Speaker 1: Tracy Raquel Burns is a woman who is sharing her
Speaker 1: incredible life story for the first time. When she was
Speaker 1: just two, her four month old brother, Matthew died. The
Speaker 1: authorities were told she had killed him. She has spent
Speaker 1: decades trying to get justice for her brother and safety
Speaker 1: for her family. In the last episode, we told you
Speaker 1: about her baby brother's death and how she says she
Speaker 1: suffered abuse at the hands of her father Jan Barry
Speaker 1: Sandlin and her mother Kathy almana I'm Nancy Glass.
Speaker 2: This is Burden of Guilt.
Speaker 1: Episode two Physics. At the end of episode one, I
Speaker 1: told you about Tracy Raquel's suicide attempt at the age
Speaker 1: of fourteen. She had saved up a month's worth of
Speaker 1: psccription anti seizure medication and swallowed it all at once.
Speaker 1: She wanted out of her home, out of her life,
Speaker 1: a life of abuse and instability, but it didn't work.
Speaker 1: She woke up with her mother, Kathy Ahman, shaking her
Speaker 1: and asking her, what have you done now? As a mother,
Speaker 1: I can't even imagine having a reaction like that. When
Speaker 1: Tracy Riquel woke up, she thought, I can't believe I'm
Speaker 1: still here surviving the overdose offered Tracy Riquel a renewed
Speaker 1: sense of purpose. She thought she had to survive for
Speaker 1: a reason, and that was to find out what really
Speaker 1: happened to her baby brother, Matthew. But the reality was,
Speaker 1: despite everything, she was still just a teenager trying to
Speaker 1: have an ordinary high school life.
Speaker 2: Tell me about these pictures in front of us.
Speaker 3: This is a picture of me being a cheerleader. It's
Speaker 3: the eighties, so blue eyeliner, but yeah, I guess it's cute.
Speaker 3: And by the way, let me just say I know
Speaker 3: cheerleaders today do not understand. Those pom poms weighed like
Speaker 3: ten pounds each and if they got wet, it was
Speaker 3: fifteen so it was work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were huge.
Speaker 1: There's a lovely photo of her in a blue cheerleading uniform.
Speaker 1: A muscular young man is holding her in the air
Speaker 1: as she balances on one foot. Her arms are outstretched
Speaker 1: indeed for victory. She's smiling, beautiful and proud. This is
Speaker 1: where she shined in school and sports. It was her
Speaker 1: salvation despite her successes outside of the house. Her mother, Kathy,
Speaker 1: saw her failed suicide attempt.
Speaker 2: As an opportunity.
Speaker 1: She used it to identify her daughter as a danger
Speaker 1: to herself or someone else. Then she leveraged it to
Speaker 1: commit her.
Speaker 3: She woke me in the middle of the night and
Speaker 3: took me to a state hospital. You know, I have
Speaker 3: to wonder did she tell him I was a homicidal
Speaker 3: that I was a threat.
Speaker 1: Look, it might seem reasonable to take a troubled child
Speaker 1: who has made a suicide attempt to a psychiatric hospital,
Speaker 1: but it's what Kathy told the staff that is so outrageous.
Speaker 2: Did you ever find out how she was able to
Speaker 2: commit you at the facility?
Speaker 3: What I learned later in life was that Kathy had
Speaker 3: told psychiatric professionals that I had been suicidal and homicidal
Speaker 3: because I had killed my baby brother, and that I
Speaker 3: had never been right. Since I don't understand, I don't understand.
Speaker 1: The hospital was not a safe place for healing. It
Speaker 1: was scary as hell.
Speaker 2: They were sick kids.
Speaker 3: They were violent criminals. It was a very viol scary,
Speaker 3: terrified place.
Speaker 2: Were you able to grasp the situation you were in?
Speaker 3: I had no clue and I didn't understand what was happening.
Speaker 2: How were you able to get out?
Speaker 3: It was my aunt June who came and said, this
Speaker 3: is not going to work and this is wrong, and
Speaker 3: took care of me.
Speaker 1: Tracy Riquel says she felt like she couldn't depend on
Speaker 1: Kathy for even the most basic parenting.
Speaker 3: When I was eleven, someone gave me a polaroid camera
Speaker 3: for Christmas, and this little girl and I were friends.
