09x11 - Making the Collar

[bunniefuu]

NARRATOR: Investigators search through the remnants of a house

fire that k*lled the wife of a policeman.

At first, carelessness looked like the probable cause.

But when pathologists, toxicologists, and chemists

took a closer look around they found

the cause was far more complicated.

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On a cold February morning in Green Bay, Wisconsin,

Lola Cator drove to her daughter's home

and discovered there had been some sort of accident.

-It was just totally black.

Just totally full of soot.

I couldn't find Sandy and I ran all over that house,

calling for her.

And then I saw that she was on the couch.

She was totally b*rned.

NARRATOR: Sandy Maloney was just years old.

-It hurt. I was shocked.

I didn't really, you know, didn't at first register that

actually, that Sandy was dead.

-I walked in the room and my dad just started crying

and I kind of assumed what happened.

Then he just told me there was a fire at the house

and they found someone inside, and they think it's my mom.

NARRATOR: Sandy lived alone, since she

was separated from her husband.

It appeared the fire started at : the night before.

The clock had stopped when the fire melted its inner-workings.

Local fire officials identified the fire's origin

by the distinctive v-shaped pattern on the wall.

DANIEL HUGHES: When fire burns, it burns upward and outward.

And it leaves telltale signs on the walls, furniture,

ceiling, and that type of thing.

In this particular situation I did observe

a v-pattern consistent with the fire burning on the couch.

NARRATOR: Which is where Sandy's body was found.

The fire didn't spread beyond the living room.

DANIEL HUGHES: The supply of oxygen

appeared not to have been sufficient to allow

that fire to burn freely.

And when the oxygen had been depleted in the structure,

the fire b*rned itself out.

NARRATOR: The living room was littered

with empty vodka bottles and cigarette butts.

JAMES MUNGER: A lot of overflowing ashtrays,

cigarettes that had just been laid down on table tops

and phone books that literally burnt

themselves out in scorched surfaces.

NARRATOR: Investigators knew Sandy Maloney,

since her husband was a fellow police officer.

JOHN: Sandy was the love of my life.

It's like your soul mate that, you know,

that the one time that you meet someone in your life

that, you know, you feel like you're

going to spend the rest of your life with them.

NARRATOR: In the early 's Sandy injured her back

and became addicted to pain K*llers.

She also started drinking heavily.

Two separate hospital visits failed to cure her addiction.

JOHN: It totally consumed who she was.

She was no longer that fun wife and great mother.

The kids would get home from school

and Sandy would already be totally intoxicated.

You know, at the point of staggering,

you know, not really being able to talk all that well even.

-I knew things were wrong.

I mean, one, there's bill collectors

calling and things like that.

And when you have an addiction you're

losing money to feed that addiction.

And they didn't have money to pay their bills.

And that's what most of the arguments

that my mom and dad had were surrounding.

So I wasn't totally oblivious it what was going on.

NARRATOR: Not surprisingly, when the Maloneys separated,

John got custody of their three children.

Sandy continued on a downward spiral.

LOLA: There was arguing and John was

just swearing and just angry all the time.

And things got worse all around.

That house was like it was going to explode.

MATT: She just mostly stayed in the house

and kept the phone off the hook, and pretty much lost contact

with everyone who she used to talk to.

NARRATOR: The preliminary indications

were that the fire started by a cigarette

Sandy left burning carelessly.

But Sandy's autopsy said something quite different.

To find out for certain what k*lled Sandy Maloney,

her body was sent to the medical examiner for an autopsy.

-When you look at a fire death, what you're looking for

are injuries that are not consistent with the fire.

NARRATOR: Sandy had a history of alcohol and drug abuse,

so blood samples were sent for toxicology testing.

Using gas chromatography, scientists

could identify all of the elements present

in Sandy's system.

Sandy's blood alcohol level was .,

more than twice the legal limit in Wisconsin.

-Forensic pathologists, for the most part,

do not consider a blood alcohol level to be in the lethal range

until it gets up above ., especially

in someone that was a chronic drinker.

NARRATOR: Sandy was discovered face down on the sofa.

GREGORY SCHMUNK: That's not a common scenario

for someone that is just intoxicated.

They would tend to collapse and, and even though they are

intoxicated, the lower brain stem functions, if you will,

will sort of make their face move to the side

so they can get some air.

She was face down into that pillow.

NARRATOR: And there was something else suspicious.

The carbon monoxide levels in her blood were only %.

-When a person dies as a result of a fire,

their carbon monoxide levels are usually up % or higher.

Uh, so the carbon monoxide levels

of Sandra Maloney at the time of death

were consistent with her being dead prior to the fire.

And the medical examiner found even more

evidence to support this view.

GREGORY SCHMUNK: You would expect the entire trachea

to have a black lining of soot, all the way

from the upper portion of the throat all the way down

and spreading out into the two lungs.

Sandy only had a very small amount of soot in her airway.

Much less than we would normally see.

NARRATOR: And there were bruises in the muscles

around Sandy's neck and her back.

