May 4, 2022 • 33 mins
The Beal family is faced with a daunting task that threatens to divide them. Sandy’s final words are cast in a new light.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Before we begin, please note this series includes talk of
suicide and sexual violence. Please take care while listening. It
was it was just a strange turn of how it
all unfolded anothers right now. I know all the people
(00:25):
feel difference. I'm just putting my feelings out there. This
is a crazyness that we were told you can do it.
It just didn't know a lot of things just didn't
so some of the stuff I'm about to tell you,
I mean, if you're pissed now, you're going to get
even more piste off because I never knew anything and
(00:48):
you never said it's it's like for you to hear
all of this, well else not what I want to hear,
but if it gil is what it is. Yeah, yeah, no,
I'm not fine. Bullshit. Yeah. Shot from My Heart Radio.
(01:19):
I'm Melissa Jolson and this is what happened to Sandy
Beale an I Heart original podcast, Chapter eight, Good Grief.
(01:39):
The first time I went to Maine to meet with
the Bell family. It was summer and the drive from
the airport was lush and green. It was on this
trip when Ronnie, Sandy's youngest brother, asked me what I
hoped to achieve with the podcast when Sandy's mother, Joanne,
gave me the coat her daughter was wearing on the
night of her death, and when I first got real
(02:00):
sense of Sandy as a person, the Sandy the family
described to me, she was fearless. Five months later, I
flew back to Maine with my producer to see the
Bells in person again. It was late fall and the
trees were a mix of orange and brown and green.
I was returning under different circumstances than my first trip.
(02:22):
This visit had a particular objective to observe and record
an emergency family meeting that Kim had called. Kim wanted
to share with the Bells what she had come to
believe was true that Sandy had died by suicide. The
meeting was set to take place at Sandy's brother Steven's home.
To set the scene, imagine a tidy ranch style house,
(02:45):
a kitchen teeming with food, two small dogs running around underfoot.
I arrived before the rest of the family and made
small talk with Stephen and his wife. Soon, Michael and
his wife showed up with Joanne, who was wearing suede
cowboy boots bedazzled with rhyan stones. We hugged, talked, about
(03:08):
booster shots and COVID variants, and we waited together for
Kim right I'm gone phoned in. I was like, Oh,
this is really You can hear the nervousness in Kim's
(03:35):
voice leading up to this meeting. She was really worried
about how the Beals would respond to what she had
to tell them. She didn't know if they'd see things
her way, or if they'd reject her position and judge
her for siding with the police. For decades, there's been
a collective story that they all agreed on around Sandy's
(03:57):
death that whatever happened to Sandy, she hadn't died by suicide.
Kim had previously been part of the group, In fact,
the leader of the group, the one pushing to reopen
Sandy's case, convinced that there was something there. Now, she
worried that she had blown Sandy's death up into something
it wasn't and wasted their time, added extra pain to
(04:21):
their suffering. She knew the Bills loved her and were
appreciative of all her work, but there was a part
of her that was scared she would need to beg
for their forgiveness. My notes are like I was really
hoping that I'd have time to sit down and get
really but it's it's just been too hard. It is,
(04:43):
do you have Within a few minutes of Kim's arrival,
the group migrated into the living room and took seats
around a boom mic that I had brought. It was
a strange dichonomy, the most intimate of conversations undertaken with
the knowledge that everything was being recorded. Kim sat in
(05:05):
a large, pillowy recliner that seemed to swallow her frame.
Her feet didn't quite reach the floor, and she kept
readjusting her position, trying to get comfortable. I think that
the answers that I'm going to give you today will
naturally make that a closing place. Anyway, there are still
some answers that need to happen, but I think as
(05:27):
far as the story is concerned, it's shifted, and so
I'm hoping that we get more information after this, and
but we may not. So I just want to kind
of share with you what we've uncovered in the past
few months since we saw you in June. Anyway, Armed
with her notes, Kim began recounting her conversation with Bernie.
(05:48):
She told them how she went in fighting with a
head of steam, arguing and asking critical questions. She told
the family how they discussed Sandy's efforts to become a
police officer and ride alongs that she did, likely as
part of an official Explorer program. And so I'm just
listening and I said, well, what about the Explorers program.
(06:09):
I'm like, so explained that. He said it was a
way that we encouraged people in high school to come
became cops seek for and they're having a hard time
recruiting new police officers, so they were going to the
high schools, hence the ride along program and the Explorers.
And I'm like, so, you have a girl that wants
to be a cop, and she's doing everything you guys
asked her to do. She told them how Bernie acknowledged
(06:33):
that there was likely serious sexual misconduct taking place, and
how she was disarmed by his compassion and his frankness.
He said, if I was on the watch, they would
have all been terminated because I wouldn't have put up
with any of that. And I'm like, you know, if
you you see all these questions that we have, everything
we've already talked about, no answers have been given. All
(06:54):
these different things that are discrepancies, and you can see
from our point of view that we have questions. He's like,
I absolutely see from your point of view all of this,
everything you're saying makes sense. I watched Kim as she
attempted to replicate her conversation with Bernie, trying to create
the same conditions that had led to her own awakening.
(07:14):
She spoke calmly and carefully, referring often to her notes,
before she got to the piece of evidence that had
clicked everything into place for her. To help them visualize
the scene, she printed from the Internet a picture of
an old Ford Pinto, just like the one Sandy used
to drive. So if you look at this, this is
(07:35):
the steering wheel, so it matches up if you were
to brace it. There here you can pass that if
you were to brace it. It's it just started feeling
like making sense to me that that she did use
that that's the only possible way that she could have
pulled that trigger, as if it was had support of something.
