.679 to sort out those complications for her in in a 0:18:22.680 --> 0:18:26.159 proxy way as they attempt to make sense of her life, 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:34.359 maybe at a time that she herself could not making 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:37.760 sense of Sandy and the complications she was struggling with. 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:41.240 Is what I've tried to do with this podcast and 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:45.160 the complications in Sandy's life, they had something in common. 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:49.720 They all revolved around law enforcement, and so in a 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:55.760 way did her death, which I think is telling. I 0:18:55.800 --> 0:18:59.000 found myself returning to a single page in Sandy's full 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:03.600 police file where Detective Shosholski cataloged the evidence in Sandy's 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:08.119 car and specifically the items sitting on her dashboard. The 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:11.120 items on her dash they all had to do with cops. 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:14.840 There was the duty rig for carrying police equipment, a 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:18.840 lone business card from a Pig County cop, clippings about 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:23.040 police officers, presumably from a local newspaper, and a card 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:27.399 showing the shift's schedule. I thought it was strange that 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:31.000 Sandy would store so many items, including a belt, on 0:19:31.080 --> 0:19:34.800 her small dashboard. Wouldn't they fall down when she drove? 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:38.879 As I read and re read this list, picturing the scene, 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:44.520 I suddenly imagined Sandy placing the items there ceremoniously surrounding 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:49.400 herself with police paraphernilia to make a statement. I had 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:52.800 long been suspicious of the location of Sandy's death because 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:55.720 of who hung out there. But I could now see 0:19:55.720 --> 0:20:00.760 how the pollard might have been a symbolic choice by Sandy. Doug, 0:20:00.800 --> 0:20:05.040 the state trooper, the instructors and the Explorer program, and 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:08.680 the cops who called Shallski. I think a good many 0:20:08.760 --> 0:20:12.680 of them hurt Sandy. They took advantage of her youthful passion, 0:20:13.240 --> 0:20:18.159 her blind ambition, and her desire for acceptance. As she 0:20:18.200 --> 0:20:21.240 wrote in her letter to Doug, I never want another 0:20:21.320 --> 0:20:23.720 man to ever want me. I just want to leave 0:20:23.760 --> 0:20:28.000 and forget the pain. Sandy was looking for love and 0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:32.919 she found cruelty. The police they didn't have to murder 0:20:33.000 --> 0:20:36.360 Sandy to be complicit in her death, and I think 0:20:36.359 --> 0:20:38.760 they deserve some of the blame for the loss of 0:20:38.800 --> 0:20:46.600 a teenage girl. I think there are people who know 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:49.680 exactly what happened to Sandy. They just don't want to 0:20:49.720 --> 0:20:52.399 talk to me, And back then they didn't want to 0:20:52.400 --> 0:20:55.159 talk to the Bills either. To me, this is the 0:20:55.200 --> 0:20:58.600 tragic heart of the story. For all the questions, the 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:02.399 Bells had their people with answers, if any of the 0:21:02.400 --> 0:21:05.439 police officers who knew Sandy had been brave enough to 0:21:05.480 --> 0:21:08.920 talk to the Bells, if Prince George's County police had 0:21:09.000 --> 0:21:11.960 