0:00

Before we begin, Please note this

0:03

series includes talk of suicide and

0:05

sexual violence. Please take

0:07

care while listening. I

0:13

have dreams about Sandy for

0:15

an entire year. She's been in the back

0:17

of my brain, never far from my waking

0:19

thoughts. The white coat she

0:21

was wearing on the last night of her life. It

0:24

hangs in my closet. I see

0:26

it every time I get dressed. Her

0:28

things, her check book, her calendar,

0:31

notes she wrote are laying across

0:33

my desk. Her handwriting is familiar

0:36

to me. Now there's

0:39

a note Sandy wrote to herself that I have have almost

0:41

memorized. I've read it so many times. It

0:44

helps explain where her interest in policing

0:46

came from and where her career

0:48

ambitions might have first begun. It's

0:52

called My Life as a Cop

0:54

Freak. This

0:58

is a real story of my life as a cop

1:00

freak. It goes back to when I used

1:02

to walk past the police department to catch

1:05

my bus for school. I was only

1:07

fifteen, and policemen would wave, smile

1:09

and say hi. They looked so

1:12

good in that white county car and blue

1:14

uniform. I've always

1:16

wanted a job where I could be looked at with

1:18

respect. They always

1:20

seemed to have that sort of ego with them.

1:23

Then one day I got a job at the local drug

1:26

store and at nights we had county policemen

1:28

in there. I met three

1:30

that were really nice guys. First

1:32

night I met Ray, a real nut. He

1:35

was short and looked a lot like John Denver.

1:38

He asked if I wouldn't mind a cold beer after

1:41

work, until I told him I was only seventeen.

1:44

Then he kind of said, we'll wait until you

1:46

get older. After

1:48

work, my dad was there to pick me up. The

1:51

next night, a real young, great

1:53

looking guy came up to me and asked who I

1:55

was. I could hardly believe

1:58

what he asked. He stayed by my counter

2:00

all night, talking about bullshit. I'm

2:07

pretty sure Sandy was still in high school

2:09

when she wrote this note. The

2:11

infatuation, the excitement,

2:14

the giddiness about attracting male attention.

2:17

It reminded me of how I felt about boys

2:19

at that age. I'm not

2:21

sure exactly what Sandy meant by cop

2:24

freak, but by her own admission,

2:26

she was one. She simultaneously

2:29

wanted to be liked by them

2:31

and wanted to be like them.

2:34

She wanted to enter their world, where

2:37

their uniforms try on

2:39

their egos, and at some

2:41

point in her senior year of high school she

2:43

did. Sandy's

2:45

family told me that's when she set her sights on becoming

2:48

a cop and began training in earnest

2:51

going on ride alongs with local police,

2:54

and according to her brother Michael, it

2:56

all started out okay. She

2:58

had her heart sat on I'm a

3:00

police officer from the time

3:03

she first mentioned it all

3:05

the way up through. You know, she had

3:08

nothing bad to say, probably

3:12

a good year and a half that

3:14

she did the ride alongs whenever

3:17

they got a call that they went for, from speeding

3:19

tickets to traffic accidents,

3:22

nothing nothing major. M if

3:25

something major came up, I think

3:28

that she had to get dropped

3:30

off. Ride alongs are exactly

3:32

what they sound like. A civilian

3:35

rides with an officer in their patrol car

3:37

as they go about their duties. The

3:39

earliest record of one that Sandy attended

3:42

is marked in her calendar on March nine,

3:46

Sandy would have just turned

3:48

eighteen and been in high school. Still,

3:51

based on my reporting, she would have accompanied

3:54

one other police officer on a

3:56

shift that typically lasted from

3:58

three to eleven PM.