(07:56):
But when he said that the gunpotter was on the
steering wheel and it was spray and back, and I'm like,
he goes they He said, Kim, we can't we can't
deny the trajectory of this. When when he said the
there's gunpowder on the steering wheel, that was kind of like,
(08:18):
that's kind of very futable. So it was almost like
a an Aha moment, like a wake up call of
oh my god, that could possibly really be true. At
this Kim pivoted away from the forensic evidence and started
(08:39):
speaking from her gut. She now had a new understanding
of Sandy and her last month, and she shared this
with the Beals, how she believed Sandy had been used
and abused by men in power, and how this had
broken her. I think someone was there before. I think
she was alone then, And this is just my my
(09:00):
knowing her and thinking through the situation. It's dark, it's
twenty seven degrees outside, she just had sex with somebody.
She's alone, she's trying to get out, and I think
the trying to get out was possibly the straw that
broke the camel's back, and she just said fuck it.
Joanne had been listening intently. Now she interrupted, I think
(09:23):
you're right. I think the last hurrah was she was
trying to get out. Joanne's words they rushed out of
her as though they had been waiting to be released.
I think she just said a kid, she had already
been rejected, she had already had the abortion. And I
think the whole thing just blew up. And maybe I'm wrong,
(09:45):
and uh, I kept that tomorrow itself for a look. Now,
I did not expect to hear Joanne agree with Kim
and acknowledge so openly that she believed if Sandy had
died by suicide. And I got the sense that Kim
had given her permission to say the hard part out loud,
(10:08):
and that it came as a tremendous relief. The room
was quiet. Everyone seemed to be reflecting on the Sandy
that they knew, each of them conjuring their own memory
of Sandy and trying to square Kim's new story with
their own. And then Stephen broke the silence. Well, I'm
gonna be the man out. I dispute what the guy says.
(10:34):
I'm flat asked the spear that I don't think she'd
put the goddam gone on a steering oil. And yes,
they can replicate it, they don't want to replicate it.
I can put a man on a goddamn who and
they could replicate that. I know I'm saying Sandy did
not shoot herself. I'm gonna go to my freaking grave
saying that. You know, and it's compelling. I'll give you that.
(10:57):
You know, the guys trying and I get that he's
trying to be empathetic with our situation. But you know,
I'm sorry he's selling. I ain't buy it. No Thick again,
I'm sorry. Sorry. Stephen left the room upset, but about
(11:25):
five minutes later he came back and rejoined his family. Uh,
trust me, in folks, I'm not trying to you know,
it's nothing about anybody. I take issue with what it
is or trying to say. And you know, and I
understand if you know other people don't share my stance.
(11:45):
I get it. You know this is something that I
you're right there, I gotta graph with all my own
Right now, I don't see it yet. You know, maybe something,
it might take something, a little something else to make
me see the light. You know, maybe I'm seeing what
I want to see. I don't know. Could be, but
right now I do not know. You're not going to
(12:08):
convince me that she did it. As the family continued
to talk, the sun streaming in the windows and filling
the room with light. It felt as though I was
seeing them shift and adjust their beliefs in real time,
torn between two versions of an event that had to
find their lives. Even Joanne, who had sounded so sure
(12:29):
at first, vacillated returning back again to the police dug
and all the sketchy behavior she witnessed in the aftermath
of Sandy's death. Sometimes she seemed to travel this distance
between suicide and murder in the same breath. Stephen was
the most vocal about his views, while his brothers Michael
(12:50):
and Ronnie quietly contemplated the situation without giving much away.
They listened, nodded, winced at times, and then Ronnie spoke
up in his calm and reserved way, Well, you know,
for forty four years and nine months, we've tried like
(13:16):
every scenario. Did she did, she not, she didn't, Why
she didn't, Who's responsible? We don't know. Then, I guess
we're never gonna know. Even if somebody come forward today,
yeah I did it. No one's going to jail, especially
(13:39):
an other than guys. Yeah, pops, right, Yeah, So in
my mind, I think we've come to the end of
the room. When loves the girl I watched the Bills
(14:09):
leave that meeting with Kim with a demanding task ahead.
They could choose to believe what Kim now believed, that
Sandy died by suicide, or they could continue with the
story they believed for decades, and I can understand why
they take the latter route. Both stories were compelling, both
were possible, and the journey to replace a long held
(14:31):
belief with something new and contradictory is not an easy one.
I think that we faced this kind of crossroads many
times in life, and we you know, again, we're given
the choice between the safety of holding onto what we
know or the ambiguity of releasing what we thought we
(14:52):
knew and reaching for something a little more adequate, recognizing
that that that process is not a comfortable one. Robert
Niemeyer is a professor of psychology at the University of
Memphis and an authority on bereavement in grief. Well, of course,
this is a larger question that goes beyond grief and bereavement.
(15:14):
We can hold onto our own views, sometimes almost in
a kind of hostile stance of refusing to accept the
alternative story, and that's the path of defensiveness and sameness
and anger and resistance. But the other is the path
of grieving, may be coming to terms with the reality
(15:39):
of tragedy in life and the impermanence of love and
the ambiguity of of our position as human beings. Kim
let go of what she had believed, and it was
really painful. She told me that she felt as though
she was grieving Sandy's death all over again. For a family,
(16:01):
I understood the cost of changing their minds to accept
that Sandy had died by suicide required them to redefine
their understanding of her as a person and, by extension,
their relationship to her. It often, especially in the case
of traumatic loss, shakes up our assumptive world, as we
(16:23):
call it. That whole world of assumptions about how life
is or should be. Our sense of justice, our sense
of control, our sense of the reality we thought we
were living, or the reality of a loved one we
thought we knew, can be deeply unsettling, as we have
to essentially revise our life narrative, the story of who
(16:46):
we are and whose we are, in the context of
often a significant and and and soul shattering loss. The
dramatic thing for them, of course, is that they have
experienced the shattering of their narrative, their story, not once,
but twice, forty or four years apart. Robert explained to
(17:09):
me that grieving a suicide often brings up complicated feelings
for families, such as guilt and anger the failure to
protect or save that person, particularly if we are a parent,
particularly if we are an older sibling, where we feel
some duty of care toward this vulnerable person, and somehow
(17:31):
we missed the signals. We we didn't have the you know,
the deep understanding of what was happening for them at
the time that might have led us to make a difference.
