March 9, 2022 • 48 mins
For more than forty years, Kim Parmer has been haunted by the prospect that someone murdered her cousin, Sandy Beal, in 1977. Award-winning reporter Melissa Jeltsen investigates the mysterious death of a teenage girl in Prince George's County, Maryland.
If you or someone you know is considering self-harm, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255, or text "STRENGTH" to Crisis Text Line at 741-741.
- The story that brought Kim to Melissa
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dot org slash iHeart before we begin Please note this
series includes talk of suicide and sexual violence. Please take
care while listening. Do you remember this letter? I think
(02:39):
I do. M H. When do you want me to start?
I'm writing to you to request the following information in
regards to the untimely, violent, and un and witnessed death
(03:00):
of my daughter, Santa An Beale. There's not a day
that goes by that I don't think of her. This
marks forty one years without her, with no answers. A
few years ago, Joanne Biale sent this letter to the
(03:22):
Maryland State Police. It was later given to me by
her distant cousin, who I've since gotten to know very well.
I'm a reporter who covers violence against women, and I
get a lot of tips about stories emails from people
who were desperate for a journalist to dig into what
they believed to be the greatest injustice of their lives.
(03:46):
When this letter came into my possession, I knew there
was something important about it. It's kind of weird in retrospect,
but I immediately began storing it next to my passport
alongside all my most important documents. This letter is the
reason why I found myself sitting beside Joanne in her
living room a year into the pandemic, talking about Sandy Well.
(04:11):
And I haven't gone over any of this because I
figured was starting new here. So we'll just go ahead
and throw out the questions and I'll give you what
I can for the answers. Joanne is eighty two and
lives in rural Maine now near the coast, in a
tidy house surrounded by wild blueberry fields. She's short and sturdy,
(04:34):
with thick white hair cropped around her ears, and shiny blue,
almost mischievous eyes. I come from a long line of short,
sturdy women, and I was immediately at ease talking to her.
These days, Joanne goes to church, shops for clothes, visits
with her family. Maine is where she grew up, the
(04:55):
place her family is from, but back in the seventies
she lived seat Pleasant, Maryland in Prince George's County with
her husband, Ronald, and their four kids, Sandy, Michael, Stephen,
and Ronnie. I kept Ronnie home from school that day
because he had a sore throat, and he didn't you know.
(05:16):
And that's when the detective came to the door and
told me what happened. He said, I've got some news
that I don't think the little fellow should know. He said,
could you send him to your neighbors, And so he
proceeded to tell me where they found her in this poleyard.
(05:42):
On the morning of February eleventh, nineteen seventy seven, Frank
Middleton arrived at a utility poleyard about twenty minutes away
from Joanne's home. To give you some context, poleyards are
where energy companies store those tall wooden poles that are
used to support power lines. This yard was in a
somewhat secluded spot off the highway and surrounded by woods,
(06:04):
which is why it was odd that there was a
car parked in the lot when Frank arrived around nine am.
And this fella had gone to work and found heer,
and he thought she was asleep until he walked up
to the car and noticed that her glasses were up here,
and she was dis arrayed, and he knew that she
(06:24):
was gone. Sandy's car, a nineteen seventy one blue Ford Pinto,
appeared to be stuck in the mud. Cardboard had been
shoved under all four tires, and there were tire tracks
all around her car, like she had been trying to
drive away. Sandy was in the driver's seat with her
keys still in the ignition. She had been shot in
(06:48):
the right side of her abdomen, with an exit wound
on the left side of her back. She was eighteen
years old, just a month shy of her nineteenth birthday.
You know, I asked that detective. I said, why wasn't
Ronald and I called to identify her? He said, but
(07:10):
there was three policemen there that knew who she was.
And I said, well, isn't that lovely? I'd like to
know who the three cops were at the scene, because
when that detective told me that, I was furious that
(07:32):
we were not called immediately to claim her in any way,
shape or fall. We didn't get a chance to see
her until she was in the funeral Palla. I've never
gotten over that, and I was really rip shit about that.
(07:56):
Just a few hours after Sandy's body was discovered, Joanne
knock at the door. A detective told her that Sandy
was dead and that it appeared she had taken her
own life. In the short time between finding Sandy's body
and notifying her family, the cops had already developed a
working theory Sandy had died by suicide. I didn't take
(08:18):
any of that crap because I could tell that they
were hiding something. I said, you know something, you can
put any damn thing you want. Now, that doesn't mean
it happened that way. And I said, you'll never make
me and my family and my friends believe that. So
(08:39):
I said, get the hell out of my house. And
I wasn't very nice Tom, because I think they were
stunk in us all the way around. From iHeartRadio. I'm
Melissa Jelson, and this is what happened to Sandy Beale
An iHeart original podcast, Chapter one, The Girl in the Poleyard.
(09:07):
This is Michael. Yes, Hi Michael. This is Stephen. Hi, Stephen,
how you going to hunt? Hi? Hi? Yes. I wanted
to meet with the Bial family as a whole to
learn more about Sandy. When we first sat down, I
didn't really know anything about Sandy's case except for what
was in Joanne's letter. But I soon learned that the
(09:29):
entire Bial family shared Joanne's suspicions. None of them believed
Sandy had died by suicide, not back then and not now.
I met them at Michael's house in the summer of
twenty twenty one to give you a quick sketch of
the family tree. Sandy was born first, then a year
later Michael, then Stephen. A year and a half after that,
(09:52):
Bang bang bang, as Joanne described it, six years later,
baby Ronnie was born. Joanne later asked her husband ron
to get a vasectomy. All three of Sandy's brothers live
in Maine, within the thirty minute drive of Joanne. Still,
it's rare for them to get together to talk about Sandy.
What do we hope to gain from all of this?
(10:15):
I mean, I think that is a question everyone might have.
I'd love to hear your own answers for it. Well, personally,
I have no expectations. These are people that's waiting on
the seams of time to run out on us. I
don't expect anybody it's going to serve it a day
in jail, not even five minutes. That Sandy's youngest brother, Ronnie,
(10:36):
he was only nine when Sandy died, with almost a
decade between them and age. They had a special relationship.
Sandy doated on Ronnie, buying him presents and indulging him
in games. In turn, he idolized her. Now Ronnie is
in his early fifties, and he told me his recollections
(10:57):
of her were beginning to fade. She was wickedsmall. I mean,
you know, she can do anything she wanted to, mars
nose got always got good grades, dude, didn't you. Yeah.
That's Stephen, Sandy's middle brother. He's sixty and runs a
printing press for the local newspaper. In his spare time,
he plays the drums, though he's had a hard time
finding bandmates who want to play heavy metal. When he
(11:19):
thinks back to his time with Sandy, he remembers himself
as a typical, annoying younger brother, always butting heads with her.
