Murder, Fire, and Doubt

0:00Music

0:15The fire does originate on the sofa. Sandy's body was badly damaged. The contention that the state has is that the burn pattern on the floor in front of the sofa was caused by an accelerant. My opinion that it was a deliberately set fire, that it was awesome. The accelerant they allege was used was vodka. The vodka that Sandy had been drinking. My grandma is the one that found my mom's body and she called 911. Dispatch. My daughter is all burned up. Your daughter's what, ma 'am? She's burned up. Okay, we'll be there shortly, ma 'am. He was coming over to kill her. He hated her. He wanted her gone.

0:59My name is Matt Maloney. My dad was convicted of killing my mom. The prosecutor said that he hit her on the head, strangled her, and then set the house on fire. You firmly believe that John Maloney is a murderer. Based on all the evidence that was presented in this case, yes. This was a very combustible relationship between John and Sandy. My dad was a veteran cop on the Green Bay Police Department for 18 years. He served the community, was a liaison officer, detective, a beat cop. Everyone in the community turned on my dad. Everyone just gave up on him. My name is Sheila Berry. I investigate and write about crimes.

1:38It took so little time to convict him. Three hours to pick a jury, eight days for trial, one day to deliberate. My dad was sentenced to life in prison for killing my mom. The only problem is there never was a murder. A question of murder.

2:14Packers number one.

2:20Football's Packers are the soul of Green Bay, Wisconsin. A hard-working blue-collar town that takes pride in its team and its clean-cut image and generally leaves violence on the field. But Green Bay's traditional values were rocked to the core in 1999 when a jury found one of the town's own police officers guilty of murder, of strangling his wife and setting her on fire. Jury has reached a verdict. His name is John Maloney. His sentence... Mandatory life imprisonment sentence. ...is life. Mr. Maloney's remanded in the custody of the sheriff. Sometimes I still wake up in the middle of the night and realize, look around and come back to reality that I am in this place, but...

3:11I don't belong in here. You did not do this? No, absolutely not. Our 48 Hours mystery begins where most end. John Maloney already has spent six years in prison, protesting his innocence from the start. His protests might ring a bit hollow where there are not so many troubling questions about this case. He says the key to understanding what really happened is to understand his wife, Sandy. I had known Sandy for 20-some years. I mean, that was somebody that I loved. You had known her since high school. Since high school. We met in high school in Green Bay. She was a fun, beautiful woman. I married her with the intent of being with her for the rest of my life.

4:06There were three kids, Matt, Sean, and Aaron. Oldest son, Matt, says their all-American family began crumbling in the early 90s. When Sandy developed neck pain, and along with it, a serious addiction to prescription drugs. If she couldn't get the pills from her doctors, her friends would provide it for her. I mean, they were no help to her. She's going to rehab, but it wasn't really by choice. My dad would get her signed in there, and then she would just figure out a way to get out before she even got any treatment that she would need. Things were so bad that if the boys needed a prescription, the local pharmacist would make them take the pill in front of him to make sure Sandy wouldn't steal it.

4:54Even that didn't work. So she'd tell me to slip it under my tongue and just keep it under there until we left and then I'd spit it out and she'd take it when we left. You did that? I did that and I mean, you know, I knew I shouldn't have been doing it, but I was so young. I can't believe someone would do that, especially your own mom. That's desperate, man. Yeah. Yeah. Her situation deteriorated, complicated by depression, panic disorder, and alcohol. Started finding vodka bottles all over the house and stuff. And this prompted some fairly serious arguments, eh? Well, yes. Fights? Yeah. Loud yelling and screaming, yes.

5:40And, you know, doors slammed and stuff like that. I mean, it was, you know, a terrible time. You never hit her? No. You never struck her? No. You never abused her physically during these fights at all? No. But at Maloney's trial, prosecutors told jurors Sandy had complained about John's violence. to, among others, her psychiatrist. She talked about her husband being verbally abusive and physically abusive. She indicated that the physical abuse had been going on in the marriage for some time. He said Sandy even showed him bruises she said John had caused. Her kids say she'd say anything to get more drugs.