All of that is denied us, and so we're left
with a struggle to realign the relationship with them, um
(17:51):
and to figure out how they fit into our lives. Now.
What I hope it brings though, is compassion of her
as the young woman she was attempting to move into
a life that had its own audacious and probably chaotic
and likely complicated dimensions. Ironically, they have ended up having
(18:19):
to sort out those complications for her in in a
proxy way as they attempt to make sense of her life,
maybe at a time that she herself could not making
sense of Sandy and the complications she was struggling with.
Is what I've tried to do with this podcast and
(18:41):
the complications in Sandy's life, they had something in common.
They all revolved around law enforcement, and so in a
way did her death, which I think is telling. I
found myself returning to a single page in Sandy's full
police file where Detective Shosholski cataloged the evidence in Sandy's
(19:03):
car and specifically the items sitting on her dashboard. The
items on her dash they all had to do with cops.
There was the duty rig for carrying police equipment, a
lone business card from a Pig County cop, clippings about
police officers, presumably from a local newspaper, and a card
showing the shift's schedule. I thought it was strange that
(19:27):
Sandy would store so many items, including a belt, on
her small dashboard. Wouldn't they fall down when she drove?
As I read and re read this list, picturing the scene,
I suddenly imagined Sandy placing the items there ceremoniously surrounding
herself with police paraphernilia to make a statement. I had
(19:49):
long been suspicious of the location of Sandy's death because
of who hung out there. But I could now see
how the pollard might have been a symbolic choice by Sandy. Doug,
the state trooper, the instructors and the Explorer program, and
the cops who called Shallski. I think a good many
of them hurt Sandy. They took advantage of her youthful passion,
(20:13):
her blind ambition, and her desire for acceptance. As she
wrote in her letter to Doug, I never want another
man to ever want me. I just want to leave
and forget the pain. Sandy was looking for love and
she found cruelty. The police they didn't have to murder
Sandy to be complicit in her death, and I think
(20:36):
they deserve some of the blame for the loss of
a teenage girl. I think there are people who know
exactly what happened to Sandy. They just don't want to
talk to me, And back then they didn't want to
talk to the Bills either. To me, this is the
tragic heart of the story. For all the questions, the
(20:58):
Bells had their people with answers, if any of the
police officers who knew Sandy had been brave enough to
talk to the Bells, if Prince George's County police had
launched a misconduct probe in the wake of Sandy's death
and been transparent with her family. And if anyone had
listened to the bills, really listened to what they had
(21:19):
to say, then maybe forty five years of doubt and
uncertainty might have been avoided. Maybe Sandy she could have
been put to rest. In the weeks and months after
(21:43):
we all gathered a main I reached out to the
Bells periodically to check in on how they were doing.
I was curious how they had processed the new information,
but I was also hyper aware that their capacity for
an interest in discussing Sandy's case with me was coming
to a close. Us My investigation had found answers, but
(22:04):
not the answers that they had necessarily wanted, since they
were somewhat let down, although they never missed an opportunity
to express gratitude for my work. Here's what Stephen had
to say when I called him one afternoon. I'm just
going on with with life, really, I mean kind of
going status quote. I mean, was suation normal? Um, that's
(22:30):
not it. I don't know what else to say. I
know myself, I've always saw it all along and we're
never going to really get to the bottom of it.
And it was nice as you know, trying to get
to where we got now, which was which is good.
But uh, just it's for me. I'm always going to
have questions and it's never gonna be really quite resolved
(22:55):
to my satisfaction. Kim's epiphany for meeting with Bernie, it
hadn't really changed anything for him. I had those gut
feelings when you know, when you just kind of know something,
you know what I mean, I'm looking at through jaded eyes. Maya,
I'm so jaded, you know, I need to look at
(23:16):
it through a different lens. Does that make any sense?
When I reached Michael, the oldest of the Bill brothers,
he agreed with Stephen and told me he still has
significant questions about the gun. So you still you still
believe that probably someone else does involved. Sure, I certainly do.
(23:38):
The police. Uh they're pretty good, you know, they can
they can dig sh it up, and they can they
can bury stuff. So I'm sure there's a lot of
stuff that's buried. No one's gonna know about it. Ronnie,
the youngest of the Bills, he just wanted to put
the whole thing behind him. He's getting married soon, starting
a new chapter of his life. If he doesn't want
(24:01):
to go there anymore, Like you said in the meeting,
he considers at the end of the road. I came
to understand through my conversations with the brothers that it
was very possible the family would be living with these
conflicting stories of Sandy's death and therefore her life forever,
(24:25):
and maybe that was all right. Well, we've seen over
and over now really twenty five years of search, the
majority of people are resilient to almost anything. George Banano
is a psychologist at Columbia University. His research focuses on
how human beings coped with bereavement, loss, and other potentially
(24:46):
traumatic events. You know, everybody's moved on and lived their lives,
you know, and it's now a person four decades in
the past who they loved or who they had complex
relationships with, and now they have a kind of a
a very complicated story about that person. But you know,
there's probably enough distance that they can probably say, Okay, well,
(25:09):
you know, we'll maybe hold both of these But you know,
I don't think it would be as crucial or as
critical and their wet to their well being to have
a clear picture anymore in a sense, the need to
have them reconciled as maybe long past. George's research has
found that most people possess a natural resilience to trauma
and loss. The person is able to, uh, you know, concentrate, laugh,
(25:33):
do what they need to do, um, take care of
people they love, and be cared for by people they love,
and they love them, you know, be close, have intimate interactions,
and they you know, they're able to experience joy, and
they're able to experience pain, and they're able to be
to think about other things, um and and they simply
continue on with their life. They don't forget the person.
