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NARRATOR: Investigators search
through the remnants of a house fire that killed the
wife of a policeman.
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At first, carelessness looked
like the probable cause. But when pathologists,
toxicologists, and chemists
00:00:20
took a closer look
around they found the cause was far
more complicated. [theme music]
00:00:55
On a cold February morning
in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Lola Cator drove to
her daughter's home
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and discovered there had
been some sort of accident. -It was just totally black.
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Just totally full of soot. I couldn't find Sandy and
I ran all over that house, calling for her.
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And then I saw that
she was on the couch. She was totally burned. NARRATOR: Sandy Maloney
was just 40 years old.
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-It hurt.
I was shocked. I didn't really, you know,
didn't at first register that
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actually, that Sandy was dead. -I walked in the room and
my dad just started crying
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and I kind of assumed
what happened. Then he just told me there
was a fire at the house
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and they found someone inside,
and they think it's my mom. NARRATOR: Sandy lived
alone, since she
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was separated from her husband. It appeared the fire started
at 7:30 the night before.
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The clock had stopped when the
fire melted its inner-workings. Local fire officials
identified the fire's origin
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by the distinctive v-shaped
pattern on the wall. DANIEL HUGHES: When fire burns,
it burns upward and outward.
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And it leaves telltale signs
on the walls, furniture, ceiling, and that type of thing.
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In this particular
situation I did observe a v-pattern consistent with
the fire burning on the couch.
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NARRATOR: Which is where
Sandy's body was found. The fire didn't spread
beyond the living room.
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DANIEL HUGHES: The
supply of oxygen appeared not to have
been sufficient to allow
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that fire to burn freely. And when the oxygen had been
depleted in the structure,
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the fire burned itself out. NARRATOR: The living
room was littered with empty vodka bottles
and cigarette butts.
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JAMES MUNGER: A lot of
overflowing ashtrays, cigarettes that had just
been laid down on table tops
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and phone books
that literally burnt themselves out in
scorched surfaces. NARRATOR: Investigators
knew Sandy Maloney,
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since her husband was a
fellow police officer. JOHN: Sandy was the
love of my life.
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It's like your soul
mate that, you know, that the one time that you
meet someone in your life
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that, you know, you
feel like you're going to spend the rest
of your life with them.
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NARRATOR: In the early
'90s Sandy injured her back and became addicted
to pain killers.
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She also started
drinking heavily. Two separate hospital visits
failed to cure her addiction.
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JOHN: It totally
consumed who she was. She was no longer that
fun wife and great mother.
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The kids would get
home from school and Sandy would already
be totally intoxicated.
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You know, at the
point of staggering, you know, not really being able
to talk all that well even.
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-I knew things were wrong. I mean, one, there's
bill collectors calling and things like that.
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And when you have
an addiction you're losing money to
feed that addiction. And they didn't have
money to pay their bills.
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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.
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NARRATOR: Not surprisingly,
when the Maloneys separated, John got custody of
their three children.
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Sandy continued on
a downward spiral. LOLA: There was
arguing and John was just swearing and just
angry all the time.
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And things got worse all around. That house was like it
was going to explode. MATT: She just mostly
stayed in the house
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and kept the phone off the hook,
and pretty much lost contact with everyone who
she used to talk to.
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NARRATOR: The
preliminary indications were that the fire
started by a cigarette Sandy left burning carelessly.
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But Sandy's autopsy said
something quite different. To find out for certain
what killed Sandy Maloney,
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her body was sent to the
medical examiner for an autopsy. -When you look at a fire
death, what you're looking for
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are injuries that are not
consistent with the fire. NARRATOR: Sandy had a history
of alcohol and drug abuse,
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so blood samples were sent
for toxicology testing. Using gas chromatography,
scientists
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could identify all of
the elements present in Sandy's system. Sandy's blood alcohol
level was 0.25,
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more than twice the
legal limit in Wisconsin. -Forensic pathologists,
for the most part,
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do not consider a blood alcohol
level to be in the lethal range until it gets up
above 0.4, especially
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in someone that was
a chronic drinker. NARRATOR: Sandy was discovered
face down on the sofa.
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GREGORY SCHMUNK: That's
not a common scenario for someone that is
just intoxicated.
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They would tend to collapse
and, and even though they are intoxicated, the lower brain
stem functions, if you will,
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will sort of make their
face move to the side so they can get some air. She was face down
into that pillow.
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NARRATOR: And there was
something else suspicious. The carbon monoxide levels
in her blood were only 8%.
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-When a person dies
as a result of a fire, their carbon monoxide levels
are usually up 70% or higher.
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Uh, so the carbon
monoxide levels of Sandra Maloney
at the time of death were consistent with her
being dead prior to the fire.
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And the medical
examiner found even more evidence to support this view. GREGORY SCHMUNK: You would
expect the entire trachea
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to have a black lining
of soot, all the way from the upper portion of
the throat all the way down
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and spreading out
into the two lungs. Sandy only had a very small
amount of soot in her airway.
