Original subtitles

Imagine all you know is that you had a brother.

The brother died when he was four months.

You've heard a variety of reasons,

and ultimately that you killed him.

But I just didn't believe it.

There's no way in hell that this child died from being

pushed out of the crib.

But if I didn't do it, who did?

This can happen...

Just like that.

So we were going to have to put that crime scene

back together.

Let's crank it up.

Game on.

This extraordinary case has come over 25 years

after the death of Matthew Golder.

Do you have a brother named Matthew Stephen Golder?

Finally, her day had arrived.

You had this feeling as everything

hangs on a knife edge.

The story you have heard here today

is the story that Kathie Almon today wants you to believe.

Now she's beginning to read this as the cover story.

You're sort of damned if you do, and you're damned

if you don't.

And that's up to the judge to determine.

You're not going to be sent away for life in prison.

Well, I have spent a life in a prison.

What just happened?

♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh ♪

All my life, I knew there was something

wrong with Matthew's death.

But I was not prepared to learn the truth.

♪ My blood runs cold ♪

This was a once-in-a-lifetime case.

Tracy had been told that she was

responsible for killing her

four-month-old brother, Matt.

It's kind of an unimaginable sort of trauma

to inflict on a person.

While we were looking at what happened

to Matthew Golder, it kept gnawing at me,

and Dr. Burton as well,

that there was a stone that had not been turned over.

There had not been an autopsy.

We had medical records saying that Matthew Golder

died from a fall.

But it was very unclear as to the manner of death.

And because of that, the decision was

made to exhume Matt's body.

Exhumations are very rare.

No one, to their knowledge, had ever heard

of an exhumation of a child.

And no one had ever heard of an exhumation of a child that

had been underground for 25 years.

I think the general conclusion was that we were wasting

our time, that there was nothing going to be there

when we opened that casket up.

You don't know what to expect.

I've seen bodies that were buried six months earlier

that were nearly skeletonized.

Knowing how small this little human body was

and not really knowing how the embalming process might have

taken place, Dr. Burton and I,

I don't think either one of us would have been surprised

if the casket was opened, and there was nothing identifiable,

perhaps, other than bones.

But if that was the case, we could

argue we tried to see whether there was any

physical evidence still around,

and it wasn't there.

But we also said in the unlikely event

that Matt's body was still intact, wow.

Boy, that would be some powerful evidence.

The day of the exhumation was March 17, 1997.

I remember that day quite vividly.

I do remember feeling a bit more somber.

It seemed to me that we were disturbing a sleeping baby.

And that really bothered me.

But like so many things that we don't want to do,

we have to get through it.

The setting was very quiet.

It was very serene, the way a cemetery should be.

I remember Dr. Burton talking

about Matthew, using his name.

And that really stuck with me, that there

was a level of compassion about the experience,

and not just looking at what we were doing as exhuming a body,

but looking at it as trying to find out the truth

of what happened to Matthew.

When I got to the grave site, the dirt had already

been moved off the vault, so right then,

we knew that at least there had been a vault.

And coincidentally, the grave digger

who put Matthew in the ground was the same grave digger

that dug him back up.

The vault is concrete and contains

the casket on the inside.

There are times in exhumations where

the vault lid is lifted off, and everything's underwater.

And in cases like that, the chances

of finding any remains that can be

subjected to a meaningful examination is almost zero.

But in this particular case, the vault lid was so tightly

sealed, the backhoe had picked up the vault

to separate the seal.

It was that tight.

There was some sort of adhesive that

stretched like rubber cement.

It was just this image that has stuck with me.

Once we got to the morgue and the casket was opened,

Dr. Burton's not exaggerating in his report when he said,

we were amazed at what we saw.

I remember Dr. Burton carefully opening the casket...

And remember seeing

a little boy

completely intact.

He had on a onesie,

and he had a teddy bear.

It was an unforgettable, horrible, unimaginable moment.

No matter what your beliefs are,

you've got to believe that God preserved

that child until we got there.

It absolutely blew us away. It just did.

I mean, there was nothing that anyone could have

done to prepare us for that.

I was emotional.

Then we got another surprise.

It turns out there was an autopsy performed back in 1971.

