The Death of Sandy Maloney. Accident or Murder?

Sandra Maloney

Sandra (Sandy) Maloney was born on July 30, 1957 to Romana “Lola” Beale and Lavern Cator in Madison, Wisconsin.  Sandy had two brothers, Bill and Brad, and a sister named Wendy.  Sandy eventually moved to Green Bay where she graduated from Preble High School in 1976.  She married her high school sweetheart, John Maloney, in 1978 at St. Bernard’s Catholic Church.  The couple had three sons, Matt, Sean, and Aaron. Sandy was described as warm, caring, compassionate, and a loving mother.  She loved her children and her family and she enjoyed volunteering at the school her children attended.  

According to John, the first seven years of their marriage were bliss.  Sandy was working as a secretary while John was finishing up his criminal justice program and then eventually joined the police force.  According to a 2005 CBS News article by Rebecca Leung, the couple’s eldest son Matt said that the family started to crumble in the early 1990’s.  He said that Sandy had developed neck pain and along with it, a very serious addiction to prescription drugs.  Matt told Rebecca, “If she couldn’t get the pills from her doctors, her friends would provide it for her.  They were no help to her.”  

The addiction was so bad that if her sons needed a prescription, the local pharmacist would make them take the pill in front of him to ensure that Sandy wouldn’t take it, however, even that didn’t work.  According to Matt, “She’d tell me to slip it under my tongue and just keep it under there until we left the place.  And then I’d spit it out, and she’d take it when we left.”  

Unfortunately, her situation only got worse and was complicated by depression, panic disorder, and alcohol.  Matt said that they would find vodka bottles hidden around the house that would prompt fights between his mom and dad.  Fights that would include screaming, yelling, and slamming doors.  

According to John, he never abused Sandy during these fights, but there are records that Sandy complained about his violence toward her to her psychiatrist who stated that he had been shown bruises.  In response, Sandy’s sons said that their mom would do anything to get more drugs.  Matt said that when Sandy was drunk, she’d stumble and fall into everything, which would explain any bruises.  Police were called to the Maloney residence on several occasions, but there were no reports about abuse found.  Sean recalled that his mom would hit his dad during their fights, not the other way around.  

The final straw for John was in 1997 when Sandy drove the family car while highly intoxicated and slammed into a parked car.  John moved out, filed for divorce, and not long after got full custody of Matt, Sean, and Aaron.  After filing for divorce and moving out, John met Tracy Hellenbrand, a 28-year-old IRS agent, and the two started dating. 

What Happened? 

On February 10, 1998, Sandy spoke with her mom, Lola, on the phone three separate times.  The last call was in the evening and ended at about 6:00 pm.  During this call, Lola offered to drive to Green Bay the next day to check on her.  It’s about two hours and fifteen minutes from Madison to Green Bay so Lola likely hit the road fairly early as Sandy and John had their final custody hearing that morning.

When Lola arrived at Sandy’s house on the morning of February 11th, she found the side door was locked.  This was unusual as Sandy typically left that door unlocked.  However, Lola made her way to the front door and found that the broken latch was tied shut.  This, though, was normal and Lola proceeded inside.  

As she made her way inside the house, everything seemed off and she didn’t see Sandy.  She went upstairs, calling her daughter’s name, but never receiving a response.  She then went back downstairs and finally found Sandy.  Sandy was lying face down on the couch  and her body was completely burned.  Lola ran outside to her car where she called 911.  Within minutes, police and firefighters were on the scene.  While all this is happening, John Maloney attended the hearing, then went home in the hopes of finding out why Sandy didn’t show up. 

It doesn’t take long for John to find out, though.  Police went over to John’s house to break the news of Sandy’s death.  The officers that showed up were his colleagues and when they told him what had happened, John broke down.  While the officers were with John, his girlfriend, Tracy, showed up.  He told her what happened and by all accounts, she was very supportive and was there for him. 

John was described as a typical cop – wanting to put the bad guys away.  He was known for getting angry and aggressive with the “bad guys,” but was also described as being a devoted father.  He was also chosen for specialized training the spring prior to Sandy’s death as an arson investigator.  

