My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 361 - The Opportunist

Episode Date: January 12, 2023

On today's episode, Georgia and Karen are joined by Hannah Smith, the host of the podcast The Opportunist, to tell the story of Sandra Anderson and her dog, Eagle. Note: The book Karen mentioned in today's episode is "Finder: The True Story of a Private Investigator" by Marilyn Greene and Gary Provost.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This Is Actually Happening is a podcast that features extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who live them. In a special five-part series called Point Blank, This Is Actually Happening sheds a light on the forgotten spree killings of Rancho Tejama. Follow This Is Actually Happening wherever you get your podcasts. Music Hello and welcome to my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hardstark. That's Karen Kilgariff. And from Cast Media, this is The Opportunist.

I'm Hannah Smith. Yay. Hi, Hannah. Welcome to the show. Thank you for being here. Hi. Oh my gosh. I'm so thrilled.

I was trying to remember today, I think that maybe my favorite murder is the, if not the very first, one of the very first true crime podcasts I ever listened to. So this is like such a dream come true. Thank you for having me. Wow. Thank you. Absolutely. So listening to your podcast, you know, since I first found it, the Sherry Schreiner episodes, I could not believe what I was listening to. But all these stories about these kind of like, it's anything from a scam artist up to murderers.

And these people who essentially, you know, are, as you say, opportunists, but basically start that way and then it goes evil. I mean, how did you come up with that concept? Yeah, so I was really lucky. Cast Media, the company I work for had already had the concept when I came on board, but they were looking for someone to sort of develop the show and make it. And they had the idea for the first season, Sherry Schreiner. So that was really gold for me. Of course, like it's an incredible story. So getting to walk into that and then figure out how to tell the story was so fun.

And the opportunist concept, you know, we really like to look at the progression of the crime. And look at how, you know, I think that there's a lot of othering that happens in true crime. It's easy to think, oh, someone that did this terrible thing is like different from me, almost like on a genetic level or something, you know. And sometimes, of course, there's like mental health problems, but or like someone is a narcissist or something. But I always really like to explore how we might be similar and how someone could start out as your neighbor or your pharmacist or, you know, your teacher or something. And then through a series of decisions and life events could find themselves a cult leader or, you know, scamming someone out of millions of dollars. And so we really are interested in like tracking that progression. Yeah.

Do you think during this podcast has made you a more paranoid person in your life? Like, do you look for little signals and signs when you meet people or in people you already know? Because I feel like that's what would happen with me. I mean, I know my favorite murder has made me super paranoid, but I could see the same thing happening with you. Yeah, I think like aware, right? I feel really aware of. And I've also now spoken with people and interviewed people who are incarcerated and people who have done things that are really, you know, sinister. And it's pretty shocking sometimes to talk to them and they're just so nice and they seem like I would it's like so hard for my brain to believe that they've done these things.

And so that has been a really interesting experience and making me just like, okay, just need to be like aware and cautious. But at the same time, I don't know if you found this as well. It's like, I think that there's so much humanity and true crime. Oh, yeah. And just like the resiliency of the human spirit. I've spoken with so many people that have been through horrific things and they're just amazing. And so it also gives me a lot of hope. Yes.

Oh, I love that. Well, that the opportunist type of people aren't every I mean, like it obviously we all have the potential to get pushed over the edge in some way or to choose to go over the edge in some way and go to the dark side. But that actually most people are good. Most people are trusting and most people say if they want to start following a person online who says that the way that you solve your problems is by finding Oregon and then getting rid of the bat. Like, especially that story, there was an essence of we're trying to do good here. We're trying to fight evil. It's the irony of like this setup was we're the good ones and we're fighting demons or devils or something like that. And then that being used against those people who were so trusting.

I mean, like that story, there's so many of your stories that are as you're listening, you're like, oh, that's interesting. And then you're like, wait, what? What are we talking about now? The idea that people followed an online cult leader wasn't some it wasn't about her in person magnetism. It all happened online. I mean, mind blowing. Yeah. I mean, I love cult stories.

Those are my favorite ones to tell. Really? And I love interviewing people who have been in cults and have come out of them. I don't know. I think they're often misunderstood because we think like, well, I could never be in that situation, but I have interviewed like really intelligent. People who have found themselves in those situations where they've been trained and like slowly sort of brainwashed to believe these things. Yeah, it's pretty wild. And there is always that, that promise of goodness, right?

