The Deck - Sandra Ann Burris (5 of Spades, Louisiana)

Episode Date: May 14, 2025

Our card this week is Sandra Ann Burris, the 5 of Spades from Louisiana. On a hot summer night in 2005, Sandra Burris and her best friend went clubbing in their small Louisiana town. The night started out like any other, but the friends went separate ways later in the evening, and sometime after that, Sandra vanished—and there’s been no trace of her since. As the 20th anniversary of Sandra’s disappearance approaches, her oldest daughter, Kelly Melancon, is still looking for answers.But it turns out, you get the right reporter dusting things off, asking questions… and you just might uncover new avenues of investigation. If you know anything about the disappearance of Sandra Burris, please contact St. Landry Parish Crime Stoppers by visiting their website, www.stlandrycrimestoppers, or by calling their tip line at 1-337-948-8477.View source material and photos for this episode at: thedeckpodcast.com/sandra-burris Let us deal you in… follow The Deck on social media.Instagram: @thedeckpodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @thedeckpodcast_ | @audiochuckFacebook: /TheDeckPodcast | /audiochuckllcTo support Season of Justice and learn more, please visit seasonofjustice.org.The Deck is hosted by Ashley Flowers. Instagram: @ashleyflowersTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieTwitter: @Ash_FlowersFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AFText Ashley at 317-733-7485 to talk all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, and more!

Our card this week is Sandra Burris, the five of spades from Louisiana. On a hot summer night in 2005, Sandra and her best friend went clubbing in their small Louisiana town. The night started out like any other, but the friends went separate ways later in the evening and sometime after that Sandra vanished. And there has been no trace of her in 20 years. But it turns out, you get the right reporter dusting things off, asking questions,

and you just might surface new avenues of investigation. I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is the deck. On Tuesday, July 26, 2005, Sandra Burris and her 13-year-old daughter Kelly were parting ways. Kelly was going on an overnight trip to Gulf Shores with a friend's family, and Sandra was planning a regular night out with friends in nearby Opelousas, Louisiana. The two were each standing in the driveway waiting for their respective rides, and for some reason, Kelly remembered she had a bad feeling when she said goodbye to her mom. The look on my mom's face was just like, I don't know, like she was scared.

Somehow, like, she knew something bad was going to happen to her. I don't think I've ever seen her have that expression. And I asked her not to go. I was like, please don't go. You're going to get involved with something that you shouldn't. She was like, I'll be fine. And I was like, OK, well, I'm're gonna get involved with something that you shouldn't. She was like, I'll be fine.

And I was like, okay, well, I'm gonna call you whenever we get to the hotel. I love you." That didn't ease her worry. Kelly knew her mom had used drugs in the past, cocaine in particular, and she didn't trust the friend picking Sandra up. But at 13, there wasn't much Kelly could do,

so she left with her friend, her friend's mom at the wheel. And the whole drive to Gulf Shores, Alabama, she thought about her mom. And as soon as I left, I was worried about her the whole way there. I got to the hotel room finally, and I called her and no answer. And I knew something was wrong because she had just gotten a cell phone and she would always answer.

And I called her every day after that and she never picked up. Kelly wasn't the only one trying to reach Sandra. Her parents had been two, as well as Justine, Sandra's grandmother, who Sandra lived with. It wasn't uncommon for Sandra to spend a few nights away from home,

but it was uncommon for her to be out of touch when she did so. The days stretched into nearly two weeks with no word. And finally, on August 8th, Sandra's father reported his daughter missing. Sandra lived outside of Opelousas City limits in an area of St. Landry Parish called Port Berry. Parish is the Louisiana equivalent of a county, which means that it's the sheriff's

jurisdiction. But they knew they needed help on this one. So they tapped the Opelousas Police Department to help with the investigation. Police never interviewed Kelly or her younger sister about their mom's disappearance. Kelly thinks that was at the request of her grandparents. But police did talk to people close to Sandra, starting with her best friend, Alberta Young, who went by Candy. And by the way, Sandra had a nickname too. Cash.

