The wrongful conviction of Sandra “Sandy” Melgar and the unsolved murder of Jamie “Jim” Melgar

Welcome to Primetime Crime. I'm your host, Kylie. Let's talk right now in true crime, and then together we are going to work on warming up some cold cases. Let's go, Hey, guys, welcome to another episode of Primetime Crime. It's Kylie. We are going to dive into right now in true crimes. We have some things to discuss, so let's go. I want to talk a little bit about the three men that were found in the Kansas City backyard. There's been a lot of new information that has come to light, and I kind of want to go back to square one. I found this timeline of everything that happened, and I want to kind of rehash it and talk about it. These three men were found deceased in this guy, Jordan's backyard. Jordan Willis. He's a scientist, so we're going to talk about that whole thing. So the three men are Ricky Johnson he was thirty eight, David Harrington thirty seven, and Clayton m mcgheinney he's thirty six. So on January seventh of twenty twenty four, Ricky, David, and Clayton go to Jordan's house to watch the Chiefs game play against the Chargers. It was the last regular season game before playoffs, and the game ended around six twenty five pm. On one eight of twenty twenty four, Ricky, Clayton, and David don't show up for work. Ricky's dad then tries to figure out whose house he went to find out, finds out that it was Jordan's and says he calls Jordan but doesn't get a response. Family and friends say they try to reach out to Jordan about the three men. They text, phone call, and Facebook message, but there's no response. On the ninth of January, someone goes to the house and bangs on Jordan's door for twenty minutes, but no one answers. Two of the men's vehicles are still parked outside of Jordan's home. Around nine to forty five pm, Clayton's fiance decides to go to Jordan's home and bangs on the door. Nobody answers. She breaks into the house through a window in the basement and says I'm in here, but no one responds. She then makes way to the backyard and find out Clayton dead on what they are calling the porch, and the porch is essentially like a concrete slab outside of the back door, and this back door is attached to the home's living room, and then there is another door that looks into the kitchen, and these two doors are kind of look into each other. If you look at the house on the internet, you can kind of see the layout and what things look like. So police respond to the home at nine to fifty one PM and they find Clayton on the porch, and they find David and Ricky dead in the backyard. They of course bang on the door, and Jordan answers the door in his boxers, holding an empty glass of wine because he is classyaf Jordan was inside the whole time, and the whole time that Clayton's fiance was in there breaking in, Jordan was inside. Question mark, I'm confused. David's mom then says Jordan told his friends and family that the men had froze to death, and Jordan's family member reportedly told a Kansas City Fox station that the men froze to death. No autopsy had been concluded at this point. When all of this is going on, the weather was cold, but not unusually so for the time. The temperatures between the seventh and the eighth were in the thirties and low forties. There was some snow that happened, so they are saying that potentially they could have been buried inner snow. And when the police first showed up, Jordan's attorney said that Jordan was cooperative, spoke with them, told him what they knew, told them what he knew, and allowed them to search his home. Police have said that there's no obvious signs of foul play and Jordan has been cooperative. On the sixteenth of January, the police sergeant says that this is not a homicide case and it is not being invested as such, which truly is impossible to say because at this point they didn't have any autopsy results back to even say that they were not going to investigate it as a homicide case. Nine times out of ten, if a body is being found before the autopsy comes back, they're going to be looking at other alternatives to how this happened, and not rolling out homicide at all because they don't have the autopsy results back. Police go on to say that it's not a homicide investigation, it's death investigation. They expect autopsies to be completed by the end of the week. This was on the seventeenth, and toxicology does take six to ten weeks, so we are not going to have that for a hot minute. On January nineteenth, Jordan's attorney does an interview with Dan Abrams on News Nation, and he also speaks to the Kansas City Star. He tells the Kansas City Star that the men walked out of Jordan's back door into his backyard and he doesn't know what happened to them after or they left. Jordan's attorney also tells Dan Abrams that Jordan has dogs, but they were staying with his father, so he would have no reason to go out back and if Jordan had known that his friends were in the backyard, he would have helped them. On one twenty one, Jordan's attorney states that no one contacted Jordan in the days following the football game outside of one Facebook message, and he only claims to have seen