S1: Ep 5 - Game On

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Did you have any reservation at all about having that child?

Of course not.

Did you ever have any.

Second thoughts about why did I have this child in the first time?

Never? My children were everything to me.

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 wife Tracy Raquel's mother, Kathy Allman, was on the stand. She would be questioned for six hours. Jeff Brickman went first for the prosecution.

How had you met Jan Berry Sam?

I met him in the sixth grade when I was about eleven or twelve years old.

Did you care for mister Sam went back in nineteen seventy.

One, Yes, that is.

Lead Assistant District Attorney Jeff Brickman then wanted to know what happened in the hours leading to Matthew's death.

December twenty seventh, nineteen seventy one. I want you to tell the members of the jury. It's best you can remember what it is you did that day, starting in the morning.

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.

In episode three, I told you how Kathy brought Tracy Raquel to the doctor to be treated for bruises and a bleeding ear and asked 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.

When you put him down for a nap on December twenty seventh, nineteen seventy one, as far as you knew, was he healthy?

Yes?

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, Tracy Roquel was nowhere to be seen.

Then what did you do?

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, she should keep an eye her.

So what did you do?

Started frantically running around the house looking for Tracy?

Were there only a certain number of rooms? Wish to look?

Yes?

Did you look in the room?

Yes?

Did you find her when you first started looking for her?

No?

Where did you find her in Matt's bed? What was she doing in the bed sitting? Did you see Matt?

Not at first?

Did you do at some point see him?

Then 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.

What did he look like?

He looked fine, but he was breathing real heavy.

Did you have a chance to look at his face or his eyes?

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.

Matthew would never wake up.

What if anything to mister Samlin did he started to grab Tracy up in Spiker.

One child was dying and the other was being punished.

If you would describe for the member of the jury as best you can, what was your condition right then?

I was in a status shock.

Do you recall much about what happened after that night? No?

I don't.

According to the recorded phone call between Kathy and Tracy Riquel, Cathy had no memory of the two weeks that followed Matthew's death, and she says Jan kept her in seclusion.

Did you have any idea how he had died?

No? I thought it was an accident in a horrible accent.

But records show that authorities were told that two year old Tracy Roquel threw Matthew out of the crib and killed him.

Anytime, were you led to believe that it was an accident?

Yes, how through the police and everybody around me.

Did you believe that?

Yes? I believed it.

Did you have any reason not to believe that?

Oh? I did.

At any time, did you have an opportunity to talk with mister Sandlin about what happened to Matt that day? Yes, what did he tell you?

You tell me it was a terrible accident and I needed to accept it and get over it.

Did you take him out his work?

Pretty much?

Anything about that?

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.

You were called telling her that there was easier to believe what I was led to believe. Yes, what did you mean by that?

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.

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? No, this was a person that I loved since I was twelve years old. I thought he was the love of my life.

Did you have any reservation at all about having that child?

Of course not.

Did you ever have any.

Second thoughts about why did I have this child in the first time?

Oh? Never? My children were everything to me.

Jeff Brickman asked Kathy about her own involvement in her son's death.

Did you kill him?

No?

I didn't.

She also told the court why she kept this a secret from Tracy Riquel.

Why wasn't it easy for you to talk about this with Tracy.

Because I didn't want to hurt her if she had done it, I really wasn't sure.

Did she question you about it?

Yes, a lot, lot for about ten years.

Was there a point in time when Tracy asked you to grant a release of the medical records?

Yes?

Did you do that?

Yes? Why did you do it? Because I want the truth to come out.

I want to know what happened to my son and for Cathy, the idea that Tracy Raquel killed her brother didn't seem out of the question.

If it was an accident, was Tracy the person it would have been the cause of the accident?

Yes, well either her Jan, I don't know. They were the only two in the.

House, that's true. The only two people home were a grown adult and a two year old Jan. Sandlan's lawyer, Carin Maul was ready for the cross examination.

Now, Tracy was and is a fairly very intelligent young lady, and she and she was developmentally advanced. She was walking when she was nine months old, right, and she was talking. She wasn't talking yet, she was about twelve months. She wasn't talking yet. She could just say MoMA and bye bye. 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.

