Talking Dateline: The Other Side of Paradise

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Hey, everyone, it's Andrea Canning, and we are talking Dateline.

Today, I'm joined by Keith Morrison to discuss his episode, The Other Side of Paradise.

If you haven't listened to this episode yet, it is the episode two below this one on your Dateline feed, so go there and listen to it or stream it on Peacock and then come back here.

To recap, when Sandra Gallis was found strangled to death in her car, her friends and family assumed her estranged husband, Darren, was responsible.

But investigators didn't have enough evidence to charge him for the crime, and the case went cold until new forensic testing and the man's calendar proved enough to make an arrest.

For this talking dateline, we have a clip from Darren Gallis's sentencing from the letter Sandra and Darren's sons wrote in support of their father.

Okay, let's talk dateline.

Okay, let's do that.

Keith, I found myself just on a roller coaster in this episode.

My heart was breaking for Larry the longer that this dragged on and on and on.

And it did drag, that's for sure.

It's been a nightmare for that poor family.

He and his really delightful wife, who is not a public person and didn't want to be a public person, but you know, the two of them together have just gone through hell for quite a long time.

Keith, you actually learned about this story kind of in a roundabout way.

You're our Hawaii correspondent, I feel like.

And so you were in Hawaii and found out about this, right?

We were doing another story,

another really fascinating story there that took us a long time to do, as some of these stories do,

about a polar player.

And so we were shooting video

around

this little part of the island where

our subjects hung out and saw this poster on a store window.

And it was a poster put up by Larry Mendoza, her father.

And And

it was so curious the way it was posted there, the way it was written.

Vince Sturla, my producer, gave him a call.

And so began a very long series of communications back and forth over the years.

But also, we just followed it for a long time.

And because the twists and turns were so extraordinary and so frustrating for all involved.

Larry, of course, famously said something something about how Kauai is a paradise if you want to commit a murder.

And I remember him saying, if you want to commit a murder, do it in Kauai because you'll never get caught.

That was his attitude about it.

Not that they weren't trying.

The police departments were doing whatever they could.

And in fact, one of the

key detectives on this case was as dogged as anybody I've seen.

He just kept at it and kept at it and kept at it until finally he found what he felt was the key.

And, you know, the police chief we interview

in the story, when he heard about Larry's story, he had just lost his own son.

He just identified so thoroughly with Larry that he made a promise that he would do everything in his power to see that the case was solved.

And that relationship was fascinating to watch, too.

A wonderful guy, this police chief.

I mean, he was tearing up

during your interview.

And

he's not just tearing up for the situation and Sandra, but you can see he's tearing up about his own personal situation and feeling that empathy toward Larry.

Look, Kauai is a lovely place.

There must be two or three or four fictional

detective stories with titles like Murder in Paradise or something like that.

The idea of a paradise where nothing bad ever happens and a murder occurs is a kind of a trope of fiction.

But in fact, in nonfiction, it happens too.

And Kauai, which kind of in a way is like small town America,

Hawaiian style, but it's very

laid-back and low-key, and it's not sort of a fancy big super-duper resort type place, with

few exceptions.

But otherwise,

it's the kind of place where you just wouldn't expect anything bad to happen.

But it also is the kind of place where sometimes it takes a little longer to get something accomplished.

And often the

news travels person to person as opposed to being a kind of

an official record that is kept in some central organ.

So

it's a different kind of place, and it's lovely for it, but sometimes it makes it harder to kind of drill down on something like a merchant.

Yeah, yeah.

And I felt that way, you know, covering some stories on, you know, the Virgin Islands, Caribbean

locations.

um i have been to kauai for a day during my honeymoon i went on the helicopter ride you know they shot jurassic park there yes

but uh you know it is you do see when you go there you see that paradise side of things right and so i thought the title was very clever the other side of paradise because you do see these houses and neighborhoods that um that you don't see as a tourist, but that people live there.

That's their lives.

They have jobs.

And so

it was an interesting sort of like pull back the curtain, right?

