Naked, dead & in wardrobe
A random break-in – or was the killer in the house all along..?
The case.. a home invader?
As the temperature began to dip, the excitement grew…
Just days away from Christmas, in Houston, Texas, and fairy lights adorned trees, presents were being wrapped, food was being prepared for the inevitable feast...
All except for one house, that is, where Christmas wasn’t on the agenda.
As Jehovah’s Witnesses, Sandra Melgar, 57, and her husband Jaime, 52, didn’t get involved with the festive season.
That didn’t mean there wasn’t going to be a party...
Family and friends had all been invited round to their home in Houston, for a special do – to celebrate 32 years of marriage.
The winter-evening light was fading as guests began to arrive at the Melgars’ house around 4.40pm.
Only, when nobody answered the door, the guests entered the home through the open garage.
What they found inside sent them running and screaming from the house.
Sandra was tied up in a wardrobe, her ankles bound together, hands behind her back.
And Jaime was in another cupboard, bloody and naked. Stabbed to death. The childhood sweethearts – terrorised in their own home. Devastating. Originally from Guatemala, Jaime came to Texas aged around 3 years old, with his mother, and his two older brothers.
He’d met Sandra in high school, and the couple began a life together before having their daughter Elizabeth Rose. Jaime was hard-working, a good son, his mum would often boast about her boy.
Now he was dead, brutally stabbed 31 times, while Sandra was alive but tied up in a bedroom wardrobe.
As Jaime’s body was removed from the crime scene, Sandra was questioned about the terrible incident.
The grieving widow told officers what little she remembered of the horrific event.
She said she and Jaime were victims of a home invasion and she’d blacked out during the attack, perhaps had a seizure, leaving her with few memories.
That the next thing she knew, she woke up wedged in the wardrobe.
Meanwhile, Jaime was lying dead in another wardrobe.
A terrible tale. But one that police didn’t believe.
Instead, they thought that Sandra herself had committed her husband’s murder.
They claimed she was unhappy and wanting a $500,000 (£400,000) insurance payout instead of having a messy, embarrassing divorce.
Behind the ‘model family’ facade, they believed Sandra wanted out of her marriage. But, as a Jehovah’s Witness, she knew that she’d be shunned from the community.
Not unless her husband
Jaime had committed adultery… Only, he hadn’t. So, officers suspected Sandra had plotted to kill Jaime.
They said she’d staged the invasion, stabbed her husband with a kitchen knife and tied herself up to make it look like a break-in.
It was a startling theory, hard for many to believe.
The Melgars appeared to be hardworking, happy, kind, sociable, people who were a big part of the local community.
Jaime worked as a computer programmer, while Sandra owned a medical billing and coding company.
Smart, capable, financially independent, surely, she didn’t need a payout from their life insurance?
It didn’t make sense that she’d done all this for the money, and to be ‘free’?
Sandra, who maintained her innocence, was arrested and released on bail the following July.
It was almost five years later, in August this year, when the case finally came to court. Sandra Melgar stood charged with murder and pleaded not guilty. But questions remained… Why would Sandra fake a killing and burglary? She was a religious woman, after all.
The prosecution argued she’d set up the scene and got in the wardrobe, knowing that she’d be found – because she knew friends and family were coming over for the party.
Otherwise the risk was she might have stayed in that wardrobe all over Christmas, New Year and beyond…
Jurors saw a re-enactment video of how Sandra would have been able to tie up her hands and ankles behind her back and then lock herself in a closet.
The court heard that when she’d been discovered, on her right hand, one fingernail looked cloudy, as if it had been stained by cleaning products and bleach.
A sign that she’d been covering her tracks, removing evidence before help arrived.
If it had been burglars, why was nothing missing from the house?
And why had they left Sandra alive to tell the tale?
If the mystery killer was hell-bent on slaughter, why not murder her as well?
The defence argued that there were holes in the police evidence.
Someone reported a man, well known as a thief with a history of assault with a knife, hanging around near the Melgars’ house, behaving strangely.
Homicide investigator Shawn Carrizal gave evidence, explaining they’d talked to that man, and that he’d been arrested for theft and released two days before the killing.
Regardless, the defence highlighted the shoddy police work and damning evidence.
Surely, this notorious thief was the one who’d committed this heinous crime, Sandra’s lawyers argued.
And, because the police had let this man go, there was no way they could now try and pin this on Sandra.
Her defence also argued that officers had ‘decided’ Sandra was guilty soon after the incident, and therefore not pursued other leads.
The lead detective on the case had since been fired for misconduct while working on another murder.
Not a man to be trusted, perhaps?
But, ultimately, it was up to the jury…
Had Sandra Melgar killed her husband for money?
Or had police let the real culprit go free?
Had she tried to cover her t rac k s..? SANDRA: WHO TIED HER UP?