president trump says that it is unconstitutional, absolutely his own talk on certain individuals. that said, when you have folks like senator tuberville admit they are deliberately taking action to help former president trump overcome that gag order, you're right. there is only so much a gag order can do when a former president's ally and beyond that, want to go and help him do that. do that. order can necessarily d control >> thank you for springing into action tonight. that's our show for this evening. hello, i'm craig melvin, and this is dateline. >> he said he wouldn't handle talking about it. i was angry at him. if you're not going to tell me what happened and you're doing to dance around three different

stories. where are you hiding? it started as a teen romance. >> two of my girlfriends are like there's a guy. you've got to meet him. >> a deadly attack in the dark of night. his mother murdered. >> i realized that last conversation i had with her, that was it. >> his father, bruised and bewildered. >> i don't remember anything else. was it a robbery or was it something much darker? >> you were 11 years old when

your mother disappeared? >> a missing woman, a murdered woman, and alive. >> i could barely stomach to finish it. welcome to dateline. shannon palmer and eric candelario were young and engaged to be married, but their family rocked by scandal then murder. but his confusing story had police questioning his version of events. here's keith morrison with tangled. >> can't put words to that. it wwas very surreal. >> 911, where is your emergency? >> it's true the old saying when you marry someone, you marry their family too. >> we need an ambulance. it e looks like he's been shot.

he said someone broke in last night. him and his wife both. >> it is not a bad thing to turn to mom or dad for advice, counsel. >> it is unreal and sometimes you think it didn't happen, but it really did. >> reporter: it is with their help and support after all that true love could beat them and grow at last. >> i twatched the crime scene shows on tv. i never ever thought that oh, that's going to be my life. >> yes. it really is all about family. the desert opens up near pueblo, colorado, 100 miles south of denver. among the highest of the nation's desert. a little closer to heaven, perhaps? this is where shannon palmer's mom and thdad set out to create good, safe, holy life for their daughters. far from the risks and the temp rations of the city. >> it was awesome. got to grow up with horses,

dogs everywhere, chickens. s. >> reporter: shannon and her sister, kelsey, went to home. and twas their teacher. >> i loved it. i don't think i would miss out on the aspect of the education. >> reporter: there were strict guidelines, of course, about belief, family, e,marriage, sex and lythey learned members who commit adultery or who divorce can be cast out, shunned. shannon and t,kelsey's dad, jerry, didn't share the faith, but respected paths, though he was never fan of the home schooling. he wanted them to go to public schools, but pam wouldn't have it. >> she always wanted us to be this tall and be her little girls. she genuinely loved us. >> reporter: but finally when it was time for high school, oo pam relented. >> i think she realized you can't control an environmental

for a child forever though. >> what ilwas it like to make t transition? >> it was a culture shock. it was different. i was there maybe a week and my new wefriends are like let's educate you on the ways of the world and i was like oh my gosh. >> reporter: which included boys. >> two of my girlfriends were like there is this guy and we think you'll get along. >> the guy was eric candelario. >> i was in love, yes. >> we had such a connection. >> no kidding. both jehovah witnesses, both home schooled by their mothers or at least aaron was home schooled until his parents marriage broke up. >> we were drawn together that two people were so driven and optimistic and wanted to do big things in life. >> so after high school they got engaged.

full of excitement, planned the wedding. then one night shannon's ig mother, pam, sent the girls off to bible study and told their father, jerry, they needed to talk. >> she looked up and said i don't want to be married to you anymore, i don't want to be here. >> everything was fine, fine, fine? >> everything was fine. she said this is it. >> what did that feel like? >> i was crushed. >> reporter: these two were both products of broken homes. the wedding day approached when shannon's mother, pam, and aaron invited ralph. so some pre-marital guidance perhaps? oh tano. nothing like that. >> they told us we ran off, eloped, we got married. >> wait, what? your mother and aaron's father?

