Dateline NBC - Unspeakable

Episode Date: December 28, 2022

A couple's anniversary celebration ends in murder, in what appears to be a home invasion. Yet, investigators think the suspect might be much closer to the victim. Will justice be delivered or denied? Dennis Murphy reports. 

It's shocking. I don't think they knew exactly what had happened, other than that he was covered in blood. She was just broken and lost. There is a murderer out there, and it's terrifying. I just hear saying, help, someone's in trouble. I was scared. I was scared.

All I knew was my dad was killed in a home invasion, and thankfully my mom was still alive. They found her on the ground with her hands behind her back. She's been tied up. She's been left in a closet for 14, 16, 17 hours. There was a car following us when we came in our neighborhood. It was still behind us. There's unknown male DNA on various drawer pulls

from the master bedroom. Were you worried about your mother, that whoever this person was might come back for her? Absolutely. Everybody gasped. We just could not believe it. This case ought to scare the hell out of all of you. You believe someone has gotten away with killing your father?

Yeah. The scented candles were lit. The jacuzzi jets turned on high. It was a belated anniversary evening, but not some big blowout. Sandra and Jamie really weren't that kind of couple. They were just always so kind to each other and always very respectful. It was really the start of a life victory lap for the two. They'd raised a daughter, juggled all the usual things that families do, and now retirement for

Jamie was right around the corner. They sat there and they talked about the future and what they were looking forward to. But the future for these two would last no longer than the flame on that candle. By the next afternoon, there would be blood, lots of it. Somehow, someone had turned a cozy celebration into a monstrous crime scene. It was just, it was horrible. What in the world had happened in that house?

I have no idea. The story of the two begins as high school meet cute. Sandra, the new girl from Laredo, assigned a seat in her Houston classroom just in front of Jamie Melgar. Their daughter Liz doesn't know how many times she heard that story. He used to pull on her hair. Are you kidding? In the middle of class. Who's this guy behind me pulling on my hair?

Yeah, apparently one time he invited her ice skating and he told her a bunch of friends were going, so it wouldn't really be a date. When she shows up there, it's him and one of his friends and his friend left shortly after that. So a little bit of a scheme going on. Yeah, a little bit. But, you know, it ended well. And that was that. Sandra and Jamie were a done deal, an inseparable couple. Sandra studied nursing,

and Jamie set aside every dime he could for his family, juggling a job as a computer programmer while investing in real estate. Happy family? Very happy family. I was definitely a daddy's girl growing up. And Jamie carried himself with a certain goofy joy as his niece Marissa Campos remembers it.

Easygoing guy? Yes, very easygoing. Easy to talk to. Had the worst jokes. They were so bad that you would just stop and groan and they became known as Jim jokes. Marissa's aunt Sandra would roll her eyes, then laugh indulgently at Uncle Jim. I remember her being like, oh, your uncle.

The Melgars' life revolved around not just family, but church, too. They'd joined the Jehovah's Witnesses early in their relationship. But by her early 20s, daughter Liz had left the church. Newly independent, she rushed into a marriage. A bad one. True that he was involved in heavy drugs? Yes. And that was the end of it? That was it. I didn't want to live that kind of life. But her parents' marriage just kept going through sickness and health. In fact, in recent years, Jamie was looking younger than ever on a vegetarian diet and exercise regimen.

He realized he was getting older and he just wanted to make sure he was in his best physical shape. Your mom, your poor mom, meanwhile, had a constellation of health problems, didn't she? Yes. Lupus? Chemotherapy involved in that? At times, yeah.

But she also had epilepsy. Did she have the seizures? Did you ever see her? Yes. Yeah, she did. Then December 2012 rolled around, their 32nd wedding anniversary. Sandra was ill on the actual day, so they went out together 10 days later on December 22nd. She was finally feeling well enough to go and have dinner. The next day, the 23rd, Marissa's family would join them to celebrate again over a late lunch.