4:01

I actually, you know, the way she talked I actually

4:03

kind of wanted to do one to myself,

4:05

just to just to see, you know, hey,

4:07

what goes on here? You know, what do you do when

4:09

you pull somebody? What do you do when

4:12

you're you know, you're in

4:14

a bad situation? How how do things

4:16

go here? You know? I wasn't as

4:18

enthused about that as she was, but I

4:21

did think it was kind of neat. But

4:23

Sandy's sudden interest in policing was

4:25

a bit confusing to her family, who

4:27

had no ties to the profession. At

4:30

first, I was a little surprised, like, really, yeah,

4:33

So she was talking about these rid alongs

4:35

and how she enjoyed them. Some of the long

4:38

she was saying that, you know, they know it wasn't

4:41

hundred said about board? What

4:43

I do we call She's saying, yeah, man, Jesus,

4:45

guys, get away with ship. Sandy

4:48

didn't go into detail about what kind of

4:50

ship they got away with, but the

4:52

Pig County Police Department was notorious

4:55

for its use of excessive force, especially

4:58

against the county's growing black population.

5:02

Once a predominantly white, working class

5:04

county, the area saw a radical

5:06

demographic shift in the seventies as

5:09

black families moved there from d C. But

5:12

as the racial makeup of the community

5:14

changed, the police department remained

5:16

overwhelmingly white, the

5:18

results of which were often brutal for

5:20

people of color. As one veteran

5:23

cop told The Washington Post at the time,

5:25

quote, it was a known fact

5:27

that if you came into Page County and made

5:30

trouble, the police would kick your head in

5:32

simple as that. Here's

5:35

a story from around the same time Sandy

5:37

would have been going on ride alongs in

5:41

Thomas Pete, a black man, was

5:43

pushing a stalled car in a seven eleven

5:45

parking lot when several PG County

5:47

police officers arrived. Witnesses

5:50

reported that, unprovoked, the officers

5:52

began beating Pete to the ground, cracking

5:55

his head open. This incident

5:57

triggered a public conversation about police

5:59

brutality, but ultimately the

6:01

police faced no real consequences.

6:04

Like Sandy said, they got away

6:06

with ship. From

6:11

My Heart Radio, I'm Melissa Jolson

6:13

and this is what happened to Sandy

6:16

Beale and I Heart original podcast,

6:22

Chapter three, My life

6:24

as a cop freak growing

6:28

up. She wasn't any different than us getting in trouble.

6:30

We had all three kind of seemed

6:32

to get in the same kind of trouble. After

6:35

a while, Sandy kind of her

6:37

own way. Michael is in his early

6:40

sixties now and moves with a quiet

6:42

and deliberate air. He's

6:44

warm, but also a little bit guarded,

6:46

which makes sense when you learn his backstory.

6:50

He has lived through the excruciating pain

6:52

of losing two daughters, one

6:55

to congestive heart failure and another

6:57

in a car accident. But

6:59

Sandy is the first loss of Michael's

7:01

life, and it came early, when

7:03

he was a senior in high school. The

7:06

two siblings were close, both in age

7:09

only a year apart, and in the

7:11

intensity of their relationship. With

7:14

most of her family. Sandy was tight

7:16

lipped about her time with police, but

7:18

Michael was granted a rare glimpse of her world.

7:22

She graduated a year before me,

7:25

and while she was out of school,

7:27

most of her time was spent with

7:29

work and with um,

7:33

hanging out with the police department

7:35

and the ride longs and stuff

7:37

like that, and then going to these

7:40

FLP lodges and hanging

7:42

out with them and

7:44

drinking and stuff like that. He said, she

7:47

said they all were just let

7:49

the hair down, when in that FOP

7:53

stands for fraternal Order of Police.

7:56

It's the largest professional police organization

7:58

in the country. State level

8:01

outposts are called FOP lodges,

8:03

and some, like the FOP Lodge in Prince

8:05

George's County, have a bar where

8:07

officers can socialize. That

8:10

lodge, number eighty nine is where Sandy

8:12

would go to grab drinks with cops. Michael

8:14

said the drinking age was only eighteen

8:16

back then. She talked about just going through

8:18

the club and hanging out and having a good

8:21

time, and the cops will bring

8:23

her home. Half the time they had been half

8:26

drunk. When you're bringing her how many cop cars?

