The In Between Podcast with Mel Barrett

Two people are dead.
A family has been destroyed.
And a seventeen-year-old girl is sitting in jail, charged as an adult and facing the possibility of life without parole.
In this episode of The In Between, Mel takes a careful, evidence-forward look at the case of Sarah Grace Patrick, a Georgia teenager accused of murdering her mother and stepfather while they slept.
This is not an episode about internet rumor or TikTok outrage. It’s about what we actually know, what we don’t, and how quickly narrative has replaced transparency in a case where the stakes could not be higher.
Mel breaks down the known facts, the gaps in the public record, the prosecution’s likely theory, and the defense’s emerging strategy — including the role of adolescent brain development, forensic neuropsychology, and the danger of treating online behavior as evidence of guilt.
She also confront the broader issues this case raises:
What happens to the presumption of innocence in the age of social media?
How harmful is it when “experts” turn compliance into confession?
And what does it say about our justice system when a child can legally be sentenced to die in prison?
This episode lives in the space between confidence and proof — and asks why, before trial has even begun, so many people seem so certain.
Listener discretion advised.
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While Rebecca's away, Mel jumped on solo to talk about two cases that are keeping her up at night: Aaron Spencer, the Arkansas father, who killed the man who had SA'd and kidnapped his daughter. Was it vigilantism, or stopping a crime as it was happening. Let Mel know in the comments.
And well-known actor, Timothy Busfield (Thirtysomething, West Wing) is arrested for child SA, accused of abusing 11 year-old twin boys who he was directing on set of The Cleaning Lady. His wife, Melissa Gilbert (Little House on the Prairie), is standing by her man.
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While Rebecca's on vacation, Mel sits down with fellow podcaster, rockstar journalist, all around badass, and friend, Maggie Freleng. If you want to watch Mel fangirl all over Maggie, join us! We'll be talking about Maggie's groundbreaking work on wrongful convictions, her newest and amazing podcast, Bone Valley: Graves County Season 3, and the ethics of reporting in the true crime sphere.
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You can now join the YouTube channel! Click the join button to select your favorite level.
Follow @realmelbarrett on all socials / TT: @jackofalltradesdc Listen to the In Between Podcast wherever you get your podcasts!
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We knew that already though.
Join Mel and cohost, Ellyn Marsh, who is in for Rebecca who is on vacation as they talk Alan Jackson on Billy Bush, Rotten Mango interview w/Karen Read, and Microdots 24 mph in reverse?

If you like us, please tip us:
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You can now join the YouTube channel! Click the join button to select your favorite level.
Follow @realmelbarrett on all socials / TT: @jackofalltradesdc Listen to the In Between Podcast wherever you get your podcasts!
Follow ‪@reblavoie‬ on all socials Listen to Crime Writer's On wherever you get your podcasts

In this episode of The In Between, Mel sits down with Pamela Smart’s attorney and her good friend— Matthew Zernhelt, on what feels like a turning point day in Pam’s case.
Matt has spent years doing the kind of work that doesn’t fit neatly into soundbites: complex post-conviction litigation, constitutional violations, and the long, grinding fight to get a court to actually look at what went wrong. And this week, he and his team filed a new habeas petition — a last-resort legal mechanism that lets you challenge a conviction after the appeals are over, but only on specific, fundamental constitutional grounds.
We break down what a habeas petition is (in plain English), why Pam’s case is so unusual, and why this filing is happening in two places at once: New Hampshire, where she was convicted, and New York, where she’s been incarcerated for decades under an interstate compact that creates a jurisdictional mess no one seems to have a clear playbook for.
Then we walk through the five core arguments in the petition — including:

A groundbreaking scientific study on confirmation bias and “expectation-induced” hearing, showing how state-created transcripts shaped what jurors believed they heard on barely-audible wiretaps.

A media-tainted verdict, including evidence that a juror relied on a newspaper story during trial — information that was never presented in court.

An unauthorized concession of guilt by trial counsel in closing argument, and why that matters legally (not just emotionally).

Faulty jury instructions, including what the jury was not properly told about accomplice liability, premeditation, and what evidence they were allowed to consider.

A sentencing problem that still stops me cold: the claim that Pam was given life without parole as if it were mandatory — when the law didn’t actually mandate it for the charge she was convicted of.

This is a conversation about law, yes — but it’s also about how a person gets “convicted by headline,” how institutions double down, and what it takes to reopen a case the public thinks it already knows.
You’ll hear what happens next, what an evidentiary hearing would look like, and what a “win” actually means here — a new trial, a new sentencing hearing, or the first real shot in decades at getting Pamela Smart back to New Hampshire… and back to her life.
(The petition is public and will be made available to listeners. The underlying study has not yet been formally published, but it’s coming.)

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