On our way there, I remember texting him. Texting your uncle? Yes. I didn't get a response, but... Was that unusual that he didn't text you back? Yes. They got to the house around 4 p.m. and knocked on the front door. Nothing. No answer.

Marissa's father, Jamie's brother Herman, checked around the back of the house. No sign of Jamie or Sandra. Then we thought, okay, well, maybe they left. Maybe they went to go get something. And then my dad's like, no, but his truck is out there. So finally, that's when my dad said, oh, I'm just going to go inside. Herman walked through an open garage door

and entered the house itself through an unlocked interior door. Then he comes around to open up the front door. The visitors huddled in the dark entrance hall, expecting a greeting from Sandra or Jamie. But none came. Just as they got ready to leave, they heard something. It sounded like Sandra. It was mumbling.

Where was her voice coming from, Marissa? We did not know. My dad, I just remember, just ran straight into the master bedroom. Marissa raced after her father. I just hear saying, help, someone's in trouble. Are you really scared at this point? Yes, I was scared. The voice was coming from inside a walk-in closet attached to the bathroom. Herman moved closer. Wedged against the doorknob was a dining chair. He tugged it aside, opened the door, and there was Sandra, on the floor, tied by her arms and ankles, but alive.

He said that she did not look well at all. As Marissa's mom cut Sandra loose, her dad spoke. Where's my brother? Where's your uncle? The answer to that, unspeakable. What had happened to Jamie Melgar and to his wife? She looked like she had aged 10 years overnight. Just broken and lost. Sandra Melgar, the only possible witness to a night of terror. What would she remember? There was a car following us. Marissa, rattled to her core, stood in her Uncle Jamie and Aunt Sandra's bedroom doorway,

waiting for first responders, trying to calculate her family's terrible new math. I still didn't know everything that was going on. In the bedroom, open drawers, a tossed wallet. Had this been a home invasion? And where was her Uncle Jamie? Then she glanced to her side and there, about 20 feet away from the bathroom, next to Jamie and

Sandra's bed. I just saw his ankles. And this was what, in a closet area off the master, huh? So you just saw his feet? I didn't even know what had happened to him. I just know his ankles were tied up. It was horrible.

There was Jamie, naked, covered in blood on the floor, not far from his safe. A red rope encircled his chest. A phone cord looped around his ankles. Sandra, now freed of her ties, sprang from her closet captivity. A former nurse, she checked for his pulse and found none. Your aunt is distraught. She's crying? Yes. Yes. Yes. Marissa, what in the world had happened in that house? I have no idea. I'm not sure who could have done something like that to him, to them. First responders weren't exactly sure what they'd been dispatched to either. They told us that there's possibly two victims and that's all we knew when we got there. EMT Stephanie Robertson was the first responder on the scene. She checked on Jamie.

He was clearly dead, huh? Yeah, clearly dead, yeah. You know gunshot wounds from knife wounds. You couldn't really tell. There was so much dry blood. I did notice the gash down his neck. Next, EMT Robertson found her way to Sandra, who by then collapsed on a chair in the bathroom, a family member by her side.

She was kind of balled up a little bit, and she was crying hysterically. The EMT started to assess Sandra, who said her head hurt, but... She said she has no injuries. Still, Sandra seemed disoriented. What time was it? Morning or afternoon? Then, between gulping sobs, Sandra said she simply could not remember what happened the night before. She'd been unconscious, maybe had one of her seizures. She said after a seizure that it's not uncommon that she falls asleep for several hours. By now, Harris County Sheriff's investigators had descended on a crime scene that was once just the Melgar's modest home.

Jamie, they could see, had suffered multiple stab wounds to the torso, by the looks of it, well over a dozen. The crime scene unit got to work inside, collecting evidence, things like a bloody chair near Jamie's body, and a kitchen knife fished out of the bottom of the jacuzzi. Sandra, seemingly in shock from her ordeal, declined to go to the hospital. Instead, she went to talk with investigators. We'll start yesterday. Sandra told investigators the last thing she remembered was her anniversary night with Jamie. We went out to eat.