It's like, if something's all bad, we would just be like, no, I'm not going to follow you and give you all my money. But yeah, it's often like under the guise of like, we're actually the heroes of the story, like with Sherry Shreiner. A lot of people who were sort of down on their luck and didn't fit into society or maybe were economically depressed got sold this vision of like, actually you're a hero and not just of this world, but of like the spiritual world. Yeah. Which is pretty enticing. Also, the friendship element, which I feel like in learning, in meeting some of those people that were in Sherry Shreiner's cult, it was community for them. And they had real bonds and they felt, you know, those were real relationships that they were having.

So it all supported itself in that way of like, yes, this is the like, quote unquote, high school click that I want to be in. And plus I'm fighting demons or whatever that idea was. It was so extreme and yet was kind of playing out in a very day to day way. That's kind of what was bewildering to me about that. That and most of your stories. There was also, I won't be able to remember the woman's name, but the woman, I think I told you about this one, Georgia, where she basically set up and hired actors to act like she was being inducted into certain levels of Illinois government. Yeah, Candace Clark.

Yeah. Amazing. Wow. Yeah, it was wild. And it was so wild too, is that it worked for like a certain amount of time. Yeah. Yeah. That's what's so fun to watch too.

I mean, not fun, God. It's like so voyeuristic to watch these, these documentaries about cult and hear about how it started. And once you break that down, yeah, you do understand a little bit better how some people could join something that they don't think is a cult. Because it's not a cult yet. It starts out as, yeah, like a community and an idea and then the indoctrination starts. And that's where we all, we all think to ourselves, well, I would never, I could never, but you're in there by then. You're in there and your needs are being met. Yeah.

Also, the Candace Clark story where she's basically telling people that she is like this, say, a state representative. I can't remember what the actual job was that she, but you would have to as the person receiving that information go, no, I think you set that up. That was just a video shoot and you hired actors. Like the opposite is so beyond the realm of possibility that it's so much easier to just go, yes, you were elected to us as a state official. And now I'm going to give you paperwork and whatever you need, because that's who you are. That's such a good point. I love that observation. I wish I had put that in the episode.

You can edit it back in. You're free. Anything that happens in this episode, you can take and put into the opportunities. Okay, great. Yeah. Is there any dream opportunists that you want to cover someday? I bet you have a, at this point, you must have a really long list of ideas and people that you want to cover. We have a running Google sheet that we have and there's a few stories that we are really excited about, but that either like the litigation is ongoing.

So we are waiting for that to resolve or it's like we couldn't get anyone to talk about it. Either it's too old and there's no one really around anymore or just people won't talk. And actually that's the story that I have today for you is one that is kind of a dream opportunist story. We kept coming back to the story multiple times because we love it. One of my producers found it and then separately another producer later found it. And I was like, I know, so good, right? We can't find anyone to talk about it. That's exciting.

We'll talk about it. Yeah, we will. Yeah, but I mean, you know, a lot of our cases that we cover are like not super high profile. And I kind of like that because oftentimes when I reach out to people, they haven't talked about it a lot. Yeah. And so they're really excited to be able to tell their story. Yeah. So are you always into like true crime or was that something that you followed for a long time?

Yeah. I mean, I liked, you know, probably my favorite murder got me into true crime, honestly. Yay! Sorry. Yeah, we're really sorry actually. I'm not. I'm grateful. So, but yeah, then I just, you know, I didn't know that, necessarily know that I would work in true crime.

I got into podcasting as a producer and then writing, I'm a writer and I got really obsessed with writing for the year. And then, you know, I just got this job opportunity and I was like, yeah, well, why not? And I love true crime. So why not combine these passions? And I, it's such an amazing field to work in. That's so awesome. What a cool, what a cool opportunity. Right?

It turns out you're the opportunity. Yeah, I am. So I'm so excited to hear this story that multiple people have mentioned. Should we, should we jump in? Such a good sign. Yeah. Life is short and it's full of a lot of interesting questions. What does happiness really mean?

How do I get the most out of my time here on earth? And what really is the best cereal? These are the questions I seek to resolve on my weekly podcast, Life is Short with Justin Long. If you're looking for the answer to deep philosophical questions like what is the meaning of life? I can't really help you. But I do believe that we really enrich our experience here by learning from others. And that's why in each episode, I like to talk with actors, musicians, artists, scientists, and many more types of people about how they get the most out of life.