It's something that pains him now that wasted time spent fighting. Yeah. Yeah,
always look at her as you know, the big sister
(11:40):
is you know, was, which is kind of weird. I
mean because Sandy he was she was no. Five fives,
Oh my god. Yeah, but the mental image is larger
than life. Yes, Sandy seemed to get along, okay, I
mean she for whatever reason, you know she I don't
recall of her getting picked on or whatever during that
(12:03):
time frame. But then again, she'd regularly kick my ass anyway,
So lots of people I spoke to about Sandy mentioned
this element of her personality. She was plucky, tough, and
Sandy's toughness was an asset in her community. Prince George's County,
where the Beals lived, is located just outside of Washington,
(12:26):
d C. If you're in downtown d C, all you
have to do is drive east along Pennsylvania Avenue and
you'll eventually cross into PG County. Keep driving for about
twenty minutes and you'll find yourself at the Bell's former
house in seat Pleasant. A white, lower middle class family,
the Beals lived in a modest home in a less
than desirable part of town. The family described the neighborhood
(12:50):
as sometimes chaotic. Crime and poverty were concerns for residents
of Seat Pleasant, and you had to keep your wits
about you, they explained. Joanne stayed home with the four kids,
and Ronald supported the family working as a long haul
trucker and doing construction. He was often away from home
and money was pretty tight. He had two jobs. Sometimes
(13:13):
he went out and he had the long haul and
the other job was construction. So he was pretty busy,
and so he did the work. He paid the bills.
I was to go grocery shopping, and I was taking
care of the kids in the home, and that was it. Sandy,
an outgoing girl with a knack for making friends, navigated
(13:36):
the streets of seat Pleasant with relative ease. But make
no mistakes, she would not suffer somebody being wrong to
her or messing with her. And then you know, she was,
you know, very smart, very pristine in her own way.
But you know, she was very fierce, I guess was
the best way to put it. She didn't like me
(13:58):
trying to braid her hair. She hated that even when
a little girl. And I was so happy because I
had a little girl. I could breage, you know, and
she'd take it out and I'd take it back, and
so after a while I just let it be straggling.
She was a queen. She was the oldest, and she
lets you know about it. She was the boss. We
(14:19):
all shared one room, but Sandy had her own room,
and no one was loud in her room but her
unless you had special permission to get in there. That's Michael,
Sandy's oldest brother and the sibling who was closest to her.
He's in his early sixties now and lives near the
coast with his wife Becky. When you get to know Michael,
he has a really gentle demeanor, but from the outside
(14:41):
he looks tough, like the kind of guy whose foot
you wouldn't want to accidentally step on in a bar.
I do remember she like an easy bake oven, and
we used to make a bunch of junk and eat it.
And she had a makeup mirror, and you know, different
things as you know as a young girl, stuff like that.
We really seldom ever thought about anything. I mean, we
(15:04):
were just really connected. And actually when we were I
think I was fifteen or so, she might have been sixteen,
is when we found out she was actually adopted. Joanne
got pregnant with Sandy Young around her eighteenth birthday. Sandy's
biological father wasn't interested in becoming a dad, but Ronald,
(15:26):
a suitor of Joanne's who should written letters to while
he was deployed overseas, was up for the task. He
married Joanne when she was eight months pregnant and raised
Sandy as his own child. When my mom told us then,
I was like, at first, I didn't believe it. I
was like, what are you kid me? All this time
my dad treated everybody equal and then after that when
(15:48):
I found that out, I was just even more in
love with her as a sister type. You know, it's
like wow. She asked a lot of questions like what
happened and why and different things like that, but the
answers she got were it was enough to satisfy her
as like, Okay, well, I mean, you know, I'm never
(16:10):
going to stop loving my dad. And you know, whether
or not he's my real dad or not, he's He's
always been my dad and he always will be my dad.
So I think we kind of got tighter. If anything,
We've been through a lot in this family. I say,
the Good Lord was good to me to give me
a life to live this long. We know what we've
(16:34):
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true crime podcast. The year is eighteen hundred, City Hall,
New York. The first murder trial in the American judicial system,
A messas trial for the charge of murder. Even with
(17:59):
defense lawyer Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr on the case,
this is probably the most famous trial you've never heard of.
When you lay suffering a sudden, violent, brutal death, I
hope you'll think of me, Starring Alison Williams. I don't
need anything simplified, mister Hamilton, Thank you, with Tony Goldwyn
(18:19):
as Alexander Hamilton. Don't be so sad, It doesn't suit you.
Written and created by me Alison Black. Listen to Erase
the Murder of Elma San's. She was a sweet, happy,
virtuous girl until she met that man. Right there on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to
(18:42):
your podcasts. When Tracy were kel Burns was two years old,
her baby brother died. I was told that Matthew died
in an accident, and no one really talked about it.
Her parents told police she had killed him. Medical rect
it s faid that I killed my baby brother. I'm
(19:07):
Nancy Glass. Join me for Burden of Guilt, the new
podcast that tells the truth. An incredible story of a
toddler who was framed for murder and how she grew
into an adult determined to get justice and protect her family.
While we had prosecuted some cold cases, this was the coldest.
(19:28):
This was frigid. But how does a two year old
get blamed for murder? She said? We wanted a new life.
You just don't know what it's like when you'll do
anything for somebody. Listen to Burden of Guilt on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
(19:53):
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at CuriosityStream dot com. For over forty years, the Beal
(20:59):
family has believed that Sandy was a victim of a
violent crime, a belief fueled by the suspicion that her
death was covered up. Here's Stephen. The guilty carry around
over time that shit turns with fucking anger. You pissed,
you son of a bit. She stole from me, You
(21:19):
stole my family said. Put that category unforgivable shit. Sandy's
sudden death was disorienting to her family. She lived at
home and her family saw her every day. They were
intimately familiar with her behaviors, her moods, and her values.
(21:40):
The Sandy they knew was optimistic and ambitious, and, like
many teen girls her age, eager for her real life,
her adult life to begin. She was popular, she worked
part time at the mall. She didn't appear depressed or
withdrawn or hopeless. Suicide it didn't align with her personality.
(22:07):
And again, she had being you know, as passionate as
she wasn't fierce as she was. I just would not
have thought that she would want to do something like that.
You know, I just never got could not wrap my
fucking head around her doing it. Suicide seemed completely out
of character for Sandy, and the crime scene, instead of
(22:29):
bringing closure, just raised more questions. Police said, Sandy had
shot herself in the right side of her abdomen, but
the teen was left handed. The family told me how
they tried to put themselves in Sandy's shoes, imagining how
she would have shot herself sitting in the front seat
(22:50):
of her subcompact Flord Pinto with a steering wheel in
front of her chest. The gun would have been too
heavy for Sandy to hold and fire with her non
dominant right hand. Instead, she would have had to reach
across her body with her left hand to aim the
gun at her right side. It seemed like a clumsy
(23:11):
way to shoot oneself. When I was told what was happening,
what had happened, I was like, it's no way, It's
just no way. It's it's going to be. I couldn't
leave it. Michael was familiar with the gun found in
Sandy's car. In fact, all the kids in the Beal
family knew about the gun. It was owned by Sandy's father.
(23:34):
It was an eight inch long barrel, chrome black handle
black Hawk model, very nice looking gun. And like I said,
it was long, and it was always loaded with hollow
point bullets. It was actually white something to shoot. It
was so powerful that when I first shot it, I
(23:58):
had to hold it with both hand ans because I
didn't know what to expect out of it. It was
because of their strong familiarity with the gun and it's large,
cumbersome quality that the balls were convinced Sandy could not
have used it on herself. It's got a lot that
those three fifty seven forty four's, you know, they have
(24:19):
a lot of recoil, a lot of largest handguns you're
gonna get. Yeah, I think Dirty Harry Madnum, you know
the old movies like that he pulls out that it's
about that length gun recoiled with a senate flying. Yeah. Yeah,
it's his physics. Her left hand would have never gone
over that far to be able to do that, and
the unbelievable part about her committing suicide was just too
(24:42):
far out. The family also thought the location of the
wound was strange. Why would someone intent on suicide shoot
themselves off center in the stomach and as small as
she was in the in the size of that gun
on her not dominant hand would have would have been
(25:03):
really hard. I mean, if that's what you plan on doing,
was killing yourself, that was certainly you know, why don't
you just slowly walk through a fire and see if
you'll eventually, you know, burn a death. We don't know
why Sandy had her father's gun with her that evening,
(25:26):
but her family is convinced that whatever she was doing,
she wasn't alone. When the Bells got her clothes back
from police, they noticed that she dressed up nicely, wearing
brown gaucho slacks, a white blouse, and calf high black
suede boots that her mom had given her for Christmas.