And what time was that? I'm going to say about 8. I mean, I'm just guessing. I don't know. Sandra told them they stopped for mixers at a CVS on the way home. What time did you get home? Probably midnight. She said they intended to share some late-night romance, candles and strawberries. We made some drinks. We went and got in the jacuzzi. In your master bathroom? Right.

And then what? Stayed there for about maybe two hours talking and drinking. But the intimate jacuzzi was disrupted by their dogs barking outside in the yard. We got out and said he was moving the dogs to the office because when they're too loud

we don't want the neighbors to complain. And he just, you know, it was taking a while, so I got out and was going to get dressed for a change in my closet. Maybe that's when she had the seizure. That's all I remember until I woke up. As they talked, Sandra broke down. Who could have done this, she wondered. She recalled for the detectives a scary moment on their way home. Something for the detectives to check out.

After Sandra was done talking, her cousin Diana, who'd rushed into town to help, met her at a friend's house. She looked like she had aged 10 years overnight. And she couldn't stop shaking. And so I didn't want to ask her too many questions. Liz, remarried now, was an ocean away, living in Europe when she finally got her mother on the phone. What did you hear in her voice? She was just broken and lost.

She was just devastated. And at that point, you had very fragmentary information, huh? Yeah, all I knew was my dad was killed in a home invasion, and thankfully my mom was still alive. That's not any kind of news you should ever hear. It's shocking. It really doesn't sink in for a while. You just kind of go into crisis mode. Liz booked the next flight back to Texas. I just knew I had to get there. Had to get back. Back to a new reality with a murdered father and a traumatized mother. Grieving would have to take a number while the

daughter held everyone together. Nothing made sense. Were you worried about your mother? That whoever this person was might come back for her? Absolutely. She was traumatized. Tips began to trickle in. Who could have done this? You're getting information right away about kind of a sketchy neighbor. That's right. Just getting out of jail, who was suspicious. Two days after the bloody discovery in her childhood home, Liz Melgar landed in Houston, a daddy's girl, shaken even more by the face that was missing. I think at that time it really hit me that I wasn't going to see him anymore.

He wasn't going to be there to pick me up from the airport. A still very rocky Sandra came with family to pick up her daughter. We both just broke down at the sight of each other. She'd been through a terrible ordeal. You don't really know the whole story yet. But did you see injuries on her? She just had bruising on her arms and on her face. Did she have a bump on her head?

She did. She told me her head was hurting and I could feel it back there. Liz insisted her mom get some rest. So the next day, when detectives came by the house where Liz and Sandra were staying, the daughter was the one to field their questions. And you flew in yesterday? Yes. That's what I did. And Liz thought it prudent to

record the conversation. She updated the detectives on her mother's health. She's just in complete shock and she has retrograde amnesia at the moment. She has a hard time remembering things as it is because of the seizures. Liz had witnessed her mom's seizures before and now she theorized that's what might have kept her alive during the home invasion. I think she probably had a seizure and that probably freaked out whoever was there, and maybe they thought they killed her. The detectives asked Liz to keep them updated on her recovery. Because if she could ever remember a suspect, that's the best thing for me and him. Yeah, I agree.