Yes, it's hard to know what Karen Maul 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.

When you left Matt, there wasn't anything on his body.

What do you mean there was?

I mean there wasn't any old bruises on the house neck, No, no mark. Sorry, there wasn't anything on his left heel.

Now, remember when Matthew was brought to the hospital night he died, doctors noticed a bruised clavicle and a burnmark on his left foot.

No, okay, So it must have shocked you when you read those medical reports.

Yes, very much so.

Now you testified here today that you ran around the house frantically looking for Tracy. And we've already established that we basically 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 correct.

Right, and in the kitchen, and on the back porch and on the front. I was looking everywhere for it.

Okay, you didn't go into the bedrooms. Evidently didn't go into Matt's bedrooms.

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 sweep.

Okay, but it's a small room. If you had stood in the doorway and looked in, you'd have seen whoever was there.

Like I said, I glanced in the first time, the second time I found.

Let's step out of the courtroom for a minute here and talk about what Tracy Riquel had been through over the course of her life. As you know, Tercy Raquel suffered a lot. During her childhood. Jan Sanlin was extremely abusive and some stories were frankly too horrific to broadcast. As a teenager, she had attempted suicide and her mother

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? You tell her that she's responsible.

No, I didn't tell her that.

Okay, what did you tell her?

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. What did you say? I told her what had happened, that it was an accident.

Did you tell her that she threw the baby out of the crip?

I may have at some point, I really don't remember.

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.

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 Let's.

Let's take one fact at a time. Did you tell your daughter sometime in eighty five or eighty six that she maybe No, 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.

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, you tell that to Sergeant Unis when you talk to.

Him nineteen eighty five.

I don't remember you tell that to mister Brickman and Miss Mango.

I may have mentioned it, I don't remember.

You don't well, missus Almond, you wrote a statements for sergeant's units, didn't you. Yes, from nineteen ninety five. Yes, you put it in that statement.

I don't remember.

Did Miss Mann ask you to sign a release so that she could see the records from PIA.

No.

PIA stands for the Psychiatric Institute of Atlanta, the facility where Kathy had Tracy Riquel committed.

She never asked you that. Did you ever tell her that you had talked to folks at PIA.

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.

And you told them that it was possible that Tracy, with her heavy baby shoes, stepped on Matt's head and then.

Possibly trying to figure out what happened.

You also mentioned that there was some thought that maybe mister Sandlin did it right, right, okay, but that 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 that way.

Well, I don't remember exactly that. I was just trying to throw up ideas of anything that would help her.

I'm having a hard time with this. Kathy wants to help Tracy Raquel get over something she isn't even aware of, 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, right, 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? Okay. So January of nineteen eighty five, you were talking to therapists, correct, and you mentioned about Tracy possibly throwing the baby out

Right, That's what I believed for a long time. The police and the investigation and all led me to believe that.

Okay. So it was the police and the investigation investigators that led you to believe that Tracy threw the baby from the bed.

Yes, what investigation in nineteen seventy one? There was no investigation, That's what God Tracy riquelso interested in the first place.

Did the police also lead you to believe that Tracy might have stepped on the baby's head with her heavy baby shoes.

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.

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 Yes, And she says to you at that point that it 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 ninety four, that she was responsible for the death of her brother.

Right, That's where she says.

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?

Right?

And she told you that you never said anything different, In the fact, you told her that she was responsible.

Correct, That's what I believed.

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 spell. Miss Almond.

Right, I don't recall that, but I could have. She had on nephew shoes.

You've tried to stop her from digging into it, haven't you know?

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.

From harassing you from accusing you.

If she was accusing me of not knowing what happened, that I should have known.

I was the mother you testified earlier. She accused you of being directly responsible at one time.

Well, she has had lots of different thoughts about it all.

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 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, And then Cathy pointed the finger at Jam.

It had to be him because it wasn't me, and no one was else was in there but Tracy. And when we saw the medical reports, there's no why Tracy could have done that to him. It had to be done by somebody else. And the only person there was Chan and he tricked me by making me go downstairs and get the clothes so he could put Tracy in the bed.

