Sandy's Police File — Sandy Beal E5

This is an iHeart podcast.

There's a lot going on in Hollywood.

How are you supposed to stay on top of it all?

Variety has the solution.

Take 20 minutes out of your day and listen to the new Daily Variety podcast for breaking entertainment news and expert perspectives.

Where do you see the business actually heading?

Featuring the iconic journalists of Variety and hosted by co-editor-in-chief Cynthia Littleton.

The only constant in Hollywood is change.

Open your free iHeartRadio app, search Daily Variety, and listen now.

Tired of spills and stains on your sofa?

WashableSofas.com has your back, featuring the Anibay Collection, the only designer sofa that's machine washable inside and out, where designer quality meets budget-friendly prices.

That's right, sofas started just $699.

Enjoy a no-risk experience with pet-friendly, stain-resistant, and changeable slip covers made with performance fabrics.

Experience cloud-like comfort with high-resilience foam that's hypoallergenic and never needs fluffing.

The sturdy steel frame ensures longevity, and the modular pieces can be rearranged anytime.

Check out washable sofas.com and get up to 60% off your Anabay sofa, backed by a 30-day satisfaction guarantee.

If you're not absolutely in love, send it back for a full refund.

No return shipping or restocking fees, every penny back.

Upgrade now at washablesofas.com.

offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply

booking a trip don't skip the travel insurance part insure my trip makes it super easy to compare plans that actually fit your trip whether it's a weekend getaway or a semester abroad we've got you covered from cancellations to lost luggage and medical emergencies no shady providers just smart tech and real help from licensed agents plus we don't play favorites just what's best for you be the main character when you travel.

Protect your trip at InsureMyTrip.com.

That's InsureMyTrip.com.

It's time to head back to school and forward to your future with Carrington College.

For over 55 years, we've helped train the next generation of healthcare professionals.

Apply now to get hands-on training from teachers with real-world experience.

And as few as nine months, you could start making a difference in healthcare.

Classes start soon in Pleasant Hills, San Leandro, and San Jose.

Visit Carrington.edu to see what's next for you.

Visit Carrington.edu slash SCI for information on program outcomes.

Start your journey toward the perfect engagement ring with Yadav, family owned and operated since 1983.

We'll pair you with a dedicated expert for a personalized one-on-one experience.

You'll explore our curated selection of diamonds and gemstones while learning key characteristics to help you make a confident, informed decision.

Choose from our signature styles or opt for a fully custom design crafted around you.

Visit yadavjewelry.com and book your appointment today at our new Union Square showroom and mention podcast for an exclusive discount.

Vehicle scene 1015 a.m.

Body lying on a white cloth coat with fur collar 10 cents in pocket black mark bottom left eye 357 Ruger on coat powder blowback on barrel Key in off position with sandy keyring.

Park lights on.

Mud on rear tire still wet.

Left yesterday afternoon to see boyfriend.

Father's gun.

From iHeartRadio, I'm Melissa Jeltson, and this is what happened to Sandy Beale, an iHeart original podcast.

Chapter 5.

Listener Update

Instead of releasing a full episode this week, I'm taking a small detour to explain some new information I received.

What you just heard were notes from the scene of Sandy's death written over four decades ago.

A few weeks back, in the middle of putting together this podcast, I got an unexpected email from the Prince George's County Office of Law.

Attached was Sandy's police file.

Kim had given me the police report on Sandy's death when I first met her, but several months ago, I requested, quote, the entire police file of Sandy Beale to see if I'd get anything different.

I'd all but put the request out of my mind, so I was shocked when I opened this email to find that the file was 95 pages long.

A few of the pages are fully redacted, and a good chunk of the file is made up of photocopies of Sandy's personal books.

This content was all familiar to me, of course.

But on page 84, the new stuff starts.

It's Detective Shyzelski's handwritten notes, jotted down at the scene of Sandy's death.

Reading these pages, you can sort of follow along with his investigation.

He writes when he arrives, who he talked to, what he did, what he saw.

And on one page, he writes down the items that sat on top of Sandy's dashboard.

The first item he notes is a quote, Peachy County police rig.

I didn't know what that was, so I asked him.

He didn't remember this detail, but he said a rig can refer to a police duty belt, which officers use to carry equipment around their waist.

I'm sure you can picture one.

It's unclear if the rig was hers, perhaps given to her as part of the Explorer program, or maybe it was someone else's.

Also on Sandy's dashboard was a quote, personal card of a Prince George's County police officer, Mark Murphy.

His name was also listed in Sandy's address book.

He died on the job in 1988, but I confirmed he did work in the Explorer program at the time Sandy was there.

After that, Shushelski writes, several police clippings.

Again, he didn't recall this detail, but he thought the note may have referred to newspaper clippings about PG County cops.

He vaguely remembered that the local paper used to run an Officer of the Week story, along with a photo.

Maybe Sandy had kept some copies.

Lastly, he notes that Sandy had a quote schedule card on her dash.

Sheshelski was pretty sure this was for the Prince George's County Police Department.

