Speaker 1: Before we begin, Please note this series includes talk of
Speaker 1: suicide and sexual violence. Please take care while listening. So
Speaker 1: I guess we can start driving now. So what does
Speaker 1: beat you over there in ten minutes? However, so I'm
Speaker 1: just in the car now. Last night the family gave
Speaker 1: me Sandy's coat that she had with her the night
Speaker 1: that she died, and so I'm feeling a great weight
Speaker 1: of responsibility. I'm taking the coat with me and We're
Speaker 1: going to go to the cemetery this morning. Sandy's body
Speaker 1: is not there, but there's a marker for her, and
Speaker 1: I'm just popping in the address. We're rolling. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so tell us where we are. We're at Greenwood Cemetery. Um,
Speaker 1: it's I think it's the largest one in john Sport
Speaker 1: because there's probably like ten cemeteries here and we are
Speaker 1: in our family cemetery for many generations, many centuries. And um,
Speaker 1: we're about to walk to where Sandy's memorialize. That's interesting.
Speaker 1: I wonder what the pennies are. Is that just a
Speaker 1: show that you've been here? I wonder what does anyone
Speaker 1: know what pennies have put on there? For the first
Speaker 1: time I met Kim and she told me about Sandy.
Speaker 1: I don't think she imagined her cousin's story would become
Speaker 1: the subject of an entire podcast. A year went by
Speaker 1: before I asked her if she would be willing to
Speaker 1: embark on this project together. I couldn't do it without
Speaker 1: her buying and Kim she was immediately yes, which I
Speaker 1: thought is pretty brave, because when you invite a journalist
Speaker 1: into your life, you're opening yourself up to a lot
Speaker 1: of questioning, not all of which is comfortable or feels natural.
Speaker 1: Kim was allowing me to scrutinize her long held belief
Speaker 1: that Sandy was murdered. She was essentially giving me permission
Speaker 1: to check her work and risking the prospect of being
Speaker 1: proven wrong. Early on in the process, she invited me
Speaker 1: to come to Maine to meet the whole family and
Speaker 1: to crash a big birthday party for one of her
Speaker 1: relatives who was turning eighty. This trip it was an
Speaker 1: intense two full days of interviews. For hours at a time.
Speaker 1: I sat down with members of the Bale family, and,
Speaker 1: like an investigative reporter does, I peppered them with questions,
Speaker 1: trying to establish the basic, undisputed facts of the case,
Speaker 1: and a lot of these questions were directed at Kim,
Speaker 1: as she was my conduit to the family and the
Speaker 1: one who had spent the most time investigating Sandy's death
Speaker 1: on our own. The final day of my trip, we
Speaker 1: drove to the cemetery where Sandy has a grave marker.
Speaker 1: I only had a few minutes before my flight back,
Speaker 1: but I wanted to get Kim's temperature. After a long
Speaker 1: and emotionally grueling weekend, I'm still processing it. It was.
Speaker 1: It was definitely different to dredge it all back up
Speaker 1: your the questions that you were asked. I was like, WHOA,
Speaker 1: I've never thought about those things before. And then some
Speaker 1: of the things that we came up with that I
Speaker 1: thought were solid evidence and now we got to figure
Speaker 1: out what it means and what it all was. But
Speaker 1: that was a little disturbing. But the questions you asked,
Speaker 1: we're we're pretty uh. They caught They caught me by surprise.
Speaker 1: I have more questions than I thought I did, and
Speaker 1: I'll send them to you. I'm trusting that it's all
Speaker 1: going to unfold and we'll get the answers that we
Speaker 1: need to help bring some closure for them. Well for
Speaker 1: me too. I'm so glad you guys came up here.
Speaker 1: I can't believe you'd come to jal Sport nine and
Speaker 1: do this From my heart radio. I'm Melissa Jolson, and
Speaker 1: this is what happened to Sandy Beale and I heard
Speaker 1: original podcast Chapter six, Divided Minds. When I first met
Speaker 1: the Beals in Maine, I made them a promise that
Speaker 1: I would keep an open mind and follow the evidence,
Speaker 1: and I wouldn't be swayed by one side or the other.
Speaker 1: It was clear from the get go that there were
Speaker 1: two opposing sides here. Mine so divided that there was
Speaker 1: very little agreement on what the most basic facts meant.