Speaker 3: We were talking about getting all dressed up and doing
Speaker 3: hair and whatever little girls do. Oh, we can take
Speaker 3: pictures because I've got this polaroid camera. I looked everywhere
Speaker 3: I couldn't find it, wasn't where it normally was. And
Speaker 3: then I did find it in her bedroom closet, opened
Speaker 3: it up, and inside were just horrible sexual pictures of
Speaker 3: your mother that you shouldn't see, especially not with a
Speaker 3: little girl from down the street.
Speaker 1: Kathy wasn't contrite or embarrassed by it. She was annoyed
Speaker 1: with Tracy Riquel. There were many dark moments with Kathy.
Speaker 1: Tracy Riquel's only respite was Aunt June. Kathy's sister June
Speaker 1: had a knack for showing up at the right time
Speaker 1: and showing Tracy Riquel she could experience joy.
Speaker 2: Tell me about your Aunt June.
Speaker 3: We were always together when I was a child. She
Speaker 3: was a little bit of reprieve she would come and
Speaker 3: get me and we'd go on trips together, and she
Speaker 3: would take me places, and so she was this little
Speaker 3: bit of inspiration that there was something else out there.
Speaker 1: It was Aunt June who gave Tracy Riquel her first job.
Speaker 3: She owned a hair salon in Atlanta. I started working
Speaker 3: at this hair salon on Fridays and Saturdays in the
Speaker 3: summer when I was like nine years old, sweeping floors
Speaker 3: for five or ten dollars a day.
Speaker 1: When Tracy Riquel started high school, the salon became a
Speaker 1: real job with more hours and responsibility. June wanted to
Speaker 1: put her on the payroll.
Speaker 3: So I was fourteen and needed a Social Security card.
Speaker 3: Growing up, my name had always been Tracy Sandlin, which
Speaker 3: is Jan's last name. That's when Kathy had to say, well, actually,
Speaker 3: your name isn't Tracy Sandlin, it's Golder, and Jan isn't
Speaker 3: your father, but it's really not because it really is him.
Speaker 3: But that's what we had to I mean, all of
Speaker 3: this stuff just came spilling it, like, wait, what.
Speaker 1: Ted Golder was Kathy's first husband. Tracy Riquel was born
Speaker 1: while Kathy was still married to him, but Kathy had
Speaker 1: been having an affair with Jan during the entire marriage.
Speaker 1: So your legal name was Tracy Golder on your birth certificate,
Speaker 1: but you her biological dad was actually Jan Sandlin, and
Speaker 1: you didn't find this out until you needed to have
Speaker 1: papers in order to work and make money.
Speaker 2: Yes, what did you decide to do about your last name?
Speaker 3: I was fourteen and sat in front of a judge
Speaker 3: and he said, well, what name do you want? I'll
Speaker 3: take Golder.
Speaker 1: She did not want Jan's last name, and Tercy Riquel
Speaker 1: liked to be connected to Matthew in whatever way she
Speaker 1: could be. And her baby brother's last name was Golder.
Speaker 3: I don't know who that is, but he's a Vietnam
Speaker 3: vett and it's Matthew's name, and I definitely don't want Jan's.
Speaker 1: Eventually, Kathy, Jason, and Tracy Riquel settled into an apartment.
Speaker 1: It was the first consistent home. She remembers.
Speaker 3: I was a sophomore in high school and the only
Speaker 3: reason that we were stabled then was because we were
Speaker 3: in HUD housing.
Speaker 1: HUD housing is housing and urban development. It's low income
Speaker 1: public housing.
Speaker 3: What was it like, this tiny, little bitty apartment complex
Speaker 3: surrounded by trees, so that nobody on the outside could
Speaker 3: actually see what was inside.
Speaker 1: When Tracy Riquel was younger, she had been beaten for
Speaker 1: asking questions about Matthew's death. But as you heard in
Speaker 1: episode one, her father Jan was incarcerated for arm robbery
Speaker 1: when she was ten, so now she felt safe asking
Speaker 1: more questions about the issue that haunted her. How did
Speaker 1: her baby brother die?
Speaker 2: What did you grow up thinking?
Speaker 3: I didn't believe that it was an accident.
Speaker 1: Tracy Riquel had her suspicions. After all, she grew up
Speaker 1: in a household where abuse was the norm, even when
Speaker 1: she was a small child.
