WEBVTT - Dear Doug — Sandy Beal E2 0:00:00.920 --> 0:00:04.560 Before we begin, please note this series includes talk of 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:13.880 suicide and sexual violence. Please take care while listening. There 0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:16.880 are things I know about Sandy that I only know 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:20.239 because she wrote them down herself more than four decades ago. 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:24.880 She was a planner, a checkbook balancer, and the type 0:00:24.920 --> 0:00:28.920 of teen who kept detailed notes about her life. Among 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:31.600 the things that Kim, her cousin, gave me to look 0:00:31.640 --> 0:00:34.560 through is a date book that Sandy used to track 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:37.760 the last two years of her life seventy six and 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:41.600 ninety seven. On the front of the date book is 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:44.519 a picturesque winter scene, and on the inside of the 0:00:44.560 --> 0:00:48.559 cover is a poem. The final lines read, as you 0:00:48.600 --> 0:00:51.400 close your eyes in slumber, do you think that God 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:54.840 will say you have earned one more tomorrow by the 0:00:54.880 --> 0:01:00.840 work you did today. The first entry in Andy's calendar 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:04.480 is in March of ninety six, when Sandy was still 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:08.080 a senior in high school. Her entries are sparse in 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:11.520 the beginning, but by August the pages are filled with 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:16.400 her soft curse of handwriting. August, I think, is when 0:01:16.440 --> 0:01:21.720 Sandy met her boyfriend. She wrote in her calendar, met Doug. 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:25.200 The fourth went out, the eleventh and the twenty three. 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:29.479 He got his new police car. He was twenty eight 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:32.880 to her eighteen years of age. She marked down his 0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:36.120 birthday in both years of her calendar, but she wouldn't 0:01:36.160 --> 0:01:40.080 live long enough to see him turn twenty nine. Doug 0:01:40.120 --> 0:01:42.399 had been married for a few years by the time 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:47.040 he met Sandy. In her calendar, Sandy marked down the 0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:50.840 days they met together, as well as his absences, like 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:52.880 when he was going to be out of town hunting. 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:57.080 She described him as six ft a hundred and sixty 0:01:57.080 --> 0:02:01.360 five pounds, blue eyes, and brown hair. There's a photo 0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:05.760 she kept where he's wearing his Maryland State Trooper uniform. 0:02:05.760 --> 0:02:08.440 He's holding his car door open, parked in front of 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:12.400 a McDonald's. The picture is blurry, but he's smiling and 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:19.560 making eye contact with someone out of frame. By December 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:23.880 of nineteen seventy six, the tone of Sandy's calendar changed, 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:28.960 went to doctor, she wrote, and then the next week 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:36.000 set aside money. By January, number started appearing sixty days, 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:41.440 eight days. Sandy drew a square around the date January 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:46.959 and wrote, eight am. I've seen that date before. It's 0:02:47.000 --> 0:02:49.960 on a receipt from the Women's Medical Center of Washington, 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:52.440 d C. That was found in her purse on the 0:02:52.480 --> 0:02:56.160 morning of her death. The receipt was for a hundred 0:02:56.200 --> 0:03:01.480 and twenty five dollars and seventy cents. The payment was 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:04.840 for an abortion. I think the running tab of numbers 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:07.839 in her calendar was her attempt to estimate how far 0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:12.560 along in her pregnancy she was. The following week, she 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:16.320 scrawled forget it in capital letters across one of the 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:20.240 pages of her calendar. Within a month of having the abortion, 0:03:20.919 --> 0:03:27.560 she was dead. From My Heart Radio, I'm Melissa Jelson, 0:03:27.960 --> 0:03:30.840 and this is what happened to Sandy Beale an I 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:42.000 Heart original podcast, Chapter two. Dear Doug. After a couple 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:44.600 of days, when I try to get my mind together, 0:03:44.760 --> 0:03:50.400 I called the doctor. He said, I cannot give you 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:55.880 any answers, and I said, Dr Boyle, I said she's dead. 0:03:56.640 --> 0:03:59.120 I said, she's gone. Can't you give me the answers 0:03:59.160 --> 0:04:01.440 that I need to have? And what did he telling? 