November 15, 2023 • 34 mins
With the trial underway, Kathie takes the stand to recount what happened to her baby boy on the day he died. As the defense questions Kathie on all the inconsistencies, information from outside the courtroom brings the proceedings to a sudden halt. This new revelation could alter Tracyraquel’s pursuit of justice for her brother Matthew forever.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Did you have any reservation at all about having that child?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Of course not.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
Did you ever have any.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Second thoughts about why did I have this child in
the first name?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Never. My children were everything to me.
Speaker 4 (00:19):
I'm Nancy Glass and this is Burden of Guilt, Episode five,
Game on. It was the second day of testimony in
the State of Georgia versus Jan Barry Sandlin. His ex
wife Tracy Roquel's mother, Kathy Allman, was on the stand.
(00:40):
She would be questioned for six hours. Jeff Brickman went
first for the prosecution.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
How had you met Jan Barry Sam?
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I met him in the sixth grade, when I was
about eleven or twelve years old.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Did you care for mister Sandlin back in nineteen seventy.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
One, Yes, I did.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
Lead Assistant District Atturne her Nae. Jeff Brickman then wanted
to know what happened in the hours leading to Matthew's death.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
December twenty seventh, nineteen seventy one. I want you to
tell members of the jury. It's best you can remember
what it is you did that day, starting in the morning.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
I fed the kid's breakfast, bathed im like I always do,
got them dressed, played with Matt. That's pretty much for
the morning. Then I took Tracy to the pediatrician.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
In episode three, I told you how Kathy brought Tracy
Raquel to the doctor to be treated for bruises and
a bleeding ear. And as for the baby, before Kathy
left the house that day, she laid the baby down
for a nap and then left him under Jan's supervision.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
When you put him down for a nap on December
twenty seventh, nineteen seventy one, as far as you knew,
was he healthy?
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (01:57):
Was he breathing yes, Kathy says. When she came home,
Jan told her to leave Tracy Roquel with him and
go get the laundry out of the car. She says,
when she came back into the apartment, Racy Roquel was
nowhere to be seen.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Then what did you do?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
I panicked and wanted to know where Tracy was, and
Jan said, I don't know. She was right here in
front of me. And I was panicking, like, well, why
didn't you see where she went? She's only two years old.
You should keep an eye on her.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
So what did you do?
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Started frantically running around the house looking for Tracy.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Were there only a certain number of rooms in whish
to look.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Did you look in the room?
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Did you find her when you first started looking for her?
Speaker 2 (02:50):
No?
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Where did you find her?
Speaker 2 (02:52):
And Matt's bed?
Speaker 3 (02:53):
What was she doing in the bed sitting? Did you
see Matt?
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Not at first?
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Do at some point seeing Then.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
I walked in over to Tracy because I thought she
was in the bed with Matt, and I panicked. And
then when I got to the bed, Matt wasn't in there,
and I saw him laying on the floor next to
the chester drawers.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
What did he look like?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
He looked fine, but he was breathing real heavy.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Did you have a chance to look at his face
or his ox?
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yes? I held him and looked at him. He wouldn't
wake up, and one eye was dilated all the way
in and one was all the way out, and he
just wouldn't wake up, and he was breathing funny.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
Matthew would never wake up.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
What if anything, did mister Sandlin do?
Speaker 2 (03:45):
He started to grab Tracy up and spanker.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
One child was dying and the other was being punished.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
If you would describe for the member of the jury
as best you can, what was your condition right then?
Speaker 2 (03:58):
I was in a state of shock.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Do you recall much about what happened after that night?
Speaker 2 (04:03):
No, I don't.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
According to the recorded phone call between Kathy and Tracy Riquel,
Kathy had no memory of the two weeks that followed
Matthew's death, and she says Jan kept her in seclusion.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Did you have any idea how he had died?
Speaker 5 (04:21):
No?
Speaker 2 (04:22):
I thought it was an accident in a horrible accent.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
But records show that authorities were told that two year
old Tracy Riquel threw Matthew out of the crib and
killed him.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
At any time, were you led to believe that it
was an accident?
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Yes, how through the police and everybody around me.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Did you believe that?
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yes? I believed.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Did you have any reason not to believe that?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
I didn't.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
At any time, did you have an opportunity to talk
with mister Sandlin about what happened to matt that day?
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (05:02):
What did he tell you?
Speaker 2 (05:03):
You tell me it was a terrible accident and I
needed to accept it and get over it.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Did you take him out his work?
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Pretty much?
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Anything about that?
Speaker 4 (05:14):
Kathy Aumen was asked why all those years later she
stuck with that story and repeated it to her daughter,
even when it didn't make sense.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
Do you recall telling her that there was easier to
believe what I was led to believe? Yes, what did
you mean by that?
Speaker 2 (05:30):
What I meant was, when you're in a state of
shock and you just lost your child, it's somehow emotionally
easier to accept an accident than it would be to
accept that he was murdered.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Did you want to believe that it was possible that
he could have done this to your child? Did you
want to believe that then?
Speaker 2 (05:49):
No, This was a person that I loved since I
was twelve years old. I thought he was the love
of my life.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Did you have any reservation at all about having that child?
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Of course?
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Did you ever have any second thoughts about why did
I have this child in the first time?
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Oh? Never? My children were everything to me.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
Jeff Brickman asked Kathy about her own involvement in her
son's death.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Did you kill him?
Speaker 2 (06:16):
No? I didn't.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
She also told the court why she kept this a
secret from Tracy Riquel.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Why wasn't it easy for you to talk about this
with Tracy.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Because I didn't want to hurt her if she had
done it. I really wasn't sure.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Did she question you about it?
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Yes, a lot lot, for about ten years.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Was there a point in time when Tracy asked you
to grant a release of the medical records?
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Did you do that?
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Why did you do it?
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Because I want the truth to come out.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
I want to know what happened to my son and
for Kathy. The idea that Tracy Raquel killed her brother
didn't seem out of the question.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
If it was an accident, was Tracy the person it
would have been the cause of the accident.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Yes, well, either her Jan, I don't know. They were
the only two in.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
The house, that's true. The only two people home were
a grown adult and a two year old Jan. Sandlin's lawyer,
Carrin Maul was ready for the cross examination.
Speaker 5 (07:25):
Now, Tracy was and is a fairly a very intelligent
young lady, isn't she? And she was developmentally advanced. She
was walking when she was nine months old, right, and
she was talking.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
She wasn't talking yet, she was about twelve months. She
wasn't talking yet. She could just say MoMA and bye bye.
Speaker 5 (07:48):
She was walking at nine months. And she was a
caretaker in a sense, wasn't she of Matt. She took
care of her. You called her once the little mother,
didn't you.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
It's hard to know what Karen Mall was going for here.