Speaker 3: There was one specific time, have to be under the
Speaker 3: age of four. He was in the shower and he
Speaker 3: called me to come and get his cigarette, the camel cigarette,
Speaker 3: and told me to take it to Kathy. I didn't
Speaker 3: know what to do with the cigarette, so what did
Speaker 3: you do? I just kind of stood there and then
Speaker 3: he put that camel cigarette out on me. That was
Speaker 3: the very first time that he punished me for not
Speaker 3: doing whatever he asked me to do.
Speaker 1: That is a terrifying memory, and Tracy Raquel has a
Speaker 1: lot of those when it comes to her childhood. I
Speaker 1: wanted to hear what Kathy Ahmann had to say about
Speaker 1: the situation, so I went to see her.
Speaker 4: I really can't get drawn into Tracy's fantasies anymore. She
Speaker 4: has been lying and torturing me for thirty years.
Speaker 2: I've gave da What do you mean, Kathy? What is
Speaker 2: she lying about everything?
Speaker 1: Kathy wasn't interested in having a conversation, but she did
Speaker 1: send her sister, Sheila, who lives with her, to come
Speaker 1: and talk to me.
Speaker 2: Tracy was not abused.
Speaker 4: She was spanked one time in her life when she
Speaker 4: was in elementary school and Cathy caught her smoking cigarettes
Speaker 4: in the bathroom and she spanked her. She was not abused.
Speaker 4: She was a very happy child.
Speaker 1: Sheila might have strong opinions about Tracy Raquel's childhood, but
Speaker 1: she can't claim a lot of firsthand knowledge. Sheila spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time incarcerated during Tracy Raquel's youth. Her
Speaker 1: crimes included fraud, robbery, driving under the influence, and narcotics charges.
Speaker 1: Tracy Riquel became a teenager with a mission. It was
Speaker 1: if her brother Matthew was with her beside her asking
Speaker 1: her to find out what happened the day he died.
Speaker 3: There was a lot of pushback, so I would only
Speaker 3: do a little bit of research, and I would ask
Speaker 3: questions from everybody in my family until they would be like, okay,
Speaker 3: enough enough.
Speaker 1: She would need access to investigators and files that would
Speaker 1: be difficult for a kid to get her hands on.
Speaker 1: But having a stable household for the first time had
Speaker 1: allowed Tracy Riquel to stay at one school and even
Speaker 1: make friends.
Speaker 3: We were all athletes and I had a really great
Speaker 3: friend who was my neighbor. Everybody in and around Atlanta
Speaker 3: knew Ryan Fleming, and he was just a great guy.
Speaker 3: We were buddies. He played football for the high school.
Speaker 3: It was all star and he just kind of my
Speaker 3: support system.
Speaker 1: But he offered more than just moral support. Ryan's family
Speaker 1: had connections in the police department.
Speaker 2: Tell me about how much he helped you.
Speaker 3: Ryan went with me down to Decab County Police Department.
Speaker 2: What were you guys trying to find?
Speaker 3: I wanted to see the pump side report, you know,
Speaker 3: what was his cause of death? I just assumed it
Speaker 3: was a homicide, and I'm fifteen. I thought I was crazy.
Speaker 3: They gave me an incident report. There was no investigation,
Speaker 3: nobody had ever done anything.
Speaker 2: What did it say?
Speaker 3: The incident report said that he suffered a head injury,
Speaker 3: the ambulances coming, they're taking him to the hospital, and
Speaker 3: that's all. So that's when it really opened all up.
Speaker 1: She is only fifteen and she finally has this document
Speaker 1: in her hand, so of course she studied it carefully,
Speaker 1: and she found the lack of information suspicious. A baby
Speaker 1: had died and there was practically no information. That was
Speaker 1: not a typical situation. It was a lot more digging
Speaker 1: to do, but she was a teenager and there was
Speaker 1: also school and sports before she could completely immerse herself
Speaker 1: into the investigation of Matthew's death. Tracy graduated from high
Speaker 1: school and then her first thought was she needed to
Speaker 1: get out of Cathy's house, where she felt like there
Speaker 1: was no safety or protection.
Speaker 2: I lived with.
Speaker 3: Kathy until I was eighteen, and I moved out on
Speaker 3: my own and had this little apartment up on the
Speaker 3: lake and worked four jobs just trying to be away.
Speaker 3: I was terrified. I'm scared of everything all the time.
Speaker 3: I never slept. I still don't really sleep.
Speaker 1: Her solution building herself up into a physically strong person,
Speaker 1: someone who would be able to defend herself. That's why
Speaker 1: the military appealed to her.