6:21And as for the bruises... When she was drunk, she'd stumble around and fall into everything. Police were called to the Maloney home numerous times, but a 48 Hours Review found no report that made any reference to John Maloney abusing his wife. If anyone was fighting, it was my mom hitting my dad. Like, people can say he was abusing her or whatever, but in all reality, we were the ones that were there and saw the stuff, and if anyone swung at anyone, it would be my mom hitting my dad. None of you ever saw him hit her? No, he never did. In 1997, Sandy, drunk, wrecked the family car, and John had had enough.

7:05He moved out, filed for divorce, and later took the boys with him. It was a dangerous situation for them to be in, and I should have done something sooner than what I did. John's two youngest sons say their dad was with them, putting together bunk beds. At the time, police say he was off murdering their mother. Their support for their father never has wavered. He's missed almost seven years of our lives now. He's been in jail or prison since I've been in seventh grade. I'm in my second year of college now, so he's missed a lot. But this image of a good man falsely accused got nowhere at trial, largely because of these undercover videotapes that reveal a quite different side of John Maloney, a side the jurors felt they couldn't ignore.

8:07I can't kill anybody. I can't kill anybody.

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9:31Whenever we come to Green Bay, I stop at the mausoleum.

9:39It's just like I have to do this for her. It's the only way I can get close to her. In fact, Lola Kater has thought about her daughter Sandy every single day for the last seven years. This is just something I'll never get over with. Indeed how could she? It was Lola who discovered Sandy's charred body the morning after the fire. I opened that front door and there was soot all over. I went right over to the couch and knowing Sandy had been sleeping there and And I couldn't even see her. And so I ran through the house and calling her and I even ran down in the basement and looked.

10:37And then I came back up and she was on the couch. She was burned. And from that first instant, she blamed John Maloney. He hated her. He hated her.

11:06When firemen and policemen came up, I said, I knew he would do this. I hope he's happy. He hated Sandy, she thinks, for dragging her feet on the divorce. Because by now, Maloney had a new, much younger girlfriend. A 28-year-old IRS agent named Tracy Helenbrand. Lola thinks Sandy was getting in the way of their new life. So you think that he went there with that intent? I know he went there to kill her. It was a very ugly case, a very ugly situation. Special Prosecutor Joe Paulus shared her certainty. We all know what the truth is here. Don't get sidetracked. Just let the truth flourish. The truth, as Paulus told the jury, was that John Maloney was under stress, deeply in debt, and desperate to get out of this relationship.

11:59He's paying her mortgage. He's paying her utilities. He's paying her bills. He's paying support to her. He was bound tight. So Paula said he went to Sandy's that night to be sure she'd be in court the next day. They argued. Maloney hit her over the head with a blunt object. The wound bled onto her shirt. That man right there stuffed out his wife as though she were a rag doll. He panicked, Paula said, and strangled Sandy, putting his knee in her back as she lay on the couch. And was surprised to find a large area of hemorrhage within her lower back. The medical examiner bolstered the case, concluding Sandy probably had been strangled, saying he'd found trauma to her neck.

12:52The remainder of the injuries were in the front part of the neck. And again, we're dealing with hemorrhage, which is in deep muscle structures. Finally, the DA told the jury, after discarding the bloody shirt in a hamper in the basement, Maloney set the couch on fire to hide his crime, leaving behind half-smoked cigarettes to make it look like an accident. The fire is essentially after death. The most damning evidence came from the Lady Luck Hotel in Las Vegas. Anything but lucky for Maloney. Five months after Sandy's death, Maloney had flown there for a weekend with girlfriend Tracy. I don't even know why I even went out there.

13:38I shouldn't have even went out there. Or why you stayed. Right, right. I mean, I guess that's one of the foolish things that people do that think they're in love. You solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give is the truth. What he did not know was that his love had had a change of heart. I was the girlfriend of a man who may have committed murder. Tracy secretly now was working with prosecutors, who still were looking for concrete evidence against Maloney. The hotel room was wired. A video camera was hidden in a clock radio. Cops watched closely from next door. Tracy's job, get him to confess.