How would Tracy Raquel's ability to walk and talk around
the age of one make a difference in this case.
Karin's next line of questioning was about baby Matt's condition
on the day he died.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
When you left Matt, there wasn't anything on his body.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
What do you mean there was?
Speaker 5 (08:24):
I mean there wasn't any old bruises on house neck. No,
no mark Sorr. There wasn't anything on his left heel.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
Now, remember when Matthew was brought to the hospital the
night he died, doctors noticed a bruise clavicle and a
burnmark on his left foot.
Speaker 5 (08:42):
No, okay, So it must have shocked you when you
read those medical reports, Yes very much. Now you testified
here to day that you ran around the house frantically
looking for Tracy. And we've already established that we basically
(09:03):
got two bedrooms, right, right, very small apartment, so not
a whole lot of running around, right, I mean we're
going in one bedroom, in the other.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Correct, right, and in the kitchen and on the back
porch and on the front. I was looking everywhere.
Speaker 5 (09:17):
For you didn't go into the bedrooms. Evidently didn't go
into Matt's bedrooms.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
At first, I looked in there and I didn't see her.
But I wasn't looking at his bed because I thought
he was a sweet Okay.
Speaker 5 (09:27):
But it's a small room. If you had stood in
the doorway and looked in, you'd have seen whoever was there.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Like I said, I glanced in the first time the
second time I found.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
Let's step out of the courtroom for a minute here
and talk about what Racy Raquel had been through over
the course of her life. As you know, Tercy Raquel
suffered a lot. During her childhood, jan Salmon was extremely
abusive and some stories were frankly too horrific to broadcast.
(10:02):
As a teenager, she had attempted suicide and her mother
tried to have her committed to a psychiatric hospital. By
the mid eighties, Tracy Raquel had read the incident report
that showed Matthew had suffered a head injury, but there
was no investigation. Despite her fragile state, she wanted answers.
Speaker 5 (10:24):
Nineteen eighty six, she starts confronting you, and during this
period of time, you tell her the truth? What do
you believe is the truth? Yes, you tell her that
she's responsible.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
No, I didn't tell her that.
Speaker 5 (10:40):
Okay, what did you tell her?
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Well, I don't know how to answer that question. She
was having problems in trying to help her with the problems.
I brought it up.
Speaker 5 (10:52):
What did you say?
Speaker 2 (10:53):
I told her what had happened, that it was an accident.
Speaker 5 (10:58):
Did you tell her that she threw the baby out
of the crip?
Speaker 2 (11:03):
I may have at some point, I really don't remember.
Speaker 5 (11:07):
Let's just step back from that. Sometime in eighty five
or eighty six, to help your daughter, you brought up
the fact that she may have been responsible for throwing
the baby out of the crib.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Well, the truth is my mother actually told her how
Matt died. I told therapists and people what I thought happened,
and we were trying to help Tracy deal with.
Speaker 5 (11:41):
Let's take one fact at a time. Did you tell
your daughter sometime in eighty five or eighty six that
she maybe No?
Speaker 4 (11:52):
I told her therapist Tracy Raquel didn't know, but Cathy
had no problem stating it as fact. Her two year
old was capable of murder.
Speaker 5 (12:03):
Isn't it true, Miss Almond, that you told them that
it was possible that you believed that Tracy, with her
heavy baby shoes, stepped on Matthew's head. Yes, to tell
(12:24):
that to Sergeant Unis when you talk to.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Him in nineteen eighty five, I don't remember.
Speaker 5 (12:29):
Do you tell that to mister Brickman and Miss Mango?
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I may have mentioned it, I don't remember.
Speaker 5 (12:34):
You don't well, missus Almond. You wrote a statement for
Sergeant's Unis, didn't you, from nineteen ninety five. Yes, you
put it in that statement.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
I don't remember.
Speaker 5 (12:47):
Did Miss Mangold ask you to sign a release so
that she could see the records from PIA No.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
PIA stands for the Psychiatric Institute of Atlanta, the facility
where Kathy had Tracy Rikel committed.
Speaker 5 (13:04):
She never asked you that. Did you ever tell her
that you had talked to folks at PIA.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
No. Tracy was only there for a brief time, just
to be evaluated, but you had told I told him
about Matt's death because I thought maybe that was what
was wrong with her.
Speaker 5 (13:24):
And you told them that it was possible that Tracy,
with her heavy baby shoes, stepped on Matt's head and
then possibly.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
I was trying to figure out what happened.
Speaker 5 (13:38):
You also mentioned that there was some thought that maybe
mister Sanduli did it right.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Right, okay, but that.
Speaker 5 (13:48):
You believed and correct me if I'm mistaken. That she
was wearing heavy baby shoes right, yes, and that she
could have crushed the baby's skull.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
That one, well, I don't remember exactly. I was just
trying to throw up ideas of anything that would help her.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
I'm having a hard time with this. Kathy wants to
help Tracy Raquel get over something she isn't even aware of.
Speaker 5 (14:13):
And so I'm making sure I understand January first, nineteen
eighty five, when you're talking to the social worker. At
that point in time, Tracy doesn't know that she is
in any way responsible, So you're not trying to help her, right.
I'm trying to help Tracy, okay, but you're not telling
Tracy this right right?
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (14:35):
So January of nineteen eighty five, you're talking to therapists, correct,
And you mentioned about Tracy possibly throwing the baby out
of the bed, right. You mention about crushing the baby's skull, right,
and you mentioned about, well, the authorities have some suspicion
that maybe it didn't happen that way, right, right, that
(14:57):
it had been ruled an accident. Yes, And that you
had married this man in nineteen seventy three, Yes, and
that you had lived with him as a married you'd
been married until nineteen eighty right. And at that time
you told the therapists that you believed that Tracy threw
(15:20):
the baby out of the bed.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Right, That's what I believed for a long time. The
police and investigation and all led me to believe that.
Speaker 5 (15:28):
Okay, So it was the police and the investigation investigators
that led you to believe that Tracy threw the baby
from the bed.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
Yes, what investigation in nineteen seventy one, There was no investigation.
That's what got Tracy Riquel so interested in the first place.
Speaker 5 (15:47):
Did the police also lead you to believe that Tracy
might have stepped on the baby's head with her heavy
baby shoes.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
I don't know. I don't remember where that came from.
I thought maybe I was just trying to figure it
out in my mind somehow.
Speaker 5 (16:03):
Didn't miss Rain tell you that to find out at
the age of fifteen that she was responsible for the
death of her brother, that that was pretty traumatic for her. Yes,
and she says to you at that point that it
(16:25):
has caused her a lot of pain and anguish to
carry the burden from nineteen eighty five, when she's fifteen
to today, at that time, nineteen ninety four, that she
was responsible for the death of her brother.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Right. That's where she says.