Speaker 3: I needed to get out of where I was. I thought,
Speaker 3: I'm going to go in the Army. I'm going to
Speaker 3: go to ranger school, jump out of airplanes, and I'm
Speaker 3: going to learn all these skills that are going to
Speaker 3: make me super tough and no one can never hurt me.
Speaker 1: Ibraquel had just seen Top Gun, you know, the first one.
Speaker 3: I feel the need for mad first feed.
Speaker 1: Some people wanted to date Tom Cruise. She wanted to
Speaker 1: be Tom Cruise.
Speaker 2: How did you like the military?
Speaker 3: Basic training was hard, a lot of sleep deprivation, all
Speaker 3: that drilling, ceremony, following rules and getting up at different
Speaker 3: times a day and all of that. But it really
Speaker 3: sort of clicked in a way. I was stationed overseas,
Speaker 3: so I was learning.
Speaker 2: Who I was.
Speaker 3: Came back home and found out that jan was going
Speaker 3: to come up for parole.
Speaker 1: She was serving life in prison for a crime he
Speaker 1: committed in Florida. So how long had he been away.
Speaker 3: At that point he had done fifteen years for an
Speaker 3: armed robbery, so it seemed reasonable that he might get out.
Speaker 3: And that's where I think the fear really hit.
Speaker 2: What was your fear?
Speaker 3: It was just this terrifying thing that he was going
Speaker 3: to get out of jail, and he was going to
Speaker 3: come and kill me, and I just couldn't what happened.
Speaker 2: So you thought he would kill you.
Speaker 3: It was a very realistic thought at the time. I
Speaker 3: thought he was a danger to me. He was a
Speaker 3: danger to Kathy. He was a danger to my brother Jason.
Speaker 1: If you think that sounds extreme or paranoid, consider this.
Speaker 1: Jan Berry Sandlin had terrorized her as a child. Another
Speaker 1: incident Tracy Raquel shared was so painful she could barely
Speaker 1: get out the details through tears.
Speaker 2: Here's what she shared.
Speaker 3: It's really hard to sit here to all this and
Speaker 3: then think there's not something we're wrong with you.
Speaker 1: It's so embarrassing.
Speaker 2: Embarrassing roaches and butter on toast.
Speaker 3: That was a form of punishment from Jan.
Speaker 2: He made you eat that to punish you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, gosh, I'm like a basket case. Like I don't
Speaker 3: know how many what could think he could be like, Okay,
Speaker 3: some of this stab it's ridiculously I might as well
Speaker 3: just do my best to get it all out there.
Speaker 1: I have to tell you my heart broke as she cried.
Speaker 1: This is an emotional revelation. I don't think she's ever
Speaker 1: spoken about before her father forced her to eat bugs
Speaker 1: on toast his punishment, and yet she carries the weight
Speaker 1: of shame and embarrassment. There were no limits to his
Speaker 1: cruelty and depravity. Outside of the home. There were whispers
Speaker 1: into Cab County about Jan being part of a ruthless
Speaker 1: organized crime group. He was sentenced to a long prison
Speaker 1: term for a crime he was caught committing, but were
Speaker 1: there crimes he had never been prosecuted for. At this point,
Speaker 1: she was an adult. Tracy Riquel had married while serving
Speaker 1: in the army and had two very young children of
Speaker 1: her own. When she was a child, Jan had beaten
Speaker 1: her for asking to visit her brother Matthew's grave, So
Speaker 1: how would he respond to finding out that she was
Speaker 1: now investigating his death.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to figure out what happened to Matthew. He's
Speaker 3: going to get out of jail. Do you know how
Speaker 3: much harder it's going to be? The amount of chaos
Speaker 3: that came with him. It's a Category five hurricane. It's unpredictable.
Speaker 3: It's literally a nightmare.
Speaker 2: You were on a mission.
Speaker 3: You just couldn't get out of jail. So everything just expedited,
Speaker 3: and I just worked harder made more calls, reached out
Speaker 3: to more people.
Speaker 1: But here's the problem. When Tracy Riquel tried to bring
Speaker 1: attention to the circumstances around her baby brother Matthew's death,
Speaker 1: law enforcement into Cab County, Georgia wasn't interested.