>> yes. >> who does that? >> i don't know, but i can't tell you how it felt i was hit by a bus? >> you were marrying your stepbrother? >> i didn't say much. i was just like well, we're leaving. >> suddenly jerry realized how blind he'd been. >> you don't understand. but then dafterwards it all, a the pieces fell apart? >> i trusted her. don't we do that in a relationship? >> no trust now. shannon and aaron were furious. told the elopers to stay away from the wedding, but they couldn't pretend it had not happened. when they hit the little bumps, did her father and your

mother's relationship have anything to do with what happened with you and shannon? >> we were h determined not to let their relationship have an affect. but you know, it's always something in the back of your head. >> reporter: after a year and a half, shannon and aaron divorced. they moved into a big house on the corner lot, an old coal mining town about 50 miles south of pueblo. they opened up an antique's mall in the center of town. and then bought a vacation home in oregon. >> that was the happiest i'd ever remember seeing her. >> for nearly three years, shannon still rarely spoke to her mom. but then sone day pam asked he to lunch. >> she was so focused on wanting me to know we had a future together, her and i. >> so she was trying to. i told her and said i can't

handle you being my mother and doing what you did, but i want to be your friend, and i want to try this. >> this was a breakthrough lunch? >> yeah. >> or a beginning at least. then just ina few days later. >> i was at work and i see aaron's name pop up on my phone. he said you know what, something happened and my dad is being rushed to the hospital and they can't find your mom, but i think someone is dead. >> who is dead? coming up. >> he keeps telling me to go help her. >> when.

full 24 hour and prevents future flare-ups. trelegy also improves lung function, so i can breathe more freely all day and night. trelegy won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. do not take trelegy more than prescribed. trelegy may increase your risk of thrush, pneumonia, and osteoporosis. call your doctor if worsened breathing, chest pain, mouth or tongue swelling, problems urinating, vision changes, or eye pain occur. ♪ what a wonderful world ♪ [laughing] ask your doctor about once-daily trelegy for copd because breathing should be beautiful, all day and night. dupixent helps people with asthma breathe better in as little as 2 weeks. and when you can breathe better, what isn't better? this is better. this is better. that's better. and that. even this. dupixent is an add-on treatment for specific types of moderate-to-severe asthma.

it works with your asthma medicine to help improve lung function. that's pretty good! dupixent is not for sudden breathing problems. it's proven to help prevent asthma attacks. it can reduce or even eliminate oral steroids. and doesn't that make things better? dupixent can cause allergic reactions that can be severe. tell your doctor right away if you have rash, chest pain, worsening shortness of breath, tingling or numbness in your limbs. tell your doctor about new or worsening joint aches and pain or a parasitic infection. don't change or stop asthma medicines including steroids, without talking to your doctor. when you can get more out of your lungs, you can du more with less asthma. and isn't that better? ask your doctor about dupixent, the most prescribed biologic in asthma. if you have wet amd, you never want to lose sight of the things you love. some things should stand the test of time. long lasting eylea hd could significantly improve your vision and can help you go up to 4

months between treatments. if you have an eye infection, eye pain or redness, or allergies to eylea hd, don't use. eye injections like eyla hd may cause eye infection, separation of the retina, or rare but severe swelling of blood vessels in the eye. an increase in eye pressure has been seen. there's an uncommon risk of heart attack or stroke associated with blood clots. the most common side effects were blurred vision, cataract, corneal injury, and eye floaters. and there's still so much to see. if you are on eylea or a similar type of treatment, ask your retina specialist about eylea hd today, for the potential for fewer injections.

keith morrison: 7:00 am january 16th, 2014, a cold morning in walsenburg, colorado. 7:00 a.m., january 16, 2014, a cold morning in colorado. >> 911, where is your energy? >> ralph and cam's neighbor had been on their way to work. >> we need an ambulance. >> she never encountered anything like this before. >> i looked over and he was saying help me, help me. >> ralph was on the ground and looked hurt. >> i got to him and asked him if he needed help. he seemed to be kind of out of

it. >> reporter: finally he managed to get the words out. he and his wife had been attacked and robbed. >> he looks like he's been shot. he said someone broke him last night, him and his wife both. >> how are they doing? >> he's not good. crying, and he keeps telling me to go help her, she's in the kitchen. i'm going to have my neighbor help me here. ralph, we're going to help you. hang. >> the police arrived, went into the house with gun drawns. there in the entrance of the kippen laid pam candelario. >> i knew she was dead when the ambulance showed up because they didn't go into the house. they just stayed in, we're working on ralph. >> reporter: ralph wasn't shocked, but he was hurt, and he was air lifted to the nearest hospital trauma. he knew it was not equipped to

