True crime fan Lizz Melgar Rose found herself in the middle of her own case. In 2012, her father Jim was murdered in his Texas home while her mother Sandy was tied up and left in a closet wedged shut by a chair. But Sandy Melgar’s inability to recall details of the home invasion made police suspicious. Lizz claimed investigators never pursued other leads, including evidence of a burglary, choosing instead to believe Sandy tied her own hands behind her back and staged the crime scene. Even with no motive or evidence linking her to the brutal stabbing, prosecutors charged her with murder.

iHeartPodcasts and BBC Studios present “Hands Tied.” Host Maggie Robinson Katz explores the theory that a middle-aged woman with epilepsy and arthritis could stab her husband 30 times, stay spotless, then bind herself in a closet locked from the outside. The podcast also follows Lizz’s fight to prove her mother’s innocence.

OUR SPOILER-FREE REVIEWS OF "HANDS TIED" BEGIN IN THE FINAL 15 MINUTES OF THE EPISODE.

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Ashley and Albert Debelbot had just put their newborn McKenzy to bed for the first time, but hours later rushed the infant back to the hospital after finding a bump on her forehead. When she died, police concluded the parents harmed her and charged them with murder. Facing an overzealous prosecutor, a partial judge, and ineffective defense attorneys, the Debelbots spent twelve years in prison trying to clear their names. But a new legal team uncovered evidence suggesting McKenzy died from a prenatal injury, not a beating.

Season 11 of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s investigative series “Breakdown: Three Days in May” looks into the Debelbots’ complicated case. Hosts Bill Rankin and Tamara Stevens recount the investigative rush-to-judgment, the flawed trial, and the evidence pointing to a medical cause of the baby’s death—not a criminal one.

OUR SPOILER-FREE REVIEWS OF "BREAKDOWN: THREE DAYS IN MAY" BEGIN IN THE FINAL 13 MINUTES OF THIS EPISODE.

In Crime of the Week: going nuts!

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He left his child in the backseat of a hot car. He said it was a tragic accident - the police said it was a calculated murder. We’ll go back to our May 7, 2016 discussion of “Breakdown: Death in a Hot Car" from host Bill Rankin and the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

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