Speaker 3: For years, I had called to Cab County Police Department
Speaker 3: and I always got the run around or was hung
Speaker 3: up on. You know, it's a cold case, it's an
Speaker 3: old case. They didn't have time. I had to call
Speaker 3: a lot of people.
Speaker 2: How did you not give up?
Speaker 3: I had a friend whose uncle was in the FBI
Speaker 3: at the time, who, you know, talk to me. Just
Speaker 3: keep doing what you're doing. You got to keep sending letters,
Speaker 3: and you got to keep calling until you get somebody different,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: And I did, and then something remarkable happened. Tracy Raquel
Speaker 1: reached investigator Jim Maybe.
Speaker 5: I am a thirty year retired law enforcement officer. I
Speaker 5: spent most of my career in uniform division, and he
Speaker 5: got promoted to detective. I worked comiside for several years
Speaker 5: and after that transferred over to the Cab Medical Examiner's Office.
Speaker 5: Was a forensic death investigator. She had mentioned her father
Speaker 5: was Jan Barry Sandlin. That shocked me. Before I came
Speaker 5: to the Medical Examiner's office, I'd been signed a cold
Speaker 5: case file where a police officer had been killed about
Speaker 5: the time that her baby brother had been killed. And
Speaker 5: one of the people of interested in that police officer
Speaker 5: death was jan Sanlin. I couldn't believe that was her dad.
Speaker 1: Jim Maybe had never encountered someone like Tracy Raquel before.
Speaker 5: Wasn't some politician or someone of great important, just a
Speaker 5: child that died. It's terrible, yeah, but why would I
Speaker 5: take it? But Tracy says some things that intrigued me.
Speaker 5: She wasn't interested in money, bay or fortune or anything
Speaker 5: like that. She was simply wanting to know the truth
Speaker 5: about what happened. Well, one of the manto's that we
Speaker 5: have in the Medical Examiner's office it isn't justice that
Speaker 5: we see. It's true, so justice could be served.
Speaker 2: What was your first meeting with Jim Maybe?
Speaker 3: Like he said he would help, and we talked for
Speaker 3: a couple of hours.
Speaker 1: During that conversation, Jim Maybe asked Tracy Raquel to put
Speaker 1: everything she knew in writing, and he thought he might
Speaker 1: never hear from her again, because in his experience, that's
Speaker 1: how things went.
Speaker 5: She typed out a two three page letter of everything
Speaker 5: that she could remember that occurred the day that Matthew
Speaker 5: Dad and I started to read it and investigate it.
Speaker 1: Now, only a parent can request access to their child's
Speaker 1: medical records, and so for years, Tracy Raquel had asked
Speaker 1: Kathy to get them from the Cab and North Side Hospitals,
Speaker 1: but Kathy refused.
Speaker 5: She tried to obtain records surrounding Matthew's death after her
Speaker 5: mother was pretty would discussion with it.
Speaker 1: That all changed when investigator Jim made got involved.
Speaker 5: I go ask my mother to request records from the
Speaker 5: Cab Medical.
Speaker 3: And so that's when it started. Early ninety three, the
Speaker 3: medical records from the hospital came.
Speaker 1: You heard at the very beginning of this series about
Speaker 1: this moment when Tracy Riquel first saw the records. Finally,
Speaker 1: twenty two years after Matthew's death, she held the envelope
Speaker 1: that would solve the mystery that had haunted her most
Speaker 1: of her life.
Speaker 6: Did Gab General Hospital, December seventh, nineteen seventy one, patient
Speaker 6: name Matthew Stephen Golder. Skull X rays reveal extensive skull fracturing,
Speaker 6: primarily on the left side. The clinical findings indicate massive
Speaker 6: brain damage. The brain was markedly conduced and swollen. He
Speaker 6: was felt to be terminal. Their reports that the child
Speaker 6: was thrown out of the crib by a two year
Speaker 6: old sister and that she found him comatose.
Speaker 2: The report is shocking. What did you do after reading it?
Speaker 3: I called my grandmother first and I asked her do
Speaker 3: you know this?
Speaker 2: Did you know that?
Speaker 3: This says this?
Speaker 2: What is this?
Speaker 3: And she said, very matter of fact, not in a
Speaker 3: cruel way, and yes, we know this.
Speaker 2: We've always known that. Did you believe it?
Speaker 3: As a human being, you have a moment where you
Speaker 3: have to ask the question, is it possible that I
Speaker 3: killed my baby brother? There's this terrible thing to think
Speaker 3: that someone said this about you, and then that people
Speaker 3: had to wonder.
