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Steve Sandlin Pt. Two · The Path Went Chilly

0:30
Welcome back to the Path one, Chile for part two of our series about
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the unexplained death of Steve Sandlin. Robin, do you want to catch everyone
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up on what we talked about in our previous episode. Well, Steve Sandlin
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was a twenty one year old rookie police officer with an infant son, who
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was also engaged to be married and was following in his father's footsteps. All
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he'd ever wanted to be was a police officer. He was assigned to a
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small town called Mountaineer, New Mexico, which only had a total of four
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officers on the force, including Steve. But then eight weeks into his tenure
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there, Steve wound up debt inside his own police station under suspicious circumstances,
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after he was shot to death with his own gun. The police chief,
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David Carson, tried to say that Steve's death may have been a suicide because
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they had an argument earlier that day, or possibly an accident because Steve was
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playing with his gun, but of course his friends and family did not believe
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that. It saw a lot of suspicious discrepancies going on. There were hints
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that Steve was very disillusioned about stuff that was going on on the job,
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and he had even had a meeting with the New Mexico Attorney General's office.
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He had also been involved in a drug bust with a marijuana dealer in which
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fifty four pounds of marijuana suddenly went missing from a police evidence trailer, and
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after Steve's death, a bag of what might have one bag of what might
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have been this marijuana was found inside a drawer inside Steve's home, and it
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seemed likely that it had been planted in an attempt to assassinate his character.
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There was some suspicion on Chief Carson himself because numerous witnesses said they saw his
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patrol car parked outside the police station during the approximate time period of Steve's death.
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And he also really didn't have an alibi for that time period and just
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said that he could not remember where he was. I know that there was
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a man named James Garantino who was the Assistant Attorney General in New Mexico.
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He wound up getting fired from his superiors for pushing too hard into this case
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and not leaving it alone. So he became a parent that there was a
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major cover up and conspiracy going on. It was not until nineteen ninety five
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when Steve's death was finally reclassified as a homicide, and they have paid tribute
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to him in the last few years, but unfortunately there are still no answers
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about his death and if whoever killed him has gotten away with it for over
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thirty five years, well, I think it's safe to say that this story
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is sketchy as hell. I really can't think of too many unsolved cases where
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a police officer was killed inside their own police station. Steve Sandlan sounded like
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an incredibly ambitious, enthusiastic young man who only wanted to do good and could
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have potentially had a great career in law enforcement. But unfortunately it sounds like
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you wound up getting hired by a rather dysfunctional police department. Now, you
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do have to cut the Mountaineer PD a little bit of slack, because a
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Mountain Air is a pretty isolated small town, and these types of police departments
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obviously do not get the same amount of manpower, resources and training that a
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police force in a larger city would receive. After all, they only had
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a total of four officers when Steve joined up. But when a force this
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small suddenly winds up dealing with a crime that's much bigger than what they're used
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to dealing with. You can see how things might go wrong. In other
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words, if they seize fifty four pounds of marijuana in a drug bust and
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have to leave it lying around on the floor inside the station because they don't
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have any secure facilities to properly store it, then they're probably in way over
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their heads. Now it's up for debate Webther the Mountaineer PD was actually complicit
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in Steve's death or just watch the investigation. But either way, it's still
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a pretty infuriating situation because Steve deserved much better. He just sounded like the
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type of person you'd want to have as a police officer in your community because
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he was finally getting to do the one thing he'd always wanted to do since
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he was a child, and was treating it with the seriousness it deserved.
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But it sounds like working for the Mountaineer PD did a lot to destroy Steve's
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passion for his job in a fairly short amount of time. Before we start
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analyzing this case, I should discuss Chief David Carson, who seems like a
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pretty sketchy character for starters, his real name was actually David Joseph Shanklin,
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but he apparently decided to change it after his father got married to his ex
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wife, which sounds like a pretty awkward situation to say the least. This
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decision may have also been motivated by the fact that Carson had an extensive criminal
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record for misdemeanors under his former name. Believe it or not. While Carson
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was police chief, David Joseph Shanklin still had an active warrant on him in
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Hamilton County, Ohio, which stemmed from a nineteen seventy five arrest for passing
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bad checks. Since the war was only applicable in Ohio, Shanklin slash Carson
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did not have to worry about it, so he was able to be certified
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as a law enforcement officer in New Mexico and became police chief of Mountainair in
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September of nineteen eighty seven. Oooh okay, I'm shaking my head, going,
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wait, what if you have an active warrant in another state? I
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feel like you should still not be qualified to serve and protect when you're passing
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bad checks and doing many misdemeanors, whether your name's the same or not,
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and whether you've moved or not, very interesting. It is to me concerning
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that he does have Yes they're misdemeanors, but he has his history of being
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willing to break the law if he's passing bad checks, is he in financial
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distress? Is he one of those people who just doesn't care and believes he's
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above the law. Either way, I don't think it puts him in a
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very good position to be police chief of a even a small little town,
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because to me, it shows questionable judgment and a lack of ethics and responsibility.
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Yes, people can change, Yes people go through phases, but this
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wasn't like it was, you know, thirty five years ago. It was
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at the time of Steve's death. It was just thirteen years before he had
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that warrant signed for the bad checks. So he had to start a law
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enforcement career pretty quickly after these misdemeanors had been on his record. And so
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I'm wondering how quickly this someone changed should become this perfect law abiding citizen when
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they've had a history of multiple run ins with law enforcement themselves. And correct
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me if I'm wrong. Maybe one of you two know, But with law
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enforcement officers, don't they have to provide their financial information to their employer because
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they need to be beyond reproach in the sense that if there are major financial
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issues or deep into debt, say they've got a gambling addiction, even if
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gambling is legal there, then that could potentially open them up to making really
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rash or poor decisions, like say they do a drug bust and they decide
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to keep the drugs or keep money that they find because they need to pay
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off you know, Peter or Paul over there. I think there are departments
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like that, or especially federal government, when you get into like you know,
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FBI and things like that. I know that they ask, you know,
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for everything but your first child. But when you look at a small
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town where there's only four officers operating there, I doubt the hiring procedures are
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strict. We're in a tiny little town. I guarantee you it's not as
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difficult to get through the hoops here in a tiny little town of two thousand
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people as it is in let's say Dallas, Texas or San Francisco or something
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like that. I just don't think there's a big pool to pull from and
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so and there's, like you said, not as many resources are personnel able
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to do the background checks and things like that, so I think it's just
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more lax in a small town police department. That's what I'm thinking as well.