Because then we have a description and everything else. Right now at this point, we have nothing. I've been asking. And then the detectives asked Liz if she could pay a visit to her parents' house. Anything you think's missing, because we need to start searching for the items that are missing. I can't imagine you going back to this house where you've known your parents in happy times and then it's a crime scene. Absolutely. It's the one place you're supposed to be safe and it's just been, I don't know, it's been crime scene. Absolutely. It's the one place you're supposed to be safe,

and it's just been, I don't know, it's been tainted. She went through the house room by room, cataloging what she thought was missing. A TV set, jewelry, cash, and medication. Last stop, the garage. The garage was full of things that could easily be stolen and pawned. Yeah. There, Liz spied something to her eyes, oddly out of place. Her middle school backpack, sticking out of it, an Xbox console. Could this have been the killer's loot, dropped in a panic as he ran from

the scene? Liz called investigators. They returned to the house, snapped even more photos, and collected the backpack as potential evidence. They'd later find house, snapped even more photos, and collected the backpack as potential evidence. They'd later find beneath that X-Box some of Sandra's jewelry. And Liz realized she had an idea for detectives too, a possible suspect. Is it true, Liz, that you even suggested they take a look at your ex at that point? Yes. I tried to give them as much information as I could. Yes, the ex-husband the Melgars regarded as a no account. Turns out, during the rocky last days of his marriage to Liz, the Melgars suspected he and a buddy lifted some of Sandra's medication,

the same sort now believed to be missing. The Melgars never reported their suspicions to authorities, but now Liz told detectives, talk to the ex. By now, the murder break-in story was all over the news. Deputies say Melgar told them she can't remember who tied her up or who may have hurt her husband. And neighbors started offering up Crimestoppers tips. One of them, check out a guy seen lurking around outside the police tape. Amanda Orr covered the Melgar murder for Reuters,

Brian Rogers for the Houston Chronicle. You're getting information right away about a kind of a sketchy neighbor known to break into houses, steal stuff, and pawn it, and he's up the block and maybe at the scene that night. That's right, a neighbor who had just gotten out of jail, who was suspicious. Liz thought, add him to the list of potential suspects.

Did you have ideas for them? I did. She also suggested they talk to one of her parents' tenants, someone who'd had disputes with her dad. And there was a co-worker of Jamie's she got a bad vibe from. And again, Liz said she urged detectives to look at her ex. He had a record of drug arrests. If not him, what about people in his circle?

Months dragged by without word on the investigation. You believe someone who's out there has gotten away with killing your father? Yeah, absolutely. It was hard to sleep at night. Every little noise had me on edge. Were you worried about your mother? Oh, yeah. That whoever this person was might come back for her?

Absolutely. I was constantly worried. And how was her health at that time? She had started having seizures and, you know, she was traumatized. She had post-traumatic stress. She had anxiety. She had depression. She was a mess. Liz clung to the hope that one of those leads she gave detectives would eventually pan out. But for now, anyway, it looked as though law enforcement was playing its cards close to the vest. According to Prosecutor Colleen Barnett of the Harris County District Attorney's Office, that was because they'd made some early observations about the crime scene. Officers have investigated burglaries and robberies for many years before they get in homicide,

and they thought that the scene looked kind of suspicious. So what was off kilter with this one? The fact that it didn't look burglarized. The drawers were open, I think. They were open a little bit, but nothing was tossed. But what about those items Liz noticed were missing from the house? And that backpack of apparent burglar's loot she found in the garage? Well, detectives

took careful note of many other items, pricey things that had been left untouched. Cameras, the bicycle, there was some painting equipment. There were things that were easy to take that weren't taken, and then the stuff that was taken and put in a backpack was left in the garage. Doesn't make sense. The home to investigators showed no sign of forced entry. That opened garage door the only possible way in for an intruder, but law enforcement thought that too seemed as though it could have been staged. Note to investigators this didn't look like a burglary gone bad, but more like a targeted killing. And they theorized their suspect was somebody already inside the house. My memory is so bad.

How murky was her memory, really? Investigators are about to listen very carefully to Sandra's story. December 23rd, 2013, the day before Christmas Eve, also the first anniversary of Jamie Melgar's death, was impossibly hard for his family. I mean, that's all we really think about. Should be holiday season, but it's that awful memory coming back. Yes, yes. So imagine the family is waiting for an arrest to be made in this thing, huh?

