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