Speaker 5 (16:42):
Miss Almond. Isn't it true that Tracy told you that
she has spent fifteen years believing that she was responsible
for the death of her brother, right?
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Right?
Speaker 5 (16:57):
And she told you that you never said anything different
from the fact you told her that she was responsible.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Correct, That's what I believed.
Speaker 6 (17:09):
Your mother told your daughter that at the age of fifteen,
that she threw her baby brother out of the bed.
You told her therapist that she stepped on the baby's fell,
Miss Armond, Right, I.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Don't recall that, but I could have. She had on
neview shoes.
Speaker 5 (17:30):
You've tried to stop her from digging into it, haven't you.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
No, I haven't tried to stop her from digging into it.
I have tried to stop her from harassing me. There's
a big difference.
Speaker 5 (17:43):
From harassing you from using you.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
If she was accusing me of not knowing what happened
that I should have known? I.
Speaker 5 (17:50):
I was the mother you testified earlier. She accused you
of being directly responsible at one time.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Well, she has had lots of different about it all.
Speaker 5 (18:01):
Isn't it true that your daughter suggested to you that
there Isn't it by some chance possible that Jen coersed
you into saying that I was responsible for it, and
maybe that you told the hospital folks that and that's
(18:25):
why they didn't pursue it. Doesn't she ask you those
sort of things, yes, And your response is I don't
think that that's true, right?
Speaker 4 (18:39):
And then Cathy pointed the finger at Jam.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
It had to be him because it wasn't me, and
no one else was in there but Tracy. And when
we saw the medical reports, there's no way Tracy could
have done that to him. It had to be done
by somebody else. And the only person there was Cham
And he tricked me by making me go downstairs and
get the clothes so he could put Tracy in the bed.
Speaker 5 (19:06):
I am sure of it, Okay, Then why in nineteen
eighty five didn't you say that.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
I wasn't sure of it in eighty five?
Speaker 5 (19:15):
Why miss Almond? If you remember it clear as a bell.
Didn't you say anytime in nineteen eighty five when you
were talking to the social worker, why did you suggest
to her that your daughter threw the baby out of
the bed or crushed the baby with her heavy baby shoes.
Why didn't you say he blocked my way? And I'm suspicious.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
I don't know. I was simply giving background information to
them so they could help Tracy. And if I thought
it was because she was having bad memories about what
happened to man.
Speaker 5 (19:50):
The tombstone that was on the grave at the time
of the exhumation says mother's little Angel resting snow.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
Yes, but when Matthew was buried in nineteen seventy one,
his tombstone read great grandson of Arthur Ahmann, and that
was it.
Speaker 5 (20:10):
That's not the original stone, Isn't That stone was placed
two or three days before the exhibition, two or three
days before you and Ms Mango and mister Rickman and
everybody else that was at the exhbition or three days
(20:31):
before that.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Yes, I wanted to take the opportunity to correct it
at that time, to make a new one show everyone.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
No, you did not wait until after the exhalation.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
No, I just wanted a place for the reburial, and
that was the time that we could get it done.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
Or it was because the media would be covering the exhumation.
Let's get back to Tracy Raquel. She was home when
Kathy was on the stand because she had been dismissed
and had two small children waiting for her in Savannah.
Speaker 7 (21:07):
The judge had said, no one is supposed to watch
the trial. You're a witness, so to question yourself. Okay.
I went home and there were family in the house,
and people were in and the court was on in
another room and the den in the house, and I
walked from the laundry room with the laundry and I
caught a glimpse of Kathy on the television and she
(21:29):
was testifying. The prosecution called.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
Me that night, former Assistant District Attorney Leanne Mangon. I
called her that night.
Speaker 8 (21:39):
I remember I was standing in my kitchen and this
was back in the days when there was bones on
the wall with the cord, so I remember standing there
with this phone and said something about your mom testified.
It all went okay, And I don't remember her exact words,
but she told me she had watched it on TV and.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
My heart sunk. Tracy kills his It wasn't intentional, it
was only a few seconds, but it was enough. Lead
Assistant District Attorney Jeff Brickman.
Speaker 9 (22:10):
We didn't think we had any choice but to bring
that to the attention immediately to Judge Fuller, and we hoped,
the hope of hopes that he wasn't going to declare
a mistrial. I don't think Tracy did anything intentional. Tracy
thought her testimony was over. There was nothing that she
did wrong. It wasn't going to change the course of anything.
Speaker 8 (22:34):
She was not a fact witness who had something to
offer about what happened on the day that Matthew was murdered.
So while I knew it was a problem, and I
knew unquestionably it was something I needed to let the
judge know about, it didn't immediately strike me as something
that was going to result in a mistrial.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
The prosecutors did their duty and notified the court.
Speaker 7 (22:58):
Then they called back an hour later and said, okay, court,
So there's a five am flight. I arrived, walked into
the courtroom and no jury, nobody in the court, just
the judge, the prosecutors, the defense. In jan and asked
me if I had seen anything on the television.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
As expected, defense counsel pounced on what happened.
Speaker 7 (23:21):
The defense asked for a mistrial, that I had broken
sequester orders.
Speaker 4 (23:27):
Judge Fuller heard arguments for and against a mistrial. Everything
hung in the balance.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
I don't think that I have done anything wrong to
affect this man's rights. He has more rights than I have.
And I'm sitting here and I'm not charged.
Speaker 5 (23:42):
You're not going to be sent away for life in
prison as well.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
I had spent a life in a prison.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
Corrin mal blamed cameras in the courtroom for causing the problem.
Speaker 5 (23:54):
This is a man's life, and Jerry Springer is calling.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
Us and she didn't seem totely moved by Tracy Riquel.
Speaker 5 (24:02):
That's something to look forward to, getting her up on
the stand so she can do what she did. Just now,
sit and cry, a beautiful crying girl. That's what I'm
going to confront.
Speaker 4 (24:14):
Would Judge Fuller allow the trial to continue? Tracy Riquel
held her breath. It was finally possible to get justice
for Matthew, and now her actions could undo all the
years of work Tracy Riquel Burns had spent years of
(24:38):
her young life persuading law enforcement that the death of
her baby brother in nineteen seventy one wasn't an accident
but a vicious murder, and she had succeeded. But five
days into the trial, she had violated the judge's order
of sequestration and saw her mother's testimony on television. Defensettorney
(25:00):
Corin Maul argued for a mistrial and went after the prosecution.
