October 25, 2023 • 30 mins
Burden of Guilt has been turned into a docuseries, now streaming only on Paramount+. Available to watch HERE!
And make sure to binge all episodes of the podcast that inspired the show before you watch!
With Jan’s upcoming parole hearing, Tracyraquel was in a race against time to keep her father behind bars. So Tracyraquel pressed her mother for any information that would keep him in prison. After a fateful phone call, her mother’s admission about the day Matthew died was shocking. But it also led investigators to do something nobody could imagine 27 years later.
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If you or someone you know is a victim of domestic abuse, please reach out and call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233.
To report a case of child abuse, please contact your local police department or call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1.800.422.4453.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi all, we have some exciting news to share. Paramount
Plus has turned Burden of Guilt into a docuseries. You
will get to meet the people involved, You'll hear from
the people who have never spoken before, and you get
to see where the story took place. We are so
proud and excited to share it with you. You can
(00:20):
stream it right now on Paramount Plus.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I felt very confident that the fractures we observed in
his head were not accidental, were not from a fall
from the crib. They had been inflicted by another individual,
and this would meet the manner of death. Now, as homicide.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Pathologist doctor Stephen Dunnan is talking about an autopsy of
a baby, it was conducted almost twenty years after his death.
I'm Nancy Glass. This is Burden of Guilt Episode three,
(01:04):
Ashes to Ashes.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
My daughter was almost two at the time, and I
remember she was trying to pick up a gallon of
milk and she didn't even lift that thing up off
the ground.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
This was the moment that galvanized everything for Tracy Raquel
when her little daughter, Goldie, attempted to pick up a
gallon of milk but couldn't lift it. Tracy Raquel knew
that she had not caused her baby brother, Matthew's death.
It simply wasn't possible that she, as a two year old,
had picked fifteen pound Matthew up and thrown him out
(01:40):
of his crib and onto the floor. But of course,
after years of being beaten down, she didn't trust her
own instincts, so she went to consult experts in the
medical field. Doctors reviewed Matthew's hospital file and concluded that
his injuries didn't happen the way his mother, Kathy said
they did. With this knowledge finally in hand, through pure perseverance,
(02:04):
after years of trying, Tracy Riquel finally attracted the attention
of someone in law enforcement. Jim Maybe, a forensic death
investigator into Cab County, Georgia, agreed to help her.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
He was, I'd say, my lifeline. He rarely got that role.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
In former investigator Jim Maybe.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
I took her case to doctor Joe Burton, who at
the time of the chief Medical Examiner for DECAM. Showed
him what we had. He says, can we investigate this?
He said absolutely. Now.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Doctor Joe Burton was a widely respected pathologist, so to
get his interest was a big deal.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
He assigned me to do a couple of things. One
was to continue to interview Tracy again also find out
where the accident occurred into camp.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
An investigation couldn't happen fast enough for Tracy Riquel. Jan
Barry Sandlin's possible parole from his sentence for armed robbery
was looming, and she was scared. She started pressing her mother, Kathy,
to talk more about Matthew's death.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
I have probably asked Kathy everything under the sign, in
every possible way that would be sweet, and ask her
that would be forceful, accusations, everything you can imagine, anything
that would get her to talk.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Tracy Riquel says that years ago, during a phone call
between her and her mother Kathy, Kathy made a shocking revelation.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
She said, you just don't understand when you're in love
with someone that much, you'll do anything for somebody. We
just wanted to start over. We wanted a new life.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Now, for a second, you think, am I hearing this right?
What on earth does this mean? They wanted to start over?
Were the kids expendable? Racy Riquel was now in regular
contact with Jim. Maybe he wanted to get anything he
could on tape that was the one thing that would
help his investigation.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
She's the one who said, you need to go and
get this recorder, and it's perfectly legal in the state
of Georgia. One person knows that you're being recorded and
the other one does it, so we need to do
this and send me everything you have. And that's how
it started.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Now, Kathy never repeated her statement about wanting to start over,
but she made other admissions while the recorder was rolling. First,
Tracy Riquel confronted Kathy about naming her as Matthew's killer.
Speaker 5 (04:21):
In my horror.
Speaker 6 (04:22):
All I feel is that I don't understand how I
can be offered up like that. It would seem to
me like someone would say, I don't know what happened.
Speaker 5 (04:27):
I just found them this way. I don't know what happened.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Investigators listened to those recordings, and I wish we could
play them for you, but they don't exist anymore. The transcripts, however,
do so we use voice actors to recreate the conversation.
And here's what was discussed.
Speaker 7 (04:45):
Well, I guess from what I told them, that's what
they assumed happened. It's what I was led to believe.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Tracy Riquel also brought up an occasion that Kathy had
accused jan of killing Matthew.
Speaker 6 (04:59):
Sheila said that she remembers hearing you have a fight
with him sometime after my's death at Anna's house in
Fate Street.
Speaker 5 (05:04):
Where you said I hate you you killed my child.
Speaker 7 (05:08):
That was years later, maybe two years later, three years later,
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
That was a really odd response to Tracy Riquel's comment.
What difference would it make if it was two or
three years later? Tercy Raquel pressed Kathy on why she
hadn't tried harder to find out what happened to Matthew.
Speaker 6 (05:30):
I mean, you never ever made an attempt to go
to the police.
Speaker 7 (05:34):
If they had found anything that they could do to
prove it with, they would have arrested him. Nobody really knew.
Would it be easier for you to accept your child
being murdered or your child dying in an accident? Answer
that question for me, which would you have a harder
time with and when people are telling you that it
(05:55):
was an accident.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
In other moments on the call, Tracy Raquel tried to
show her mother some grace.
Speaker 6 (06:01):
I firmly believed in my heart that Jane had frightened
you into saying that I was responsible for it. I
firmly believe that you knew and he either threatened to
hurt me or he threatened to hurt you, and he
scared the hell out of you.