14:24Done. Killed the person. No, I didn't kill anybody. Over and over again, for hours, she asked him, did you kill Sandy? Did you? Did you? I didn't f***ing kill her, bitch. You just lit her on fire. I didn't f***ing light her on fire and I didn't kill her, bitch. But John Maloney kept denying he had killed his wife. Then, finally, he appears to incriminate himself. He admits he was at Sandy's house the night she died. What trip did you go there that night? F*** you. Did you go there to do it? No. What did you go there for? I think it's done with the work. It's done with. Okay. That videotape showed a man confessing to the crimes that he committed.

15:14Prosecutors had heard enough. They arrested Maloney that same day. Tracy says at one point, did you go there to do it? No, you say. And she says, well, what did you go there for, Si, from you? To get done with the divorce, to get it done with. To get done with the divorce, to get it done with. Now, how else can you interpret that except that you were there? I guess, yeah, technically you could look at that and say, well, yeah, you must have been there then if you said that. But why would you say that? Why wouldn't you say, hey, I wasn't there? I had numerous times and it just, it wasn't registering with her.

15:54And some of that was being said to get her to shut up. Have you ever had a conversation with somebody that doesn't let something go and you just say, well, okay, yeah, yeah, you're right. Whatever you say. That's the context for this? Right. But the tape also shows a man with an uncontrollable temper. You mother f***er.

16:20I mean, I'm not proud of being that angry. Well, you look at that tape and you can see how a jury might have said, whoa, you know, maybe he could have killed somebody. Look at him. Do you think those tapes are largely the reason you were convicted? Well, a part of it, yeah. Be seated, please. The trial lasted eight days. Ladies and gentlemen, I'll read the verdict. The verdict was read to a packed courtroom, which included John's young sons. We the jury find the defendant, John R. Maloney, guilty of first-degree intentional homicide. I'm going to ask you to remove the children, please.

17:00They took us in a back elevator, and I just fell on the floor and started crying my eyes out. And I can remember saying, what are we going to do now? Appeals can take years. But then, someone who had never even met John Maloney took up his cause. I probably reviewed at least 20 ,000 pieces of paper, 20 ,000 documents. Her name is Sheila Berry, part-time novelist, part-time investigator, part-time head of Truth Injustice, a non-profit group that tries to help people it feels are wrongly imprisoned. It began right away with questions about the toxicology report. The testing that should have been done wasn't done.

17:46After consulting with more than a dozen forensic experts, Barry now is convinced not only that Maloney is innocent, but that Sandy Maloney was not murdered. That in fact, there was no crime. That she was not strangled to death? No. No one that you have talked to? No. None of your experts who's looked at this has had even any doubt about that? That's correct. So how did Sandy die? Sheila Berry says the explanation is right there in the evidence. But it's evidence the jury never saw.

18:39Behind his back, courthouse reporters dubbed District Attorney Joe Paulus Hollywood Joe. For his love of the camera... We're going to keep fighting for justice. and for his dramatic courtroom theatrics. Sorry, dude. I didn't mean for this to happen. OK. Boom, boom, boom, boom. If that's a justification, if that's provocation to kill somebody, then there are going to be a lot of dead people in this community. You want to know how they get that soil? He'd get right up there, and he would act things out. His eyes are very dramatic, and he knows how to use them. Sheila Berry worked for Joe Paulus back in 1990.

19:25Any attorney would be happy to have those skills because they can skate you across a lot of thin ice. But thin ice was the last thing Paulus had to worry about in 1998. Assistant D.A. Mike Balska says the ambitious prosecutor's career was on a fast track. His goal was to become the U.S. attorney in Wisconsin, one of the U.S. attorneys. The Maloney case would probably be a good vehicle for that. The court and the sentence of the law that chew John R. Maloney are sentenced to life in prison. After the guilty verdict, Paulus praised the investigators, the jury, and backhandedly himself. I think that ultimately the jury paid heed to what I talked to them about in my closing argument, and that is we all know what the truth is here.

20:14Don't get sidetracked. Just let the truth flourish so that we can get to the right verdict. Over the next few years, Paulus missed few opportunities to wax idealistic about truth and justice. It's always unfortunate to have to bring charges against a member of law enforcement, but, you know, they're like any other citizen, and if there are charges to be brought, we have to do it. Truer words were never spoken, as both the people around Green Bay and Joe Paulus were about to find out.

20:49Quietly, in March of 2002, the FBI began investigating Paulus for corruption, looking into charges that the prosecutor was taking bribes to fix cases. Soon, the story leaked to the press. Obviously, this is nothing more than allegation, innuendo and rumor. Prompting a torrent of righteous indignation. I did nothing wrong. There was no impropriety here. All of this is a big, fat lie. If there is an investigation out there, at the end of the day, absolutely nothing will come of it. News of the FBI inquiry came as no shock to Sheila Berry, who'd had a run-in with Paulus years earlier when he was her boss.

21:32It involved allegations that a star witness had lied. You told him this? Oh, yes, I did. And he said, if you tell, I'll deny it and no one will believe you. Wow. So I told. I told the judge. Not only did Paulus manage to keep this all quiet and stay out of trouble. He was Teflon Joe. He fired Sheila Berry. Several people in law enforcement urged me to leave the state. Said, he hates you. He is afraid of you. He is going to set you up on false criminal charges. Were you afraid of him? I knew he could do it.

22:17But in April of 2004, Joe Paulus' world of influence and power came tumbling down. He was charged with bribery and income tax evasion. Within weeks, he'd cut a deal, pleading guilty to accepting$48 ,000 to fix 22 cases, six of them criminal. I am sorry. This time, Hollywood Joe let his attorney do the talking. I deeply regret the cloud which I have placed upon the everyday good work of public officials who honestly strive to carry out their duties and responsibility. The Paulus bribery investigation covered from June 98 to June 2000, the very time period in which John Maloney was arrested, tried and convicted.

23:08Which leads to the big question, did the corrupt district attorney act improperly in the Maloney case as well? He had to have known that there were big question marks on whether this was even a murder or a homicide. This was Joe's private office. Berry says despite their history she has no axe to grind. With Paulus, she just knows the man. Here you've got a prosecutor who on the one hand is taking money to fix cases and they are little cases. So what does he do to distract attention and pump up this image he has of being the big crime fighter, The big justice guy, he goes after high-profile cases.

23:57They attracted him like a moth to a flame. And you think that's why he went after John Malone? Absolutely. Anything with Joe Paulus wouldn't surprise me, wouldn't shock me. In one of two ongoing investigations, Assistant DA Mike Balskas is collecting boxes of documents, examining more than 100 of Paulus' past cases. Here's a person who, if he's going to cheat, you know, dismissing cases, he's probably going to cheat when he's prosecuting cases. On videotape, Mr. Maloney made claims... Balskis wonders if a zeal to get John Maloney might have led to manipulating evidence. Consider those key videotapes.

24:44I'm a f***ing killer, bitch. Paulus sent the hours of tapes to a private outside company. supposedly to cut them down for time, not to alter content. What then to make of the initial$27 ,000 editing bill? Or of this note from Prosecutor Paulus to the editor? I have replaced, modified, or added new excerpts to be included in the tape. And this editor's note. Some of your clips are so short, one and a half seconds in duration, that they may seem choppy. No, because you're f***ing delusional. No, go, go, go, go, Rodney. Rodney, be funny. I'm not going to hurt you. I love you. In this case, I think a dark side of John Maloney was revealed quite a bit.

25:36Paulus' co-prosecutor, Vince Biskupic, I'm asking, was there any editing done that could be considered doctored? Not from my knowledge. Taking words out of context, moving things around, whatever. As far as you know, nothing like that was done. Right, to my knowledge.

25:57Maloney probably was hurt more by his actions on the tape than by his words. But still, Valskis wonders to what lengths Joe Paulus went to win this case. You honestly think that he would intentionally ignore exculpatory evidence, doctor videotapes, just for that? Yeah. I mean, it's just simply mind-boggling. It seems incredible. Do you think, based on what you know now, that John Maloney got a fair trial? I would say that, did he get a fair trial? No. I don't know if John Maloney did it or not, but I think it's pretty clear that not all the evidence was presented to the jury. Evidence like this.

26:55An extension cord hanging down from a conduit pipe, and then it had a noose on the opposite end.