Speaker 1: The Prince George's County Police Department and the Bell family
Speaker 1: had examined the exact same documents. Dice did the exact
Speaker 1: same set of facts and come to wildly divergent conclusions
Speaker 1: about what happened to Sandy. As a pair of fresh
Speaker 1: eyes on the case, I wondered whether both sides were
Speaker 1: trapped in their own cycles of confirmation bias, processing the
Speaker 1: information in a way that aligned with their own preconceived ideas.
Speaker 1: Like the cardboard under the wheels of Sandy's car. The
Speaker 1: Bills interpreted it as a sign that Sandy was trying
Speaker 1: to leave the pollard on the night of her death
Speaker 1: and wasn't planning to die by suicide. But this detail
Speaker 1: was not even remembered by Detective sachel Ski. It didn't
Speaker 1: register as important because it didn't fit neatly into his theory.
Speaker 1: We each are bringing our own experiences, our own beliefs,
Speaker 1: our own desires to the table, so that when two
Speaker 1: people with different mindsets are given the same information to
Speaker 1: look at by virtue of their different brains, they may
Speaker 1: interpret those things in very different ways. Jeff Kakuka is
Speaker 1: a professor of psychology at Telson University. He's an expert
Speaker 1: on how bias can influence decision making, including an investigations
Speaker 1: in psychology. When we talk about bias, what we're talking
Speaker 1: about is kind of like a reflex. It's something that
Speaker 1: where brains do without us even realizing that we're doing it.
Speaker 1: Once you have a conclusion in mind, um, you're no
Speaker 1: longer sort of taking in all the information and evaluating
Speaker 1: it in an objective way. Instead, what tends to happen
Speaker 1: is people will selectively seek out information that fits their
Speaker 1: existing beliefs, and if they encounter any information that goes
Speaker 1: against their existing beliefs, will either ignore it or find
Speaker 1: a way to somehow minimize its importance so that they
Speaker 1: can again sort of continue preserving that belief that exists
Speaker 1: in the first place. There's an adage that have thought
Speaker 1: about a lot while making this podcast. It's called Handlon's Razor,
Speaker 1: and it goes like this, never attribute to malice that
Speaker 1: which is adequately explained by stupidity. There's a few different
Speaker 1: versions of the phrase, and sometimes incompetence is subbed for stupidity.
Speaker 1: This proverb, it's a helpful reminder not to immediately assume
Speaker 1: the worst intentions in the actions of others, that more
Speaker 1: often than not people are careless or selfish rather than
Speaker 1: means spirited or evil. Of course, malice exists, but if
Speaker 1: you look for it everywhere, you could risk having a
Speaker 1: distorted reception of reality. Take, for instance, Sandy's original death certificate,
Speaker 1: issued on February. It was given to Joanne back then
Speaker 1: and has remained in her possession ever since. At the
Speaker 1: bottom of the page, there's a line with a medical
Speaker 1: examiner must indicate the manner of death. Choosing between natural causes, homicide, suicide, accident,
Speaker 1: or undetermined, you would expect the box for suicide to
Speaker 1: be checked, but it's not. Instead, there's an X through
Speaker 1: the box undetermined manner of death. It was always an
Speaker 1: odd inconsistency that bothered the family, and a few years
Speaker 1: ago it got even weirder. Kim requested a new copy
Speaker 1: of Sandy's death certificate. When she received the document, she
Speaker 1: was startled to find that the box for suicide now
Speaker 1: had an X two. Kim's immediate impression was that the
Speaker 1: records might have been altered to fit with the police's story,
Speaker 1: And it's entirely possible that the medical examiner's office colluded
Speaker 1: with the police to cover up for death. But the
Speaker 1: possibility also exists that it's just a typo that the
Speaker 1: medical examiner initially stamped the wrong box and fixed it
Speaker 1: later incompetence or malice. That's the thing is, these biases
Speaker 1: are so pervasive that they can affect every aspect of
Speaker 1: our decision making without even us realizing that it's happening.
Speaker 1: We have these beliefs, and our brain is wired in
Speaker 1: such a way that leads us to pursue information that
Speaker 1: agrees with our beliefs, rather than pursuing information that might
Speaker 1: prove us wrong, because who likes to be proven wrong.