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Because it was the nineteen eighties, it's not clear to me if they
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found out about his previous criminal history, or if they just missed it in
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the background check, or if they did know about it but just didn't care
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because they figured, Well, the arrest warrant is only applicable in Ohio,
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so it's not really our problem here. But like you said, people can
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change after they make mistakes to commit crimes. But the problem is that he
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still had an act of warrants, so he never showed up in course court
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to face his charge or take full responsibility. And that definitely paints a picture
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of someone who has no remorse about his past mistakes and has not really changed
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his spots. But here's the craziest antidote about Carson. He actually has a
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connection to an entirely different case which was featured on Unsolved Mysteries and took place
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in another state. On February eleventh, nineteen ninety one, a young married
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couple named Eric and Pam Ellender were murdered inside their home in Sulfur, Louisiana.
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They both had received fatal shotgun blast to the head while they were in
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their bed, and their infant daughter was in the house of the time,
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though thankfully she was left unharmed. The following day, eighteen year old Chris
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Prudeholm and three accomplices were arrested for driving eric stolen car after a sought off
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shotgun was found in Prudholm's apartment. He quickly confessed to killing the Ellanders and
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was indicted on two counts of first degree murder. Over two weeks later,
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his body would be found hanging from torn bed sheets inside the shower room of
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the Calcasoux Correctional Center, and this left Prudeholm in a coma for nine days
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before he died. A suicide note was found in pru Udoam cell which he
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took sole responsibility for the murders and claimed that he enjoyed them. While the
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Calcashu Paris Sheriff's department believed Prudholm was the lone perpetrator and officially closed the case,
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but the reason it got featured on Unsolved Mysteries was because Pam's father believed
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other people were involved in the murders and that they were part of a satanic
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called the Skaters, an acronym for Satan's kids against the establishment. Yeah,
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what can I say? It was the early nineties and people loved their satanic
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panic Anyway, Prudholm's three accomplices who were busted in the stolen car alongside him
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did get charged with being accessories after the fact, and that's pretty much where
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the investigation ended. But here's how this connects to Steve Sandlin's case. David
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Carson lost his job as Mountainair police chief in March of nineteen ninety, and
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there was a lot of conflicting stories about whether he resigned or was fired.
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Afterward, Carson moved to Louisiana and became an intake officer at the Calcashue Parish
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Jail. According to another employee, the shower room where Prudholm was found hanging
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could only be accessed by deputies who possessed special rovers keys. One of these
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deputies was Carson, and he reportedly left prudholme into the shower room before he
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hung himself. Another inmate would also claim that Carson had forced him to sign
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a false witness statement classifying Prudholm's death as a suicide. Rumors circulated that Carson
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had Prudhom killed in order to prevent him from implicating other people in the Ellender
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murders, including the Calcashoe Parish sheriff's son. Now, if you've heard Robin's
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views on the case, you'll know that he does not believe there was a
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major conspiracy or a satanic called the Skaters. And it's very unlikely that Carson
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murdered Chris Prudeholme the Carson murdered Chris Prudholm to protect anyone. But even though
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Carson's name was never mentioned in the Unsolved True segment about the Islanders, it's
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pretty crazy that you would be involved in two separate cases from the show which
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otherwise had nothing to do with each other. This is very, very crazy,
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And like you said, is there a link to actually his responsibility in
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one or either of them? Not necessarily, but it's just odd. It's
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very bizarre, and it's eerie that you have a Carson holding keys to a
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place where this inmate hangs himself, and then you have where we're pretty sure
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he at least would be aware of more information than he let on around his
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own department and Steve's death. So, oh, man, the story about
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Carson from the time you told me his dad married Carson's ex wife and he
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has this criminal record. It's just so out there and out of this world.
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I don't know what to say, but it's really pitiful that you have
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this another murder case and Carson's tied to it, and up on on some
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mysteries as well. Very very interesting. Yeah, it certainly seems like trouble
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seems to follow this guy around wherever he goes, and you start to wonder
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that this just cannot be a coincidence. So now let's get back to the
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Steve Sandland case. I'll state right from the outset that I do not believe
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Steve's death was a suicide or accident. Yes, in so many of these
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cases where a victim is suspected of completing suicide, their loved ones will always
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say it couldn't have happened that way because they were not the sort of person
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who would kill themselves. But that doesn't necessarily mean that people who looked fine
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in the outside might not have had some inner demons which compelled them to take
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their own life. These types of things do happen, but I really don't
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think it's likely in this particular case. I have my doubts that a young
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man with a Beyonce and an infant son, who was making plans for Mother's
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Day right before he was killed, would suddenly decide to shoot himself over a
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disagreement with his boss. It's true that Steve was becoming a bit disillusioned with
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his job, but he still had a whole lot going on for him,
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so suicide is a very implausible scenario here. The autopsy also concluded that the
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god might have been as much as two feet away from Steve's head when it
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was fired. And I have my doubts that someone planning to kill themselves would
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do this, since that increases the possibility that a suicide attempt won't be successful.