We did see a previous saw cut by the pathologist who

performed the first autopsy.

We weren't aware of that at first.

And those records turned out to be difficult to find,

but eventually, they were located.

I heard that they had a coroner,

not a medical examiner,

at the time.

He took all those records home.

He just didn't file the records.

He said that it was just an accident.

There was no discussion in the original autopsy report

on how it may have happened.

And in particular, there was no manner

of death assigned by the pathologist

who performed that autopsy.

Knowing the stakes that were involved in a case like this,

one that had not been initially judged

to be homicide,

I knew that we had to do everything right.

To me, it felt like the case had started right there.

First thing I noticed when Dr. Burton

did the head X-ray was bilateral fractures on each

side of the child's skull.

And it was a very complex fracture.

It had multiple arms of the fracture

going in different directions.

The skull itself was depressed.

It was pushed in about an 1/8 of an inch or so.

That is highly indicative of an inflicted injury

by a larger person.

Part of it looked like a backwards question mark,

2 inches or so across.

What looked like the side of your fist.

It's as if he was laying down on a hard surface

and was hit on one side of the head,

and then causes fractures to the other side.

But they don't connect, and that's

how they know that they're from a specific type of trauma.

Also, they could see other evidence of abuse

against Matthew.

He had a third degree burn on his instep

of one of his little feet.

He had what looked like an old fracture to his clavicle.

He had lots of bruising on his body.

He had a bruised penis,

something I can't even imagine.

All of those details that, when you start adding

them all up there, it's a mountain.

So all of this information, they felt they had enough

to take it to a grand jury.

At this point, we were asking a group of citizens

to bring formal charges against someone based on something

that we believed happened over two decades before.

It was not the normal case.

My role was to testify to the grand jury,

to help explain to them why Dr. Burton and I felt

the injuries we found in Matthew could not be explained

by his two-year-old sister pushing him

or dropping him from a crib.

There were only two people, two adults, who could have been

involved in Matthew's murder.

Either Jan Barry Sandlin or Kathie Almon.

And it was clear from the get-go that it was not Kathie.

Remember, Kathie had been out running some errands.

And that just left one possibility.

It had to be Jan Barry Sandlin.

The grand jury decided that there was probable cause,

sufficient evidence to go forward

with the prosecution of Jan Sandlin for the murder

of Matthew Golder.

Jan Sandlin was charged with malice murder, felony murder,

cruelty to children, and aggravated assault.

And at the time, Mr. Sandlin was in prison in Florida,

and so he was brought up to Georgia for trial.

Finally, somebody's listening

to what I have to say.

And it... you know, it means something.

Child abuse cases, they are very

different than any other kind of case,

because your first hurdle is proving there was abuse.

Dr. Burton was clear that this child died from abuse

and torture prior to the abuse.

The fractures we observed in his head

were not accidental,

were not from a fall from the crib.

They had been inflicted by another individual.

And this would meet the manner of death known as homicide.

So when we changed the death certificate

from accident to homicide, that really was

the turn of the case.

We knew that one of the things we wanted

to impress upon the jury was how quickly

this crime could be committed.

It can be very difficult to have a baby

at home who can't speak.

They're crying, they're upset,

and you just want them to be quiet.

And new parents have no idea what's bothering them.

It doesn't take much for someone to lose it.

This can happen...

Just like that.

And he had every reason to do that.

Jan Barry Sandlin wasn't real jazzed up

about being left at home with this four-month-old

that wasn't his.

Matthew was not Jan's child.

He was Ted Golder's child.

When Kathie was pregnant with me, she married Ted Golder.

Ted was drafted into Vietnam, and she was seeing Jan,

you know, the whole time.

When Ted came home, Jan was married to Nancy Tegeder.

And so Kathie was trying to work things out with Ted,

and that's where Matthew occurred.

We believe, given the nature of the injuries,

Jan Barry Sandlin decided, just like that,

that he was going to shut him up.

Matt died from blunt force trauma.

I never really wavered in the idea

that Jan Barry Sandlin had killed Matthew Golder.

And so what I was always focused on

was whether the evidence supported that.

And I didn't have any evidence that didn't support that.

You had a four-month-old who couldn't speak for himself.

