i was the responsible one. >> 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. >> a passionate 9-5:00 p.m. 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 am not going anywhere. tell me what's happening. >> 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.

[ screaming ] >> oh my god! >> it was every emotion possible all in one second. >> i went, oh my god. >> murder in the dark. who was blind it and who would pay? >> when you see him on the video, he's armed and ready. >> two couples, two families and a single moment that shattered it all. >> i knew one day that this was all going to come out. >> a marriage, a murder every, a mystery. i'm lester holt and this is "dateline." here is keith morrison. >> look at this place now, so ordinary with its pharmacy, its grocery store, its carefully-tended parking places all like the suburban strip malls from business mark 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 is looking at me. >> this is the story of two married couples. how the advice they can offer others, now that it's too late for them. >> if i could tell them anything, it would be put your family first. >> but, of course, that's not what happened. in this parking lot, there will be a body here before we're done. [ screaming ] >> oh my god! oh my god! >> careful when you stir the hot pot of desire. ♪ >> the place is meridian, idaho. little brother to boise. 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 candy hall, one of those charmed couples who had fallen in love at first sight in their case, first sight meant admiring each other in the dim. >> 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. >> by the time rob and candy moved to idaho, they had 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. >> and as if it was a sign that this is where they belonged, candy's career as a paralegal took off, too. she was a natural. could sell her confidence and

skills to anybody who walked in the door. >> it didn't hurt that she was pretty. >> no, it didn't. and her co-worker, sofia, idolized candy. >> you became close. >> oh, we became very close. she was like a mother to me. >> 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, candy 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? >> and then one night after a late flight from california, rob

laid down 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. >> you didn't get upset? 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. >> 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 seemed to wither. >> i watched her go through misery. sobbing in her hands daily and just trying to figure out what this woman had that she didn't. >> did she still love him?

>> yes. dearly. >> and wanted the marriage to continue inspite of the affair? >> yes, she did. she didn't want to believe in her head that she found something in this woman that wasn't in candy. >> well, he felt bad about it. agreed to go through counselling with candy, 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 else i'll stamp my foot and hold my breath. >> yeah. >> 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 was? >> i just was boring. >> boring old candy hall. rejected, apparently unlovable. and nearly 40. and then one day at work candy 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 emmitt corigan. >> my friend, she said, emmitt, you have to meet candy. she's just as passionate and aggressive as you are and she would be great for you. >> and something suddenly lifted in candy hall. by the time those words had left her friend's mouth, candy knew, she just knew. how about you? think you know where this is heading? when we come back, candy hall has a decision to make and it will have consequences she never intended, deadly ones. >> the text popped up and rob read it. rob is like, why are you texting my wife? ♪ ♪ ♪

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♪ 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 worked for, as fired me.

>> yeah, pretty low. >> 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 e-mails, spicy text messages. >> i would like to be put on that pedestal. emmett made me feel that way. it was pretty much an ego boost for me. >> she wasn't really 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. i made me feel like i was on top of the world. >> sitting here now, is kandi still only thinking of kandi? perhaps as you hear the rest of this story you can be the judge of that. any way, back then there were a few hitches in kandi's new-found

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, ashley. >> 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. >> just like kandi and rob, ashley and emmett met in a gym. there's 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 temple and the lds temple. >> we both were like, you know what, i think i'm ready to be parents. >> first came twin girls, followed soon by a son and then another daughter. >> he loved being a dad just as much as i loved being a mom. >> in the winter, they went

skiing, sledding. in the summer, they camped and swam at the lake they so loved. they meat memories. ashley 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. anymore than his wife, ashley, understood his private motivations. >> did you suspect she was involved with emmett? >> with emmett? >> yeah. >> no. >> the way she described her was an older woman who he looked up to in a motherly way. he said, she just believed 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 it wasn't something that i felt like a competition of, i guess. >> 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 imfachuation, their hudly messy hairs, their suddenly hastily rearranged clothes, they were fooling themselves. >> i noticed a significant change in her attitude. i went from being depressed about what rob had done to happy, you know -- >> spring in her step again? >> oh, yeah. >> such timing now that rob wanted to seem to fix their marriage, kandi became a study in presence. honesty took a holiday. >> i was living a lie. being in an affair is one big lie. you lie about everything. >> 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. >> then one night a couple 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. >> what did he say? >> he was angry. 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? >> emmett's answer, two minutes later he showed up at rob's house. they talked like duelling 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 got yourself a pretty complicated life at this stage. >> yeah. >> of course, that february, 2011, emmett's life was complicated, too. ashley 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 me if he lived with us anymore and later in the bedroom, he was like, what's that all about? i was just like, well, we miss you. and he just kind of yelled and screamed and left. >> ashley thought maybe it was her fault. she went to marriage counselling. emmett refused to go. >> i had felt really pushed away and was trying to find an answer and so tried to surprise him by cleaning out his car and found a weird envelope. >> weird envelope? >> 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 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. >> especially when emmett, who had been working out more and more announced he was going to a fitness competition in ohio on their wedding anniversary. >> what does that feel like? >> lonely. he calls 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 had just turned 4, was screaming one night for probably two hours. my dad is going to die. my dad is going to die. he's going to die and i just