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Yeah, everything here is too new for someone to be suicidal at this
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point. I think, like you said, he has a fiance, he
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has an infant son, and they're making plans for Mother's Day. Mother's Day
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is clearly a big deal when you have an eighteen month old little one,
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moms worked hard. This is the first Mother's Day. He can actually help
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you make a little craft and fun things like that you know, And so
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I don't know. I just think he has this new job, he's got
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this sweet little family that he's growing, and he has a job that he's
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passionate about. Remember, he wanted to follow in dad's footsteps, and he's
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only eight weeks on the job. Getting confronted about being too ambitious at week
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eight is not a reason to melt down and to feel distressed. He's frustrated
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because I'm doing my job the way I'm supposed to the way my dad taught
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me to do it, and this man isn't respecting that, and he calls
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his wife to vent. That's all that was. He wasn't so distraught about
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his career that he was thinking of ending his life. I just don't buy
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it. And when the autopsy says that the gun could have been as far
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as two feet away from his head, you're absolutely right. Anyone who says
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I'm gonna, you know, inflict a life ending wound is not going to
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hold the gun away from their head. If you did survive, you wouldn't
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have any brain function and things like that. So it's just it's just not
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possible. I have to be with the family sentiment that says, just no
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way in this case. Even if he was frustrated enough that he was disillusioned
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and he was wondering like, Okay, maybe there this isn't the town for
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me. I mean, I don't like my boss. There could be some
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other things going on here. He has the possibility to transfer somewhere else.
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He's young, he's only eight weeks into the job. His father has that
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in with the Albuquerque Police. There's so many different potential situations where he could
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find employment elsewhere to think that he got into a minor argument about parking tickets,
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like who cares in the grand scheme of things, Like Ash said,
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it's just venting to his wife. If he was going to end his own
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life over this, why would he do it in the police station. Most
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people who typically tend to end their own lives don't do it as a statement
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making thing in a public place. It just none of it makes sense.
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The playing with the gun doesn't make sense. It's so obvious that this is
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murder. It's just atrocious police work. That the scene wasn't properly sealed off,
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the evidence wasn't collected in a way that the police department should have done
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so. By some kind of forensic standards, and that they just were so
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quick to say, oh, was likely a suicide or or an accident because
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he liked to play with his gun. It makes me even more suspicious of
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them, the fact that they suggested that explanation that he could have been playing
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with his gun. Because I was the son of a police officer, I
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just find it so unlikely the gun safety wasn't ingrained in him from a very
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young age, and that now as a police officer, it's been like he's
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been hit over the head with it because he's had to go through all that
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training. Like actually brought up in Part one that he would have learned how
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to handle a gun, how to store a gun, how to use a
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gun, so that you're so comfortable with it. It's like an extra appendage.
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It's not something where he's just gonna like pull out this dangerous thing when
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he has no intention of using it. It just none of this makes sense.
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And then there's Chief Carson's theory that Steve's death was an accident because he
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was playing with his gun, like I just mentioned, and it accidentally went
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off. Well, I guess the theory might make sense was if Steve was
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eight years old. Otherwise, I think it's pretty insulting. In fact,
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I have a few feeling that any police officer who has had weapons training would
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find the idea insulting. Yes, there are documented cases in which cops were
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killed or injured because they mishandled their gun and it went off accidentally. But
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by all accounts, Steve was a very responsible police officer who took his job
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very seriously. And it's hard for me to believe that a twenty one year
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old man would feel compelled to pull out a loaded gun and play with it
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like some kid until it discharged and killed him. It's interesting how Chief Carson
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kind of contradicted himself in interviews where he expressed his reasons why he didn't believe
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that Steve was murdered. During his Unsolved Mysteries interview, Carson stated that Steve
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was just too good of an officer for someone to get the drop on him,
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grab his gun and shoot him with it. But wait, if you
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think he was such a good officer, why would you also believe that he
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would be irresponsible enough to play with a loaded gun. As far as I'm
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concerned, the fact that there was insignificant an ammounsive gunpowder residue on Steve's hands
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seems to cancel the possibility that he could have fired the gun himself, intentionally
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or otherwise. Since his death was eventually reclassified as a homicide, i'day's pretty
19:14
clear cut that he was a victim of foul play. But the big unanswered
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question here is how did it happen and who was involved? I think about
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it like this too. Remember he's telling his wife that he's alone at the
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station. He is basically just a security guard, and he's kind of smart
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smart alec about the fact that if that's what they want me to do,
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that's what I'll be. And he's frustrated. Is it possible that, since
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it's so slow there, that he's alone, that he takes his gun off
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of his hole, like out of his holster or off of his belt like
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in the holster and sets it on the table or something like that to get
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comfortable because he's sitting for a long period of time, and someone comes in
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and takes it off the or grabs it over his shoulder or something like that.
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Is it possible that someone had another weapon or threatened him and said give
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me your gun, right and he's going, uh, and it happened that
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way, or it is possible that they stun him and overpower him and take
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his gun. But you don't see like much bodily injury or any sign of
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a struggle supposedly at the scene. I think there's multiple ways someone could have
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gotten their hands on his gun. And we know for a fact that the
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shell casings are the striations on the bullets that they all match his weapon specifically,
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not just his type of weapon. Yeah, that's correct, Okay,
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So it's not like it could have been another issued weapon that's the same making
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and model. I think he could have been I think he could have been
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overpowered. I think he could have been lackadaisical and stuck his holster up on
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the table. And I think he could have been threatened and handed over his
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gun. That seems least likely because as a law enforcement agent, you going
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to have to kill me to get it. But there's a lot of scenarios
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that could have occurred in that situation. If it was someone that he knew
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or trusted, he wouldn't have had his guard up too, and they would
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have been able to approach him, get close enough and just go for the
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gun because he would never assume that he would be under threat or that somebody
21:18
would be taking his weapon. What if someone even said something to the effect
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of, hey man, I need to see your service weapon. I'm I
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might I got to trade it out, or we're going to take it and
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do something with it. I mean, theoretically, if you think Chief Carson
21:32
was the trigger man, it could have been a thing Steve, I need
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you to hand over your gun for a second, and then he just takes
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the gun and shoots him. That's true, And the gun was never tested
21:41
correct for fingerprints or anything like that because they thought it was a quote suicide.