Sandy's nails were recently manicured, painted with pale pearlyized nail polish.
(25:51):
To the family, her choice of outfit suggested she was
meeting someone that night, who else they wanted to know
could have been in the Pollyard with Sandy. Here's what
they think happened. Sandy was shot by someone else sitting
beside her in the passenger seat. This would explain the
(26:12):
location of the gunshot and the trajectory of the bullet
from the right side of Sandy's abdomen to the left
side of her back. It was the cardboard found under
the wheels of Sandy's car that solidified their doubts. The
cardboard told a story of a girl who was trying
to leave the Pollyard that night, not one intent on suicide.
(26:40):
A brand new historical true crime podcast. The year is
eighteen hundred, City Hall, New York. The first murder trial
in the American judicial system. A mess trial for the
charge of murder, even with defense lawyers Alexander Hamilton and
Erringburr on the case. This is probably the most famous
trial you never heard of. When you lay suffering a sudden, violent,
(27:04):
brutal death, I hope you'll think of me. Starring Alison Williams.
I don't need anything simplified, mister Hamilton, Thank you, with
Tony Goldwyn as Alexander Hamilton. Don't be so sad, It
doesn't suit you. Written and created by me. Alison Black
listened to Erased the murder of Elma San's. She was
(27:26):
a sweet, happy, virtueous girl until she met that man
right there on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever
you listen to your podcasts. When Tracy were kel Burns
was two years old, her baby brother died. I was
told that Matthew died in an accident, and no one
(27:48):
really talked about it. Her parents told police she had
killed him. Medical records said that I killed my baby brother.
I'm Nancy Glass. Join me for Burden of Guilt, the
new podcast that tells the truth an incredible story of
(28:08):
a toddler who was framed for murder and how she
grew into an adult determined to get justice and protect
her family. While we had prosecuted some cold cases, this
was the coldest, This was frigid. But how does a
two year old get blamed for murder? She said? We
(28:28):
wanted a new life. You just don't know what it's
like when you'll do anything for somebody. Listen to Burden
of Guilt on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts. I noticed Jacob is not in
(28:50):
his crib, so I look in and says she's not there.
So I'm like, Okay, they're not there. Unrestorable is a
new true crime podcast that investigates the case of Catherine Hoggle,
a mother accused of murder. I'm thinking, you know, like
what's going on, Like this is insane, Like where are
my kids? Despite signs that Catherine Hoggle took her tiny
(29:13):
children one by one into the night, never to come
home again, she has yet to stand trial. Because soon
after her children went missing, she was declared incompetent to
stand trial. We have a blueprint to get away with
murder and stay of Maryland. At this point in Maryland,
if a defendant is found incompetent and can't be restored
to competency, their felony charges are dismissed after five years. So,
(29:37):
as the clock counts down, Catherine's charges on the verge
of being dismissed. What does justice look like in this case?
There's something's wrong her, you know, whenever one was allowed
to kill my two kids. Listen to Unrestorable on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts,
(29:57):
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(31:24):
My name is Kim Parler. I am a second cousin
of Sandy Beale, and we are in the home of
where the origin of all of our family began, in
John's Port, Maine. I met Kim at a hotel just
up the street from Joanne's house. Kim is a licensed
therapist and it comes through in the way she communicates.
(31:48):
She makes good eye contact and speaks carefully, with kindness
and warmth. She's the type of person who makes you
feel like you could tell her anything and she'd never
judge you. Is Kim now sixty four, lives in Texas
and she's got a solid tan to show for it,
But she comes to Maine, the place of her birth,
(32:08):
whenever she can to see the beills. Sandy has a
grave marker here too, and she visits it when she can.
So this is a map of just Prince George's county
in the area where she lived. And based on all
the information that I have of her date books or
letters or anything that had an address on it or
(32:30):
that I could identify, I plotted it onto the map.
Where she lived, where she went to school, where she died,
where she worked. This was just her little world. Kim
showed me the materials she's gathered over the years, medical records,
court documents, freedom of Information Act requests, spreading them out
(32:52):
on a hotel bed for me to look through. She's
the detective of the family, inquisitive, diligent, and fixated on
this idea of justice. Joanne and I just stayed in
touch intermittently over the years, and they started sending me stuff.
I was asking so many questions. They're like, here, just
(33:13):
take it, and so that's you know, these files of
stuff that I have now. Kim is the entire reason
why I started looking into the story, why I learned
the name Sandy Beale in the first place. She's the
one who gave me Joanne's letter, and I just learned
to keep Sandy's summary with me. I carried it with
(33:34):
me all the time, so if I ever met anyone,
an investigator or whatever, I just passed them out. I
first met Kim at a domestic violence conference in Texas.
I was there to moderate a panel with Lorraina Bobbitt,
whose experience of domestic abuse and marital rape had been
badly overshadowed by the act that had made her infamous.
(33:54):
If you don't know her story, I encourage you to
look it up. Something I said that night must have
resen with Kim, because immediately after the panel she approached me.
Remember going up to you afterwards and almost running up
there and trying to get there before other people because
I knew you were going to get bombarded with people
asking questions, and I thought, well, who knows, maybe she
(34:15):
would find this intriguing. I did. As a reporter, I've
written more stories than I can count about women who
have died violent deaths, and I've spent time with their
families as they've begun the grieving process. But usually those
cases had answers, however unsatisfying, they might feel. This was
a true mystery, one that had persisted for over four decades.
(34:38):
The Beal family was stuck in the unknown. I kept
finding myself looking at a photo of Sandy that Kim
gave me along with Joanne's letter. It's a black and
white portrait Sandy's high school graduation photo. She has long, blonde,
feathered hair with a middle part that makes you think
(34:59):
a fair faucet. Her mouth is poised into a half smile,
and she stares off camera like something in the background
amuses her. Almost everyone I spoke to about Sandy mentioned
how pretty she was, especially her long blonde hair, and
while she got attention for her looks, it didn't seem
(35:20):
to give her a big head. She was just genuinely
nice and friendly to those around her. That's the Sandy
Kim remembers. We didn't meet until we were fourteen. The
two girls were only six months apart, and their friendship
was a defining one. And we headed off and went
back to her bedroom like teenagers do, and we sat
(35:42):
on her bed and we just started talking and just
loved her from the start. Kim and Sandy met for
the first time shortly after Kim moved to Maryland to
(36:05):
a neighborhood about an hour from the Beals. The two
girls spent their early teenage years going back and forth
to each other's houses and trading worlds. Living in Maryland
was you know, you would think that it's this preppy,
kind of wonderful place with Annapolis and preppy clothes and everything.