Speaker 1: It's understandable why Kim and the rest of the Beal
Speaker 1: family was suspicious of Prince George's County police because the
Speaker 1: investigation into Sandy's death was tainted by a clear conflict
Speaker 1: of interest. Sandy was a police trainee and her car
Speaker 1: was filled with evidence linking her to local cops. And
Speaker 1: if PG County police officers were willing to cover up
Speaker 1: their sexual misconduct, what other wrongdoing were they capable of.
Speaker 1: If Shachelski could forget the cardboard, what other inconvenient facts
Speaker 1: might have evaded his memory? Without trust in the police,
Speaker 1: the Bills were skeptical of everything they were told. And
Speaker 1: this is where I thought I could be of help.
Speaker 1: I wanted to bring in some unbiased experts to try
Speaker 1: to recreate what happened that night in the Pollard, inserting
Speaker 1: some impartiality into Sandy's case. That's how I met Paul Rybay,
Speaker 1: a certified forensic pathologist who has worked for the U. S.
Speaker 1: Army as well as local and state agencies. He told
Speaker 1: me he's performed over autopsies in his career, and hundreds
Speaker 1: of those have been suicides. I gave him the rundown
Speaker 1: on Sandy's case, the keys in the ignition and the
Speaker 1: cardboard under the wheels while she's in the mud, that
Speaker 1: might indicate that Sandy had been trying to leave the
Speaker 1: location him that she was at. How do you interpret
Speaker 1: this kind of information in the context of a suicide.
Speaker 1: I would lump that in with Okay, what's the timeline?
Speaker 1: What happened in the hours before her death? You know,
Speaker 1: even you know, going back like twenty four hours? Why
Speaker 1: was she there, who was she meeting with? Who did
Speaker 1: she have relations with? You know? And that would answer
Speaker 1: the question why are their cardboard under the tires? All
Speaker 1: these questions he's asking, they're great ones. We don't have
Speaker 1: answers to them, though, because PG County Police closed the
Speaker 1: case before establishing these facts, that on its face isn't
Speaker 1: necessarily suspect Paul said, Is every death investigated to the
Speaker 1: absolute extreme of pushing the investigation as far as we can,
Speaker 1: interviewing absolutely everyone possible, and you know, doing a full
Speaker 1: court press on every case. No, And that's just that's
Speaker 1: that's largely a matter of resources and resource allocation. This
Speaker 1: reminded me of what Detective Selski told me about how
Speaker 1: overworked and understaffed he was back in the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 1: I mean, they us like, don't they really did? Selski
Speaker 1: told me that his immediate read of the scene was
Speaker 1: that of a suicide. There was ample evidence of it,
Speaker 1: he said, and one of the biggest factors was the gun.
Speaker 1: If it was as side, if it was a murder.
Speaker 1: First off, I don't think the killer when I left
Speaker 1: the gun there. Then when I found out the gun
Speaker 1: blown to her father, it's not likely that someone would
Speaker 1: have murdered her with her father's gun. But from the
Speaker 1: Bill's perspective, the gun is the most important piece of
Speaker 1: evidence that proves Sandy didn't die by suicide. The gun
Speaker 1: isn't abstract to them. It was returned to the family
Speaker 1: after Sandy's death. Sandy's brothers have shot it. They know
Speaker 1: the power it takes, the kick back after you pull
Speaker 1: the trigger, and based on their personal experience, they came
Speaker 1: to believe she couldn't have shot herself with it. Not
Speaker 1: that Sandy wouldn't, although they also believe that, but that
Speaker 1: she couldn't. That the physical evidence just didn't line up.
Speaker 1: Here's Michael and Stephen. The thing about that gun. It
Speaker 1: was a three fift or seven, and it was a
Speaker 1: long gun, long barrel right gun. And when that when
Speaker 1: you shot that thing, it kicked, I mean it had
Speaker 1: a kick to it, so she would have to use
Speaker 1: two hands in order to shoot it. And a trigger
Speaker 1: wasn't a hair trigger either. It had a couple of
Speaker 1: pounds of pulled So, uh, that's the other thing, you know.
Speaker 1: That kind of got me about why they said she
Speaker 1: would shoot herself, because if she was able to manage that,
Speaker 1: that freaking gun would have shot off, would have taken
Speaker 1: off right through the day side glass window. And Kim
Speaker 1: shared this opinion that it was impossible Sandy shot herself.