Speaker 5 (06:12):
And that's why you didn't You didn't press it.
Speaker 7 (06:15):
No, through the years, he did many times convince me
he didn't do it. There were times when he would
cry when I questioned him about it, and he would
cry and say he didn't do it, and then like
a fool, A lot of times I fall into it,
just like I balled into him being sorry he beat
me up or whatever. How do you think that makes
(06:35):
me feel now?
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Terracy also raised the subject of Jan's first wife, Nancy Tagetter.
Jan moved in with Kathy, Matthew and Terca Riquel only
weeks after Nancy died by suicide, but the circumstances around
her death were very strange. Nancy had shot herself in
the stomach, and she was pregnant at the time.
Speaker 5 (06:59):
But you don't think he was responsible for killing her?
Speaker 4 (07:03):
Yes?
Speaker 7 (07:04):
I do.
Speaker 5 (07:06):
Do you mean you actually think he pulled the trigger?
Speaker 7 (07:10):
I don't know if he actually pulled the trigger or
if he talked her into pulling the trigger. But I
think either way he's responsible.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Jim Maybe listened to the tape of the call. It
was another brick in building a case for the district
attorney to consider. Maybe then said about acquiring the important
paperwork from nineteen seventy one.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
Now, according to the Georgia Deaths Investigation Act, anytime a
child dies under those circumstances of autopicy has to be done.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
When Jim Maybe got his hands on the death certificate,
he was confused. It said the cause of death blunt
forced trauma to the head and indicated the cause of
that was a fall from bit.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
And I kept thinking to myself, well, how did the
coroner sign it out as an accidental net how did
he know how it occurred, what the circumstances were surrounding it.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
After first being unable to locate an autopsy report, Jim
Maybe discovered that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation did do
an autopsy on Matthew the day after he died, on
December twenty eighth, nineteen seventy one. It was performed at
the funeral home. Matthew's death certificate was signed by a
(08:24):
corner now a corner is just an elected official who
establishes the cause of death when a person does not
die of natural causes, and in nineteen seventy one, it
wasn't too hard to qualify for the position. Former District
Attorney j.
Speaker 8 (08:41):
Tom Morgan the only way to be a coroner was
to get more votes to the nets person and to
have a high school education and to have no felony convictions.
It did not require a medical degree or any expertise
in determining cause of death. Usually the coroners, particularly here
in the South, were employees or owned funeral homes. In fact,
(09:02):
a lot of autopsies were actually done in funeral homes
in the South in the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
I found out that mister Harvey, who was the coroner
back then, was still in the area and his decision
to make it an accidental death went without any kind
of police investigation that we could find, and we really
didn't get an answer as to why he signed it
out as an accidental death. He was determined by the family,
not officially or not by an investigation, that Tracy caused
(09:31):
that death.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
As Jim May worked the investigation, he knew he had
to go visit the place where everything went down Matthew's bedroom.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
We didn't even know if the apartment complex were it
occurred even existed anymore.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
And twenty six years later those apartments were still there
and pretty much unchanged.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
We wanted to look at the flooring because we wanted
to see what kind of impact this fall from the
crib would have had or floor us as the corpor
and the resident manager was extremely helpful with us. He
explained that back then the floor was a wooden floor,
but it was covered by a pretty thick carpet.
Speaker 8 (10:10):
Every apartment in Atlanta head shag carpet. All we needed was
saw a lot of lamp and all my brothers on
the eight track and we would be ready to go.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Jim maybe also had questions about how Tracy Raquel would
even get access to baby Matthew in his crib.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
We talked to her mother about the crib and like
all cribs just got one side that you can raise
up or down, and even when it was down, Kathy said,
it's hard ford to reach over and get the child
and get it out of herself. It took that information
back to doctor Burton.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Doctor Joe Burton, the lead medical examiner reviewing the case
died in twenty nineteen. A close colleague worked on the investigation.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
I'm Stephen Dunton. I'm a forensic pathologist. I currently work
for the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences and have so
for ten years. Prior to that, I spent more than
twenty years as a medical examiner here in the metropolitan
Atlanta area, including.
Speaker 5 (11:05):
De Camp County.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Doctor Burton asked doctor Duncan to look at the medical
records to see what he could gather from the report
written the night Matthew was admitted to the hospital.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Everyone who was there when Matthew died in our family knows.
The surgeon came out and said the injury to his
head was as if you took your fist and put
it through a watermelon.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
The skull fractures in this child were far too extensive,
too serious, too complicated to have resulted from him simply
dropping from no more than about four feet and probably
less than that without having been propelled in some fash
two year old would not have been able to add
(11:53):
any momentum to his flight through the air. As a
much larger person who could actually throw a child or
take a child and slam a child down might be
capable of doing.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
While the medical examiner's team was evaluating records, Jim Maybe
was pressing Kathy to write down everything she remembered about
December twenty seventh, nineteen seventy one, and to tercy Quel's surprise,
Kathy provided a lot more insight into what occurred in
the apartment the night Matthew died.
Speaker 4 (12:28):
Missus Allman told us when she first rout, her and
Tracy had gone chopping and also done some laundry. Jan
was the only one there watching this child, and she
went in, like any mother want to go in check
on the child. And he wouldn't allow it. And I
say he wouldn't allow it. He talked her out of it,
but did send Tracy inside. They got the groceries in
(12:50):
in the laundry, and when she got the laundry, which
was the last thing they had to get out of
the car, she checked on the child. This is when
she discovered he was unresponsible based on that. It just
run above a lot of red flags. I didn't understand
why he didn't want her to see the child or whatever.
That doesn't make him a killer.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
In a follow up with Kathy, Jim got even more
information out of her.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
When I talked to Kathy maybe a week or so later,
she believed that Jan had assaulted his child.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
It was the first time Kathy had told law enforcement
directly that she believed Jan killed Matthew. Jan, not Tracy Riquel.