But I look back now and those are some of
(36:26):
the most traumatic, scariest times of my life, the thanks
I got exposed to it at that age. While Kim
was technically older by a few months, Sandy often played
the role of protector. And I'm like trying to avoid
it right now because i don't want to cry, but
I'm going to Okay. So at fourteen, I'm in this
(36:55):
new school and it was exciting and everything, and that
I had to come pick me up one night because
I was at a friend's house at a playground in
the middle of a cult a sac and I'm just
like waiting for my mom and this guy walks up
and I recognize him because he's on the football team.
(37:15):
He's a senior on the football team. And I, to
this date don't know how it unfolded, but before I
knew it, he had his hands down my pants and
I just remember freezing. I mean, I hadn't even been
kissed yet by a boy at all, and I'm thinking
all these people they're looking out their windows watching this
(37:37):
guy do this to me, and I just dissociated. And
so that weekend I went to go see Sandy and
I was telling her about it, and I was really
upset about it, and she got pissed and she's like,
I'm going to take care of this for you. Kim
told me that a few days later, Sandy appeared out
of the blue. She had driven an hour to Kim's
(37:58):
neighborhood to confront the football player who sexually assaulted Kim.
Sandy was ready for a fight, but he was nowhere
to be found. It didn't matter to Kim, though, the
fact that Sandy showed up for her it was enough
That's the part that I remember the most, and I'm
just I never had been around anybody like that that
(38:19):
protected me like that. I knew she was going to
take care of me. It was a very short relationship
because she lost her life A few years later. Kim
left Maryland to go to college in Illinois while Sandy
was still in high school. The distance led the two
(38:41):
girls to fall out of frequent contact. Still, after police
found Sandy's body, Kim was one of the first people
that joined called to let her know what had happened.
I just remember getting that call from Joanne that Sandy
had died, and I just remember being shocked and like,
what do you mean? You know? Eighteen year olds don't
(39:02):
die from a gunshot wound. Kim tried desperately to get
back to Maryland for the funeral, but couldn't afford the journey.
I remember looking into the flights and they were way
too expensive. So I looked into the train, but it
was ninety dollars from Chicago to Washington, DC, and it
it could have just been ten thousand. I didn't have it.
(39:23):
She missed the funeral but kept in regular contact with Joanne.
She died on the eleventh on a Friday, very early
in the morning. But she had gone out the tenth
Thursday night, so something happened like right at midnight. She
was probably alone for eight or nine hours, hurting and
(39:44):
shot and dark. She had to be scared to death.
That should not happen to anybody. Joanne was notified of
sand Andy's death when a detective came to her house.
He asked if she and her husband, Ronald could come
(40:05):
to the precinct later that day see when he came
in to tell us and tell me what happened. He said,
when your husband gets home, will you guys come over
to the barracks. And everything was laid out on the table.
Sandy's personal belongings, items collected from her car were spread
(40:27):
out like evidence for her parents to see. And among
her things was a letter. It was written to a
man named Doug and addressed to his place of work,
the Maryland State Police Department. He had a uniform on.
He gave her a sweet talk and now it went
to the surprise of her family, Sandy was in a relationship.
(40:51):
Doug was ten years older than her and married with
a young child. This discovery agitated Sandy's grieving parents and
left them with a slew of questions. But at the precinct,
Joanne and Ronald were left with the impression that the
investigation was basically complete, no more answers would be forthcoming.
It's common for police to speak with the boyfriend in
(41:13):
unnatural deaths such as this. When women are murdered, it's
far more likely to be at the hands of a
husband or boyfriend than anyone else. But as far as
Joanne knew, Doug, the State trooper, was never interviewed in
the course of the investigation, which seemed particularly odd when
you consider the location of Sandy's death. The Pepco utility
(41:36):
yard was only a mile down the road from the
State Police barracks where Doug worked, and as the family
soon learned, the pole yard was a popular state trooper hangout.
And then the place where she died. That was the
most revealing to see that literally they're across the street
from each other, the Maryland State Police barracks of the
(41:56):
man that she was dating, and then the place that
she died that was a well known place where police
gathered to you know, I guess have privacy for whatever reason.
How police do their jobs in the aftermath of an
(42:17):
unexpected death can have a profound and lasting impact on
the families of victims. Sandy's death was a defining moment
for the Beial family, but what came next, What they
feel was an absence of a proper investigation compounded their
trauma without confidence in the police that Beial family suspected
(42:38):
a conspiracy. A guide for investigators published by the Department
of Justice in nineteen ninety nine explains how essential it
is to ensure that the proper steps and procedures are
taken at the scene of a death. Quote. Few things
in our democracy are as important as ensuring that citizens
(42:59):
have confidence in their institutions in a crisis. For many individuals,
the death of a loved one is just such a crisis.
I wanted to understand how the Beal family and the
police could have such starkly different interpretations of the same events.
This chasm, I felt deserved scrutiny. One thing I was
(43:23):
sure of the Beal family, even after forty five years,
was adamant that there was something suspicious about Sandy's death,
and because of that they had endured decades of uncertainty,
and to be honest, I sensed it too. I thought
it was strange that Sandy was shot in the stomach,
and I questioned whether she would have been able to
(43:43):
kill herself the way cop said she did. It seemed
like there was more to Sandy's story than her family
knew after so many years. I didn't know what kind
of answers I'd find, But tucked away in the tattered
stack of papers Kim collect did we're clues to Sandy's past,
Clues that offered me a rare glimpse into Sandy's private life,
(44:08):
clues written by Sandy herself, if she hadn't written that
damn note to shiphead. On our next episode, we learn
(44:28):
about Doug and his relationship with Sandy, and I speak
to the detective in charge of Sandy's case. I would
compare my skills as a homicide detectas against anybody in
the world. Scotland Yard, New York City, anywhere Fred affel Lander,
(44:49):
their loaded rhythm, anywhere you go, there's nobody, there's nobody
any better. It turns out he had a lot to say.
What Happened to Sandy Beal is hosted by me Melissa Jelson.
(45:11):
It's written and produced by me and Katrina Norvel. The
podcast is edited by Abu Safar, sound designed by Aaron Kaufman.
Jason English is our executive producer. Research and production assistance
by Marisa Brown. To find out more about my investigation,
follow me on Twitter at Quasamado. That's qu as im
(45:32):
A d O. Thanks so much for listening. A brand
new historical true crime podcast. When you lay suffering a
sudden brutal death starring Alison william I hope you'll think
of me. Erased the Murder of Elvia Sahans. She was
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right there. Written and created by me, Alison Flock. Is
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with Moroka on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
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dot org slash iHeart before we begin Please note this
series includes talk of suicide and sexual violence. Please take
care while listening. Do you remember this letter? I think
(02:39):
I do. M H. When do you want me to start?
I'm writing to you to request the following information in
regards to the untimely, violent, and un and witnessed death
(03:00):
of my daughter, Santa An Beale. There's not a day
that goes by that I don't think of her. This
marks forty one years without her, with no answers. A
few years ago, Joanne Biale sent this letter to the
(03:22):
Maryland State Police. It was later given to me by
her distant cousin, who I've since gotten to know very well.
I'm a reporter who covers violence against women, and I
get a lot of tips about stories emails from people
who were desperate for a journalist to dig into what
they believed to be the greatest injustice of their lives.
(03:46):
When this letter came into my possession, I knew there
was something important about it. It's kind of weird in retrospect,
but I immediately began storing it next to my passport
alongside all my most important documents. This letter is the
reason why I found myself sitting beside Joanne in her
living room a year into the pandemic, talking about Sandy Well.