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I think they probably would have checked it at some point. But it's
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also possible that whoever fired the gun could have wiped it clean a fingerprints.
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I mean, I don't trust him for an air PD. But since this
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was investigated by the Attorney General's office, I'd liked that they that they did
22:00
eventually look into that. But I mean they did fire their assistant Attorneys General
22:06
who was looking really hard into this case. So like, I just don't
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know how much faith I haven't anybody that's true. Yes, well, I'd
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say there's a good chance that Steve's death was somehow connected to the arrest of
22:17
Melvin King and the Big Drug Bus, which netted around one hundred thousand dollars
22:21
worth of marijuana from his home. Since King was released on bond, he
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was definitely a free man at the time Steve was killed. He told investigators
22:30
he was not an Ountain air on that particular evening. But I have no
22:33
idea if this was ever verified. Now for years. One aspect of this
22:37
story, which was downplayed during the Unsaw Mystery segment, was a woman being
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heard in the background during Steve's final conversation with Michelle Sturdevant, as they never
22:48
really addressed who this woman could have been. Michelle said she thought it sounded
22:52
like she heard yelling, but Steve apparently told her that the woman was looking
22:55
for the town hall. The building which housed the police station was too flo
23:00
with town hall making up the first floor and the station making up the second.
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At first, I wondered if this woman might have had no relation to
23:07
the case and was just a random citizen who wandered in asking for directions,
23:11
but left before Steve was killed. However, there's one major problem. This
23:17
woman never came forward and has never been identified. Mountain Era is a very
23:22
small town and Steve's death was a pretty big deal there, so if the
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woman was a local resident, it's hard to believe she wouldn't have heard about
23:30
what happened. If she had no involvement, why not clarify that with the
23:33
authorities. While I have a theory about who this woman probably was, Melvin
23:40
King had a girlfriend named Susan Sprague, who also ran into trouble with the
23:44
law. Three days after the drug bust at King's house, Sprague's house was
23:48
searched and she was arrested after a small quantity of marijuana, along with some
23:52
drug paraphernalia, was found there. It was suspected that the couple was in
23:56
the business of distributing marijuana together. But of course, once all those drugs
24:02
went missing from the Torrance County Sheriff's office, the charges against both King and
24:06
Sprague were dropped. We know King died in two thousand and four, but
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I have no idea what happened to Sprague. If King was involved in Steve's
24:15
death, there would not surprise me if he sent Sprague into the police station
24:18
to keep Steve distracted until someone else got the drop on him and used his
24:23
own gun to shoot him. Obviously, Steve would have recognized King if he
24:27
walked into the station, but since Sprague was arrested by the state Police,
24:32
not the Mountaineer PD, I'm not sure if Steve would have known her.
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Of course, if King was the trigger man, he could never be prosecuted
24:40
for the murder since he's dead. But it seems unlikely that he would have
24:44
acted alone and someone in law enforcement had to be complicit in what happened.
24:48
Yeah, I think there's this feeling that the lack of concern for the fifty
24:52
four pounds of marijuana that were supposedly just scattered in the corner and eventually moved
24:57
to a trailer that was broken into. How would anyone know where those drugs
25:03
were unless someone said, oh, yeah, we just moved those over to
25:07
the trailer, or hey, guys, heads up, it's in this trailer
25:10
over there and there's not good security on it. Hey, heads up,
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we have a single officer alone at the station right now. It's just very
25:18
bizarre how convenient almost everything seems. If you did have a drug ring going
25:22
on, where the evidence was stolen, where one of the arresting officers was
25:29
murdered. Are the police. Is there someone of those four individuals who works
25:33
there that's getting a kickback from King and Sprague, or is it completely unrelated
25:38
to law enforcement and it just happens to be this drug ring that's operating and
25:41
wants to eliminate one of the arresting officers. Either way, it is very
25:48
difficult to look away from King and his girlfriend as potential suspects in this case.
25:53
Another important detail is that Steve ordinarily did patrol when he was on duty,
25:59
and he was specific complaining to Michelle on the phone that if they want
26:03
me to be a security guard, I'll be a security guard. So it
26:06
sounds like it wasn't a common practice for him to work shifts inside the police
26:11
station. So it makes you wonder if someone from law enforcement told King or
26:15
whoever the killer was, that Steve would be there on that particular night.
26:19
Ooh, like he got in trouble that night and he said, you're just
26:22
going to sit your rear in at this destiny and take it easy, man.
26:26
You don't need to be on the streets. And then he's actually getting
26:29
set up to be murdered. So if the mountaineer Peedi was involved. There's
26:34
a good reason to be suspicious of Chief Carson. We know that Stephen Carson
26:38
had a conversation earlier that day about Steve writing too many traffic tickets, though
26:45
it sounded like they each had differing opinions about how he did. This conversation
26:48
was but since Steve had recently expressed concern to his father that there was something
26:53
going on in the town which he did not like, I have to think
26:57
that there was more to this disagreement than traffic tickets. The biggest issue with
27:02
Carson is that he really doesn't have a credible alibi for the twenty five minute
27:07
window between seven oh five and seven thirty, which is the approximate time period
27:11
when Steve was killed. When questioned about his whereabouts, Carson reportedly said he
27:17
quote blocked out, which is not a very satisfactory answer. There were also
27:22
multiple witnesses who were certain they saw Carson's patrol car parked outside the police station
27:27
between seven fifteen and seven twenty five. If it was just one or two
27:33
eye witnesses, I could chalk them up to being mistaken. But there were
27:37
apparently several witnesses who remembered seeing the vehicle there, and when you couple into
27:41
Edmundo Diaz's account of Carson appearing to be very upset when he picked him up
27:45
at seven point thirty, there are some disturbing implications here. And then there
27:51
are strange circumstances of how Steve's body was discovered in the first place, as
27:56
Eugene Wright claimed he walked into the station, saw Steve's body and radioed Carson.