handle an investigation of this magnitude. >> you have small departments, you don't have murder cups. >> no. >> you don't have forensic professionals on staff. >> so by the time shannon arrived at the hospital looking for her mother, an agent of the colorado bureau of investigation was there to meet her along with aaron. >> how did she take it? >> about as well as anybody could get hit by a sludge hammer, whatever. first you're kind of shocked, then a little denial. >> suddenly i realized that last conversation i had with her was it. >> it no fresh start start now. her mother was dead. and then shannon saw ralph. >> and he lost it. >> ralph's face was banged up

with bruises in several places, confused like a man coming out of a concussion. >> i'm just exhausted. my head still hurts. >> and ralph talked to agents of the cbi. >> sorry about your loss. >> it's been a horrible day. >> he got up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night and decided to go downstairs to make sure the wood burning stove was still lit. but on his way he said somebody hit him from behind and then from the side. >> i put my arm up and boom, i mean it just hit me like a ton of bricks. it hit me hard, you know i couldn't see anymore. >> i don't remember anything

else than waking up in the morning. >> ralph tried to sit up. >> i looked down the hallway. i could see her legs. >> revealed by the first warming sun. there was blood on the floor and i ran out of the house. >> and that is when he saw his neighbor and yelled for help. but who did it? robbers or someone else? normally >> you're always going to look to the closest people. >> but in this case, ralph was also a victim and wanted to

help find the killer or killers. >> he was very cooperative to the next one, jerry palmer. no secret jerry and pam did not get along after the divorce. a divorce, which by the way, she asked him to file since as a jehovah's witness, she wasn't allowed to. >> so then you filed for divorce? >> i filed for divorce. >> and now the police were calling. >> i told them i would be more than happy to talk to them. i said in about six hours, if you can be here to talk to me. >> nebraska, jerry had moved far away, which cleared him for sure. of course they need to look at

shannon and aaron too they were cleared immediately. >> there was no one. the crime scene people found some things mind you. including a bloody fireplace that turned out to be the murder weapon. >> the marking on her head was the exact replica of the shape of the fire poker, the end of the poker. >> and they cataloged everything they found. broken glass in the back door. they even took the knobs off drawers and sent them to the lab hoping they left dna or fingerprint on them. then they came through it all. >> i thought i had a little version of the pentagon papers in a way. coming up, a letter that

has everyone in town talking. >> i remember no, it did say that when dateline continues.

her uncle's unhappy. i'm sensing an underlying issue. it's t-mobile. it started when we tried to get him under a new plan. but they they unexpectedly unraveled their “price lock” guarantee. which has made him, a bit... unruly. you called yourself the “un-carrier”. you sing about “price lock” on those commercials. “the price lock, the price lock...” so, if you could change the price, change the name! it's not a lock, i know a lock. so how can we undo the damage? we could all unsubscribe and switch to xfinity. their connection is unreal. and we could all un-experience this whole session. okay, that's uncalled for. shell renewable race fuel. reducing emissions by 60%. ♪♪ we're moving forward with indycar.

because we're moving forward with everybody. shell. powering progress. keith morrison: it's a grand name, perhaps, shell. for a weekly paper in and out-of-the-way little town, the "huerfano world journal." it's tya grand name perhaps for the weekly paper. the where to know world

journal. and thriving coal mines offered promise. now? antique stores like pam's and ralph's fill the gaps. >> in all small towns there is nothing else to sell. >> and no surprise as it was a very big deal and for the whole town. >> people like the neighbors. >> i was afraid. i didn't want to go to my paint class because i was afraid to be out. >> a lot of neighbors told me and i wanted to protect myself. the house was filled with treasure.