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:04.520 He told me that she had come to him, that 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:12.720 she had had the abortion, that she was bleeding. This 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:16.680 was all new information to Joanne. Sandy had kept her 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:21.200 pregnancy and her abortion a secret from her family. Her 0:04:21.240 --> 0:04:23.479 mom learned about this for the first time at the 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:28.520 police precinct after Sandy's death. But Sandy did confide in someone, 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:32.440 her family physician, doctor Boyle. She went to him in 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:34.880 December when she would have been a few months pregnant, 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:39.320 and then again after the abortion. Sandy was experiencing some 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:42.040 residual bleeding and wanted to make sure she was okay, 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:45.240 and he said, I want you to go into the 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:48.400 hospital and I will take care of you. She didn't 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:51.599 want to. She was scared too because she would have 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:55.240 to tell us. She would have had you know, everybody 0:04:55.279 --> 0:05:00.160 would have known, and she was embarrassed. I've thought a 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:03.840 lot about how stressful this unexpected pregnancy must have been 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:07.960 for Sandy. She was already in a hidden relationship with 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:11.880 a married police officer. If they were discovered, it could 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:16.719 be catastrophic. Now, at eighteen, she believed she was pregnant 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:21.000 with his child. Sandy was living with secrets upon secrets 0:05:21.080 --> 0:05:26.719 upon secrets. We don't know how Sandy came to the 0:05:26.800 --> 0:05:30.160 decision to have an abortion, or how long she considered 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:33.679 her options, or if she was influenced by anyone else, 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:38.000 but ultimately she ended up at a clinic in downtown 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:42.120 d C. When I first learned about this, I had 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:45.640 so many questions, what would have been like to terminate 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:49.720 a pregnancy in nine, only four years after Roe v. 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:54.360 Wade made access to abortion at constitutional right. How did 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:58.840 Sandy pay for it? How did she get home? A 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:01.200 lot of these answers are lost to time, and the 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:04.640 Women's Medical Center of d C is closed now. But 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:07.640 I was able to track down a former employee who 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:10.120 worked at the clinic at the time Sandy would have visited. 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:15.520 That's how I met Kathy. I will share my story um. 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:21.360 When I was seventeen, I was abducted and assaulted and 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:28.880 helped for a number of days. Was horrific. Well, I 0:06:28.960 --> 0:06:32.640 was abducted mid day from a city street in blue 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:37.719 jeans and a pco, so straight up abduction assault. It 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:41.359 was not questionable. I am well aware that police do 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:43.919 not always do the detective work they should be doing, 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:48.119 because they sure didn't. Kathy was abducted and raped in St. 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:51.600 Louis in nineteen sixty nine. She was able to escape, 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:57.320 but it was understandably a life altering experience. And my grandmother, 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:03.200 who was completely uneducated, but escaped from the Warsaw ghetto, 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:09.200 and she said in a very dear Eastern European voice, Darling, 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:14.880 you have a choice. You can hide, you can get 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:19.680 very sad, or you can speak your truth and teach 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:29.520 something about this. Those words stayed with me a very 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:38.800 long time. There with me still, Cathy chose to speak 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:42.160 her truth. She became an activist involved in the women's 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:46.560 reproductive rights movement. She received her PhD in counseling, and 0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:49.600 