What was happening? Why was she speaking up Now?
Speaker 4 (13:36):
We told her some of the things that we had
discovered and what we believed, and they were going to
get the death certificate change from accidental to house side.
Now she can't say this, but she gave me the
impression I'm going to cooperate with them because the next
step is the police, and I ain't going to jail
for Jan Salmon.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Now Kathy was pointing the finger at Jan. If she
really thought her ex husband had killed her baby, why
did she stay with him for years and have another
child with him? But once Cathy started talking to Jim,
maybe she kept talking. We mentioned Jan's first wife, Nancy
Tigeter earlier when we were talking about the recorded call
(14:16):
between Tracy Riquell and Kathy, And as I mentioned earlier,
Nancy tragically committed suicide. Then just weeks later, Jan moved
in with Kathy. Well, here's the rest of the story.
When Nancy was sixteen, she had a baby boy with
Jan and they got married. Nancy Jan's marriage was on
the rocks on the night Nancy died. They had been
(14:39):
separated and Nancy was several months pregnant with another man's child,
but she wanted to work it out with Jan and
stay married. Jan wanted to end the marriage. As Jan
pulled up to Nancy's apartment that night, she was on
the phone with her best friend.
Speaker 9 (14:57):
My name is Jackie Wilson. It was Jackie Jenkins back then.
I met Nancy the first time at the swimming pool
in Doraville. I was twelve or thirteen, and we were
friends there on and off all the way through school
and after high school.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Like Kathy, Nancy fell head over heels for Jan. He
was a bad boy, exciting and unpredictable.
Speaker 9 (15:25):
I'm just naming. Jan was crazy. Nancy was in love
with a crazy man.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
But once they were married, Jan's true nature surfaced.
Speaker 9 (15:34):
There was times an eight slap and I couldn't take that.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Nancy was expecting to meet Jan at her apartment the
night she died, hoping for a reconciliation. She wanted to
stay together for the sake of their little boy. The
next morning, Nancy was found dead with gunshot wounds to
the abdomen and her body wrapped in a sheet. A
suicide note lay close by. She was only nineteen.
Speaker 9 (16:01):
I had a real difficult time accepting the fact that
Nancy had taken her own life. She had appointments, she
had things she was going to do, and I had
talked with her on the phone that night.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
I talked with.
Speaker 9 (16:14):
Her on the phone until she said, I think Jan's here.
Jan Sandlin, in my book, either killed her himself or
cost to happen, because to my life, he was the
last person that actually saw her. Because when we're on
the phone, she said, don't Jan's here, there's somebody in
(16:35):
the car with him. I don't know who was in
the car with him. But the next day she was dead.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
How exactly does a dead person wrap herself up in
a sheet after she dies? But there was also a
suicide note.
Speaker 9 (16:56):
Nancy was a teenager and when things didn't go right,
she would write little notes that people might interpret as
a suicide note. Because she was hurting so bad. She
wrote a bunch of notes like that that noe Jan
could have picked up from anywhere and put there. She
wasn't suicidal.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Jim Mabe was also skeptical that Nancy died by shooting herself.
Kathy told Jim that jan wanted to quote get rid
of her end quote.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
Think about it, and you want to commit suicide. You
want it over as fast as you can. To shoot
yourself in the abdomen for suicide, don't need to make sense.
That really red flag to me.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Tracy Raquel learned something new and shocking from Kathy's statements
to investigators. She learned that she was also injured that
day Matthew died.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
She to take me to the doctor because I had
fallen down a concrete flight of stairs supposedly and was
bleeding from both my ears.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
I wonder if she actually filled down the steps or
that's what they say and she was actually pushed.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Tracy Quell's medical records revealed that these injuries were not minor.
She was treated for bruises and a bleeding ear.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
I feel like they just wanted to get rid of
both of us. Just like she said in her comments,
we just wanted to start over. We didn't want to
do this, wanted to have our own life together and start.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Over, but Jim maybe had some empathy for Kathy.
Speaker 4 (18:26):
Because of Jan's history suspicions of things that he had done.
I believe in my heart she was afraid of Jam.
Every time you look around, he's involved in him on
an injury or somebody, or death or somebody. You got
a choice, blame your daughter. Your daughter not gonna kill you,
and Jan Samuel'll stay off your bag. Go ahead and
(18:48):
tell the truth that Jan Samlon did it and you
could be dead. With his background, that's not out of
the realm. That doesn't justify what she did. I'm not
saying it, but I'm not going to judge her.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Kathy has always been steadfast that she believed what happened
to Matthew was an accident, and this is documented in
court testimony and in her statement to investigators. We should
say there's no evidence that Kathy actually believed that Jan
killed Matthew and covered it up. According to the conversations
(19:25):
Kathy had with Tracy Riquel that are part of the
case file, Kathy has no memory of telling police her
two year old was responsible. In fact, in the wake
of Matthew's death, she has no real memory of anything.
Speaker 7 (19:39):
I don't even remember making that statement. What that paper
says is wrong about a lot of things. I don't
know what is on that paper.
Speaker 5 (19:49):
You mean it is wrong.
Speaker 7 (19:51):
I cannot tell you anything I said or did that
entire two weeks afterwards.
Speaker 5 (19:56):
I mean, is that because of Matt's death? But the
Jan scare you, I have no idea.
Speaker 7 (20:02):
All I can tell you is that I was in shock.
I don't know what was going on. What I can
remember him telling me later sometime somehow that got in
my head and I wasn't allowed to talk to anybody else,
So I guess it came from him.
Speaker 5 (20:21):
What do you mean, you aren't allowed to talk to
anybody else?
Speaker 7 (20:24):
I was in seclusion with him for two weeks. I
don't know what the hell happened during those.