>> some of which were missing as ralph told police during the video tape tour. >> okay. >> reporter: they have been about to leave on vacation, so maybe the intruders thought they were gone and they were surprised to find them at home. but who? as they supplied a possible lead. >> they brought up individual names that he believes were involved in this homicide. >> ramon barrels, drug user, both had rap sheets. and one informant said ramon was trying to sell jewelry? >> yeah. >> pam's daughter, shannon, found herself blaming ralph for not preventing what happened. >> i was angry at him like why

didn't you protect my mother? >> and right then the biggest scoop of eric mullen's career landed in the map of the world journey. >> i've seen a lot of things walk in the newsroom, but i had never seen anything like this. >> reporter: in through the front door marched ralph candelario with an open letter to the whole town. >> him explaining what he could remember after he had been treated up in pueblo for his injury and interviewed by the cbi. >> this is my story, this is what happened to me. >> to whom it may concern, he began, and including the typos as they appeared in his letter. his memory was coming back. he wanted to explain and maybe shannon was right, he felt guilty. i am angry at myself for not finding a way to do more or just getting myself killed too. and now he wrote he had an image of who his attackers were. i got a glimpse of that person,

a tall dark man with yellow glasses, short curly hair, wide nose, large lips, and marks on the sides of his face. >> the tall guy was talking on the phone in spanish, he said. one of the two felons the tipsters called out, hard to know. but one of them knocked him out he wrote and one he came to, there was pam, but not dead as had first told police. he said she was still alive. she started to convulse and i held her hand for just a couple of minutes, and she just went quiet. i yelled at her again and just started crying. and then the two men returned. i just broke down, i was crying, and i was cold, and i was freaked out. pam was there with me just a few feet away. things took a turn for the worst, he wrote. then he pointed his gun at me and fired. it just clicked. i can't fully say what happened

to me at this point. in fact he was so scared he had soiled his pajamas. he wrote his ordeal began when he and pam went to bed on tuesday night, not wednesday he originally thought, and lasted nearly two days. he woke up on thursday morning. i thought my nightmare was over, but i looked down the hall and i could see pam's legs in the kitchen. that's when he ran out of the house and found his neighbor who called 911. of course, the world journal pointed all that though police weren't too happy about that. >> picking it back up again. >> but remarkable as ralph's letter was, it still wasn't the whole story. a few weeks after the murder, he mustard up the courage and told police. >> he asked to go to the restroom and he was sexually

assaulted in the bathroom. >> why didn't he say anything about that before? >> his explanation was he was embarrassed. >> and it might be a little bit difficult to talk about, but the smallest details could be very important. >> he agreed to show the investigators exactly what happened and where. >> he grabbed me with the other hand on my hip right here. and, um, he proceeded to assault me. >> so that was a whole awful story. but if ralph thought sharing his more detailed recollections would clear the air, he was wrong. what did you think when you saw it? >> i was pretty blown away by what was written. >> coming up, back at home with detectives, ralph gets his own surprise. >> what happened to all the

knobs? >> he was very upset they were missing. >> when dateline continues. —is she? letting her imagination run wild even though she has allergies. yeah. everybody wants super straight, super white teeth. they want that hollywood white smile. new sensodyne clinical white provides 2 shades whiter teeth and 24/7 sensitivity protection. i think it's a great product. it's going to help a lot of patients. before apoquel chewable for allergic itch. giving dogs pills was a battle of wits. oh, maria, i'm wise to your foolish game. is it gone? totally gone. itch relief just got easier. apoquel. the trusted number one treatment for allergic itch is now available in a tasty chewable that works in a day. do not use in dogs with serious infections. may cause worsening of existing parasitic skin infestations or preexisting cancers and serious infections. new neoplasias have been observed. do not use in dogs less than 12 months old. ask your vet for apoquel chewable. do it!

welcome back. ask your vet for apoquel chewable. i'm craig melvin. when ralph candelario's account of the home invasion was published, it was the talk of the town. welcome back, i'm craig melvin. when ralph's account of the whole invasion was published, it was the talk of the town. but could the story be true? ralph said yes, and police wondered if the truth was in there somewhere. returning to tangled, here is chief morrison. >> reporter: ralph candelario appears that his letter on the murder of his wife would account for the terrible event. but here is what pam's daughter, shannon's office, and he was the victim of it had and

that made me sick. >> i thought it was very strange. it had some work to do because it sounded phony. >> entitled to their opinions, of course. >> but then, so were the cops. recovered memory? no. more like a cover-up. >> and nothing matched. it just didn't make sense. none of it. >> it wasn't that ralph changed the story. more like he kept adding to it. >> and he tailors his story to match what he thinks you're finding and offering more details about the drawer pulls in his house, the ones they