GREGORY SCHMUNK: This would be very consistent with someone

being on top of her, maybe a knee, maybe arms,

as she is being held down into the cushion of the couch

and strangled.

NARRATOR: They also found a vertical, not horizontal,

gash on the back of Sandy's head.

GREGORY SCHMUNK: There was a broken

ashtray there in the room.

Whether or not that was the implement that was used,

that is the type of implement-- a heavy, edged

object like this ashtray-- that could

have caused this kind of an injury.

NARRATOR: Sandy was found on the sofa without a blouse.

In a basement clothes hamper investigators

found a corduroy shirt covered with blood.

-Somebody apparently attempted to have

that concealed under some other clothing.

But the bleeding on that corduroy shirt

was consistent with where her head injury was on her body.

And that raised a lot of red flags.

-Given the totality of the evidence that we had

in this case, it was obvious that this

was definitely a homicide.

This was death at the hands of another.

NARRATOR: At the scene of the fire,

investigators found several suspicious items--

a b*rned book of matches underneath a cloth baseball

cap, and tissues rolled and stuffed into the seat cushions.

Arson investigators call them trailers.

DANIEL HUGHES: These trailers that I saw on the couch

and in front of the couch indicated to me that whoever

committed this crime had some, at least fundamental, knowledge

of fire and how fire b*rned, and what methods

to use to carry fire from one place to another.

NARRATOR: Now, with evidence of a homicide and arson,

Sandy's estranged husband, John, became the prime suspect.

But he had an alibi.

He was at home with his girlfriend

on the night of the fire.

JOHN: My kids were with me all night,

and Tracy Hellenbrand was there.

-We just thought maybe randomly something happened.

Maybe one of her friends, maybe they

were getting into dr*gs bad or something like that.

NARRATOR: Despite the alibi, investigators

noted that John had recently taken classes in arson

investigation as part of his ongoing training

as a police officer.

JOHN: I can tell you, absolutely,

that I did not have anything to do with Sandy's death.

I did not k*ll Sandy.

NARRATOR: To solve the mystery of Sandy Maloney's death,

investigators needed to know as much as possible

about the house fire.

The evidence clearly showed it started in the living room.

DANIEL HUGHES: The burn patterns on the floor

in front of the couch, at the area of deep charring

and back away toward the center of the room,

that pattern was very reminiscent of a liquid-type

of accelerant being poured on the floor.

It was a very irregular, elongated pattern.

NARRATOR: Debris from the couch area

was collected in an airtight can and sent

to the Wisconsin State crime lab for testing.

At the lab, scientists placed an activated charcoal strip inside

to collect gases from the debris.

Later, it was washed in a sterile solution and analyzed.

JAMES MUNGER: A gas chromatograph,

which is a piece of equipment that can actually

look for the individual components

inside gasoline, kerosene, et cetera.

And they get, basically, a tracing.

Looks like, kind of like an EKG, up and down lines.

But those peaks, to the forensic chemist,

mean different things, mean different particular chemical

components.

NARRATOR: The chromatograph found

no accelerants in the debris.

But the empty vodka bottle at the fire scene

suggested a possible explanation.

DANIEL HUGHES: It would not be unusual for vodka

to have been used as an accelerant,

and then have the lab results come back negative,

because the vodka either b*rned up as a result of the fire

or dissipated after the fire.

NARRATOR: There was one piece of evidence

that suggested Sandy must have known

the person who started the fire.

There were no signs of forced entry, and all of the doors

were locked.

DANIEL HUGHES: One key to the door

was found on Sandra Maloney's key chain laying

on the cupboard in the kitchen.

A second key had been given to John Maloney, years

before, when the door was installed, and never returned.

And there were only two keys to that door.

So immediately that brought John Maloney into the forefront

as a suspect.

NARRATOR: Sandy's estranged husband denied this.

JOHN: Her mother and I are not the only ones

that had a key to the house.

There was a key that the kids had access to,

her friends had duplicate keys.

So when I moved out of the house the locks were changed.

So I didn't have keys.

I had at-- I had at one point, had

a key to an outside storm door lock.

That would be the only thing that I would have a key to.

NARRATOR: And investigators found evidence of motive.

John had agreed to pay Sandy $ a month in alimony,

plus half his assets in pension in a divorce settlement.

Police now realized that John's girlfriend, Tracy Hellenbrand,

may have had a financial motive as well.

VINCE BISKUPIC: There was some thought that they both do

about the homicide, or maybe both participated.

So she was somebody that had some hostility towards Sandy

Maloney, and it needed to be looked at.

NARRATOR: Tracy said she was at home with John

on the night of the m*rder.

But investigators added some pressure,

telling her she could be charged as an accessory to the crime.

So she changed her story.

She now said she was taking a nap

and didn't know where John was at the time of the fire.

She also said, John was behaving suspiciously later that night.

VINCE BISKUPIC: His girlfriend, Tracy, did point

out some nervous behavior, some shaking

when he was back at the residence.

And also some smell of smoke on his person.

