FILE 663 / 8 January 2026 / 182 MIN / full

Panty Sniffing Wife Killer

Greeley, ColoradoListen

The town

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Greely Colorado is where we're going... This is in Weld County. about 0:05:17

History, in brief

1869

The town began as the Union Colony of Colorado, founded in 1869 by Nathan C. Meeker, an agricultural reporter for the New York Tribune.

about 0:05:36

Town note

It was set up as an experimental utopian farming community based on temperance, religion, agriculture, education and family values.

about 0:05:48

1859

Horace Greeley was the Tribune's editor, visited Colorado during the gold rush in 1859 and popularised the phrase 'go west, young man'.

about 0:06:20

Town note

The colonists acquired 12,000 acres then known as the Island Grove Ranch.

about 0:06:42
All 8 history facts

1869

The town began as the Union Colony of Colorado, founded in 1869 by Nathan C. Meeker, an agricultural reporter for the New York Tribune.

about 0:05:36

Town note

It was set up as an experimental utopian farming community based on temperance, religion, agriculture, education and family values.

about 0:05:48

1859

Horace Greeley was the Tribune's editor, visited Colorado during the gold rush in 1859 and popularised the phrase 'go west, young man'.

about 0:06:20

Town note

The colonists acquired 12,000 acres then known as the Island Grove Ranch.

about 0:06:42

Town note

About 500 people came to take up residence.

about 0:06:49

Town note

The settlement was renamed Greeley after Horace Greeley.

about 0:06:53

1943

In 1943 Greeley had two prisoner of war camps during the Second World War, one for Germans and one for Italians.

about 0:07:02

1969

A vote to allow the sale of alcohol barely passed in 1969, after a hundred years of temperance.

about 0:07:09

The figures, as told

Religious

30%

Biggest faith: Catholic, 14.1%

about 0:11:23

Who lives here

White 55% · Black 2% · Asian 1.3% · Hispanic 39.4%

Ethnicity can overlap race.

Crime / national average

Property crime
▲ about 15% above average

about 0:17:55

Violent crime
▼ slightly below average

about 0:18:26

Money

Median home value$420,600
Two-bedroom rent$1,430 a month
Median household income$60,601 a year
Cost of living113

For sale

$2,850,000

Four-bedroom house on 30 acres listing

about 0:14:46
All figures and comparisons, as told in 2026

Property crime

"about 15% above average"

Comparison: "average". Direction: above.

As told in 2026 about 0:17:55

Violent crime

"slightly below average"

Comparison: "average". Direction: below.

As told in 2026 about 0:18:26

Population

"107,014"

No direction stated.

As told in 2026 about 0:10:24

Median age

"31.7"

No direction stated.

As told in 2026 about 0:10:48

Married

"about 48%"

Comparison: "national average". No direction stated.

As told in 2026 about 0:11:04

Religious

"30%"

Comparison: "50-50 is the normal". Direction: below.

As told in 2026 about 0:11:23

Catholic

"14.1%"

Comparison: "most of any religion here". No direction stated.

As told in 2026 about 0:11:39

Median household income

"$60,601 a year"

Comparison: "national average, about $9,000 below". Direction: below.

As told in 2026 about 0:11:54

Cost of living

"113"

Comparison: "100 is average". Direction: above.

As told in 2026 about 0:12:25

Median home cost

"$420,600"

No direction stated.

As told in 2026 about 0:12:30

Average two-bedroom rental

"$1,430 a month"

Comparison: "national average, about $200 more". No direction stated.

As told in 2026 about 0:13:00

Two-bedroom trailer listing

"$58,000"

No direction stated.

As told in 2026 about 0:13:36

Three-bedroom house listing

"$265,000"

No direction stated.

As told in 2026 about 0:14:06

Four-bedroom house on 30 acres listing

"$2,850,000"

No direction stated.

As told in 2026 about 0:14:46

The reviews

1.4 / 5 · average of 5

“A lifelong resident has had such good experiences there, calling it a very small but very friendly town that can suit someone who wants a quiet, isolated life.”
about 0:07:50

3 stars

“Not very safe on the east side of town, but it keeps a small town feel even as it grows.”
about 0:08:36

1 star

“Really scary, with a lot of hard drugs in the area despite the town being in the middle of nowhere.”
about 0:08:58

1 star

“Wishes they did not live by an apartment complex whose tenants steal and are very disruptive.”
about 0:09:22

1 star

“Lives by a park where cars are parked all night and believes drug sales are happening.”
about 0:09:31

1 star

“The west side is beautiful with parks and shopping, but everything east of 35th Avenue has a lot of crime, bikes and a camera are stolen in daylight and the police mostly just drive around.”
about 0:09:52

In Colorado

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  4. A Triple Murdering Con ManGolden, Colorado · 17 May 201784 km / 52 miShow on map
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The story

Christina Marie Tornai, known as Tina, was born on March 17th, 1972, in Indiana, the second of nine children of Michael and Mary Ellen Tornai. Her father was a police officer for a time. The family moved to Colorado, and Tina graduated from Windsor High School, where she ran track and played volleyball and basketball, competed in the knowledge bowl, played trumpet in the band and sang in the choir. She studied nursing at Aims Community College and then at the University of Northern Colorado, graduating in 1995 in the top five per cent of her class with a bachelor's degree in nursing. She worked as a licensed practical nurse at the Northern Colorado Medical Center and then in its oncology department. Everyone who knew her described her as kind and hard-working, and nobody had a bad word to say about her.