You had a two-year-old who literally

choreographed the case getting to the DA's office.

You had a mother who had maintained

that it was an accident.

And you had a defendant who didn't have to say a word.

So we were going to have to put that crime scene back together

and explain to them why there was only one person who

could have committed the offense,

and it was Jan Barry Sandlin.

Unfortunately, Judge Fuller did

not allow us to introduce the other injuries

on Matthew's body.

As I recall, we didn't have any evidence

to unequivocally suggest that Jan was

responsible for those injuries to Matthew,

so they were inadmissible.

But also, Jan Barry Sandlin was serving a life sentence

in Florida for armed robbery.

That's not what we were allowed to tell the jury.

And there was evidence that Kathie had been physically

and verbally assaulted over a period of years,

but it wasn't admitted.

There's no such thing as a slam dunk in criminal cases.

There just isn't.

And we knew that.

At that point, I don't know that they had tried

very many cases that dated back this far

with very little evidence.

So I was realistic.

I was assigned to give the opening statement,

to let the jury know what your theory of the case was

and what you believe the evidence was going to show.

These injuries could not have occurred

but for an intentional and forceful assault.

The theory was simple.

Matt Golder was four months old.

He was in a crib.

He was left alone with an adult.

A four-month-old can't jump out of a crib.

A two-year-old can't climb up a crib like Superman.

There's one adult in the room.

There's only one person that could have done this.

Matthew Stephen Golder was killed by that man.

That man's life is going to be placed in your hands.

And it is important for you to know the full story.

Corinne Mull was Jan Barry Sandlin's defense attorney.

She was very comfortable in this particular courtroom.

Corinne was a bulldog, and so we knew that she

was going to be prepared.

That baby did not fall out of that bed,

did not get pushed out of that bed.

In her opening statement, she conceded that

the two-year-old throwing him out

of the crib was preposterous.

Her defenses were reasonable doubt, somebody else did it.

The story you have heard here today

is the story that Kathie Almon today wants you to believe.

Tracyraquel, while she was so important to the prosecution

of this case, I remember being really nervous

putting her on the stand.

I didn't want to do anything that would

cause her additional trauma.

Tracy, this is somebody who, for her whole life,

had fought to get to that point

of trying to bring justice.

And so she was, you know, understandably nervous.

It was really hard.

It was difficult to walk into that courtroom

for the first time.

She didn't feel comfortable being in the same room

as Jan Barry Sandlin.

She hadn't seen him since she was probably 10.

And finally, her day had arrived.

Raise your right hand.

I've seen the horrible things that Jan's done.

I know the things that he did to me.

Jan was a young man that thought

he could have anything he wanted,

and he drank very heavily.

Then Jan got hostile.

We would be settled somewhere,

from the time I was a little child,

and he would just show up in the middle of the night,

beat the door down, and beat Kathie up really bad,

and throw us on the street.

We spent lots of times just sleeping on a park bench.

♪ Oh, it's the dead of the night ♪

Kathie described persistent harassment from Jan.

He would track her down at her job,

so she would have to quit her job

and set up an apartment somewhere else.

♪ Oh, you can run all you like ♪

He was possessive.

Jan Sandlin was not a person that

knew how to treat a woman properly,

no matter how old she was.

♪ I'll give you some room to hide ♪

The woman was very battered.

He beat her up so bad.

Just some of the things that... it's just a horrible thing

for a child to see.

And no one should go through that.

Just, you know, him beating her beyond recognition

and raping her and beating her again.

It happened in front of me, yes.

Do you have a brother named Matthew Stephen Golder?

Yes, I do.

When was he born?

I wasn't prepared.

I didn't realize, you know, how much of a witness

I was gonna have to be.

Have you ever spoken to the defendant in this case

about what happened to your brother?

Yes, I have.

What was his response?

Ask your mother.

You now believe that your mother

withheld information about the death of Matt Golder, correct?

Yes.

During this whole process before the trial,

I ended up having a conversation with Kathie,

where I recorded the conversation that

was entered into evidence.

And the whole purpose was just to get her to say anything.

I didn't expect she would say anything.

But she did.

She had said to me that it was easier to say

that I was responsible for...

excuse me... for Matt's injuries than it

was to say that the man she loved was

and watch him go to jail.

