WEBVTT - Sandy's Police File — Sandy Beal E5 0:00:00.360 --> 0:00:06.360 Vehicle scene. Am body lying on a white cloth coat 0:00:06.440 --> 0:00:11.719 with fur collar. Ten cents in pocket, black mark bottom 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:18.040 left eye, three ruger on coat, powder blowback on barrel, 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:23.560 key in off position with Sandy key ring park lights 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:29.440 on mud on rear tire still wet. Left yesterday afternoon 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:37.479 to see boyfriend father's gun. From My Heart Radio, I'm 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:40.600 Melissa Jolson and this is what happened to Sandy Beale 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:52.680 and I Heart Original podcast, Chapter five listener update. Instead 0:00:52.680 --> 0:00:55.360 of releasing a full episode this week, I'm taking a 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:59.320 small detour to explain some new information. I received. What 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:02.240 you just heard were notes from the scene of Sandy's death, 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:07.080 written over four decades ago. A few weeks back, in 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:09.680 the middle of putting together this podcast, I got an 0:01:09.760 --> 0:01:13.039 unexpected email from the Prince George's County Office of Law, 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:17.920 attached with Sandy's police file. Kim had given me the 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:20.679 police report on Sandy's death when I first met her, 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:24.520 but several months ago I requested quote the entire police 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:27.600 file of Sandy Beale to see if I'd get anything different. 0:01:28.440 --> 0:01:30.520 I'd all but put the request out of my mind, 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:32.959 so I was shocked when I opened this email to 0:01:33.080 --> 0:01:39.880 find that the file was pages long. A few of 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:42.600 the pages are fully redacted, and a good chunk of 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:46.080 the file is made up of photocopies of Sandy's personal books. 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:50.120 This content was all familiar to me, of course, but 0:01:50.240 --> 0:01:54.480 on page eighty four the new stuff starts. It's Detective 0:01:54.480 --> 0:01:59.120 Shoelski's handwritten notes jotted down at the scene of Sandy's death. 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:05.560 Reading these pages, you can sort of follow along with 0:02:05.640 --> 0:02:10.040 his investigation. He writes when he arrives, who we talked to, 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:14.280 what he did, what he saw, And on one page 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:17.080 he writes down the items that sat on top of 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:21.080 Sandy's dashboard. The first item he notes is a quote 0:02:21.280 --> 0:02:25.200 p G County Police rig. I didn't know what that was, 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:28.840 so I asked him. He didn't remember this detail, but 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:31.720 he said a rig can refer to a police duty belt, 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:35.560 which officers used to carry equipment around their waist. I'm 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:38.840 sure you can picture one. It's unclear if the rig 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:41.560 was hers, perhaps given to her as part of the 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:48.280 Explorer program, or maybe it was someone else's. Also on 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:51.960 Sandy's dashboard was a quote personal card of a Prince 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:56.320 George's County police officer, Mark Murphy. His name was also 0:02:56.440 --> 0:02:59.880 listed in Sandy's address book. He died on the job, 0:03:01.120 --> 0:03:03.880 but I confirmed he did work in the Explorer program 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:08.680 at the time Sandy was there. After that, Selski writes 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:14.120 several police clippings. Again, he didn't recall this detail, but 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:17.120 he thought the note may have referred to newspaper clippings 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:21.120 about PGI County cops. He vaguely remembered that the local 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:24.200 paper used to run an Officer of the Week story 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:30.440 along with a photo. Maybe Sandy had kept some copies. Lastly, 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:33.960 he notes that Sandy had a quote schedule card on 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:37.520 her dash. Selski was pretty sure this was for the 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:44.560 Prince George's County Police Department. All of these items they 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:48.560 confirmed Sandy's close connections to pg County police and her 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:52.960 likely involvement in the Police Explorer program. Not only did 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:55.440 she have address books with the names and numbers of 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:58.800 local cops in her car, she had a police frigg 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:02.160 sitting right on top off of her dash. I sent 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:05.200 the handwritten notes to Selski to see what he made 0:04:05.200 --> 0:04:08.480 of them so many years later. There are some things 0:04:08.520 --> 0:04:15.360 in here that I had forgotten, like the black mark. 0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:20.400 Selski's notes document that Sandy had a black mark under 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:25.000 her left eye. I don't know what that was. I think, 0:04:25.000 --> 0:04:26.919 I said, if it would have been a bruise, I 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:30.840 want to know it. But I don't know what it was. 