His family was chaotic. His father, Ephram, had won a college scholarship in the 1950s and wanted to be an attorney but became a biker who drank Jack Daniels and used drugs; his mother, Mary Lou, was one of fourteen children, worked as a nurse and later sold cosmetics, and the house was so cluttered that visitors had to carve a path through it. A friend named Michael taught him how to break into houses. His first serious girlfriend, Jenny, moved into the basement when they were sixteen; when she left him he threatened to kill her, and she had to move to Pueblo to get away. He followed her anyway. In 1982 he was first picked up by police for smoking weed. In July 1983 he helped Michael burgle a house and a man chased the intruder off with a shovel, leaving Michael's motorcycle behind; Michael served ninety days. In April 1987, on his first day with the BFI trash company, a woman jogging on Reservoir Road in West Greeley was attacked from the bushes. Later that year he killed a former girlfriend's dog and left its collar on her parents' door handle.

He kept stalking women. Tina began calling his cousin Jesse, asking why she was not enough for him. She nicknamed him the panty sniffer. In August 1995 she told him she wanted a divorce and moved out, and she and Jesse had a brief affair that summer.

She never did. About one in the morning they knocked at his door and found his aunt Gabby, who refused a search.

Searches of the Pierce gravel pits, Black Hollow Reservoir and Sunset Memorial Gardens found nothing, and the family put up thousands of flyers. In 2009 a new assistant district attorney, Michael Rourke, reopened the file, and Detective Keith Olson noticed two of Tina's credit cards listed on the 1995 evidence diagram. They had never been processed. Sand from a river bed in his pockets, hood and flashlight, and salt rings from sweat on his shirt, suddenly mattered. His house held large portraits of Tina, their wedding album and more than a hundred videotapes of women he had stalked and assaulted, some recorded over Sam's Club training tapes.

He led them to Sunset Memorial Gardens, the cemetery across the highway from Tina's apartment where he had worked digging graves in the summer of 1995. He had dug two feet below an open grave, to a depth of about eight feet, laid her wrapped in layers of industrial plastic, and the burial of a Second World War veteran went ahead above her that afternoon. Tina was found in 2017, 7,826 days after she disappeared, and was buried at Lake View Cemetery in Windsor. Jesse Sandoval died on February 23rd, 2017, aged 52. Much of the account comes from the book In Tina's Shadow by Sharon R. Dunn.

The case

Murder of Tina Sandoval

Victims

Christina Marie 'Tina' Tornai Sandoval (23). born March 17th, 1972, in Indiana; a nurse in the oncology department of the Northern Colorado Medical Center, married to and divorcing him

Accused and outcomes

As told in the episode, on 8 January 2026.

Accused

Outcome

Other people

Jesse Sandoval. cousin and best friend, his best man, who had a short-lived affair with Tina in 1995 and died on February 23rd, 2017, aged 52
Michael. friend and criminal mentor, who taught him how to break into houses and served 90 days over the July 1983 burglary
Renee DeLeo. first wife, who telephoned Tina's parents before the wedding to warn them
Gabby. aunt, at his house when police arrived the night Tina disappeared
Michael Tornai. Tina's father, a police officer for two years
Mary Ellen Tornai. Tina's mother
Madonna Ewing. Tina's friend and colleague, who described slamming Tina's head against a wall and choking her
Heidi Paul. the woman was watching through windows when he was caught trespassing in November 1991
Wendy. Greeley Tribune sales representative followed through downtown Greeley in March 1993
Nora Lawson. woman whose California home burgled in May 1989
Jenny. first girlfriend, who moved into his mother's basement in 1981 and fled to Pueblo when he threatened her
Zachary Patton. man who falsely claimed he had helped bury Tina at Sunset Memorial Gardens, then admitted making it up
Keith Olson. Greeley detective who worked the case from 1995 and found the overlooked credit card entry in 2009
Brad Goldschmidt. Greeley lieutenant who led the investigation
Michael Rourke. assistant district attorney who reopened the case in 2008 and 2009
Rex Tincher. man who spoke with at a bar the night before Tina disappeared
Janelle Matthews. girl reported missing on December 26th, 1984, briefly considered as a possible victim of , who was cleared

The timeline

  1. March 17th, 1972 Christina Marie Tornai is born in Indiana, the second of nine childrenabout 0:19:35
  2. 1981 16-year-old girlfriend Jenny moves into his mother's basement ('s mother's basement)about 1:04:03
  3. 1982 first contact with police: caught smoking weed with friends in a parking lot during his junior yearabout 0:51:09
  4. July 1983 helps Michael burgle a Greeley house; a man chases the intruder off with a shovel and a motorcycle registered to Michael is left behind. Michael serves 90 daysabout 0:56:43
  5. October 1983 is contacted as a suspicious person in the Joslin's parking lot at the Greeley Mall (Greeley Mall)about 1:09:20
  6. November 1983 Police find in his car in the Holiday Inn parking lot with his trousers down, the windows fogged (Holiday Inn parking lot)about 1:09:30
  7. December 26th, 1984 Janelle Matthews is reported missing; is looked at and cleared because he was working in Californiaabout 1:12:01

Places and phrases

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Places in the story

Public places are marked on the map.

Heard in this episode