8:28

So I'm like, well, there you go. The

8:32

FOP lodge Sandy visited is still

8:35

open today. I haven't been there,

8:37

but I looked at pictures online. On

8:39

the inside, it looks a bit like your average

8:41

sports bar, with carpeted floors,

8:44

bare walls, and blinds pulled down

8:46

over the windows. It has

8:48

eight flat screen televisions, two pool

8:50

tables, and a jukebox. The

8:53

bar stays open until two am Monday

8:55

through Saturday, and on Tuesday's

8:57

domestic beers are a dollar. Is

9:00

long as you were in law and enforcement, you can go

9:02

to this place. They just go

9:04

there and hang out and swap stupid

9:06

stories and cheating their wives

9:08

and doing silly things like that. So

9:12

it's about pretty much. But I got out of it.

9:15

But she was trying to learn as much

9:17

as she possibly could by going on

9:19

these ride alongs and hanging out with the police

9:21

and and you know, just taking

9:23

things in and seeing seeing just what goes

9:25

on, how things are donned,

9:27

you know, so that when she

9:30

was able to get into the academy, she would

9:32

have something, she would know what to expect, what was

9:35

coming down the line. At the time

9:37

Sandy was trying to become a cop, women

9:39

accounted for only two percent of sworn

9:41

officers, and many of them worked

9:44

desk jobs. It was only

9:46

in two the Prince George's

9:48

County started admitting women into the

9:50

police Academy get Sandy

9:52

envisioned a place for herself there, even

9:55

when there was little indication that she would be

9:57

welcomed. I wanted to

9:59

understand the climate she was operating within,

10:02

and without being able to talk to Sandy,

10:04

I found the next best thing, another

10:06

woman who began policing around the exact

10:08

same time, Dottie Davis.

10:11

It wasn't like it was my lifelong goal

10:13

to be a police officer. Um,

10:15

I literally was looking for an

10:18

occupation that paid well and

10:20

that was satisfying to me, And so I

10:22

started as a dispatcher, which then led

10:25

to me applying to a neighboring

10:27

agency. Literally,

10:29

I was watching the officers,

10:32

the troopers that I was dispatching,

10:34

the calls for service, and

10:37

I was thinking I could do that. First

10:41

of all, I'm an avid runner, and

10:45

um my father was against Smith. So I've

10:47

been shooting since I was eight and reloaded

10:49

new ammunition since I was nine. I

10:52

grew up in what I believed to be kind

10:54

of a paramilitary household, where

10:56

the only way you responded to my parents

10:58

was yes or and no, may am. So if you

11:01

can put everything but I just said,

11:03

together, I think about what I recruit

11:05

classes like in the academy.

11:08

Man, I loved it. Dottie

11:10

has retired from policing, but she spent

11:13

over thirty years with the Fort Wayne Police

11:15

Department in Indiana. She

11:17

started as a patrol officer, moved

11:19

up to sergeant, then lieutenant, captain,

11:22

and finally deputy chief. My

11:25

very first, very

11:27

first training officer told

11:30

me to get in the car, don't

11:32

touch anything, and shut up.

11:35

If I need anything from you, I'll tell you.

11:38

And I was like, this

11:40

is going to be a really long eight hours.

11:43

It wasn't a very welcoming environment

11:46

for a female, but I learned

11:48

early on, um, you're probably

11:50

not going to be heard. If

11:55

Dottie had been attempting this journey just a

11:57

few years earlier, it's likely

11:59

she would have been shut out. But in

12:01

nineteen sixty four, Congress passed

12:04

the Civil Rights Act, which prohibited

12:06

employers from discriminating workers

12:08

on the basis of sex. In

12:10

nineteen seventy two, Congress extended

12:13

the law to local and state governments.

12:16

In practice, that meant women could no

12:18

longer be excluded from important jobs

12:20

like policing and firefighting. Still,

12:24

local police departments continued to

12:26

deny women jobs by issuing height

12:28

and weight requirements that many couldn't meet.