Now there weren't many notes in the case file about that first interview investigators did with Candy in 2005. Now, there weren't many notes in the case file about that first interview investigators did with Candy in 2005, but police did record an interview with her in 2007 that lays out her story. Candy told detectives that Sandra had been dropped off at her house that afternoon by a friend. Sandra had $10, so she and Candy went to the store where Sandra purchased a 40-ounce beer. And then the friends walked to meet a dealer where they bought $8 worth of cocaine.

From there, Candy said they returned to her house to smoke and fold laundry before going out that evening. And they went to this area of Opelousis called The Hill, which has multiple nightclubs. It was a regular haunt for Sandra and Candy, and they pretty much knew all the regulars. Candy said that she left with a guy and told Sandra she would be gone for a little while, no more than an hour, but that she would be back and told Sandra to wait for her. The last place Candy remembered seeing Sandra was outside of a club called Added Attraction. Like Sandra's family, Candy said she wasn't too worried at first when she couldn't find

Sandra later that night. She told police that she figured Sandra went off to do her own thing, but she'd come back like she always did. Candy even asked around that night to see if she could find out where Sandra had gone. She said someone told her Sandra had left with a guy, and in that moment Candy hadn't worried. But Candy did become worried a few days later when Sandra's grandmother stopped by looking for her. I mean, that's when Candy knew something was wrong, because no matter where she went, Sandra would always call her grandmother. I mean, they were very close.

But aside from law enforcement, someone else came knocking at Candy's door. That person was Sandra's boyfriend, a man named Dimmick Gidry. Candy told police he had seemed worried about Sandra and that he told Candy he'd been looking all over for her. Police talked to Dimmick, too, in August, the month after Sandra disappeared. It took a minute to get in touch with him because he had been off-shores in the Gulf of Mexico for work. He told investigators he and Sandra had been dating for two years and mentioned that she

liked to drink and would sometimes have periods of heavy drug use. Dimmick said that the last time he saw Sandra was on his way out of town when he stopped by the restaurant where Sandra worked, Ryan's Steakhouse. This was two days before Sandra was last seen by Candy. Dimmick also told police he had tried calling Sandra when he was offshore, but he was unable to reach her, and he learned Sandra was missing when he returned home two weeks later. We don't know if investigators called Dimmick's employer to confirm that he was actually at work on a boat the night Sandra vanished,

and there are no notes in the case file about whether investigators checked Dimmick's phone records or listened to the numerous voicemails he claimed Sandra had left him in the days before she disappeared. But what we do know is that Dimmick was able to give police a leap. He told them that he was under the impression that Sandra had been afraid of a man named Kearney Alsandor. Kearney was a scary dude who had been charged with murdering a man named Robert Rumbach. Dimmick told police that Sandra had made a specific comment to him about Robert's murder, that she was glad she wasn't armed when Kearney committed the homicide in Opelousis. And other people mentioned

Kearney to police too. Candy said that Sandra had warned her that Kearney could be dangerous. Candy also said Kearney's ex-girlfriend had claimed Sandra had been in the room when the murder happened, but that couldn't be confirmed. And the girlfriend later recanted. It all raises the question, did Sandra see something and did that lead to someone wanting to harm her?

It's really just rumors at this point. And police did tell us that there's no record of Kearney being interviewed in relation to this case. It's also worth noting that the local paper, The Daily World, reported that Kearney was arrested at the beginning of June and released in August, and therefore in police custody when Sandra went missing. While we weren't able to independently confirm the dates for when he was in custody that summer, Kearney was later convicted of Robert's murder. He didn't get back to us when we reached out to was in custody that summer. Kearney was later convicted of Robert's murder. He didn't get back to us when we reached out to him in prison for comment.