On

paradise.

So you and Lori Vella went to the same island for your honeymoon, huh?

Oh, oh, Keith.

Oh, my gosh.

Why does that just

feel so disturbing right now?

You had to, right?

You had to.

Oh, my goodness.

It was beautiful, though.

I mean, that helicopter ride was magical.

It was really incredible.

It is a lovely, lovely island.

It's a beautiful place.

Yes, it's one of my favorite places on the planet.

And

Vince and I have made friends there who will be friends for the rest of our lives.

Nice.

So the biggest question I have is: when are you going to give up one of your Hawaii stories to me

so Andrea can finally go to Hawaii?

Well,

is that you're it's not happening, is it?

The Tuesday

is never.

Yes, that's right.

I mean, it's nice, right?

You know, no offense to like upstate New York in January, but you know, kind of, kind of beats that.

I used to go to Alaska a lot, too, and I love doing stories in Alaska, but we are, I haven't been there lately.

Do you want to go to Alaska?

I, you know, that's the only state.

in the entire country that I have not been to is Alaska.

Yeah.

And I would absolutely like to go to Alaska.

Yes.

It looks so beautiful.

Lovely.

All right.

When we come back, we have a clip from Darren Gallas's sentencing from a letter Sandra and Darren's sons wrote in support of their father.

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So, Keith, is there some talk then that there could be someone else involved in this?

There is really no talk at this point that there could be somebody else involved.

The difficulty with the case was that there were really two possible suspects.

One was her boyfriend,

and then one was her soon-to-be-ex-husband.

He was estranged, and living with a girl, right?

So they both moved on.

Any thought on why both Ryan and Darren failed polygraphs?

Well, polygraphs are not very reliable.

Well, when I say not very reliable, they're certainly a,

we are told repeatedly, an investigative tool that can be very helpful because it tells you, you know, when somebody is nervous about something or is hiding something, and it doesn't necessarily tell you whether they're, you know, they've passed or failed and therefore they're either guilty or not guilty, but

it leads you in certain directions.

But

the fact that they both failed could have

other reasons.

Ryan, for example, who was later convicted of some very serious drug crimes.

So what was he thinking as he's being questioned by the officers?

What was he thinking when he found her body and didn't report it for, you know, a couple of hours?

Was he thinking they're going to question me and they're going to find out that I am a drug dealer and they're going to put me in jail for that and I'm now caught because of what has happened to her?

That's going to make a person pretty nervous during an interrogation.

The police, you know, given that they believed Sandra's ex-husband, Darren, might have had something to do with this, what did they think the motive was?

They'd been fighting over custody for a long time.

There was no love loss between them.

A very tense situation.

So

that's where the motive came from.

And

the r way the calendar comes into it is that Darren, the ex-husband, kept a very careful record of every time he picked her up.

If she was late by five minutes, he could mark it down.

She was late that day.

All of those kinds of things.

But it was blank

the last morning that she went over there.

And

the detective finally figured out that what happened there was that

she went over, they had an argument, she left without taking the kids, and then somebody followed her.

Was it Darren?

That was what the prosecutor decided.

until the new prosecutor came along and said, we can't really prove it.

The new prosecutor that came on,

I realize

being a prosecutor is not an easy job.

I realize that they want to have the right evidence and strategy to win.

But, I mean, did he do the right thing?

I'd love to know your thoughts on that.

Well, I looked back.

The interview I had with him was pretty contentious, and

I challenged him repeatedly because

you and I have both dealt with prosecutors who would take on a case that difficult every day.

Absolutely.

Have any trouble with it?

100%.

But he was just especially cautious, and he felt that because

some evidence could point to another person who, by the way, had an alibi, but maybe it was a manufactured alibi, you know, that kind of thing, that there was just the chances of

an acquittal were strong enough that he felt that he should hold off.

And

in the end, he wound up offering this deal, which was to plead no contest to assault.

So you plead no, what is it?

Was it no contest?

No contest.