tested for fingerprints. >> in the event that one of the invasion persons touched them. >> and here is ralph, noticing the knobs. >> he was very upset. >> i don't understand why all the knobs were gone. >> and he would know? >> yes. >> but what if they didn't find any fingerprints? well in his letter a few days later, he from voided a few detail. >> he remembered they wore gloves, which would explain no one else's prints would be there with gloves. i had never heard that. they do exist. in the letter ralph also

changed the time of pam's death. why? could that have been perhaps to their challenge. >> she did die at 10:00 in the morning. and a little after today. >> okay. >> and it's a going to come back to you. >> okay. >> but that's when ralph reported the invaders were in his house for just a few hours. now he remembers the ordeal tock two days. the broken glass on the front door, it fell out the door, not in as expected to do if they were explained that to ralph. what did he write? his letter? i went out the back and the rear door glass was broken.

some pieces fell out when i opened the door. ralph even had answers to questions he wasn't asked like why was the fireplace poker exactly where it belonged by the fireplace? >> normally if you use a weapon, you're going to find it somewhere around where your victim is. and it looked like the poker had been put back in the original place. >> here is what ralph wrote. i picked up the poker to stir up the fire. i saw blood on the end of it. >> investigators studied his manifesto. >> it sounded like a novel to me. >> a bizarre one. >> shannon would be angry at ralph for not protecting his mother and read the letter. >> i didn't get through more than a page and a half and i threw it. i said this is the worst, you

know, i could barely stomach to finish it. >> aaron? shannon's ex-husband, ralph's son? aaron went to a very dark place indeed. oh, you have no idea. you were 11 years old when your mother disappeared? >> yes. >> coming up, secrets in the basement. >> i have been going through some of my old dad's stuff. i found some stuff that she supposedly took with her, a denim jacket, passport. >> what was that like? >> that was kind of the final straw when dateline continues. if you have wet amd, you never want to lose sight of the things you love. some things should stand the test of time.

long lasting eylea hd could significantly improve your vision and can help you go up to 4 months between treatments. if you have an eye infection, eye pain or redness, or allergies to eylea hd, don't use. eye injections like eyla hd may cause eye infection, separation of the retina, or rare but severe swelling of blood vessels in the eye. an increase in eye pressure has been seen. there's an uncommon risk of heart attack or stroke associated with blood clots. the most common side effects were blurred vision, cataract, corneal injury, and eye floaters. and there's still so much to see. if you are on eylea or a similar type of treatment, ask your retina specialist about eylea hd today, for the potential for fewer injections. choose advil liqui-gels for faster, stronger and longer-lasting relief than tylenol rapid release gels because advil targets pain at the source of inflammation.

so for faster pain relief, advil the pain away. [coughing] copd hasn't been pretty. it's tough to breathe and tough to keep wondering if this is as good as it gets. but trelegy has shown me that there's still beauty and breath to be had. because with three medicines in one inhaler, trelegy keeps my airways open and prevents future flare-ups. and with one dose a day, trelegy improves lung function so i can breathe more freely all day and night. trelegy won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it.

do not take trelegy more than prescribed. trelegy may increase your risk of thrush, pneumonia, and osteoporosis. call your doctor if worsened breathing, chest pain, mouth or tongue swelling, problems urinating, vision changes, or eye pain occur. ♪ what a wonderful world ♪ ask your doctor about once-daily trelegy for copd because breathing should be beautiful. breathing claritin clear is like... [♪♪] feeling the breeze instead of feeling congested. [♪♪] fast relief of allergies with nasal congestion, so you can breathe better. claritin plus decongestant. live claritin clear®.

keith morrison: the year was 2004, claritin plus decongestant. and aaron candelario was 11 years old. his parents had recently separated, the year was 2004. aaron was 11 years old. his parents had recently separated while sharing custody. one day after a weekend at his mods it was if ditch industry hand wring. he's taking off. >> his mother, dina, was simply gone. aaron was devastated. what did your family suggest maybe have happened to her? >> that she had possibly moved to missouri. a guy that she had been talking to online for quite some time, you know, maybe she ran away to be with him. >> reporter: a missing persons case was open, but nothing came

of it. aaron and his brother moved in with ralph full time. but aaron couldn't move on. he looked for years, but found no signs of his mom online. and a terrible suspicion took hold of him. something that is uncertainty. his mother must be dead. his father, must have done it. >> after that it became more of where would he put her body? >> he was maybe 13 or 14 when he thought about those old coal mines around walsenberg. >> so you went out and looked? >> oh yeah, i went there. >> you're looking for the remains of your own mother. >> i can't explain it. that fire that just drives you to do something. >> and then one day. >> i had been going through