We explore how they felt during the highs and sometimes more importantly, the lows of their careers. We discuss how they've been able to stay happy during some of the harder times. But if I'm being honest, it's mostly just fun chats between friends about the important stuff. Like if you had a sandwich named after you, what would be on it? Follow Life is Short wherever you get your podcasts. You can also listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. Okay. This is like a multi-part story. You're saying you want to sequel after this episode?

Let's do a couple episodes. Yeah. So this is going to take about three hours. Nice. Buckle up. I hope you haven't heard this one. I want to tell you the story of Sandra Anderson and her dog Eagle. No. I don't know that. Not so far. Okay. So Sandra Anderson lived in Michigan.

She was born in 1960. At age 18, she started training dogs. And then she got really interested in training dogs for search and rescue missions. She started a dog training company called Canine Solutions, where she specifically trained dogs for search and rescue. And then in 1990, Sandra, along with a group of dog trainers, got together with the idea that they could utilize their dog's unique talents to help law enforcement units and communities to search for and rescue,

you know, lost or missing people. And they founded Great Lakes Search and Rescue, Canine Unit of Michigan. That's so cool. Like, I would love to train Cookie to do that. I don't know why. And that's the raddest career for a dog. It's so cool, right? Yeah.

Dog heroes. Yeah. You know, Sandra kind of rose to prominence as being really good at training dogs at scent detection and specifically with human remains detection. In 1994, she adopted Eagle, a Doberman-Pinscher German short-haired pointer mix. She started to train him. And in interviews, she said that, like, Eagle was this star dog, like, particularly talented. Like, some dogs are apparently really good at being trained for, like, one type of search.

Like, they could find human remains in, like, a wilderness brambly area or something. And others may be, like, in a different scenario. Eagle, according to Sandra, just was able to, like, pick up on all of it. He could also was trained to look through rubble after a disaster. And so she said at one point that she only saw this level of skill in about one in 1,000 dogs. So Eagle and her really partnered up and started getting called in to search and rescue, like, different kind of high-profile things. They went to Panama and Bosnia at one point to search for graves of victims of political oppression

and war crimes. They were at the World Trade Center after 9-11. Oh, my God. Yeah. And also were asked to come search archaeological sites and historical sites, such as a Nebraska-Native American burial ground. And they went to Mackinac Island to hunt for the remains of soldiers that apparently were killed there in 1812.

So kind of like stars. They became stars in certain circles. They gained a lot of media attention. And in the year 2000, archaeology ran an article about Sandra Anderson and her dog Eagle. And I have to say, I read a lot of articles in preparation for this. This article in archaeology.org is like my favorite one. It's written like a love poem to Eagle. It's kind of short but beautiful.

And is it okay if I just read you, like, the first part of it? Yeah. Absolutely. Written by Brenda Smiley. So it starts, nose skimming the moist earth, eagle moves and ever-narrowing swoops. The ground is muddy in these days in Michigan's erratic spring and near Quagmire, but the sleek black dog is obsessed,

his cheeks ballooning in and out like miniature bellows as he closes in on a hit. Sandra Anderson moves almost as one with the animal, directing the search with hand and voice commands. It goes on from there, but I just... Wow. That is poetry for sure. That writer cares about her subject. She clearly was impressed by what she saw.

Yeah. Basically, I think that shows that there was a lot of love and respect for, you know, this profession. And it's also all volunteer based. So, you know, Sandra didn't charge for anything. She just would charge for her travel costs. So all of this is volunteer and she worked with a ton of law enforcement agencies. But of course, true crime, there's going to be a turn for the worst. So, I want to talk about two cases that Sandra and Eagle were involved with

and helped on because they're both important for the story. And you may have heard of them. The first case is the case of Tracy Islam. Tracy and Azizul were married. They lived in Plymouth, Michigan in 1999. They had two high school age kids. And Tracy, she was planning to leave the marriage. So she left Michigan.

She went to London. And she let her husband know that, you know, she wanted to get a divorce and he did not. So at Christmas in 1999, she came back to Michigan to visit her kids and she stayed at the house. And then before Christmas on the 19th, she vanished. Her husband, Azizul, told the kids and the police that she told him she was leaving and that he didn't know where she was. But there were a lot of signs that he was potentially responsible.