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Much less than we
would normally see. NARRATOR: And there were
bruises in the muscles
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around Sandy's
neck and her back. GREGORY SCHMUNK: This would be
very consistent with someone
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being on top of her,
maybe a knee, maybe arms, as she is being held down
into the cushion of the couch
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and strangled. NARRATOR: They also found
a vertical, not horizontal, gash on the back
of Sandy's head.
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GREGORY SCHMUNK:
There was a broken ashtray there in the room. Whether or not that was the
implement that was used,
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that is the type of
implement-- a heavy, edged object like this
ashtray-- that could
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have caused this
kind of an injury. NARRATOR: Sandy was found on
the sofa without a blouse.
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In a basement clothes
hamper investigators found a corduroy shirt
covered with blood.
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-Somebody apparently
attempted to have that concealed under
some other clothing.
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But the bleeding on
that corduroy shirt was consistent with where her
head injury was on her body.
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And that raised a
lot of red flags. -Given the totality of
the evidence that we had
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in this case, it was
obvious that this was definitely a homicide. This was death at
the hands of another.
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NARRATOR: At the
scene of the fire, investigators found
several suspicious items--
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a burned book of matches
underneath a cloth baseball cap, and tissues rolled and
stuffed into the seat cushions.
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Arson investigators
call them trailers. DANIEL HUGHES: These trailers
that I saw on the couch
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and in front of the couch
indicated to me that whoever committed this crime had some,
at least fundamental, knowledge
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of fire and how fire
burned, and what methods to use to carry fire from
one place to another.
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NARRATOR: Now, with evidence
of a homicide and arson, Sandy's estranged husband,
John, became the prime suspect.
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But he had an alibi. He was at home
with his girlfriend on the night of the fire.
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JOHN: My kids were
with me all night, and Tracy Hellenbrand was there. -We just thought maybe
randomly something happened.
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Maybe one of her
friends, maybe they were getting into drugs
bad or something like that.
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NARRATOR: Despite the
alibi, investigators noted that John had recently
taken classes in arson
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investigation as part
of his ongoing training as a police officer. JOHN: I can tell
you, absolutely,
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that I did not have anything
to do with Sandy's death. I did not kill Sandy. NARRATOR: To solve the mystery
of Sandy Maloney's death,
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investigators needed to
know as much as possible about the house fire. The evidence clearly showed
it started in the living room.
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DANIEL HUGHES: The burn
patterns on the floor in front of the couch, at
the area of deep charring
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and back away toward
the center of the room, that pattern was very
reminiscent of a liquid-type
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of accelerant being
poured on the floor. It was a very irregular,
elongated pattern.
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NARRATOR: Debris
from the couch area was collected in an
airtight can and sent to the Wisconsin State
crime lab for testing.
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At the lab, scientists placed an
activated charcoal strip inside to collect gases
from the debris.
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Later, it was washed in a
sterile solution and analyzed. JAMES MUNGER: A
gas chromatograph,
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which is a piece of
equipment that can actually look for the
individual components
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inside gasoline,
kerosene, et cetera. And they get,
basically, a tracing. Looks like, kind of like
an EKG, up and down lines.
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But those peaks, to
the forensic chemist, mean different things, mean
different particular chemical
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components. NARRATOR: The
chromatograph found no accelerants in the debris. But the empty vodka
bottle at the fire scene
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suggested a possible
explanation. DANIEL HUGHES: It would
not be unusual for vodka
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to have been used
as an accelerant, and then have the lab
results come back negative,
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because the vodka either burned
up as a result of the fire or dissipated after the fire.
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NARRATOR: There was
one piece of evidence that suggested Sandy
must have known the person who started the fire.
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There were no signs of forced
entry, and all of the doors were locked. DANIEL HUGHES: One
key to the door
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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
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before, when the door was
installed, and never returned. And there were only
two keys to that door.
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So immediately that brought
John Maloney into the forefront as a suspect. NARRATOR: Sandy's estranged
husband denied this.
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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,
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her friends had duplicate keys. So when I moved out of the
house the locks were changed.
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So I didn't have keys. I had at-- I had
at one point, had a key to an outside
storm door lock.
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That would be the only thing
that I would have a key to. NARRATOR: And investigators
found evidence of motive.
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John had agreed to pay Sandy
$450 a month in alimony, plus half his assets in pension
in a divorce settlement.
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Police now realized that John's
girlfriend, Tracy Hellenbrand, may have had a financial
motive as well.
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VINCE BISKUPIC: There was
some thought that they both do about the homicide, or
maybe both participated.
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So she was somebody that had
some hostility towards Sandy Maloney, and it needed
to be looked at.
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NARRATOR: Tracy said she
was at home with John on the night of the murder. But investigators
added some pressure,
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telling her she could be charged
as an accessory to the crime. So she changed her story.
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She now said she
was taking a nap and didn't know where John
was at the time of the fire.
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She also said, John was behaving
suspiciously later that night. VINCE BISKUPIC: His
girlfriend, Tracy, did point
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out some nervous
behavior, some shaking when he was back
at the residence. And also some smell of
smoke on his person.
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Tracy agreed to help police
by wearing a hidden microphone while she questioned
John about the incident.