Tracy agreed to help police by wearing a hidden microphone

while she questioned John about the incident.

But during those conversations, John denied any involvement.

It wasn't until several months later, while on vacation

in Las Vegas, that the conversations

became more interesting.

Prosecutors believe that John Maloney

grew angry with his wife, Sandy, because her drug and alcohol

addiction had made it difficult to finalize their divorce.

So he went over to talk with her to make sure she was going

to be at court the next day for the divorce hearing.

The evidence suggests the two argued.

And Sandy suffered a serious head injury,

either intentionally or by accident.

At some point, he strangled her to death.

John removed her bloody shirt and hid it in the hamper.

To cover his tracks, John decided

to set fire to the house and make

it look like an accidental fire.

He inserted tissues in the sofa cushions

to make sure it ignited.

And he may have used vodka as an accelerant.

John left the scene thinking the entire house

would burn to the ground, and with it

all the evidence of the m*rder.

But he was wrong.

There wasn't enough oxygen inside the house

for the fire to spread.

And it b*rned out quickly.

DANIEL HUGHES: There's absolutely no doubt in my mind

that John Maloney is the k*ller.

John Maloney did not do very well as an arsonist.

He should have done a little more research.

NARRATOR: To cement their case, investigators

asked John's girlfriend, Tracy, to question him about the fire

while they listened.

And they placed a hidden camera and microphone in their Las

Vegas hotel room while they were there on vacation.

VINCE BISKUPIC: The surveillance in Las Vegas

and what showed up on the tape really gave us an insight into,

not only the relationship of John and Tracy, but, you know,

his dark side.

NARRATOR: And they also revealed John's feelings

towards his estranged wife, Sandy.

LOLA: It proves he hated her.

He hated her.

He called her f-ing slob, and f-ing anorexic drunk,

and he just wanted to be rid of her.

NARRATOR: After hours of denials,

John eventually admitted he was inside his wife's

home on the day of the fire.

DANIEL HUGHES: John Maloney had been maintaining, right

from the beginning, that he hadn't been in the house

and hadn't been in the house for a long time.

His admission that he was in the house on the night

that the homicide occurred really

pulled everything else together.

NARRATOR: At one point in the conversation,

it appeared that John would physically as*ault Tracy.

DANIEL HUGHES: John Maloney has Tracy Hellenbrand backed up

against the wall, and he does place

his hands up near her throat.

And, you know, it just, it just flashed in my mind

when I saw that, that John Maloney is very

capable of committing this crime.

JOHN: What people don't realize is

it was like : in the morning that she woke me out of a sleep

to start this interrogation.

I was very angry.

I was very angry that I was being accused continually

of doing something, k*lling someone, when I hadn't.

NARRATOR: But to investigators, the tape showed otherwise.

John Maloney was arrested and charged with his wife's m*rder.

At the trial his defense basically

conceded the strength of the forensic evidence.

JAMES MUNGER: There was really not much effort made.

Matter of fact, no effort made during John's trial

to challenge the state's assertion that this

was, in fact, an incendiary fire.

He and his defense essentially rolled over and accepted

the state's findings without a scientific challenge.

NARRATOR: Instead, the defense pointed their finger

at Tracy Hellenbrand saying, she was the real k*ller.

VINCE BISKUPIC: The physical evidence,

the forensic evidence, the statements of witnesses,

their observations, only point to one person,

and that's John Maloney.

JURY FOREMAN: We the jury find the defendant, John R.

Maloney guilty of first degree--

NARRATOR: John Maloney was found guilty of first degree

m*rder, arson, and mutilating a corpse.

He was sentenced to life in prison.

JOHN: I was very much, sort of, shocked

by the outcome of my trial.

'Cause I thought there was more than enough reasonable doubt.

NARRATOR: John Maloney continues to maintain his innocence.

JOHN: I did not have anything to do with Sandy death.

I did not k*ll Sandy.

I'm scared of maybe spending the rest of my life in prison

for something, a crime that I was convicted of

and, and didn't do.

NARRATOR: His son, Matt, refuses to believe

that his father is a k*ller.

MATT: All evidence in the basement and upstairs

point to an accidental death.

I mean, I loved my mom, but I just want everyone

to know how my mom did really die

and that my dad's not responsible for it.

NARRATOR: But forensic science painted a picture

of what actually happened in Sandy's home before the fire.

GREGORY SCHMUNK: The autopsy serves

as the voice of the dead, the silent witness to the crime.

Had the autopsy not disclosed what it disclosed about Sandy

death, this could have been put down as an accidental death.

VINCE BISKUPIC: This case could not

have been solved without the physical findings of the police

investigators at the scene.

And without forensic evidence, we

might have a k*ller still on the loose.

LOLA: All of these forensic evidences are so important.

And we were just overwhelmed with the good job

that the prosecution had done.

DANIEL HUGHES: I think he's a coldblooded k*ller.

And high school sweetheart or not, he committed this crime.

The evidence was there.

He did it and he got caught, and now he's paying for it.

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