First of all, Tracy had a boyfriend in London and he called the Michigan police and notified them that she was missing. He said that he had spoken with her on December 18th and she told him that she was afraid that her husband was going to try to poison her. He was a biochemist, by the way. And then Tracy's sister also said that she had a conversation with her and that Tracy told her the same thing, that he was really angry. He didn't want to get a divorce and she was worried that he was going to poison her.

So then a few days later in Dearborn, about 20 miles away an employee at a restaurant went out to the dumpster and found body parts in a bag. Oh no. And then a few weeks later, another town, there were more body parts found and investigators were able to match the body parts because they had gray paint residue found on the same gray paint residue found on the bodies. And they didn't have a search warrant, but they went to Azizul's house and he let them come in.

They were able to get a toothbrush from Tracy and through that they were able to confirm that that was her body. But they went into the basement and the basement floor had been like erratically painted. It looked like it had just been painted very erratically. There was still like a paint can around. For some reason this still wasn't enough for them to get an arrest warrant. So they decided they needed to bring in a cadaver dog. And so they called up Sandra and Eagle.

And again, Azizul just let them, they didn't have a search warrant, but he let them come in. And according to investigators, they said that Eagle bolted downstairs to the basement and started barking and signaled that there was blood at different points in the basement floor and in the paint can. And also found part of a hand saw that had blood on it. So this was enough for them to arrest Azizul. And in December of 2002, he was found guilty of first degree premeditated murder and sentenced to life in prison. And Sandra Anderson actually testified at the trial and it was part of, you know,

Eagle pointing to the blood that was part of the evidence. The strange part about this is that that hand saw, the blood on the hand saw did not match Tracy's blood. It wasn't her blood. So the blood on the basement floor and in the paint can, yes. Hand saw, no, didn't match anyone in there, you know, in the police files. But they just, I guess we're like, well, we got him on this. He'll spend the rest of his life in prison. They weren't sure if he had maybe killed someone else.

So this case really skyrocketed Sandra and Eagle to fame. They were like considered heroes. Like most articles up to a certain point mentioned this, that Eagle helped them catch this guy and be able to put him behind bars. Right? Yeah. About a year later, Sandra and Eagle are called on to another case. It's a missing persons case. And this is an old case.

It was from 1980, but investigators had gotten a new lead and they wanted help searching Huron National Forest. So they called her up and just a little bit of background on this case. Sharita Thomas went missing August 3rd, 1980 in Ausable Township, Michigan. She was 20 years old at the time. She had gone out with her friend Patricia and then she left like the bar early and never made it home. And they had found her car abandoned and it seemed like it had stalled out. And someone had reported seeing her at 11 of 15 p.m. that night getting into a blue pickup truck driven by a bearded Caucasian male. And then she disappeared.

And, you know, at first they thought that she'd been killed by this. There was supposedly all the articles said was violent federal fugitive who was apparently in the area at the time. So police thought maybe that was the person. And then a few years later that was proven that that couldn't have been he had an alibi for that time. So then investigators around end of 2001 had focused in on the new suspect and they got a tip that her remains might be in Huron National Forest. And so they called up Sandra and Eagle. They came to the area. You know, this this was like a 20 year old case and some of these investigators have been working on it since then and trying to solve it and had already searched a lot of the area.

But when Sandra and Eagle showed up, it was sort of shocking because almost immediately Eagle started finding things. You know, he like immediately ran to an area and found a bone fragment. And some of these investigators, they were just so thrilled. They thought this was like a huge break in the case that maybe finally, you know, the family could have some closure. It was a multiple day search. Eagle and Sandra found. I can't remember exactly how many but multiple bones and the assumption at that time was these are. This is the remains of Shreeta Thomas.

Well, they brought them in and got them tested. They weren't they were actually bones of three different people. What? Yeah. And authorities were like, what is going on? They started to wonder if they had stumbled on to the dumping ground of like a serial killer or something. But they still thought, OK, well, this is still a good place to search. So they resumed the search after the winter in April of 2002.

Again, brought in Sandra and Eagle. But then like some investigators started to have questions about Sandra because something happened where one of them searched a river. And they searched it really thoroughly and then kind of moved into a next area right after that. Sandra and Eagle moved to the riverbed and immediately Sandra called out that Eagle had found a bone. And the investigator was just like, how could I have missed that? I was just there. And one officer, Mark David, he just started to think that something else was going on. So one day on the search, he was just keeping a close eye on Sandra.