Speaker 5 (25:05):
They deliberately deliberately violated your order and your honor. I
hate to say that I told everyone so, but I did.
Speaker 4 (25:13):
She also went after Tracy Riquel.
Speaker 5 (25:15):
She has been tainted and she violated this rule. And
now when it comes down to it, she's a pretty
lovely young woman, and she's gonna sit there and cry
and cry and cry and cry. I have no way
to process them, no way.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
She saved her last words for the media.
Speaker 5 (25:36):
Having these folks in here was just basically putting the
feed into the witnesses, into the juror's homes, so that
they could go home and see what they were not
able to see, either because they were sequestered or because
they were in a jury room.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
Defense attorney Krinn Mall made it seem like the most
important thing was not proving who did it, but who
did didn't do it? And if she could do that,
why would you need a trial?
Speaker 5 (26:07):
Dad, I'm gonna Warner one and I'm sure they're getting
the stay size and the certificate for Tracy, and you're
on her concided with can all sited members of the press. Tracy,
you are not responsible for the death of your brother,
and let's go home. She isn't responsible, she never was responsible.
Her mother made her responsible. She now has ruined this trial.
(26:29):
He can't have a fair trial. Let's put an end
to the show of want. Please, John, I want for mistrial.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
With prejudice, with prejudice. Let's talk about that. For a
sec asking for a mistrial with prejudice was an important distinction.
If the judge announced that the case was dismissed with prejudice,
that meant it would be permanently dismissed and could not
be retried. And while the prosecution was upset Tracy Raquel
(27:06):
broke the sequestration order, they weren't giving up roder.
Speaker 8 (27:10):
I take strong exception with Ms Maul's contention that this
was a purposeful violation. Clearly, if this were wilful disobedience
of the court's order.
Speaker 5 (27:18):
She never would have told me about it.
Speaker 8 (27:21):
It was not something which was done intentionally, and it
does not rise to the level of an error which
warrants a mistrial.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
Prosecutor Leanne Mangun implored Judge Fuller to let the trial continue.
Speaker 8 (27:33):
There are any number of cases which support the position
that what is affected by her violating the rule is
her credibility, not her ability to testify.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
Judge Fuller listened, but he would take his time to
make a ruling.
Speaker 10 (27:47):
I am not prepared at this moment to rule on
the motion for miss Trump. I'm going to recess the
trial until Monday morning. In the meantime, I may or
may not grant a miss Trump. I don't blame it
on the TV coverage, but without it, it wouldn't occurred. There
(28:10):
are times in our society that we must pay a
price for other freedoms that we have. It could be
that this case ends up being a casualty in order
to guarantee that we have other rights.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
What was your reaction to the idea of a mistrial.
Speaker 7 (28:32):
I didn't do anything. It just really floored me. I
was run over by freight train. I didn't understand.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
When Monday finally came around, all sides anxiously awaited the
judge's decision.
Speaker 11 (28:50):
That's true to come in. Please, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 5 (28:53):
I have a statement to make.
Speaker 11 (28:56):
There has been an egregious violation of the witness sequestration, which,
in the context of this case, is irreputable. I cannot
fix it. The ability to present the best available defense
has been destroyed, at least for now, perhaps forever. One
must remember that missus Rain is not an incidental witness.
(29:20):
In retrospect, it was too much to expect this young
woman to ignore not only her mother's testimony, but all
of the commentaries in her words and I quote, I
have spent my entire life waiting to hear this testimony.
How many of us, under similar circumstances could have resisted
this temptation. The defendant's motion for mistrial is granted. Whether
(29:45):
prejudice attaches will be the subject of further discussion with counsel.
It is my hope that miss Rain will receive some
comfort from knowing that she caused this case to be reopened,
that the cabcating responded in extraordinary fashion, and it has
been established in a court of law, acknowledged by all
that she did not cause her brother's death.
Speaker 4 (30:06):
It was a devastating blow. Tracy Riquel had waited decades
to get justice from Matthew, and it was over.
Speaker 9 (30:16):
It was a carefully worded statement letting Tracy know that
he didn't fault her, and he took some blame about
the cameras, but that despite her valiant efforts, this may
be the end. And then we went back to the office,
tail between our legs.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
As for Tracy Riquel, she already knew she hadn't killed Matthew.
She wasn't there for that. She was there to bring
a child's killer to justice. Judge Fuller's words didn't make
a difference. You must have had so many feelings at
this point.
Speaker 7 (30:50):
I think I was just in shock. Of course, there's
all of these things. It's humiliation, it's anger, it's what
just happened.
Speaker 4 (30:59):
Nobody enjoying this moment more than her father, And somehow
Jan Barry Sandlin managed to get a hold of Tracy
Riquel's phone number.
Speaker 7 (31:09):
I went home and the very next evening got a
call from Jan, which is not supposed to happen.
Speaker 4 (31:15):
It was ominous she could hear something faint in the background.
Speaker 7 (31:20):
It was a talk show or something that was playing,
and that's all you could hear. And it was describing
a lawnmower that had run over this little girl's legs.
And that was the first indirect threat to my children.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
Did he say anything?
Speaker 7 (31:37):
He was laughing and said, see, I told Ed I'll
win the war. He may have won a battle, but
I'm the one who's going to win the war.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
Next time on Burden of Guilt.
Speaker 9 (31:52):
Last time I checked, there's no such thing as a
one free murder rule in Georgia. Let's crank it up
game on trial too.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Let's go.
Speaker 4 (32:04):
Stay tuned for Burden of Guilt at documentary coming in
twenty twenty four and airing only on Paramount Plus. If
you would like to reach out to the Burden of
Guilt team, email us at Burdenofguiltpod at gmail dot com.
That's Burden of Guilt Pod at gmail dot com. If
(32:24):
you or someone you know is worried about maltreatment or
suspect that a child is being abused or neglected, call
the Child Help National child abuse Hotline. You can call
or text one eight hundred four. A child that's one
eight hundred four two two four four five three. One
(32:47):
way to show support is by subscribing to our show
on Apple Podcasts, and don't forget to rate and review
Burden of Guilt. Five star reviews go a long way,
A big thank you for listening, and also be sure
to check us out and follow us on Instagram at
Glass Podcasts. Burden of Guilt is a production of Glass Podcasts,
(33:10):
a division of Glass Entertainment Group, in partnership with iHeart Podcasts.
The show is hosted and executive produced by me Nancy Glass,
written and produced by Andrea Gunning and Carrie Hartman, also
produced by Ben Fetterman and associate producer Kristin Melchiori. Our
iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Crincheck. Special thanks
(33:35):
to Tracy Raquel Burns and her husband Bart. Audio editing
and mixing by Matt Delvecchio. Burden of Guilt's theme composed
by Oliver Bains. Music library provided by my Music and
For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Did you have any reservation at all about having that child?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Of course not.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
Did you ever have any.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Second thoughts about why did I have this child in
the first name?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Never. My children were everything to me.
