S1: Ep 8 - The Last Word

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 stream it right now on Paramount Plus. Jan Berry Sandlin left his third trial convicted of the murder of Matthew Golder, and in two thousand and one, the Supreme Court of

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. I'd remember feeling a bit more somber. It seemed to me that we were disturbing a sleeping baby, and that really bothered me.

Assistant District Attorney Leanne Manguon attended the exhumation. She tried to support Kathy as she watched everything unfold. Tracy Raquel was not there.

I remember her being quite emotional, crying, and I kind of took my cues from her.

She wanted to stand back, and that happened. I didn't go to the exhumation because there was already so much media attention, and I knew that Kathy was going with the district attorneys and we were barely on speaking terms if that, and I just felt like it would be disrespectful, you know, to go and what stand on the other side of the cemetery, away from her, right.

You didn't want to call more attention or attention in the wrong way to what was going on.

Correct, Yes, the titchen needed to be about Matthew's death, his homicide, and how are we going to take care of that? That needed to be the priority.

Let's talk about the mistrial for a sec You were told you couldn't watch the trial or read about it, but you did catch a glimpse of your mother on TV and you told the prosecution about that because it was the right thing to do. Let's listen to what the judge said about that.

There has been an egregious violation of the witness of frustration rule, which in the context of this case, is irreputable.

You felt you were demonized for this.

It's just how it was to trade. You know, everything from the mistrial happening, what media press. I mean, I think that was bigger story than the fact that this case got reopened. Was like, Oh, the girl who you know has spent all her life trying to get this case reopen, just ruined it because she can't follow rules.

The press was really hard on you.

We've got a case that's down the tubes at this point.

January Sandlin's attorney exploded in court this morning, outraged after Tracy Raymon admitted she saw news coverage of her father's trial yesterday, despite a judge's order not to watch or read anything about it until it was over.

I don't think that I have done anything wrong to effect this man's right.

So it's just a lot of humiliation. And then you know, Jan's calling me from the prison on the phone twenty four to forty eight hours saying, ha ha, you know you were going to win the battle, but I'm going to win the war. I mean, he was laughing at me.

On another topic, there was something the DA's office. Let you know, it was an action taken by the defense.

Right after the mistrial happened. Jeff Brickman, Leanne and Jacom handed me a document, and it was a falsified subpoena for medical records for me.

You were not notified that Corin Mal had subpoenaed your records. She had been looking for what Kathy told the staff at the psychiatric hospital where she tried to commit you when you were a teenager, and neither you nor Kathy would have ever agreed to release your files, right, So what was it like for you to find out about that?

It felt like a betrayal all over again. It was, you know, hey, I can't defend this man, so I've got to get evidence about this child and try and get something done.

Cracy Raquel ended up suing public defender Carine Mal, her office, and the hospital. The case was settled. You want to talk about the fact that Jan got married while all this was going on.

I've heard people say in prison, but really, if he got married during the trial, what, Yeah, it was the most bizarre thing. This woman was coming to see him and her daughter, which turned out to be Jan's daughter, and I think she was only sixteen or seventeen, but they were at the courthouse that I remember Leanne and Jeff calling me and saying, you're not going to believe this.

And what's even crazier, the media covered it like it was and a vent.

Who gives this woman to be married?

Is it Angela?

Charlie, Charlene? Do you would you take Jane to be your witted husband? Do you take this man? Okay, say this for me. I take Charlene to be my widded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and help, and to love and to cherish till death. Do us for it.

She was another one of those girls in high school who was just enamored with him or whatever.

Ladies and gentlemhen, I present to you, mister and missus Janne Sadelin.

I love him very much.

I believe in his innocence, and I believe that there would bestly be a retrial, and when there is, they will have a turnaround authority.

All these women met him in high school and still have a thing for him.

I just don't understand that is a whole separate thinking that I am not qualified to discuss.

Let's put Kathy's sister, your aunt June in the conversation, because she got you out of the house she gave you a job in her hair salon. She did a lot of wonderful things for you. She was very supportive, and then she disappeared.

Well she did, and I love her still. She was somebody who was very important to me, and she was in a lot of ways of surrogate. Abuse is not a one generation thing. It has many generations. It takes many generations to get to certain places, and everybody in a family will handle that abuse differently. Kathy has always said that she grew up in an abusive environment.

Do you think Aunt June would talk about any of the abuse because she was your advocate as a kid. We reached out to her.