(04:11):
And I haven't gone over any of this because I
figured was starting new here. So we'll just go ahead
and throw out the questions and I'll give you what
I can for the answers. Joanne is eighty two and
lives in rural Maine now near the coast, in a
tidy house surrounded by wild blueberry fields. She's short and sturdy,
(04:34):
with thick white hair cropped around her ears, and shiny blue,
almost mischievous eyes. I come from a long line of short,
sturdy women, and I was immediately at ease talking to her.
These days, Joanne goes to church, shops for clothes, visits
with her family. Maine is where she grew up, the
(04:55):
place her family is from, but back in the seventies
she lived seat Pleasant, Maryland in Prince George's County with
her husband, Ronald, and their four kids, Sandy, Michael, Stephen,
and Ronnie. I kept Ronnie home from school that day
because he had a sore throat, and he didn't you know.
(05:16):
And that's when the detective came to the door and
told me what happened. He said, I've got some news
that I don't think the little fellow should know. He said,
could you send him to your neighbors, And so he
proceeded to tell me where they found her in this poleyard.
(05:42):
On the morning of February eleventh, nineteen seventy seven, Frank
Middleton arrived at a utility poleyard about twenty minutes away
from Joanne's home. To give you some context, poleyards are
where energy companies store those tall wooden poles that are
used to support power lines. This yard was in a
somewhat secluded spot off the highway and surrounded by woods,
(06:04):
which is why it was odd that there was a
car parked in the lot when Frank arrived around nine am.
And this fella had gone to work and found heer,
and he thought she was asleep until he walked up
to the car and noticed that her glasses were up here,
and she was dis arrayed, and he knew that she
(06:24):
was gone. Sandy's car, a nineteen seventy one blue Ford Pinto,
appeared to be stuck in the mud. Cardboard had been
shoved under all four tires, and there were tire tracks
all around her car, like she had been trying to
drive away. Sandy was in the driver's seat with her
keys still in the ignition. She had been shot in
(06:48):
the right side of her abdomen, with an exit wound
on the left side of her back. She was eighteen
years old, just a month shy of her nineteenth birthday.
You know, I asked that detective. I said, why wasn't
Ronald and I called to identify her? He said, but
(07:10):
there was three policemen there that knew who she was.
And I said, well, isn't that lovely? I'd like to
know who the three cops were at the scene, because
when that detective told me that, I was furious that
(07:32):
we were not called immediately to claim her in any way,
shape or fall. We didn't get a chance to see
her until she was in the funeral Palla. I've never
gotten over that, and I was really rip shit about that.
(07:56):
Just a few hours after Sandy's body was discovered, Joanne
knock at the door. A detective told her that Sandy
was dead and that it appeared she had taken her
own life. In the short time between finding Sandy's body
and notifying her family, the cops had already developed a
working theory Sandy had died by suicide. I didn't take
(08:18):
any of that crap because I could tell that they
were hiding something. I said, you know something, you can
put any damn thing you want. Now, that doesn't mean
it happened that way. And I said, you'll never make
me and my family and my friends believe that. So
(08:39):
I said, get the hell out of my house. And
I wasn't very nice Tom, because I think they were
stunk in us all the way around. From iHeartRadio. I'm
Melissa Jelson, and this is what happened to Sandy Beale
An iHeart original podcast, Chapter one, The Girl in the Poleyard.
(09:07):
This is Michael. Yes, Hi Michael. This is Stephen. Hi, Stephen,
how you going to hunt? Hi? Hi? Yes. I wanted
to meet with the Bial family as a whole to
learn more about Sandy. When we first sat down, I
didn't really know anything about Sandy's case except for what
was in Joanne's letter. But I soon learned that the
(09:29):
entire Bial family shared Joanne's suspicions. None of them believed
Sandy had died by suicide, not back then and not now.
I met them at Michael's house in the summer of
twenty twenty one to give you a quick sketch of
the family tree. Sandy was born first, then a year
later Michael, then Stephen. A year and a half after that,
(09:52):
Bang bang bang, as Joanne described it, six years later,
baby Ronnie was born. Joanne later asked her husband ron
to get a vasectomy. All three of Sandy's brothers live
in Maine, within the thirty minute drive of Joanne. Still,
it's rare for them to get together to talk about Sandy.
What do we hope to gain from all of this?
(10:15):
I mean, I think that is a question everyone might have.
I'd love to hear your own answers for it. Well, personally,
I have no expectations. These are people that's waiting on
the seams of time to run out on us. I
don't expect anybody it's going to serve it a day
in jail, not even five minutes. That Sandy's youngest brother, Ronnie,
(10:36):
he was only nine when Sandy died, with almost a
decade between them and age. They had a special relationship.
Sandy doated on Ronnie, buying him presents and indulging him
in games. In turn, he idolized her. Now Ronnie is
in his early fifties, and he told me his recollections
(10:57):
of her were beginning to fade. She was wickedsmall. I mean,
you know, she can do anything she wanted to, mars
nose got always got good grades, dude, didn't you. Yeah.
That's Stephen, Sandy's middle brother. He's sixty and runs a
printing press for the local newspaper. In his spare time,
he plays the drums, though he's had a hard time
finding bandmates who want to play heavy metal. When he
(11:19):
thinks back to his time with Sandy, he remembers himself
as a typical, annoying younger brother, always butting heads with her.
It's something that pains him now that wasted time spent fighting. Yeah. Yeah,
always look at her as you know, the big sister
(11:40):
is you know, was, which is kind of weird. I
mean because Sandy he was she was no. Five fives,
Oh my god. Yeah, but the mental image is larger
than life. Yes, Sandy seemed to get along, okay, I
mean she for whatever reason, you know she I don't
recall of her getting picked on or whatever during that
(12:03):
time frame. But then again, she'd regularly kick my ass anyway,
So lots of people I spoke to about Sandy mentioned
this element of her personality. She was plucky, tough, and
Sandy's toughness was an asset in her community. Prince George's County,
where the Beals lived, is located just outside of Washington,
(12:26):
d C. If you're in downtown d C, all you
have to do is drive east along Pennsylvania Avenue and
you'll eventually cross into PG County. Keep driving for about
twenty minutes and you'll find yourself at the Bell's former
house in seat Pleasant. A white, lower middle class family,
the Beals lived in a modest home in a less
than desirable part of town. The family described the neighborhood
(12:50):
as sometimes chaotic. Crime and poverty were concerns for residents
of Seat Pleasant, and you had to keep your wits
about you, they explained. Joanne stayed home with the four kids,
and Ronald supported the family working as a long haul
trucker and doing construction. He was often away from home
and money was pretty tight. He had two jobs. Sometimes
(13:13):
he went out and he had the long haul and
the other job was construction. So he was pretty busy,
and so he did the work. He paid the bills.
I was to go grocery shopping, and I was taking
care of the kids in the home, and that was it. Sandy,
an outgoing girl with a knack for making friends, navigated
(13:36):
the streets of seat Pleasant with relative ease. But make
no mistakes, she would not suffer somebody being wrong to
her or messing with her. And then you know, she was,
you know, very smart, very pristine in her own way.
But you know, she was very fierce, I guess was
the best way to put it. She didn't like me
(13:58):
trying to braid her hair. She hated that even when
a little girl. And I was so happy because I
had a little girl. I could breage, you know, and
she'd take it out and I'd take it back, and
so after a while I just let it be straggling.
