$100,000 reward offered by family for new information in 2012 case of Houston woman convicted of killing her husband
Sandra Melgar has always claimed her husband, Jaime "Jim" Melgar, was stabbed to death during a home invasion but she was later charged and convicted of his murder.
The Innocence Project of Texas continues its fight to prove a Houston woman is innocent in the 2012 murder of her husband. On Wednesday, they announced her family is offering a $100,000 reward for information in the case of Sandra Melgar.
Editor's note: This story previously said the Innocence Project of Texas was offering the reward. This has since been corrected to say Sandra Melgar's family is offering the reward.
She has always said that her husband, Jaime "Jim" Melgar, was killed in a home invasion by someone who tied her up and locked her in a closet.
Editor's note: The above video originally aired in 2022.
Sandra said it happened after they went out to eat at their favorite Mexican restaurant on Dec. 22 to celebrate their 32nd wedding anniversary. They continued the celebration with candles and cocktails at home in their jacuzzi.
The next night, family members arrived at the Melgars' northwest Harris County home for a holiday celebration. The couple's vehicles were there but they weren't answering the door or their phones. Jim's brother went inside and found Sandra still in the closet and Jim dead from stab wounds.
The house had been ransacked and some of Sandra's prescription medications and a TV were missing. A strange backpack with a gaming system was found in the garage.
Sandra was immediately taken to the Harris County Sheriff's Office to be interrogated but the DA's office refused to accept charges, citing a lack of evidence.
Chapter 1 The trial
In 2014, a grand jury indicted Sandra for murder.
During her trial, prosecutors told jurors that Sandra seduced Jim and stabbed him 31 times in their bedroom closet. They said the murder weapon was found in the house and there was no sign of forced entry.
Defense attorney Mac Secrest argued that there was no physical evidence linking Sandra to the crime. None of Jim's blood was found on Sandra or her clothes, none of her DNA was found under Jim’s fingernails and none of his DNA was found under her nails.
They also pointed out that Sandra was barricaded inside her closet with a chair propped against the door from the outside.
After a 13-day trial, jurors convicted Sandra and sentenced her to 27 years in prison. She shrieked and nearly collapsed into her seat when District Judge Kelli Johnson read the verdict.
Chapter 2 'No, I did not kill my husband'
In a 2018 prison interview with KHOU 11, Sandra said every day since her husband's death has been a nightmare.
From a women's prison in Marlin, Texas, the then-59-year-old said she never imagined she would be widowed and then convicted of killing her husband of more than three decades.
“No, I did not kill my husband, no," she told us. “This is a nightmare."
“Sometimes I think I’m going to go home. I still think, ‘I want to tell him this,’ and I forget he’s gone,” Sandra told us with tears streaming down her face. “I don’t feel like he’s really gone; I just feel like he’s temporarily gone or just on a trip out of town. I try not to think of… I know I will see him again.”
Sandra said then that her days in prison were long and lonely. She spends most of her time in her cell reading, writing letters, doing puzzles and learning Italian.
Because she has seizures, lupus and other health issues, Sandra was later moved to a medical unit in Dickinson, south of Houston.
RELATED: Woman convicted of murdering husband on night they celebrated anniversary moves forward with appeal
Chapter 3 Fairy Tale to horror story
Sandra said she met Jim at Lamar High School and they started dating their senior year. Two years after graduation, in 1980, they married in a courthouse wedding in downtown Houston.
On their last night together, in the jacuzzi, Sandra said she and Jim spoke about their years together and plans for the future, she later told investigators. They wanted to sell their home and travel the world—to the Grand Canyon, Ireland, and to see the Northern Lights. Jim only had five months until his retirement as a computer programmer with the Houston Independent School District. They discussed buying a beach house where they would ultimately settle down once they finished their travels.
Sandra said they later heard their dogs barking in the backyard so Jim grabbed a towel and went to let them in. Sandra said that was the last time she saw him alive.
She said she woke up some 15 hours later tied up in her closet -- her hands and feet bound, muscles aching and underwear soiled. When she later heard voices coming from inside her home, she screamed. That's when family members found her.
"Where's Jim, where's Jim?" Sandra asked them.
Once free, Sandra walked into the bedroom and saw Jim’s feet sticking out of the closet. She ran to him and checked for a pulse, though it was clear by his pale, cold, naked body that he was dead. Sandra covered him with a blue jacket.
Sandra was crying hysterically when paramedics and police arrived.
She told investigators she suffers from a history of seizures and couldn't remember anything. She believes she was hit in the head, had a seizure and was tied up and left in her closet.
Chapter 4 'Renewed hope'
In December 2022, almost 10 years to the day that Jim was murdered, the Innocence Project of Texas took up the case. Since it was founded in 2006, they have helped free or exonerate dozens of people.
Sandra's case caught their attention.
"She seems like a wonderful person and totally at a loss as to how all this could happen and ended up where she is today," said Mike Ware, executive director at the Innocence Project of Texas.
They began dissecting the case and looking for new evidence that wasn’t presented at trial.
“The state’s whole theory seemed to defy the laws of gravity, much less the laws of logic and common sense," Ware said. "That somehow, she pulled this horrible, brutal murder off and then staged the scene as it was, among other things, and then somehow done all this, going into all the details without having blood at all on her, without any sign on her she had conducted a clean-up."