28:00
Yet when Wright was questioned by Army investigators, they seemed to think that
28:06
he was withholding information and knew more than he was telling. There just seemed
28:10
to be an awful lot of discrepancies during the forty five minute window between when
28:15
Steve finished his phone conversation with his fiance and when Chief Carson radioed for medical
28:19
assistance. What's also scary is remember Wright said that if he told the truth
28:25
of what happened, that he was going to go to jail. And yet
28:27
he's buddy buddy with Carson because he directly calls him right like he makes a
28:32
personal call to the chief of police after he finds the body. Oh yeah,
28:36
Like he was friends with Carson's son. So I could definitely see him
28:40
a lying about what happened. If he was asked to, now, tell
28:44
me, why was he in the police department in the first place, Why
28:48
did he even stumble upon Steve's body, That's a good question. I'm not
28:52
sure that was ever specified. I mean, he could easily say, well,
28:55
I'm friends with Carson's son. Maybe he thought that the chief would be
28:59
working there and he decided to go in to see him. But maybe.
29:03
I mean, the Army hasn't released many details about the discrepancies in right story
29:07
and what they think he's withholding, So maybe he did not provide a convincing
29:11
story about why he was in the police station in the first place, and
29:15
that's why they became suspicious. It's also incredibly strange that no one from the
29:21
Mountaineer Police Department bothered to show up for Steve's funeral. I know Carson claimed
29:26
the experience would have been quote unquote too emotional for himself and his men,
29:30
but my god, I think the vast majority of police officers will tell you
29:34
that if one of your own is killed in the line of duty, then
29:37
you show up at their funeral, regardless of what your personal feelings about the
29:41
victim might be. If Steve's father could convince several members of the Albuquerque Police
29:47
Department to make the nearly eighty mile trip to Mountaineer to pay their respects,
29:51
then it's ridiculous that Steve's fellow officers could do the same thing. I mean,
29:56
even Frank Peeler, who was roommates with Steve for a brief period time,
30:00
didn't even attend, and then one week later he suddenly resigns from the
30:03
police force. There are just nothing but red flags here. All that being
30:08
said, I'm not sure that anyone from the Mountaineer PD actually pulled the trigger
30:14
and shot Steve. Remember, one year later, we had a statement from
30:18
a witness who claimed that a law enforcement officer from another agency had confessed to
30:22
murdering Steve. Though it sounds like this part of the investigation was never followed
30:26
up on because James Scarantino got fired from the Attorney General's office. But if
30:32
this story is true, then it would not surprise me if the law enforcement
30:36
officer who made this alleged confession belonged to the Torrance County Sheriff's office. That
30:41
place sounded like an even bigger mess than the Mountaineer PD. They somehow managed
30:47
to lose fifty four pounds of marijuana, and Sheriff Gary Watts and three of
30:51
his deputies would later be indicted on charges of larceny and conspiracy. So you
30:56
can pretty much connect the dots here. Stealing fifty four pounds of drugs from
31:00
a trailer outside a police station is pretty brazen, so would not surprise me
31:04
if this so called theft never actually happened. I could chalk it up to
31:10
police incompetence. Where not for the discrepancies about when this theft occurred. Sheriff
31:15
Watts claimed the marijuana was stolen one week after Steve was killed, but five
31:19
bags of marijuana were found inside Steve's kitchen drawer only three days after his death.
31:26
Since there appeared to be a police evidence tape on the bags, I
31:29
have to believe this was some of the same marijuana which was seized from Melvin
31:33
King's house and booked into evidence at the Torrance County Sheriff's office. Otherwise where
31:38
else could it have come from. When you couple in the fact that Steve's
31:41
tape recordings of his traffic stops also went missing from his house. With that
31:45
explanation, then you can't come to any other conclusion than there being a cover
31:51
up here. And you've got to remember both of these departments are in on
31:55
this single drug deal, right like one's arresting Melvin and one's arresting the girlfriend.
32:00
Is that correct? Yeah, that is true. They were both arrested
32:05
in different places. And even though the Mountaineer PD sees the marijuana, they
32:08
obviously trusted the Torrance County Sheriff's Office enough to allow them to store it inside
32:14
their police station because there wasn't any places inside the Mountaineer station. So it's
32:19
possible that the anger, like you said, is coming from the Torrance County
32:22
Sheriff's office. And they all know each other. It's one big circle,
32:27
and so it's possible there is a loyalty of those four officers who serve in
32:32
the police department to help protect guys that are in the sheriff's office. And
32:37
if Steve's a problem for the sheriff's office, their attague could be like,
32:39
well, you're kind of a problem for us too, and therefore, maybe
32:43
the police department's not responsible for his death. But they didn't care enough to
32:47
investigate because there was an assumption that they're friends and individuals who are part of
32:52
the sheriff's department were the ones involved and they were just going to look the
32:55
other way and correct me if I'm wrong, But say like they somehow are
33:01
all involved together in, you know, doing illegal things, and Steve is
33:06
a problem. Typically doesn't a sheriff's department. They aren't accountable in the same
33:10
way that a police department is to the mayor. Isn't that correct? Uh?
33:15
That would make sense because the Mountain Air PD is part of the city,
33:20
whereas the sheriff's office is part of the entire county. So I never
33:24
really thought about that, but that would make sense that a sheriff's office would
33:28
not have to be accountable towards the town mayor. So there if it's like
33:32
the fish rotting from the head and the entire department is corrupt. If you
33:37
had somebody who was problematic, and you know you had somebody there who was
33:40
willing to take that person out, you might go, oh, we can't
33:45
physically do it ourselves, but maybe these guys will help us out. And
33:49
that would make sense because if Carson, Diaz, and Peeler, even if
33:53
they were not personally involved in Steve's death, they still could be feeling like
33:57
underlying guilt over the fact that they let it happened, and that could explain
34:00
why they never bothered to attend his funeral, even if they were not the
34:05
ones who killed him. The discovery of the marijuana in Steve's house is pretty
34:09
bizarre, and I'm not quite sure what purpose it was supposed to serve.