launched a misconduct probe in the wake of Sandy's death 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:15.880 and been transparent with her family. And if anyone had 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:19.000 listened to the bills, really listened to what they had 0:21:19.040 --> 0:21:22.480 to say, then maybe forty five years of doubt and 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:27.480 uncertainty might have been avoided. Maybe Sandy she could have 0:21:27.520 --> 0:21:43.800 been put to rest. In the weeks and months after 0:21:43.840 --> 0:21:46.199 we all gathered a main I reached out to the 0:21:46.200 --> 0:21:48.760 Bells periodically to check in on how they were doing. 0:21:49.600 --> 0:21:52.199 I was curious how they had processed the new information, 0:21:52.840 --> 0:21:55.520 but I was also hyper aware that their capacity for 0:21:56.200 --> 0:21:59.440 an interest in discussing Sandy's case with me was coming 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:03.960 to a close. Us My investigation had found answers, but 0:22:04.040 --> 0:22:07.960 not the answers that they had necessarily wanted, since they 0:22:07.960 --> 0:22:11.400 were somewhat let down, although they never missed an opportunity 0:22:11.520 --> 0:22:15.560 to express gratitude for my work. Here's what Stephen had 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:18.480 to say when I called him one afternoon. I'm just 0:22:18.680 --> 0:22:23.119 going on with with life, really, I mean kind of 0:22:23.119 --> 0:22:30.160 going status quote. I mean, was suation normal? Um, that's 0:22:30.200 --> 0:22:33.720 not it. I don't know what else to say. I 0:22:33.840 --> 0:22:36.600 know myself, I've always saw it all along and we're 0:22:36.600 --> 0:22:38.520 never going to really get to the bottom of it. 0:22:38.840 --> 0:22:40.880 And it was nice as you know, trying to get 0:22:41.280 --> 0:22:43.840 to where we got now, which was which is good. 0:22:43.880 --> 0:22:49.920 But uh, just it's for me. I'm always going to 0:22:50.040 --> 0:22:54.840 have questions and it's never gonna be really quite resolved 0:22:55.960 --> 0:23:00.520 to my satisfaction. Kim's epiphany for meeting with Bernie, it 0:23:00.640 --> 0:23:04.080 hadn't really changed anything for him. I had those gut 0:23:04.119 --> 0:23:07.000 feelings when you know, when you just kind of know something, 0:23:07.119 --> 0:23:12.000 you know what I mean, I'm looking at through jaded eyes. Maya, 0:23:12.440 --> 0:23:16.560 I'm so jaded, you know, I need to look at 0:23:16.600 --> 0:23:19.240 it through a different lens. Does that make any sense? 0:23:22.280 --> 0:23:25.280 When I reached Michael, the oldest of the Bill brothers, 0:23:25.760 --> 0:23:28.679 he agreed with Stephen and told me he still has 0:23:28.720 --> 0:23:32.520 significant questions about the gun. So you still you still 0:23:32.560 --> 0:23:37.560 believe that probably someone else does involved. Sure, I certainly do. 0:23:38.880 --> 0:23:41.960 The police. Uh they're pretty good, you know, they can 0:23:42.000 --> 0:23:44.480 they can dig sh it up, and they can they 0:23:44.520 --> 0:23:47.720 can bury stuff. So I'm sure there's a lot of 0:23:47.760 --> 0:23:52.280 stuff that's buried. No one's gonna know about it. Ronnie, 0:23:52.440 --> 0:23:55.000 the youngest of the Bills, he just wanted to put 0:23:55.040 --> 0:23:58.760 the whole thing behind him. He's getting married soon, starting 0:23:58.760 --> 0:24:01.439 a new chapter of his life. If he doesn't want 0:24:01.480 --> 0:24:04.720 to go there anymore, Like you said in the meeting, 0:24:05.160 --> 0:24:13.040 he considers at the end of the road. I came 0:24:13.080 --> 0:24:16.800 to understand through my conversations with the brothers that it 0:24:16.880 --> 0:24:19.680 was very possible the family would be living with these 0:24:19.720 --> 0:24:24.200 conflicting stories of Sandy's death and therefore her life forever, 0:24:25.160 --> 0:24:28.480 and maybe that was all right. Well, we've seen over 0:24:28.560 --> 0:24:32.680 and over now really twenty five years of search, the 0:24:32.720 --> 0:24:38.240 majority of people are resilient to almost anything. George Banano 0:24:38.400 --> 