The Kearney lead didn't have legs, but there was one tangible lead, Sandra's phone bill. Her July bill had been mailed to her grandmother's house and investigators took a copy. It shows that calls had been placed from Sandra's phone on July 30th. That's four days after she was last seen. Sandra's phone bill showed two outgoing calls placed 43 minutes apart shortly after midnight on July 30th. Both calls were only a minute long, and there's nothing in the case file to show whether detectives followed up on this lead, although it's worth noting that cell tracking data wasn't available

to the St. Landry Parish law enforcement at the time, and there's no indication in the case file that her cell phone was ever found. Sandra's case file lacks a lot of information about the early investigation, and it's frustrating to not have these answers. But slim case files aren't rare in decades-old cold cases. As the public information officer for St. Landry Parish Sheriff's Office wrote in an email to us,

quote, as is painfully obvious, there are more questions than answers, end quote. Luckily, investigators did get a few more leads. In the months after Sandra went missing, police started to get letters from people who had spent time in the local jail and claimed to have information on Sandra's disappearance. Some of those letters arriving as early as January 2006.

One of the tipsters told police that he had heard a woman named Cash had been killed for refusing to perform a sex act, and that somebody was paid with drugs to cover up the crime. And this stuck out since Cash was the nickname that many people knew Sandra by. The informant's account was gruesome and alleged that Sandra's body had been wrapped in garbage bags and duct tape before being buried and that a blood soaked mattress

was burned to destroy evidence. When police followed up on this, everyone they spoke to had heard the story from someone else, a long chain of telephone. But this lead did introduce two new suspects, Freddie and Marcus. Now we're using pseudonyms for both at the request of police,

since these men have never been publicly identified as suspects in this case. Freddie was a local businessman. His family owned a landscaping and dirt moving company. And according to police, he was known to use drugs and Marcus was one of Freddie's employees. The rumors surrounding the duo indicated that Marcus wasn't responsible for killing Sandra,

but that he may have helped hide her body. Now, in addition to these tips from jailhouse letters, Freddie's name had come up in passing in early police interviews. Candy said someone saw Sandra with Freddie the night of her disappearance. And even Dimmick had vaguely heard that they had been together. And at the end of January 2006, police brought Freddie in for questioning. During that interview, Freddie told police that he had only met Sandra once.

Freddie said he had only known Sandra as Cash when they met through mutual friends about seven months before Sandra went missing. Police records don't indicate if they ever formally talked to Marcus, but I do know that both men did eventually take polygraph tests. And one of those tests raised more questions.

This is Major Marc LeBlanc, the public information officer for the sheriff's office. There was only one person who indicated to the examiner that he was not being truthful when asked these specific questions. Were you in any way involved in the disappearance of Cash? That's how everybody knew it. To which he responded, no.

The next question was, right now, can you take me to Cash? To which he responded, no. And the third question, have you seen Cash since March 20, 2005 2005, to which the individual stated no. And in all three, the examiner stated he indicated an untruthful response. The untruthful response came from Marcus. But police records don't say if he was further interviewed after the polygraph. And the new detective on the case didn't know

if the early investigators did further digging on him. When our reporter tried to reach out to Freddie and Marcus, she didn't get a response. Now it's not clear what came of all of this, but by all appearances, the investigation stalled without any direct connection between Freddie, Marcus, and Sandra. There wasn't any movement on the investigation until the fall of 2007.