held him. tried calling him but he never answered his phone. it was a very strange weekend. >> strange? strange is not a big enough word to describe what was about to happen. coming up -- >> i literally was like, emmett, please do not leave. and he said, no, i'm leaving. >> a secret meeting at walgreen's and something will go horribly wrong. >> i said, no, i'm not doing this. and he's like, oh, we are doing

♪ it was the 11th of march, 2011, this was it. the big event, d-day you could say. 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 know 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. >> right. >> around the same time across town, perhaps two miles away, ashley corrigan had just made the mistake of telling her husband emmett, that in her desperate state of worry, she asked her family members to pray

for them. >> he said, your family -- i hate your family. if i could beat your brother up, i could kill all of you. i grabbed his face, 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. then, 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. >> 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. i said, okay. 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 walgreen's and i'll be right back. i put the phone down. i literally was like, emmett, please, do not leave. he said, no, i'm leaving. >> you should have felt like your life was falling apart and you didn't know what to do. >> i kind of felt like, okay, maybe this is the grand finale. >> that 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 walgreen's. i'm just going to go through the drive-through. i said, i'll be right back. >> here is 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. hey what are you doing? i said, i'm going to walgreen's. he goes, i was just there. hey, meet me there. >> and then, what happened next -- you can watch it yourself right here on surveillance tape. >> i go to walgreen's, go through the drive-through, and i pull around and i park my car. then he pulls up and i get in his truck and we go to fred myer. >> there there again getting gas at fred myer. >> emmett pulls out all these prescription bottles. i said, what are you taking? he said, if you don't want to grow a penis, don't take it. then he got back in the truck and we drove off. >> from there, kandi and emmett pulled into a secluded spot and had sex under the street light 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 dmcar in that parking. >> she said, mom, why is your car at walgreen's. i called dad. all right. okay. i'll be home in a minute. >> too late. because now the wind was up. rob, the unfaithful husband had to know. now he was the aggrieved spouse. sure enough, as kandi talked to her daughter, here he was in his pickup truck come to walgreen's 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 goes, oh, we are doing

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♪ here at a walgreen's drugstore in meridian, idaho, just before 10:00 p.m. 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 these 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 reparking 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 had 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. >> this is just the sort of moment in which a person might have wanted to cool the

overheated atmosphere, control the spitting anger, but had 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 10:00 p.m. at night? and emmett said, rob, she don't want to be with you anymore. okay? she's done. i mean, really, rob, what did you make last year, maybe 40,000. kandi, what do we make last week, 20,000, last week in one week, rob. that's how much i make. you don't make anything. >> 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.

>> 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. 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 and went -- like what was that? and all's 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 -- >> frantically kandi's fingers somehow found the fingers, 9-1-1. >> oh my god! oh my god. rob -- robert, robert! >> 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 the 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 prostrait 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, you know, deep -- it was very surreal. 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 dead. >> 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?

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walgreen's drugstore in meridian, idaho, so she was up at 1:00 a.m. in the morning when the police came. emmett was dead they told her. killed by his lover's husband. and ashley entered the twilight zone of her own. >> he was like the ultimate humiliation. it was -- not only is your husband gone, but you know that marriage you were trying to hard to save, here is 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. 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 stories do you tell little kids. well, there's been an accident and your daddy's flesh left the earth. he won't be with you anymore. they all stared at me, what are

we supposed to do now? >> indeed. rob hall was in a hospital bed recovering from a grazing gunshot wound to the head, the result of a botched suicide attempt after rob put two bullets from his semiautomatic 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 -- >> yes. >> as a jezebel, as a woman who is at the center of a toddly love triangle. what's that like for you? >> it's scary. for the longest time couldn't go to the grocery store. i couldn't go anywhere because

i'm thinking everybody is looking at me. everybody knows who i am. >> everybody knows what i did. >> yes. but it did happen and i own it. >> here is 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 walgreen's and do exactly what he did when he got there. >> this was no sudden crime of passion said the prosecutors. idaho deputy attorney general jessica and jason -- >> this is a case of a man hunting down his wife's paramore and waiting for 17 minutes to have the opportunity to kill him. >> thank you, you know.