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:36.800 And I don't like that. I don't don't you don't 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:40.360 like that. I don't like to that I don't remember. 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:44.960 The file also includes a crude diagram drawn by Selski 0:04:45.560 --> 0:04:48.839 showing where Sandy's car was located in the pollard and 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:53.400 the track marks around it. The drawing is very rudimentary, 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:55.480 and so I didn't want to read too much into it. 0:04:56.120 --> 0:04:58.960 But there are two sets of tracks next to each other. 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:03.359 I a car pulled up next to another car. I 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:06.840 asked him about this. Doesn't it look like maybe there 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:10.799 was more than one car there? From what I have there, 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:16.000 it does either that or try ton't make a note 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:19.840 of it. It would have been her tracks well, certainly 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:21.920 in the police report it says that there were tracks 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:24.040 like she had been trying to get out of the mud. 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:27.760 But the way that you've drawn this doesn't just look 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:31.160 like a person like backing up and you know, reversing 0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:33.159 and going forward and trying to get out of the mud. 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:36.479 It looks like someone pulled up, yeah, next to her 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:43.280 but I'm pretty sure that one in the case. Okay, 0:05:43.960 --> 0:05:46.920 how does it make you feel reading these notes from 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:52.200 so long ago? Well, I feel though it's still suicide. 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:00.720 Schelski is still confident that he made at the right call. 0:06:01.560 --> 0:06:04.800 Those things that bother him now, the black mark, the 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:08.520 tire tracks, they bother him because he can't remember exactly 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:10.719 what he meant at the time when he made his notes, 0:06:11.440 --> 0:06:16.080 not because he thinks there was foul play. The notes 0:06:16.279 --> 0:06:19.560 also revealed that Sholski did a search on Sandy's name, 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:23.160 calling the records department to see if Sandy had any 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:26.839 previous involvement with the police department, either as a suspect 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:30.880 or as a victim. At first, he wrote no records, 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:34.919 Then he scribbled it out because the search revealed that 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:37.000 in the last year and a half of her life, 0:06:37.440 --> 0:06:42.159 Sandy sought helped from police on three separate occasions. It 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:45.360 appears that a man had been following her at the mall. 0:06:47.279 --> 0:06:50.560 As you might remember, Sandy worked at the Landover Mall 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:53.760 in her senior year of high school. She was part 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:56.200 of a work study program where students would go to 0:06:56.240 --> 0:06:58.720 school until lunch and then work the rest of the 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:03.559 day at a local job um. According to Schelski's notes, 0:07:03.920 --> 0:07:08.720 in November nine, when she was seventeen, Sandy was assaulted 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:11.600 at the mall by a twenty eight year old man 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:14.800 who she said had been following her for three months. 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:18.880 He grabbed her and made threats to harm her before 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:22.680 being sent on his way by the security guard. Then, 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:27.600 in April nineteen seventy six, five months later, another incident occurred. 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:32.840 The man followed Sandy's through the mall again. In July, 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:37.040 there's a third report. This time the man apparently threatened 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:44.240 Sandy forgetting a warrant for the assault. I called Sandy's 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:51.400 mom to ask her about all of this. Hello, yeah, Nolica, 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:55.720 Hi Joanne, I just missed a call from you. Yeah, yeah, Well, 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:59.400 how he's going? I told Joanne what I found, the 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:03.640 reference to the three police reports involving Sandy as a victim. 