Speaker 4 (00:19):
I'm Nancy Glass and this is Burden of Guilt, Episode five,
Game on. It was the second day of testimony in
the State of Georgia versus Jan Barry Sandlin. His ex
wife Tracy Roquel's mother, Kathy Allman, was on the stand.
(00:40):
She would be questioned for six hours. Jeff Brickman went
first for the prosecution.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
How had you met Jan Barry Sam?
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I met him in the sixth grade, when I was
about eleven or twelve years old.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Did you care for mister Sandlin back in nineteen seventy.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
One, Yes, I did.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
Lead Assistant District Atturne her Nae. Jeff Brickman then wanted
to know what happened in the hours leading to Matthew's death.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
December twenty seventh, nineteen seventy one. I want you to
tell members of the jury. It's best you can remember
what it is you did that day, starting in the morning.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
I fed the kid's breakfast, bathed im like I always do,
got them dressed, played with Matt. That's pretty much for
the morning. Then I took Tracy to the pediatrician.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
In episode three, I told you how Kathy brought Tracy
Raquel to the doctor to be treated for bruises and
a bleeding ear. And as for the baby, before Kathy
left the house that day, she laid the baby down
for a nap and then left him under Jan's supervision.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
When you put him down for a nap on December
twenty seventh, nineteen seventy one, as far as you knew,
was he healthy?
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (01:57):
Was he breathing yes, Kathy says. When she came home,
Jan told her to leave Tracy Roquel with him and
go get the laundry out of the car. She says,
when she came back into the apartment, Racy Roquel was
nowhere to be seen.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Then what did you do?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
I panicked and wanted to know where Tracy was, and
Jan said, I don't know. She was right here in
front of me. And I was panicking, like, well, why
didn't you see where she went? She's only two years old.
You should keep an eye on her.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
So what did you do?
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Started frantically running around the house looking for Tracy.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Were there only a certain number of rooms in whish
to look.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Did you look in the room?
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Did you find her when you first started looking for her?
Speaker 2 (02:50):
No?
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Where did you find her?
Speaker 2 (02:52):
And Matt's bed?
Speaker 3 (02:53):
What was she doing in the bed sitting? Did you
see Matt?
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Not at first?
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Do at some point seeing Then.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
I walked in over to Tracy because I thought she
was in the bed with Matt, and I panicked. And
then when I got to the bed, Matt wasn't in there,
and I saw him laying on the floor next to
the chester drawers.
Speaker 5 (03:15):
What did he look like?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
He looked fine, but he was breathing real heavy.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Did you have a chance to look at his face
or his ox?
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yes? I held him and looked at him. He wouldn't
wake up, and one eye was dilated all the way
in and one was all the way out, and he
just wouldn't wake up, and he was breathing funny.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
Matthew would never wake up.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
What if anything, did mister Sandlin do?
Speaker 2 (03:45):
He started to grab Tracy up and spanker.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
One child was dying and the other was being punished.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
If you would describe for the member of the jury
as best you can, what was your condition right then?
Speaker 2 (03:58):
I was in a state of shock.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Do you recall much about what happened after that night?
Speaker 2 (04:03):
No, I don't.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
According to the recorded phone call between Kathy and Tracy Riquel,
Kathy had no memory of the two weeks that followed
Matthew's death, and she says Jan kept her in seclusion.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Did you have any idea how he had died?
Speaker 5 (04:21):
No?
Speaker 2 (04:22):
I thought it was an accident in a horrible accent.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
But records show that authorities were told that two year
old Tracy Riquel threw Matthew out of the crib and
killed him.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
At any time, were you led to believe that it
was an accident?
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Yes, how through the police and everybody around me.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Did you believe that?
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yes? I believed.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
Did you have any reason not to believe that?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
I didn't.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
At any time, did you have an opportunity to talk
with mister Sandlin about what happened to matt that day?
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (05:02):
What did he tell you?
Speaker 2 (05:03):
You tell me it was a terrible accident and I
needed to accept it and get over it.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Did you take him out his work?
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Pretty much?
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Anything about that?
Speaker 4 (05:14):
Kathy Aumen was asked why all those years later she
stuck with that story and repeated it to her daughter,
even when it didn't make sense.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
Do you recall telling her that there was easier to
believe what I was led to believe? Yes, what did
you mean by that?
Speaker 2 (05:30):
What I meant was, when you're in a state of
shock and you just lost your child, it's somehow emotionally
easier to accept an accident than it would be to
accept that he was murdered.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Did you want to believe that it was possible that
he could have done this to your child? Did you
want to believe that then?
Speaker 2 (05:49):
No, This was a person that I loved since I
was twelve years old. I thought he was the love
of my life.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Did you have any reservation at all about having that child?
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Of course?
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Did you ever have any second thoughts about why did
I have this child in the first time?
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Oh? Never? My children were everything to me.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
Jeff Brickman asked Kathy about her own involvement in her
son's death.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Did you kill him?
Speaker 2 (06:16):
No? I didn't.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
She also told the court why she kept this a
secret from Tracy Riquel.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Why wasn't it easy for you to talk about this
with Tracy.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Because I didn't want to hurt her if she had
done it. I really wasn't sure.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Did she question you about it?
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Yes, a lot lot, for about ten years.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
Was there a point in time when Tracy asked you
to grant a release of the medical records?
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Did you do that?
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Why did you do it?
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Because I want the truth to come out.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
I want to know what happened to my son and
for Kathy. The idea that Tracy Raquel killed her brother
didn't seem out of the question.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
If it was an accident, was Tracy the person it
would have been the cause of the accident.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Yes, well, either her Jan, I don't know. They were
the only two in.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
The house, that's true. The only two people home were
a grown adult and a two year old Jan. Sandlin's lawyer,
Carrin Maul was ready for the cross examination.
Speaker 5 (07:25):
Now, Tracy was and is a fairly a very intelligent
young lady, isn't she? And she was developmentally advanced. She
was walking when she was nine months old, right, and
she was talking.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
She wasn't talking yet, she was about twelve months. She
wasn't talking yet. She could just say MoMA and bye bye.
Speaker 5 (07:48):
She was walking at nine months. And she was a
caretaker in a sense, wasn't she of Matt. She took
care of her. You called her once the little mother,
didn't you.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
It's hard to know what Karen Mall was going for here.
How would Tracy Raquel's ability to walk and talk around
the age of one make a difference in this case.