34:15
It was possibly an attempt to discredit Steve in order to make it look like
34:19
he was stealing drugs, But if that was a case, how come it
34:22
wasn't discovered during the initial searches by law enforcement and was only found by Steve's
34:28
fiance and mother days later. The house was searched by numerous agencies, including
34:34
the new Mexico Attorney General's office, and I have a hard time believing they
34:37
all could have missed it, especially since it was hiding in plain sight.
34:43
No, the marijuana had to have been planted there. Perhaps they wanted to
34:46
make Steve look like an unstable drug addict who was stealing evidence to Pete's habit,
34:52
but there were no traces of drugs found in his system, or this
34:55
was done to give off the impression that Steve had been murdered by drug dealers.
35:00
Because he was stealing marijuana from them. Do people typically steal marijuana from
35:04
drug dealers? Guys? Is that a thing? And if they do it
35:07
doesn't lead to murder? No? Yeah, but that doesn't make much sense
35:12
either, since Chief Carson had strongly pushed forward the theory that there was no
35:15
foul play and Steve's death was a suicide or an accident. Surprisingly, during
35:22
his interview on Unsolved Mysteries, Carson did not discount the idea that someone could
35:27
have planted the marijuana in Steve's house, so it might have actually been done
35:30
without his knowledge. Given that the drugs were supposedly in the possession of the
35:36
Torrans County Sheriff's Office at the time, they were probably the ones who set
35:39
this in motion. It also could not be a coincidence that Steve was killed
35:45
the very day after he spoke to investigators from the New Mexico Attorney General's Office.
35:51
They never publicly released any information on what they spoke about, but Steve
35:54
had previously expressed concern to his father that there were things going on in Mountain
36:00
Air which he did not approve of. It's unclear just how much Steve knew
36:05
or what he revealed to investigators. But even if he didn't know or reveal
36:09
that much, someone might have become paranoid that Steve was a liability and could
36:15
expose something very incriminating. When Chief Carson spoke with Steve on the afternoon of
36:21
May seventh and advised him to slow things down and take it easy, this
36:24
may have been a last ditch attempt to rein him in. But once it
36:29
became a parent that Steve wasn't going to play ball, the final decision might
36:32
have been made to get rid of him that night absolutely, Or it could
36:37
be that Chief Carson truly was like, oh my gosh, I'm hearing rumors
36:39
that this kid's a problem, and I'm worried for him. So he's like,
36:43
listen, man, you gotta knock it off, right. He's maybe
36:45
trying to warn him and protect him, and it comes off in a confrontational
36:51
way, but it's it's insane when you think about the fact that they're assuming
36:55
this is a suicide, and so if they're doing an investigation is home what
37:01
were they What were they looking for? In my opinion, it would be
37:05
something like, was there a suicide note left? Was there evidence of him
37:08
being harassed or stocked at the time, or distress in his home or things
37:13
like that. You would look in the drawers, wouldn't you if you're looking
37:15
for any kind of evidence that like, why investigate if it's a suicide at
37:22
the police department? Why were they at his house in the first place?
37:24
And if they were there to try to get a bigger picture, why wouldn't
37:30
they thoroughly actually investigate. Yeah, it just seems like the marijuana was probably
37:36
not there during the original searches, and that for reasons on zone someone decided
37:39
to plan it there before Steve's family paid a visit. But once again,
37:43
that just seems pretty pointless because if you're not going to allow law enforcement to
37:46
find it, then what's the point And why why do an investigation anyway,
37:51
If you think it's a suicide because you're looking for those missing cassette tapes,
37:54
you want to find those because they might have incriminating information. Yeah, they
37:59
probably he defind those. That's why they've never been seen ever since. It's
38:05
tough to know who exactly would have been involved in this conspiracy, but my
38:07
guess is that it all started with Melvin King. King seemed to have a
38:12
major marijuana distribution operation going on in the area at that time, and it's
38:16
my guess that some members of local law enforcement were complicit or at the very
38:21
least paid off by King to look the other way. However, when Steve
38:24
pulled King over for drunk driving, busted him from possession, and obtained a
38:30
warrant to search King's house in order to uncover over fifty pounds of marijuana,
38:34
he stirred up a major hornet's nest. This would definitely explain why the tape
38:37
recordings of his traffic stops mysteriously disappeared. Now, I'm willing to believe that
38:44
at the outset, at least Chief Carson in the Mountaineer PD had no knowledge
38:47
or involvement with King's drug operation. They actually worked with Steve to obtain the
38:52
search warrant for King's house and confiscated all his drugs, and I have a
38:57
feeling that they would not have gone along with this if they were on King's
39:00
payroll. But I do think that other law enforcement agencies, most likely the
39:05
Torrance County Sheriff's Office, were involved with King's operation, which is why all
39:09
the marijuana evidence went missing and the charges against King wound up being dropped.
39:15
Since King was released on bond shortly after he was arrested, I'm sure he
39:20
believed this young, ambitious, straight ro cop who busted him could pose a
39:23
potential problem, so he ultimately made the call to have Steve eliminated. Remember,
39:30
King's girlfriend, Susan Sprague, was also facing her own drug charges,
39:35
which is why I think she was the woman heard in the background during Steve's
39:38
final phone call. She was probably sent in his bait to keep Steve distracted
39:43
until someone got the drop on him and had him killed. This was probably
39:47
necessary so that they could get their hands on Steve's gun and shoot him with
39:52
it, making it easier to craft a cover story that he either completed suicide
39:55
or was killed accidentally when his weapon discharged. Now, it's hard to know
40:00
who exactly was involved in this and who actually pulled the trigger. It's tempting
40:06
to saying that it was Melvin King, but we do have an alleged confession
40:08
by a law enforcement officer from another agency who claimed he shot Steve. I
40:14
can actually believe King might not have been present at the scene when the murder
40:17
took place, because Steve would have recognized him and been on his guard if
40:22
he saw King entering the station. But if the perpetrator was another police officer,
40:27
then it probably would have been much easier to catch Steve by surprise,
40:30
and like we talked about, it'd be easier to get that service weapon away
40:34
from him. I don't think if you were confronted by somebody and they said
40:38
give me your service weapon, I don't see someone just handing it over.