(25:56):
They just you know, continue living the life in the present.
And if you think about it, I mean, beings have
been around for a long time and we've thrived all
over the planet, and we've always been able to keep
moving on and keep going. That's just human nature. Kim
(26:19):
has moved houses since she visited the Beals in Maine,
resettling in a country home halfway between Houston and Austin.
Being in the country has helped, she said. The blue
bonnets and wild flowers are out the trees outside her
house are over three years old. She keeps a photo
of Sandy on her desk, but she's put her files
(26:41):
about the case out of sight in a closet, still
close enough to access if she needs them, but not
lining the walls of her bedroom like they used to
Sandy's case. It's been a source of consistency in her
life for decades, something to focus her boundless energy on,
give her purpose, and now she considers it over. She's
(27:03):
let go for the most part. She has answers, though
she says she still needs to find closure. She wants
to go back to the Pollard and have a ceremony
there to say goodbye before the family meeting. One of
Kim's biggest concerns was disappointing Joanne. She feared that spending
(27:26):
all those years investigating the case had prolonged Joanne's pain
and stood in the way of healing. It's been a
long time, hasn't it fighting? It's a long time fighting it. Yeah,
So I'm I'm most concerned mostly about you. I've had
a few weeks to process it, and I'm still struggling
(27:47):
with it. So just grieving, you know, I know what
you mean. I was just telling I think it was Melissa,
that this might be the last sit in that I
might sit in. It depends on how I feel at
the time, you know, because it drums everything back up.
It's hard and it's hot, and that's why it is.
(28:14):
But the journey it had bonded the two women. I
got the sense that Joanne was profoundly touched by the
years that Kim had spent in service to Sandy. She
was trying to hold people accountable, and she had kept
Sandy's memory alive. We've come a long way with this.
You have dog and dog and dog and dog. There's
(28:37):
been many things that I have thought of and thought
of and and just like we all have questions, but
we'll probably never get all the answers. We've had a lot,
We've learned a lot. I understand why the bills still
(28:59):
have questions, because I do too. There's still so much
unknown about the network of police officers whose phone number
Sandy wrote down in her address books, police officers who
took her on ride alongs and drove her home at
night after hanging out at the FOP lodge. But I'm
pretty sure I know how she felt when she died.
(29:19):
Because she wrote about it. I've reread her note to
Dug many times, and what's clear is how alone, used
and powerless she felt. It's a stark reversal from where
she was when she began policing, described by her friends
and family as strong, ambitious, and secure. The main criticism
(29:39):
I've heard about my podcast is that it's anti cop,
that if a team girl was victimized in an Explorer
program that was in the nineties seventies and doesn't reflect
on what's happening now. But I want to tell you
about another Sandy. Sandra Burchmore died by suicide during the
pandemic while pregnant, allegedly with the child of a married
(30:02):
older cop who was an instructor in the Explorer program
she had attended. A misconduct probe launched in the wake
of her death has resulted in the resignation of one officer,
with two others placed unpaid leave. I think there are many,
many more Sandy's out there, girls and women who have
(30:23):
been sexualized, mistreated, and eaten up by a police culture
where masculinity reigns. Sandy wasn't an anomaly, Joanne. She still
has questions. She still hopes that Sandy Sheridan will come forward.
(30:44):
She still believes that Doug was in the pollard the
night Sandy died. She even had a dream about him
recently where she confronted him outside a courthouse and gave
him a piece of her mind. But ultimately she's come
to accept the possibility that Sandy died by suicide. She
thinks that Sandy was consumed by hurt and felt as
though she had no one to turn to, and she
(31:07):
blames the police for putting her daughter in this position.
Thinking back to when Sandy died, the worst part was
the not knowing, she said, having only the fragments of
Sandy's story and not being able to put them together
in a way that made any sense. Today, she's learned
how to live with them, not knowing, the lingering ambiguity,
(31:29):
the unanswered questions. She's found a way to put all
that to the side, diffuse it of its power. Maybe
she wasn't supposed to know everything, she said, It's just
how it is, and she's at peace. So anyway, it
was a hard time, and I don't know, we've been
(31:55):
through enough a lot in this family. I say the
Lord was good to me to give me a life
to live this long. I waited two pounds and three
ounces at birth. They told my mother and father I
wouldn't live twenty four hours. And here I am Eddie too.
Joanne hopes she'll see Sandy in heaven, but for now,
(32:19):
she's put the whole thing in a good place. She
needed to. She's a fighter, always has been, but it
was time for her to stop. Well, Honey, I've got
to let you go. Okay? What Happened to Sandy Beale
is hosted by Me Melissa Johnson. It's written and produced
(32:41):
by me and Katrina Norvell. The podcast is edited by
Aboo Safar, sound designed by Aaron Kaufman. Jason English is
our executive producer. Research and production assistance by Merissa Brown.