Speaker 1: And when I met with the Prince George's County police,
Speaker 1: they were so insistent on you just don't understand. We've
Speaker 1: seen lots of things like that. And I finally just said,
Speaker 1: if you can prove to me through ballistics and show
Speaker 1: me the trajectory and all the opportunities that this was suicide,
Speaker 1: then I'll believe you. But not until then all your
Speaker 1: evidence completely goes against the evidence that I have she
Speaker 1: did not commit suicide. Listening to Detective Sachelski and the
Speaker 1: Bell family, I was faced with two different interpretations of
Speaker 1: the same evidence, and so I asked Paul for his opinion,
Speaker 1: and he turned my attention to Sandy's hands. When you
Speaker 1: fire a revolver, especially at three fifty seven magnum, there's
Speaker 1: allowed a lot of gunpowder that explodes, and a lot
Speaker 1: of that gunpowder comes out through what's called the cylinder gap.
Speaker 1: So say, if you have your hand and over that
Speaker 1: cylinder gap, or even adjacent to it, when you discharge it,
Speaker 1: you can get you sit on your hand. That way,
Speaker 1: both of Sandy's hands had gunpowder on them, according to
Speaker 1: the police report. Paul said he would interpret this to
Speaker 1: mean that Sandy was either holding the gun or had
Speaker 1: her hands very close to it when it was fired.
Speaker 1: So would it be possible to have sit on your
Speaker 1: hands and not have been the one to pull the trigger?
Speaker 1: If you were in a small, enclosed environment, it could
Speaker 1: be like if you were grabbing for the gun to
Speaker 1: push it away or something like that. I've done cases
Speaker 1: where two people are struggling for a gun and the
Speaker 1: gun goes off, and it's very difficult to tell who
Speaker 1: you know who pulled the trigger, because they both might
Speaker 1: have had their finger on the trigger, or someone had
Speaker 1: their finger on the trigger and the other person, you know,
Speaker 1: is grabbing their hand to try and either keep them
Speaker 1: from pulling the usually to keep them from pulling the trigger.
Speaker 1: Paul pointed out that Sandy was also shot at very
Speaker 1: close range, which is characteristic of a suicide. Now, if
Speaker 1: it's a contact wound, it's either one of two things.
Speaker 1: Either the person put the gun to their head and
Speaker 1: pull the trigger. In this case, put the gun to
Speaker 1: you know, she put the gun to her abdomen and
Speaker 1: pull the trigger, or someone else put the gun to
Speaker 1: her abdomen and pull the trigger. And then that's where, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're looking for We're looking for other evidence to support
Speaker 1: that or rule that out. So I can tell you
Speaker 1: the range, I can tell you the trajectory. I can
Speaker 1: tell you what it injured. I can tell you, you know,
Speaker 1: I can give you maybe a little estimate of survivability maybe,
Speaker 1: so I can tell you all of those things, but
Speaker 1: I can't tell you who shot it. I asked him
Speaker 1: about the lack of fingerprints on the gun. Turns out
Speaker 1: Paul didn't find this that unusual. Fire Arms are notoriously
Speaker 1: hard to test for prints. One study estimated that fingerprints
Speaker 1: are recovered from firearms only about percent of the time,
Speaker 1: and that's nowadays because of say, you know, the texture
Speaker 1: on the handle or just a partial print at a
Speaker 1: odd location of the gun, they might not be able
Speaker 1: to get it. And I would also have to know, Okay,
Speaker 1: what is the fingerprinting policies and procedures of the Prince
Speaker 1: George's County Police departments circle, and you know, did they
Speaker 1: follow that procedure. Reading the autopsy report, Sandy's gunshot wound
Speaker 1: is described in excruciating and impersonal detail. Quote. The wound
Speaker 1: is slightly ovoid, a quarter inch in diameter, and is
Speaker 1: surrounded by an eighth inch rim of abrasion resembling muzzle imprint.
Speaker 1: Powder is noted in the wound margins. I asked Paul,
Speaker 1: based on everything that's in the autopsy and the police report,
Speaker 1: and take into consideration the family's significant questions, if it
Speaker 1: was possible that Sandy shot herself, if you put your
Speaker 1: hand right at the base of your rib cage or
Speaker 1: base of your stern um, move it over about three
Speaker 1: inches to the bottom of your rib margin, that's where
Speaker 1: the entrance was. Now. Once again, if she were to
Speaker 1: do this herself, she could fire the gun essentially holding
Speaker 1: the handle of the gun with her gun with her
Speaker 1: with her left thumb on the trigger, which is sort
Speaker 1: of like holding it backwards essentially, which is consistent with
Speaker 1: her kind of holding her left hand across her body,
Speaker 1: so to speak, and then likely firing the gun with
Speaker 1: her thumb on the trigger, and that could also explain
Speaker 1: why they didn't find any fingerprints on the gun as well.