this after the police arrived at his house. Now several of the men's friends and family are disagreeing. Jordan's attorneys said that Jordan didn't hear the first man or Clayton's fiance bagging on his door or breaking into his house or calling out because he sleeps with noise canceling headphones on and a fan. Understandable, but if somebody breaks into my home, I'm sure is hell going to know it? I just am, I just am. And Jordan's attorney also said that two of the men's vehicles were parked on the street in front of Jordan's home, but he didn't notice them. He said, it really wouldn't have been unusual even if he did notice them, because sometimes they will leave the cars there overnight. Jordan's attorney tells The Daily Mail that Jordan never told anyone that his friends froze to death, and it was basically insinuating that that family member that previously had said it was lying or just putting words in his mouth, basically just trying to say, well, maybe they froze to death. Jordan's attorney tells Kansas City Fox for that he doesn't know when the men left his house. This directly conflicts with him claiming to have watched his friends leave through the back door and into the backyard on decem not December of January twenty second, Jordan tells Jordan's attorney tells Inside Edition that the men did not go to Jordan's house to watch the game. They went there after the game. He tells the station that Jordan doesn't know when or how the men exited his house, regardless of the fact that he just said Jordan saw them exit the house or the back door into the backyard. The attorney also tells Inside Edition that instead of Jordan watching the men leave at his house, Jordan claims to have gone to bed while the three men were still at his house. Jordan's attorney also said that the three men and a fifth man were downstairs when Jordan went to bed. So now we have this mysterious fifth person. We do not know who it is, but Jordan has now since moved out of the home. We are all well aware of that. And apparently allegedly, Jordan's attorney has said that the fifth man has spoken to police and a story match is Jordan's, although it states that he doesn't think that Jordan has spoken to the fifth man since all of this has happened, meaning like they weren't able to talk to make sure their stories match up. If you know, we're talking like a potential setup, conspiracy type situation. Jordan's attorney also tells Newsation that he believes that the men went to Jordan's house after the game to play video games, and Jordan got tired and got up to say go by to the guys and walk them to the front door. But this is a lot of conflicting information now, because they went to the front door, they exited the back door. Jordan saw them leave. Jordan didn't see them leave. Jordan was sleeping, Jordan was listening to his noise canceling headphones and white noise. Jordan needs to get his shit together. This isn't adding up. Jordan's attorney also tells Nuonization that Jordan believes that the men came back into the house after they left through the front door, and they may have played the video games for a while and they The attorney also says that after Jordan believes his friends came back inside the house, that's when Jordan had fallen asleep and they at some point went outside. Ricky, one of the victims dads, tells Fox that Ricky's coat was found inside of Jordan's home and that Ricky never would have gone outside without it. On one twenty three to twenty four, Jordan's attorney tells Kansas City Fox four that Jordan went upstairs to go to sleep, leaving the three men and the fifth man, the mysterious fifth man, downstairs. It's all so contradicting, like so contradicting, I can't even There are reports that Jordan initially have fallen asleep on the couch and then went upstairs to his room to go to sleep, leaving the doors unlocked, which just doesn't really make sense. These are grown men, by the way, we're talking people in their late thirties. These are not twenty year old college kids. This just isn't normal behavior for late thirty humans. It's just not in my opinion, in my opinion, in my opinion, not saying it doesn't happen, but all of this, like they went in the back door, and they went in the front door, and they were doing this, and they were doing that, and I was upstairs and I had nothing to do with it. It all just doesn't vibe and jiy for me. And then Daily Mail is reporting that this alleged fifth man left before the three victims did, so that doesn't make any sense either. Jordan's attorney is saying that Jordan was friends with these three men, he would never wish them harm. He even bought them Chiefs tickets for the next game, and none of this really jives. And apparently he did purchase tickets for four of them, but the fifth man did not receive a ticket. So Ricky's family attorney says that there were three other people at Jordan's house that night, and they say that the dogs that Jordan said were not there were in fact, they're at the get together, which means that somewhere between the time that the men ended up dying in the backyard and the time that all of this was coming together, the dogs somehow were transported from