That's when Candy reached out to investigators again with new information this time. Candy had ended up in jail on some drug charges and asked correctional officers if they could put her in touch with the detectives investigating Sandra's disappearance. She told investigators that an acquaintance had approached her in 2006, the summer after Sandra's disappearance. This acquaintance is a woman we're calling Mary because detectives didn't want to release

her real name. Mary had a run-in with Candy at a truck stop and gave her a ride to the hill, and they chatted along the way. That's when Mary told Candy that she knew what happened to Sandra. Mary said that Sandra was at Freddie's house along with Marcus and possibly some other people to cook drugs, but things went sideways. It was a bad batch and someone there injected Sandra with the drug. Now, Candy emphasized to police that Sandra didn't like needles,

so she believed Mary when she told her that someone else injected Sandra. But then apparently Sandra started having a bad reaction to the drugs, and Freddie strangled her to death. In Mary's telling, Marcus helped cover up Sandra's murder. He dug the hole to bury her in. Obviously, this was a lot of information for Candy to process about her best friend. But Candy said that she believed that Mary only knew this

because she was there when it happened. I mean, to Candy, the details just sounded too specific for Mary to not have been there. Here's the catch though. Mary was never gonna cooperate with police. She said she was only telling Candy this because she was Sandra's best friend and she thought she'd wanna know what happened to her.

But that left investigators with another game of telephone and therefore another lag in the investigation. But sometime around 2008, detectives had a tip come in from a totally new person with a potential lead to uncover Sandra's remains. This is Detective Donald Thompson, or DT as some people call him. He was part of the original team on this case. I get a phone call from an administrative from Opelousas

City Court at the time. Administrator told me, called me, said, Hey, DT, you need to come over to the city court here. Got a lady here. Just talking about Sandra. Detective Thompson is with the sheriff's office now, but when

Sandra went missing, he was a lieutenant with the Opelousas Police Department. So after that call, he went over to the city court and talked with the woman. Detective Thompson said that she told him Freddie had killed Sandra and that he had buried her on a property out near DeFeo Road.

Thompson drove out and got the property owner's consent to do a ground search of the property, or as much of it as he could since there was a lake there too. We searched for like, you know, some type of fresh dirt, a little pile of soil, like a grave site, you know what I'm talking about. We searched that whole thing. But they didn't find anything. Which isn't that surprising

because three years had passed since Sandra's disappearance. The property didn't belong to Freddie or his immediate family. But in conversation with the landowner, Thompson did find a connection. "- We find out Freddie them dug this lake, you understand, this thing to become a lake. And that's why we kind of figured, you know, our mindset went to,

oh man, she could have been buried in this, you know, when this lake was being dug out, you know? Right. So there's a chance she could be underneath. Yeah, underneath. This was a viable possibility because the property owner said the lake had been dug after Sandra was reported missing, although we don't know the exact time frame. When our team reached out to the property owner, we didn't get a response. Now it's unclear if Freddie's property

was ever searched. The case file didn't indicate that a search warrant was ever obtained for his business property, and Detective Thompson said he couldn't personally recall ever searching the business. Major LeBlanc said if detectives were to search Freddie's home or business, they would have needed a warrant. And the tips that they got in through the jail letters and other sources, like those just weren't enough to get one. After that 2008 search, the case went stagnant and it stayed stagnant until our team started reporting at the beginning of this year.

And now we've uncovered a new lead. And it came about when our reporter, Emily Enfinger reached out to Sandra's now adult daughter, Kelly, who you heard at the beginning of this episode. Kelly was only about 13 years old when her mom went missing. And like I said at the top, she thinks her grandparents likely kept police from interviewing her either to protect the girls or because they didn't feel like the girls had anything

of value to add since they were so young at the time. And after Sandra never returned home, they didn't really talk to each other as a family about Sandra's disappearance. But Kelly knew a lot about her mom. She knew her mom did cocaine. She knew that her mom did sex work. And she was familiar with some of the places her mom hung out.

And Kelly also had information that had never made its way to police. And a new theory from a stranger about what happened to her mom. And all of this has led the Sheriff's Office to take a fresh look at Sandra's case. When Kelly sat down with our team, she shared a startling story.

In 2017, she received an unprompted Facebook message. It came from a stranger, a man who claimed that he spent years trying to find her. I remember him telling me that he knew what happened to my mom. He told me about how hard it was to find me first. And then he was like, the reason why I'm trying to find you, I was trying to find you, is because I've been knowing what happened to your mom. And this man is a dangerous man.