Speaker 1: On top of that, Friends, neighbors, and people who knew
Speaker 1: the family, like Jackie Wilson, they all heard the same thing.
Speaker 7: Everyone was saying that Tracy had brought her brother out
Speaker 7: of a bed. I talked to jan one time. He
Speaker 7: said that Tracy had a temper and that colimed in
Speaker 7: the bed and she threw it out. It didn't make
Speaker 7: sense to me, but that was what they said you
Speaker 7: went with it.
Speaker 1: Tracy Riquel has heard different versions of what happened to
Speaker 1: Matthew since she was a child. It was chalked up
Speaker 1: to accidents. At one point, Kathy even said Jan did it,
Speaker 1: But those were just stories. This hospital report was in writing.
Speaker 1: Then Tercy Riquel called Kathy hoping for some kind of explanation.
Speaker 3: Once I got Kathy on the phone, she said she
Speaker 3: never said that. They just wrote it down wrong. And
Speaker 3: then she said, well, you know it was an accident.
Speaker 3: You picked him up and you dropped it.
Speaker 1: She says she didn't say it. Then she says, it
Speaker 1: was an accident. I'm having a hard time making heads
Speaker 1: or tails of your mother's response.
Speaker 2: What did you think?
Speaker 3: I'm a person who I think just guilt and I
Speaker 3: your friends, So yeah, I'm looking around trying to think, well,
Speaker 3: is it possible? Is this the horrible secret that's been
Speaker 3: going on?
Speaker 1: Is this why Matthew's name could never be mentioned out loud?
Speaker 1: Is this why Jane beat her when she insisted on
Speaker 1: visiting his grave because they held her responsible. Matthew was
Speaker 1: in a coma and breathing erratically. It was all in
Speaker 1: the hospital record, but there was more Doctors examined his
Speaker 1: entire body, and his physical state revealed evidence that her
Speaker 1: brother had been a victim.
Speaker 6: There's an old, dry, ulcerated area over the middle left
Speaker 6: medial surface of the left foot. There are old, dark
Speaker 6: purple colored areas of echemosis and bruising in the left
Speaker 6: periclavical region.
Speaker 3: There was a level of abuse that Matthew had been
Speaker 3: through as a four month old child. He had a
Speaker 3: third degree burn on the step of one of his
Speaker 3: little feet. He had what looked like an old fracture
Speaker 3: to his clavical He had breathing on his body.
Speaker 1: How exactly would a two year old break and bruise
Speaker 1: Matthew's clavical or burn his foot. Then something happened that
Speaker 1: would dramatically change everything, and ironically, it was something her
Speaker 1: little daughter, Goldie did.
Speaker 3: Goldie was getting close to we had brought groceries in
Speaker 3: and there was a gallon of milk sitting in front
Speaker 3: of the door, and she was trying to lift this
Speaker 3: gallon of milk to get it in the kitchen. She
Speaker 3: could not even drag it. And it's like a light
Speaker 3: went off.
Speaker 2: What do you mean?
Speaker 3: It occurred to me that she can't even drag this
Speaker 3: gallon of milk, much less pick it up. How was
Speaker 3: it that, I know, four months old, picked this infant up,
Speaker 3: lifted him over the side of a crib, and threw
Speaker 3: him onto a floor. That wasn't a possibility.
Speaker 1: The weight of one gallon of milk is just about
Speaker 1: eight and a half pounds. According to the medical records,
Speaker 1: Matthew's weight was just under fifteen pounds. Goldie had unwittingly
Speaker 1: given Tracy Riquel a simple physics lesson.
Speaker 3: There was this epiphany watching her and realizing, I know
Speaker 3: that that can't happen that way. I know that's not possible.
Speaker 1: But even still, Tracy Raquel wouldn't just trust her own intuition.
Speaker 1: She sought out the opinion of.
Speaker 3: Experts, had multiple appointments with neurologists and pediatricians and mythologist
Speaker 3: just in Savannah alone to explain, is this possible?
Speaker 2: So did anyone tell you it was?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 3: One ever said that. No, they said no, it's not
Speaker 3: physically possible.
Speaker 1: Finally, emboldened, she called anyone and everyone who was there
Speaker 1: the night Matthew died at Decab Medical Center.