Yes. We are anxiously waiting for that day to come. I mean, it doesn't matter if it's tomorrow or if it's 10 years from now, but we would like some answers. But law enforcement wasn't exactly forthcoming with the Melgar family. Might have been a reason. They doubted Jamie's murderer was a burglar or even someone else in Sandra and Jamie's remote orbit. There's always a first suspicion of family members. If there's nothing that really makes sense. And that suspicion had narrowed down to the person inside the house with Jamie, Sandra. Her account of a blacked-out 14 hours

after their anniversary celebration... I wish I could have been caught. ...to investigators was just too weird to be believed. My memory is so bad. It seemed implausible to them that Sandra really heard nothing the entire night. This is happening in a very small space. The husband is stabbed to death and found in one closet,

and she's been tied up in another. That's right. The investigators closely studied that interview they'd conducted with Sandra. They found her more indifferent than distraught. Do you know what has happened today? My husband was murdered. How? I don't know.

And when Sandra broke down crying, the detectives couldn't recall seeing any tears. Detectives believe Sandra's story morphed over time. For instance, the part about how long she'd waited to get out of the tub after Jamie left to fetch the dogs. At first, she was vague. And he just, you know, was taking a while, so I got out. Then, more specific. About 15 minutes, 20 minutes.

Later, another revision. Maybe about five minutes. And detectives were perplexed by what Sandra claimed she did and did not hear that night. Did you hear anybody scream? No. Did you hear anybody scream? No. Did you hear the dogs?

I thought you could hear the dogs barking. Yeah, because they were right outside our window. But after almost two hours, as investigators pushed her, Sandra seemed to tweak this key element of her story. Actually, I don't even remember hearing the dogs. My husband's the one that says he's got better hearing than I do. Of course, the changes in Sandra's story could be attributed to shock. But as the detectives viewed it, Sandra was being deliberately evasive, enhancing her story to align with a conjured up crime scene. It sounds

like a bloody event, was it? It was bloody in the area that he was in. There was blood in the carpet. There was blood on a chair. He himself was very bloody in the closet, but nowhere else in the house was there any blood. To investigators' way of thinking, home invaders would have dragged at least a trace of blood on their way out of the house. But crime scene techs did not find any. When the rest of the forensics came back, the findings had limitations. Reporter Amanda Orr. Although you have the murder weapon, it's been washed in water for several hours. Kitchen knife or something? A kitchen knife, a large kitchen knife.

It was found in the bathtub. And so any DNA that could have been on it from the murderer was gone. It was washed away. What's more, no blood was detected on Sandra. In fact, no DNA or fingerprints linked Sandra to Jamie's body or Jamie to Sandra's. And while detectives had a hunch about Sandra, the evidence didn't seem quite there yet for an indictment. As more time went by, it became clear to members of Sandra's family, like her cousin Diana, that law enforcement was eyeing her. Okay, it's okay for you to think that, investigate her, and then you'll see that there's nothing there and move on. But as the investigation dragged into July of 2014, their worst fears

were realized. Liz and her mom found out in a most unusual way. I went to the mailbox, and it had been absolutely filled with flyers from lawyers trying to get our business for our pending case. Did you know what that was about? I had no idea what that was about. And so I got onto the Harris County website, and I entered my mom's name, and I saw that she had been charged with my father's murder. A few days earlier, a grand jury had quietly voted to indict her.

She turned herself in and posted bond, and then she hired veteran attorney Max Seacrest to defend her. Quite frankly, I can smell BS from across the room. And when I sat down and spoke with her, her story was plausible. I didn't hear anything that rang a kind of a false note. Allison Seacrest, Mack's niece, served as co-counsel. She's a sweet person. She doesn't have a temper.