And he noticed at one point that she bent down and started to mess with her pant leg and seemed to pull something out of her boot. No. And place it on the ground. And then immediately notified everyone that like she had found some remains. Oh, no. I mean, we knew this was going to happen. Yeah, of course. Obviously, and yet to be doing something like that in the middle of like, in the middle of an investigation, that important.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm stating the blatantly obvious, but it's still just like I'm cringing so hard right now. Yeah, me too. Yeah. So it turns out a couple of different people on the search had started to suspect her and they were able to search her vehicle that day. And they found a bag of bones in her car. And then that night the FBI executed a search warrant on her home and turned up even more bones and kind of just haphazardly like around her house.

Some of them like under clothes. Yeah. Wow. So she was indicted on a 10 count indictment charged with five counts of falsifying and concealing facts. Three counts of obstruction of justice and two counts of lying to law enforcement authorities and arrested in April of 2002. And, you know, authorities said that she had planted human remains and fiber evidence at the National Park in Michigan during the search for Sharita Thomas. And that she had been involved with 15 different law enforcement agencies over time and worked on over 200 cases. Wow.

That then they had to go back and review them and make sure that the evidence that they had was correct. And it was revealed that she had planted evidence at crime scene covered with her own body fluids. Coins, gauze, other items, including that hand saw that was in the basement. No. That was her blood. Jesus. What about, where did she get the bones? Whose bones were those?

Okay. What is she doing? Yeah. Also, what is she doing? What is she doing? Second question. So I think that this is kind of where the opportunist angle comes in with where did she get the bones? Sometimes it was like body parts.

Okay, I'll tell you in one second, but I just have to tell you one more thing. Okay. There was another instance that they looked at which she was called to help search for a missing man after an auto accident in Ohio. And she claimed to have found a severed toe. Oh, no. But that's it. She didn't find any of the other body. Well, later the body was found and the man had all 10 toes.

What the fuck? So she had got, not 100% sure where she got that toe, but it seems like she got it from the Shreveport, Louisiana fire department. Someone had given it to her. And here's the thing. What? When you are training dogs to search for human remains, you need human remains to train them. Right. Yeah.

And so she had access to human remains and bones and things like that. And when you donate your body to science, there's a lot of different ways that it can be donated. And one of them, you can donate it to help train search and rescue dogs. Wow. So that's how she had all this access to these body parts. Okay. I'm just so glad that she also has all 10 toes because I thought we were going into an area where, like, suddenly, because I was like, wait, what has happened? And then you're like, oh yeah, because that's actually something people do for people who are doing this exact work.

And it's like, it's horrifying. And it's also like, I don't know, I think we all love dogs, or at least I personally love dogs so much and feel like dog people are so, like, kind of earnest and, you know what I mean? Like, sincere. Every time you see people like that in like a true crime, you know, TV show or something, you're never thinking about that person could possibly be part of the problem. That's just, it's like the cavalry has come. Hooray, it's a dog. It's a search and rescue dog. Like, wow, what a turn.

Well, I thought it was going to be that she, like, the dog wasn't really real and she had been faked, like, she had been accidentally leading it. Not that she was planting shit on her own. Yeah. Like, that to me is like, she was purposely planting stuff. And it's like, why? You have to know you're going to get caught, right? Or am I just like paranoid? Hannah might know why.

Yeah. Okay, let's get back in. I don't know. I mean, my guess is that she did it for the fame because I do think that Eagle was good at his job. And, you know, there also, none of this was Eagle's fault. He was an innocent in this. But yeah, I think that she had some initial success with him and people were like showering her with praise. And then she just wanted more and more and more of that.

And even the best search and rescue dogs, it's not a hundred percent. You know, they might, I think there was a statistics that they usually are successful 55 to 85% of the time, which is still really good. But, you know, I think that she just wanted to get a find every time. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, she just got so into the, like. The high five of it all. Yeah.

The thrill and the high fiving and the, yeah, and the, and this is the best dog. It has to be the best dog. It can't just be like a really good search and rescue dog. Oh my gosh. I can't imagine. Yeah. It has to be the best dog. Yeah.

I mean, at one point she was just like indicating that maybe he had some kind of special, like out of this world talent. You know, I think that's one of the things that really attracted me to the story is that a lot of times the stories that I tell, it's like, what's the motivation? Money. Money is just like always the motivation for a lot of like fraud and scam, scammer stories. Right. I just like am amazed that she didn't even get like hardly any money. Like she just got her travel costs covered and yet she, she couldn't stop doing it. And what an adventurous life too.