some of my dad's stuff in the basement and i found a box full of stuff that she supposedly took with her. it was a denim jacket, passport, driver's license, cell phone were down there. >> wait a minute. what was that like? >> that was kind of the final straw. >> naturally if she was gone, she would have taken those things with her? >> that was my final piece of the puzzle. he left it there, the box in the basement, and emerged a changed person. shannon told us aaron wouldn't talk much about his mother when they were married. >> i found him up at night just over her stun >> going through her papers? >> he couldn't even handle. it wrecked him. >> when aaron heard pam was dead. >> my first response was how did he do it? >> and then he told the cops

about his mother. now you may have a serial killer of spouses. something like that. the one thing tay would have in common is ralph candelario. but suspicion alone wasn't enough. it wasn't proof. so the investigation continued? >> yes. >> in an effort to shake him or maybe even get a confession, tay sought help from the one person's presence. cbi tried to get me to help him. >> she must have been terried? >> it was probably one of the hardest things she's had to do. >> ralph? hey, this is shannon. >> but shannon did it. >> i've been waking up having panic attacks. i can't deal with this. i want to know what happened. can you tell me anything?

>> yeah. the only thing, >> ralph stuck to his story. a deadly home invasion. >> then i found her. >> yeah. >> i try to deal with that. >> reporter: shannon pressed ralph for details. >> the one guy that hit me that i saw from the front was taller than me. >> okay. >> he had a dark complex. you know, he had marks on his face. >> and then something that didn't sound quite right. >> i don't know. i just saw him for a split second. remember, in his letter, ralph said his captors held him and abused him for nearly two days. >> in my mind, if you're not going to tell me what happened, you're going to dance around the issue and tell three different stories, what are you

hiding? >> investigators wondering the same thing trying to find answers in a laptop. >> so somebody had been visiting the site at least? there that would have been our suspicion. >> on the scale of either pam or ralph? >> right. >> then they found ralph's real live mistress. yes, he had one. she said they carried on for most of the time he was married to pam. so now shannon thought back to the last time she saw her mother. >> i asked her if she was happy. >> what did she say? >> she realized she had given up her family because she destroyed this relationship with me and kelsey, and he's gone into this new marriage telling me she just wasn't as happy as she should have been. >> a lot of circumsubstantial

evidence. almost enough. >> i was searching the area and found in the washing machines two small sized rugs and they were still very wet and balled up to one side. >> reporter: but when ralph saw the rug, he didn't seem to recognize them. >> i have never seen these rugs. >> the minute we heard, we knew they had importance, we just didn't know how. >> and months later, they heard back. >> what did you find when you tested them? >> pam's blood was found on the rugs. >> they caught ralph in an obvious lie. he must have put them into the machine himself hoping to wash away the evidence. finally they had enough. almost nine months, officers went to the antique store with an arrest warrant. >> that's when we learned he decided to go to vacation.

>> ralph candelario was gone. coming up, a man hunt for a suspected killer by cell phone. >> i initiated some phone calls with ralph, so we could try to track him down. >> but would he answer? when dateline continues. if you have wet amd, you never want to lose sight of the things you love. some things should stand the test of time. long lasting eylea hd could significantly improve your vision and can help you go up to 4

months between treatments. if you have an eye infection, eye pain or redness, or allergies to eylea hd, don't use. eye injections like eyla hd may cause eye infection, separation of the retina, or rare but severe swelling of blood vessels in the eye. an increase in eye pressure has been seen. there's an uncommon risk of heart attack or stroke associated with blood clots. the most common side effects were blurred vision, cataract, corneal injury, and eye floaters. and there's still so much to see. if you are on eylea or a similar type of treatment, ask your retina specialist about eylea hd today, for the potential for fewer injections. hi, i'm chris and i lost 57 pounds on golo. agolo isn't complicated.st about eylea hd

i don't have to follow a restrictive diet, and i don't have to spend a lot of time making meals. using golo was truly transformative. it was easy, and inexpensive. ♪ ♪ [sfx] water lapping. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [sfx] water splashing. ♪ ♪ [sfx] ambient / laughing. ♪ ♪

keith morrison: it took nine months of painstaking police [sfx] ambient / laughing. work before investigators finally it took nine months of pain staking police work before investigators finally had enough evidence to arrest ralph candelario for the murder of his wife, pam. but tay would have to find them then or maybe on the run. >> yobbishuated some phone calls with ralph to try to track them down. >> reporter: they tracked his cell phone and caught up with him. in northern california. >> walk back to the sound of my voice. back to me. >> you all right? >> yeah.