in the mid nineties seventies began working at the Women's 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:53.240 Medical Center of DC. She started as a mental health 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:57.000 counselor working with patients and later became the director of 0:07:57.040 --> 0:08:00.360 the counseling center there. So we were in a large 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:07.200 office building, was very spacious, It was very comfortable. One 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:13.840 could come in for birth control counseling, or abortion counseling, 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:20.280 or crisis counseling. In stars counseling wide array. Cathy reminded 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:22.960 me that this was all pre internet and pre cell phones. 0:08:23.560 --> 0:08:25.840 She said, Sandy likely would have heard of the clinic 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:28.560 through word of mouth or been referred by her doctor. 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:32.120 It was also before at home pregnancy tests became widely 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:35.920 available in the US, so to confirm that she was pregnant, 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:39.319 Sandy would have had to have visited a doctor. If 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:41.800 it was determined she was pregnant and she was in 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:47.040 a reasonable time frame for our work. She would be 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:49.880 sent to a counseling room where she would meet with 0:08:49.960 --> 0:08:57.559 a council who would have asked many, many questions to 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:02.920 see if this sounded okay, like someone who had thought 0:09:02.960 --> 0:09:08.280 this through. Was likely as best as we could determine 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:16.360 to handle the procedure and aftermath. After speaking with Kathy, 0:09:16.800 --> 0:09:18.960 I was left with the impression that Sandy could have 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:22.480 received really good care at Women's Medical Center. She would 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:25.720 have been evaluated by counselors before the abortion, and they 0:09:25.720 --> 0:09:27.880 would have followed up with her afterwards to make sure 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:34.079 she was doing okay. If any of us had any 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:45.200 inkling that this would be extremely disregulating, emotionally, extremely destabilizing, 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:48.800 she wouldn't have had the abortion at Women's Medical Say. 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:52.640 I told Kathy about Sandy's story to get her take. 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:56.839 Sandy died just one month after her abortion. I wanted 0:09:56.920 --> 0:09:59.480 to know had Kathy ever heard if any of the 0:09:59.480 --> 0:10:03.160 clinics patients dying by suicide. I wondered if it might 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:07.679 have gotten back to them. I can't remember a single 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:22.440 case like that. To the family. The revelation that Sandy 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:25.960 had had an abortion provided a motive for Doug. Sandy 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:29.760 was a complication in his life. The Bells didn't necessarily 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:32.480 imagine that Doug had an elaborate plan to get rid 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:35.760 of Sandy. Instead, they thought that maybe there had been 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:39.520 an altercation of some kind. Kim's theory as to why 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:41.679 Sandy had the gun with her that night is that 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:44.800 maybe she was trying to scare Doug and maybe things 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:49.080 just got out of control. And their fears that Sandy 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:54.000 was murdered by an intimate partner aren't outlandish. In the US, 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:56.520 four women a day are killed by their boyfriends and 0:10:56.640 --> 0:11:01.200 husbands and exes. While it's uncomfortable to talk about, women 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:03.120 are at greater risk of violence at the hands of 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:07.240 someone they know than by a stranger. Here's what the 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:11.080 Beale family knew. Sandy had been in a secretive relationship 0:11:11.120 --> 0:11:14.319 with a married man. She had gotten pregnant and had 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:17.559 an abortion, and then ended up dead one mile away 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:21.000 from her boyfriend's place of work, and found with her 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:25.520 body was a letter she had made out specifically to him. 