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:06.600 She didn't know about them, she said, but she faintly 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:09.920 recalled that something strange had happened at the mall. I 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:14.440 never heard that from Sandy, but her good friends Sandra 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:18.360 Sheridan had told me, and I think Sandy might have 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:21.000 said something to her father, But I don't know. If 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:23.920 I didn't know how it ended, or how it came 0:08:23.920 --> 0:08:27.680 out of what happened to it? What did Sandy Sheridan 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:30.040 tell you? And when did she tell you? After Sandy's 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:32.920 death or before that? I think it was before that. 0:08:33.480 --> 0:08:35.960 I think she called me because she wanted me to 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:39.280 talk to Ronald about it, because she said, we have 0:08:39.559 --> 0:08:42.000 a security guy that marks her out to the car 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:45.440 now or after she gets through her shift. Because she 0:08:45.440 --> 0:08:48.440 worked at the mall and it was a new you know, 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:50.920 it was a big mall and it was new, and 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:55.400 I guess somebody was, you know, following her. I didn't 0:08:55.440 --> 0:08:59.640 know that she had been assaulted. Almost every time I 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:03.319 talked to Joanne, she brings up Sandy Sheridan, And this 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:05.560 is one of the reporting goals I really wanted to 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:09.320 achieve for the bills. I wanted to find her because 0:09:09.320 --> 0:09:12.480 she was Sandy's best friend and probably knows more than 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:14.960 anyone else about what was going on in her life. 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:18.640 I think she's married and has a different last name now, 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:22.520 so it's been hard to track her down. Joanne hasn't 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:25.240 lost hope though. The last time I talked to her, 0:09:25.400 --> 0:09:28.280 she said she was optimistic that Sandy Sheridan might hear 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:32.800 the podcast and come forward, Sandy, if you're listening, we 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:37.200 want to hear your story. I asked Joanne why she 0:09:37.280 --> 0:09:40.360 thought Sandy Sheridan called the house all those years ago 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:44.200 to tell her about the situation at the mall. I 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:48.800 don't know, because we never discussed it. I took it 0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:51.240 for granted that it was taken care of, either by 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:56.760 the security guard or her father talked her into doing 0:09:56.800 --> 0:10:00.640 something different. I didn't know if Romo got involved with 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:04.800 that or not. Uh, you know, maybe when she told 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:08.559 him that somebody was the security guard was going to 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:13.040 help her, you know, talk. You know, maybe Ronald felt 0:10:13.080 --> 0:10:15.680 but I won't get involved. You know. He was busy, 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:18.400 you know, trying to take care of the family work, 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:21.520 and so I don't know all the ins and outs 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:26.280 about what happened here. In my many conversations with Joanne, 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:29.360 she had never mentioned this to me, the fact that 0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:32.520 a man had been following Sandy at the mall. She 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:36.880 had completely forgotten about it, and so had Detective Shoelski 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:41.920 until I refreshed his memory with these notes. To be honest, 0:10:42.240 --> 0:10:46.040 it wasn't that surprising to me these incidents. They happened 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:50.040 months before her death, and the actual conduct the stalking. 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:54.520 In the seventies, stalking wasn't called stalking, and it wasn't 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:59.000 taken all that seriously. The threshold for tolerating unwanted male 0:10:59.040 --> 0:11:02.640 attention was front at that time, and I imagine that 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:05.280 the guy who was following Sandy was seen as an 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:08.760 annoyance and nothing more. I wasn't able to track him 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:12.400 down based on the information included in Sachelski's notes, and 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:17.400 the original reports are no longer available. Well, Alissa, it's 0:11:17.440 --> 0:11:21.280 good talking to you, honey. Oh, good talking to you too. 