Back at Sandy’s house, investigators found that the couch in the living room was destroyed by the fire with one side being more burnt than the other.  Sandy’s entire back was burned and her head and torso were found on the less burned side of the couch.  She was also found not wearing a shirt.  As investigators looked through the home, they found cigarette butts, matches, and empty vodka bottles in and around the couch.  At this point, police suggest that Sandy’s death was an accident and that she had fallen asleep with a lit cigarette in her mouth. 

Dr. Gregory Schmunk was the Chief Medical Examiner for Brown County at the time and said that this was one of the most problematic cases he had been involved with.  When it was time for the autopsy, Dr. Schmunk was out of town, so Dr. John Teggatz from Milwaukee County stepped in.  During the autopsy, beneath the layers of her burnt body, a small amount of soot was found in Sandy’s lungs, but the carbon dioxide level was only at 8% which meant that her cause of death wasn’t the fire.  

As he continued with the autopsy, Dr. Teggatz found a large gash on the top of Sandy’s head as well as marks on her neck that indicated strangulation.  Because of this her death was ruled as being caused by “probable” strangulation.  This doesn’t automatically mean her cause of death was murder, though.  Probable cause isn’t 100%. 

After receiving the autopsy report, though, police quickly changed Sandy’s manner of death from accidental to homicide.  Then they immediately start looking at John as their number one suspect.  Because John was a police officer, special prosecutor Joe Paulus was called in.  He was known as “Hollywood Joe” in the media because he loved a high profile case and he never lost.  

Once Paulus took over the investigation, the State Fire Investigator Greg Eggum and his team were asked to take a closer look at the crime scene.  Eggum said that it was an odd crime scene.  The doors to the house were shut and locked and there was no oxygen to feed the fire that was contained to the couch.  He said that the windows were all closed and that if the glass had shattered on any of them, the entire house would have gone up in flames, but because no oxygen was present to fuel the fire, it stayed contained to the couch.  

When Eggum was searching the couch, he found a number of matchbooks stuck inside pillows and a hat with a full book of matches inside.  He also found two unburnt tissues twisted up and stuck in the couch cushions.  He also found a pattern burnt into the rug that went from the coffee table to the couch which he believes suggested that an accelerant was used.  

Next, his team searched the basement and what they found down there was shocking.  They found blood everywhere – including footprints in blood.  They sprayed luminol and the basement lit up, like a Christmas tree, as they say.  There was blood in the shower and a bloody shirt was found in the hamper.  Testing was done and it was found that all of the blood belonged to Sandy. 

When they went back upstairs to continue the investigation, they found that the phone was off the hook.  They retrieved Sandy’s phone records because of this and found that Sandy had been on the phone with her mom until 6:15 pm the night before.  Then at 6:40 pm, all incoming calls got a busy signal which is when they believe the phone was taken off the hook.  But then, around 7:30, the phone started working again.  The crime scene investigation unit came in and determined that a small mechanism in the phone melted just enough for the line to reconnect.  

Because of these findings, they were able to determine that the fire had to be burning before 7:30 pm and Sandy must have died between 6:30 and 7:30 that evening. 

Investigation Into John Maloney

When police speak with John again, they find out he has an alibi for the night Sandy died.  John told investigators that he was home with Tracy and two of his sons, Aaron and Sean.  He was at the house until 8:00 pm when he left to pick Matt up from baseball practice.  Aaron told police, and maintains his statement to this day, that during the time of his mother’s death, he and his dad were setting up his new bunk bed together.  Sean told police that he was watching TV in the living room while Aaron and John were putting the bunk bed together and that from where he was, he could see both the front and back doors.  He stated that he didn’t see anyone coming or going during that time.  

At the time of the murder, the boys were eight and ten years old.  They were questioned by the police, but neither could remember specific timelines so despite both of them stating that their dad was with them during that time, the police aren’t fully convinced.  

By the spring of 1998, Joe Paulus was three months into his investigation and was at a standstill.  John had an alibi and there was no evidence to put him at the scene – there was no DNA, no hair, nothing.  At this point, Paulus needed someone to help him place John at Sandy’s house that fatal night.  For this, he turned to John’s girlfriend, Tracy. 

Paulus’ team did some digging into Tracy and when they called her in to speak with her, they told her that they knew that she lied on her IRS application – and that was a serious offense.  Tracy was definitely worried when she heard this and was scared of being prosecuted and/or losing her job.  However, she stuck to her story.  She maintained that she was home with John until he left at 8:00 pm to go pick up Matt and that she then took a nap.  However, she did show interest in receiving immunity on the IRS charges.  