Special thanks to Duncan Radell, Bethan Macaluso, Nikki Etre, and
(33:02):
Pete Monica. To find out more about my investigation, follow
me on Twitter at quasimato. That's qu A s I
M A d o
Before we begin, please note this series includes talk of
suicide and sexual violence. Please take care while listening. It
was it was just a strange turn of how it
all unfolded anothers right now. I know all the people
(00:25):
feel difference. I'm just putting my feelings out there. This
is a crazyness that we were told you can do it.
It just didn't know a lot of things just didn't
so some of the stuff I'm about to tell you,
I mean, if you're pissed now, you're going to get
even more piste off because I never knew anything and
(00:48):
you never said it's it's like for you to hear
all of this, well else not what I want to hear,
but if it gil is what it is. Yeah, yeah, no,
I'm not fine. Bullshit. Yeah. Shot from My Heart Radio.
(01:19):
I'm Melissa Jolson and this is what happened to Sandy
Beale an I Heart original podcast, Chapter eight, Good Grief.
(01:39):
The first time I went to Maine to meet with
the Bell family. It was summer and the drive from
the airport was lush and green. It was on this
trip when Ronnie, Sandy's youngest brother, asked me what I
hoped to achieve with the podcast when Sandy's mother, Joanne,
gave me the coat her daughter was wearing on the
night of her death, and when I first got real
(02:00):
sense of Sandy as a person, the Sandy the family
described to me, she was fearless. Five months later, I
flew back to Maine with my producer to see the
Bells in person again. It was late fall and the
trees were a mix of orange and brown and green.
I was returning under different circumstances than my first trip.
(02:22):
This visit had a particular objective to observe and record
an emergency family meeting that Kim had called. Kim wanted
to share with the Bells what she had come to
believe was true that Sandy had died by suicide. The
meeting was set to take place at Sandy's brother Steven's home.
To set the scene, imagine a tidy ranch style house,
(02:45):
a kitchen teeming with food, two small dogs running around underfoot.
I arrived before the rest of the family and made
small talk with Stephen and his wife. Soon, Michael and
his wife showed up with Joanne, who was wearing suede
cowboy boots bedazzled with rhyan stones. We hugged, talked, about
(03:08):
booster shots and COVID variants, and we waited together for
Kim right I'm gone phoned in. I was like, Oh,
this is really You can hear the nervousness in Kim's
(03:35):
voice leading up to this meeting. She was really worried
about how the Beals would respond to what she had
to tell them. She didn't know if they'd see things
her way, or if they'd reject her position and judge
her for siding with the police. For decades, there's been
a collective story that they all agreed on around Sandy's
(03:57):
death that whatever happened to Sandy, she hadn't died by suicide.
Kim had previously been part of the group, In fact,
the leader of the group, the one pushing to reopen
Sandy's case, convinced that there was something there. Now, she
worried that she had blown Sandy's death up into something
it wasn't and wasted their time, added extra pain to
(04:21):
their suffering. She knew the Bills loved her and were
appreciative of all her work, but there was a part
of her that was scared she would need to beg
for their forgiveness. My notes are like I was really
hoping that I'd have time to sit down and get
really but it's it's just been too hard. It is,
(04:43):
do you have Within a few minutes of Kim's arrival,
the group migrated into the living room and took seats
around a boom mic that I had brought. It was
a strange dichonomy, the most intimate of conversations undertaken with
the knowledge that everything was being recorded. Kim sat in
(05:05):
a large, pillowy recliner that seemed to swallow her frame.
Her feet didn't quite reach the floor, and she kept
readjusting her position, trying to get comfortable. I think that
the answers that I'm going to give you today will
naturally make that a closing place. Anyway, there are still
some answers that need to happen, but I think as
(05:27):
far as the story is concerned, it's shifted, and so
I'm hoping that we get more information after this, and
but we may not. So I just want to kind
of share with you what we've uncovered in the past
few months since we saw you in June. Anyway, Armed
with her notes, Kim began recounting her conversation with Bernie.
(05:48):
She told them how she went in fighting with a
head of steam, arguing and asking critical questions. She told
the family how they discussed Sandy's efforts to become a
police officer and ride alongs that she did, likely as
part of an official Explorer program. And so I'm just
listening and I said, well, what about the Explorers program.
(06:09):
I'm like, so explained that. He said it was a
way that we encouraged people in high school to come
became cops seek for and they're having a hard time
recruiting new police officers, so they were going to the
high schools, hence the ride along program and the Explorers.
And I'm like, so, you have a girl that wants
to be a cop, and she's doing everything you guys
asked her to do. She told them how Bernie acknowledged
(06:33):
that there was likely serious sexual misconduct taking place, and
how she was disarmed by his compassion and his frankness.
He said, if I was on the watch, they would
have all been terminated because I wouldn't have put up
with any of that. And I'm like, you know, if
you you see all these questions that we have, everything
we've already talked about, no answers have been given. All
(06:54):
these different things that are discrepancies, and you can see
from our point of view that we have questions. He's like,
I absolutely see from your point of view all of this,
everything you're saying makes sense. I watched Kim as she
attempted to replicate her conversation with Bernie, trying to create
the same conditions that had led to her own awakening.
(07:14):
She spoke calmly and carefully, referring often to her notes,
before she got to the piece of evidence that had
clicked everything into place for her. To help them visualize
the scene, she printed from the Internet a picture of
an old Ford Pinto, just like the one Sandy used
to drive. So if you look at this, this is
(07:35):
the steering wheel, so it matches up if you were
to brace it. There here you can pass that if
you were to brace it. It's it just started feeling
like making sense to me that that she did use
that that's the only possible way that she could have
pulled that trigger, as if it was had support of something.