40:44
I see them getting a scuffle fussed with them. If you don't have a
40:46
weapon and you want mine, we're going to have to fight over it,
40:51
you know what I mean. And I just don't see that being the case.
40:52
I could see him being more relaxed and maybe having removed his holster from
40:57
his belt. I could see another officer asking, like to check a service
41:01
weapon or ask him to show him a service weapon or something like that,
41:05
and him falling for that. I do think it has to be involved in
41:09
this drug bust. There's too many bizarre elements and mishandling of an entirely too
41:15
big of an ordeal right to not follow a protocol for the Sheriff's Department to
41:21
maybe not be caught up in the drug deals with Melvin and that girlfriend would
41:24
be the perfect cover because Steve had never seen her, the Sheriff's department had
41:29
seen her, and so I totally bide this an area. You just described
41:34
that Melvin King is somehow working with the Sheriff's department and they use the girlfriend
41:38
as bait to help kind of distract Steve from being on his game in that
41:43
moment. Just who was it that assisted in that moment? Was it another
41:46
law enforcement agent? Was it King? Was it somebody that wasn't known yet
41:52
to Steve. It's no, it's so difficult to figure out who and what
41:55
was accountable here now, regardless of who pulled the trigger, I think there
42:01
were at least three people who did not tell the truth about what happened and
42:06
are involved, Chief Carson, Edmundo Diaz, and Eugene Wright, the soldier
42:12
who supposedly discovered Steve's body. I can't say that any of these people were
42:15
actually present and actively participated in Steve's murder, but at the very least they
42:21
helped cover something up and lied to the authorities. It all depends on the
42:25
timeline. The only reported gunshot that came from a witness who thought they heard
42:30
one at seven sixteen, and there are witnesses who were called seeing Carson's patrol
42:36
car parked outside the station between seven fifteen and seven twenty five. If these
42:42
accounts are accurate, then at the very least, Carson was present when Steve
42:45
was shot, and whoever was involved probably spent the next twenty to thirty minutes
42:50
fabricating a cover story before they called for medical assistance. It's possible that DEAs
42:55
and Wright were not present for the murder, but Carson enlisted their help to
43:00
back up his cover story, as Wright was a friend of Carson's son.
43:04
But as far as the actual trigger man who shot Steve, it may have
43:07
been someone we don't even know about. If the confession is accurate and it
43:12
was really a law enforcement officer from another agency, then perhaps it was someone
43:15
from the Torrance County Sheriff's office who was involved in me who was involved in
43:21
Melvin King's drug operation. Is there any chance that Carson's son had something to
43:25
do with it? Where right is there and happens to show up like,
43:30
is there a way bay link him in because Carson's son helps carry something off?
43:36
I actually don't have any information about Carson's son because They've never mentioned him
43:39
in any articles. I have no idea if he was even in Mountain Air
43:44
during that time period, so yeah, if he was involved, they've never
43:47
publicly named him regardless. This is just a very sad tale of an honest
43:53
young man who was finally living his dream of becoming a police officer and only
43:58
wanted to do the right thing, but ended up getting swallowed up in a
44:00
web of corruption. When he pulled over Melvin King for what seemed like a
44:05
routine dui, he inadvertently wound up getting embroiled in something which was a lot
44:08
bigger than he expected and led to him ultimately being killed. Sadly, after
44:15
all this time, I'm not sure if any of the people who were involved
44:17
could still be indicted for their roles in Steve's murder. Melvin King is now
44:22
dead, and while David Carson was still alive at the time I released my
44:25
original Trail and Cold episode, he passed away in January of twenty twenty three.
44:31
But even if Steve's killers are never brought to justice, at the very
44:35
least, his death was reclassified as a homicide, and the same police station
44:39
where he was killed is now named after him. That's how he deserves to
44:44
be remembered, rather than as someone who completed suicide on the job or was
44:47
killed because he was playing around with his gun. However, since multiple people
44:52
were likely involved in what happened, someone out there probably still knows something and
44:58
could come forward with the full truth and provide closure for Steve's loved ones.
45:01
So if you happen to have any information on the unsolved death of Steve Sandlin,
45:07
please contact the appropriate authorities. Jules Ashley any final thoughts in this case,
45:14
My heart really just goes out to Steve's family and the idea that he
45:17
had this young fiance and an eighteen month old baby, planning Mother's Day with
45:24
his love, right and getting to celebrate with his little one, and he's
45:30
murdered on the job, a job that he really had dedicated his life to
45:35
pursuing. Right, I'm going to be like my dad, I'm going to
45:37
serve and protect my community. And when he took that oath and he put
45:42
that badge on, he meant it. He was going to do his job.
45:45
He was going to protect the streets, he was going to get drugs
45:49
off the streets. And then he calls his wife and he says, if
45:52
they want me to be a security guard, I guess I'll just be a
45:53
security guard. He's getting in trouble for doing his job, which is enraging
46:00
to him, and that's the last time his wife's gonna hear his voice.