And it was really apparent to us that she had a good relationship with her husband. They couldn't fathom how Sandra was under suspicion for a crime that defied physical possibilities. After all, she was found tied up, barricaded in her closet. She believes she's had a seizure, or maybe she was actually hit in the head and was knocked unconscious. To these attorneys, the case seems suspiciously thin. Where's the beef? Where's the crime? I guess more importantly, where's the investigation? It had taken more than a year and a half to indict Sandra. So what were the detectives doing all that time?

Well, that's an involved story, investigated by NBC affiliate KPRC-TV. The lead detective on the case, Ruben Sean Carrizal, seen here interviewing Sandra, had become the center of a scandal. A controversy is growing tonight over a document falsified by a Harris County detective now working for the district attorney's office. Detective Carrizal got himself into serious trouble for falsifying a search warrant in a case not connected to Sandra's, and that cast a shadow on his other investigations. That became probably a really big issue for the prosecution and something that the defense, you know, would be able to definitely use against him. After the story broke, the detective left the sheriff's department.

Would it end the case against Sandra, too? Did your lawyers tell you, this thing may never go to trial here? This thing has got so many holes in it. That's what we believed. Absolutely. By the summer of 2017, it had been three years since Sandra's arrest. She had a right to a speedy trial. It was put up or shut up time for the DA's office. When you read all your stuff and you stepped back and you said, what do I have here? What was the biggest problem? The biggest problem was that I didn't have that many affirmative acts

from her standpoint. What do you mean? I couldn't put the knife in her hand. I didn't have any eyewitnesses that she killed him. She didn't confess. What did you have going for you? What was the best thing you had going? Her story was ridiculous. So the prosecution made the call. The People v. Sandra Melgar would proceed to trial. August 2017, more than four and a half years after Jamie Melgar was murdered in what seemed at the time a brutal home invasion. But now Sandra, his wife of 32 years, was on trial for Jamie's murder. She pleaded not guilty. It put daughter Liz in a painful judicial paradox. The people versus are bringing you, the family victim, justice in their mind, and yet justice is putting your mother away. Correct. I've lost my father, and here I am about to lose my mother. This is supposed to be

the justice system that, it's just completely broken. Prosecutor Colleen Barnett's message for the jury was simple. Sandra, and only Sandra, could have done this. There's zero evidence, no evidence that anybody else did this. The prosecutor set out to dismantle the idea that Jamie's death resulted from a botched robbery. First responder EMT Stephanie Robertson told the jury that to her, the crime scene just looked off. It was a little disarray. The drawers were pulled out. I mean, nothing appeared to be missing.

And the prosecutor used Sandra's own words against her. The jury heard that interview with the defendant, the one where detectives found her so oddly indifferent. Do you know what has happened today? My husband was murdered. And sometimes her story to the detectives didn't jibe with what they believed to be the facts. She's just trying to tell a tale so that she can go on with her life without being in prison. For instance, her account of Jamie getting out of the jacuzzi to quiet the barking dogs.

There was a next-door neighbor to the Melgar's who constantly complained about the barking dogs. There was a next-door neighbor to the Melgar's who constantly complained about the barking dogs. She said that night she didn't hear the dogs barking, like she slept wonderful. Of course, one of the main problems for Sandra was the big picture. So you want us to believe, the prosecutor argued, that home invaders were slashing your husband to death just feet away from you, and you remember nothing really nobody running nobody saying anything shouting no nothing sandra's explanation was that she'd suffered from seizures and memory loss for years reporter amanda orr was in the courtroom as the prosecution introduced some of sandra's medical history refuting that she did go to her doctor's appointments but reported that she was not having seizures,

that her medication was controlling them pretty well. So if Sandra was in fact lying about being unconscious for hours, then she had plenty of time to pull herself together and make the house appear ransacked. She had a lifetime to get rid of the clothes, to wash herself up, to get ready for the big finale. Though not required to prove a motive, the prosecutor offered one up for the jury anyway. There was no evidence of infidelity or typical marriage troubles. Still, she suggested that Sandra want it out, but their religion made it impossible to split up the usual way.

Jehovah's Witnesses don't allow you to divorce unless someone's cheating. It's very clear that Jamie was not that guy. If I get divorced, I get ostracized and I can't talk with my friends. But if I kill him and nobody finds out, I'm not ostracized. But wasn't Sandra too frail to commit such a violent close quarters crime? Maybe not. The medical examiner's report concluded Jamie suffered 31 sharp force wounds, but none very deep. So kind of stab, stab, taunting kind of injuries? Or maybe not much force used, or maybe a weaker person.

So how did the attack go down? The prosecutor had a vivid scenario of a lethal seduction. The prosecution thinks that Sandra Melgar lured Jamie to the bedroom under the guise of sex play. So she gets Jamie to sit down in the chair. Maybe she's massaging his neck. And then she pulls it out. And while he isn't looking, she makes a strike straight up all the wayaging his neck. And then she pulls it out. And while he isn't looking, she makes a strike straight up all the way to his neck. It was a dramatic show and tell for sure. Then it was showtime for the defense. The prosecution's case was all invented nonsense,

they said. Theory strong, evidence light. This case ought to scare the hell out of all of you. Attorney Max Seacrest told the jury that Sandra was the victim of a bumbling, myopic investigation. Now we've got Jaime Butcher, this lady falsely accused. And the defense said Sandra was so clearly attacked herself,

barricaded and bound. She's been tied up. She's been left in a closet for 14, 16, 17 hours. They showed these photos in court and told the jury Sandra went to a doctor who confirmed her injuries. When Sandy went to the doctor a couple of days later, she had a full examination and, of course, hematoma was found on her head. As for that interview, the defense said the only thing it revealed was that the blinkered detectives thought Sandra was guilty from the get-go. She wants to finally kill him. Of course.

I don't think he did. And they said it showed in the most trying of circumstances, Sandra remaining consistent and composed. I had a seizure, and so I usually can't move anyway. Another point, a forensic one, the defense told the jury about DNA evidence that had been collected but not presented by the prosecution. There's unknown male DNA on various drawer pulls from the master bedroom and door handles male DNA on various drawer pulls from the master bedroom

and door handles and also on that backpack. So it's huge because it points to a possible other suspect. And the CSIs had photographed a bloody swipe on the handle of the closet safe, just a short distance from Jamie's body. The defense told the jury how detectives never ran it for a possible print, nor had it swabbed for DNA. But isn't that the kind of evidence you want to have available to consider? Why wouldn't you at least test it? The defense ticked off more examples of what they regarded as inept detective work. They never brought Liz's ex-husband in for questioning, or that neighbor with a history of petty burglaries, the one fresh out of jail. The police go to his house, knock, he doesn't answer and they leave their car. Close if you get the time.

Right, and they never followed up on it. And the defense thought they knew just how the investigation got so bungled. Look at the man who led it. What kind of murder investigation would you have where you knowingly, intentionally, and willfully don't bring the lead investigator to court? The defense, not the prosecution, called the one-time lead detective. They weren't allowed to tell the jury about the scandal involving that other case. But they asked him to account for a litany of perceived fumbles in this investigation. Case in point, a pair of Sandra's socks found not in the evidence room, but instead in a filing cabinet long after he'd left the job.

It's a really horrible investigation. It's just inept. There's no physical evidence in this case that points to her at all. But there was another key element to this prosecutor's case. She knew the jury had one big question. Was Sandra a Houdini-level escape artist? So how do you tie yourself up with that? All you do is just put it on your tie. A wickedly clever bag of tricks. Could Sandra Melgar really pull something like this off? The jurors would have a stunner of an answer. Sandra Melgar's defense attorneys had tried to portray the murder investigation as seriously flawed, but perhaps their most persuasive argument was Sandra herself.