It means you're not pleading guilty, but

no contest is kind of a gray area in between.

You're not going to challenge their assertion that you committed a certain offense.

You're not saying you did it, you're not saying you didn't do it, but you're not going to challenge it.

You know, the sentencing in these cases, you're always on a little bit of pins and needles.

This one in particular, when we were waiting on the judge to give you know the sentence

for Darren, and I you could just feel it like you could

that was one of the pressure one of the more tense days I've ever encountered.

It was quite something.

And when she said 10 years, I just went, all I could think about was Larry.

Yeah,

yeah.

Well,

Larry's still around, and

the, you know, Darren will be out soon, and

they'll have to figure out how to get along.

That's all.

You know, I don't suppose they'll see much of each other, but don't register to each other.

One of the difficult moments of the story was when Larry had a heart attack.

Yes.

And I thought, oh, no.

Please tell me that Larry's not going to die before he sees the end of this.

And that really had me on edge.

I think getting to the end of this was really what kept him going in that whole difficult period.

He just had to be there.

He certainly was the center of this and the heartbeat of this story.

He absolutely was.

It was such an incredible journey that you went on with him.

Yeah.

And for a long time.

I mean,

just about 10 years.

Oh,

the moment where Larry

says that he fulfilled his promise to Sandra,

even if it didn't turn out exactly the way he hoped,

it was pretty much there.

Right.

At some point, you have to accept what you can get.

And I think that's the way it was.

But he had done his very best for her.

And that is, in the end, what mattered.

I think he was able to,

I'm not sure what the right word is, but absorb it and go on with his life a little more with a little more ease than he otherwise would have been able to.

Because certainly he was tormented by it for so long.

Right, because sort of, you know, what else is left for him to do at that point, right?

He was on a crusade.

Yes, he was on.

And then the crusade was essentially over with

that plea.

What they would have liked, mind you, was to have some contact with their grandchildren.

oh yes i was going to ask you about that that didn't happen as far as i know it's still not happening but gosh it's terrible yes it's very sad um and it certainly is something that they wanted to have happen we see that a lot you know in these stories you've seen it i've seen it where the children

take sides or you know they've been told one thing by the you know that's Darren is the only parent they have now, right?

Because Sandra is gone.

And they don't want to lose Darren, too.

know, and you don't want to believe that your father would be capable of killing your mother.

Right.

So I do think in some cases it's easier to believe that or accept that.

Now, in this case, we should just again,

you know, Darren pled no contest to assault.

Darren was not convicted of murder.

So there's that, but there certainly are people who think Darren killed Sandra.

There are, yes, indeed.

And and no matter what they think um he will be getting out of prison quite soon speaking of the sons keith they

wrote a letter in support of their father which was read by darren's attorney at sentencing let's take a listen to that we're writing to you with regards to my father darren gallas

we would like you to know the kind of man he is and has been to us throughout our life.

The one thing we could say that would describe our dad as a role model.

Our entire life we've looked up to our father as someone who inspired us to be kind, humble, and committed.

We fully understand the situation we are in and the devastation it has caused our entire family.

Yet through all our dad is committed to his family and shows unconditional love for his two sons, three stepsons, daughter, and wife.

Our dad has never been anything but loving and caring and should not suffer for something he did not do.

You know,

it is a fascinating story simply because of these uncertainties.

And that's what makes stories interesting.

And certainly you can identify with Larry Mendoza and you can identify with the other people who took part in this story and tried to solve it and believe that they found the right answer.

That's like justice on the move finally after so many years of trying.

But then you listen to, you know, the kids of this person who's been accused and they've heard a different story for all that time.

You know,

I think if I ever said this before, it's probably going to sound dumb when I say it, but

never, Keith.

I cannot remember which ancient Greek philosopher it was, but it's one of my favorite expressions, which is: opinions are toys for children.

Dangerous toys.

Because, you know, your whole attitude about life, about justice, about everything can be

skewed and altered simply because you've got a freaking opinion which

may not be right.

Yeah.

