we find comfort going to mom's house when jocelyn is there. and her spirit is just like sarah's, so it's like sarah growing up all over again. so i believe sarah left us this gift. she's our other little angel that was given to us from sarah so her spirit can live on. give me a kiss. mmm, thank you. can i have another gift. mmm. guilt still in me. it makes me sick how i could do something like that.

i'm the responsible one. craig melvin: a working mom, new at the office. she loved her job and really loved her handsome, young boss. the thing that i never wanted to face was the hurt that i was going to cause. craig melvin: a passionate 9:00 to 5:00 affair. the problem-- she was married. and so was he. i grabbed his face, and i was like, "you know what, i love you. i'm not going anywhere. just tell me what's happening." craig melvin: cheating husbands, scheming wives-- suburbs are full of secrets. but being unfaithful to your spouse isn't a crime, is it? that would come next. it was just like every emotion possible all in one second. i went, [gasps], oh my god. craig melvin: murder in the dark-- who was behind it, and who would pay? when you see him on the video, he's armed and ready.

craig melvin: two couples, two families, and the single moment that shattered it all. i knew, one day, that this was all going to come out. hello, and welcome to "dateline." it's a cautionary tale that started with two seemingly happy couples in suburban idaho. then their lives collided in a twisted love triangle that ended with gunfire in a parking lot. the showdown left one husband dead and the other injured. for investigators, figuring out who fired the fatal shots meant untangling the relationships at the heart of the crime, which were complicated. here's keith morrison with "deadly desire." keith morrison: look at this place now-- so ordinary, with its pharmacy, its grocery store, its carefully tended parking

places so alike to suburban strip malls from bismarck to bakersfield. but that night? that cold night, a heat gathered here-- sweet, terrifying, doomed. for the longest time, i couldn't go anywhere because i'm thinking everybody's looking at me. keith morrison: this is the story of two married couples, of the advice they can offer others now that it's too late for them. i think, if i could tell them anything, it would be put your family first. keith morrison: but of course, that's not what happened. and this parking lot, there'll be a body here before we're done. keith morrison: careful when you stir the hot pot of desire.

the place is meridian idaho, little brother to bigger boise here in the foothills of the majestic rockies. this is where they got to their perfect place, the end of their rainbow. it was 2006, and luck was on their side. they had just moved from southern california, and they were happy. they were fulfilled at work. they had two beautiful children. they had everything they ever wanted. they were rob and kandi hall, one of those charmed couples who'd fallen in love at first sight. in their case, first sight meant admiring each other in the gym. we were out, i think, that weekend, and then we never stopped. what was it about that relationship? what was it about him that you liked so much, that was so good? we just connected instantly. keith morrison: by the time rob and kandi moved to idaho, they'd been together for years, had two teenage daughters. rob landed an excellent job as a computer specialist at the ada county sheriff's office, specializing in vehicle locators inside squad cars.

he loved every minute of his job. keith morrison: and as if it was a sign that this is where they belonged, kandi's career as a paralegal took off too. she was a natural, could and did sell her confidence and skills to anybody who walked in the door. it didn't hurt that she was pretty. keith morrison: no, it didn't. and her co-worker, sofia serna, idolized kandi. you became close. oh, we became very close. she was like a mother to me. keith morrison: yes, it was all just about perfect. and then who knows why these things happen exactly. they just do. and no one imagined why, would they, how this thing was going to end. about eight months into his new job, rob started traveling for work. nothing unusual about that, of course. but soon he seemed to be staying away from home a little longer than he really had to, started snapping at her, too, kandi said, about little things,

not like the old rob at all. so at this point, you begin to suspect something. yeah. i start thinking, what is going on? why are you acting like this? keith morrison: and then one night, after a late flight in from california, rob lay down beside his wife in bed and it all came tumbling out. he just started to cry. and he said, "i'm having an affair." and i laid my head on his chest, and i said, "rob, please, just fix it." so you didn't get upset? you didn't say-- you didn't yell? you didn't scream? you didn't cry? you didn't do anything? that's what shocked him. you know, the typical response is, get the hell out. you throw the clothes out the window. oh, no. the last person on this planet that you would think to have an affair would be robert. keith morrison: but of course, it was devastating, crippling. every day she went to work, and every day sofia saw her friend turn herself inside