She probably kind of got swept up in that. I feel like, you know, how exciting to get called onto these like historic sites where really important things were happening. I mean, it just seems to me like she squandered this incredible opportunity to live this life that she then had. She just got greedy with it. I read a book that's kind of old about a woman who did search and rescue with her dog and part, and I'm sorry because I'll have to look it up. And part of the story she told was how law enforcement sometimes resented the search and rescue dog people because it's like somebody coming in and going, you can't do it. We'll do it. And so I wonder if that, and that's just that woman's experience, you know, when she first started, because it seemed like they were some of the first that started doing it and working with law enforcement.

And they would be resentful or that she'd be like, I think you need to check up there for like a missing body. Like you need to go up, not down. And they'd be like, you don't know what you're talking about. And then she'd be right. And they'd be mad. So I wonder if she was trying to win over, like maybe part of it could have been trying to win over the people she was now working with. I wanted to be part of the fraternity of law enforcement of like, if I go in and I succeed, you'll respect me. Or if I go in and we're, and we're like immediately superstars, you will have to respect me.

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's so interesting. I also wonder if that played into how, you know, the suspicion of this last group of law enforcement officers having a suspicion about her. If there is that contentious relationship sometimes, maybe not always, but yeah. Well, it also sounds like she was having the dog walk in and immediately find something, which is like, as a, you know, lifelong liar. It's like, you want to play that a little more realistically. How about, you know, let, let 45 minutes go by before, before, you know, you find something like that is it. It was like pushing, what is that called, like believability of the whole situation.

Like you're not going to walk in and immediately solve the problem. Yeah. Yeah. And it sounds like maybe at first she was doing that, right? Like she'd be like, oh, here's one fragment of a bone. And then she just loved that reaction of people being like, oh, wow. And so then at the end she's just like finding six, seven, eight immediately. And it's just three people at one site and not one of them is the person they're searching for.

That is like, yeah, you're going to cause a ruckus. Of course you are. They're going to think it's a burial site and now, or a dumping site first. Yeah. And now you're kind of fucked. She kind of screwed herself over. Well, she pleaded guilty and she admitted to planting bones, carpet fibers, the toe, bloody saw. And she was sentenced to 21 months in prison and had to pay $14,592 in restitution to a variety of different law enforcement agencies.

And then was on probation for three years, in which time she had to report any search missions that she participated into her probation officer. She could still do it? She could still do it. Oh, no. This is kind of a light sentence, it feels like, for this. And I would think all the cases had to be overturned that she ever participated in, no? Well, all of them had to be revisited. Okay.

So with the case of Tracy and so with Azizul Islam, at first he was granted another trial because of this, because of Sandra Anderson tampering with a crime scene and planting evidence. But then actually that was reversed because they basically claimed that even though Sandra Anderson testified at the trial, she never testified about the bloody saw because they decided it was irrelevant, it wasn't Tracy's blood. Right. And they were able to connect the blood to Tracy. There was also a lot of other evidence to support the fact that he had done this. He rented a van, he asked a neighbor to like help him lift a heavy bag at one point into his van.

And they tracked the mileage of the car rental and it matched up. He said he was going to the airport to pick someone up. It wasn't, it was like too many miles. He had clearly driven out, dumped body parts. There was a lot of like other things pointing to it and the blood evidence. So they ended up overturning it and he didn't get out and he didn't get another trial. And also they made this distinction that since she didn't work for the police department, like since she was a private company that was a volunteer,

that somehow they were able to make a distinction that it was fine. And I don't think that anyone was convicted solely because of something that she planted. Okay. There was other evidence. There was other evidence. And then sometimes Eagle would find, you know, real evidence. Oh, okay. Okay. So Eagle was legit.

She wasn't, it wasn't all her just planting stuff. Yeah. That's my, that was my worry is that poor Eagle is just like, I'm just a dog. I don't even, well, I want to be like watching TV at home. No, he's actually, okay. Good boy. As far as I was able to find, nothing was overturned. And although there are some questions, like she went to Wisconsin and claimed that she found all these burial sites of like ancient Native Americans and groups had marked them.

And it was a big deal. But the thing about that is that most of those sites, you can't dig into them because there's all of these like land rights restrictions. So there's actually no way to know if that's true. She just, you know, so a lot of that has come into question. And at one point at the time, Wisconsin state archeologist Robert Birmingham was said to say that her claims were ludicrous based on research that he had done. And he said that that many graves would have made it the biggest Native American cemetery in the upper Midwest. And it just didn't track with like historical records or anything. So that's probably fraudulent.