All of these items, they confirm Sandy's close connections to PG County Police and her likely involvement in the Police Explorer program.

Not only did she have address books with the names and numbers of local cops in her car, she had a police rig sitting right on top of her dash.

I sent the handwritten notes to Shyschelsky to see what he made of them so many years later.

There are some things in here

that

I had forgotten.

Like the black mark.

Sheshelski's notes document that Sandy had a black mark under her left eye.

I don't know what that was.

You don't like that?

I don't like that I don't remember.

The file also includes a crude diagram drawn by Shashelski showing where Sandy's car was located in the pole yard and the track marks around it.

The drawing is very rudimentary, and so I didn't want to read too much into it, but there are two sets of tracks next to each other, like a car pulled up next to another car.

I asked him about this.

Doesn't it look like maybe there was more than one car there?

Yeah,

from what I have there, it does.

Either that or

if I didn't make a note of it, it would have been her tracks.

Well, certainly in the police report, it says that there were tracks like she had been trying to get out of the mud, But the way that you've dr drawn this doesn't just look like a person like backing up and, you know, reversing and going forward and trying to get out of the mud.

It looks like someone pulled up

right next to her.

Yeah, it does.

But I'm pretty sure that wasn't the case.

Okay.

How does it make you feel reading these notes from so long ago?

Well, I feel as though it's still a suicide.

Shyschelsky is still confident that he made the right call.

Those things that bother him now, the black mark, the tire tracks, they bother him because he can't remember exactly what he meant at the time when he made his notes.

Not because he thinks there was foul play.

The notes also reveal that Shyschelsky did a search on Sandy's name, calling the records department to see if Sandy had any previous involvement with the police department, either as a suspect or as a victim.

At first he wrote no records, then he scribbled it out, because the search revealed that in the last year and a half of her life, Sandy sought help from police on three separate occasions.

It appears that a man had been following her at the mall.

As you might remember, Sandy worked at the Landover Mall in her senior year of high school.

She was part of a work study program where students would go to school until lunch and then work the rest of the day at a local job.

According to Shyzelski's notes, in November 1975, when she was 17, Sandy was assaulted at the mall by a 28-year-old man who she said had been following her for three months.

He grabbed her and made threats to harm her before being sent on his way by the security guard.

Then in April 1976, five months later, another incident occurred.

The man followed Sandy through the mall again.

In July, there's a third report.

This time, the man apparently threatened Sandy for getting a warrant for the assault.

I called Sandy's mom to ask her about all of this.

Hello?

Yeah, Melissa.

Hi, Joanne.

I just missed a call from you, yeah?

Yeah, well, how's things going?

I told Joanne what I found, the reference to the three police reports involving Sandy as a victim.

She didn't know about them, she said, but she faintly recalled that something strange had happened at the mall.

I never heard that from Sandy, but her good friend, Sandra Sheridan, had told me.

And I think Sandy might have said something to her father, but I don't know.

I didn't know how it ended or how it came out or what happened to it.

What did Sandy Sheridan tell you?

And when did she tell you, after Sandy's death or before that?

I think it was before that.

I think she called me because she wanted me to talk to Ronald about it because she said, we have a security guard that walks her out to the car now after she gets through her shift.

Because she worked at the mall.

And it was a new, you know, it was a big mall, and it was new, and I guess somebody was, you know, following her.

I didn't know that she had been assaulted.

Almost every time I talk to Joanne, she brings up Sandy Sheridan and this is one of the reporting goals I really wanted to achieve for the Beals.

I wanted to find her because she was Sandy's best friend and probably knows more than anyone else about what was going on in her life.

I think she's married and has a different last name now, so it's been hard to track her down.

Joanne hasn't lost hope though.

The last time I talked to her, she said she was optimistic that Sandy Sheridan might hear the podcast and come forward.

Sandy, if you're listening, we want to hear your story.

I asked Joanne why she thought Sandy Sheridan called the house all those years ago to tell her about the situation at the mall.

I don't know because we never discussed it.

I took it for granted that it was taken care of either by the security guard or her father talked her into

doing something different.

I didn't know if Ronald got involved with that or not.

You know, maybe when she told him that somebody was, the security guard was going to help her, you know, to a car,

you know, maybe Ronald felt that I won't get involved.

You know, he was busy, you know, trying to take care of the family, working.

So I don't know all the ins and outs about what happened there.

In my many conversations with Joanne, she'd never mentioned this to me, the fact that a man had been following Sandy at the mall.

She had completely forgotten about it.

And so had Detective Shashelsky until I refreshed his memory with these notes.

To be honest, it wasn't that surprising to me.

These incidents, they happened months before her death.

And the actual conduct, the stalking?

In the 70s, stalking wasn't called stalking, and it wasn't taken all that seriously.

The threshold for tolerating unwanted male attention was different at that time.

And I imagine that the guy who was following Sandy was seen as an annoyance and nothing more.

I wasn't able to track him down based on the information included in Shyschelsky's notes, and the original reports are no longer available.

Well, Melissa, it's good talking to you, honey.

Oh, it's good talking to you, too.