Speaker 5 (20:30):
Two weeks with Jan. You were in seclusion?
Speaker 7 (20:34):
Yeah, where, I don't know.
Speaker 5 (20:38):
I don't understand. I mean, what do you mean, I
don't know you were locked up somewhere.
Speaker 7 (20:45):
I assume I was at the apartment with him, but
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
The medical examiner's team went to see District Attorney J.
Tom Morgan.
Speaker 8 (20:56):
It is very rare for a medical examiner on his
or her own to come see us and say, you
need to take a hard look at this case. Tracy's
story was unbelievable. Doctor Burton basically said, there's no way
in hell that this child died from these types of
injuries from a shortfall from a crib onto a shack floor.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
After reviewing the recordings with Kathy, the medical records, and
the medical examiner's investigation, Morgan felt like he had enough
to go to a grand jury.
Speaker 8 (21:28):
The grand jury decided that there was probable call sufficient
evidence to go forward with the prosecution of Jan Simon
for the murder of Matthew Goulder.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
But for a trial they would need more than probable cause.
Doctor Stephen Duntan.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
We spoke about the need and the propriety of seeing
these injuries with our ownknives and evaluating them on ourselves
rather than relying on other people's documentation.
Speaker 8 (21:56):
After many discussions, Doctor Burton, Joe Tomy, we can assume
the body, but there was nothing going to be there.
But at the same time, if we don't do it,
you're going to pay the price for it.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
The sad truth is bodies decomposed. We bury bodies so
that over the years they become part of the earth
again and Matthew's tiny body had been in the ground
for more than a quarter of a century. It was
likely they would find very little bones.
Speaker 8 (22:24):
Perhaps the defense rightfully so would say to the jury
there was an easy way to prove this case. All
they had to do was go aszume the body. And
since they're not assuming the body, they're trying to hide something.
So he said we should go ahead and try.
Speaker 4 (22:41):
To do it.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
But they needed Kathy because apparent is the person who
must sign a document granting permission for the exhumation of
a minor child's body. And she said, yes, you.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Don't know what to expect. I've seen human bodies exhumed
after a year that look like they had been buried
the day before. I've seen bodies that were buried six
months earlier that were nearly skeletonized. Knowing how small this
little human body was, and not really knowing how the
(23:17):
embalming process might have taken place, I don't think either
one of us would have been surprised if the casket
was opened and there was nothing identifiable, perhaps other than bones.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
I was told we're going to do this exhumation. It's
checking the box, but there probably won't be anything there
at least we can say we did it.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Teresa Rickill's family was stretched from Georgia to Alabama. Kathy
buried Matthew near her grandparents in a serene, picturesque cemetery
about an hour north of Birmingham.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Duck River Baptist Church. This quiet country setting that seemed
like such a per place for a cemetery.
Speaker 8 (24:02):
The church was on a hill, as was the little
church graveyard. When we got there, it was a clear day,
a little cool, and when I got to the grave site,
the dirt had already been moved. Coincidentally, the grave digger
who put Matthew in the ground was the same grave
digger that dug him back up.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
I remember feeling a bit more somber. It seemed to
me that we were disturbing a sleeping baby, and that
really bothered me. Knowing the stakes that were involved in
a case like this, one that had not been initially
judged to be homicide and one that we had now
(24:43):
decided probably is, I knew that we had to do
everything right.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
The pressure was on and emotions were high. Assistant District
Attorney Leanne Mangon was assigned to the case. She attended
the exsummation as well. She tried to support Kathy as
she watched everything unfold.
Speaker 10 (25:05):
I remember her being quite emotional, crying. I remember her
standing back. I don't think she was right up at
the gravesite, and I kind of took my cues from her.
She wanted to stand back, and we.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Let that happen. I don't remember anybody laughing, smiling. It
really affected all of us, and I know it affected me.
It was a somber mood from beginning to end.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
And of course the investigators didn't expect the exhumation to
offer much information.
Speaker 8 (25:38):
We had all expected the ashes to ashes, dust to dust,
that if there was anything in there, it would just
been a few mains.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
The conditions that we discovered the gravesite, being on an
elevated area with a clear method by which water could
channel away was couraging. And then when the grave was
opened and we found that the vault lid was still
tightly sealed, that was also encouraging. But we still didn't.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Know a burial vault in cases of coffin and helps
to protect it from natural elements.
Speaker 8 (26:17):
The casket was very small. We didn't need a heart
because we're talking about a very small box. Doctor Burton
picked the casket up and put it in the back
of an suv. We followed the suv down to Birmingham.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Once we got to the Birmingham Morgue, where the medical
examiner for Jefferson County had so graciously allowed us to
perform our examination, casket was open and were amazed what
we saw.
Speaker 8 (26:49):
It was a moment of complete silence and shock.
Speaker 10 (26:53):
The thing I will never forget when they opened the
coffin there was a perfectly preserved infant child clutching the
teddy bear that his mom had put in his arms
before he was buried.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
I just couldn't believe it.
Speaker 10 (27:08):
It was a transformative experience. It was an unforgettable, horrible,
unimaginable moment. I had to step away.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
What they found did much more than check a box
for a court battle. What they found would change everything.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
It just amazes me. Doctor Bird, who had done probably
over ten thousand autopsies, said himself, he had never seen
our body. That will preserved me in that long underground.
God knew the truth. God preserved that child till we
got there. He is waiting for us to do it.
(27:50):
We did.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
On the next burden of Guilt.
Speaker 11 (27:56):
This was a very old case, and while we had
prosecuted some cold cases, this was the coldest. This was frigid,
and we knew there was going to be a hefty
fight in front of us at trial.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
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
(28:33):
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
(28:55):
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,
(29:18):
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 Carrie Hartman and Andrea Gunning. Also
produced by Ben Fetterman, Lauren Murphy and associate producer Kristin Melchiori.
Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Crincheck. Special
(29:43):
thanks to Tracy Raquel Burns and her husband Bart. Voice
acting in this episode was performed by Carla Burgess and
Nally Mobley. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio. Burden
of Guilt's theme composed by Oliver Baines. Music live provided
by my Music and For more podcasts from iHeart, visit
(30:05):
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts,
Hi all, we have some exciting news to share. Paramount
Plus has turned Burden of Guilt into a docuseries. You
will get to meet the people involved, You'll hear from
the people who have never spoken before, and you get
to see where the story took place. We are so
proud and excited to share it with you. You can
(00:20):
stream it right now on Paramount Plus.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I felt very confident that the fractures we observed in
his head were not accidental, were not from a fall
from the crib. They had been inflicted by another individual,
and this would meet the manner of death. Now, as homicide.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Pathologist doctor Stephen Dunnan is talking about an autopsy of
a baby, it was conducted almost twenty years after his death.
I'm Nancy Glass. This is Burden of Guilt Episode three,
(01:04):
Ashes to Ashes.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
My daughter was almost two at the time, and I
remember she was trying to pick up a gallon of
milk and she didn't even lift that thing up off
the ground.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
This was the moment that galvanized everything for Tracy Raquel
when her little daughter, Goldie, attempted to pick up a
gallon of milk but couldn't lift it. Tracy Raquel knew
that she had not caused her baby brother, Matthew's death.
It simply wasn't possible that she, as a two year old,
had picked fifteen pound Matthew up and thrown him out
(01:40):
of his crib and onto the floor. But of course,
after years of being beaten down, she didn't trust her
own instincts, so she went to consult experts in the
medical field. Doctors reviewed Matthew's hospital file and concluded that
his injuries didn't happen the way his mother, Kathy said
they did. With this knowledge finally in hand, through pure perseverance,
(02:04):
after years of trying, Tracy Riquel finally attracted the attention
of someone in law enforcement. Jim Maybe, a forensic death
investigator into Cab County, Georgia, agreed to help her.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
He was, I'd say, my lifeline. He rarely got that role.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
In former investigator Jim Maybe.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
I took her case to doctor Joe Burton, who at
the time of the chief Medical Examiner for DECAM. Showed
him what we had. He says, can we investigate this?
He said absolutely. Now.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Doctor Joe Burton was a widely respected pathologist, so to
get his interest was a big deal.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
He assigned me to do a couple of things. One
was to continue to interview Tracy again also find out
where the accident occurred into camp.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
An investigation couldn't happen fast enough for Tracy Riquel. Jan
Barry Sandlin's possible parole from his sentence for armed robbery
was looming, and she was scared. She started pressing her mother, Kathy,
to talk more about Matthew's death.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
I have probably asked Kathy everything under the sign, in
every possible way that would be sweet, and ask her
that would be forceful, accusations, everything you can imagine, anything
that would get her to talk.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Tracy Riquel says that years ago, during a phone call
between her and her mother Kathy, Kathy made a shocking revelation.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
She said, you just don't understand when you're in love
with someone that much, you'll do anything for somebody. We
just wanted to start over. We wanted a new life.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Now, for a second, you think, am I hearing this right?
What on earth does this mean? They wanted to start over?
Were the kids expendable? Racy Riquel was now in regular
contact with Jim. Maybe he wanted to get anything he
could on tape that was the one thing that would
help his investigation.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
She's the one who said, you need to go and
get this recorder, and it's perfectly legal in the state
of Georgia. One person knows that you're being recorded and
the other one does it, so we need to do
this and send me everything you have. And that's how
it started.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Now, Kathy never repeated her statement about wanting to start over,
but she made other admissions while the recorder was rolling. First,
Tracy Riquel confronted Kathy about naming her as Matthew's killer.
Speaker 5 (04:21):
In my horror.
Speaker 6 (04:22):
All I feel is that I don't understand how I
can be offered up like that. It would seem to
me like someone would say, I don't know what happened.
Speaker 5 (04:27):
I just found them this way. I don't know what happened.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Investigators listened to those recordings, and I wish we could
play them for you, but they don't exist anymore. The transcripts, however,
do so we use voice actors to recreate the conversation.
And here's what was discussed.
Speaker 7 (04:45):
Well, I guess from what I told them, that's what
they assumed happened. It's what I was led to believe.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Tracy Riquel also brought up an occasion that Kathy had
accused jan of killing Matthew.
Speaker 6 (04:59):
Sheila said that she remembers hearing you have a fight
with him sometime after my's death at Anna's house in
Fate Street.
Speaker 5 (05:04):
Where you said I hate you you killed my child.
Speaker 7 (05:08):
That was years later, maybe two years later, three years later,
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
That was a really odd response to Tracy Riquel's comment.
What difference would it make if it was two or
three years later? Tercy Raquel pressed Kathy on why she
hadn't tried harder to find out what happened to Matthew.
Speaker 6 (05:30):
I mean, you never ever made an attempt to go
to the police.
Speaker 7 (05:34):
If they had found anything that they could do to
prove it with, they would have arrested him. Nobody really knew.
Would it be easier for you to accept your child
being murdered or your child dying in an accident? Answer
that question for me, which would you have a harder
time with and when people are telling you that it
(05:55):
was an accident.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
In other moments on the call, Tracy Raquel tried to
show her mother some grace.
Speaker 6 (06:01):
I firmly believed in my heart that Jane had frightened
you into saying that I was responsible for it. I
firmly believe that you knew and he either threatened to
hurt me or he threatened to hurt you, and he
scared the hell out of you.
Speaker 5 (06:12):
And that's why you didn't You didn't press it.
Speaker 7 (06:15):
No, through the years, he did many times convince me
he didn't do it. There were times when he would
cry when I questioned him about it, and he would
cry and say he didn't do it, and then like
a fool, A lot of times I fall into it,
just like I balled into him being sorry he beat
me up or whatever. How do you think that makes
(06:35):
me feel now?