She was backed in a corner.

She said, you just don't understand.

When you're in love with someone that much,

you'll do anything.

We just wanted to start over.

We wanted a new life.

You just don't know what it's like when you'll

do anything for somebody.

You were astonished that your mother had been content,

as you put it, to let him die in vain

and to let you be offered up as the person

responsible for this.

Yes.

I had also tried calling everybody.

Most people didn't want to talk to me.

But Jan's brother, Butch, he did.

He didn't have a problem talking to me.

And he said he didn't know the details.

But he thought that they were responsible,

and that he felt like they were gonna blame it on me.

♪ I've got secrets I can't tell ♪

He thought that they had planned this.

♪ Whispers that go through this hell ♪

Butch showed up at the hospital right

after they arrived at the emergency room with Matthew.

He said, you were sitting on a...

like a concrete slab where ambulances pull up.

And they were, you know, a football

field away in the parking lot.

And he felt like he walked up on them

getting their story straight, what they were gonna say.

And he grabbed Jan and said, what...

what the... have you done?

You know, what have you done?

Isn't it true that as a mother,

you would do almost anything to protect your children?

Isn't that true?

Yes.

Even if it meant shouldering blame upon yourself.

Isn't that true? - Yes.

You would protect them till your dying day.

I would... yes.

That's what you do when you love someone.

Tracyraquel was not a fact witness, per se.

She certainly didn't have any memory of what

happened to her baby brother.

But Kathie Almon, seemingly knowing

what really had happened, was so important to the prosecution

of this case.

I want to direct your attention, please, ma'am,

to December 27, 1971.

OK.

I want you to tell the members of the jury,

as best you can remember, what it is you did that day.

I took Tracy to the pediatrician.

Where else were you gonna go?

Uh, the laundromat.

I had to wash clothes.

Where was Matt?

Matt was at home with Jan.

As best you could tell as a mom, was he content?

Yes, he laughed out loud for the first time that day.

Kathie always told the story that she went to do laundry

and took me with her and left this four-month-old

baby with Jan, and that she came

back and found him that way.

When you got back and you parked

in front of the apartment, what did you do?

I took Tracy in, and I sat her in the chair

in the living room.

And Jan was sitting on the couch.

And I started in to check on Matt.

And he jumped up in front of the doorway and said,

Matt is fine, he's asleep.

Just get the clothes out of the car.

What's the next thing that you

did after you got the laundry?

I walked back up the stairs with it.

Did you see your daughter, Tracy?

- No. - What did you do?

Started frantically running around the house

looking for Tracy.

I then found her in Matt's bed.

Matt wasn't in there, and I saw him laying on the floor

next to the chest of drawers.

Did you try to wake him up?

Yes.

Did it work?

No.

What, if anything, did Mr. Sandlin do?

He started to grab Tracy up and spank her.

Did you talk with Mr. Sandlin about what

happened to Matt that day?

Yes.

What did he tell you?

He told me it was a terrible accident,

and I needed to accept it and get over it.

Did you care for Mr. Sandlin back in 1971?

Yes, I did.

Did you think he had done anything to him?

No, I didn't.

♪ I confess ♪

♪ It's cruel to be kind ♪

I suspect on some level, Kathie always knew

that that story didn't make any sense.

♪ This madness ♪

♪ These violent times ♪

I feel like it wasn't just Matthew that they made

this plan to kill that day.

They did the same to me.

♪ I'm lost in the game ♪

♪ Of hatred and shame

Why she left that day, it wasn't just to go do laundry.

But she also had to take me to the doctor,

because I had fallen down two stories of concrete stairs,

supposedly, and was bleeding from both my ears.

Jan Barry Sandlin had assaulted his daughter.

In my opinion, I think their intention

was to get rid of both of us,

just like she said in her comments.

We just wanted to start over.

To me, it's, "You guys were expendable,

so I could be with the man I love."

♪ I'm haunted by the lullabies ♪

♪ Haunted by this devil inside ♪

You know what, it's horrible, and it's shocking.

But it's exactly who she is.

Now, Tracy was developmentally advanced.

She was walking when she was nine months old, right?