So there's some things like that with archeological sites that are hard to disprove, but that she got all wrapped up in and probably was just making up. Wow. Yeah. Like she found the thing that couldn't be investigated. Right. I mean, that's the problem is like, if she started this whole business with like good intentions and real care in her heart for helping people and solving these problems, then the flip of making it so that she always won or Eagle always, you know, got a gold star basically then just erases all the good that you were doing before. Like there's no kind of big picture thinking it feels like with a lot of these people.

They just start going down this really dark path and it's like that there's just kind of no way back. Yeah. And it's like at some point, how do you back out of it? It's like you have to commit to it at some point, right? And then it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Then you have bones laying around your house. Yeah. And a toe, an errant toe.

Oh, carrying a toe around. Yeah. Then you're the person who carried a toe in a plastic baggy, let's say, and planted it at a scene. That's what you're known for. Even if you keep doing good, it doesn't matter. Right. There's no coming back or there's the attempt. But like that is such a, it's almost like not understanding the sensitivity and importance of the job itself.

Right. Like kind of really losing the sense of the point of what you're doing. Right. Yeah. And I think about the people that donated their body to science, you know, and then their body parts are being used in this scam. That's terrible. Totally. Yeah.

Yeah. So then one more wrap up. I just wanted to kind of wrap you up on what happened with the Sherita Thomas case, which the case where Sandra and Eagle Sandra got caught planting bones. So obviously she wasn't used anymore in that case. You know, that's actually still an unsolved case. In 2004, investigators arrested someone, Jimmy Allen Nelson in Houston, Texas, and they believe that it was a hate crime. Sherita was a young black woman and he was a known racist and he had connections with Sherita's friend who she was out with that night and had said to her, given her a hard time for being friends with Sherita and he had a blue truck and he had tried to obstruct the investigation through line.

But he was, so I don't know what's going on with it. He was arrested in 2005, but then a few months later, the murder charges were dismissed. And then again, he was convicted of murdering Sherita in 2009 and put in prison supposedly for life. But then in 2014, that was overturned, requested by the prosecutor who stated that new evidence had been discovered, but wouldn't say what it was. That evidence is sealed from the public and they did say it pointed to someone else, but no arrest has ever been made. No charges have been brought and it's still unsolved. Wow.

Yeah. Yeah, that's the other piece of this is the delay, the waste of law enforcement time. They don't have that much of any way. That's the frustration and difficulty of missing persons cases, especially people of color where things are prioritized. It's rationalized, it's put at the bottom of the list. So then they finally get people to be paying attention to this cold case. And because someone is so ego maniacal that they have to be the best fill in the blank, it just kind of derails all of that energy and effort. Yeah, totally.

Yeah, that's a good point. That's really screwed up. Wow. Yeah. Was Eagle taken out of the home and rehomed with someone who knows what they're doing? Eagle passed in 2004, right, when all this was happening. I think of natural causes. As far as I can tell, Eagle seemed to have a good life.

Okay. So that's a bright shining star in the story. And Sandra Anderson was released from prison in April 21st of 2006. And do we know if she still works in the field? I actually couldn't really find anything. A lot of the websites have been taken down. She had stated in her sentencing hearing that she wanted to still be active in the community and that she would do things like bring dogs to nursing homes and things like that. I don't know that any law enforcement agencies are going to work with her again.

But hopefully she's still doing some kind of good work with some dogs. Yeah, because maybe like bringing dogs to nursing homes. I mean, if you've ever like the TikTok videos are there all over the place of like that kind of thing. Little kids or dogs coming into hospitals and making little kids so much happier. So like hopefully maybe this overlining of that story is she starts doing work like that and realizing there is also a kind of fame and quote unquote glory by doing good just in those small ways. That the small ways are also big and it doesn't have to be that kind of like I'm making newspaper headlines. It's like I'm doing good for the people who need this kind of support. Yeah.

Yeah, I hope so. We're going to hope for that. Yeah. That's what we're going to hope for. Yeah. Wow. Well, that was a fucking great story. I'm glad you were able to save it for us.

I feel. Yes. That was amazing. Perfect for this. My favorite murder audience. Just like it's so fucked up to. They're so mad. I can't get over it.