One month after this conversation, Tracy received immunity and her story miraculously changed.  Her story was now that she actually took two naps that day and one was at an earlier time – 7:00 pm.  Sandy’s house was only five minutes away from John’s house.  With Tracy’s story of napping at 7:00, this gave enough time for John to go to Sandy’s, kill her, and be back to his house by 7:45 pm when Tracy said she and John went outside for a smoke.  Now that her story had changed, Paulus asked Tracy if she was willing to wear a wire to get a confession out of John and she said yes.  

Shortly after this, though, Tracy told John that she needed to move out and Paulus’s plan for her to wear a wire was on hold.  Then a couple of months later, Tracy officially agreed to wear a wire.  BUT THEN, she took a leave of absence from her job and moved out to Las Vegas.  However, the agreement was still on so Paulus and his team set up the operation out there.  

Tracy called John and asked him to come visit her in Vegas so that they could talk things out and potentially get back together.  The camera was set up in Room 831 at the Lady Luck Hotel with Paulus’s team in a room next door.  

Once Tracy and John were in Room 831, Tracy asked him directly if he killed Sandy.  During the conversation, they both got angry and the conversation was heated.  Throughout the night, the two went from anger to flirtation and then Tracy would plead with him to talk about the night Sandy died.  At times, John would be screaming, running around the room, and threatening to jump out of the window and kill himself.  Throughout all of this, though, John never said that he killed Sandy.  He maintained his innocence. 

The next day, Tracy left the hotel to head to her job at a casino and while she was gone, John searched the room for a camera, but he never found one.  The camera was hidden in a clock radio and there is footage of him picking it up, but never figuring out that the camera was inside.  

On her way back to Room 831, Tracy stopped by the agents because she didn’t know how to proceed since John still hadn’t admitted to killing Sandy.  They told her to try to be less direct with her questioning and just after midnight, Tracy returned to the room and woke John up.  She was finally able to get John to say that he was at Sandy’s house the night she died and to Paulus’s team, that was the final nail in the coffin.  She asked him why he didn’t call 911 when he saw that Sandy was injured and he said that it was because the call would have come from her house.  

John was placed under arrest that afternoon in Las Vegas and brought back to Wisconsin.  He was charged with murder, arson, and mutilating a corpse.  

Trial

John’s trial took place six months after he was arrested.  Joe Paulus’s version of events at trial was that John was at home with Tracy and was stressed about the following day’s custody hearing.  He told the jury that while Tracy napped, John slipped out and made the five minute drive to Sandy’s house to make sure that she was going to show up to the hearing.  Sandy let him in and John made it clear to her how important it was that she be there.  But Sandy was drunk and the two began fighting and he snapped.  Paulus told the jury that he believed that John hit Sandy, panicked, and then became extremely angry.  He said that John took the phone off the hook, threw her bloody shirt in the downstairs hamper, and realized that he needed to cover up her death.  So, he started the fire, locked the side door, and went home – sight unseen.  The footage from the Las Vegas trip was Paulus’s whole case and it certainly aided in his theory as there were times when John was angry and volatile on that tape.  

For John’s defense, his attorney, Gerald Boyle, conceded from the beginning that this was a case of strangulation and arson, but that John didn’t kill Sandy, Tracy did.  When Tracy took the stand, she denied any involvement, though.  

The jury of five men and seven women deliberated for eleven hours.  In the end, John Maloney was found guilty on all three charges: first degree murder, arson, and mutilation of a corpse in February of 1999 and was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole in February of 2024.  

By 2006, John had lost several appeals, two of which were reviewed by the Supreme Court.  In 2006, Ira Robins, a consultant-advocate, asked the high court to order an inquiry into statements that were made by an arson investigator at John’s trial that he claimed were false.  However, John’s case was listed among those that the Wisconsin Supreme Court wouldn’t review. 