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:29.240 I did a news archive search about the Landover Mall, 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:31.679 and it turns out that it wasn't such a safe 0:11:31.679 --> 0:11:37.120 place when Sandy worked there. In the same year Sandy 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:40.960 was assaulted, three different women were abducted from the parking 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:46.599 lot and raped in three separate incidents. The victims were fifteen, seventeen, 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:51.160 and twenty five years old. The perpetrators were caught, and 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:55.160 none of their names matched Sandy Stalker. But this context 0:11:55.240 --> 0:11:57.840 might help explain the safety measures put in place to 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:01.080 help Sandy, like the security guard who walked her to 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:05.480 her car. I don't have any evidence that Sandy Stalker 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:08.760 continued to bother her after the last known incident in July, 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:13.559 seven months before she died, and there's nothing at the 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:16.840 scene of her death that points to his involvement. But 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:21.280 knowing about his existence it puts her whole experience with 0:12:21.360 --> 0:12:26.080 law enforcement in a new light. We already knew that 0:12:26.120 --> 0:12:29.520 Sandy had met cops just going about her day. She 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:32.240 saw them in the neighborhood and interacted with them at 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:36.040 the drug store, but now we know that on multiple 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:40.280 occasions Sandy appealed to them for help as a victim 0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:44.520 of a crime. Selski told me that Sandy would have 0:12:44.559 --> 0:12:48.120 reported these incidents at the Seat Pleasant Station, which was 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:52.080 the police precinct around the corner from Sandy's house. A 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:55.360 lot of the officer names in her address books worked 0:12:55.400 --> 0:12:58.800 at this station, including Ray from My Life as a 0:12:58.800 --> 0:13:01.920 Cop Freak and Mark, whose cards she had on her 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:09.719 when she died. In the last episode, I put out 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:12.920 a call to listeners to share their experiences with police 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:17.560 Explorer programs or police sexual violence in general, and I've 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:21.640 received a number of powerful messages so far. One person 0:13:21.720 --> 0:13:24.240 told me how they had a positive experience in an 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:28.800 Explorer program and learned a lot of great skills, But 0:13:28.920 --> 0:13:33.320 most of those who emailed were survivors speaking their truth. 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:37.960 One woman described how she joined and Explorer program when 0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:41.160 she was sixteen, a junior in high school, and was 0:13:41.240 --> 0:13:45.720 sexually abused by a cop in his thirties. She wrote, quote, 0:13:46.640 --> 0:13:48.400 it has been hard for me to come to terms 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:50.280 with it because at the time, it was what I 0:13:50.320 --> 0:13:57.400 thought I wanted. I was infatuated. I felt noticed, wanted, 0:13:57.559 --> 0:13:59.920 and special by someone who was seen as a here 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:03.559 row and role model by a whole community. I can 0:14:03.600 --> 0:14:05.960 relate to Sandy so much because of this, and it 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:08.800 breaks my heart that her memory was smeared to save 0:14:08.840 --> 0:14:12.600 the reputation of monsters. It was always drilled into our 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:15.960 head that females just caused problems and we were to 0:14:16.000 --> 0:14:19.760 blame for male law enforcement officers getting in trouble. They 0:14:19.760 --> 0:14:22.520 create this environment that makes the few women feel like 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:25.000 it's a privilege for them to be involved, like they 0:14:25.000 --> 0:14:27.640 owe every man something just for doing the same job. 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:31.240 It's like there's an unwritten code among females and male 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:35.760 dominated fields. We never acknowledge any wrongdoing against us because 0:14:35.800 --> 0:14:38.160 we are quite tough and we just want to fit in. 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:44.880 Next week, we jumped back into Sandy's story, revisiting the 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:47.600 evidence at the scene of her death with top experts. 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:51.600 Was she meeting with someone who did she have relations 0:14:51.640 --> 0:14:55.400 with in the hours for her death? What happened? Was 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:57.880 there a breakup? We don't know, and that that's kind 0:14:57.880 --> 0:15:00.160 of the big question here, you know, why why she 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:03.320 in this muddy area, you know, sort of next to 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:09.760 the barracks. I'm Melissa Jolson and this is what happened 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:16.040 to Sandy Beale. Thank you so much for listening. M 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:18.440 h m hmm.