REOPENED: The Punishment

Summary

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Cold Case Files: REOPENED – "The Punishment"

Episode Date: August 21, 2025
Host: Brooke Giddings (A&E / PodcastOne)
Summary by Podcast Summarizer

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Overview

This episode revisits the chilling 1978 death of six-year-old Sally Cheesebrough in Battle Creek, Michigan. Initially ruled an accidental drowning, the case stayed cold for decades. Through the dogged determination of her sister Nancy and new forensic insights, investigators brought long-overdue justice to light—even if it felt incomplete.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction to the Case

• Sally Cheesebrough, age 6, lived with her older sister Nancy, mother Bonnie, and stepfather David Walton.
• On March 9, 1978, Sally was found unresponsive in the bathtub.
• Despite oddities, her death was ruled an accidental drowning.
• Nancy, then 7, was burdened with guilt after being forced to apologize at Sally's grave. Their parents insisted it was Nancy's fault.

2. Abuse and Hidden Truths

• Nancy reveals the extent of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse suffered by her and Sally.
  • Quote:

    "We would be pushed down the stairs, whipped with anything about... I've had so many hospital emergencies with stitches because of things being thrown at me." (Nancy, 03:35)

  • Sexual abuse and being "pimped out" by the parents are recounted in graphic detail (05:21).
• The "cold bath treatment" was the most feared punishment.
  • Quote:

    "We would have to fill it up with nothing but cold water...sometimes...for hours...They would hold us under, push us down, make us stay down." (Nancy, 04:12)

• Sally died after taking the blame for using nail polish and receiving the cold bath punishment.

3. The Aftermath & Reopening the Case

• Nancy was removed from the home at 12 and entered foster care.
• As an adult, Nancy (now Nancy Spalding) decided to fulfill her promise to Sally to seek justice.
  • Quote:

    "I really wanted justice for Sally... I promised that to her at her funeral." (Nancy, 07:35)

• In 1992, Nancy provides a full account to Detective Dennis Mullen, marking the first real investigation into Sally’s death.
  • Quote:

    "She was present when this occurred and was a witness to a great, a great part of it." (Mullen, 08:15)

4. Investigation Challenges

• Original evidence was thin: only an autopsy and accidental death notice.
• Bonnie (mother) admits during interview to helping hold Sally in the cold bathtub as punishment but claims they never intended harm.
  • Quote:

    "David couldn't get her in the bathtub, so I helped him...while he was ducking her, I held onto her feet." (Bonnie, 09:14)

• David Walton (stepfather) initially denies involvement, later confesses after "finding" Christianity.
  • Quote:

    "I'm gonna tell everything. That's what I came down here for, is to tell everything." (Walton, 10:38) Confesses to holding Sally's head underwater, but blames Bonnie.
    “I’m guilty of second degree murder.” (Walton, 11:15)

5. Medical & Forensic Breakthroughs

• A major challenge: No water in Sally’s lungs—how could it be drowning?
• Expert Dr. Thomas Adams explains the possibility of laryngospasm (involuntary closing of the airway upon sudden cold-water shock), which can cause suffocation and cardiac arrest without water inhalation.
  • Quote:

    "It's an involuntary contraction of the muscles of the larynx that stops people from breathing." (Dr. Adams, 12:24) "Cardiac arrest probably is what killed her so quickly." (Dr. Adams, 12:55)

6. Final Prosecution and Outcome

• In 2002, a cold case unit reopens the file using the parents' videotaped confessions and new forensic understanding.
• Both Bonnie and David are arrested and tried for murder.
• Bonnie is acquitted due to language subtleties and lack of direct evidence of malice.
  • Quote:

    "The entire trial rested on one letter of one word...If she had said she knew what she had done would kill Sally..." (Investigator Howe, 15:53)

• David Walton is convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
• Investigator reflects on verdict:
  • Quote:

    "Makes you feel that justice is done, but only halfway. Bonnie will never pay for her crime, at least on this Earth." (Howe, 17:00)

7. Closure for Nancy

• After 26 years, Nancy gets a measure of closure.
  • Quote:

    "Today, I have closure." (Nancy, 17:22)

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Notable Quotable Moments

• On Abuse:

  "Bonnie would tell us how to do it." (Nancy, 03:56)
  "She pimped me out to other guys..." (Nancy, 05:21)

• On the Investigation:

  "She was just being punished." (Bonnie, 09:26)
  "What crime is it? ... Murder one." (Walton, 11:12)

• On Justice:

  "Our heart went out to Sally and to Nancy when we read the case." (Howe, 11:45)
  "Makes you feel that justice is done, but only halfway." (Howe, 17:00)
  "Today, I have closure." (Nancy, 17:22)

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Important Segments (Timestamps)

• [01:26] – Nancy describes finding Sally in the tub
• [03:35] – Nancy recalls childhood abuse
• [04:12] – Details of the "cold bath" punishment
• [07:35] – Nancy contacts police as an adult
• [09:13] – Parental confessions in interrogations
• [10:38] – David Walton’s full confession
• [12:24] – Dr. Adams explains laryngospasm
• [15:33] – Prosecutorial challenges over establishing malice
• [16:33] – Walton's trial and conviction
• [17:22] – Nancy's closure

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Conclusion

This episode is a haunting portrait of a decades-old child murder, institutional failures, and the perseverance needed to surface the truth. Through Nancy’s courage and modern investigative persistence, the rare cold case is solved, though justice can never fully erase the trauma.
The story is told with empathy, blending raw testimony, police procedural, and a sobering scientific explanation of how the crime occurred.

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For more Cold Case Files, visit aetv.com or the A&E Real Crime blog.

Transcript

[Brooke Giddings]

An A and E original podcast, this.

[Narrator]

Episode contains descriptions of violence and sexual assault. Use your best judgment. Sally Cheesebrough was six years old in March of 1978. She and her older sister Nancy lived with their mother and stepfather in Battle Creek, Michigan. Sally was in kindergarten at Post Elementary School and Nancy, who was just a year older, was in the first grade. They both went to church and were members of Our Girls Club, an organization that taught girls how to sew and cook. The sisters were close. They didn't have a lot of outside friends to talk with. On March 9, the girls wanted to put on fingernail polish. It was clear, but it probably still made them feel fancy. Bonnie, the girl's mother, had told them to wait until she woke up. But the girls didn't listen. Nancy opened the bottle and applied the polish to her sister's fingers and then her own. Later on that same day, an ambulance was called to their home. Six year old Sally wasn't breathing. Nancy had found her face down in the bath. This is Nancy.

[Nancy Cheesebrough / Nancy Spalding]

I just wanted to get her out and I walked in and she was laying face under the water and I tried pulling her up and she was heavy, real heavy. I don't think even at my age where I am now, I couldn't even pick her up. I screamed and hollered for Bonnie.

[Narrator]

Sally's obituary said that she had accidentally drowned and that her parents had tried to resuscitate her. The girl was pronounced dead when she arrived at the hospital. Bonnie told the medic, Joe Arbik, that she had tried to dress her daughter before he arrived. A story that didn't make much sense.

[Jeff Cabot]

To Joe, just never made any sense because you had, you know, it said she drowned, but she was clothed and then her hair was dry on the inside and just barely wet on the out.

[Narrator]

The morning after Sally had died, the coroner performed an autopsy on her body. Interestingly, there wasn't any water in her lungs, a fact which didn't rule out drowning, but also didn't confirm it. Sally's cause of death was listed as undetermined. The accidental drowning of a child is a tragedy, but what makes this particular incident even more tragic is that Sally's death wasn't an accident at all. She'd been murdered and no one was looking for her killer. From A and E, this is Cold Case Files. Seven year old Nancy Cheesebrough felt a deep sense of guilt after her sister's death. Especially after the funeral when Nancy's parents told her to apologize at Sally's graveside because it was her fault that Sally was dead. That day, she made a promise to Sally that one day she would hold their parents accountable. Nancy knew that Sally's death wasn't accidental and that she was now going to live alone with her abusive parents. This is Nancy.

[Nancy Cheesebrough / Nancy Spalding]

We would be pushed down the stairs, whipped with anything about, leaving little branches. Anything I can grab. I've had so many hospital emergencies with stitches because of things being thrown at me.

[Narrator]

The girls had also been sexually abused.

[Nancy Cheesebrough / Nancy Spalding]

Sally and I would have to perform oral sex on him. Bonnie would tell us how to do it.

[Narrator]

Of all the abuse and punishments the girls received, they dreaded what they called the cold bath treatment the most.

[Nancy Cheesebrough / Nancy Spalding]

The bathtub. We would have to fill it up with nothing but cold water and lay down on the bed. And sometimes we may be only in there for a few minutes, but days, we'd been in there for hours. Those would go on every week, Five, six, seven times a week. They would hold us under, push us down, make us stay down, yell, beat us. Many, many times. We were forced into the water and dumped under.

[Narrator]

On the day that Sally died, she had taken the blame for using the nail polish and was being punished using the cold bath. Nancy's father told her not to tell anyone about the punishment. He told her exactly what he wanted.

[Nancy Cheesebrough / Nancy Spalding]

Her to say, that she was taking a bathroom splendor with a toy in the bathroom and must have fallen or something. That's all I know. And told me that if I didn't tell them this that they would kill me.

[Narrator]

Nancy's life went from bad to worse. Her parents began loaning her out for sex.

[Nancy Cheesebrough / Nancy Spalding]

She pimped me out to other guys and one guy, she had a threesome with me and him and things like that.

[Narrator]

At the age of 12, Nancy was removed from her parents home and put into foster care. But she never forgot her promise to Sally.

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[Narrator]

Nancy Cheesebrough grew up and became Nancy Spalding, an adult not under the control of abusive parents. In October of 1992, at the age of 21, she made a decision to contact the police and to tell them the true story of her sister's death.

[Nancy Cheesebrough / Nancy Spalding]

I really wanted justice for Sally because I had promised that to her at her funeral. But I was looking at realistically that it may never happen, that I would need to find it within myself.

[Narrator]

She spoke with Detective Dennis Mullen.

[Detective Dennis Mullen]

She introduced herself by name and said that she needed to make a complaint to the police department about her sister's death, that her sister didn't die accidentally.

[Narrator]

Nancy shared the story of the day Sally died because of the cruel punishment she received from their parents.

[Detective Dennis Mullen]

She was present when this occurred and was a witness to a great, a great part of it. And she needed to come forward and bring out the truth as to what happened that day. I thought she was straight up. There was a lot of pain and a lot of emotion in her voice and I believed it. Right after the first few minutes.

[Narrator]

Mullen went through the case file, but there was only an autopsy report and an accidental death notice. He was going to have to start from scratch. He decided to contact Sally's parents and on March 16, 1993, he brought Bonnie, now married to a different man, in for an interview.

[Detective Dennis Mullen]

Hi there Bonnie. Why don't you have a seat in this red sheer. Bonnie this is Detective Walters.

[Investigator Bill Howe / David Walton]

How are you?

[Detective Dennis Mullen]

Bonnie Van Dam. Nice to meet you.

[Narrator]

They asked Bonnie to share what happened on the night Sally died.

[Detective Dennis Mullen]

We could talk to her if she wasn't taking her back.

[Nancy Cheesebrough / Nancy Spalding]

David couldn't get her in the bathtub, so I helped him put her in the bathtub, cold water. And while he was ducking her, I held onto her feet.

[Narrator]

Bonnie explained that they weren't trying to kill Sally. She was just being punished.

[Detective Dennis Mullen]

How many other times did you and David punished Sally like this in the cold water?

[Nancy Cheesebrough / Nancy Spalding]

Quite a few times.

[Detective Dennis Mullen]

Always the same. You held her and David ducked her?

[Nancy Cheesebrough / Nancy Spalding]

Yeah.

[Narrator]

After Bonnie's interview, Detective Mullen contacted David, Bonnie's now ex husband. But he denied any involvement and refused to speak with detectives. Mullen believed he could make the case for a terrible punishment gone wrong. But because there was no water in Sally's lungs, making the case for drowning would be extremely difficult. In July of 1998, Detective Mullen got a telephone call he wasn't expecting from David Walton. Walton told the detective that he had become a Christian and wanted to talk about Sally's death. This is Detective Mullen again.

[Detective Dennis Mullen]

I believe that he wanted to make things right. He wanted to make things right in his heart.

[Narrator]

Walton agreed to an interview at the police station.

[Detective Dennis Mullen]

You gonna make a clean sweep over here today?

[Investigator Bill Howe / David Walton]

I'm gonna tell everything. That's what I came down here for, is to tell everything.

[Narrator]

Walton admitted to holding Sally's head underwater, but claimed that Bonnie was the one who was responsible for the little girl's death.

[Detective Dennis Mullen]

He kind of blames Bonnie as Bonnie telling him to do it. Bonnie's directing things and he's responding to her directions. So did Bonnie do anything wrong, you think?

[Investigator Bill Howe / David Walton]

I think she very much did. What do you think she did by sitting there ordering?

[Detective Dennis Mullen]

Being a dictator, do you view that as being a crime?

[Investigator Bill Howe / David Walton]

That is a crime.

[Detective Dennis Mullen]

What crime is it?

[Investigator Bill Howe / David Walton]

Murder one.

[Detective Dennis Mullen]

And how about yourself?

[Investigator Bill Howe / David Walton]

I'm guilty of second degree murder.

[Narrator]

In order for the case to go to the jury, the investigators needed to be able to explain the lack of water in Sally's lungs. Four years later, in 2002, Calhoun county put together their first cold case unit. They decided that Sally's case was the first one they would investigate. This is investigator Bill Howe.