I did a news archive search about the Landover Mall, and it turns out that it wasn't such a safe place when Sandy worked there.

In 1975, the same year Sandy was assaulted, three different women were abducted from the parking lot and raped in three separate incidents.

The victims were 15, 17, and 25 years old.

The perpetrators were caught, and none of their names matched Sandy's stalker.

But this context might help explain the safety measures put in place to help Sandy, like the security guard who walked her to her car.

I don't have any evidence that Sandy Stalker continued to bother her after the last known incident in July 1976, seven months before she died.

And there's nothing at the scene of her death that points to his involvement.

But knowing about his existence,

it puts her whole experience with law enforcement in a new light.

We already knew that Sandy had met cops just going about her day.

She saw them in the neighborhood and interacted with them at the drugstore.

But now we know that on multiple occasions, Sandy appealed to them for help as a victim of a crime.

Shyshelski told me that Sandy would have reported these incidents at the Seat Pleasant Station.

which was the police precinct around the corner from Sandy's house.

A lot of the officer names in her address books worked at this station, including Ray from My Life as a Cop Freak and Mark, whose card she had on her when she died.

In the last episode, I put out a call to listeners to share their experiences with police explorer programs or police sexual violence in general.

And I've received a number of powerful messages so far.

One person told me how they had a positive experience in an Explorer program and learned a lot of great skills.

But most of those who emailed were survivors, speaking their truth.

One woman described how she joined an Explorer program when she was 16, a junior in high school, and was sexually abused by a cop in his 30s.

She wrote, quote,

It has been hard for me to come to terms with it because at the time it was what I thought I wanted.

I was infatuated.

I felt noticed, wanted, and special by someone who was seen as a hero and role model by a whole community.

I can relate to Sandy so much because of this, and it breaks my heart that her memory was smeared to save the reputation of monsters.

It was always drilled into our head that females just caused problems and we were to blame for male law enforcement officers getting in trouble.

They create this environment that makes the few women feel like it's a privilege for them to be involved, like they owe every man something just for doing the same job.

It's like there's an unwritten code among females in male-dominated fields.

We never acknowledge any wrongdoing against us because we are, quote, tough and we just want to fit in.

Next week, we jump back into Sandy's story, revisiting the evidence at the scene of her death with top experts.

Was she meeting with someone?

Who did she have relations with?

In the hours prior to her death, death?

What happened?

Was there a breakup?

We don't know.

And that's kind of the big question here.

You know, why was she in this muddy area, you know, sort of next to the barracks?

I'm Melissa Geltson, and this is what happened to Sandy Beale.

Thank you so much for listening.

Ah, smart water.

Pure, crisp taste, perfectly refreshing.

Wow, that's really good water.

With electrolytes for taste, it's the kind of water that says, I have my life together.

I'm still pretending the laundry on the chair is part of the decor.

Yet, here you are, making excellent hydration choices.

I do feel more sophisticated.

That's called having a taste for taste.

Huh, a taste for taste.

I like that.

Smart water.

For those with a taste for taste, grab yours today.

There's a lot going on in Hollywood.

How are you supposed to stay on top of it all?

Variety has the solution.

Take 20 minutes out of your day and listen to the new Daily Variety podcast for breaking entertainment news and expert perspectives.

Where do you see the business actually heading?

Featuring the iconic journalists of Variety and hosted by co-editor-in-chief Cynthia Littleton.

The only constant in Hollywood is change.

Open your free iHeartRadio app, search Daily Variety, and listen now.

Let's be real.

Life happens.

Kids spill, pets shed, and accidents are inevitable.

Find a sofa that can keep up at washable sofas.com.

Starting at just $699,

our sofas are fully machine washable inside and out, so you can say goodbye to stains and hello to worry-free living.

Made with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics.

They're kid-proof, pet-friendly, and built for everyday life.

Plus, changeable fabric covers let you refresh your sofa whenever you want.

Neat flexibility?

Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa anytime to fit your space, whether it's a growing family room or a cozy apartment.

Plus, they're earth-friendly and trusted by over 200,000 happy customers.

It's time to upgrade to a stress-free, mess-proof sofa.

Visit washablefas.com today and save.

That's washablefas.com.

Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Liz went from being interested in true crime to living true crime.

My husband said, your dad's been killed.

This is Hands Tied, a true crime podcast exploring the murder of Jim Melgar.

I was just completely in shock.

Liz's father murdered, and her mother found locked in a closet, her hands and feet bound.

I didn't feel real at all.

More than a decade on, she's still searching for answers.

We're still fighting.

Listen to Hands Tied on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

It is Ryan Seacrest here.

There was a recent social media trend, which consisted of flying on a plane with no music, no movies, no entertainment.

But a better trend would be going to chumbacasino.com.

It's like having a mini social casino in your pocket.

Chumba Casino has over 100 online casino-style games, all absolutely free.

It's the most fun you can have online and on a plane.

So grab your free welcome bonus now at chumbacasino.com.

Sponsored by Chumba Casino.

No purchase necessary.

VGW Group void where prohibited by law.

21 plus.

Terms and conditions apply.

This is an iHeart podcast.