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Terracy also raised the subject of Jan's first wife, Nancy Tagetter.
Jan moved in with Kathy, Matthew and Terca Riquel only
weeks after Nancy died by suicide, but the circumstances around
her death were very strange. Nancy had shot herself in
the stomach, and she was pregnant at the time.
Speaker 5 (06:59):
But you don't think he was responsible for killing her?
Speaker 4 (07:03):
Yes?
Speaker 7 (07:04):
I do.
Speaker 5 (07:06):
Do you mean you actually think he pulled the trigger?
Speaker 7 (07:10):
I don't know if he actually pulled the trigger or
if he talked her into pulling the trigger. But I
think either way he's responsible.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Jim Maybe listened to the tape of the call. It
was another brick in building a case for the district
attorney to consider. Maybe then said about acquiring the important
paperwork from nineteen seventy one.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
Now, according to the Georgia Deaths Investigation Act, anytime a
child dies under those circumstances of autopicy has to be done.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
When Jim Maybe got his hands on the death certificate,
he was confused. It said the cause of death blunt
forced trauma to the head and indicated the cause of
that was a fall from bit.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
And I kept thinking to myself, well, how did the
coroner sign it out as an accidental net how did
he know how it occurred, what the circumstances were surrounding it.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
After first being unable to locate an autopsy report, Jim
Maybe discovered that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation did do
an autopsy on Matthew the day after he died, on
December twenty eighth, nineteen seventy one. It was performed at
the funeral home. Matthew's death certificate was signed by a
(08:24):
corner now a corner is just an elected official who
establishes the cause of death when a person does not
die of natural causes, and in nineteen seventy one, it
wasn't too hard to qualify for the position. Former District
Attorney j.
Speaker 8 (08:41):
Tom Morgan the only way to be a coroner was
to get more votes to the nets person and to
have a high school education and to have no felony convictions.
It did not require a medical degree or any expertise
in determining cause of death. Usually the coroners, particularly here
in the South, were employees or owned funeral homes. In fact,
(09:02):
a lot of autopsies were actually done in funeral homes
in the South in the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
I found out that mister Harvey, who was the coroner
back then, was still in the area and his decision
to make it an accidental death went without any kind
of police investigation that we could find, and we really
didn't get an answer as to why he signed it
out as an accidental death. He was determined by the family,
not officially or not by an investigation, that Tracy caused
(09:31):
that death.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
As Jim May worked the investigation, he knew he had
to go visit the place where everything went down Matthew's bedroom.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
We didn't even know if the apartment complex were it
occurred even existed anymore.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
And twenty six years later those apartments were still there
and pretty much unchanged.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
We wanted to look at the flooring because we wanted
to see what kind of impact this fall from the
crib would have had or floor us as the corpor
and the resident manager was extremely helpful with us. He
explained that back then the floor was a wooden floor,
but it was covered by a pretty thick carpet.
Speaker 8 (10:10):
Every apartment in Atlanta head shag carpet. All we needed was
saw a lot of lamp and all my brothers on
the eight track and we would be ready to go.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Jim maybe also had questions about how Tracy Raquel would
even get access to baby Matthew in his crib.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
We talked to her mother about the crib and like
all cribs just got one side that you can raise
up or down, and even when it was down, Kathy said,
it's hard ford to reach over and get the child
and get it out of herself. It took that information
back to doctor Burton.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Doctor Joe Burton, the lead medical examiner reviewing the case
died in twenty nineteen. A close colleague worked on the investigation.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
I'm Stephen Dunton. I'm a forensic pathologist. I currently work
for the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences and have so
for ten years. Prior to that, I spent more than
twenty years as a medical examiner here in the metropolitan
Atlanta area, including.
Speaker 5 (11:05):
De Camp County.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Doctor Burton asked doctor Duncan to look at the medical
records to see what he could gather from the report
written the night Matthew was admitted to the hospital.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Everyone who was there when Matthew died in our family knows.
The surgeon came out and said the injury to his
head was as if you took your fist and put
it through a watermelon.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
The skull fractures in this child were far too extensive,
too serious, too complicated to have resulted from him simply
dropping from no more than about four feet and probably
less than that without having been propelled in some fash
two year old would not have been able to add
(11:53):
any momentum to his flight through the air. As a
much larger person who could actually throw a child or
take a child and slam a child down might be
capable of doing.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
While the medical examiner's team was evaluating records, Jim Maybe
was pressing Kathy to write down everything she remembered about
December twenty seventh, nineteen seventy one, and to tercy Quel's surprise,
Kathy provided a lot more insight into what occurred in
the apartment the night Matthew died.
Speaker 4 (12:28):
Missus Allman told us when she first rout, her and
Tracy had gone chopping and also done some laundry. Jan
was the only one there watching this child, and she
went in, like any mother want to go in check
on the child. And he wouldn't allow it. And I
say he wouldn't allow it. He talked her out of it,
but did send Tracy inside. They got the groceries in
(12:50):
in the laundry, and when she got the laundry, which
was the last thing they had to get out of
the car, she checked on the child. This is when
she discovered he was unresponsible based on that. It just
run above a lot of red flags. I didn't understand
why he didn't want her to see the child or whatever.
That doesn't make him a killer.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
In a follow up with Kathy, Jim got even more
information out of her.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
When I talked to Kathy maybe a week or so later,
she believed that Jan had assaulted his child.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
It was the first time Kathy had told law enforcement
directly that she believed Jan killed Matthew. Jan, not Tracy Riquel.
What was happening? Why was she speaking up Now?
Speaker 4 (13:36):
We told her some of the things that we had
discovered and what we believed, and they were going to
get the death certificate change from accidental to house side.