out and just seem to wither. i watched her go through misery. did she still love him? yes, dearly. and wanted the marriage to continue in spite of the affair? yes, she did. she didn't want to believe in her head that he found something in this woman that wasn't in kandi. keith morrison: well, he felt bad about it, agreed to go through counseling with kandi, but-- after he confessed to you and you said, fix it, he didn't. he didn't know what he wanted. come on, no. i mean, he wanted to keep going with the affair. that's what he wanted. i for sure told him to stop. stop right now or i'll stamp my foot and hold my breath. yeah. and he kept doing it. yeah. it was my fault. he had a void because of me. that's what i was thinking. what do you think the void might have been? or what did you think the void? i just was boring. keith morrison: boring old kandi hall, rejected, apparently unlovable, and nearly 40.

and then one day at work, kandi was introduced to a recent law school graduate who was looking to staff his new office, a boyishly handsome, smart as a whip, cocky young lawyer. his name was emmett corrigan. my friend, she said, emmett, you've got to meet kandi. i mean, she's just as passionate and aggressive as you are, and she would be great for you. keith morrison: and something suddenly lifted in kandi hall. by the time those words had left her friend's mouth, kandi knew. she just knew. kandi hall has a decision to make, and it will have consequences she never intended, deadly ones. coming up, three unfaithful spouses and their lies candy hall will have a decision to make. and it will have consequences. three unfaithful spouses and the lies are piling up. >> i.

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♪ ♪ [ speaking minionese ] no. no. no. no. no. no. [ gasps ] [ chuckling ] good job, junior. way to go. [ chuckling ] [ speaking minionese ] keith morrison: in boise, idaho, inside this law office in the fall of 2010 was a paralegal whose charmed life was falling apart. kandi hall was an unhappy woman. her marriage was dying or dead. her 40th birthday was bearing down like a chinese bullet train. and then, one day, it got worse. kandi's boss told her she was also unemployed.

my husband's had an affair. now my attorney who i work for has fired me. yeah, pretty low. keith morrison: such problems. and then there was him. emmett corrigan fixed everything. he was handsome, and he thought she was gorgeous. and of course, he hired her right away for his new law office. and, well, you know what came next. soon there were racy emails, spicy text messages. i would like to be put on that pedestal. emmett made me feel that way. it was pretty much of an ego boost for me. keith morrison: and she really wasn't trying to get back at her husband, said kandi, at least not consciously. i was thinking about me and only me. you know what, it made me feel good. it made me feel like i was on top of the world. keith morrison: sitting here, now, is kandi still thinking only of kandi?

perhaps as you hear the rest of the story, you can be the judge of that. anyway, back then, there were a few hitches in kandi's newfound fantasy life. to start with, emmett corrigan was also married and lived in this quiet cul-de-sac just a couple of miles from kandi with this woman, his wife, ashlee. he was just a guy that everybody wanted to be around. enthusiastic, full of energy. sometimes too much energy, but that's kind of one of the things i loved about him. keith morrison: just like kandi and rob, ashlee and emmett met in a gym. theirs was in college in utah, 2003. also inseparable from that moment on. and they certainly made a striking young couple. they were married after just six months together, made their vows before god and the church in the lds temple and-- ashlee corrigan: we both were like, you know what, i think i'm ready to be a parent. keith morrison: first came twin girls, followed soon by a son and then another daughter.

ashlee corrigan: he loved being a dad just as much as i love being a mom. keith morrison: in the winter, they went skiing and sledding. in the summer, they camped and swam at the lake they so loved. they made memories. ashlee never doubted this was how their life was supposed to be. she was pregnant with her fifth child when her ambitious husband opened his law office that fall of 2010 and made the fateful decision to hire a paralegal named kandi hall, not that he had any idea he was sealing his fate, of course, any more than his wife ashlee understood his private motivations. did you suspect she was involved with him at all? with emmett? keith morrison: yeah. no. why? the way he described her was an older woman who he looked up to in a motherly way. he said, she just believes in me. she thinks i'm going to be this great lawyer. and you saw her, and she was an older woman. she was almost 40, and i was 28.