12:31

In nineteen seventy seven, the Supreme

12:33

Court ruled that the use of heightened weight as

12:35

a screening mechanism was unlawful

12:37

discrimination. And so we

12:39

were still as two babies, if

12:41

you will, we were still being looked at as

12:43

pilot projects, um to

12:46

see whether or not we were going to be able to

12:48

be successful and hold our own

12:51

While removing these barriers made it easier

12:53

for women to become police officers, they

12:55

still had to face workplace environments

12:57

that were indifferent to their ambitions

13:00

or even outright hostile. A

13:02

detective and I were writing

13:05

the elevator back up to the detective

13:07

Bureau, which was on the second floor, and

13:10

he pinned me against the elevator wall

13:12

and tried to kiss me, and

13:15

I shoved him off of me and started

13:18

yelling at him. And then I

13:20

went into the detective bureau, went

13:22

to the captain and said, I'm not

13:25

riding with him anymore. He just pinned me against

13:27

the elevator tried to kiss me, and

13:29

I'm not putting up with that. And

13:32

what happened? He got

13:35

nothing other than told leave

13:37

her alone. Some of the behaviors

13:39

Dotty described for obviously predatory,

13:42

others seemed designed to simply undermine

13:45

women and keep them from getting too comfortable

13:47

in their positions. So

13:50

as much as I love to shoot, I

13:52

had a firearms instructor that

13:55

would stand over my shoulder. I

13:57

mean I could like next to my body

14:01

and he would tell me to squeeze

14:03

the trigger like you were squeezing

14:06

a nipple. And

14:09

I know I'm looking at your face. I

14:12

wanted to bark because

14:14

it was just so ridiculous

14:16

that he would even say that, and

14:19

of course it threw me off my game horribly,

14:22

which I don't know if that's what he wanted because he didn't

14:24

want a female to be the top gun.

14:27

Dottie emphasized how isolating

14:29

it was to be one of the two, a

14:32

woman in a sea of male cops. And

14:35

honestly, it's not that much different today

14:38

currently around of

14:41

sworn law enforcement officers or women.

14:43

That means, in many precincts across the country,

14:46

it's not uncommon to be the only

14:48

woman on a shift, the only

14:50

woman in a division. That

14:53

isolation can have a corrosive effect.

14:56

It is very easy for you to lose

14:59

your identity and i'd have fit in and

15:01

become one of the boys. And I

15:03

learned that no matter how much rank

15:06

you have or time and grade, you

15:08

are never going to be one of the boys. And

15:10

you have to continue to maintain your

15:12

identity and be sure of who

15:14

you are because they will eat you out.

15:25

When Sandy's body was found, there were

15:27

two small books in her possession, address

15:30

books that she used to keep track of the people

15:33

she met. I have them now,

15:35

and I've spent the last year pouring over them,

15:37

trying to see what they can teach me. I've

15:40

cataloged each of the names and researched

15:42

their identities. Alongside

15:45

her classmates at Bladensburg High,

15:47

her neighbors and seat Pleasant, and her

15:50

colleagues from the department store

15:52

are another category of acquaintances,

15:55

police officers. Every

15:57

few pages, the name of a cop appears,

16:00

either a PG County Police officer or

16:02

a Maryland State trooper, along

16:04

with their phone number. Examining

16:07

her handwriting, it's hard to tell if

16:09

these cops were her friends or professional

16:11

contacts. Some entries include

16:13

official titles and others are written

16:16

more casually. The number

16:18

for the fo P Lodge is also in there.

16:21

And then there's the list in the back of the book,

16:25

thirteen names long. In

16:27

black ink, Sandy wrote down a

16:29

series of three digit numbers,

16:31

each one adjacent to a last name.

16:34

As far as I can tell, they're all PG

16:36

County Police officers, and the

16:39

numbers identify their police cars.