Now she can't say this, but she gave me the
impression I'm going to cooperate with them because the next
step is the police, and I ain't going to jail
for Jan Salmon.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Now Kathy was pointing the finger at Jan. If she
really thought her ex husband had killed her baby, why
did she stay with him for years and have another
child with him? But once Cathy started talking to Jim,
maybe she kept talking. We mentioned Jan's first wife, Nancy
Tigeter earlier when we were talking about the recorded call
(14:16):
between Tracy Riquell and Kathy, And as I mentioned earlier,
Nancy tragically committed suicide. Then just weeks later, Jan moved
in with Kathy. Well, here's the rest of the story.
When Nancy was sixteen, she had a baby boy with
Jan and they got married. Nancy Jan's marriage was on
the rocks on the night Nancy died. They had been
(14:39):
separated and Nancy was several months pregnant with another man's child,
but she wanted to work it out with Jan and
stay married. Jan wanted to end the marriage. As Jan
pulled up to Nancy's apartment that night, she was on
the phone with her best friend.
Speaker 9 (14:57):
My name is Jackie Wilson. It was Jackie Jenkins back then.
I met Nancy the first time at the swimming pool
in Doraville. I was twelve or thirteen, and we were
friends there on and off all the way through school
and after high school.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Like Kathy, Nancy fell head over heels for Jan. He
was a bad boy, exciting and unpredictable.
Speaker 9 (15:25):
I'm just naming. Jan was crazy. Nancy was in love
with a crazy man.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
But once they were married, Jan's true nature surfaced.
Speaker 9 (15:34):
There was times an eight slap and I couldn't take that.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Nancy was expecting to meet Jan at her apartment the
night she died, hoping for a reconciliation. She wanted to
stay together for the sake of their little boy. The
next morning, Nancy was found dead with gunshot wounds to
the abdomen and her body wrapped in a sheet. A
suicide note lay close by. She was only nineteen.
Speaker 9 (16:01):
I had a real difficult time accepting the fact that
Nancy had taken her own life. She had appointments, she
had things she was going to do, and I had
talked with her on the phone that night.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
I talked with.
Speaker 9 (16:14):
Her on the phone until she said, I think Jan's here.
Jan Sandlin, in my book, either killed her himself or
cost to happen, because to my life, he was the
last person that actually saw her. Because when we're on
the phone, she said, don't Jan's here, there's somebody in
(16:35):
the car with him. I don't know who was in
the car with him. But the next day she was dead.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
How exactly does a dead person wrap herself up in
a sheet after she dies? But there was also a
suicide note.
Speaker 9 (16:56):
Nancy was a teenager and when things didn't go right,
she would write little notes that people might interpret as
a suicide note. Because she was hurting so bad. She
wrote a bunch of notes like that that noe Jan
could have picked up from anywhere and put there. She
wasn't suicidal.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Jim Mabe was also skeptical that Nancy died by shooting herself.
Kathy told Jim that jan wanted to quote get rid
of her end quote.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
Think about it, and you want to commit suicide. You
want it over as fast as you can. To shoot
yourself in the abdomen for suicide, don't need to make sense.
That really red flag to me.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Tracy Raquel learned something new and shocking from Kathy's statements
to investigators. She learned that she was also injured that
day Matthew died.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
She to take me to the doctor because I had
fallen down a concrete flight of stairs supposedly and was
bleeding from both my ears.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
I wonder if she actually filled down the steps or
that's what they say and she was actually pushed.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Tracy Quell's medical records revealed that these injuries were not minor.
She was treated for bruises and a bleeding ear.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
I feel like they just wanted to get rid of
both of us. Just like she said in her comments,
we just wanted to start over. We didn't want to
do this, wanted to have our own life together and start.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Over, but Jim maybe had some empathy for Kathy.
Speaker 4 (18:26):
Because of Jan's history suspicions of things that he had done.
I believe in my heart she was afraid of Jam.
Every time you look around, he's involved in him on
an injury or somebody, or death or somebody. You got
a choice, blame your daughter. Your daughter not gonna kill you,
and Jan Samuel'll stay off your bag. Go ahead and
(18:48):
tell the truth that Jan Samlon did it and you
could be dead. With his background, that's not out of
the realm. That doesn't justify what she did. I'm not
saying it, but I'm not going to judge her.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Kathy has always been steadfast that she believed what happened
to Matthew was an accident, and this is documented in
court testimony and in her statement to investigators. We should
say there's no evidence that Kathy actually believed that Jan
killed Matthew and covered it up. According to the conversations
(19:25):
Kathy had with Tracy Riquel that are part of the
case file, Kathy has no memory of telling police her
two year old was responsible. In fact, in the wake
of Matthew's death, she has no real memory of anything.
Speaker 7 (19:39):
I don't even remember making that statement. What that paper
says is wrong about a lot of things. I don't
know what is on that paper.
Speaker 5 (19:49):
You mean it is wrong.
Speaker 7 (19:51):
I cannot tell you anything I said or did that
entire two weeks afterwards.
Speaker 5 (19:56):
I mean, is that because of Matt's death? But the
Jan scare you, I have no idea.
Speaker 7 (20:02):
All I can tell you is that I was in shock.
I don't know what was going on. What I can
remember him telling me later sometime somehow that got in
my head and I wasn't allowed to talk to anybody else,
So I guess it came from him.
Speaker 5 (20:21):
What do you mean, you aren't allowed to talk to
anybody else?
Speaker 7 (20:24):
I was in seclusion with him for two weeks. I
don't know what the hell happened during those.
Speaker 5 (20:30):
Two weeks with Jan. You were in seclusion?
Speaker 7 (20:34):
Yeah, where, I don't know.
Speaker 5 (20:38):
I don't understand. I mean, what do you mean, I
don't know you were locked up somewhere.
Speaker 7 (20:45):
I assume I was at the apartment with him, but
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
The medical examiner's team went to see District Attorney J.