Speaker 3: I just basically went down a list of people I
Speaker 3: could call and just called everybody. Most people didn't want
Speaker 3: to talk to me, and he did.
Speaker 1: It was Butch, her father, Jan's older brother. The Salin
Speaker 1: family didn't have a reputation for nothing. Though his rap
Speaker 1: sheet didn't match Jan's. Butch had been busted for shoplifting, trespassing, firearms,
Speaker 1: and driving offenses. But he did have a soft spot
Speaker 1: for his niece.
Speaker 3: Butch was a kind of terrifying man when I was
Speaker 3: a child, Mister Georgia, mister all Southeastern Bodybuilders. It was
Speaker 3: a really big, huge man, but he was always kind.
Speaker 2: What did he say happened?
Speaker 3: He didn't know the details exactly, but he said he
Speaker 3: knew that they were responsible, that they had planned this,
Speaker 3: and that they were going to blame it on me.
Speaker 2: It's really shocking. He told you that this was a
Speaker 2: plan all along, that Jan and Kathy wanted to kill
Speaker 2: the baby. How did he know that?
Speaker 3: He said, I arrived at the emergency room and you
Speaker 3: were sitting on a concrete slab where ambulances pull up,
Speaker 3: and they were, you know, football field away in the
Speaker 3: parking lot, discussing their their story and how they were
Speaker 3: going to get this together. He said, he walked up
Speaker 3: and he grabbed Jan and said, what the have you done?
Speaker 2: What have you done? How did Jim reply to that?
Speaker 3: He said he didn't have a response, and that was it.
Speaker 3: And so I think that I was the scapegoat.
Speaker 1: They put the blame on Tracy ricket out, but they
Speaker 1: didn't say it was intentional.
Speaker 2: The easiest thing was to say it was an accident.
Speaker 1: The truth is that Jane and Kathy met little resistance.
Speaker 1: Think about it, Each person who had their hands and
Speaker 1: eyes on Matthew neglected to take any action. The staff
Speaker 1: and two hospitals had seen this child and examined him.
Speaker 1: They wrote about his injuries, even the old ones that
Speaker 1: showed clear signs of abuse. The doctors saw it, they knew,
Speaker 1: the coroner signed off on it. The police didn't ask
Speaker 1: any questions. Everyone just went along with the story.
Speaker 3: Nobody had to do any work. Nobody had to be
Speaker 3: responsible or held accountable.
Speaker 1: But that was about to end. Tracy Riquel was a
Speaker 1: soldier and she knew it was time to go to
Speaker 1: war on the next burden of guilt.
Speaker 5: According to the Georgia Deaths Investigation Act, anytime a child
Speaker 5: died like that, at autopsy has to be done. I
Speaker 5: kept thinking about soha, Well, how did the corner sign
Speaker 5: it out as an accidental lift.
Speaker 1: Stay tuned for Burden of Guilt, the documentary coming in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four and airing only on Paramount Plus. If
Speaker 1: you would like to reach out to the Burden of
Speaker 1: Guilt team, email us at burdenofguiltpod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: That's Burden of Guilt pod at gmail dot com. If
Speaker 1: you or someone you know is worried about maltreatment or
Speaker 1: suspect that a child is being abused or neglected, call
Speaker 1: the Child Help National Child Abuse Hotline. You can call
Speaker 1: or text one eight hundred four a child. That's one
Speaker 1: eight hundred four two two four four five three. One
Speaker 1: way to show support is by subscribing to our show
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, and don't get to rate and review
Speaker 1: Burden of Guilt. Five star reviews go a long way.
Speaker 1: A big thank you to all of you who are listening,
Speaker 1: and also be sure to check us out and follow
Speaker 1: us on Instagram at Glass Podcasts. Burden of Guilt is
Speaker 1: a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group,
Speaker 1: in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is hosted and
Speaker 1: executive produced by me Nancy Glass, written and produced by
Speaker 1: Carrie Hartman and Andrea Gunning. Also produced by Ben Fetterman
Speaker 1: and associate producer Kristin Melchiori. Our iHeart team is Ali
Speaker 1: Perry and Jessica Crincheck. Special thanks to Tracy Raquel Burns
Speaker 1: and her husband Bart. Voice acting in this episode was
Speaker 1: performed by Trey Morgan. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Delvecchio.
Speaker 1: Burden of Guilt's theme composed by Oliver Baines. Music library
Speaker 1: provided by my and. For more podcasts from iHeart, visit
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