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:28.480 I'm going to read it now. Keep in mind, this 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:30.920 is all coming from her perspective, and we don't know 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:33.760 if everything in it is true, but it gives us 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:36.200 a great deal of insight into how she felt around 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:42.960 the time she died. Doug, I know now it's over, 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:46.400 and it has been all along. I guess I'm going 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:50.120 crazy and nobody can see it. You know you're right. 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:54.880 I am trouble. I lost my baby. I wanted so much. 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:59.040 I thought it would bring some kind of love because 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:01.200 I was looking for love of and never found it 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:04.880 from you. But you didn't care. You never came when 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:08.120 I was sick. I only wish I could start all 0:12:08.120 --> 0:12:11.280 over again. Then you wouldn't have used me like you did. 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:15.840 You didn't care, and I guess you never will. I 0:12:15.880 --> 0:12:18.640 never want another man to ever want me. I just 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:22.040 want to leave and forget the pain. You see, I'll 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:24.240 have to one day pay for the loss of my baby, 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:27.760 and when that day comes, Douglas will pay for what 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:31.439 he did to me and his baby. I love you, 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:33.679 and I'm sorry for all of this I've caused you. 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:39.880 So this letter was interpreted by police as a suicide. 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:44.319 What do you see in this letter? She wasn't committing suicide, 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:48.560 but I just don't believe it. That's Sandy's cousin, Kim. 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:50.520 Did you believe she wanted to get away from it 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:51.800 and she was going to have to go through a 0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:56.480 grieving process. I see that she was in a lot 0:12:56.480 --> 0:13:00.560 of pain, and she was a kid. She's about to 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:03.320 be nineteen, and she sees the way the world is, 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:08.240 and she's recognizing that she loved him and she couldn't 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:10.560 have any more than that. But at the same time, 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:13.960 this is where her fire comes out, and I just 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:17.400 want to leave and forget all the pain. How how 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:19.720 do you hear that line? Now? That's when she wanted 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:23.320 to go to Maine. In the last few months of 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:27.120 Sandy's life, she had started talking about moving. She wrote 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:29.240 to her grandmother in Maine and asked if she could 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:32.760 live with her. These plans are a major reason why 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:36.080 the Bell family so vehemently rejected the theory of suicide. 0:13:36.960 --> 0:13:40.960 Sandy was hopeful about the future. Here's her mom, Joanne. 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:44.240 She wouldn't have gone to the lengths of calling her 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:49.120 grandmother and talking with her. And she loved a grandmother Beale. 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:53.480 She didn't like my mom. She liked a grandmother Beale, 0:13:53.600 --> 0:14:00.160 and that's why I don't think she committed the suicide. 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:04.080 When I first read Sandy's letter, it didn't seem to 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:08.160 me like a suicide note. Instead, I recognized it as 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:11.640 a certain type of writing specific to teenage girls who 0:14:11.679 --> 0:14:14.040 had had their hearts broken for the very first time, 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:18.000 girls who learned too early how men could use and 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:22.360 take advantage of them, take their hearts and bodies and time, 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:27.080 and then just discard them like trash. I recognized the 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:30.800 letter because I had written ones just like it. The 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:34.000 note could be interpreted manyways, though, depending on the lens 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:38.120 you read it through heartbroken teen or as the cops 0:14:38.160 --> 0:14:41.720 read it, girl on the brink of suicide. If she 0:14:41.840 --> 0:14:48.360 hadn't written that damn note, ship head, I wish she 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:50.520 had a mail that son of a bitch instead of 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:54.880 leaving it in the gun, Joanna Leaves. The police closed 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:58.080 the case so quickly because of the letter Sandy wrote 0:14:58.080 --> 0:15:02.320 to Doug. Without it, she thinks Sandy's death would have 0:15:02.360 --> 0:15:05.880 been investigated as a murder, and that those closest to her, 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:11.120 including her boyfriend Doug, would have faced questioning. If you 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:14.640 was going with a girl and you got her pregnant 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:18.040 and you was married, and you told her to go 0:15:18.240 --> 0:15:22.040 get an abortion and she did, and then she still 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:25.560 was hanging onto you, what do you think you would do. 