Karin's next line of questioning was about baby Matt's condition
on the day he died.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
When you left Matt, there wasn't anything on his body.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
What do you mean there was?
Speaker 5 (08:24):
I mean there wasn't any old bruises on house neck. No,
no mark Sorr. There wasn't anything on his left heel.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
Now, remember when Matthew was brought to the hospital the
night he died, doctors noticed a bruise clavicle and a
burnmark on his left foot.
Speaker 5 (08:42):
No, okay, So it must have shocked you when you
read those medical reports, Yes very much. Now you testified
here to day that you ran around the house frantically
looking for Tracy. And we've already established that we basically
(09:03):
got two bedrooms, right, right, very small apartment, so not
a whole lot of running around, right, I mean we're
going in one bedroom, in the other.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Correct, right, and in the kitchen and on the back
porch and on the front. I was looking everywhere.
Speaker 5 (09:17):
For you didn't go into the bedrooms. Evidently didn't go
into Matt's bedrooms.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
At first, I looked in there and I didn't see her.
But I wasn't looking at his bed because I thought
he was a sweet Okay.
Speaker 5 (09:27):
But it's a small room. If you had stood in
the doorway and looked in, you'd have seen whoever was there.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Like I said, I glanced in the first time the
second time I found.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
Let's step out of the courtroom for a minute here
and talk about what Racy Raquel had been through over
the course of her life. As you know, Tercy Raquel
suffered a lot. During her childhood, jan Salmon was extremely
abusive and some stories were frankly too horrific to broadcast.
(10:02):
As a teenager, she had attempted suicide and her mother
tried to have her committed to a psychiatric hospital. By
the mid eighties, Tracy Raquel had read the incident report
that showed Matthew had suffered a head injury, but there
was no investigation. Despite her fragile state, she wanted answers.
Speaker 5 (10:24):
Nineteen eighty six, she starts confronting you, and during this
period of time, you tell her the truth? What do
you believe is the truth? Yes, you tell her that
she's responsible.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
No, I didn't tell her that.
Speaker 5 (10:40):
Okay, what did you tell her?
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Well, I don't know how to answer that question. She
was having problems in trying to help her with the problems.
I brought it up.
Speaker 5 (10:52):
What did you say?
Speaker 2 (10:53):
I told her what had happened, that it was an accident.
Speaker 5 (10:58):
Did you tell her that she threw the baby out
of the crip?
Speaker 2 (11:03):
I may have at some point, I really don't remember.
Speaker 5 (11:07):
Let's just step back from that. Sometime in eighty five
or eighty six, to help your daughter, you brought up
the fact that she may have been responsible for throwing
the baby out of the crib.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Well, the truth is my mother actually told her how
Matt died. I told therapists and people what I thought happened,
and we were trying to help Tracy deal with.
Speaker 5 (11:41):
Let's take one fact at a time. Did you tell
your daughter sometime in eighty five or eighty six that
she maybe No?
Speaker 4 (11:52):
I told her therapist Tracy Raquel didn't know, but Cathy
had no problem stating it as fact. Her two year
old was capable of murder.
Speaker 5 (12:03):
Isn't it true, Miss Almond, that you told them that
it was possible that you believed that Tracy, with her
heavy baby shoes, stepped on Matthew's head. Yes, to tell
(12:24):
that to Sergeant Unis when you talk to.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Him in nineteen eighty five, I don't remember.
Speaker 5 (12:29):
Do you tell that to mister Brickman and Miss Mango?
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I may have mentioned it, I don't remember.
Speaker 5 (12:34):
You don't well, missus Almond. You wrote a statement for
Sergeant's Unis, didn't you, from nineteen ninety five. Yes, you
put it in that statement.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
I don't remember.
Speaker 5 (12:47):
Did Miss Mangold ask you to sign a release so
that she could see the records from PIA No.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
PIA stands for the Psychiatric Institute of Atlanta, the facility
where Kathy had Tracy Rikel committed.
Speaker 5 (13:04):
She never asked you that. Did you ever tell her
that you had talked to folks at PIA.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
No. Tracy was only there for a brief time, just
to be evaluated, but you had told I told him
about Matt's death because I thought maybe that was what
was wrong with her.
Speaker 5 (13:24):
And you told them that it was possible that Tracy,
with her heavy baby shoes, stepped on Matt's head and
then possibly.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
I was trying to figure out what happened.
Speaker 5 (13:38):
You also mentioned that there was some thought that maybe
mister Sanduli did it right.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Right, okay, but that.
Speaker 5 (13:48):
You believed and correct me if I'm mistaken. That she
was wearing heavy baby shoes right, yes, and that she
could have crushed the baby's skull.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
That one, well, I don't remember exactly. I was just
trying to throw up ideas of anything that would help her.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
I'm having a hard time with this. Kathy wants to
help Tracy Raquel get over something she isn't even aware of.
Speaker 5 (14:13):
And so I'm making sure I understand January first, nineteen
eighty five, when you're talking to the social worker. At
that point in time, Tracy doesn't know that she is
in any way responsible, So you're not trying to help her, right.
I'm trying to help Tracy, okay, but you're not telling
Tracy this right right?
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (14:35):
So January of nineteen eighty five, you're talking to therapists, correct,
And you mentioned about Tracy possibly throwing the baby out
of the bed, right. You mention about crushing the baby's skull, right,
and you mentioned about, well, the authorities have some suspicion
that maybe it didn't happen that way, right, right, that
(14:57):
it had been ruled an accident. Yes, And that you
had married this man in nineteen seventy three, Yes, and
that you had lived with him as a married you'd
been married until nineteen eighty right. And at that time
you told the therapists that you believed that Tracy threw
(15:20):
the baby out of the bed.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Right, That's what I believed for a long time. The
police and investigation and all led me to believe that.
Speaker 5 (15:28):
Okay, So it was the police and the investigation investigators
that led you to believe that Tracy threw the baby
from the bed.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
Yes, what investigation in nineteen seventy one, There was no investigation.
That's what got Tracy Riquel so interested in the first place.
Speaker 5 (15:47):
Did the police also lead you to believe that Tracy
might have stepped on the baby's head with her heavy
baby shoes.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
I don't know. I don't remember where that came from.
I thought maybe I was just trying to figure it
out in my mind somehow.
Speaker 5 (16:03):
Didn't miss Rain tell you that to find out at
the age of fifteen that she was responsible for the
death of her brother, that that was pretty traumatic for her. Yes,
and she says to you at that point that it
(16:25):
has caused her a lot of pain and anguish to
carry the burden from nineteen eighty five, when she's fifteen
to today, at that time, nineteen ninety four, that she
was responsible for the death of her brother.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Right. That's where she says.