0:24:42.879 is a psychologist at Columbia University. His research focuses on 0:24:42.920 --> 0:24:46.919 how human beings coped with bereavement, loss, and other potentially 0:24:46.960 --> 0:24:50.720 traumatic events. You know, everybody's moved on and lived their lives, 0:24:50.800 --> 0:24:53.359 you know, and it's now a person four decades in 0:24:53.400 --> 0:24:56.720 the past who they loved or who they had complex 0:24:56.760 --> 0:25:00.320 relationships with, and now they have a kind of a 0:25:00.320 --> 0:25:04.359 a very complicated story about that person. But you know, 0:25:04.440 --> 0:25:08.600 there's probably enough distance that they can probably say, Okay, well, 0:25:09.160 --> 0:25:11.679 you know, we'll maybe hold both of these But you know, 0:25:11.720 --> 0:25:13.639 I don't think it would be as crucial or as 0:25:13.680 --> 0:25:16.080 critical and their wet to their well being to have 0:25:16.160 --> 0:25:19.439 a clear picture anymore in a sense, the need to 0:25:19.520 --> 0:25:23.840 have them reconciled as maybe long past. George's research has 0:25:23.840 --> 0:25:27.280 found that most people possess a natural resilience to trauma 0:25:27.320 --> 0:25:32.520 and loss. The person is able to, uh, you know, concentrate, laugh, 0:25:33.200 --> 0:25:35.960 do what they need to do, um, take care of 0:25:36.000 --> 0:25:38.840 people they love, and be cared for by people they love, 0:25:39.040 --> 0:25:42.800 and they love them, you know, be close, have intimate interactions, 0:25:42.920 --> 0:25:45.919 and they you know, they're able to experience joy, and 0:25:45.960 --> 0:25:48.119 they're able to experience pain, and they're able to be 0:25:48.480 --> 0:25:52.679 to think about other things, um and and they simply 0:25:52.720 --> 0:25:56.600 continue on with their life. They don't forget the person. 0:25:56.640 --> 0:26:00.359 They just you know, continue living the life in the present. 0:26:01.960 --> 0:26:04.879 And if you think about it, I mean, beings have 0:26:04.920 --> 0:26:07.480 been around for a long time and we've thrived all 0:26:07.480 --> 0:26:10.600 over the planet, and we've always been able to keep 0:26:10.640 --> 0:26:19.520 moving on and keep going. That's just human nature. Kim 0:26:19.520 --> 0:26:22.080 has moved houses since she visited the Beals in Maine, 0:26:22.640 --> 0:26:26.240 resettling in a country home halfway between Houston and Austin. 0:26:27.359 --> 0:26:30.360 Being in the country has helped, she said. The blue 0:26:30.400 --> 0:26:33.919 bonnets and wild flowers are out the trees outside her 0:26:33.960 --> 0:26:38.159 house are over three years old. She keeps a photo 0:26:38.200 --> 0:26:41.000 of Sandy on her desk, but she's put her files 0:26:41.000 --> 0:26:44.040 about the case out of sight in a closet, still 0:26:44.080 --> 0:26:46.760 close enough to access if she needs them, but not 0:26:46.920 --> 0:26:49.080 lining the walls of her bedroom like they used to 0:26:50.400 --> 0:26:53.680 Sandy's case. It's been a source of consistency in her 0:26:53.720 --> 0:26:57.560 life for decades, something to focus her boundless energy on, 0:26:58.400 --> 0:27:03.280 give her purpose, and now she considers it over. She's 0:27:03.320 --> 0:27:07.520 let go for the most part. She has answers, though 0:27:07.560 --> 0:27:10.760 she says she still needs to find closure. She wants 0:27:10.800 --> 0:27:13.560 to go back to the Pollard and have a ceremony 0:27:13.600 --> 0:27:21.480 there to say goodbye before the family meeting. One of 0:27:21.560 --> 0:27:26.440 Kim's biggest concerns was disappointing Joanne. She feared that spending 0:27:26.520 --> 0:27:30.800 all those years investigating the case had prolonged Joanne's pain 0:27:31.040 --> 0:27:33.800 and stood in the way of healing. It's been a 0:27:33.840 --> 0:27:39.080 long time, hasn't it fighting? It's a long time fighting it. Yeah, 0:27:39.560 --> 0:27:44.800 So I'm I'm most concerned mostly about you. I've had 0:27:44.840 --> 0:27:47.240 a few weeks to process it, and I'm still struggling 0:27:47.280 --> 0:27:51.760 with it. So just grieving, you know, I know what 0:27:51.800 --> 0:27:56.000 you mean. I was just telling I think it was Melissa, 0:27:56.480 --> 0:27:58.960