16:42

When I first flipped through Sandy's address

16:44

books, it wasn't clear to me how

16:47

a high school student would know so many

16:49

police officers. That change

16:51

once I connected with one of the PG County

16:54

cops from Sandy's books. Ray.

16:56

That's Ray from the drug Store Ray,

16:59

the John her look alike from Sandy's

17:01

note My Life as a Cop Freak. Ray's

17:04

name appears in her books a few times,

17:07

along with a phone number, an address,

17:09

and what appears to be his police car number.

17:13

Ray told me that he doesn't remember Sandy,

17:15

but he did have an idea why she was able

17:18

to go on so many ride alongs as a

17:20

teen. As he explained,

17:22

Sandy was likely part of the Police Explorer

17:25

program in Prince George's County, which

17:27

launched in nineteen seventy six. The

17:30

program allowed teens to shadow police

17:32

officers at work and try out

17:35

or explore the job to see

17:37

if they might want to pursue a career in law

17:39

enforcement. I

17:42

hadn't heard of Police Explorer programs,

17:44

so I did some research. Turns

17:46

out they now exist all over the country.

17:49

They began in the nineteen fifties as part

17:51

of the Boy Scouts of America. Although

17:54

side note they're now run by a subsidiary

17:56

called Learning for Life. Girls

17:59

weren't allowed to join in until nineteen. In

18:02

nineteen seventy six, the Boy Scouts received

18:04

a grant from the federal government to promote

18:07

the program, and it worked. A

18:09

lot Of new posts, as they're called, cropped

18:11

up all around the country, including

18:14

one in Prince George's County.

18:28

Based on my reporting, I believe that Sandy

18:31

joined the Prince George's County Explorer program

18:33

in its very first year, when

18:35

she was a senior in high school. Sandy

18:38

would have been one of the first generation of trainees,

18:41

though I wasn't able to confirm this, as

18:43

a spokesperson for PG County Police

18:45

said they were unable to locate a record

18:48

of participants from that year. The

18:51

program is still active today, open

18:53

to those aged fourteen to twenty.

18:56

When I checked recently, there were about

18:58

ninety current members. There's

19:00

an established set of rules around who can

19:02

join and what requirements you need to meet,

19:05

but back in its early days, it wasn't

19:07

such an official program.

19:10

Ray didn't want to be recorded for the podcast,

19:12

but he did offer some helpful context.

19:15

He told me that he was part of the p G County

19:17

Explorer program when it first began,

19:20

and as he described it, the program

19:22

was pretty loose and disorganized. Officers

19:25

didn't receive any specialized training before

19:28

being placed with teens, and there were

19:30

very few rules. You

19:32

recalled chaperoning a ski trip to Pennsylvania

19:35

with a bunch of teenagers in the Explorer

19:37

program. When he went to check

19:40

on a group of girls in a hotel room,

19:42

knocking on their door, he discovered

19:44

they were smoking pot. That was

19:46

his queue to quit the program.

19:49

I understood from Ray that the point

19:52

of his story was to illustrate that he

19:54

saw the Explorer program as a risk

19:56

to his career. The potential

19:58

for things to go wrong was is too high,

20:01

and so he left. He was

20:03

looking out for himself. But

20:05

it made me wonder who

20:07

was looking out for Explorers like Sandy.

20:14

Over the past year, I've tried to connect

20:16

with every cop in Sandy's address books

20:18

that I could track down. I've

20:20

sent emails, letters, and messages

20:23

on social media. Few

20:25

responded to me, but I did manage

20:27

to talk to a couple of police officers whose

20:30

names corresponded with Sandy's records.

20:33

There was one PG County police officer

20:35

in particular, though, who I really wanted

20:37

to speak with, Bob. Sandy

20:40

listed him as her emergency contact.