so i don't-- it wasn't something that i felt like a competition of, i guess. keith morrison: but for the many reasons that plainly escaped those who aren't seated smack on the hot stove of desire themselves, emmett and kandi thought otherwise. oh, they tried to keep their hands off each other for a little while, said their co-workers. but if they believed they were hiding their obvious infatuation, their suddenly messy hair, their hastily rearranged clothes, they were only fooling themselves. i noticed a significant change in her attitude, went from being depressed about what rob had done to happy, you know, and-- a spring in her step again. oh, yeah. keith morrison: such timing. now that rob seemed to want to fix their marriage, kandi became a study in pretense. honesty took a holiday. i was living a lie. being in an affair is just living one big lie. keith morrison: yes, and she lied to herself too.

you were thinking of you and he together striding across the bow of the "titanic." this is going to be it for you for ever. yes. keith morrison: then one night a couple of months into the affair, events suddenly ticked measurably toward their deadly conclusion. around bedtime, kandi received a text from emmett and couldn't hide it. the text popped up, and rob read it. and it said, "i wish i was there with you tonight." he-- - what did he say? he was angry. he just-- kandi, what is this? and i said, i don't know. so he calls emmett. rob goes, why are you texting my wife at this time of night? keith morrison: emmett's answer-- two minutes later, he showed up at rob's house. they talked like dueling lovers out on the sidewalk. then rob came back inside. rob tossed my phone up on our bed, and he said, you win. i can't compete.

he's young. he's a good looking guy. he's an attorney. you make him a lot of money. what good am i? and he was just devastated. now you've got yourself a pretty complicated life at this stage. yeah. keith morrison: of course, that february 2011, emmett's life was complicated too. ashlee could see how stressed he was, didn't understand it, that or why he seemed to avoid coming home. there was one time when my son asked him if he lived with us anymore. and later in the bedroom, he was like, what's that all about? and i was just like, well, we miss you. and he just-- he just kind of yelled and screamed and left. keith morrison: ashlee thought maybe it was her fault. she went to marriage counseling. emmett refused to go. i had felt really pushed away and was trying to find an answer and try to surprise him by cleaning out his car and found a weird envelope.

weird envelope? what-- just an envelope that was some sort of pill. i researched online, and one of the side effects was problems with intimacy and sexuality. i thought maybe if he was doing that that could explain why he didn't necessarily want me. did you take it personally too, though? you want to be everything that they want. it was hard not to take personal. keith morrison: especially when emmett, who'd been working out more and more, announced he was going to a fitness competition in ohio on their wedding anniversary. what did that feel like? lonely. he called and said, "happy anniversary, i'll call you later," but didn't call back. and the night before he came home, my oldest son, who was-- he'd just turned four-- was screaming one night for probably two hours.

"my dad's going to die. my dad's going to die. he's going to die." and i just held him, tried calling him, but he never answered his phone. and it was a very strange weekend. keith morrison: strange? strange is not a big enough word to describe what was about to happen. craig melvin: coming up, a secret meeting at walgreens, and something will go horribly wrong. i said, no, we're not doing this. and he's like, oh, we are doing this. craig melvin: when "dateline" continues. (michael) copd is harder on the folks around you, i think. my wife smoked, and she quit. because she needs to be here for to take care of me. (announcer) the people you love are worth quitting for. you can quit. call 1-800-quit-now for help getting free medication. [ doorbell rings ] you must be isaac. come on in. call 1-800-quit-now for [ sighs ] here's my pride and joy.

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there is a second half coming up. and, yeah, you have to play in both halfs. play in both halfs. it was early evening, cold as the sun went down in meridian, cold and bleak. and in two homes in particular, it was very bleak indeed. kandi hall arrived home from work to find her husband rob packing boxes-- to leave? what other reason could there be? i knew we were probably coming down to the wire. you're having the kind of unfair fights that married couples have all the time. they betray each other with abandon and then wonder why it doesn't work out. yeah. the thing that i never wanted to face was the hurt that i was going to cause on so many people.

i knew, one day, that this was all going to come out, but the way that it usually ends up. well, now you can only look back and wish it had turned out that way. correct. keith morrison: around the same time across town, perhaps 2 miles away, ashlee corrigan had just made the mistake of telling her husband emmett that in her desperate state of worry she'd asked her family members to pray for them. he said, "your family, i hate your family. i could beat your brother up. i could kill all of you." then i grabbed his face, and i was like, "you know what, i love you. i'm not going anywhere. i don't care what it is. just tell me what's happening." and i don't know. i felt like that was the last chance, and he didn't take it. he didn't open up about anything. keith morrison: that night, though, a trusted family member who had agreed to help counsel the couple called, and emmett answered the phone. he went back into our bedroom.