Jordan's house to Jordan's dad's house. So it just doesn't make any sense to me. So the mysterious fifth man was spoken to on the twenty fourth by Kansas City Fox four, and he says that he got to Jordan's house at seven on the fourth of January and he left around midnight, and he said when he left that the three men and Jordan were all alive, awake on the couch watching Jeopardy, which super contradicts the video game I Fell Asleep scenario. He also says that on Tuesday the ninth, that day that the men were found he got a text from Clayton's fiance and a text from Ricky's mom asking if he knew where the three men were, and the fifth man says that he texted Ricky and Jordan and they got no response. Basically, that is everything up to now updated. Heather Ashley from Big Match Crime together a huge timeline and it's the only thing I've seen that really truly makes sense. So I literally just took what she put out there and put together and read it to you guys. There were some parts that I feel like didn't really make a lot of sense and were kind of repetitive, so I just didn't say them. Because this case is so convoluted and jacked up, and all of these different sources daily Mail, Inside Edition, News Nation Now, CASETV five and Fox four Casey is all that she used for credit, So sourcing those, crediting them, crediting how they're Ashley from Big mat True Crime. Holy freaking Molly, this is overwhelming. And this right now in true crime shouldn't be twelve minutes long only talking about one thing, but here we are, okay, moving right along to other Right now in true crime, we're going to talk Donald Adelson She had a hearing earlier this week, and she waived any potential conflicts with Daniel Roschbaum, who prior to this has represented her son Charlie Adelson in the murder for hire plot against Donna's former son in law Dan Markel. So Donna's next case management hearing is set for February twelfth at two thirty. Her attorney said there will not be a waiver yet of a speedy trial, and he doesn't think that it's going to be an issue because they're working with the state to set a trial date, so god knows, we could have a trial twenty twenty four for Donna Adelson. It is going to be a wild ride. Summer series is coming soon. I think I'm going to start May one, and we're just going to talk all about the Adelsons and all of the things. Honestly, truthfully, I'm sure there is more going on right now in true crime. I think I could have a whole podcast that is just focused on the here and the now. But we are going to go ahead and get started with today's episode because your girl can go on forever about all of the things that are going on right now, and I want to get started on the episode. So let's go okay, guys, today we are diving into another wrongful conviction episode. In this episode, we're going to talk about the murders of Jamie jim Is what he went by Melgar, and the wrongful conviction and incarceration of his wife, Sandra. Who are going to call Sandy Melgar. This one happened in Houston, and if you've listened to my podcast, you've listened to the Kalana Turner episode, you have listened to me speak about aj Armstrong. I am very, very outspoken about how we have a corrupt justice system in Harris County. I am not going to sugarcoat it. This is another example of the corrupt justice system that we have in Harris County. We have got to do better. Harris County is not the only place that stuff like this happens. As you know, I have highlighted other wrongful convictions innocent on death row situations, but this story is probably, in my opinion, one of the worst, because not only is Sandy a victim of wrongful incarceration, also a victim of some horrible humans that are out there who took her husband's life and tried to take hers. So I encourage you to listen to this episode, listen to the facts of this case. This case and story has been covered on Dateline, It's been covered on twenty twenty, it has gotten a lot of national attention, which I think is so so important. And literally everyone I come across that has commented on this thinks that it is an injustice and we are fighting to free Sandy. So let's go ahead and talk about Sandy and Jim. So. Jim Melgar was born in Guatemala, but he immigrated to the United States when he was only three years old, and at that time his family went ahead and settled in Houston, which is where he would grow up and eventually meet his future wife, Sandy McCullough. And they would end up meeting in high school. They were high school sweethearts, and after high school they ended up getting married and they both started their jobs. Jim was an IT specialist and Sandy was a nurse. They had one daughter named Elizabeth who goes by Liz, and they were Jehovah's witnesses and they were just a very normal, close knit family living in Houston, minding their own business, doing their own thing. Sandy had had some medical struggles in her life. She had been diagnosed with lupus. She also had epilepsy, and she had hypothyroidism, so issues with her thyroid and she also had had to have bilateral hip replacements in her thirties, which is young to have to have bilateral hip replacements. And Liz grew