20:43

She also noted his birthday and his

20:45

name pops up on occasion in her calendar

20:47

too. I thought

20:50

if any of these cops were Sandy's friend,

20:52

if anyone could provide some insight into her

20:55

life, it would be Bob. Bob

20:57

didn't want to be recorded for the podcast,

21:00

but he confirmed that he worked in the Explorer

21:02

program at the time that Sandy would have been

21:04

in it. He recalled taking students

21:07

on ride alongs, but he couldn't

21:09

explain why his birthday and phone number

21:11

were written in Sandy's books, or

21:13

why she would deem him important enough

21:16

to list him as her emergency contact.

21:19

He, like Ray, said

21:21

he didn't remember her. This

21:25

became a recurring theme in my reporting.

21:28

To my surprise, none of the cops

21:30

I spoke to remember Sandy,

21:33

at least they said they didn't. They

21:35

didn't even remember that a police trainee

21:38

had died by suicide, something

21:40

I thought would leave an impact. Sandy,

21:43

it seemed, had been invisible to

21:45

them. I wondered what that said

21:47

about how she was treated when she was alive.

21:52

I'm going to play the second part of my interview

21:54

with Detective Shosselsky, now the

21:57

PG County police officer who handled

21:59

Sandy's case, because I think it

22:01

speaks to this question of how police

22:03

interacted with Sandy, Shelski

22:06

told me about something unusual that

22:08

occurred right after her death. Let

22:11

me say this nice

22:14

found lying after him

22:16

with the police officers

22:20

if their names in the book,

22:23

Shelski is referring to Sandy's address

22:26

books which were discovered in the car with

22:28

her. Were these just Prince George's

22:30

County police or with these state troopers

22:33

County Okay?

22:35

Why were they calling she

22:40

listed them as one of her friends.

22:45

What was their motivation though for calling? Like?

22:47

Were they trying not to get in trouble

22:49

professionally, personally

22:52

or like? And

22:55

you estimated about ten

22:57

people called you. Did they

23:00

it to having relationships with her?

23:02

Pretty much? It was pretty

23:04

clear who wasn't really a part of

23:08

my investigation. But

23:10

when they heard that she had

23:13

killed herself, being

23:15

will what

23:17

was their end goal to calling you? They

23:19

wanted to see if she had made

23:22

any mention of them

23:24

in case it came out in some way they

23:27

wanted to head to like not

23:29

necessarily well, I don't

23:31

know, well now what I had to be?

23:34

You know, they were sexually involved

23:37

with her. Did

23:41

any of the police that called you express

23:44

sadness about her death? No?

23:47

Very nurse a

23:50

personal stress

23:52

were stressed, and that there

23:55

was perhaps there's something written with their

23:57

name for the obvious

23:59

reason. What

24:02

did you make of her spending all this

24:04

time and having sexual relationships with police

24:07

officers? I knew it was going to

24:09

be a stink. I didn't imagine

24:13

years later stink

24:16

is going to come. I

24:20

want to slow down here because this is really

24:23

important and the audio is not great. Detective

24:26

Selski is a little blase and his

24:28

delivery. But what he told me

24:30

is that while he was investigating Sandy's

24:32

death, ten PG County

24:34

police officers called him to find

24:36

out if their names had been linked to Sandy.

24:40

And this wasn't an off handed comment either.

24:42

Selski told me this detail in two

24:44

different phone interviews. He wouldn't

24:47

tell me the names of the men who called, which

24:49

made this claim hard to fact check, but

24:52

I believed him

24:54

the way he divulged this information though

24:57

it was like a gossipy aside, not

24:59

something that he thought should warrant any further

25:01

investigation. But it

25:03

sounded like a big fucking deal to me. In

25:06

my line of work reporting on domestic

25:08

violence and sexual assault, this

25:10

scenario of a teenager having

25:12

intimate relationships with upwards

25:14

of ten adult men, let alone

25:17

police officers who were supposed to be

25:19

training her. It rang every

25:21

alarm bell in my body.

25:24

I started this project wanting to find

25:26

out what happened the night Sandy died, but

25:29

as I got deeper into the reporting, I

25:31

had more and more questions about exactly

25:33

what happened when she was alive, specifically

25:37

when she was hanging out with cops

25:39

on these unsupervised ride alongs.