and i could hear everything he was saying because the baby monitor was on. the hard part then was not a word he said was true. what was he saying? "i think she might be sleeping with this person. she says i'm the worst father ever." and just things that i know i had never done. so when he walked out, i flipped the baby monitor off, and i said, oh, how did it go? "it went good. he thinks you're as crazy as i do." and i said, "ok, well, do i get a turn?" he said, "i don't care what you do, but you're not using my phone." and emmett said, "hey, i'm going to run to walgreens, and i'll be right back." i put the phone down, and i literally was like, "emmett, please, do not leave." and he said, "no, i'm leaving." you must have felt like your life was flying apart and you didn't know what to do. i kind of felt like, ok, maybe this is the grand finale. but he needed a wakeup call. he did. he needed a wakeup call. careful what you wish for. getting late now-- very dark.

over at the hall house, kandi had been talking to her husband, rob. maybe he shouldn't move out. maybe they should try to fix their marriage, make it work somehow. and then, right in the middle of that, she suddenly told him she had an errand to run, couldn't wait. guess where. i said, i need to go to walgreens. i'm just going to go through the drive-through. and i said, i'll be right back. keith morrison: here's kandi's explanation for the way the meeting with her lover was arranged. as i was pulling out of the back of my driveway, emmett texted me and said, "hey, what are you doing?" i said, "i'm going to walgreens." and he goes, "i was just there. hey, meet me there." keith morrison: and then, what happened next-- you can watch it yourself right here on surveillance tape. kandi hall: i go to walgreens, go through the drive-through, and then i pull around and i park my car. and then he pulls up, and i get in his truck, and we go to fred meyer. keith morrison: here they are again, getting gas at fred meyer, when emmett

opened the truck's rear door. he pulls out all these prescription bottles. and i said, "what are you taking?" he said, "well, if you want to grow a penis, don't take it." and then he got back in the truck, and we drove off. keith morrison: from there, kandi and emmett pulled into a secluded spot and had sex under a streetlight. and that's where they were, tangled up in each other, when kandi's phone rang. her daughter, coming home from a date, had seen her car in that parking lot. she said, "mom, why is your car at walgreens? i called dad." i go, "all right. ok, i'll be home in a minute." keith morrison: too late because now the wind was up. rob, the unfaithful husband, had to know. now he was the aggrieved spouse. and sure enough, as kandi talked to her daughter, here he was, in his pickup truck, come to walgreens to look for his wife. phone call from rob-- he goes, "are you with emmett?"

and i go-- took a deep breath, and i said, "yep, i am." emmett looks over at me, and he takes the phone away from me, and he goes, "yeah, what's up, chief?" and he says, "yeah, wait right there. we'll be right there. you wait right there." and that's when i said, "no, knock it off. we're not doing this. and he's like, "oh, we are doing this." keith morrison: there are moments in life when big choices are made. this was not a good one. craig melvin: coming up, a late night rendezvous turns deadly. and i went, [gasps],, oh my god. i'll never forget-- ever. craig melvin: when "dateline" continues. marlo thomas: my father founded saint jude children's research hospital because he believed no child should die in the dawn of life.

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the "new york times" editorial board calling on biden to leave the race after the weak performance in the thursday night debate. the times said that the president is engaged in a reckless scandal and an alternative should be chosen to lead the white house. and the supreme court will wait till the last day to release the decision on the president immunity case. for now, back to dateline. now,. but this late night tryst would be their last. they were in emmett's pickup truck when kandi's husband rob called, and her young lover grabbed the phone. now emmett was headed to a parking lot to confront rob. and soon one of them would be dead. once again, here's keith morrison with "deadly desire."