Speaker 5 (16:42):
Miss Almond. Isn't it true that Tracy told you that
she has spent fifteen years believing that she was responsible
for the death of her brother, right?
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Right?
Speaker 5 (16:57):
And she told you that you never said anything different
from the fact you told her that she was responsible.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Correct, That's what I believed.
Speaker 6 (17:09):
Your mother told your daughter that at the age of fifteen,
that she threw her baby brother out of the bed.
You told her therapist that she stepped on the baby's fell,
Miss Armond, Right, I.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
Don't recall that, but I could have. She had on
neview shoes.
Speaker 5 (17:30):
You've tried to stop her from digging into it, haven't you.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
No, I haven't tried to stop her from digging into it.
I have tried to stop her from harassing me. There's
a big difference.
Speaker 5 (17:43):
From harassing you from using you.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
If she was accusing me of not knowing what happened
that I should have known? I.
Speaker 5 (17:50):
I was the mother you testified earlier. She accused you
of being directly responsible at one time.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Well, she has had lots of different about it all.
Speaker 5 (18:01):
Isn't it true that your daughter suggested to you that
there Isn't it by some chance possible that Jen coersed
you into saying that I was responsible for it, and
maybe that you told the hospital folks that and that's
(18:25):
why they didn't pursue it. Doesn't she ask you those
sort of things, yes, And your response is I don't
think that that's true, right?
Speaker 4 (18:39):
And then Cathy pointed the finger at Jam.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
It had to be him because it wasn't me, and
no one else was in there but Tracy. And when
we saw the medical reports, there's no way Tracy could
have done that to him. It had to be done
by somebody else. And the only person there was Cham
And he tricked me by making me go downstairs and
get the clothes so he could put Tracy in the bed.
Speaker 5 (19:06):
I am sure of it, Okay, Then why in nineteen
eighty five didn't you say that.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
I wasn't sure of it in eighty five?
Speaker 5 (19:15):
Why miss Almond? If you remember it clear as a bell.
Didn't you say anytime in nineteen eighty five when you
were talking to the social worker, why did you suggest
to her that your daughter threw the baby out of
the bed or crushed the baby with her heavy baby shoes.
Why didn't you say he blocked my way? And I'm suspicious.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
I don't know. I was simply giving background information to
them so they could help Tracy. And if I thought
it was because she was having bad memories about what
happened to man.
Speaker 5 (19:50):
The tombstone that was on the grave at the time
of the exhumation says mother's little Angel resting snow.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
Yes, but when Matthew was buried in nineteen seventy one,
his tombstone read great grandson of Arthur Ahmann, and that
was it.
Speaker 5 (20:10):
That's not the original stone, Isn't That stone was placed
two or three days before the exhibition, two or three
days before you and Ms Mango and mister Rickman and
everybody else that was at the exhbition or three days
(20:31):
before that.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Yes, I wanted to take the opportunity to correct it
at that time, to make a new one show everyone.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
No, you did not wait until after the exhalation.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
No, I just wanted a place for the reburial, and
that was the time that we could get it done.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
Or it was because the media would be covering the exhumation.
Let's get back to Tracy Raquel. She was home when
Kathy was on the stand because she had been dismissed
and had two small children waiting for her in Savannah.
Speaker 7 (21:07):
The judge had said, no one is supposed to watch
the trial. You're a witness, so to question yourself. Okay.
I went home and there were family in the house,
and people were in and the court was on in
another room and the den in the house, and I
walked from the laundry room with the laundry and I
caught a glimpse of Kathy on the television and she
(21:29):
was testifying. The prosecution called.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
Me that night, former Assistant District Attorney Leanne Mangon. I
called her that night.
Speaker 8 (21:39):
I remember I was standing in my kitchen and this
was back in the days when there was bones on
the wall with the cord, so I remember standing there
with this phone and said something about your mom testified.
It all went okay, And I don't remember her exact words,
but she told me she had watched it on TV and.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
My heart sunk. Tracy kills his It wasn't intentional, it
was only a few seconds, but it was enough. Lead
Assistant District Attorney Jeff Brickman.
Speaker 9 (22:10):
We didn't think we had any choice but to bring
that to the attention immediately to Judge Fuller, and we hoped,
the hope of hopes that he wasn't going to declare
a mistrial. I don't think Tracy did anything intentional. Tracy
thought her testimony was over. There was nothing that she
did wrong. It wasn't going to change the course of anything.
Speaker 8 (22:34):
She was not a fact witness who had something to
offer about what happened on the day that Matthew was murdered.
So while I knew it was a problem, and I
knew unquestionably it was something I needed to let the
judge know about, it didn't immediately strike me as something
that was going to result in a mistrial.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
The prosecutors did their duty and notified the court.
Speaker 7 (22:58):
Then they called back an hour later and said, okay, court,
So there's a five am flight. I arrived, walked into
the courtroom and no jury, nobody in the court, just
the judge, the prosecutors, the defense. In jan and asked
me if I had seen anything on the television.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
As expected, defense counsel pounced on what happened.
Speaker 7 (23:21):
The defense asked for a mistrial, that I had broken
sequester orders.
Speaker 4 (23:27):
Judge Fuller heard arguments for and against a mistrial. Everything
hung in the balance.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
I don't think that I have done anything wrong to
affect this man's rights. He has more rights than I have.
And I'm sitting here and I'm not charged.
Speaker 5 (23:42):
You're not going to be sent away for life in
prison as well.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
I had spent a life in a prison.
Speaker 4 (23:50):
Corrin mal blamed cameras in the courtroom for causing the problem.
Speaker 5 (23:54):
This is a man's life, and Jerry Springer is calling.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
Us and she didn't seem totely moved by Tracy Riquel.
Speaker 5 (24:02):
That's something to look forward to, getting her up on
the stand so she can do what she did. Just now,
sit and cry, a beautiful crying girl. That's what I'm
going to confront.
Speaker 4 (24:14):
Would Judge Fuller allow the trial to continue? Tracy Riquel
held her breath. It was finally possible to get justice
for Matthew, and now her actions could undo all the
years of work Tracy Riquel Burns had spent years of
(24:38):
her young life persuading law enforcement that the death of
her baby brother in nineteen seventy one wasn't an accident
but a vicious murder, and she had succeeded. But five
days into the trial, she had violated the judge's order
of sequestration and saw her mother's testimony on television. Defensettorney
(25:00):
Corin Maul argued for a mistrial and went after the prosecution.
Speaker 5 (25:05):
They deliberately deliberately violated your order and your honor. I
hate to say that I told everyone so, but I did.
Speaker 4 (25:13):
She also went after Tracy Riquel.