(07:56):
But when he said that the gunpotter was on the
steering wheel and it was spray and back, and I'm like,
he goes they He said, Kim, we can't we can't
deny the trajectory of this. When when he said the
there's gunpowder on the steering wheel, that was kind of like,
(08:18):
that's kind of very futable. So it was almost like
a an Aha moment, like a wake up call of
oh my god, that could possibly really be true. At
this Kim pivoted away from the forensic evidence and started
(08:39):
speaking from her gut. She now had a new understanding
of Sandy and her last month, and she shared this
with the Beals, how she believed Sandy had been used
and abused by men in power, and how this had
broken her. I think someone was there before. I think
she was alone then, And this is just my my
(09:00):
knowing her and thinking through the situation. It's dark, it's
twenty seven degrees outside, she just had sex with somebody.
She's alone, she's trying to get out, and I think
the trying to get out was possibly the straw that
broke the camel's back, and she just said fuck it.
Joanne had been listening intently. Now she interrupted, I think
(09:23):
you're right. I think the last hurrah was she was
trying to get out. Joanne's words they rushed out of
her as though they had been waiting to be released.
I think she just said a kid, she had already
been rejected, she had already had the abortion. And I
think the whole thing just blew up. And maybe I'm wrong,
(09:45):
and uh, I kept that tomorrow itself for a look. Now,
I did not expect to hear Joanne agree with Kim
and acknowledge so openly that she believed if Sandy had
died by suicide. And I got the sense that Kim
had given her permission to say the hard part out loud,
(10:08):
and that it came as a tremendous relief. The room
was quiet. Everyone seemed to be reflecting on the Sandy
that they knew, each of them conjuring their own memory
of Sandy and trying to square Kim's new story with
their own. And then Stephen broke the silence. Well, I'm
gonna be the man out. I dispute what the guy says.
(10:34):
I'm flat asked the spear that I don't think she'd
put the goddam gone on a steering oil. And yes,
they can replicate it, they don't want to replicate it.
I can put a man on a goddamn who and
they could replicate that. I know I'm saying Sandy did
not shoot herself. I'm gonna go to my freaking grave
saying that. You know, and it's compelling. I'll give you that.
(10:57):
You know, the guys trying and I get that he's
trying to be empathetic with our situation. But you know,
I'm sorry he's selling. I ain't buy it. No Thick again,
I'm sorry. Sorry. Stephen left the room upset, but about
(11:25):
five minutes later he came back and rejoined his family. Uh,
trust me, in folks, I'm not trying to you know,
it's nothing about anybody. I take issue with what it
is or trying to say. And you know, and I
understand if you know other people don't share my stance.
(11:45):
I get it. You know this is something that I
you're right there, I gotta graph with all my own
Right now, I don't see it yet. You know, maybe something,
it might take something, a little something else to make
me see the light. You know, maybe I'm seeing what
I want to see. I don't know. Could be, but
right now I do not know. You're not going to
(12:08):
convince me that she did it. As the family continued
to talk, the sun streaming in the windows and filling
the room with light. It felt as though I was
seeing them shift and adjust their beliefs in real time,
torn between two versions of an event that had to
find their lives. Even Joanne, who had sounded so sure
(12:29):
at first, vacillated returning back again to the police dug
and all the sketchy behavior she witnessed in the aftermath
of Sandy's death. Sometimes she seemed to travel this distance
between suicide and murder in the same breath. Stephen was
the most vocal about his views, while his brothers Michael
(12:50):
and Ronnie quietly contemplated the situation without giving much away.
They listened, nodded, winced at times, and then Ronnie spoke
up in his calm and reserved way, Well, you know,
for forty four years and nine months, we've tried like
(13:16):
every scenario. Did she did, she not, she didn't, Why
she didn't, Who's responsible? We don't know. Then, I guess
we're never gonna know. Even if somebody come forward today,
yeah I did it. No one's going to jail, especially
(13:39):
an other than guys. Yeah, pops, right, Yeah, So in
my mind, I think we've come to the end of
the room. When loves the girl I watched the Bills
(14:09):
leave that meeting with Kim with a demanding task ahead.
They could choose to believe what Kim now believed, that
Sandy died by suicide, or they could continue with the
story they believed for decades, and I can understand why
they take the latter route. Both stories were compelling, both
were possible, and the journey to replace a long held
(14:31):
belief with something new and contradictory is not an easy one.
I think that we faced this kind of crossroads many
times in life, and we you know, again, we're given
the choice between the safety of holding onto what we
know or the ambiguity of releasing what we thought we
(14:52):
knew and reaching for something a little more adequate, recognizing
that that that process is not a comfortable one. Robert
Niemeyer is a professor of psychology at the University of
Memphis and an authority on bereavement in grief. Well, of course,
this is a larger question that goes beyond grief and bereavement.
(15:14):
We can hold onto our own views, sometimes almost in
a kind of hostile stance of refusing to accept the
alternative story, and that's the path of defensiveness and sameness
and anger and resistance. But the other is the path
of grieving, may be coming to terms with the reality
(15:39):
of tragedy in life and the impermanence of love and
the ambiguity of of our position as human beings. Kim
let go of what she had believed, and it was
really painful. She told me that she felt as though
she was grieving Sandy's death all over again. For a family,
(16:01):
I understood the cost of changing their minds to accept
that Sandy had died by suicide required them to redefine
their understanding of her as a person and, by extension,
their relationship to her. It often, especially in the case
of traumatic loss, shakes up our assumptive world, as we
(16:23):
call it. That whole world of assumptions about how life
is or should be. Our sense of justice, our sense
of control, our sense of the reality we thought we
were living, or the reality of a loved one we
thought we knew, can be deeply unsettling, as we have
to essentially revise our life narrative, the story of who
(16:46):
we are and whose we are, in the context of
often a significant and and and soul shattering loss. The
dramatic thing for them, of course, is that they have
experienced the shattering of their narrative, their story, not once,
but twice, forty or four years apart. Robert explained to
(17:09):
me that grieving a suicide often brings up complicated feelings
for families, such as guilt and anger the failure to
protect or save that person, particularly if we are a parent,
particularly if we are an older sibling, where we feel
some duty of care toward this vulnerable person, and somehow
(17:31):
we missed the signals. We we didn't have the you know,
the deep understanding of what was happening for them at
the time that might have led us to make a difference.