keith morrison: here at a walgreens drugstore in meridian, idaho, just before 10:00 pm on a friday night in march 2011, time was up. devil wanted his due. robert hall was a man on a mission. as you can see on the store surveillance videos, rob parked his pickup truck, went through the front door, roamed the beauty and cosmetic aisles. he was looking for his wife kandi, who, of course, was also in a pickup truck with her lover, emmett. here, you can see rob leaving the store, looking at kandi's parked bmw, then, strangely, getting back into his own pickup truck, pulling out, and then re-parking it on the other side of kandi's car. curiously, his door now just out of range of the store surveillance camera. this is when he made that phone call, the one in which kandi confessed she'd been with her boss, emmett corrigan. and he said to rob, "what's up, chief?" and here was emmett's truck speeding through the parking lot, still time to stop this if wiser heads

had been in charge. but they weren't. nothing wise about what's coming. i see rob in his truck, and he has just this look on his face like, oh, man. and i get out of the truck. then emmett gets out, and then rob gets out and walks over to us. keith morrison: this is just the sort moment in which a person might have wanted to cool the overheated atmosphere, control the spitting anger, might have chosen words carefully. that is not what happened. rob is standing next to me, and he's like, "what are you doing out with my wife at 10 o'clock at night?" and emmett said, "rob, she doesn't want to be with you anymore, ok? she's done. i mean, really, rob, what did you make last year? maybe $40,000? kandi, what did we make last week? $27,000 last week, in one week, rob. that's how much i make.

you don't make anything." keith morrison: nasty, of course, arrogant, like a thoughtless young buck who needed to be reminded of something. rob said, "well, what about your kids and your wife? she just had a baby. they're at home waiting for you, and you're out with my wife." and at that moment, emmett's eyes got huge, and he pushed himself off of his truck and went over to rob and pushed rob very hard on his chest. keith morrison: and then the climax, the confrontation that had been building for weeks. that's when i said, "enough. that's enough. you get in your truck. and rob, we got to go." and as i was walking to my car, another car came by, and i had to stop. and at that point, i hear, pop, pop, pop. i didn't know what it was. i didn't know if that car just backfired. i had no idea. and i stopped. i went, [gasps],, like, what was that? and all i see in my peripheral vision

right here is rob covered in blood, like someone poured a can of red blood all over him. and i went, [gasps]. keith morrison: frantically, kandi's fingers somehow found the numbers, 9-1-1. keith morrison: the pistol went flying somehow. no one disputes that. there it was, lying on the pavement, between two men, both shot, one alive, one dying. and kandi hall entered that twilight zone where memories are made that can't ever be erased. though, as you and a police department and lawyers and a judge will soon see, they can certainly be amended. what we know for sure is that she rushed to the prostrate body of one of those two men. i gave him a kiss on his cheek. and i'll never forget-- ever. but he took that last deep--

[inhales] it was very surreal. he was just turning gray, here, to here, to here. i didn't have much time to think of much other than thinking to myself, oh my god, he's-- he's dead. keith morrison: but which one? and what just happened? a tragic lapse in judgment, a thoughtless but unintended crime of passion, or was it murder in the first degree? craig melvin: "dateline" returns after the break. to give your teeth a dentist clean feeling. start with a round brush head. add power. and you've got oral-b. round cleans better by surrounding each tooth to remove 100% more plaque. for a superior clean. oral-b. brush like a pro. (♪♪)

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keith morrison: ashlee corrigan did not go to sleep after her angry husband announced he was going to the walgreens drugstore in meridian, idaho. so she was up at 1:00 in the morning when the police came. emmett was dead, they told her, killed by his lover's husband. and ashlee entered a twilight zone of her own. it was like the ultimate humiliation. it was not only is your husband gone, but you know that marriage you were trying so hard to save, here's all the answers of why it was going wrong. but now you don't have a marriage to save anymore. it was just like every emotion possible. like, i went through a divorce and a death all in one second. bizarre. and then i had to get prepared to tell my kids. and what story do you tell little kids?

well, there's been an accident, and your daddy's spirit's left his body, so he's not going to be on the earth with you anymore. they all just kind of stared at me like, what are we supposed to do now? keith morrison: what now, indeed. at that very moment, a few miles away, rob hall was in a hospital bed, recovering from a grazing gunshot wound to his head, the result, police said, of a botched suicide attempt after rob put two bullets from his semi-automatic pistol into emmett corrigan, one in his heart, one in his head. and over at the meridian police station, kandi hall, her clothes still covered in blood, was telling the first of several different versions of what happened in the parking lot. quite unprepared, of course, for the public torrent about to come down on her head. suddenly, you're thrust into the public eye, big time, as a jezebel, as a woman who is at the center