I am sure of it, okay, Then why in nineteen eighty five didn't you say that.

I wasn't sure of it in eighty five.

Why miss Allman, 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.

I don't know. I simply giving background information to them so they could help Tracy. And I thought it was because she was having bad memories about what happened to Man.

The tombstone that was on the grave at the time of the exhamation says mother's little angel resting to the snow.

Yes, but when Matthew was buried in nineteen seventy one, his tombstone read great grandson of Arthur Ahmann, and that was it.

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. Mangoon and mister Brickman and everybody else that was that the exhibition two or three days before that.

Yes, I wanted to take the opportunity to her at that time. Didn't make a new.

One show everyone. No, you did not wait until after the exculution.

No, I just wanted to in place for the reburial, and that was the time that we could get it done.

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.

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 was satisfying. The prosecution called me that night.

Former Assistant District Attorney Leeann Mangoon.

I called her that night. I remember I was standing in my kitchen and this was back in the days when there was bones on the wall with a 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 my heart sunk.

Tracy rerickkil says it wasn't intentional. It was only a few seconds, but it was enough. Lead Assistant District Attorney Jeff.

Rickman, 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.

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.

The prosecutors did their duty and notified the court.

Then they called back an hour later and said, okay, we need you in 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.

As expected, defense counsel pounced on what happened.

The defense asked for a mistrial, that I had broken sequester quorders.

Judge Fuller heard arguments for and against a mistrial. Everything hung in the balance.

I don't think that I have done any thing wrong to effect this man's rights. He has more rights than I have. And I'm sitting here and I'm not charged.

You're not going to be sent away for life in prison as well.

I had spent a life in a prison.

Corrin mal blamed cameras in the courtroom for causing the problem.

This is a man's life, and Jerry Springer is calling.

Us and she didn't seem particularly moved by Tracy Riquel.

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.

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 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

They deliberately deliberately violated your order and your honor. I hate to say that I told everyone so, but I did.

She also went after Tracy Riquel.

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 going to sit there and cry and cry and cry and cry. I have no way to process it no way.

She saved her last words for the media.

Having these folks in here was just basically putting the feed into the witnesses, into the jurors 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.

Defense attorney carrin Mal made it seem like the most important thing was not proving who did it, but who didn't do it. And if she could do that, why would you need a trial?

By dad, I'm going to order one, and I'm sure they're getting the state size and the certificate for Tracy, and you're on her considant with the all signed 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 the claw. He can't have fair trial. Let's put an end to this show of wanna please moved for miss trial.

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 Riquel broke the sequestration order, they weren't giving up Roder.

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, she never.

Would have told me about it.

It was not something which was done intentionally, and it does not rise to the level of an error which warrants a mistrial.

Prosecutor Lianne Manngun implored Judge Fuller to let the trial continue.

There are any number of cases which support the position.

What is affected by her violating the rule is her credibility, not her ability to testify.

Judge Fuller listened, but he would take his time to make a ruling.

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 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.

What was your reaction to the idea of a mistrial.

I didn't do anything. It just really floored me. I was run over by freight traine. I didn't understand.

When Monday finally came around, all sides anxiously awaited the judge's decision.

That's true to come in, please, ladies and gentlemen. I have a statement to make. There has been an egregious violation of the witness requestration rule, 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

It was a devastating blow. Tracy Raquel had waited decades to get justice from Matthew, and it was over.

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.

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.

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.

Nobody was enjoying this moment more than her father. And somehow Jan Barry Sandlin managed to get a hold of Tracy Riquel's phone number.

I went home and the very next evening got a call from Jan, which is not supposed to happen.

It was ominous. She could hear something faint in the background.

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.

Did he say anything?

He was laughing and said, see, I told you Ed, I'll win the war. He may have won a battle, but I'm the one who's going to win the war.

Next time. On Burden of Guilt.

Last time I checked, there's no such thing as a one free murder rule in Georgia. Let's crank it up, game one trial to Let's go.

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 burdenoguiltpod at gmail dot com. That's Burden of Guilt Pod at gmail dot com. If 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