Ware said The Innocence Project of Texas' work on the case could take years but their involvement gave the couple's daughter hope.
“We started feeling like we had reached the end of the road, but now that we have them on our side, it feels like the fight has renewed," Lizz Melgar Rose, the couple's only child, told us in 2022.
She also pointed to new DNA evidence from blood found on Jim's safe in his closet, evidence the Innocence Project will explore.
“It did come back to a male who is not my father. It does not have any familial match or ties to us," she said.
From the moment her father was murdered, Rose stood by her mom and believed she was innocent.
“I just felt completely lost and devastated, because not only had I lost my dad, and not only had this person gotten away with it, but now my mom is paying the price for it. And I’ve lost both my parents to a justice system that got it completely wrong.”
The Innocence Project is hoping the $100,000 reward offered by the family will help turn up information that leads to Jim's killer.
Lizz hopes her mom will be released in time to see her grandchildren grow up.
"We are going to keep on fighting until there is no more fight left," Rose said.
Sandra won't be eligible for parole until 2031. She'll be 71.
Timeline of events
- Dec. 22, 2012 – 3:02 p.m.: Jim and Sandra run errands, including stopping at a liquor store to buy eggnog for dinner the next day with Jim's family.
- Dec. 22, 2012 – 8:59 p.m.: Jim and Sandra check out of Los Cucos on Highway 290 at Jones Road. They were celebrating their 32nd wedding anniversary.
- Dec. 22, 2012 – 9:33 p.m.: Jim runs into CVS to pick up Coke and Sprite.
- Dec. 22, 2012 – We're not sure what time Jim and Sandra get home, but it's sometime between 10 p.m. and midnight. First Sandra tells investigators midnight, then later says between 10 and 11.
- Dec. 23, 2012 – 7 a.m.: A neighbor notices a garage door open at the Melgar home, which he finds odd.
- Dec. 23, 2012 – 4:30 p.m.: Jim's family arrives at the house for dinner. Later, when they come running out the front door yelling "call police!" a neighbor calls 911.
- Dec. 23, 2012 – 4:45 p.m.: Paramedics arrive.
- Dec. 23, 2012 – 4:47 p.m.: Paramedics pronounce Jim dead.
- Dec. 23, 2012 – 9:42 p.m.: Sandra is taken to the Harris County Sheriff's Office for interrogation.
- Dec. 23, 2012 – 10:40 p.m.: Sandra refuses to take a polygraph exam at the request of Sgt. James Dousay.
- Dec. 24, 2012 – 2:15 a.m.: Sgt. Shawn Carrizal calls the Harris County District Attorney's Office to file murder charges against Sandra. The DA's office declines, citing a lack of evidence.
- Dec. 24, 2012 – 4:20 a.m.: Sandra is taken home from the sheriff's office.
- Dec. 24, 2012 – 4:40 a.m.: Crime scene investigators finish their investigation.
- Dec. 24, 2012 – 5:30 a.m.: The crime scene is cleared.
- Dec. 25, 2012 – 2:20 p.m.: Elizabeth "Lizz" Melgar Rose, Jim and Sandra's daughter, returns from England with her husband.
- Dec. 26, 2012 – 4:36 p.m.: Detectives receive a message from Lizz that she found a backpack with an Xbox in the garage.
- Dec. 28, 2012 – 4:41 p.m.: Police received a report of a suspicious neighbor acting strange at the scene.
- Feb. 8, 2013 – Sandra's attorney gives investigators pictures of blood on the safe in Jim's closet.
- May 31, 2013 – 10:12 a.m.: A crime scene unit is requested at one of the Melgar's rental homes after Lizz reports damage inside.
- July 21, 2014 – Sandra is charged with murder by a grand jury.
- Aug. 7, 2017 – Sandra's murder trial begins.
- Aug. 23, 2017 – A jury finds Sandra guilty of killing Jim. Sandra shrieks as District Judge Kelli Johnson reads the verdict. Before she's taken into custody, she stops and hugs Lizz one last time.
- Aug. 24, 2017 – The jury sentences Sandra to 27 years in prison.
- Oct. 6, 2017 – Sandra's lawyer, George "Mac" Secrest, files a motion for a new trial, citing insufficient evidence and prosecutorial and jury misconduct.
- Nov. 6, 2017 – District Judge Kelli Johnson, who presided over Sandra's trial, denies Secrest's motion for a new trial.
- 2018 - In a prison interview with KHOU 11, Melgar continues to claim she is innocent.
- 2022 - The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld Melgar's conviction.
- 2022 - The Innocence Project of Texas begins investigating the case.
- 2022 - 10 years after the murder, the couple's daughter said she still believes her mom is innocent
- Dec. 4, 2024 - Family offers a $100,000 reward in the case.
- Feb. 22, 2031 – Sandra is eligible for parole on Feb. 2, 2031.
MORE ABOUT THIS CASE
- Read: She was convicted of murdering her husband. Did she do it?
- Listen: Podcast dives into the murder case of Sandra Melgar
- Timeline: The case against Sandra Melgar
- Watch: Could Sandra have locked herself in the closet?
- Photos: Jim and Sandra Melgar
- Photos: Crime scene at the Melgar home
- Read: Famed 'Making A Murderer' attorney investigating local case of woman convicted of killing husband