of a tawdry love triangle. what is that like for you? it's scary. for the longest time, i couldn't go to the grocery store. i couldn't go anywhere because i'm thinking, everybody's looking at me. everybody knows who i am. everybody knows what i did. yes. but it did happen, and i own it. keith morrison: here's something else that happened-- although on the night of the shooting kandi rushed to kiss her dying lover, she, rather soon, was back in her husband's corner as his chief supporter, especially when robert hall was charged with premeditated first degree murder. we felt that the evidence supported that he planned to go to that walgreens and do exactly what he did when he got there. keith morrison: this was no sudden crime of passion, said jessica lorello and jason spillman,

who prosecuted the case. this is a case of a man hunting down his wife's paramour and waiting for 17 minutes to have the opportunity to kill him. judge: ms. lorello. thank you, your honor. keith morrison: in fact, as they made their case for the jury, prosecutors portrayed rob as an angry man, furious about his wife's affair, a man who called emmett's law office repeatedly to berate kandi so loudly that others heard it all. statements such as, "you're a whore, and why are you with him?" keith morrison: and the night of the shooting, prosecutors played those surveillance tapes from walgreens showing rob arriving at the drugstore 17 minutes before the confrontation, walking through the aisles looking for kandi, all the while with a pistol, not the one he usually carried but the one kandi gave him, tucked in his pocket. then the jury saw emmett and kandi arrive in the parking lot and 8 minutes later heard kandi's 911

call after shots were fired. keith morrison: what happened? the prosecutor said the sequence of the shots told the story-- two quick shots, a pause, and then one more. our theory all along was that rob hall had executed emmett corrigan with two successive shots, turned to face his wife, attempted to commit suicide with a third shot. keith morrison: a theory backed up by forensics. the shots were fired from close range, 2 or 3 feet. there was a heavy concentration of gunshot residue on only robert hall's hands and only one man's dna on the trigger guard. the dna matched that of mr. hall. i think that rob hall went to the walgreens in order to confront emmett corrigan. that he took a loaded gun.

and rob decided that was his opportunity to get his kandi back by killing emmett. keith morrison: why did he talk to emmett for eight minutes before he fired? the store was closing, said the prosecutor. people were going home. i think he waited until there were no eyewitnesses. and he executed him at corrigan. keith morrison: a neat and tidy theory, agreed the defense, but completely wrong. rob was a nice guy, said the defense. and it was emmett who was out of control. emmett, who kept amphetamines and steroids in his pickup truck-- drugs with serious side effects, said a defense expert. he had hyperirritability as well as impulsiveness, this explosive temper. keith morrison: what really happened? rob didn't testify.

a doctor backed his claim that because of his head wound, he simply couldn't remember. so the defense offered a theory that emmett started the fight, then the gun fell on the ground. emmett grabbed it, shot rob. then during the pause, rob got hold of the gun and fired back in self-defense. and the courtroom came to a halt. every head turned when a star witness took the stand to support that theory. would you please state and spell your name for the record? sure, kandi hall. keith morrison: kandi, who repeated the story on the stand, that she told us of emmett pushing rob. emmett becoming enraged of hearing the two men scuffle as she walked away before she heard, but did not see the shooting. the only problem? she told the police a very different story the night it happened. you told detective miller that night that you did not see or hear a physical altercation, isn't that right? i don't know. i don't remember. keith morrison: in fact, kandi changed her story about so many things, all helpful

to rob's case. i'm trying to clarify that your stories changed after speaking with your husband. things were remembered after talking to my husband. ok. keith morrison: in fact, later, the judge made a comment outside the jury's presence. he said in all of his 30 some years on the bench, he'd never seen a witness so thoroughly discredited. keith morrison: but before she left the witness stand, kandi expressed her love and sorrow for the man she cheated on, yet still loved. (crying) he knew and he still knows in his heart that i've never stopped loving him. you just don't stop loving someone. keith morrison: and watching it all, emmett's wife, ashlee. you watched as kandi testified. and what was that like? it's hard to hear her stand up there and tell her husband how sorry she was

and how much she loved him because ultimately, it was because of them that i didn't get that chance. keith morrison: and rob hall's version of events-- he's about to tell you the very first time he has spoken of this. but first, it's up to the jury to determine the wages of sin. narrator: coming up, a husband with a stunning story to tell-- last thing i remember was the gun pointed at my head. narrator: --when dateline continues. a perfect day for a family outing! shingles doesn't care. but shingrix protects. only shingrix is proven over 90% effective. shingrix is a vaccine used to prevent shingles in adults 50 years and older. shingrix does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients or to a previous dose. an increased risk of guillain-barré syndrome was observed after getting shingrix. fainting can also happen. the most common side effects are pain, redness, and swelling at the injection site,