She was a queen. She was the oldest, and she
lets you know about it. She was the boss. We
(14:19):
all shared one room, but Sandy had her own room,
and no one was loud in her room but her
unless you had special permission to get in there. That's Michael,
Sandy's oldest brother and the sibling who was closest to her.
He's in his early sixties now and lives near the
coast with his wife Becky. When you get to know Michael,
he has a really gentle demeanor, but from the outside
(14:41):
he looks tough, like the kind of guy whose foot
you wouldn't want to accidentally step on in a bar.
I do remember she like an easy bake oven, and
we used to make a bunch of junk and eat it.
And she had a makeup mirror, and you know, different
things as you know as a young girl, stuff like that.
We really seldom ever thought about anything. I mean, we
(15:04):
were just really connected. And actually when we were I
think I was fifteen or so, she might have been sixteen,
is when we found out she was actually adopted. Joanne
got pregnant with Sandy Young around her eighteenth birthday. Sandy's
biological father wasn't interested in becoming a dad, but Ronald,
(15:26):
a suitor of Joanne's who should written letters to while
he was deployed overseas, was up for the task. He
married Joanne when she was eight months pregnant and raised
Sandy as his own child. When my mom told us then,
I was like, at first, I didn't believe it. I
was like, what are you kid me? All this time
my dad treated everybody equal and then after that when
(15:48):
I found that out, I was just even more in
love with her as a sister type. You know, it's
like wow. She asked a lot of questions like what
happened and why and different things like that, but the
answers she got were it was enough to satisfy her
as like, Okay, well, I mean, you know, I'm never
(16:10):
going to stop loving my dad. And you know, whether
or not he's my real dad or not, he's He's
always been my dad and he always will be my dad.
So I think we kind of got tighter. If anything,
We've been through a lot in this family. I say,
the Good Lord was good to me to give me
a life to live this long. We know what we've
(16:34):
been through and it's been helped. I hope they we
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LifeLock Identity Theft Protection starts here. A brand new historical
true crime podcast. The year is eighteen hundred, City Hall,
New York. The first murder trial in the American judicial system,
A messas trial for the charge of murder. Even with
(17:59):
defense lawyer Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr on the case,
this is probably the most famous trial you've never heard of.
When you lay suffering a sudden, violent, brutal death, I
hope you'll think of me, Starring Alison Williams. I don't
need anything simplified, mister Hamilton, Thank you, with Tony Goldwyn
(18:19):
as Alexander Hamilton. Don't be so sad, It doesn't suit you.
Written and created by me Alison Black. Listen to Erase
the Murder of Elma San's. She was a sweet, happy,
virtuous girl until she met that man. Right there on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to
(18:42):
your podcasts. When Tracy were kel Burns was two years old,
her baby brother died. I was told that Matthew died
in an accident, and no one really talked about it.
Her parents told police she had killed him. Medical rect
it s faid that I killed my baby brother. I'm
(19:07):
Nancy Glass. Join me for Burden of Guilt, the new
podcast that tells the truth. An incredible story of a
toddler who was framed for murder and how she grew
into an adult determined to get justice and protect her family.
While we had prosecuted some cold cases, this was the coldest.
(19:28):
This was frigid. But how does a two year old
get blamed for murder? She said? We wanted a new life.
You just don't know what it's like when you'll do
anything for somebody. Listen to Burden of Guilt on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
(19:53):
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more and now. Check out Curiosity's new series, The Real
Wild West. Rolling Stone Magazine says, it's the history of
the West. They usually don't teach you the The mythology
(20:36):
of the West left out a lot of the people.
People said they'd never seen a black cowboy. This is
the history book, But did you know about these other facts?
Watch The Real Wild West now on Curiosity Stream with monthly, annual,
and bundled plans. Find the one that works for you
at CuriosityStream dot com. For over forty years, the Beal
(20:59):
family has believed that Sandy was a victim of a
violent crime, a belief fueled by the suspicion that her
death was covered up. Here's Stephen. The guilty carry around
over time that shit turns with fucking anger. You pissed,
you son of a bit. She stole from me, You
(21:19):
stole my family said. Put that category unforgivable shit. Sandy's
sudden death was disorienting to her family. She lived at
home and her family saw her every day. They were
intimately familiar with her behaviors, her moods, and her values.
(21:40):
The Sandy they knew was optimistic and ambitious, and, like
many teen girls her age, eager for her real life,
her adult life to begin. She was popular, she worked
part time at the mall. She didn't appear depressed or
withdrawn or hopeless. Suicide it didn't align with her personality.
(22:07):
And again, she had being you know, as passionate as
she wasn't fierce as she was. I just would not
have thought that she would want to do something like that.
You know, I just never got could not wrap my
fucking head around her doing it. Suicide seemed completely out
of character for Sandy, and the crime scene, instead of
(22:29):
bringing closure, just raised more questions. Police said, Sandy had
shot herself in the right side of her abdomen, but
the teen was left handed. The family told me how
they tried to put themselves in Sandy's shoes, imagining how
she would have shot herself sitting in the front seat
(22:50):
of her subcompact Flord Pinto with a steering wheel in
front of her chest. The gun would have been too
heavy for Sandy to hold and fire with her non
dominant right hand. Instead, she would have had to reach
across her body with her left hand to aim the
gun at her right side. It seemed like a clumsy
(23:11):
way to shoot oneself. When I was told what was happening,
what had happened, I was like, it's no way, It's
just no way. It's it's going to be. I couldn't
leave it. Michael was familiar with the gun found in
Sandy's car. In fact, all the kids in the Beal
family knew about the gun. It was owned by Sandy's father.
(23:34):
It was an eight inch long barrel, chrome black handle
black Hawk model, very nice looking gun. And like I said,
it was long, and it was always loaded with hollow
point bullets. It was actually white something to shoot. It
was so powerful that when I first shot it, I
(23:58):
had to hold it with both hand ans because I
didn't know what to expect out of it. It was
because of their strong familiarity with the gun and it's large,
cumbersome quality that the balls were convinced Sandy could not
have used it on herself. It's got a lot that
those three fifty seven forty four's, you know, they have
(24:19):
a lot of recoil, a lot of largest handguns you're
gonna get. Yeah, I think Dirty Harry Madnum, you know
the old movies like that he pulls out that it's
about that length gun recoiled with a senate flying. Yeah. Yeah,
it's his physics. Her left hand would have never gone
over that far to be able to do that, and
the unbelievable part about her committing suicide was just too
(24:42):
far out. The family also thought the location of the
wound was strange. Why would someone intent on suicide shoot
themselves off center in the stomach and as small as
she was in the in the size of that gun
on her not dominant hand would have would have been
(25:03):
really hard. I mean, if that's what you plan on doing,
was killing yourself, that was certainly you know, why don't
you just slowly walk through a fire and see if
you'll eventually, you know, burn a death. We don't know
why Sandy had her father's gun with her that evening,
(25:26):
but her family is convinced that whatever she was doing,
she wasn't alone. When the Bells got her clothes back
from police, they noticed that she dressed up nicely, wearing
brown gaucho slacks, a white blouse, and calf high black
suede boots that her mom had given her for Christmas.
Sandy's nails were recently manicured, painted with pale pearlyized nail polish.