>> charged him with first- degree murder. pam's daughters were relieved when they got the news. >> all i could think to myself was finally. >> what was that like? >> like yay and then oh my god. this is reality all over again, it's starting. >> meaning, of course, reliving the crime. at the trial. >> you want to go and testify? >> yeah, i want this to be over. >> but here it was, february 25, 2016. already ralph managed victory, tied prosecutor ryan blackly's hand in some way any way. >> well, we tried to tell the entire story about ralph candelario and his wife. >> the very suspicious disappearance of deena, the first wife, whose body has

never been found. but. >> ultimately the judge denied that motion and we went to trial without that piece. >> you already heard about the prosecution's evidence. ralph's open letter to the world journal, which said prosecutor matt durkin had been exposed as an elaborate lie. >> that letter was in itself very sensational story. it was inconsistent with all the physical evidence and the investigation that had occurred to that point. >> it was listed in detail for them to hear. but there is always one side to the story. when she read carefully through all the prosecution material, here is what jumped right out at her. >> when you take a good hard look at their evidence. when you see they have interpreted to fit the evidence and the conclusion they drove in the first 12 hours of this

case. you see all it is, assumptions and cut corners. >> but, said the defense and the facts and not assumptions. they would see ralph's story on what happened to pam would have to be true. remember the two men as possible killers? they had records. >> she wasn'ts in on a burglary. burglaries are not uncommon especially with all the drugs around. >> he hits pam in the head hard. he's standing there in the kitchen, fire poker in his hand. >> the they must have thought pam and ralph had already left for vacation. >> this family was suppose to be gone. that was the talk around town. >> so for the jury it came down to whose story to believe. prosecutors said the police cleared those suspects right

back in the beginning. but nothing could clear ralph. nothing could soften the truly ralph. >> pam wasn't bleeding. >> if he became a widower, he would be free to marry again. it was one of the more disturbing motives for murder they had ever heard. so his religious beliefs were more important than somebody else's life? >> ralph candelario was more important than anyone else's life. >> so the jury got the case and they worked till the end of the day, then a second, then a third. tick tock. >> whether they convict him or they don't, it will be a different set of emotions. >> in the middle of the third day. >> we, the jury, find the

defendant, ralph leroy candel ario of murder. the end of ralph's tour? oh no. he decided the plot needed one more twist. be the jail issued him a safety razor to clean up for court. ralph used it to slash his wrists and throat. his own son was not sympathetic. >> well, the suckers would rather go out than face his destiny that way. >> suicide attempt, delayed tactic? whatever it wasn't, it didn't work. >> people verses ralph lee candelario. >> and ralph got another day in the spotlight. >> your honor, i have maintained that i have been innocent throughout this whole process. >> and the key observer might have almost heard the jaws drop

around the courtroom. >> pam will be resurrected. we will be able to see her again. we will be able to watch her laugh and sing and do all the things that made her special person. >> but for now, his future is life without the possibility of parole. >> i had never had a weight >> it was wonderful. >> i don't want to embarrass you, but i have found investigators of homicides are the biggest softies of the planet. >> we're not suppose to let that out. >> you're not suppose to care as much as you do. >> you do. you become very attached. >> those girls are special. pam had a part in that. hopefully they will be able to live on her legacy. >> and ralph's legacy?

because of him, aaron will go on searching, hoping to learn what happened to his mother. >> yeah, i will be looking. >> he didn't just murder someone and have nothing afterwards. he left behind family. he left behind a disaster. if i'm the only thing to remind hum of that, then that's what i'm there for. >> that's all for this edition of dateline, i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. >> i'm craig melvin. thanks for watching. i wonder why i didn't do more. i should have done something different. i'll live with that forever. forever and ever it will haunt me. >> high school sweethearts with the growin