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:29.000 You're twenty eight years old, You've got a nice career 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:31.920 with the state police, and you've gotten a girl pregnant. 0:15:33.080 --> 0:15:36.280 If Doug was responsible, the Bills believed that he would 0:15:36.280 --> 0:15:39.440 be uniquely adept at covering up the crime due to 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:43.160 his training as a law enforcement officer. Here's Kim again. 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:47.960 He's then the ideal situation. He's in the position of authority, 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:51.760 he has the skill set, um, he has the trust 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:55.720 within his department. They're going to believe him over us, 0:15:56.480 --> 0:15:58.680 so he's going to be able to cover up. He 0:15:58.800 --> 0:16:05.600 just has all the resources available to them. Kim suspicions 0:16:05.600 --> 0:16:08.200 of Doug kind of makes sense given her line of work. 0:16:08.880 --> 0:16:12.560 She's a therapist for domestic violence victims and as a result, 0:16:12.840 --> 0:16:15.200 all too familiar with the ways that men harm the 0:16:15.240 --> 0:16:19.320 women they claim to love. Her passion to help survivors 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:22.240 and her desire to solve Sandy's case a sort of 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:26.440 interwoven at this stage, feeding off of each other, and honestly, 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:29.560 it's really impressive just how much energy she continues to 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:33.280 commit to Sandy. For the last year, we've texted almost 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:36.080 every single day to compare notes and talk about the case. 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:39.080 And you have to remember she's been working on this 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:42.520 for decades now. Her efforts over the years to track 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:45.720 down documents and navigate the maze of state agencies and 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:49.600 local police, it's herculean. I'm kind of like gum on 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:55.080 people's shoes, and I ask a lot of questions. Tenacious, 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:58.640 that's the word that I've been told before, and it's 0:16:58.680 --> 0:17:02.360 really stubbornness. And the people that I had to keep 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:05.960 trying to reach over and over again were the law 0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:08.440 enforcement that there. They were really just trying to cover 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:12.240 their ass and be cautious about what they gave me 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:15.400 and what they did. Kim had been researching Sandy's case 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:20.240 in some form or another since nineteen but the investigation 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:22.800 took on a new urgency in two thousand and six 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:28.720 after Kim traveled to Maine to see Sandy's parents. Ronald, 0:17:28.880 --> 0:17:31.879 Sandy's dad, was nearing the end of his life, and 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:34.080 as Kim talked to him, she learned that he was 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:37.159 still preoccupied with what happened to Sandy and all the 0:17:37.240 --> 0:17:42.840 unanswered questions around her death. I hate that Ronnie died 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:48.879 not knowing just m It's just not fair that he 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:52.320 would go to his grave and not now, that's just 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:56.119 not fair. We need to get those answers, and I 0:17:56.119 --> 0:17:58.360 don't want Joanne to leave this earth and not half 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:02.360 them too. She was overcome with a deep sense of injustice. 