up, you know, seeing her mom struggle medically and saw her mom have these violent seizures on multiple different occasions. There were even times that she would have to go into a facility and get like therapy, like rehab treatment because she had issues because of her seizures and her loopis and she had to be in a wheelchair and it was just really really tough on them as a whole. But Jim was always there by her side. He was for a great deal of time her caretaker and was very involved in everything. He wanted to research everything, figure out the best type of treatments to help Sandy. And there were also times, you know, Sandy was a mom and there were times that they didn't really feel like she could drive because of her epilepsy. So she really did depend a lot on Jim to help with the day to day driving and different activities. And everything. And as far as like epilepsy goes like it really does come on you out of nowhere, I would say the majority of people with epilepsy do have it pretty managed. But that doesn't mean that you're not going to have a seizure. Just because you're medicated doesn't mean you're not going to have a seizure. Different things like stress, if you are having anxiety over something, if you don't get the right amount of sleep, all of those things can trigger a seizure. So in Sandy's case, I think they did get to a point where things were okay as far as that she wasn't like debilitatingly having seizures every day, but still they could come on at any moment. But despite all of this, Jim and Sandy were happily married. They had a great marriage, They loved one another, and on December twenty second of twenty twelve, they were celebrating their thirty second wedding anniversary. So this couple had been in it together for the long haul and they had been through it and they were celebrating their thirty second winning anniversary. So their plans that night were they were going to go to their favorite Mexican restaurant, their little local restaurants that they loved. And then Sandy had told her daughter that they had gone to ACVs afterwards to grab some drink mixers, and when they got home, they got in to the Jacuzie tub that was in their bathroom and spent a few hours in there celebrating. And that is when everything changed. So whatever happened on the evening of December twenty second, of twenty twelve, there is still some areas of it that are blurry for Sandy, because I will tell you in a little while everything that happened. But the next day was December twenty third, and they had planned on having a family get together that day and Jim's brother, Herman Melgar, arrived to the family home about four thirty pm, and you know, they were expecting to be having a family get together. So he knocked on the door. Nobody answered, but he did notice that one of the garage doors was open, so he went in through the garage and entered the house, and then he went ahead and unlocked the front door for the other people in the family that had also come for this gathering. So they enter the house, they're calling out for Sandy and for Jim and no one is answering, and herman's daughter, who is named Marissa, said that immediately she just felt like something didn't feel right inside of the house, like she just had I don't know if she had like an intuition or just a bad vibe feeling, but she said, something doesn't feel right. So as they kind of walked through the house looking for Jim and Sandy, herman hears Sandy calling for help and is eventually able to kind of track her down, and he raced to the master bathroom and he said that he saw a chair blocking the bathroom walk in closet door, and then he moved it, of course, because that's where Sandy was. And he opened the door and he saw Sandy lying there, and she had her arms and legs tied up. And when I say like she was tied up, she was tied up like Herman could not untie these knots on his own and had to grab some scissors to free her. That's how intricate these knots were. It wasn't like a simple type of knot. It was done obviously in a way to make sure that this person could not free themselves. So he cut her loose, and unfortunately they found Jim Melgar. He was found dude. He had been beaten and stabbed to death in a closet that was in the master bedroom. This was about thirty feet away from the closet where Sandy was found. His legs had been tied with a telephone cord and a rope was tied loosely around his chest. They said that he had more than fifty stab wounds and these were like very very cutting and blunt forced trauma like wounds, and he had a lot of defensive wounds on his hands, meaning that he was obviously trying to protect himself or get away from his attacker or attackers. He also had a lot of damage to his face. He was very badly beaten in his face and there was a lot of damage done to his brain, his facial bones, and his skull. So whoever did this used a lot of force to attack and bring harm to him to the place where if somebody is doing this to someone else, they're going to have some type of blood on them, defensive wounds, bruising. You don't just walk up to somebody and hit them in the face and damage their facial bones and not have evidence on you