Speaker 1: Paul could see a scenario in which Sandy shot herself
Speaker 1: and caused there He's described in her autopsy. What had
Speaker 1: been unthinkable to the Beals was a real probability to Paul. Still,
Speaker 1: he admitted that the case was unusual. How many times
Speaker 1: in your career, if you remember, have you seen a
Speaker 1: teenage girl shoot herself? Probably less than five ever in
Speaker 1: the apt hunt, the stories Sandy's family tell about her
Speaker 1: emphasize her sense of humor and her protective instincts. She
Speaker 1: was quick to speak her mind and stand up for herself.
Speaker 1: Her family knew her to be cheerful, focus hard working.
Speaker 1: She was a well adjusted kid who they trusted, and
Speaker 1: based on their knowledge of her as a daughter and
Speaker 1: a sister and a cousin, they didn't believe Sandy would
Speaker 1: take her own life. It was incomprehensible to them, it
Speaker 1: didn't match the person they knew. But during this reporting
Speaker 1: I found out a lot of things they didn't know
Speaker 1: about Sandy, things that were happening in her life, and
Speaker 1: as painful as it is to contemplate now, there's probably
Speaker 1: a lot they didn't know about how she was feeling.
Speaker 1: Sandy died surrounded by police paraphernalia. Her dashboard held a
Speaker 1: shift schedule card, a duty rig and newspaper clippings about cops,
Speaker 1: and she was found in a location where cops life
Speaker 1: to gather. Her family believed that she was protected in
Speaker 1: the presence of police, but I think it's more likely
Speaker 1: that all that time she spent hanging out with them
Speaker 1: was actually an opportunity for abuse. From what I've discovered,
Speaker 1: it seems obvious that at least some police officers took
Speaker 1: it advantage of Sandy pursuing inappropriate sexual relationships with the teenager,
Speaker 1: and in this climate, Sandy became pregnant and had an
Speaker 1: abortion in secret. If she was being mistreated by police,
Speaker 1: then I imagine she would have felt very alone, possibly scared,
Speaker 1: and she probably didn't know how to make it stop.
Speaker 1: Sandy kept these painful parts of her life hidden. She
Speaker 1: presented to the outside world as fine, and to her
Speaker 1: family this was strong evidence that she couldn't have died
Speaker 1: by suicide because they didn't see it coming. Their assumption
Speaker 1: about suicide was that if Sandy had been considering it,
Speaker 1: her pain would have been so visible it could not
Speaker 1: go unnoticed. But that's not always the case. If you
Speaker 1: think about human nature, what makes it up, purpose, meaning, contribution,
Speaker 1: in connection. Thomas Joyner is a researcher at Florida State University.
Speaker 1: He spends his days researching ways to prevent suicide. It's
Speaker 1: a deep puzzle about human nature about why this would happen.
Speaker 1: The bills have not been able to answer this, why
Speaker 1: Sandy would have thought that this was the best option
Speaker 1: for her, and this question is the subject of Thomas's research,
Speaker 1: which explores what's happening in the minds of people who
Speaker 1: are suicidal. If you become that convinced that you're a
Speaker 1: burden on other people, and if you feel like you're
Speaker 1: um disconnected and cut off, ostracized, alienated, if you feel
Speaker 1: those two things deeply and then also permanently that they're
Speaker 1: they're intractable, that there they'll never change that that mixture
Speaker 1: is the danger zone where people might take their lives.
Speaker 1: Of those who find themselves in this dangerous zone of
Speaker 1: feeling deeply alienated, a burden to others, and convinced that
Speaker 1: those feelings will never change, not all attempts suicide. The
Speaker 1: vast majority of people who experience suicidal ideation do not
Speaker 1: act on it. To put it in perspective, around forty
Speaker 1: six thousand people die from suicide every year in the US,
Speaker 1: about a million more attempted, and many many more. Around
Speaker 1: twelve million people seriously think about it. Yeah, it's one
Speaker 1: thing to talk about death in the abstract, but to
Speaker 1: actually face it in reality totally different matter. Not everybody
Speaker 1: has the requisite fearlessness, pain tolerance, even practical knowledge to
Speaker 1: have the capacity to even in act suicide, even if
Speaker 1: they really genuinely desire to do so. Did Sandy have
Speaker 1: those things? I know she had access to a gun
Speaker 1: her father's and her brother Michael actually told me that
Speaker 1: he had seen Sandy take it on a few occasions.
