SEEKING ANSWERS
Sylvia Stevens sat on her same living room couch where, just three days before, a homicide detective had delivered the devastating news that her daughter, Sandra, 21, had killed herself.
Sylvia’s brother — Sandra’s godfather — sat next to her on the armrest.
A local Spanish-language network news reporter sat across from them.
The camera blinked on and Sylvia, a native of Peru, began to speak in Spanish about her daughter’s death, which she described as “a horrible immense pain.”
Sylvia wore an agonized expression and occasionally leaned into her brother, who put an arm around her for support.
She made no on-camera mention of her daughter’s boyfriend, who some in the family suspected in her Dec. 6, 2014, death inside a northwest Oklahoma City house. For days, they’d been gathering information about their daughter’s stormy relationship with the man, whom Sandra had only known a few months.
“I have faith in the system and the police investigation and that there will be justice for my daughter,” Sylvia told the reporter.
••• The next morning, the couple, their oldest daughter, Jackie, their lawyer and the two homicide detectives who’d investigated Sandra’s death sat around a conference table in a brightly lit meeting room at Oklahoma City police headquarters.
Police say it’s not unusual for a family to doubt a loved one’s suicide.
The family brought along a green three-ring binder in which they’d compiled their questions, suspicions and what they considered key evidence surrounding Sandra’s death.
The family told detectives that the brutal way that Sandra chose to die — putting a shotgun in her mouth — felt shockingly out of sync to those who knew her.
They mentioned their daughter had seen the same doctor for 20 years and never took medication for depression or required therapy.
They told detectives that Sandra was planning to leave her boyfriend and move home within a day or two. Not only that, she’d never let breakups, even in much more serious relationships, squash her spirit.
Jackie pointed out to detectives the social media messages she’d discovered after her little sister’s death, which showed the boyfriend’s possessive demands and accusations of infidelity. She showed the detectives how the boyfriend used a GPS device to track Sandra’s movements and constantly demanded she prove her whereabouts, all while trying to reconcile on social media with an ex-girlfriend who did not want the attention.
Unknown to both the Stevenses and the detectives, the ex-girlfriend had filed for a protective order against the boyfriend just a day earlier citing his "controlling, mentally abusive, inappropriate, blackmailing behavior."
In her petition, she claimed the boyfriend had followed her, sent her photographs of her vehicle parked outside of her building at night and "was suspected of homicide associated with Sandy Stevens."
“You’re seriously the worst human being I’ve ever met. Do not ever tell me you love me again,” the ex-girlfriend wrote in one exchange with Sandra’s boyfriend.
Jackie recalled the detectives agreeing that they thought the boyfriend sounded like a terrible person.
But that doesn’t make him a murderer, the big sister recalled her family being told.
The family said detectives also told them the boyfriend had no blood on him when they arrived at the home.
If there was no blood, the detectives explained, the boyfriend couldn’t have been in the same room with Sandra when she killed herself.
The family said the detectives reassured them that the only injury to Sandra’s body was the gunshot, which police said ruled out physical abuse.
The family said the detectives also assured them that a full autopsy would be conducted.
The detectives reiterated that, especially given the lack of blood on the boyfriend, the evidence in this case was clear. No crime was committed.
Jackie later recalled one of the detectives stared at his cellphone throughout the half-hour meeting and made little eye contact, while the other took notes, the green binder sitting open in his lap.
She got the impression that her sister’s death didn’t matter to the police and that nothing she said would prompt them to investigate further.
Before leaving the meeting, the family said they asked about rumors they’d been hearing, that their daughter’s boyfriend may have dated another woman who killed herself. To the family, the detectives looked surprised by the information.
It was only later that Sylvia would learn that the boyfriend had told both the 911 operator and detectives at the shooting scene that a previous girlfriend had committed suicide.
When she did find out, it only soured her more on the police investigation.
They are not being honest about anything, she remembered thinking.
Sylvia left that meeting with little confidence in police.
She held onto hope that a more thorough investigation would take place. How? She had no idea. It would be two years before the family would hear again from police.
••• Back at the house, a friend suggested the family hire their own private investigator to look into the case. Sandra's grandfather gave them $4,200 to do just that.
The investigator promised autopsy and toxicology reports and set to work collecting blood and liver samples for independent testing.
That same day, Sylvia did another television interview, again denying her daughter killed herself. The report aired on that night’s 10 p.m. newscast.
Jackie continued to monitor the “Justice for Sandra Stevens,” Facebook page that a family friend had created.
On Dec. 16, 10 days after her sister’s death, Jackie called her mom with alarming news. She’d received a private message to the Facebook page. A woman wrote that she’d seen the family’s story on television and realized that Sandra’s boyfriend was the same man who years before had dated her best friend, Holly Sjostrom. The woman, who asked not to be named in this story, said the boyfriend also had been present when Holly had committed suicide.
The friend placed quotation marks around the word “committed,” emphasizing her doubt.
“She dated him for two months, like Sandra.”
To Sylvia, the information seemed like a red flag. The rumors she’d heard were true.
She wondered how police could not know this, unaware they already did.
A flurry of messages and phone calls culminated in a meeting at the Stevenses' family kitchen table the next day. On one side sat Sylvia, Stan and Jackie. Across from them sat another devastated mother, about to offer her own chilling story.