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little as 87 cents. to text tint now. cents. to text tint now. and now a jury was about to tell robert hall whether for the rest of his life he'd have anything at all. we have a small advantage over the jury. hall did not testify, but he talked to us, his first ever interview, to tell us he was sorry about what happened. yeah, that's that, but also to tell us that it wasn't his fault. the notion that i brought a gun there to gun down emmett corrigan. i didn't bring a gun there to gun down emmett corrigan. keith morrison: hall's version, that despite what you've heard, he did not even know for sure that emmett was

having an affair with kandi. that in the parking lot, emmett was the aggressor, pulled him down from behind by the hood of his sweatshirt. i don't think i made four steps before i was ripped off my feet. when i hit the ground, first thing i thought was my cell phone hit the ground. and i looked over, and it was my gun. he reach down, grabbed my gun, and we just struggled over it. last thing i remember was the gun pointed at my head and the feeling of being hit upside the head with a baseball bat. and i remember seeing everything black and gray. and that's all i remember until sunday in the hospital. in that moment of extreme anger and passion-- and crazy things happened. and you're asking us to believe that the crazy thing that happened started when you got shot. yeah. and he pulled the trigger. yeah.

and then you must have taken the gun and fired two shots at him. yeah. of course, he had a hole through his heart and one in his head, which sound, for all the world when you hear that, like those were targeted shots. is it possible you shot him and then decided you were going to shoot yourself? no. absolutely not. i've never been suicidal. keith morrison: the jury did hear the defense case, of course, just not robert's version of it. but it was enough for a verdict. is robert dean hall guilty or not guilty of first degree murder? not guilty. keith morrison: not guilty. hearts rose and fell. but then, not so fast. is robert dean hall guilty or not guilty of second degree murder? guilty. keith morrison: guilty of murder, not premeditation per se, but of an intent to kill and a disregard for human life. rob hall looked like he'd been punched in the stomach. tears sprang to his eyes.

hall was sentenced to 30 years in prison. he'll be eligible for parole in the year 2028, just before his 60th birthday. so as we sit here now, having been convicted of intentional murder, you're not taking responsibility for it as that. as murder, no. you're saying the architect of this tragedy is more emmett corrigan than you. absolutely. yes. and so you, sitting in prison for the next god knows how many years, are as much a victim as anybody else. it's devastating. i wish that i'd never gone there that night to get my wife. or if you went, that somehow you'd, like, not taken your gun along. i think that. i do. what if game on that?

and then i think what if he would have pounded my face into the cement and not stopped? and then people would say, well, why didn't he have his gun with him? and thus, you encountered one of the elements of classic tragedy. the thing you buy to protect yourself is a thing you use to destroy yourself. yeah. another thing to contemplate in your jail cell late at night? yeah. keith morrison: he also thinks about his two daughters whose lives, whose graduations, triumphs, marriages, children, he may never witness. two girls who, at the age of 18 and 14 back then, suddenly found themselves left without either parent in the home. because of a final twist to the story of betrayal and retribution, rob's wife, kandi, was sent to prison herself. because of the killing?

no. she pleaded guilty to charges of grand theft for embezzling some $30,000 from the attorney for whom she worked before emmett corrigan. she served 18 months for that. before she went to prison, she talked to us about regret. i have a lot of guilt still in me, a lot. and it has to do with my kids and his kids. and it makes me sick how i could do something like that. i'm the responsible one. and it's something that i don't know are they going to ever be able to get through that. i mean, hopefully, one day i can prove to them that it was just a mistake. keith morrison: in the years since, ashlee has remarried and has become an author, blogger, and speaker with a message to stand strong and faithful. ashlee: i think there's thousands of people in this country that come to those crossroads and don't know what to do.

but i think if i could tell them anything, it would be put your family first. i guess i would like to say to rob-- rob, he had five kids-- couldn't this have been something you pictured as you held up the gun and targeted it at his head and his heart? keith morrison: once in meridian idaho were two happy, successful families. wasn't quite enough for some of them. and the wreckage is forever. and that's all for this edition of dateline. i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching.