Shivangi Sinha
Sandra Galas seemingly had a good life in Kauai, Hawaii. She had two children and, although she was in the middle of a divorce from Darren Galas, she had also started seeing someone new. In January 2006, when she failed to show up for work and stopped answering her phone, her friends and family became concerned. Her boyfriend, Ryan Shinjo, went to her house, where he found her remains inside her car. Investigators were quickly called to the scene and collected the available evidence, but it was only years later that an arrest was made. NBC’s ‘Dateline,’ particularly the episode ‘The Other Side of Paradise,’ provides details about the case and how it was ultimately resolved.
Sandra Galas’ Remains Were Found by Her Boyfriend at the Time
Sandra Mendonca was born on May 15, 1978, to Larry and Toshie Mendonca in Japan. She was half Japanese and half Portuguese, but grew up in Kauai, Hawaii. She and her brother, Lawrence Mendonca, enjoyed the quiet and peaceful life in their small town. Sandra was a brilliant student in school. She was also part of the cheerleading team and played sports. After finishing high school, she decided to attend college in Honolulu, but the life there did not suit her much. She preferred the slow-paced life of her small town and returned in the late 1990s. She eventually met Darren Galas, who worked in construction, and the two married in 1999.
Sandra welcomed two boys, Austin and Brayden, into her life. However, by 2005, differences had emerged between her and Darren, and the couple separated. She soon filed for divorce, leading to a custody battle between the two. During this time, she also started dating Ryan Shinjo. Sandra and Darren had an arrangement to split time with their children, with Sandra usually picking them up from her estranged husband’s house in the morning. On the morning of January 25, 2006, Sandra did not show up at Darren’s house at 6 am to pick up her sons. She also failed to show up for work and had stopped answering calls. Ryan then went to check on her and noticed that the garage lights were on. When he entered, he found her remains in her car, on the passenger seat. The autopsy concluded that she had been physically assaulted and then strangled.
Sandra Galas’ Ex-Husband Was Arrested in Connection to the Crime
The detectives who started working on the case said in the episode that they concluded Sandra had been killed using something like a fishing line. They soon learned about her ongoing divorce proceedings, and Darren Galas became a suspect in the case. However, at the time, investigators believed Sandra had been killed after 9 am, when Darren was already at work, giving him an alibi. Police executed a search warrant at his house, but in the absence of evidence linking him to the crime, he was not arrested. Investigators also focused on Ryan Shinjo, who had discovered Sandra’s remains. The episode notes that Ryan had faced drug-related charges in the past, which led investigators to consider him as a potential suspect.
With nothing new emerging, the case went cold until 2008, when advances in DNA technology helped with the extraction of new evidence. Male DNA was recovered from evidence collected at the crime scene and came back as a match to Darren. By then, he had taken over custody of his sons and was living with them. However, detectives also realized that Sandra had met her estranged husband many times, so the presence of his DNA on her was not considered solid evidence by itself. In 2012, the cold-case unit resumed work on the case and uncovered new information that had not been accounted for previously. In an email Sandra had written to her attorney when she filed for divorce in August 2005, she had accused Darren of being abusive.
The detectives also found a diary belonging to Darren that contained a detailed account of his daily activities. He had made entries for every day except January 25, 2006, the day Sandra was found killed. The investigators featured in the episode said that when they had first interviewed Darren, he had appeared nervous and had allegedly given differing accounts of his whereabouts. Eventually, a new timeline of the killing was constructed, suggesting that Sandra could have been killed earlier in the morning. Based on this, investigators believed Darren’s alibi for that morning had fallen apart. Furthermore, he had reportedly not called Sandra when she failed to show up to pick up their sons. Darren was arrested in October 2012 for second-degree murder but was soon released on bail. As the trial was repeatedly delayed, it was only in January 2018 that he pleaded no contest to a single first-degree assault charge. He never confessed to the killing.
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