Hi, everybody. I'm Lester Holt, and this is Talking Dateline. Today we have Andrea Canning on to talk about her latest episode, The Betrayal of Sandra Birchmore. Good to have you here, Andrea.

Thank you. Good to be here, Lester. If you haven't seen the episode, you can catch it on the Dateline podcast feed. Go there, give it a listen, and then come right back here.

To recap the story before we

get into discussion, it was early 2021, 23-year-old teacher's assistant Sandra Birchmore, didn't show up

to school after a Nor'easter, a major snowstorm had come through. She was found dead in her bedroom

and what appeared to be a suicide, but that didn't add up for people who knew

her or loved ones. An incredible tale, Andrea, it looks like one that took a little bit of

emotional toll on you at times. Oh, absolutely, Lester. I mean, we're dealing with such a young

woman here, and this all started, you know, according to law enforcement when she was a

teenager. You know, she, her mother who suffered, you know, her mother had health issues. She's

passed away. She was raising Sandra, by all accounts, you know, by herself. She had some help from

the grandparents, but she wanted to give Sandra an only child, you know, by herself. She had some help from the grandparents, but she wanted to give

Sandra an only child, you know, a good life, and she wanted to make sure that she had the

support. And, you know, so not only did she do martial arts, but she also enrolled her in the Stoughton

Police Explorers program. And, you know, she thought that this was going to be a great thing for her daughter.

Yeah, a place where she'd be around responsible adults in theory. Exactly. And these

explorer programs are all over the country. You know, so, so this, this was designed to help

kids. And also, it really motivated Sandra to want to be in law enforcement, you know, or the military.

So it's just, you know, according to Chief McNamara from the Stoughton Police Department,

everything went so wrong, you know, because who she was exposed to in this program.

I also thought it really interesting learning more about Sandry, and you talk about how

young she is. At one point, the focus is on her tendency to overshare when she drops the

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