It's quite possibly wrong.

Well,

it's human.

We're humans, right?

Like it's everyone's different.

Everyone brings different life experience

to their opinion.

You know, there's all, think about all the factors that go into

an opinion.

A lot of factors.

But that doesn't mean my opinion is going to be any better than yours.

I'm sure we have probably some similar opinions and then probably some different opinions.

I've actually had some conversations with you where we've had different opinions about things.

Really?

I don't believe that.

I've forgotten all about that.

You don't remember yelling at me when I tried to, you know, say to my thought, no, I'm kidding.

I'm kidding.

Keith could never yell at anyone.

Oh, that's nice.

Thank you.

We should say when he's getting out, he

Darren

actually had his sentence reduced by six months by the Hawaii Paroling Authority.

So his current official release date is currently May 1st, 2028.

Up next, remembering Sandra.

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We do a lot of stories where the families don't give up.

It becomes their life's mission.

Larry is almost the poster child for that.

I mean, he, he, wow, like he's just so impressive.

What do you think Larry

did that was so right, you know, in his crusade?

He went about everything in a legal way.

He did not, you know, he didn't go crazy and go and try to kill somebody, although he certainly said he wanted to, he felt like doing so.

But he didn't do it.

And,

you know, he said, I would have if the opportunity presented itself and they had not done the right thing.

Well, I don't think so.

But he did doggedly put up flyers everywhere.

He did continue to follow the case.

He did continue to make investigative calls.

He did,

just every day, every week, every month, every year, he worked at it, did what he could,

did what he could that was legal.

And that's really what the secret is.

It's just kind of a...

Feet on the ground, away you go, you know, but it's...

Yeah, keeping the case alive.

That's exactly it out there.

Thankfully, with the datelines we do, usually

the families not giving up pays off.

And that's what makes a great dateline story.

Right.

And so the families that never give up and never get an answer are there too.

And

probably more of them than the ones that do get an answer.

Unfortunately, yes.

Yeah, it's heartbreaking stuff.

Those are the hard ones where they just, yeah, they can't get that traction.

You just

could feel the love that Larry and his wife had for Sandra.

I mean, that is, that is,

it just, it was so obvious how much they cared about her.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And when we learned about her, we

kind of felt the same way.

She was obviously a very lovable person.

She was.

And beautiful.

And her kids, you know, they were so cute.

You know, the pictures with Sandra and her boys, they were just adorable.

That's right.

And, you know, and in closing,

you know, what's so sad is that, you know, it's

on Sandra's dashboard,

you know, if you watched the episode, it says island girl, you know, and that's, that's really, you know, she was an island girl.

You know, she, she was a beautiful island girl.

And she was a mom and a friend and a daughter and all these things.

And she was starting this new chapter,

you know, and it's just, it's so heartbreaking because she was so loved.

Yeah.

One wonders what she would be doing now.

But we know what her parents are doing.

They have the Sandra Gallus Golf Tournament every year held in her memory, and it raises money for the YWCA's mission to end domestic violence.

And this year, it will be taking place on actually on my daughter's birthday, August 3rd.

Really?

That's your daughter's birthday?

yeah

she will be turning 13.

um keith thank you for this thank you so much i mean this is really one of this is one of your best stories and i i mean that in the way that just you show you connecting you know with thank you that's with with larry and just like how much you cared about him, about Sandra, about the story, about all of it, and just the trips you made going back and forth to really get this story right and to keep it alive alive for them.

You know, that's, you were a big part of that.

Thank you.

That's very nice.

That's it for Talking Dateline this week.

Remember, if you have any questions for us about our stories or about Dateline, you can reach us 24-7 on social media at Dateline NBC.

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Plus, an all-new season of Josh Mankowitz's podcast, Missing in America, debuted this week.

The series takes a deep dive into the country's most perplexing, unsolved missing persons' cases.

Catch new episodes every Tuesday, wherever you get your podcasts.

And of course, we'll see you Fridays on Dateline on NBC.

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