And I wanna do something about it. This tipster told Kelly that a man named Richard confessed to killing Sandra. Now we're using a pseudonym for him at the request of detectives as they are actively working this lead. The tipster told Kelly that Richard and Sandra had gone to a party and that Sandra later went back

to Richard's place where they did cocaine. And he said that he was like, I had to do it,, I had to do it. I just had to do it, man. She started freaking out. And he said, he had to do what? He said I had to kill her. I had to."

To me, this lead sounds eerily similar to the scenario that Mary had described to Candy. That Sandra had an intense reaction to drugs and then ended up dead. Of course, the difference between the two accounts is the identity of the alleged killer. And unfortunately, the tipster never reported this to police, and Kelly thinks it's because he feared becoming a target. And Kelly didn't go to police with this information immediately for that reason,

too. And because she felt like nothing would be done to investigate this new lead since her mother's case was so cold. It was the interview with our team that prompted her to finally go to investigators. And now Sandra's case can move from a file on a shelf to a detective's desk, which has given new hope to Kelly and her younger sister.

When we reached out to the St. Landry Sheriff's Office, they confirmed that Sandra's case is active. And they wrote, quote, "'Every attempt is being made to contact witnesses, persons of interest, and anyone else who might have knowledge of the case, or the events in relation to Sandra's disappearance,' end quote.

In a text message to our reporter, Kelly said that she and her sister wish their grandparents were alive to witness the renewed investigation. She also said she and her sister are, quote, all for it and the detective made me feel like he would work hard on the case no matter how small the clue, end quote. Now 33, Kelly is almost the same age as her mother was when she disappeared. But in a sense, she was always the adult. She was more of a friend to me than a mom.

I was not treated like a child. So I feel like I grew up early, early on. Like I knew about things that a kid shouldn't know about. And I think she did that to protect me in a way. Like, you need to know about the badness of this world so you can protect your sister. My sister wasn't treated or raised like that, but I was. And I knew about a lot of stuff about her.

Her childhood was in all darkness, though, and she remembers other sides of her mother as well. I remember her being really funny, smart. She was always, you know, dancing and she was a happy person, except for whenever she wasn't. She had a lot of unresolved depression and I knew that about her. She was in and out of rehab. So she would get clean and everything was good.

And then slowly over time her unchecked depression, untreated depression would just weigh on her more and more and more and you could see it on her face and then she would end up going back into doing crack. So the good memories I remember about my mom is her being, you know, funny, happy, listening to the five o'clock blast off, which I still do, and a lot of the sadness sprinkled in between. Many of the people who Sandra knew have died, including Candy, Sandra's parents and grandparents, and even her boyfriend Dimmick.

But investigators believe there are still people who have information that could help them close the case and bring a sense of peace to Sandra's daughters. Kelly said she now just peace to Sandra's daughters. Kelly said she now just wants to know what happened. It was, my life has been hard. It's been a lot less hard since my grandparents had adopted us. But it wasn't easy not knowing what happened to her, you know? I never wanted to give up on the idea that she just ran away.

But I figured that wasn't the case, but I always was like, but I feel her presence still, you know? That's why I feel her presence, is because she's watching over me, not because she's still on this earth, you know? But I never wanted to admit it to myself that that was a possibility." But even without a body and physical evidence, even after 20 years, Major LeBlanc said that the case is still open, and waiting for the right clues to come along. It doesn't mean we don't have a case. We don't have a case that's ready for prosecution.

If you have any information about the disappearance or whereabouts of Sandra Burris, you're asked to contact the St. Landry Parish Crimestoppers by visiting their website at stlandrycrimestoppers.com or you can call their hotline [phone]. The Deck will be off next week, but we will return the following week with a brand new episode. The Deck is an AudioChuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn more about The Deck and our advocacy work, visit thedeckpodcast.com. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?

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