(25:51):
To the family, her choice of outfit suggested she was
meeting someone that night, who else they wanted to know
could have been in the Pollyard with Sandy. Here's what
they think happened. Sandy was shot by someone else sitting
beside her in the passenger seat. This would explain the
(26:12):
location of the gunshot and the trajectory of the bullet
from the right side of Sandy's abdomen to the left
side of her back. It was the cardboard found under
the wheels of Sandy's car that solidified their doubts. The
cardboard told a story of a girl who was trying
to leave the Pollyard that night, not one intent on suicide.
(26:40):
A brand new historical true crime podcast. The year is
eighteen hundred, City Hall, New York. The first murder trial
in the American judicial system. A mess trial for the
charge of murder, even with defense lawyers Alexander Hamilton and
Erringburr on the case. This is probably the most famous
trial you never heard of. When you lay suffering a sudden, violent,
(27:04):
brutal death, I hope you'll think of me. Starring Alison Williams.
I don't need anything simplified, mister Hamilton, Thank you, with
Tony Goldwyn as Alexander Hamilton. Don't be so sad, It
doesn't suit you. Written and created by me. Alison Black
listened to Erased the murder of Elma San's. She was
(27:26):
a sweet, happy, virtueous girl until she met that man
right there on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever
you listen to your podcasts. When Tracy were kel Burns
was two years old, her baby brother died. I was
told that Matthew died in an accident, and no one
(27:48):
really talked about it. Her parents told police she had
killed him. Medical records said that I killed my baby brother.
I'm Nancy Glass. Join me for Burden of Guilt, the
new podcast that tells the truth an incredible story of
(28:08):
a toddler who was framed for murder and how she
grew into an adult determined to get justice and protect
her family. While we had prosecuted some cold cases, this
was the coldest, This was frigid. But how does a
two year old get blamed for murder? She said? We
(28:28):
wanted a new life. You just don't know what it's
like when you'll do anything for somebody. Listen to Burden
of Guilt on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts. I noticed Jacob is not in
(28:50):
his crib, so I look in and says she's not there.
So I'm like, Okay, they're not there. Unrestorable is a
new true crime podcast that investigates the case of Catherine Hoggle,
a mother accused of murder. I'm thinking, you know, like
what's going on, Like this is insane, Like where are
my kids? Despite signs that Catherine Hoggle took her tiny
(29:13):
children one by one into the night, never to come
home again, she has yet to stand trial. Because soon
after her children went missing, she was declared incompetent to
stand trial. We have a blueprint to get away with
murder and stay of Maryland. At this point in Maryland,
if a defendant is found incompetent and can't be restored
to competency, their felony charges are dismissed after five years. So,
(29:37):
as the clock counts down, Catherine's charges on the verge
of being dismissed. What does justice look like in this case?
There's something's wrong her, you know, whenever one was allowed
to kill my two kids. Listen to Unrestorable on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts,
(29:57):
and to hear the show completely ad free, subscribe to
the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Plus.
You'll get add free access to dozens of hit true
crime shows like Paper Ghosts, Betrayal, and The Idaho Massacre.
Curiosity stream is the streaming service for people who want
(30:17):
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(30:38):
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(31:24):
My name is Kim Parler. I am a second cousin
of Sandy Beale, and we are in the home of
where the origin of all of our family began, in
John's Port, Maine. I met Kim at a hotel just
up the street from Joanne's house. Kim is a licensed
therapist and it comes through in the way she communicates.
(31:48):
She makes good eye contact and speaks carefully, with kindness
and warmth. She's the type of person who makes you
feel like you could tell her anything and she'd never
judge you. Is Kim now sixty four, lives in Texas
and she's got a solid tan to show for it,
But she comes to Maine, the place of her birth,
(32:08):
whenever she can to see the beills. Sandy has a
grave marker here too, and she visits it when she can.
So this is a map of just Prince George's county
in the area where she lived. And based on all
the information that I have of her date books or
letters or anything that had an address on it or
(32:30):
that I could identify, I plotted it onto the map.
Where she lived, where she went to school, where she died,
where she worked. This was just her little world. Kim
showed me the materials she's gathered over the years, medical records,
court documents, freedom of Information Act requests, spreading them out
(32:52):
on a hotel bed for me to look through. She's
the detective of the family, inquisitive, diligent, and fixated on
this idea of justice. Joanne and I just stayed in
touch intermittently over the years, and they started sending me stuff.
I was asking so many questions. They're like, here, just
(33:13):
take it, and so that's you know, these files of
stuff that I have now. Kim is the entire reason
why I started looking into the story, why I learned
the name Sandy Beale in the first place. She's the
one who gave me Joanne's letter, and I just learned
to keep Sandy's summary with me. I carried it with
(33:34):
me all the time, so if I ever met anyone,
an investigator or whatever, I just passed them out. I
first met Kim at a domestic violence conference in Texas.
I was there to moderate a panel with Lorraina Bobbitt,
whose experience of domestic abuse and marital rape had been
badly overshadowed by the act that had made her infamous.
(33:54):
If you don't know her story, I encourage you to
look it up. Something I said that night must have
resen with Kim, because immediately after the panel she approached me.
Remember going up to you afterwards and almost running up
there and trying to get there before other people because
I knew you were going to get bombarded with people
asking questions, and I thought, well, who knows, maybe she
(34:15):
would find this intriguing. I did. As a reporter, I've
written more stories than I can count about women who
have died violent deaths, and I've spent time with their
families as they've begun the grieving process. But usually those
cases had answers, however unsatisfying, they might feel. This was
a true mystery, one that had persisted for over four decades.
(34:38):
The Beal family was stuck in the unknown. I kept
finding myself looking at a photo of Sandy that Kim
gave me along with Joanne's letter. It's a black and
white portrait Sandy's high school graduation photo. She has long, blonde,
feathered hair with a middle part that makes you think
(34:59):
a fair faucet. Her mouth is poised into a half smile,
and she stares off camera like something in the background
amuses her. Almost everyone I spoke to about Sandy mentioned
how pretty she was, especially her long blonde hair, and
while she got attention for her looks, it didn't seem
(35:20):
to give her a big head. She was just genuinely
nice and friendly to those around her. That's the Sandy
Kim remembers. We didn't meet until we were fourteen. The
two girls were only six months apart, and their friendship
was a defining one. And we headed off and went
back to her bedroom like teenagers do, and we sat
(35:42):
on her bed and we just started talking and just
loved her from the start. Kim and Sandy met for
the first time shortly after Kim moved to Maryland to
(36:05):
a neighborhood about an hour from the Beals. The two
girls spent their early teenage years going back and forth
to each other's houses and trading worlds. Living in Maryland
was you know, you would think that it's this preppy,
kind of wonderful place with Annapolis and preppy clothes and everything.
But I look back now and those are some of
(36:26):
the most traumatic, scariest times of my life, the thanks
I got exposed to it at that age. While Kim
was technically older by a few months, Sandy often played
the role of protector. And I'm like trying to avoid
it right now because i don't want to cry, but
I'm going to Okay. So at fourteen, I'm in this
(36:55):
new school and it was exciting and everything, and that
I had to come pick me up one night because
I was at a friend's house at a playground in
the middle of a cult a sac and I'm just
like waiting for my mom and this guy walks up
and I recognize him because he's on the football team.
(37:15):
He's a senior on the football team. And I, to
this date don't know how it unfolded, but before I
knew it, he had his hands down my pants and
I just remember freezing. I mean, I hadn't even been
kissed yet by a boy at all, and I'm thinking
all these people they're looking out their windows watching this
(37:37):
guy do this to me, and I just dissociated. And
so that weekend I went to go see Sandy and
I was telling her about it, and I was really
upset about it, and she got pissed and she's like,
I'm going to take care of this for you. Kim
told me that a few days later, Sandy appeared out
of the blue. She had driven an hour to Kim's
(37:58):
neighborhood to confront the football player who sexually assaulted Kim.