Right.

And was a caretaker in a sense, wasn't she, of Matt?

She took care of him. - Oh, yeah.

And, you know, she... you called her once

the little mother, didn't you?

Yes.

I was always nurturing, I think.

For me, it's not a hard stretch.

I'm taking care of everyone, including children.

And yet, they blamed me for Matthew's death.

Now she's beginning to read this as the cover story

that her mother engaged in with Jan.

When you're in a state of shock

and you've just lost your child,

it's somehow emotionally easier to accept

an accident than it would be to accept that he was murdered.

You never said, "I believe that

Jan Barry Sandlin did this."

You didn't... - I think I may have.

OK, who to?

I don't recall.

I've had doubts, but I didn't really know what happened.

Kathie was wigged out.

She didn't know whether the jurors would believe her.

When we saw the medical reports,

there's no way Tracy could have done that to him.

And the only person there was Jan.

And he tricked me by making me go

downstairs and get the clothes so he

could put Tracy in the bed.

I am sure of it.

OK, then why, in 1985, didn't you say that?

I wasn't sure of it in '85.

Corinne was going to do her best to point out

the inconsistencies in previous statements Kathie had made

and suggest to the jury that she wasn't worthy of belief.

Your mother told your daughter

that she threw her baby brother out of the bed.

You told her therapist that she stepped on the baby's

skull, Ms. Almon, right?

I don't recall that.

You're sort of damned if you do, and you're damned

if you don't.

If Kathie had said the exact same thing every single time,

Corinne's defense would be, she's a parrot.

She's a wind-up toy.

It's hard to remember every single conversation

over the last 25 years.

If she said something a little different, ah-ah,

she didn't get it right this time.

She can't be believed. She's not consistent.

Did you ever have any second thoughts about,

why did I have this child in the first place?

Oh, never.

My children were everything to me.

Did you ever have a conversation

with Mr. Sandlin about children?

- Yes. - What did he tell you?

He didn't want any children.

I want the truth to come out.

I want to know what happened to my son.

I think that Kathie was not there,

but I feel like she was involved.

In my opinion, Kathie and Jan did this together.

Like, this is crazy.

For 15 years, she's carried the burden

that she was responsible for that child's death.

That is a big weight for a child, right?

Kathie was quite emotional.

You know, she was framed as the person

who helped cover things up.

She was the enabler of much of Jan's behavior,

and the keeper of secrets.

So in general, Corinne was trying

to raise doubt to demonstrate

the kind of person Kathie was.

The tombstone that was on the grave at the time

of the exhumation says "Mother's Little Angel,"

"Rest in peace now."

Yes.

That's not the original stone, is it?

No.

For 26 years, the tombstone said "Great grandson of..."

- Right. - "... of Mr. Alman."

- Right. - Right?

But you felt the need, two days before the body was exhumed,

two days before that whole group of people

ended up at that tomb, to change the tombstone.

Well, I wanted it there for the reburial.

You wanted it there for the exhumation.

I wanted it there for the reburial.

To show everyone, right?

No.

Kathie experienced a lot of trauma in her life.

I don't presume for a minute to put myself

in Kathie Almon's shoes, knowing the abuse

she had been through.

I don't hold Kathie responsible

for Matthew's death, but could she

have done a whole lot more for her daughter?

Yeah.

Tracyraquel was finished with her testimony,

but she was not released for her subpoena.

But I knew that she had young children at home.

So Judge Fuller granted her permission

to go back to Savannah, because it was

unlikely that she was going to have to testify again.

And the defense attorney would have agreed to that as well.

The judge had said, no one is supposed

to watch any of the trial.

You're a witness, so sequester yourself.

OK.

The rule of sequestration says that if you are someone who is

on a witness list, you cannot watch any

of the coverage of the case during the time

you're under subpoena.

Because this could potentially

affect their testimony.

Made sense.

There were family in the house, and people were in.

And the court was on in another room in the den in the house.

And I walked from the laundry room back into the other room,

and I caught a glimpse of Kathie on the television.

And that was it.

I would call Tracy at the end of each court day just

to let her know what happened.

I called her that night.

I remember I was standing in my kitchen.

And Lee Anne had mentioned, your mom did

great, to which Tracy says...