All of that is denied us, and so we're left
with a struggle to realign the relationship with them, um
(17:51):
and to figure out how they fit into our lives. Now.
What I hope it brings though, is compassion of her
as the young woman she was attempting to move into
a life that had its own audacious and probably chaotic
and likely complicated dimensions. Ironically, they have ended up having
(18:19):
to sort out those complications for her in in a
proxy way as they attempt to make sense of her life,
maybe at a time that she herself could not making
sense of Sandy and the complications she was struggling with.
Is what I've tried to do with this podcast and
(18:41):
the complications in Sandy's life, they had something in common.
They all revolved around law enforcement, and so in a
way did her death, which I think is telling. I
found myself returning to a single page in Sandy's full
police file where Detective Shosholski cataloged the evidence in Sandy's
(19:03):
car and specifically the items sitting on her dashboard. The
items on her dash they all had to do with cops.
There was the duty rig for carrying police equipment, a
lone business card from a Pig County cop, clippings about
police officers, presumably from a local newspaper, and a card
showing the shift's schedule. I thought it was strange that
(19:27):
Sandy would store so many items, including a belt, on
her small dashboard. Wouldn't they fall down when she drove?
As I read and re read this list, picturing the scene,
I suddenly imagined Sandy placing the items there ceremoniously surrounding
herself with police paraphernilia to make a statement. I had
(19:49):
long been suspicious of the location of Sandy's death because
of who hung out there. But I could now see
how the pollard might have been a symbolic choice by Sandy. Doug,
the state trooper, the instructors and the Explorer program, and
the cops who called Shallski. I think a good many
of them hurt Sandy. They took advantage of her youthful passion,
(20:13):
her blind ambition, and her desire for acceptance. As she
wrote in her letter to Doug, I never want another
man to ever want me. I just want to leave
and forget the pain. Sandy was looking for love and
she found cruelty. The police they didn't have to murder
Sandy to be complicit in her death, and I think
(20:36):
they deserve some of the blame for the loss of
a teenage girl. I think there are people who know
exactly what happened to Sandy. They just don't want to
talk to me, And back then they didn't want to
talk to the Bills either. To me, this is the
tragic heart of the story. For all the questions, the
(20:58):
Bells had their people with answers, if any of the
police officers who knew Sandy had been brave enough to
talk to the Bells, if Prince George's County police had
launched a misconduct probe in the wake of Sandy's death
and been transparent with her family. And if anyone had
listened to the bills, really listened to what they had
(21:19):
to say, then maybe forty five years of doubt and
uncertainty might have been avoided. Maybe Sandy she could have
been put to rest. In the weeks and months after
(21:43):
we all gathered a main I reached out to the
Bells periodically to check in on how they were doing.
I was curious how they had processed the new information,
but I was also hyper aware that their capacity for
an interest in discussing Sandy's case with me was coming
to a close. Us My investigation had found answers, but
(22:04):
not the answers that they had necessarily wanted, since they
were somewhat let down, although they never missed an opportunity
to express gratitude for my work. Here's what Stephen had
to say when I called him one afternoon. I'm just
going on with with life, really, I mean kind of
going status quote. I mean, was suation normal? Um, that's
(22:30):
not it. I don't know what else to say. I
know myself, I've always saw it all along and we're
never going to really get to the bottom of it.
And it was nice as you know, trying to get
to where we got now, which was which is good.
But uh, just it's for me. I'm always going to
have questions and it's never gonna be really quite resolved
(22:55):
to my satisfaction. Kim's epiphany for meeting with Bernie, it
hadn't really changed anything for him. I had those gut
feelings when you know, when you just kind of know something,
you know what I mean, I'm looking at through jaded eyes. Maya,
I'm so jaded, you know, I need to look at
(23:16):
it through a different lens. Does that make any sense?
When I reached Michael, the oldest of the Bill brothers,
he agreed with Stephen and told me he still has
significant questions about the gun. So you still you still
believe that probably someone else does involved. Sure, I certainly do.
(23:38):
The police. Uh they're pretty good, you know, they can
they can dig sh it up, and they can they
can bury stuff. So I'm sure there's a lot of
stuff that's buried. No one's gonna know about it. Ronnie,
the youngest of the Bills, he just wanted to put
the whole thing behind him. He's getting married soon, starting
a new chapter of his life. If he doesn't want
(24:01):
to go there anymore, Like you said in the meeting,
he considers at the end of the road. I came
to understand through my conversations with the brothers that it
was very possible the family would be living with these
conflicting stories of Sandy's death and therefore her life forever,
(24:25):
and maybe that was all right. Well, we've seen over
and over now really twenty five years of search, the
majority of people are resilient to almost anything. George Banano
is a psychologist at Columbia University. His research focuses on
how human beings coped with bereavement, loss, and other potentially
(24:46):
traumatic events. You know, everybody's moved on and lived their lives,
you know, and it's now a person four decades in
the past who they loved or who they had complex
relationships with, and now they have a kind of a
a very complicated story about that person. But you know,
there's probably enough distance that they can probably say, Okay, well,
(25:09):
you know, we'll maybe hold both of these But you know,
I don't think it would be as crucial or as
critical and their wet to their well being to have
a clear picture anymore in a sense, the need to
have them reconciled as maybe long past. George's research has
found that most people possess a natural resilience to trauma
and loss. The person is able to, uh, you know, concentrate, laugh,
(25:33):
do what they need to do, um, take care of
people they love, and be cared for by people they love,
and they love them, you know, be close, have intimate interactions,
and they you know, they're able to experience joy, and
they're able to experience pain, and they're able to be
to think about other things, um and and they simply
continue on with their life. They don't forget the person.