She said, oh, I'll do whatever you need. But when this podcast in the show was actually coming to fruition to panic, she's not going to be part of that. She's not going to discuss in a healthy way. For years, every time it would come up, she would roll her eyes and be like some of my aunts and uncle handled it with drug abuse addiction, and some are mentally

And Tracy Rickroll and her aunt were clearly not aligned on the unfinished business Tracy Rokel talked about in our last episode.

She would say, you know, it's not your responsibility to worry about William David Corn. It's not your responsibility to worry about Nancy Tageer. You know, get over it, just let it go.

Nancy Tegeter was Jan's first wife, and William David Korn was the police officer that Tracy Riquel believes may have been murdered by Jam. Here's an email we got from a listener. This is really fascinating. So this listener says, I'm not done with the series, so maybe this question is premature, But what's the deal with Ted Golder? Wasn't Matthew his biological son? I thought that was the reason Jan didn't care about him? So where was he during

He really wanted to know if I was his daughter. He asked if I would do a paternity test, which I sure now while we were waiting for the results to come back, and we talked daily, just about things and life and people, and it was a nice thing. The paternity test came back and he called and he said, you're not my daughter. And he said, you know what, you're a really nice woman. I wish the best for you, but I don't want anything else to do with you.

But wasn't he upset about Matthew's death? Did he ever say anything to you about it?

I mean the only thing he said was he always thought he did it too.

That's really something because I think this listener is right. I mean, you'd think that he would be really happy about this and really angry about his son's death.

You'd think you would. Yeah, maybe it all had to do with people were really afraid of Jan that is purely speculation because I just don't have any supporting information for that.

Do you want to talk at all about your illness?

Yeah?

Sure.

I was diagnosed with systemic lupus in the early nineties, and it suspected that I've had my entire life. You know, you just don't have flares as often when you're young. It became really really severe two thousand, two thousand and one, and it kind of stayed that way. I can function for the most part, like you know, my body functions as far as like everything moves the way it's supposed to be, with the exception of my hands. I mean,

You've heard a lot of Tracy Riquel's incredible story. It was important to end this series with the people who have really been Tercy Rikell's strength, support and focus of her life. Her husband and her children.

Yeah two Goldie Hunter. Goldie's the oldest.

Her husband is bart.

I hadn't asked her to marry me yet, but she sat me down and she said, I've got some important things to tell you about me. She went through and explained some of her child history and the challenges that she's been through. The most important thing really wasn't so much in what she was telling me the experiences she's had, except that the toll that it had taken on her.

I've known Tracy Raquel for a few years now, and I can say that she is an innately maternal person. Caring and supportive. It's just who she is growing up, taking care of herself and others simply reinforced this. But becoming a mother without having any kind of example to follow presented new challenges.

Here's Goldie definitely say my mom is a helicopter parent. She was always on top of everything we did or where we were at, where we were allowed to go.

I was not prepared for the worry, the concern. Everything was a potential disaster for me.

An expert will tell you that a child in Tracy Rickill's situation will either grow up to repeat the learned behavior or go in the complete opposite direction.

You know, Given my childhood, everything was just she's going to get hurt, she's going to get lost, she's going to fall, she's going to break, you know anything.

And there was times where it was very frustrating and I didn't understand as a child.

I couldn't even go to the gym and leave her in the gym daycare because someone was not nice to her one time. And to me everything was just a catastrophe.

But to her husband and kids, carrying that weight turn Tracy Riquel into a fully present and aware parent.

My wife's experiences has made her a loving mother, one that has attention to detail, that is always aware of like how the children are feeling, and will always always be there for them.

She gave us love because she didn't want to be what her parents were.

I think that there's a level of fear too. They're never going to be out of her sight, which, in my mind, this can't be a bad thing. Those kids are her life.

It's hard to think that she grew up that way, to go through that kind of abuse and grow up living and thinking that you were the cause of your brother's death or you did it, or have people blaming her, especially to hide the fact that somebody else like Jano is a murderer, you know, and a bad person.

You know.

To practice them like that as her own mother, to not protect her child is horrifying because as an adult she's the opposite.

You know.

She loves us so much and can never imagine hurting us.

A few years after Goldie was born, Trocy Raquel welcomed her second child, and Hire was born.

I was twenty seven.

My mother was a bit overprotective, but seeing where she came from, it made sense.

That's hunter.

I don't know if there's ever a specific moment where I became aware of my mother's childhood. I think it was just something that we knew from, you know, snippets of different stories that she might have told or something.

First of all, I had to acknowledge my own abuse and then get to a place where I'm comfortable to talk about that with my children.