Speaker 5 (25:15):
She has been tainted and she violated this rule. And
now when it comes down to it, she's a pretty
lovely young woman, and she's gonna sit there and cry
and cry and cry and cry. I have no way
to process them, no way.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
She saved her last words for the media.
Speaker 5 (25:36):
Having these folks in here was just basically putting the
feed into the witnesses, into the juror's homes, so that
they could go home and see what they were not
able to see, either because they were sequestered or because
they were in a jury room.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
Defense attorney Krinn Mall made it seem like the most
important thing was not proving who did it, but who
did didn't do it? And if she could do that,
why would you need a trial?
Speaker 5 (26:07):
Dad, I'm gonna Warner one and I'm sure they're getting
the stay size and the certificate for Tracy, and you're
on her concided with can all sited members of the press. Tracy,
you are not responsible for the death of your brother,
and let's go home. She isn't responsible, she never was responsible.
Her mother made her responsible. She now has ruined this trial.
(26:29):
He can't have a fair trial. Let's put an end
to the show of want. Please, John, I want for mistrial.
Speaker 4 (26:42):
With prejudice, with prejudice. Let's talk about that. For a
sec asking for a mistrial with prejudice was an important distinction.
If the judge announced that the case was dismissed with prejudice,
that meant it would be permanently dismissed and could not
be retried. And while the prosecution was upset Tracy Raquel
(27:06):
broke the sequestration order, they weren't giving up roder.
Speaker 8 (27:10):
I take strong exception with Ms Maul's contention that this
was a purposeful violation. Clearly, if this were wilful disobedience
of the court's order.
Speaker 5 (27:18):
She never would have told me about it.
Speaker 8 (27:21):
It was not something which was done intentionally, and it
does not rise to the level of an error which
warrants a mistrial.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
Prosecutor Leanne Mangun implored Judge Fuller to let the trial continue.
Speaker 8 (27:33):
There are any number of cases which support the position
that what is affected by her violating the rule is
her credibility, not her ability to testify.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
Judge Fuller listened, but he would take his time to
make a ruling.
Speaker 10 (27:47):
I am not prepared at this moment to rule on
the motion for miss Trump. I'm going to recess the
trial until Monday morning. In the meantime, I may or
may not grant a miss Trump. I don't blame it
on the TV coverage, but without it, it wouldn't occurred. There
(28:10):
are times in our society that we must pay a
price for other freedoms that we have. It could be
that this case ends up being a casualty in order
to guarantee that we have other rights.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
What was your reaction to the idea of a mistrial.
Speaker 7 (28:32):
I didn't do anything. It just really floored me. I
was run over by freight train. I didn't understand.
Speaker 4 (28:43):
When Monday finally came around, all sides anxiously awaited the
judge's decision.
Speaker 11 (28:50):
That's true to come in. Please, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 5 (28:53):
I have a statement to make.
Speaker 11 (28:56):
There has been an egregious violation of the witness sequestration, which,
in the context of this case, is irreputable. I cannot
fix it. The ability to present the best available defense
has been destroyed, at least for now, perhaps forever. One
must remember that missus Rain is not an incidental witness.
(29:20):
In retrospect, it was too much to expect this young
woman to ignore not only her mother's testimony, but all
of the commentaries in her words and I quote, I
have spent my entire life waiting to hear this testimony.
How many of us, under similar circumstances could have resisted
this temptation. The defendant's motion for mistrial is granted. Whether
(29:45):
prejudice attaches will be the subject of further discussion with counsel.
It is my hope that miss Rain will receive some
comfort from knowing that she caused this case to be reopened,
that the cabcating responded in extraordinary fashion, and it has
been established in a court of law, acknowledged by all
that she did not cause her brother's death.
Speaker 4 (30:06):
It was a devastating blow. Tracy Riquel had waited decades
to get justice from Matthew, and it was over.
Speaker 9 (30:16):
It was a carefully worded statement letting Tracy know that
he didn't fault her, and he took some blame about
the cameras, but that despite her valiant efforts, this may
be the end. And then we went back to the office,
tail between our legs.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
As for Tracy Riquel, she already knew she hadn't killed Matthew.
She wasn't there for that. She was there to bring
a child's killer to justice. Judge Fuller's words didn't make
a difference. You must have had so many feelings at
this point.
Speaker 7 (30:50):
I think I was just in shock. Of course, there's
all of these things. It's humiliation, it's anger, it's what
just happened.
Speaker 4 (30:59):
Nobody enjoying this moment more than her father, And somehow
Jan Barry Sandlin managed to get a hold of Tracy
Riquel's phone number.
Speaker 7 (31:09):
I went home and the very next evening got a
call from Jan, which is not supposed to happen.
Speaker 4 (31:15):
It was ominous she could hear something faint in the background.
Speaker 7 (31:20):
It was a talk show or something that was playing,
and that's all you could hear. And it was describing
a lawnmower that had run over this little girl's legs.
And that was the first indirect threat to my children.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
Did he say anything?
Speaker 7 (31:37):
He was laughing and said, see, I told Ed I'll
win the war. He may have won a battle, but
I'm the one who's going to win the war.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
Next time on Burden of Guilt.
Speaker 9 (31:52):
Last time I checked, there's no such thing as a
one free murder rule in Georgia. Let's crank it up
game on trial too.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Let's go.
Speaker 4 (32:04):
Stay tuned for Burden of Guilt at documentary coming in
twenty twenty four and airing only on Paramount Plus. If
you would like to reach out to the Burden of
Guilt team, email us at Burdenofguiltpod at gmail dot com.
That's Burden of Guilt Pod at gmail dot com. If
(32:24):
you or someone you know is worried about maltreatment or
suspect that a child is being abused or neglected, call
the Child Help National child abuse Hotline. You can call
or text one eight hundred four. A child that's one
eight hundred four two two four four five three. One
(32:47):
way to show support is by subscribing to our show
on Apple Podcasts, and don't forget to rate and review
Burden of Guilt. Five star reviews go a long way,
A big thank you for listening, and also be sure
to check us out and follow us on Instagram at
Glass Podcasts. Burden of Guilt is a production of Glass Podcasts,
(33:10):
a division of Glass Entertainment Group, in partnership with iHeart Podcasts.
The show is hosted and executive produced by me Nancy Glass,
written and produced by Andrea Gunning and Carrie Hartman, also
produced by Ben Fetterman and associate producer Kristin Melchiori. Our
iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Crincheck. Special thanks
(33:35):
to Tracy Raquel Burns and her husband Bart. Audio editing
and mixing by Matt Delvecchio. Burden of Guilt's theme composed
by Oliver Bains. Music library provided by my Music and
For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
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