Yeah, I walked by and saw Kathie, and she was testifying.

Not, "Yeah, I sat there, and I had it on record."

Yeah, I overheard that as I was walking through.

And so when she told that to Lee Anne...

My heart sunk.

That was going to be a problem.

I remember Jeff and I talking with J Tom, our boss.

She let us know.

And it was our duty to let the judge know because it was

a technical violation of the rule of sequestration,

that she could not watch any of the trial.

That was the rule.

Everyone understood it, we thought.

And I remember the next morning,

we went into the judge's chambers and talked about it.

Then they called back an hour later and said,

OK, we need you in court.

I arrived, walked into the courtroom, and no jury,

nobody in the court, just the judge, the prosecutors,

the defense, and Jan.

Then the judge asked me if I had seen

anything on the television.

I heard various parts of the Court TV,

what was on Court TV of my mother's testimony.

When someone breaks a rule, but it doesn't really

have an effect on the outcome of the trial,

that can be harmless.

She had been excused, and no one was going to call her back.

Defense could have said, we withhold

the right to call her at a future date, but they didn't.

They excused her.

I have spent my entire life waiting to hear this testimony.

I would have preferred to have heard every word of it.

But I don't think that I have done anything wrong to affect

this man's rights.

He has more rights than I have.

You're not going to be sent away for life in prison.

Well, I have spent a life in a prison.

You may not agree with that, but I have, to some degree.

This extraordinary case, brought over 25 years

after the death of Matthew Golder,

has drawn extensive media coverage.

And with that attention has come

problems in trial management.

There has been an egregious violation of the witness

sequestration rule, which, in the context of this case,

is irreparable.

I cannot fix it.

The ability to present the best available defense

has been destroyed, at least for now, perhaps forever.

The defendant's motion for mistrial is granted.

I was furious.

It was a mistrial over testimony

that had no real basis as to guilt

or innocence of the defendant.

I think I was just in shock.

Like, first of all, I didn't see it coming.

I felt set up.

And of course, there's all of these things.

It's humiliation, it's anger.

It's, what just happened?

Like, I didn't do anything.

It just... it just really floored me.

The mistrial can be declared in a couple of ways...

one that would allow for a retrial and one that would not.

And that's up to the judge to determine.

And of course, if there was no retrial allowed,

then Jan Sandlin would never be held to account

for Matthew's murder.

The very next evening, I got a call from Jan

while he was in the county jail in DeKalb County

on transfer for the trial.

I don't know how he got my phone number,

but he called laughing.

He threatened to set me on fire and watch me burn to death.

There were a couple of other phone calls.

And then the last phone call was a talk show was playing,

and that's all you could hear.

And it was describing a lawn mower that had

run over this little girl's legs.

And that was the first indirect threat to my children.

Ultimately, Judge Fuller did decide

that if we wanted to retry the case,

that we could do so.

Because there's no prosecutorial misconduct

or intent on the part of the prosecution or the witnesses,

the judge had to let us do it again.

Before we got to that, the decision had to be, are we...

is the DA's office going to try it again?

I came into work to a voicemail message from Tracy...

and I remember it being long...

saying, please don't give up.

After going in and talking about it with J Tom

and looking at each other and realizing, you know,

this doesn't change what happened.

It doesn't change the law, it doesn't change the facts.

And as I told Lee Anne, you know what?

Last time I checked, there's no such thing

as the one free murder rule in Georgia.

Let's crank it up.

Game on.

After the mistrial, a real quick turnaround,

they went back to trial again.

We were super charged up.

This guy killed a four-month-old.

Let's go.

The atmosphere in the second trial

was probably even more amped up than the first.

You had all the same ingredients and the players

of the first trial, but now you had this feeling as everything

hangs on a knife edge, and a judge who's

a little testy and watching the proceedings

like a hawk to make sure things go better this time.

We didn't really change the theory of the case at all.

A two-year-old didn't throw this child from a crib.

He was intentionally and forcibly assaulted.

Compared to the first trial, Jeff and I had a comfort

level with the evidence.

And particularly, I remember Dr. Burton

being so critically important.