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:05.239 She told me, Oh my gosh, you know, there's not 0:18:05.359 --> 0:18:07.959 enough time to get to find out these answers and 0:18:08.000 --> 0:18:10.760 we know nothing, and it's oh six, that's a lot 0:18:10.760 --> 0:18:14.880 of time, that's what. Twenty nine years later, Kim decided 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:17.600 to track down the official police report on Sandy's death, 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:21.600 thinking it would be simple to get not so. She 0:18:21.680 --> 0:18:24.720 started by calling the Prince George's County Police Department, where 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:27.359 she was connected to a detective in the cold case unit, 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:31.560 Bernie Nelson. He quickly referred her to someone else, another 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:35.640 detective who had a strange story to share. He started 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:39.440 how humming along and you know, I'm not sure that's 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:41.400 a long time ago. I don't think I can get 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:45.359 those records. And so probably three or four calls and 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:48.480 um then he told me, well the buildings burned down. 0:18:49.119 --> 0:18:53.720 I'm like what, So he said, well, the probably the 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:55.040 only thing I'm gonna be able to get as a 0:18:55.040 --> 0:18:57.600 tickler file. Well, I've been in marketing before, I know 0:18:57.680 --> 0:19:01.240 that's just an index card, and it's jumped from one 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:03.159 month to another to follow up on people. I'm like, 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:04.560 I don't care what you have, Just get me what 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:07.679 you have. Okay, I'll work on it. Well, that was 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:09.880 the last communication I had with him, because he would 0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:13.399 never return my calls anymore. So I gave up on 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:18.040 the police report. Actually, instead, she focused on getting Sandy's autopsy, 0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:21.520 which she eventually was able to acquire. It added one 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:26.480 very important detail, Sandy had sperm inside her body, suggesting 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:29.120 that she'd recently had sex. Though it's hard to know 0:19:29.240 --> 0:19:33.560 exactly when I think what happened, and maybe I'm wrong. 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:42.399 I think that he met her, they had sex, and 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:47.560 she probably was thinking, well, i've had the aboortion, everything's fine, 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:51.399 we're gonna stick together. And I think he said, no, 0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:55.560 I'm going back to my wife. The family had already 0:19:55.560 --> 0:19:59.480 believed Sandy wasn't alone in the Pollard that night. Maybe 0:19:59.520 --> 0:20:01.720 the letter to Doug was supposed to have been given 0:20:01.720 --> 0:20:08.639 to him in person. Fast forward to seventeen, and it 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:11.960 wasn't until my niece introduced me to her new boyfriend, 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:14.520 and he was a Prince George's county cop. And I 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:18.080 said that I've been looking for this police report for decades, 0:20:18.160 --> 0:20:21.760 and um, they set the building burned down and he goes, 0:20:22.080 --> 0:20:24.919 the building never burned down. I'm work out of it 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:27.439 and it's about a seventy five year old building. That 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:31.520 building never burned down. And so that got my you know, 0:20:31.680 --> 0:20:36.359 blood boiling. So Kim picked up the phone once again 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:39.960 and dialed the Pugi County Police. This time though, she 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:43.679 connected with a sympathetic clerk who passed her requests along 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:47.320 to Cold Casse Detective Bernie Nelson, the same detective she 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:50.680 first spoke to in two thousand and six. All of 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:54.120 a sudden, I got that emails dating Bernie Nelson has 0:20:54.160 --> 0:20:57.280 found the police report. He didn't tell me where he 0:20:57.400 --> 0:20:59.360 found it. He just said he found it and that 0:20:59.680 --> 0:21:04.520 here it is attached. Oh my gosh. I like was nervous, 0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:06.040 and I was driving as fast as I could to 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:08.359 get to my computer so I couldn print it out 0:21:08.400 --> 0:21:10.240 because I thought it was just going to go away. 0:21:10.680 --> 0:21:13.400 And I couldn't believe that it was twelve pages, which 0:21:13.440 --> 0:21:18.440 was just amazing. But because they assured me that there 0:21:18.520 --> 0:21:21.000 was there was no way that this was going to 0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:24.520 be available. The entire time that Kim had been looking 0:21:24.560 --> 0:21:27.320 for it. The police file had been safe and sound 0:21:27.480 --> 0:21:29.960 in the home of the cop who investigated the case 0:21:30.000 --> 0:21:35.000 in nineteen seventy seven, retired Detective at Selski. When he 0:21:35.119 --> 0:21:38.440 left the force, he took his files home with him. 0:21:38.480 --> 0:21:43.399 In a full thirteen years after Kim's initial request, cold 0:21:43.440 --> 0:21:47.280 case detective Bernie Nelson went to Shechelski's house and physically 0:21:47.320 --> 0:21:52.000 retrieved the file from his boxes of papers. And even 0:21:52.800 --> 0:21:55.360 Bernie said, I don't even know why he saved it, 0:21:55.560 --> 0:21:58.120 but for whatever reason, he saved it, and they found 0:21:58.160 --> 0:22:00.560 it in his mouth. Bernie went up with men went 0:22:00.600 --> 0:22:04.120 through the boxes to get this report for me, but 0:22:04.320 --> 0:22:06.800 they probably wanted me off their butt, And I said 0:22:06.840 --> 0:22:09.439 that when I emailed, and I'm like, I'm not going away. 0:22:16.320 --> 0:22:19.720 The full police report is actually a seventeen page digital 0:22:19.800 --> 0:22:23.199 file filled with details about what detectives found when they 0:22:23.280 --> 0:22:26.600 arrived on the scene. Sandy was sitting on a gold 0:22:26.640 --> 0:22:30.000 blanket in the driver's seat, her white coat sat on 0:22:30.000 --> 0:22:32.560 the seat next to her, and on top of it 0:22:32.600 --> 0:22:38.040 was a gun, a three seven Ruger revolver. The police 0:22:38.080 --> 0:22:43.159 report also includes a series of photocopies. There's a copy 0:22:43.200 --> 0:22:46.119 of the letter Sandy wrote to Doug, along with what 0:22:46.200 --> 0:22:48.919 looks like a rough draft and an envelope addressed to 0:22:48.960 --> 0:22:52.399 his work. The last page of the report is another 0:22:52.480 --> 0:22:55.520 photocopy of something that was found in her car. But 0:22:55.640 --> 0:22:57.960 it's really blurry, so I can't read what's on it. 0:22:58.600 --> 0:23:00.879 All I can make out or you faint lines of 0:23:00.920 --> 0:23:04.400 Sandy's handwriting. For months, I assumed it was another note 0:23:04.440 --> 0:23:08.040 Sandy had written the contents lost to time. But then 0:23:08.080 --> 0:23:10.159 one day I found the original in the stack of 0:23:10.240 --> 0:23:13.720 documents that Kim gave me. Turns out it's not a letter, 0:23:14.160 --> 0:23:18.159 it's a photograph. The police report only includes a copy 0:23:18.200 --> 0:23:20.880 of the back, but what's on the front is far 0:23:20.960 --> 0:23:25.320 more revealing. It's Sandy's photograph of Doug standing in front 0:23:25.320 --> 0:23:30.480 of the McDonald's in his state trooper uniform. I don't 0:23:30.520 --> 0:23:33.679 buy any of that ship. There was a lot of 0:23:33.720 --> 0:23:36.520 things that they said and did that I didn't that 0:23:36.640 --> 0:23:41.520 I argued with them about. But they looked at us, 0:23:41.560 --> 0:23:48.560 I think, as well than nobody that little class. According 0:23:48.600 --> 0:23:51.320 to the police report, there were empty pill bottles in 0:23:51.359 --> 0:23:55.480 Sandy's car and loose pills scattered on her seat. Although 0:23:55.480 --> 0:23:58.240 this description might give the impression that Sandy was trying 0:23:58.280 --> 0:24:01.520 to overdose the autop She did not find any drugs 0:24:01.600 --> 0:24:04.160 or alcohol in her system at the time of her death. 0:24:04.720 --> 0:24:08.199 It just staged me, like, oh, we found, you know, 0:24:08.560 --> 0:24:12.280 pills underneath her legs. Well they were they were allergy 0:24:12.320 --> 0:24:15.439 pills and um. So they made it look like she 0:24:15.560 --> 0:24:19.480 committed suicide. But I don't think they did a thorough investigation. 0:24:20.080 --> 0:24:23.679 They didn't do their due diligence. I don't think they 0:24:23.720 --> 0:24:28.120 investigated anything. It was more than forty years after Sandy's 0:24:28.160 --> 0:24:30.480 death before her family would get a copy of the 0:24:30.520 --> 0:24:33.520 police report and be able to read it. They had 0:24:33.560 --> 0:24:36.360 hoped that there would be some kind of in controvertible 0:24:36.400 --> 0:24:39.800 proof in the report that could settle their questions. The 0:24:39.880 --> 0:24:42.760 family felt that with more information that have a clearer 0:24:42.800 --> 0:24:46.400 picture of how and why Sandy died, but the new 0:24:46.440 --> 0:24:51.119 information just muddled the story. The police report provided a 0:24:51.160 --> 0:24:54.439 detailed account of this scene and reminded the family of 0:24:54.480 --> 0:24:57.480 the cardboard shoved under the wheels of her car and 0:24:57.520 --> 0:25:00.320 the tire tracks that seemed to indicate she was trying 0:25:00.359 --> 0:25:03.119 to get her car out of the mud. The report 0:25:03.200 --> 0:25:05.880 also noted that the gun had been collected and dusted 0:25:05.880 --> 0:25:09.639 for Prince. It had none. If Sandy had used the 0:25:09.640 --> 0:25:14.639 gun on herself, wouldn't they find her Prince? And crucially, 0:25:15.320 --> 0:25:17.760 why was there no mention of Doug in the written 0:25:17.800 --> 0:25:22.119 police report, even though his name, his work address, and 0:25:22.200 --> 0:25:25.440 a photo of him were found in her car. Certainly 0:25:25.480 --> 0:25:28.440 they as far as we know, they didn't investigate dog 0:25:28.520 --> 0:25:31.440 because there's no mention of that in the police report either. 0:25:32.119 --> 0:25:36.080 Here's Sandy's brother, Stephen. Well, what I say is, if 0:25:36.080 --> 0:25:40.399 she committed suicide, somebody's going to have to do some 0:25:40.800 --> 0:25:44.399 holl acious proven to me, some how acious proven to me, 0:25:44.600 --> 0:26:00.119 has even that's what they say, fucking proven. Hi is 0:26:00.119 --> 0:26:04.560 his head? He Hi? It's Melissa. Can you hear me? Okay? 0:26:04.760 --> 0:26:08.359 That's retired detective at Sheelski. He's the one who wrote 0:26:08.359 --> 0:26:11.840 the police report and investigated Sandy's death all those years ago, 0:26:12.480 --> 0:26:14.639 the one who stored the police report at his house. 0:26:15.720 --> 0:26:19.080