Disturbing Details About The Woman Who Staged A Home Invasion To Murder Her Husband Of 32 Years
Sandra Melgar was recently convicted and her daughter believes the jury was wrong.
People When family members arrived at Sandra and Jamie Melgar's house to celebrate a wedding anniversary party, they found Sandra tied up in the couple's bathroom closet and Jamie dead in a bedroom closet.
Though she told police that and she and her husband of 32 years were victims of a home invasion, they thought otherwise and arrested her for his murder.
Details about the attack that Sandra gave led police to believe she did it.
She told them she had a seizure during the invasion and couldn't remember what happened.
During her trial, prosecutors suggested that Jamie was already dead when he was tied up in the closet, and pointed to a cloudy fingernail on her right hand that could have been evidence she used a cleaning solution to hide evidence.
“I think this was a plan in action for a while,” said Colleen Barnett, a prosecutor. “I think all of those details had been worked out before that day.”
Because of that evidence, police believed that Sandra stabbed her husband to death with a kitchen knife and then tied herself up.
“It was a perfect timetable of being able to tie herself up in the closet because someone would come over and rescue her," Barnett said.
Prosecutors argued Sandra wanted to end the marriage, but because of her faith as a Jehovah's Witness, a divorce would leave her shunned.
Jamie also had a $250,000 life insurance policy.
“The witnesses testified that they view Jaime as being asleep now [that he is dead],” Barnett said. “Jehovah’s Witnesses are not allowed to divorce unless the spouse has committed adultery, which Jaime had not done, so I think that was part of the motive — that if she killed him and wasn’t found out, she could still socialize with her Jehovah’s Witness friends and it is all okay, because he is just asleep.”
The couple's daughter, 32-year-old Elizabeth Rose, doesn't believe her mother had anything to do with her father's death and considers them both victims. She said they were high school sweethearts who lived in Houston, Texas.
He was a computer programmer, and she owned a medical billing and coding business.
“They were best friends,” Rose said. “They weren’t just husband and wife. They just belonged together.”
Rose said her parents were never violent towards each other, and she never even heard them say "shut up," to one another. She believes police had tunnel-vision from the start of the investigation, and that the real killer is out there.
Her mother was sentenced to 27 years in prison.
“We are going to appeal and hope that eventually, we do get justice,” she says. “There is someone out there. There is a murderer still walking freely while an innocent woman sits in jail.”
Emily Blackwood is an editor at YourTango who covers pop culture, true crime, dating, relationships and everything in between. Every Wednesday at 10:20 p.m. you can ask her any and all questions about self-love, dating, and relationships LIVE on YourTango’s Facebook page. You can follow her on Instagram (@blackw00d) and Twitter (@emztweetz).