25:42

I knew I had to tell the Bills what Schelski

25:45

said because it confirmed their

25:47

gut instinct that the cops were hiding

25:49

something. It just wasn't what they

25:51

had thought. The

25:57

family was heartbroken to learn about

25:59

these pg con the police officers, who

26:01

Shallski said spoke so callously

26:03

after her death. Here's

26:06

Kim, her cousin. Well,

26:08

until you guys uncovered all of that,

26:11

I think that I had a

26:13

sense in naivete where I

26:16

just really believed that all

26:18

of these people that she had the names of were just

26:20

nice people and we're her friends. And

26:23

that snapped me out of my believing

26:26

in the kindness of

26:28

these people, that they're really just trying to

26:30

cover their butts. Like me, Kim

26:33

hadn't known exactly what to think about

26:35

Sandy's address books and the list

26:37

of cops she was collecting. She

26:39

had settled on a generous interpretation

26:42

that the officers in the books were Sandy's

26:44

mentors who helped her as she tried

26:46

to pursue a career in law enforcement.

26:49

Now she had to contemplate something more nefarious.

26:53

Now. I don't know what her thinking might have been.

26:55

Then, I do know that she was

26:57

very um, happy,

27:00

lucky, and maybe she thought that,

27:03

you know, with sex, pame power. So

27:05

she was probably pretty enamored that any

27:07

of them would be interested in her. And she

27:09

probably saw it as Wow, these people that

27:12

have some authority and power are interested in

27:15

me. And she probably hoped

27:17

that there was more to it than it was.

27:19

But she was a kid, and she was naive, even

27:22

though she thought she knew

27:24

more than she did. But when ten

27:26

of them are are asking

27:29

is my name in there? There are some fishy

27:31

stuff going on. I don't

27:33

know. It feels disgusting to me. Really,

27:36

I don't know how they live with themselves. Kim

27:39

had believed the police swept Sandy's

27:41

case under the rug because of her involvement

27:43

with Doug, the state trooper. She

27:46

suspected that Doug was in the ployard that

27:48

night. That Doug held all the answers

27:50

the family desperately yearned to hear. But

27:53

now there were other possibilities, And

27:56

then you know, it could have been any of those other

27:58

guys too. But man

28:01

with that kind of power and that kind of

28:03

ability to manipulate and

28:06

be charming and grooming her, how

28:10

overwhelming for an eighteen year

28:12

old girl to try to sort all that out, The

28:16

immense pressure and shame

28:18

she must have been under at the time. It's

28:22

really sad. It's

28:27

sad. It's just sad. So

28:30

I do believe they have equal responsibility

28:34

and hurting her. There

28:47

have been few times in my career or

28:50

my perspective on a story has changed

28:52

so quickly. Kim initially

28:54

asked me to investigate Sandy's case because

28:57

of my experience reporting on domestic

28:59

violence, specifically domestic

29:01

violence homicides. Sandy's

29:04

family was worried that she had been killed by

29:06

her boyfriend, but

29:08

my conversation with Shashelski opened

29:11

up a whole new line of reporting as

29:13

I tried to make sense of the calls that flooded

29:16

in after her death. On

29:18

the one hand, it provided some evidence

29:20

that Sandy might have been struggling emotionally

29:23

keeping secrets that would have been profoundly

29:26

isolating for the team, And

29:28

on the other it hinted at a larger

29:31

conspiracy involving many

29:33

cops with a lot to lose. It

29:36

all reminded me of a story Joanne

29:38

told me the first time I met her in

29:41

the summer of one. It's

29:44

about one of Sandy's friends. Her

29:46

name is also Sandy, Sandy

29:48

Sheridan. According

29:54

to Joanne, Sandy Beale and Sandy

29:56

Sheridan spent a lot of time together in

29:59

the months before Andy died. Despite

30:01

my best efforts, I've never been able to

30:03

find her, but Joanne told me

30:06

she called shortly after Sandy died.