While John was fighting for his appeals, Joe Paulus was dealing with his own troubles.  In 2004, he was arrested and convicted for receiving $48,000 in bribes in exchange for reducing or dismissing 22 of his cases.  He pleaded guilty for all crimes and served a federal sentence of 58 months as well as a two year sentence in a prison camp.  He was also required to repay $48,050 in bribe money as well as $3,087 in court assessments.  His license to practice law in Wisconsin was also revoked.  As a note, we did touch on this topic in the Alex Schaffer case (Mixtape 196).  Because of his conviction, many people believe that something may have been done in Maloney’s case as well. 

Is John Maloney Guilty?

There are many people who believe that John is not responsible for Sandy’s death.  Including their three sons, Matt, Aaron, and Sean.  When discussing their mother’s murder with Aphrodite Jones on her show, True Crime with Aphrodite Jones, they held firm that their father did not kill their mother.  In regard to John admitting to being at Sandy’s house the night before the hearing while being recorded in Las Vegas, Matt said that his father wanted to be done with the conversation so he did the same thing he did with his mom, he gave in and gave her what she wanted.  In Las Vegas, he told Tracy that he was at the house and when Sandy wanted more drugs, he would give in to get her to stop doing whatever it was she was doing to get it.  Sean said that at some point, you just say you did it to get someone to shut up.  

Matt also believes that Sandy died accidentally due to her being drunk and having a lit cigarette and passing out.  He said that when Eggum discussed the tissues being twisted in the couch that it actually wasn’t suspicious.  He said that was something that his mom did often to wipe eye boogers/crusties out of her eyes.  Gross, but understandable.  

Another person convinced of John’s innocence is Sheila Berry, the founder of Truth in Justice.  Sheila has spent many years and her own money looking into the case.  She found many inconsistencies and firmly believes that Sandy’s death was accidental, not murder.  

While looking into the case, Sheila found critical evidence that the jury never saw.  Not only was there blood found in the basement, but police also found two VCRs stacked on top of a coffee table.  Right above that, hanging from the ceiling, was a cord from a conduit pipe.  The autopsy report revealed that Sandy was highly intoxicated that night and had marks on her neck leading them to rule probably strangulation as her cause of death.  Sheila believed that Sandy tried to hang herself with the electrical cord, but when she jumped off the stack of VCRs, she ended up falling and hitting her head on the coffee table.

She then believed that Sandy tried to clean herself up in the basement shower, which would explain the blood found in the basement and on the shirt in the hamper.  After her clean up attempt, Sandy made her way back upstairs where she lit a cigarette and passed out.  The lit cigarette, Sheila believed, is what caused the fire.  Sheila also revealed that police found several suicide notes in the garbage can on the first floor.  There were five notes in total that the police found.  One read, “John, how could you throw everything away?  Take care of the kids.  I’m done fighting.”  These notes were labeled as “apparent suicide notes” on the evidence list, but were never shown to the jury at John’s trial, nor the possibility that her death was quite possibly an attempted suicide.

There were questions, though, about no blood being found upstairs if she had fallen and hit her head.  Sheila explained that there was blood evidence found all over the basement, on towels, on Sandy’s shirt, but no DNA evidence of John’s was found at the scene.  Sheila worked with several experts while investigating the case and they believe that Sandy ultimately died of alcohol poisoning.  

Despite both the state’s theory and Sheila’s theory, John’s attorney still decided to go with the theory that Tracy Hellenbrand, John’s girlfriend, murdered Sheila.  His attorney said that going before a jury and saying that the death was an accident, would have been considered malpractice. 

John, though, remembers things differently.  He claims to have told his attorney several times that he believed Sandy’s death was accidental but it fell on deaf ears.  When he was asked why he didn’t acquire a new attorney then, he said he couldn’t afford to. 

After Paulus’s conviction, John’s case was looked at again, and the state appointed Stephen Meyer, a respected attorney to do the job.  In the end, though, he determined that Sandy was manually strangled and there was no question in his mind about that.  

As of 2022, John is still incarcerated at the Dodge Correctional Institution in Waupun, Wisconsin (Wa-pon), and is eligible for parole in February of this year (2024).  

Lastly, there is a change.org petition that was started by Kimberly Bostwick in 2020.  The subject line in the “Why this petition matters” section of the page, she wrote, “Over 20 years – wrongfully convicted – please help free my fiance, an innocent man!!!”  I am not sure if she is or isn’t his fiance, this is the only source that I see about that, but there are currently 4,513 signatures on the petition with a goal of 5,000.