She didn't testify, but Houston Chronicle reporter Brian Rogers said her muted appearance spoke volumes. You know, there's an old adage in defense law, if you can make your client look like a schoolmarm, do it. And she sort of comes across that way. Kind of frail? Small. Depending of frail? Small. Depending on a cane? Yeah, you know, and you have a hard time believing she could even yell, you know, much less stab anyone.

And how could that same petite woman have managed, as the prosecution contended, to wedge a chair beneath the doorknob of the closet that she was already inside, and beyond that, bind her own hands and feet. The prosecution had an answer for those Houdini-like skills. She definitely prepared for this. I'm sure she practiced the chair behind the door. The prosecutor said Sandra had come up with an ingenious way to wedge that chair under the doorknob from the inside by sliding a pillow sham along the floor. How's that, you ask? Well, she played the jury this video of investigators

recreating the process. The detectives videotaped themselves putting the chair on the pillow sham and pulling the pillow sham underneath the door so you can pull it closed. Now, you're doing the pulling. You have to be inside the closet, of course. Right. That's right. Prosecutor Barnett said it wouldn't be all that hard for Sandra to tie her own hands behind her back. She showed us what she showed the jury. So how do you tie yourself up with that figure eight then? It's pretty simple.

All you do is just put it on your tie, turn it in the back, and you just mess around with it any kind of way. The point is that it looks legitimate. Not that it is legitimate, but it looks legitimate. The prosecutor argued Sandra did this just minutes before the family discovered her, which explained what the EMT said she did not see on Sandra's wrists. She had no bruises, no literature marks, nothing.

But the very thought that Sandra could have come up with these elaborate tricks and executed them, that's sheer speculation, said the defense. That's a theory, folks. There's no evidence of that. A theory that the defense said investigators didn't even try to corroborate with the eyewitnesses who'd found Sandra. Daughter Liz said after that night, investigators never came back to ask the family what they saw. Never really spoke to your family again, is that right? Yeah, they never reached out to anybody.

They could have asked them about, you know, the theory of the chair and the mat under the chair. You know, they could have asked them about the surroundings. And they would have heard how the family said they needed scissors to cut Sandra free, her wrists so tightly bound. I have a big problem with them not following through and talking to witnesses who had personal knowledge. The prosecution said investigators followed the evidence and did a thorough job. It was now up to a Harris County jury to decide Sandra's fate. The first day of deliberations ended with no decision. When the jury's out, do you go back to your office and pretend to work or what?

You can't work, no. You try and do other stuff, but you really can't. Finally, on day two, there was a verdict. Family and friends filed into the courtroom. We were all, everything's going to be fine, this is a joke, no worries. Surely the jury will see it the way we the family see it, right? Exactly. Sandra Melgar stood to learn her fate. We, the jury, find the defendant, Sandra Jean Melgar, guilty of murder as charged in the indictment. Sandra collapsed into her chair, sobbing.

Liz, beyond devastated, grasped for her mother as she was led away. It sucked the life out of me. I just felt the room spin. And I just felt like my world was collapsing. We just could not believe it. Could not believe that this was happening to her. To Prosecutor Barnett, this was justice, both for the state and for Jamie Melgar. She's committed a crime and they found her guilty and

I'm glad. I've done my job and justice has been served. The jury sentenced Sandra to 27 years in prison. Her lawyers filed appeals and in late 2022, the Innocence Project of Texas took on the case and is now working to have the conviction overturned. From behind bars, Sandra wrote us this letter saying she's at peace because she knows she's innocent. Her family supports her, so she's not giving up. And Liz? Well, she and her kids do their best to carry on without Jamie or Sandra. My daughter just loves her Nana so much, and it was so heartbreaking to tell her that Nana wasn't coming home.

When do you miss your dad the most? Every day when I look at my kids, because I know what a wonderful grandfather he would have been, and the jokes, and the games, and probably the toys he would have made for them. They never got a chance to roll their eyes at a Jim Joe. Yeah. Yeah.