30:08

She called me right up. She said,

30:10

what happened all those cards that we collected

30:13

of different cops. Sandy

30:15

Sheridan explained that she and Sandy

30:18

Beale had been collecting business cards

30:20

of all the cops they met, But

30:22

when Joanne looked through her daughter's belongings,

30:25

there was only two cats in

30:27

her belongings that then laid out on

30:29

the table for us to say. Sandy

30:32

Sheridan told Joanne one more thing that

30:35

local police had been told to stay away

30:37

from the funeral, and as far

30:40

as Joanne could tell, they did. I

30:43

wasn't sure what to make of these claims. At first

30:46

they felt a little conspiratorial, but

30:48

after learning about those calls to Shahlski,

30:52

it seemed a lot more likely that the stories

30:54

were true. I ain't got no reason

30:56

to really not trust the cops. But there's

30:59

you know, ship ain't add enough. You know I've always

31:01

had that was ship just ain't adding

31:03

up. That's one thing

31:05

I did tell the detective

31:07

and that other guy. I told him,

31:09

I said, you know what really burns my

31:12

ask is she wanted to be just

31:14

like one of you. She

31:17

wanted to be liked by them, and she wanted

31:19

to be like them. And

31:21

at some point between her innocent flirtations

31:24

with cops at the drug store and

31:26

her body being discovered on a cold February

31:29

morning, something went horribly

31:31

wrong. Whatever

31:34

happened to her while she was in the Explorer

31:36

program, I think it's

31:38

unlikely she was the only one. I

31:42

asked p G County for any records

31:44

related to complaints of inappropriate

31:46

sexual behavior within the Explorer

31:48

program from s to

31:50

now. They told

31:52

me that a search of the current internal affair

31:55

system uncovered no complaints, and

31:57

that to search an older system, I

31:59

would need to give them the officer's name in question.

32:03

I've passed along a list of names in Sandy's

32:05

books, and I'll let you know what we hear. But

32:08

here's what I found when I searched for old news

32:11

articles about the Pig County Explorer

32:13

program. In just

32:16

five years after Sandy died, a

32:19

veteran Prince George's County police officer

32:21

took a sixteen year old on a ride along. The

32:24

girl ended up attending the police academy

32:26

and becoming a police officer, fulfilling

32:29

the dream that Sandy had. But

32:32

thirteen years later, after she joined

32:34

the sex crimes unit, she reported

32:36

that she had been raped by her mentor on one

32:39

of the many ride along she attended. The

32:41

officer was later convicted of child abuse.

32:46

I think Sandy was a victim too. I

32:49

think her desire to be a cop, her

32:51

teenage infatuations, and

32:54

her inexperience they all

32:56

coincided to leave her open to exploitation.

33:00

That's next week. Well,

33:06

this is the whole thing about predation.

33:09

It works better for the predator

33:11

if your victim is vulnerable. And

33:14

what more vulnerable plays than you know, a

33:16

desperate young person trying

33:19

to start a Korean law enforcement I'm

33:25

not done digging into this story, and

33:27

i have more questions about what happens in

33:29

police Explorer programs. If

33:32

you have ever been part of a police youth program

33:34

or participated in a ride along, or

33:36

you witnessed or experienced some sort

33:39

of inappropriate sexual conduct, please

33:41

email me at what Happened to Sandy

33:43

Beale at gmail dot com.

33:47

What Happened to Sandy Beale is hosted

33:49

by me Melissa Jolson. It's

33:51

written and produced by me and Katrina Norvell.

33:54

It's edited by a Bussafar, Josh

33:57

Fisher, and Mary Do. Sound

33:59

design by Aaron Kaufman. Jason

34:02

English is our executive producer and

34:04

Merissa Brown is our associate producer.

34:07

To find out more about the investigation, follow

34:10

me on Twitter at q U A

34:13

S I am A d O. Thanks

34:16

so much for listening