that you have done something like this. So stay with me here. We're getting to the part where they're going to blame this on Sandy, and that is the worst. So of course, you know, police start to come in and they're looking crime scene, trying to piece together what happened. There was no sign of forced entry. They did see that there had been some drawers in the house or in the bedroom that had been opened up. There was some jewelry boxes of Sandy's that had been rifled through. There was a wallet and a purse that were overturned on the bed, and they found a white blouse and a kitchen knife in the jacuzzie tub that was near the master bedroom, which is right where Sandy had been found. And there was also in the closet where Jim was found. There was a loaded gun that was stored in the closet that was Jim's that he had had there for protection, but it was hidden from view. And I can only imagine the terror that Jim felt that night, because you know, being in the closet, he was so close to having something in his possession to defend himself, and I just imagine he was very much trying to get to that gun, and that is why he was fighting so hard for his life. Now Sandy is obviously brought in for questioning, and she's having a really really hard time piecing together what happened. She remembers going to dinner at the Mexican restaurant. She remembers going to CBS for mixers. She remembers coming back and getting in the jacuzzie with Jim, and then she also did remember that when they left the CBS that there was a random, kind of mysterious car that was kind of following them, but eventually it had turned into a different direction at some point, so they didn't really think much of it. So they got into the chacuzie, like I said. And then sometime around midnight, she said that they had heard their dogs barking. The dogs had been like inside outside dogs, and they were outside at this time. They heard them barking. So Jim went ahead and went into or went out, I should say, to let the dogs in. So Sandy said that he was taking a while, so she went ahead and got out of the tub, and she was going to get dressed. She was in the closet putting lotion on, getting dressed, when whatever happened happened, and that is the last thing she remembers before she woke up, and she was screaming for help. So somewhere in the midst of her her getting dressed and Jim going outside, whoever attacked Jim attacked Jim, And again really really important to understand the mechanisms of your body going into fight or flight. Something happens. They're inside of this bathroom fighting the perpetrator and Jim. Sandy is in the closet, probably scared for her life. In the midst of that, she has a seizure, an epileptic seizure, which is debilitating, and Jim is being attacked by this person or person's I'm not saying there's only one person involved. I potentially believe there could be more than one person involved in this in just my opinion. So Jim is being attacked, Sandy is in midst of a seizure and probably having a full on meltdown, not even realize what is realizing what is going on because her hus is being attacked and she is in the midst of having this medical event, and she completely blocks out and doesn't remember what happened, and Somewhere along the line, Sandy is tied up, and then the chair is put under the door handle. So Sandy, even if she is okay, she can't get out. She's tied up legs and arms, she's had a seizure, and she's locked in a closet in her own home while her husband on the other side of the room is also dead in a closet. So investigators thought that this was sketchy. Now, I don't know about y'all, but I don't think I could physically pull off tying myself up, locking myself in a closet. I don't think I could pull that off. I just don't especially intricate knots on my arms and my hands, Like nobody is that good doing something like that to themselves and then locking themselves in a closet. I just don't see that being a feasible option. I really don't. But investigators, they think that this is suspicious, and they are questioning every bit of Sandy's story, and they are saying, like, we don't know how your husband could be being murdered right thirty feet away from you, and you have no idea and you have no recollection of it. Because obviously, they have no idea what seizures do to people, obviously, and how debilitating it can be. Sandy says, after she has an epileptic episode, her head is pounding, her whole body is hurting. I've seen somebody have a seizure multiple occasions. It is not sunshine and rainbows. And you sure as hell can't focus on what's going on two feet in front of you, much less thirty feet away. Regardless of how aware you think you would be during a seizure, I promise you you're not. And of course, at this point, the whole family is just shocked that, first of all, that Jim has been taken in such a brutal way, but even more shocked that Sandy is being looked at as the primary suspect at this point, because she too is a victim. And everybody in that family, even their daughter Liz, said she very much tried to look at this whole thing unbiased and look at the evidence and see for herself if she could see the