Sandy was ready for a fight, but he was nowhere
to be found. It didn't matter to Kim, though, the
fact that Sandy showed up for her it was enough
That's the part that I remember the most, and I'm
just I never had been around anybody like that that
(38:19):
protected me like that. I knew she was going to
take care of me. It was a very short relationship
because she lost her life A few years later. Kim
left Maryland to go to college in Illinois while Sandy
was still in high school. The distance led the two
(38:41):
girls to fall out of frequent contact. Still, after police
found Sandy's body, Kim was one of the first people
that joined called to let her know what had happened.
I just remember getting that call from Joanne that Sandy
had died, and I just remember being shocked and like,
what do you mean? You know? Eighteen year olds don't
(39:02):
die from a gunshot wound. Kim tried desperately to get
back to Maryland for the funeral, but couldn't afford the journey.
I remember looking into the flights and they were way
too expensive. So I looked into the train, but it
was ninety dollars from Chicago to Washington, DC, and it
it could have just been ten thousand. I didn't have it.
(39:23):
She missed the funeral but kept in regular contact with Joanne.
She died on the eleventh on a Friday, very early
in the morning. But she had gone out the tenth
Thursday night, so something happened like right at midnight. She
was probably alone for eight or nine hours, hurting and
(39:44):
shot and dark. She had to be scared to death.
That should not happen to anybody. Joanne was notified of
sand Andy's death when a detective came to her house.
He asked if she and her husband, Ronald could come
(40:05):
to the precinct later that day see when he came
in to tell us and tell me what happened. He said,
when your husband gets home, will you guys come over
to the barracks. And everything was laid out on the table.
Sandy's personal belongings, items collected from her car were spread
(40:27):
out like evidence for her parents to see. And among
her things was a letter. It was written to a
man named Doug and addressed to his place of work,
the Maryland State Police Department. He had a uniform on.
He gave her a sweet talk and now it went
to the surprise of her family, Sandy was in a relationship.
(40:51):
Doug was ten years older than her and married with
a young child. This discovery agitated Sandy's grieving parents and
left them with a slew of questions. But at the precinct,
Joanne and Ronald were left with the impression that the
investigation was basically complete, no more answers would be forthcoming.
It's common for police to speak with the boyfriend in
(41:13):
unnatural deaths such as this. When women are murdered, it's
far more likely to be at the hands of a
husband or boyfriend than anyone else. But as far as
Joanne knew, Doug, the State trooper, was never interviewed in
the course of the investigation, which seemed particularly odd when
you consider the location of Sandy's death. The Pepco utility
(41:36):
yard was only a mile down the road from the
State Police barracks where Doug worked, and as the family
soon learned, the pole yard was a popular state trooper hangout.
And then the place where she died. That was the
most revealing to see that literally they're across the street
from each other, the Maryland State Police barracks of the
(41:56):
man that she was dating, and then the place that
she died that was a well known place where police
gathered to you know, I guess have privacy for whatever reason.
How police do their jobs in the aftermath of an
(42:17):
unexpected death can have a profound and lasting impact on
the families of victims. Sandy's death was a defining moment
for the Beial family, but what came next, What they
feel was an absence of a proper investigation compounded their
trauma without confidence in the police that Beial family suspected
(42:38):
a conspiracy. A guide for investigators published by the Department
of Justice in nineteen ninety nine explains how essential it
is to ensure that the proper steps and procedures are
taken at the scene of a death. Quote. Few things
in our democracy are as important as ensuring that citizens
(42:59):
have confidence in their institutions in a crisis. For many individuals,
the death of a loved one is just such a crisis.
I wanted to understand how the Beal family and the
police could have such starkly different interpretations of the same events.
This chasm, I felt deserved scrutiny. One thing I was
(43:23):
sure of the Beal family, even after forty five years,
was adamant that there was something suspicious about Sandy's death,
and because of that they had endured decades of uncertainty,
and to be honest, I sensed it too. I thought
it was strange that Sandy was shot in the stomach,
and I questioned whether she would have been able to
(43:43):
kill herself the way cop said she did. It seemed
like there was more to Sandy's story than her family
knew after so many years. I didn't know what kind
of answers I'd find, But tucked away in the tattered
stack of papers Kim collect did we're clues to Sandy's past,
Clues that offered me a rare glimpse into Sandy's private life,
(44:08):
clues written by Sandy herself, if she hadn't written that
damn note to shiphead. On our next episode, we learn
(44:28):
about Doug and his relationship with Sandy, and I speak
to the detective in charge of Sandy's case. I would
compare my skills as a homicide detectas against anybody in
the world. Scotland Yard, New York City, anywhere Fred affel Lander,
(44:49):
their loaded rhythm, anywhere you go, there's nobody, there's nobody
any better. It turns out he had a lot to say.
What Happened to Sandy Beal is hosted by me Melissa Jelson.
(45:11):
It's written and produced by me and Katrina Norvel. The
podcast is edited by Abu Safar, sound designed by Aaron Kaufman.
Jason English is our executive producer. Research and production assistance
by Marisa Brown. To find out more about my investigation,
follow me on Twitter at Quasamado. That's qu as im
(45:32):
A d O. Thanks so much for listening. A brand
new historical true crime podcast. When you lay suffering a
sudden brutal death starring Alison william I hope you'll think
of me. Erased the Murder of Elvia Sahans. She was
a sweet, happy, virtuous girl until she met that man
(45:53):
right there. Written and created by me, Alison Flock. Is
it possible? So we're standing by for your aunt. Erased
the Murder of Elma Saints on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your podcasts. When Tracey, who
were killed Burns was two years old, her baby brother died.
I was told that Matthew died in an accident. Her
(46:16):
parents told police she had killed him. I'm Nancy Glass.
Join me for Burden of Guilt, the new podcast that
tells the truth an incredible story of a toddler who
was framed for murder Listen to Burden of Guilt on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
(46:42):
The System's broken. I said something's wrong her, you know,
whenever a one is allowed to kill my two kids.
Unrestorable is a new true crime podcast that investigates the
case of Catherine Hoggle, a mother accused of murder. Despite
signs that Katherine Hoggle took her tiny children one by
one into the night, never to come home again, she
(47:04):
has yet to stand trial. Listen to Unrestorable on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts,
and to hear the show completely ad free, subscribe to
the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Plus.
You'll get ad free access to dozens of hit true
crime shows like Paper Ghosts, Betrayal, and The Idaho Massacre.
(47:31):
I'm Moroka and I'm excited to announce Season four of
my podcast Mobituaries. I've got a whole new bunch of
stories to share with you about the most fascinating people
and things who are no longer with us, from famous
figures who died on the very same day to the
things I wish would die like buffets. Listen to mobituaries
(47:55):
with Moroka on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts. Fall is coming and the nights
are getting longer, and a strange Hollywood couple have moved
into the Winchester Mystery House. If you are brave enough,
you're invited into the unhinged housewarming from September twenty second
(48:15):
to October thirty first experience the terrifying line between reality
and imagination as darkness falls and those that haunt the
Winchester Mystery House join the party. Get your general admission
and rip tickets at Winchestermisteryhouse dot com
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