I'm just like, oh, help is coming. Okay. Things that we're going to figure this out. We're all going to work together. Are you mad that she used dogs for evil and not good? Yes. Well, but also it's kind of like it was it's almost that thing. And it's what I love about Hannah's podcast where it's kind of like in the beginning you see when the story first starts getting told, you know, like, I feel like the most recent one I listened to was the guy that said he discovered gold.

And so he was getting everybody in his community like this is your chance. I'm going to go diving and we're going to find this shipwreck and everybody if you give me $10,000, you're going to get at 1.5 million or whatever the those might not be the accurate numbers, but it was basically this investment promise. And he gets all these people who literally give him their life savings because they know him and they believe in this project. And of course, everybody is like these days, everybody is like, well, if you can take my 10,000 and turn it into 1 million, and I know you and look you in the eye, then God bless. And what if you miss that opportunity and it's real like what if everyone else gets fucking rich off of it and all your friends are doing it too and they're not stupid people. So you're just like, yeah, okay, I'm going to believe this. It's the idea of having kind of like, I know a guy of an inside guy that's going to get me to the front of the line in some way. And the hope of it and also just like treasure, of course, where it's like, ooh, you know, I get some gold balloons of my own.

The beginning of those stories always have this like potential and there's like a good and a kind of, hey, if we all get together and do this and you just give me 10 grand, you know, I'm going to do this for you will all benefit. And people believing in that isn't a bad thing, like believing in other people or wanting to invest or help or whatever. But then it's like, then suddenly the money's gone, the person's gone and everyone's going, but they went to my church. I thought I could have sworn that meant something good. BTK killer went to church too. You can't trust him. Yeah, and that was like such an interesting one because the ship was so deep in the ocean that it was so hard to get to. So I talked with Greg Brooks, that that's the guy from the shipwreck guy, and still to this day, he won't admit that it was a scam. And he's like, someday I'm going to get down there and I'm going to get that treasure. And there's just like so much evidence to the point so that it's not there.

But he's he, I don't know. I was like, that was one of those moments talking to him where I was like, my understanding of people is so it is being messed with right now because he's so convincing. He was so convincing. And I was like, what is happening? Did you give him your money, Hannah? And I was like, take $10,000. Please, I want treasure. Please, treasure. You have a new podcast coming out, right? Cast is expanding our true crime podcast. And one of the really fun things about working at Cast is that we are very collaborative in like the narrative podcast space.

So we all get to like kind of work and give feedback on each other's shows. And I was fortunate to give a lot of feedback and consult on it. And I'm really excited about it. It's actually, you all have covered this case before it's kind of a famous one. The Dutch friends with San Frun and Chris Kramer's missing in Panama. Yeah. So Cast worked with two journalists, Jeremy Krite. He was the one that broke this story to the English speaking world originally.

And he kind of came to the conclusion, if you recall, that like they died of natural causes in the jungle. Right. But then he got a tip more recently that someone told him like he had been lied to and that there was actually something more sinister going on. Because there were a lot of weird clues to it that pointed to otherwise. Yeah. And so he went back to Panama with a journalist, Mariana Atencio, who hosts the podcast. And they retraced the steps. They like go on the path.

They take, remember all those like weird photos. Yes, totally. They try to find the location of those photos. And it's been really like interesting to work on. So that's called Lost in Panama and all of the episodes of season one are out now. But we've been really excited to be able to bring that story to life and tell that story. So. Oh, wow.

I can't wait to listen to that. It's such a fascinating case. Lost in Panama. Lost in Panama. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being on the show today. We had so much fun covering that crazy case with you.

Yeah. What a treat. Thank you so much, Karen and Georgia. This is truly such a treat for me. I'm like so thrilled to meet you and be on the show. I can't thank you enough. Absolutely. We're real fans.

If you have any more cases no one else wants to talk about, but all your, you and all your producers think are amazing, please let us know. We'd love to do this with you again. It was, I mean, that really was, that was a great story. Yes. Yeah. You're great at what you do. You are.

So thanks for being here. Thank you so much. Yeah. Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton. Our producer is Alejandra Keck. This episode was engineered by Stephen Ray Morris and mixed by Ryo Bowen.

Our researchers are Marin McClashen and Gemma Harris. Email your hometowns and fucking hurrays to myfavoritmurder at gmail.com. Follow the show and Instagram and Facebook at myfavoritmurder and Twitter at myfavemurder. Goodbye.