Oh, it's horrifying. I've seen photos of my mom where, you know, she's covered in bruises, you know, on her arms and her legs, and she's two or three years old. I meet people every day of my life, oh I was abused or I had a rough childhood.

I had.

This happened to me, not once if I ever heard my mom use that as an excuse.

There was a lot of anger, sadness. Sorry, give me one second to compose myself. The fact that she had to go through that, it is it's hard to think about. I mean, I love my mom, but death and the fact that she ended up in a good place and hunted down justice, fought for justice is that's I guess the best emotion I can bring out of that is pride that she ended up in a good spot.

They both have had their sweet moments showing love and respect for me.

When it comes to Matthew, I light a candle on his birthday, it's just become, I guess, a ritual in my life.

You know.

He didn't get to be here very long, so if anything, at least people can remember him.

Hunter was in the fifth grade and he had a fifth grade teacher who said, you have to do a report on a famous person. What is the definition of famous. Well, they had to have been in the news for fifteen minutes. And so Hunter did his report on me and my case with Matthew. And Hunter's teacher was from Atlanta and was in Atlanta when the case happened. And so Hunter's up there and he didn't say this is my mom. He's just doing this story about this person, you know.

My whole life, my mom had always said Matthew was our guardian angel. There were times in my life where there was darkness or something bad could have happened or should have happened, and something, maybe it was an angel, was like a good feeling, and maybe it was him, you know, looking over us. To the point that I tattooed his name on my shoulder because I you know, I never met him, but I did feel like he was a big part of my life and watching over me.

Terracy re Kills concern for her baby brother, Matthew spilled over into other areas of her life.

My mother was very much give the shirt off your back for another person. That's always who she's been. She'll probably live the rest of her life like that. A lot of who I am stems from her ideals, her moral code. She inspired me from a young age. She taught me how a man should be and how a man should treat a woman, you know, being a good human being, looking out for others.

When Hunter was in the second grade, he would take a snack to school and then he would come home and he would be hungry. And then the next day he would say, Mom, I need three stacks. I don't understand. And he was like, Joey and Sarah and Michelle don't have snacks, and so and so and so and so don't have lunch. So I need snat so you would just give it all away. And that was just him.

The one thing that still sticks with me to this day. I guess, like you could say her motto, if you see a problem and you don't do anything about it, you're part of that problem.

There was a time when I was a child, we lived in not a great neighborhood. I remember there was a group of people that were going to assault a man, and I do remember my mom going outside and had the police on the phone. It was a very dangerous situation, and nobody else wanted to help. And she was brave and calling and not afraid. And she said they had crowbars and things like that. She very well could have been hurt in that moment, and she had no fear, no fear.

She has come a long way in her life, and I think that she's very modest. She downplays a lot of things. I think that's the type of person she is. She's gotten to a place now for she's very mindful and tries to think of others.

It has only been in the past three or four years that I realize you've got to heal, and the healing part sometimes is the most terrifying thing. But it's the risk because in order to go through that, you are gonna fall apart and people are not going to stand by you. And there's people who are going to say, oh my gosh, get over, I'm sick of here. And this shame is this huge thing that's like a part of everything. Well, I got to get rid of my own shame.

The bottom line is anytime that Raca Raquel has a moment of guilt, the first thing I asked is what is it that you feel guilty for? You were the victim in this case.

What has it been like for you to do this podcast?

This has been one of the single most important things that I have done for myself and my family. It's really about talking about what happened to me and figuring out who I am and who I want to be, not based on somebody else's idea or based on some history of pain and trauma, but letting it all go. So for me, this has been a revelation, an epiphany.

But it hasn't been easy, no.

Oh no, but I am freer every day because of it.

Is there something you want people to know?

One of the most profound things that I learned as a very very young child. Is you have a choice, and I don't have to be anything you say I am. I don't have to be a failure or loser, or not pretty enough or not smart enough or any of those things. I mean, I've had a lot of good people in my life, and over the past three or four years, I have had someone very close to me who has really helped who Well, it's you. Can I say.

That it is. I'm honored to her that I'm surprised because I find you very inspirational and I think what we've been for each other is sort of a sounding board on these issues. I think it's been healthy for both of us, and I've certainly, as I said, learned so much from you and admire you for your strength. I think we should give Tracy, Riquel's husband Bart the last word.

My wife as part of the reason I fell in love with her. She's a hero to me.

Stay tuned for Burden of Guilty 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 Burden of guiltpod 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