evidence point to Sandy having done this, and she just said, there's no physical, possible way that her mother could have done this, And if you look at the evidence, there is no physical possible way that Sandy did this, and I will die on that hill. This is one case that I am one hundred and fifteen percent sure that this woman has been wrongfully convicted of the of her husband, and she sits in prison because Harris County didn't want to probe further and look further into who potentially could have done this. Whoever did this is still out there roaming the streets doing god knows what to God knows who. It is really really frustrating. So they go about their investigation and initially they did not arrest Sandy. Although they were suspicious of her, they did not arrest Sandy. And a year and a half went by, and she was trying to pick up the pieces of her life and kind of just try to start over put everything behind her. And in the summer of twenty fourteen, Liz learned that her mother had been indicted in Jim's murder. Now, at this point, Sandy had been heavily questioned. She had a lawyer, so they found out that there was a warrant out for her arrest. So they went ahead and called the lawyer and Sandy turned herself in, which really really breaks my heart. Sandy sat in prison for three years before the case went to trial, and it went to trial in twenty seventeen. And of course in a situation like this, you have to argue motives. So what was Sandy's motive if this was her to kill Jim? So they argued that because of the Jehovah's witness religion, Sandy wanted a divorce but felt that she would be shunned if that was the case. Now, this always gets me when people argue this, because I think, regardless of what religion you are, you can agree that probably murdering someone is a little bit more of an offense than divorce. I know there are some religions that are super strict and do not believe at all and divorce, but I would say across the board, religions also don't believe that murder is okay. So when prosecutors want to argue that the motive was, well, she wanted a divorce, but it's not okay in her religion, so she turned to murder. It just really boggles my mind. Do you guys agree with me on that? Because I hear it a lot and it very much confuses me. So the prosecution basically said that Sandy had lured Jim into letting her tie up his legs with a telephone cord in like a sexual sort of way, and then took him by surprise by using a large kitchen knife to stab him to death. So that is what the prosecution is saying happened, and that is their story and they're sticking to it. And they also said that the home invasion aspect of it was definitely staged, and said that everything in the crime scene, like the drawers that had opened, everything was like neatly arranged, not like dumped, not scavenged through. And then they also talked about how there was no sign of force entry, and they also spoke on how there was nothing taken from the home, nothing was stolen, so robbery wouldn't have been a motive. However, Sandy's defense attorneys disagree and say that there were a number of items removed from the home that were of value. They also this is the worst part. It also used a prerecorded demonstration of how they thought Sandy could have used a small rug to essentially slide the chair underneath the door to lock herself into the closet, and then they also did a demonstration about how they thought Sandy could have tied her own hands behind her back. Basically, they're grasping for straws, in my opinion, and demonstrating all of this stuff because at this point, I think they so much wanted Sandy to be guilty of this, even though they probably knew somewhere in the very very deep parts of their mind that Sandy wasn't responsible, but they were going to stop at nothing to get a conviction out of Sandy. They also went back into Sandy's medical history and said that there had been no reported epileptic seizures from Sandy to her medical doctors in years, and they thought, of course that this was suspicious, and they said that it was only after Jim died that she ended up saying that she had a seizure that year. Now Here we go into the evidence that, of course, if you commit a crime as brutal as the one that was committed against Jim, there's going to be some physical evidence on the person who did it, especially if they had been tied up in a closet and they haven't moved in sixteen hours, as Sandy was tied up and hadn't moved in sixteen hours, So there was no blood evidence on Sandy at all. Her hands were clean, there was no sign that anyone had attempted to clean up the home, and she had no injuries on her hands. None of her nails were chipped, there was no evidence underneath her fingernails, there was nothing. She had no defensive marks on her. There was nothing. And Jim fought for his damn life. So if she had been the one that attacked Jim a violent, violent violence stabbing, you're gonna have something on you. You're gonna have blood spatter, You're gonna have evidence on your clothes, You're gonna have stuff on your skin, and violently this person is fighting for their lives. You're gonna have some type of cuts on your hands, cuts on