[Investigator Bill Howe / David Walton]

Our heart went out to Sally and to Nancy when we read the case. And we just knew that this was a case we were going to go.

[Narrator]

The team had the videotaped interviews from both parents and the autopsy report. But the problem was the two pieces of evidence seemed to contradict each other. They decided to consult Dr. Thomas Adams, a physiologist who specialized in the regulation of body temperature. They asked him a pretty straightforward question. How could Sally have been drowned but have no water in her lungs? According to Dr. Adams, one possible explanation was a laryngospasm.

[Dr. Thomas Adams]

It's an involuntary contraction of the muscles of the larynx that stops people from breathing. It's a similar response to what happens when you get a sudden blast of cold water and it takes your breath away.

[Narrator]

Sally was repeatedly dunked under the water. She could have had a spasm and then been unable to breathe. So no water got into her lungs because the water was so cold. The combination of the two things could have caused her heart to stop.

[Dr. Thomas Adams]

85 degrees Fahrenheit is fairly well recognized as a dangerous internal body temperature. It's the point at which the electrical activity in the heart is no longer rhythmatic. And I think that cardiac arrest probably is what killed her so quickly.

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[Narrator]

On May 20, 2002, Bonnie Van Dam was arrested and brought in for questioning.

[Interviewer / Prosecutor]

Okay, we need to do this for Sally. You need to be honest with me.

[Nancy Cheesebrough / Nancy Spalding]

But I don't want to go deal for something I didn't do. I didn't kill her. He asked me to hold her legs.

[Interviewer / Prosecutor]

He asked you to hold her legs?

[Nancy Cheesebrough / Nancy Spalding]

Okay.

[Interviewer / Prosecutor]

And you said you were afraid of him. Why were you afraid of him?

[Nancy Cheesebrough / Nancy Spalding]

Because he was always beating on me, too.

[Narrator]

David Walton was arrested on the same day. Both of them were charged with murder. Bonnie opted for a bench trial, which took place 18 months after the day she was arrested. She was being tried under the malice murder statute that was in effect in 1978, meaning that for a defendant to receive a guilty verdict, the evidence must point to a specific showing of malice. This is prosecutor Jeff Cabot.

[Jeff Cabot]

Bonnie Van Dam had to know that her holding Sally's legs while David held her in the bathtub that night were going to result in death. That was a problem. We knew it was going to be a problem.

[Narrator]

Investigator Howe explains how the evidence was interpreted.

[Investigator Bill Howe / David Walton]

The entire trial rested on one letter of one word. She said in her taped interview that she knew what she did could have killed Sally. The issue if she had said she knew what she had done would kill Sally. The judge said that he could have found her guilty.

[Interviewer / Prosecutor]

Yet you directed her to get in the tub, even though you were afraid it could cause some kind of damage to Sally, including death.

[Narrator]

Yes. Bonnie was acquitted. And six weeks later, David Walton's trial by jury began. This is prosecutor Jeff Cabot. Again.

[Jeff Cabot]

It'S like you want to put them there in that bathroom as David Walton is dunking Sally's head under the water, in that water that's, you know, 50 some degrees over and over as she begs him to stay out.

[Narrator]

David Walton was convicted of second degree murder and will be in prison for the rest of his life. Investigator Bill Howe feels like Walton's conviction was only half of a win.

[Investigator Bill Howe / David Walton]

Makes you feel that justice is done, but only halfway. Bonnie will never pay for her crime, at least on this Earth.

[Narrator]

After 26 years, Nancy finally feels like she was able to keep her promise.

[Nancy Cheesebrough / Nancy Spalding]

Today, when I was standing there, I was remembering some good times with just Sally and I. But outside of my parents, there were some good times when we were together. Today, I have closure.

[Narrator]

Cold Case Files. The podcast is hosted by Brooke giddings, produced by McKamey, Lynn and Steve Delamater. Our executive producer is Ted Butler. Our music was created by Blake Maples. This podcast is distributed by Podcast One. The Cold Case Files TV series was produced by Curtis Productions and is hosted by Bill Curtis. You can find me BrookeGinnings on Twitter and Brooke the podcaster on Instagram. I'm also active in the Facebook group Podcast for Justice. Check out more Cold case [e-mail] or learn more about cases like this one by visiting the AE realcrime [e-mail] realcrime.

[Brooke Giddings]

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[Detective Dennis Mullen]

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[Nancy Cheesebrough / Nancy Spalding]

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[Brooke Giddings]

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[Nancy Cheesebrough / Nancy Spalding]

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[Brooke Giddings]

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