Do you have an opinion, Dr. Burton,

whether these injuries could have been inflicted by

a two-year-old child throwing the baby out of a crib?

Joe Burton was recognized throughout the country

as an expert on crimes against children, particularly child

abuse and child homicides.

This child, Matthew, was 4-plus months old

at the time of its death, probably weighed

at a minimum of 10 pounds.

And it isn't like a 10-pound weight that a two-year-old

would have to pick up.

It's a squirming 10-pound weight.

And so to throw it out and cause injuries like this

would be virtually impossible.

We had Dr. Burton, in his testimony,

talking about how it was possible

that he could have been killed by someone

smashing the hand down.

If I have Matthew's head on a non-giving surface,

and I were to strike Matthew on the side of the head,

I could break both sides of Matthew's skull,

causing a death in this case.

The defense was going to have a tough time

combating with Dr. Burton and fighting the medical evidence.

I've never seen complex fractures

bilateral in a child or an infant

outside an automobile wreck or a fall

from significant heights, otherwise.

Tracy's grandmother, Anne, testified to something that

the law calls a "similar transaction,"

which is evidence that is allowed to be admitted

because it demonstrates a prior similar event,

which may be relevant to a jury's consideration.

Jan was left alone with Matt.

We went in, and Matt was screaming.

And, uh, Kathie said, what's wrong with the baby?

And he said oh, I was playing with him here on the table.

And he picked up the pepper shaker,

and I guess he got it in his eyes.

And so she testified to Matthew

having pepper in his eye that Jan Sandlin

would have put there,

which is certainly an act of abuse.

Again, left alone, doing atrocious things

to a helpless four-month-old.

We were confident, but it was a retrial of a case.

And so I knew that the benefits accrue to all of the parties.

In order to even begin to think that Mr. Sandlin is

guilty, you have to be able to trust and believe

and rely on Kathie Almon.

And I submit to you, you will not be able to do that.

Corinne had a finite number of defenses.

One is reasonable doubt.

That's the go-to.

Ms. Kathie Almon has told a multitude of different stories

as to what has happened in this case.

And so Kathie's testimony became much more important.

In 1985, you didn't say to anybody,

"I know Jan Sandlin did this."

Probably not.

You thought that it was possible

that Tracy had stepped on Matthew's

head with her heavy baby shoes, right?

I was trying to make some kind

of a sense out of something that didn't make sense.

But then it was very clear, wasn't it,

that those were the lightest and softest baby shoes

around, wasn't it, Ms. Almon?

I thought they were pretty clunkers back then.

Isn't it true, Ms. Almon, you told your daughter

that the child died from crib death,

SIDS?

Didn't you?

You've told your daughter he hit his head against the bed.

Isn't that one of the stories you told her?

I told her he may have, or the chest of drawers.

You also told them your daughter threw the baby out

of the bed, correct?

Probably so.

Well, probably, Ms. Almon, or yes?

Well, it's hard to remember 25 years' worth of hell.

Kathie was kind of damaged over the years,

and Corrine was very effective at finding weaknesses.

And she had a perfect victim to go after.

♪ Trapped with your old sin ♪

♪ You wait with your torment ♪

Ms. Almon, isn't it, in fact, true

that you wrote Mr. Sandlin in 1988

and expressed frustration

about your son, Jason, bothering you?

- Yes. - OK.

And did you ever tell him, he's bothering me.

I'm going to beat him with a baseball bat?

I don't recall that.

OK, let me show you something and see if that

refreshes your recollection.

Ha-ha.

Yes, I did say it in a joking way.

♪ You've now told ♪

♪ One too many lies ♪

And then the second part of the defense

was none too subtle.

You've caused your child some harm.

Isn't that why you've always tried

to shift the blame onto Tracy?

No.

It was, one person did it.

It was Kathie Almon.

It was game on.

1997, still trying to blame Tracy.

What makes sense?

She knows what happened.

She's the only one that knows what happened.

Ms. Almon is responsible for the death of the child.

We knew what the facts were.

We knew what the medical evidence was.

But were we able to convince the jury?

We, the jury, find the defendant...

My stomach dropped.

I just thought, this is never gonna end.

They weren't a mother and a father.

They were monsters.

What's done is done and can't be undone.