your arm. Sandy had nothing on her. There was some male and female DNA that the investigators did find on the dresser drawer poles that were inside of the Melgar's bedroom and also on some door handles, and these DNA evidence did not match anyone in the Milgar family, and they said that it was definitely from two unknown strangers. Now, let's talk about this because I feel like this is so so important in saying that there was some other people present at the Miligar home at some point in time. I don't know about you, but I feel like that is very, very telling that other people were in that house that night, were rummaging through their belongings, touching their dresser drawer poles, touching their doorknobs, killing Jim, and tying up Sandy and getting out of the house without anyone having any idea that they were even there. So the jury went to their deliberations, and they deliberated over two days, and unfortunately they ended up coming back with a guilty verdict for Sandy. Of course, this was highly, highly upsetting to the Malgar family, their daughter Liz. All of the family really rallied around Sandy. But despite all of this, she was still convicted and sentenced to twenty seven years in prison for the murder of her husband. So, as you can see, injustice was done. Sandy is innocent. I will, like I said, die on that hill. Sandy Melgar is innocent. She does not deserve to be in prison. This case has gotten a lot of attention. Bob Ruff from Truth and Justice did a very extensive story on this one, and he really helped kind of push the story out there some more people would know what an injustice this was. And there was a lot of speculation that the back door of the Melgar home wasn't locked and that's how the perpetrators got in. Jim had gotten up to let the dogs out. They could have slipped in at that point, or they could have already been in the home and attacked him right then and there. There's really no way to say other than there is no force entry. So whoever entered the home did so through an open door, or they slipped in when Jim went to let the dogs back in when he had gotten up to go out that way. So one of the interesting things that was brought up on Bob Bruff's podcast is that the part of the crime scene was there was a knife and this white blouse that was found in the jacuzzi tub in the Melgar bathroom. And one of excuse me, one of Bob Ruff's podcast listeners was looking at the crime scene photos and saw this white blouse in the tub and saw the tag and it was a designer that was exclusively only in Costco stores. And this is a big deal because in order to buy stuff from Costco, you have to have a membership card. Where did this blouse come from? It wasn't something that belonged to Sandy or to Jim. Where did this blouse come from? So that, to me is a huge piece of evidence. And the lead prosecutor of this case thinks that this whole thing is really sketchy. And she's like very skeptical of, you know, the way that Bob Ruff is going about like putting this case out there, and his listeners are obviously going down the rabbit hole themselves and finding out these different things about the different clues. And she basically says, I think that people who aren't in law enforcement and haven't seen the evidence have a question about it because she walked around with a cane. She's a petite woman. They were married for thirty two years. I understand the questions that they have. It's unusual, for sure that we have a suspect that's like Sandra, but that doesn't determine whether somebody commits a crime or not. Now I agree with that, Like Sandy does not look like a woman who could overpower a grown man to that degree at all. Looking at that, I agree with her. She is medically fragile, she's frail, she is a woman at the end of the day, But I don't think that has anything to do with it. Like when you look at the evidence, the actual evidence, the DNA that was found, the fact that there's nothing at all found on Sandy, the fact that she's tied up, the fact that there's a chair underneath the door handle of a closed door. That to me, I don't have to be an investigator to understand what that means or what that looks like. At the end of the day, reasonable doubt is reasonable doubt, and I think this case is literally drenched in reasonable doubt. So where does Sandy stand today? She has appealed her conviction multiple times. Most of her appeals have been denied, but they're hoping that new DNA evidence is going to help clear her name. So there was a bloody handle that was on a safe in the Melgar home that was never tested, and this DNA blood evidence did come back to a mail that is not Jim and it is nobody in the Melgar family Tree's blood. So I think, if nothing else, Sandy deserves a new trial and this evidence needs to come into play. The Innocence Project of Texas now has decided to take on Sandy's case and help the family a little more in being able to explore other possibilities, and Liz said that she started to feel like they had reached the end of the road, but now that the Innocence Project is on their side, they feel like the fight has been renewed. The family is offering one hundred thousand dollars reward