Tom Morgan.
Speaker 8 (20:56):
It is very rare for a medical examiner on his
or her own to come see us and say, you
need to take a hard look at this case. Tracy's
story was unbelievable. Doctor Burton basically said, there's no way
in hell that this child died from these types of
injuries from a shortfall from a crib onto a shack floor.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
After reviewing the recordings with Kathy, the medical records, and
the medical examiner's investigation, Morgan felt like he had enough
to go to a grand jury.
Speaker 8 (21:28):
The grand jury decided that there was probable call sufficient
evidence to go forward with the prosecution of Jan Simon
for the murder of Matthew Goulder.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
But for a trial they would need more than probable cause.
Doctor Stephen Duntan.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
We spoke about the need and the propriety of seeing
these injuries with our ownknives and evaluating them on ourselves
rather than relying on other people's documentation.
Speaker 8 (21:56):
After many discussions, Doctor Burton, Joe Tomy, we can assume
the body, but there was nothing going to be there.
But at the same time, if we don't do it,
you're going to pay the price for it.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
The sad truth is bodies decomposed. We bury bodies so
that over the years they become part of the earth
again and Matthew's tiny body had been in the ground
for more than a quarter of a century. It was
likely they would find very little bones.
Speaker 8 (22:24):
Perhaps the defense rightfully so would say to the jury
there was an easy way to prove this case. All
they had to do was go aszume the body. And
since they're not assuming the body, they're trying to hide something.
So he said we should go ahead and try.
Speaker 4 (22:41):
To do it.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
But they needed Kathy because apparent is the person who
must sign a document granting permission for the exhumation of
a minor child's body. And she said, yes, you.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Don't know what to expect. I've seen human bodies exhumed
after a year that look like they had been buried
the day before. I've seen bodies that were buried six
months earlier that were nearly skeletonized. Knowing how small this
little human body was, and not really knowing how the
(23:17):
embalming process might have taken place, I don't think either
one of us would have been surprised if the casket
was opened and there was nothing identifiable, perhaps other than bones.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
I was told we're going to do this exhumation. It's
checking the box, but there probably won't be anything there
at least we can say we did it.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Teresa Rickill's family was stretched from Georgia to Alabama. Kathy
buried Matthew near her grandparents in a serene, picturesque cemetery
about an hour north of Birmingham.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Duck River Baptist Church. This quiet country setting that seemed
like such a per place for a cemetery.
Speaker 8 (24:02):
The church was on a hill, as was the little
church graveyard. When we got there, it was a clear day,
a little cool, and when I got to the grave site,
the dirt had already been moved. Coincidentally, the grave digger
who put Matthew in the ground was the same grave
digger that dug him back up.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
I remember feeling a bit more somber. It seemed to
me that we were disturbing a sleeping baby, and that
really bothered me. Knowing the stakes that were involved in
a case like this, one that had not been initially
judged to be homicide and one that we had now
(24:43):
decided probably is, I knew that we had to do
everything right.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
The pressure was on and emotions were high. Assistant District
Attorney Leanne Mangon was assigned to the case. She attended
the exsummation as well. She tried to support Kathy as
she watched everything unfold.
Speaker 10 (25:05):
I remember her being quite emotional, crying. I remember her
standing back. I don't think she was right up at
the gravesite, and I kind of took my cues from her.
She wanted to stand back, and we.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Let that happen. I don't remember anybody laughing, smiling. It
really affected all of us, and I know it affected me.
It was a somber mood from beginning to end.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
And of course the investigators didn't expect the exhumation to
offer much information.
Speaker 8 (25:38):
We had all expected the ashes to ashes, dust to dust,
that if there was anything in there, it would just
been a few mains.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
The conditions that we discovered the gravesite, being on an
elevated area with a clear method by which water could
channel away was couraging. And then when the grave was
opened and we found that the vault lid was still
tightly sealed, that was also encouraging. But we still didn't.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Know a burial vault in cases of coffin and helps
to protect it from natural elements.
Speaker 8 (26:17):
The casket was very small. We didn't need a heart
because we're talking about a very small box. Doctor Burton
picked the casket up and put it in the back
of an suv. We followed the suv down to Birmingham.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Once we got to the Birmingham Morgue, where the medical
examiner for Jefferson County had so graciously allowed us to
perform our examination, casket was open and were amazed what
we saw.
Speaker 8 (26:49):
It was a moment of complete silence and shock.
Speaker 10 (26:53):
The thing I will never forget when they opened the
coffin there was a perfectly preserved infant child clutching the
teddy bear that his mom had put in his arms
before he was buried.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
I just couldn't believe it.
Speaker 10 (27:08):
It was a transformative experience. It was an unforgettable, horrible,
unimaginable moment. I had to step away.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
What they found did much more than check a box
for a court battle. What they found would change everything.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
It just amazes me. Doctor Bird, who had done probably
over ten thousand autopsies, said himself, he had never seen
our body. That will preserved me in that long underground.
God knew the truth. God preserved that child till we
got there. He is waiting for us to do it.
(27:50):
We did.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
On the next burden of Guilt.
Speaker 11 (27:56):
This was a very old case, and while we had
prosecuted some cold cases, this was the coldest. This was frigid,
and we knew there was going to be a hefty
fight in front of us at trial.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
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
(28:33):
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
(28:55):
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,
(29:18):
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 Carrie Hartman and Andrea Gunning. Also
produced by Ben Fetterman, Lauren Murphy and associate producer Kristin Melchiori.
Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Crincheck. Special
(29:43):
thanks to Tracy Raquel Burns and her husband Bart. Voice
acting in this episode was performed by Carla Burgess and
Nally Mobley. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio. Burden
of Guilt's theme composed by Oliver Baines. Music live provided
by my Music and For more podcasts from iHeart, visit
(30:05):
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts,
Host
Nancy Glass
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