46:04
He's killed in his place of employment. And what do they do. Everybody
46:09
turns their back on Steve. They don't just turn their back on Steve by
46:14
not attending the funeral and doing the right thing. They turned their back on
46:19
the widow and the eighteen month old baby who he left behind. And so
46:22
at the end of the day, the only beauty in this case is that
46:27
you see, twenty five years after his murder, you see the very police
46:32
department that he served step up and say to his fiance and his son,
46:37
we cared about Steve, we care about his legacy. In fact, we're
46:43
going to name a building after him in erect a statue because he deserved better
46:46
and you deserved better. And so I love that Steve's son is growing up
46:52
knowing who his father was and that he was a hero and someone who was
46:55
pursuing this beautiful career. But what a tragedy to think at the very least
47:01
nobody cared enough to investigate this thoroughly, and at the very worst, the
47:06
men he had taken that oath with might be responsible for it. I feel
47:12
so terribly for the family. It must have felt like this abandonment, dealing
47:16
with the death of her fiance and the father having a child there, and
47:22
knowing that the police department they didn't have the constitution to show up. They
47:29
were too distraught by this. This is such a no no law enforcement departments
47:32
don't necessarily go, oh, you're too sad, you don't go to the
47:37
funeral. No, everybody goes. Everybody goes. It's so telling, especially
47:42
since Peeler, who had once lived with Steve that he resigns a week later.
47:46
I think if law enforcement at this point in time wanted to crack this
47:51
cold case, if Peeler is still alive, that would be the one that
47:53
I personally would lean on, because I think that although I don't believe he
47:59
was directly involved, I think that he would have information that could likely lead
48:04
to who was the perpetrator. But I am definitely inclined to think that the
48:07
Torrence County Sheriff's Department had something to do with it. But it seems to
48:10
be a conspiracy of many all linking back to King's one hundred thousand dollars marijuana
48:19
load that was confiscated and then stolen back, and part of it seems to
48:23
have been planted in Steve's home. To what end, we have no idea.
48:29
It's just such a confusing and convoluted case where it seems pretty clear that
48:36
multiple law enforcement agencies, given the fact that we had scandal In that was
48:40
at assistant district attorney, right that we had Scarantino who was fired while while
48:49
being assistant district attorney when he was digging deeply into this case and the investigators
48:54
were reassigned. It seems like he might have been getting too close to some
48:58
kind of answers that maybe would have put people in legal peril or like their
49:04
whole entire investigative unit or department could have been put in the hot seat.
49:10
And for whatever reason, multiple agencies seemed to potentially allegedly conspired together for this
49:17
strange type of silence. But things would have moved on by now, like
49:22
it's so many years later. We're looking at nearly forty years later, and
49:28
yet this isn't solved. When the landscape has entirely changed, so I'm just
49:34
curious as to why nobody has come forward with more information after all of these
49:37
years. Yeah. I remember being introduced to this case when I saw it
49:43
on Unsolved Mysteries over thirty years ago, and at the time, his death
49:46
was still classified as undetermined, and to me, this seemed like one of
49:50
the most obvious examples of a death being misclassified as a suicide or accident,
49:54
because it seemed pretty obvious that it was murdered, and unlike a lot of
49:59
these these other cases, they did finally reclassify it as a homicide, so
50:04
at least that kind of honored cees memory. They knew that he was a
50:07
victim on the line of duty who was not responsible for his own death,
50:12
and it is good to know that as time has gone on that the current
50:15
people in power have been trying to right this wrong and hopefully find justice for
50:20
him. But I think the problem is that so much time has passed,
50:22
a lot of the potential players on this are now dead, and a lot
50:27
of evidence was not preserved or it was lost, and there's probably still a
50:30
code of silence going on out there where there might be people who know the
50:34
truth but do not want to come forward. But yeah, this is just
50:37
so frustrating when you hear about a police officer who's actually passionate about his job,
50:43
wants to do the right thing, and then as a span of only
50:45
about eight weeks, he becomes completely disillusioned and says that this is not for
50:51
me, this job is not what I've expected. And I can only imagine
50:53
what he might have uncovered during that time period to make him feel that way.
50:58
And this is what beats a lot of good police officers down, where
51:01
if the system is so corrupt and broke in and a lot of bad people
51:06
are protecting each other, it can be very hard for like a good cop
51:09
to break through and do the right thing. And it sounds like Steve was
51:13
trying to do something but then wound up being killed before it could happen.
51:17
But like we said, at the very least, his wife and his former
51:22
fiance and his son who is now an adult, have finally got to experience
51:27
ceremonies which have honored his memory. He has a monument of him, and
51:30
he has an entire police station named after him, so they have done him
51:35
right. But until this case is conclusively solved, it's going to remain a
51:38
major travesty Robin. Do you want to tell us a little bit about the
51:42
trailment Cold Patreon? Yes, The Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
51:46
years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like early ad free episodes,
51:52
and I also send out stickers and sign thank you cards to anyone who
51:55
signs up with us on Patreon. If you join our five dollars tier tier
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two, we also offer monthly bonus episodes in which I talk about cases which
52:06
are not featured on the Trail Went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to
52:08
Patreon and if you join our highest tier tier three, the ten dollars tier.
52:14
One of the features we offer is a audio commentary track over classic episodes
52:19
of UNSAWD Mysteries, where you can download an audio file and then boot up
52:22
the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or YouTube and play it with my
52:29
audio commentary playing in the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about
52:32
the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very first episode that
52:37
I did a commentary track over was the episode featuring this case. So if
52:42
you want to download a commentary track in which I make more smart ass remarks
52:45
about jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join Tier three. So I want
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to let you know a little bit about the Jewles and nashty patreons. So
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there's early ad free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've got our Path
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Went Chili Vini's which are always over an hour, not very many, but
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they're just too short to turn into a series and we're really enjoying doing those.
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So we hope you'll check out those patreons will link them in the show
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notes. So I want to thank you all for listening, and any chance
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you have to share us on social media with a friend or to rate and
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review is greatly appreciate it. You can email us at The Pathwentchili at gmail
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dot com. You can reach us on Twitter at the Pathwink. So until
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next time, be sure to bundle up because cold trails and chili pass call
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for warm clothing. Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy