Jury Exonerates Woman In 1971 Death Of Brother Father Who Had Blamed 2-Year-Old Girl Of Killing Infant Is Convicted Of Murder 26 Years Later

Twenty-six years after she was blamed for her infant half-brother’s death, Tracy Rhame finally got what she wanted Friday - her name cleared and her father convicted of murder.

Jan Barry Sandlin was immediately sentenced to life behind bars for the 1971 beating death of 4-month-old Matthew Golder.

Prosecutors say Sandlin placed his then-2-year-old daughter Tracy in the baby’s crib and made it look as if she had tossed him out. Ever since, she lived with the blame and guilt, until the burden was lifted by the jury’s verdict.

“I think it’s wonderful, absolutely,” Rhame, 27, said by phone from her home in Savannah. “My primary goal was to prove that he was responsible for this.”

The frame-up went undetected during the initial police and coroner investigations, which ruled the death an accident.

It wasn’t until Rhame was an adult that nagging doubts about the case led her to push to have the investigation reopened.

The 46-year-old Sandlin, who is already serving a life sentence in Florida for armed robbery, was indicted last December after a new autopsy on Matthew’s exhumed body found his injuries inconsistent with a fall from a crib.

“The credit for having this case exposed goes completely to Tracy,” said prosecutor Lee Anne Mangone. “She is a remarkable and brave woman.”

After deliberating less than four hours over two days, a jury in suburban Decatur convicted Sandlin of murder, aggravated assault and child cruelty. Superior Court Judge Hilton Fuller immediately sentenced Sandlin to two life terms. Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty.

Prosecutors said Sandlin killed the baby while Tracy and her mother were away doing laundry. When they arrived home, Sandlin told his wife to get the clothes out of the car. He then used that time to put Tracy in the baby’s crib.

Defense attorney Corrine Mull told the jury that the children’s mother, Kathy Almon, was the killer. The defense pointed to inconsistencies in Almon’s testimony and even compared her with Susan Smith, the South Carolina woman who drowned her two sons.

After the verdict, Almon said: “It’s a most definite right verdict. … He’s where he needs to be.”

It took two trials to convict Sandlin. His first, in July, ended in a mistrial because Rhame admitted violating a court order not to watch or read any media coverage of the case.

Sandlin did not testify at either trial, and his lawyers called no witnesses.