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But during those conversations,
John denied any involvement. It wasn't until several months
later, while on vacation
00:14:03
in Las Vegas, that
the conversations became more interesting. Prosecutors believe
that John Maloney
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grew angry with his wife, Sandy,
because her drug and alcohol addiction had made it difficult
to finalize their divorce.
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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.
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The evidence suggests
the two argued. And Sandy suffered a
serious head injury, either intentionally
or by accident.
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At some point, he
strangled her to death. John removed her bloody shirt
and hid it in the hamper.
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To cover his
tracks, John decided to set fire to
the house and make it look like an accidental fire.
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He inserted tissues
in the sofa cushions to make sure it ignited. And he may have used
vodka as an accelerant.
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John left the scene
thinking the entire house would burn to the
ground, and with it
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all the evidence of the murder. But he was wrong. There wasn't enough
oxygen inside the house
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for the fire to spread. And it burned out quickly. DANIEL HUGHES: There's
absolutely no doubt in my mind
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that John Maloney is the killer. John Maloney did not do
very well as an arsonist.
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He should have done a
little more research. NARRATOR: To cement
their case, investigators
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asked John's girlfriend, Tracy,
to question him about the fire while they listened.
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And they placed a hidden camera
and microphone in their Las Vegas hotel room while they
were there on vacation.
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VINCE BISKUPIC: The
surveillance in Las Vegas and what showed up on the tape
really gave us an insight into,
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not only the relationship of
John and Tracy, but, you know, his dark side. NARRATOR: And they also
revealed John's feelings
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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,
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and he just wanted
to be rid of her. NARRATOR: After
hours of denials, John eventually admitted
he was inside his wife's
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home on the day of the fire. DANIEL HUGHES: John Maloney
had been maintaining, right
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from the beginning, that
he hadn't been in the house and hadn't been in the
house for a long time.
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His admission that he was
in the house on the night that the homicide
occurred really
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pulled everything else together. NARRATOR: At one point
in the conversation, it appeared that John would
physically assault Tracy.
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DANIEL HUGHES: John Maloney
has Tracy Hellenbrand backed up against the wall,
and he does place
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his hands up near her throat. And, you know, it just,
it just flashed in my mind
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when I saw that, that
John Maloney is very capable of committing
this crime. JOHN: What people
don't realize is
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it was like 4:30 in the morning
that she woke me out of a sleep to start this interrogation.
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I was very angry. I was very angry that I was
being accused continually of doing something, killing
someone, when I hadn't.
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NARRATOR: But to investigators,
the tape showed otherwise. John Maloney was arrested and
charged with his wife's murder.
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At the trial his
defense basically conceded the strength of
the forensic evidence.
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JAMES MUNGER: There was
really not much effort made. Matter of fact, no effort
made during John's trial
00:18:43
to challenge the state's
assertion that this was, in fact, an
incendiary fire. He and his defense essentially
rolled over and accepted
00:18:53
the state's findings without
a scientific challenge. NARRATOR: Instead, the
defense pointed their finger
00:18:59
at Tracy Hellenbrand saying,
she was the real killer. VINCE BISKUPIC: The
physical evidence,
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the forensic evidence, the
statements of witnesses, their observations, only
point to one person,
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and that's John Maloney. JURY FOREMAN: We the jury
find the defendant, John R. Maloney guilty of first degree--
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NARRATOR: John Maloney was
found guilty of first degree murder, arson, and
mutilating a corpse.
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He was sentenced
to life in prison. JOHN: I was very
much, sort of, shocked by the outcome of my trial.
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'Cause I thought there was more
than enough reasonable doubt. NARRATOR: John Maloney continues
to maintain his innocence.
00:19:35
JOHN: I did not have anything
to do with Sandy death. I did not kill Sandy. I'm scared of maybe spending
the rest of my life in prison
00:19:43
for something, a crime
that I was convicted of and, and didn't do. NARRATOR: His son,
Matt, refuses to believe
00:19:51
that his father is a killer. MATT: All evidence in
the basement and upstairs point to an accidental death.
00:19:57
I mean, I loved my mom,
but I just want everyone to know how my
mom did really die
00:20:03
and that my dad's not
responsible for it. NARRATOR: But forensic
science painted a picture
00:20:09
of what actually happened in
Sandy's home before the fire. GREGORY SCHMUNK:
The autopsy serves
00:20:16
as the voice of the dead, the
silent witness to the crime. Had the autopsy not disclosed
what it disclosed about Sandy
00:20:25
death, this could have been put
down as an accidental death. VINCE BISKUPIC:
This case could not
00:20:30
have been solved without the
physical findings of the police investigators at the scene.
00:20:35
And without forensic
evidence, we might have a killer
still on the loose. LOLA: All of these forensic
evidences are so important.
00:20:45
And we were just overwhelmed
with the good job that the prosecution had done. DANIEL HUGHES: I think
he's a coldblooded killer.
00:20:55
And high school sweetheart or
not, he committed this crime. The evidence was there.
00:21:00
He did it and he got caught,
and now he's paying for it. [theme music]