leading to information on what happened to Jim. Sandy is currently serving her twenty seven year prison sentence and she's eligible for parole in twenty thirty one, which is a long time from now. I know it's twenty twenty four, but twenty thirty one is a long time away when you really think about it. And this woman, wholeheartedly, a million percent, deserves a new trial, and they need to look at all of the evidence, and we need to figure out who did this because the people that did this are still out there. And yeah, I do believe that it might have been a robbery gone wrong or a random attack gone wrong, but it never should have turned into a conspiracy against Sandy Milgar because everybody has supported her and her family from day one, and I support her, but I also support the thought that we need to talk about how sometimes it is so easy to become a suspect in a case where you're also a victim. And I feel like this should really scare everybody, every single innocent on death row that I've done, or wrongful conviction that I've done. This is what happens. People are basically put in the spotlight and centered in on just because they might have one thing that might tie them to a crime. I did the case on Rashan Grant last month, and that was basically while somebody had said that his brother had beef with one of the guys that was in that group of people that this crime occurred. So boom, Rashan goes to jail and is sentenced to all this time in prison for something that he didn't even know anything about. And in this case, Sandy is a victim. Herself is tied up with her arms and her legs and locked in a closet, and because she has an epileptic seizure and doesn't recall the events, she's looked at as guilty. And it just completely boggles my mind, And it should be really scary for all of us that something like this could happen to you. Sandy was just a normal woman who was just celebrating her anniversary with her husband. Her life got turned upside down, her husband got taken from her, and she got arrested for It is very scary that our criminal justice system can fail this badly and it happens all the time, and that should really really scare every single one of us. For those that aren't familiar, I'll go a little off topic here with the aj Armstrong case, that is a prime example of what I'm talking about, and I am going to cover his case at some point, but it's a really difficult one for me because he was only sixteen at the time of this crime that occurred, and they put him through three trials, two hung jurys, and a third trial later, and new new quote unquote evidence that popped up, you know, years and years and years down the line, finally convicted him of the murder of his parents. There's some prosecutions and some das that are going to stop at nothing to get the result that they want, and that is a huge problem in our criminal justice system and we have got to do better because any one of us could find ourselves the victim of something similar. We could be set up. We could be railroaded. It happens all the time, and I'm trying to provide awareness that stuff like this does happen, and it can happen to you, and that should very much terrify each and every one of us that we could literally be living our life one day something traumatic can happen to someone we know and we could be blamed for it. It is not okay, and I'm never going to stop talking about it. And it is a pattern in Harris County as well as I'm sure it's a pattern in other places, but I'm not as aware of that because I don't live in that area. But I really wanted to highlight Sandy's case today because I feel like we need to get justice for her, and we also need to get justice for Jim and the Milgar family. They have been victimized not only but twice in this whole ordeal. And anyone that can lay their head down at night and rest and know that they did the right thing by prosecuting Sandy Melgar and they think that she's truly, truly guilty of this, I don't understand that. I'll never understand it, and I hope that one day Sandy gets to justice she deserves and Sandy gets out of prison. There is a Facebook page that is set up for her. They also have a website. I'm going to link both of those in the show notes, as well as all of the different articles that I used as my resources for this story. Like I said, there's also been datelines in twenty twenties on the story. I encourage you guys to watch them. Also, Bob Rouff Truth and Justice, he did episodes on this story as well, and I encourage you to listen to those. Yep, every single aspect of this case that you can, so you can come up with your own conclusion. I personally think the evidence is there, if for nothing else, that Sandy should get a new trial so we can bring in this new DNA evidence and hopefully free her and clear her name. But I appreciate you guys listening. Thank you so much for the support. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast. Rate the podcast if you are on Spotify or Apple podcast. It really helps push it out to more peeps in the true crime community. And I thank you guys so much for listening and for the support, and I will see you guys next time for a new episode. Bye.