Speaker 1: Sandy said she was borrowing the gun for target practice.
Speaker 1: So it follows that Sandy would have known how to
Speaker 1: use it and suicide as a form of death, of course,
Speaker 1: is fearsome and scary and daunting, and so to face
Speaker 1: it fully, to steer it down, you need a capacity
Speaker 1: to do that. Not everybody hasn't I told Thomas about
Speaker 1: the bells is vivid memory of Sandy as a happy,
Speaker 1: high functioning teenager. Sometimes it does look like that suicide
Speaker 1: does look sudden. What does that mean? Does it mean
Speaker 1: it was truly impulsive? For Might it mean, for example,
Speaker 1: that the person was very successful in concealing their ongoing
Speaker 1: misery and planning. And I think it's the latter. I
Speaker 1: think it's clearly the ladder, But there is debate about
Speaker 1: that and and that that can hurt to the loved one.
Speaker 1: It seems like she would have told us, you know,
Speaker 1: we're the family, we're the loved ones. But a way
Speaker 1: to understand that is that she felt maybe that this
Speaker 1: was a profound burden that she's carrying, that she's a
Speaker 1: burden to everybody. She felt that maybe on the inside,
Speaker 1: to share that with others, in her view, might have
Speaker 1: further burdened them. A sudden death in anyone is a tragedy,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't matter what the cause was, that that's
Speaker 1: gonna grieve families, and and and troubled families for years
Speaker 1: or even decades. And then to add the additional layer
Speaker 1: of it wasn't just an accident or an illness, so
Speaker 1: they took their own lives. That hurts. That, that really hurts.
Speaker 1: And and I don't think it needs be very different
Speaker 1: than a car accident or or a heart attack. But
Speaker 1: to get to that place, you have to have a
Speaker 1: particular understanding of the suicidal mindset that most people, most
Speaker 1: families don't have. I asked Thomas what to make of
Speaker 1: the fact that Sandy had plans for the future. She
Speaker 1: was moving to Maine, she was actively pursuing a career
Speaker 1: in law enforcement. Even her abortion could be considered a
Speaker 1: sign that she was thinking ahead, planning for the life
Speaker 1: she wanted. She was still balancing her checkbook right before
Speaker 1: she died. If you have plans, it either means that, uh,
Speaker 1: suicide is not on your mind at all. It can
Speaker 1: mean that, or if you have plans, it can mean
Speaker 1: that there's a struggle going on in your mind, a
Speaker 1: an argument, a debate between death and life, an ambivalence
Speaker 1: that's going back and forth, tilting back and forth, and
Speaker 1: when it tilts toward death, ending for future activities seasons
Speaker 1: pretty much, and planning for suicide kicks on. And then
Speaker 1: when it tilts back towards the other side of the
Speaker 1: ambivalence towards life, then you might, you know, put the
Speaker 1: suicide planning on the shelf, so to speak, and kick
Speaker 1: in plans for activities. And so most go through this
Speaker 1: ambivalence process than most are. All. We'll have plans for tomorrow,
Speaker 1: plans for next week, just like anyone else will. It's
Speaker 1: a striking concept that someone could be planning their life
Speaker 1: one minute then end it the next. And it made
Speaker 1: me think once more about the cardboard under Sandy's tires.