(25:56):
They just you know, continue living the life in the present.
And if you think about it, I mean, beings have
been around for a long time and we've thrived all
over the planet, and we've always been able to keep
moving on and keep going. That's just human nature. Kim
(26:19):
has moved houses since she visited the Beals in Maine,
resettling in a country home halfway between Houston and Austin.
Being in the country has helped, she said. The blue
bonnets and wild flowers are out the trees outside her
house are over three years old. She keeps a photo
of Sandy on her desk, but she's put her files
(26:41):
about the case out of sight in a closet, still
close enough to access if she needs them, but not
lining the walls of her bedroom like they used to
Sandy's case. It's been a source of consistency in her
life for decades, something to focus her boundless energy on,
give her purpose, and now she considers it over. She's
(27:03):
let go for the most part. She has answers, though
she says she still needs to find closure. She wants
to go back to the Pollard and have a ceremony
there to say goodbye before the family meeting. One of
Kim's biggest concerns was disappointing Joanne. She feared that spending
(27:26):
all those years investigating the case had prolonged Joanne's pain
and stood in the way of healing. It's been a
long time, hasn't it fighting? It's a long time fighting it. Yeah,
So I'm I'm most concerned mostly about you. I've had
a few weeks to process it, and I'm still struggling
(27:47):
with it. So just grieving, you know, I know what
you mean. I was just telling I think it was Melissa,
that this might be the last sit in that I
might sit in. It depends on how I feel at
the time, you know, because it drums everything back up.
It's hard and it's hot, and that's why it is.
(28:14):
But the journey it had bonded the two women. I
got the sense that Joanne was profoundly touched by the
years that Kim had spent in service to Sandy. She
was trying to hold people accountable, and she had kept
Sandy's memory alive. We've come a long way with this.
You have dog and dog and dog and dog. There's
(28:37):
been many things that I have thought of and thought
of and and just like we all have questions, but
we'll probably never get all the answers. We've had a lot,
We've learned a lot. I understand why the bills still
(28:59):
have questions, because I do too. There's still so much
unknown about the network of police officers whose phone number
Sandy wrote down in her address books, police officers who
took her on ride alongs and drove her home at
night after hanging out at the FOP lodge. But I'm
pretty sure I know how she felt when she died.
(29:19):
Because she wrote about it. I've reread her note to
Dug many times, and what's clear is how alone, used
and powerless she felt. It's a stark reversal from where
she was when she began policing, described by her friends
and family as strong, ambitious, and secure. The main criticism
(29:39):
I've heard about my podcast is that it's anti cop,
that if a team girl was victimized in an Explorer
program that was in the nineties seventies and doesn't reflect
on what's happening now. But I want to tell you
about another Sandy. Sandra Burchmore died by suicide during the
pandemic while pregnant, allegedly with the child of a married
(30:02):
older cop who was an instructor in the Explorer program
she had attended. A misconduct probe launched in the wake
of her death has resulted in the resignation of one officer,
with two others placed unpaid leave. I think there are many,
many more Sandy's out there, girls and women who have
(30:23):
been sexualized, mistreated, and eaten up by a police culture
where masculinity reigns. Sandy wasn't an anomaly, Joanne. She still
has questions. She still hopes that Sandy Sheridan will come forward.
(30:44):
She still believes that Doug was in the pollard the
night Sandy died. She even had a dream about him
recently where she confronted him outside a courthouse and gave
him a piece of her mind. But ultimately she's come
to accept the possibility that Sandy died by suicide. She
thinks that Sandy was consumed by hurt and felt as
though she had no one to turn to, and she
(31:07):
blames the police for putting her daughter in this position.
Thinking back to when Sandy died, the worst part was
the not knowing, she said, having only the fragments of
Sandy's story and not being able to put them together
in a way that made any sense. Today, she's learned
how to live with them, not knowing, the lingering ambiguity,
(31:29):
the unanswered questions. She's found a way to put all
that to the side, diffuse it of its power. Maybe
she wasn't supposed to know everything, she said, It's just
how it is, and she's at peace. So anyway, it
was a hard time, and I don't know, we've been
(31:55):
through enough a lot in this family. I say the
Lord was good to me to give me a life
to live this long. I waited two pounds and three
ounces at birth. They told my mother and father I
wouldn't live twenty four hours. And here I am Eddie too.
Joanne hopes she'll see Sandy in heaven, but for now,
(32:19):
she's put the whole thing in a good place. She
needed to. She's a fighter, always has been, but it
was time for her to stop. Well, Honey, I've got
to let you go. Okay? What Happened to Sandy Beale
is hosted by Me Melissa Johnson. It's written and produced
(32:41):
by me and Katrina Norvell. The podcast is edited by
Aboo Safar, sound designed by Aaron Kaufman. Jason English is
our executive producer. Research and production assistance by Merissa Brown.
Special thanks to Duncan Radell, Bethan Macaluso, Nikki Etre, and
(33:02):
Pete Monica. To find out more about my investigation, follow
me on Twitter at quasimato. That's qu A s I
M A d o
Host
Melissa Jeltsen
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