Speaker 1: Could Sandy have been experiencing a struggle in her mind,
Speaker 1: feeling ambivalence between life and death. Maybe at some point
Speaker 1: she was planning on leaving the pollard until she made
Speaker 1: a new plan. I told all of this to Kim,
Speaker 1: what I learned from Thomas about suicide and what I
Speaker 1: gleaned from Paul, who reviewed Sandy's autopsy with me, and
Speaker 1: she listened, took in all the facts with a gentle
Speaker 1: smile and a deferential nod. It was something she would
Speaker 1: need to think about, she told me. So we casually
Speaker 1: said goodbye, and I expected to hear from her soon,
Speaker 1: and I did because as I've been reporting this story,
Speaker 1: Kim has relentlessly continued her own parallel investigation. Every time
Speaker 1: I spoke to her, she had her sight set on
Speaker 1: something new, a new document to obtain or piece of
Speaker 1: evidence to examine. On her list of critical items to
Speaker 1: track down. With Sandy's full medical file, which was held
Speaker 1: at the Medical Examiner's office in Maryland, Kim left me
Speaker 1: this voice memo after her last visit there. Okay, it
Speaker 1: is I think the Johnnie Second. At three o'clock, I
Speaker 1: just left the Medical Examiner's office and when I got there,
Speaker 1: I was like, God just opened the doors, because the
Speaker 1: door just opened. And she's like, Okay, come on it.
Speaker 1: So I got right up to the fourth floor and UM,
Speaker 1: this really nice lady named Linda, and she was just
Speaker 1: most helpful, and UM called the medical records. Medical records
Speaker 1: were familiar with my name already, which was kind of cool,
Speaker 1: you know. And I've showing her I have the autopsy report.
Speaker 1: I don't need the autopsy report. I need the medical records.
Speaker 1: I need slides, I need anything else in there that
Speaker 1: could help me get this case reopened. Although she already
Speaker 1: had Sandy's autopsy, she knew it was only part of
Speaker 1: the file on her cousin's death. She wanted to see
Speaker 1: what else she might be able to discover hidden in
Speaker 1: the depths of the archives. Specifically, she was looking for
Speaker 1: biological evidence the sperm that was collected from Sandy's body
Speaker 1: to see if it could be tested for DNA, and
Speaker 1: she was looking for photos, which she hoped would offer
Speaker 1: new insight into Sandy's death. And after about a half hour,
Speaker 1: Mike came out and, UM, very nice guy. He's retired firefighter,
Speaker 1: retired vet from army. He said, for sure, for any DNA,
Speaker 1: I'm going to have to get a subpoena. There's absolutely
Speaker 1: no way around it. Um he said, there's probably gonna
Speaker 1: be pictures in there. So that's where he was. Sandy
Speaker 1: is very helpful. I know he'll help me. I think
Speaker 1: I've got there. Curiosity intrigued anyway, so I do feel
Speaker 1: like they're gonna help me. Her ultimate goal was to
Speaker 1: stumble onto something, anything that Mike get Sandy's case reopened,
Speaker 1: forcing Prince George's County to take a deeper look. So
Speaker 1: I don't know if we could just get them to
Speaker 1: open it. That would be really awesome. Uh, don't likely
Speaker 1: see that happening because they're pretty convinced that this is
Speaker 1: a suicide. Reopening the case would mean that it would
Speaker 1: be considered an active investigation. Again. It would mean that
Speaker 1: the police might interview Doug, or test the sperm, or
Speaker 1: track down the cops that supervised Sandy in the Explorer
Speaker 1: program so many years ago. Anyway, that's where we stand.
Speaker 1: It was a good meeting. Um, we'll see. Kim flew
Speaker 1: back to Texas with a new agenda of trying to
Speaker 1: get a subpoena to retrieve and test the DNA in
Speaker 1: Sandy's file, But before she could follow through, she received
Speaker 1: an email. It was from Bernie Nelson, a cold case
Speaker 1: detective from Prince George's County. He wanted to meet Kim
Speaker 1: in person to talk. I asked if I could tape
Speaker 1: the conversation and PG County said no. Kim met with
Speaker 1: him and that meeting changed everything. So this is eleven
Speaker 1: o'clock on Monday morning. He asks, UM, so how did
Speaker 1: all this podcast stuff happen? We've talked a lot about
Speaker 1: suicide this episode. If you're someone who knows considering self harm,
Speaker 1: Please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at seven three
Speaker 1: or text Strength to Crisis text Line at seven one
Speaker 1: four one. What Happened To Sandy Beale is hosted by
Speaker 1: me Melissa Jolson. It's written and produced by me and
Speaker 1: Katrina Norvell. The podcast is edited by a bus Afar,
Speaker 1: Sound designed by Aaron Kaufman. Jason English is our executive producer.
Speaker 1: Research and production assistance by Marissa Brown. To find out
Speaker 1: more about my investigation, follow me on Twitter at quasimato.
Speaker 1: That's qu a U. I am a d O. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for listening. H