>> in fact, as they made their case for the jury, rob was furious about his wife's affair, an angry man. a man who called emmett ice law office to berate her so that everyone else heard it all. >> statements like you're a whore, why are you with him? >> 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 eighth minutes later, heard kandi's 9-1-1 call. >> oh my god! oh my god! robert! robert! robert! >> what happened -- prosecutors

said 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 the third shot. >> the theory, backed up by forensics. the shots were fired from close range, two or three 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 walgreen's in order to con front emmett corrigan, that he took a loaded gun and rob decided that was his opportunity to get his kandi back by killing emmett. >> 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 emmett corrigan. >> a neat and tidy theory, agreed the defense. but completely wrong. >> this fight started by emmett corrigan -- >> 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 hyperability as well as impulsiveness, explosive temper. >> 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. >> 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 hear or see a physical altercation, is that right? >> i don't know. i don't remember. >> in fact, kandi changed her story about so many things, all helpful to rob's case. >> i'm trying to clarify that your story has changed after speaking with your husband. >> things were remembered after talking to my husband. >> 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 had never seen a witness so thoroughly discredited. >> before she left the witness stand, kandi expressed her love and sorrow for the man she cheated on yet still loved. >> he knew -- i mean, still knows in his heart that i've never stopped loving him. you don't just stop loving someone. >> and watching it all, emmett's wife ashley. >> you watched as kandi testified. 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. >> 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. coming up -- >> i wish i had never gone there that night. >> a husband with a stunning story to tell. >> last thing i remember was the gun pointed at my head -- >> but whose story will the jury believe?

♪ once he had everything he wanted before he and his wife scratched the itch of wanting more, and now a jury was about to tell robert hall whether, for the rest of his life, he would 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? yes, 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. >> hall's version, that despite what you 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 reached 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.

that's all i remember. until sunday in the hospital. >> in that moment, the mixture of anger and passion, crazy things happen and you're asking us to believe that the crazy thing that happened started when you got shot. >> yeah. >> and he pulled the trigger. >> yep. >> 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 through 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. >> the jury did hear the defense case, of course, just not robert's version of it. but it was enough for a verdict. >> robert dean hall guilty or not guilty or first degree murder? not guilty. >> not guilty.

hearts rose and fell but then -- not so fast. >> is robert dean guilty guilty or not guilty of second degree murder, guilty. >> guilty of murder, not premeditation per se, but of an intent to kill and disregard for human life. rob hall looked like he had been punched in his stomach. tears sprang to his eyes. hall was sentenced to 30 years in prison. he'll be eligible for parol in the year 2030, just past his 60th birthday. >> so, as we sit here now, having been convicted of intentional murder, you're still not -- 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 had never gone there that night to get my wife. >> or if you went that somehow you had not, like, taken your gun along. >> i think that. i do the "what if" game on that. 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 encounter one of the elements of classic tragedy, the thing you buy to protect yourself was the thing you used to destroy yourself. >> yep. >> another thing to con template in your jail cell late at night. >> yeah. ♪ >> he also thinks about his two daughters, who's lives, graduation, triumphs, marriages, children he will never witness.

two girls who would soon be living alone at the ages of 18 and 14 back then because of a final twist of this story of betrayal and retribution. rob's wife kandi incredibly was sent to prison herself because of the affair? no. she pleaded guilty to charges of grand theft for embezzling some $30,000 from the attorney for whom she worked before emmett corrigan lured her away. her sentence? 14 years. but she was released this past june after serving 18 months. before she went to prison, she talked to us about regret. >> i had 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 am the responsible one and it's something that i don't know are they ever going to be able to get through that? i mean, hopefully one day i can

prove to them that it was just a mistake. >> of course, proving to five fatherless children and a widow named ashley that it was just a mistake might be a little more difficult. >> i think there's thousands of people in this country that come to those cross roads 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? >> once in meridian, idaho, were two, happy, successful families. wasn't quite enough for some of them. and the wreckage is forever.

that's all for now. i'm lester holt. thanks for joining us. ♪ this morning on "meet the press", the ebola outbreak, a second case in the united states as a texas health care worker tests positive for the virus after treating thomas eric duncan, the very first person to die of ebola in the country. the politics of fear. >> we have an ebola outbreak and bad actors who can come across the border. >> are politicians pushing the panic button in a last-minute effort to win in november. and the war against isis. the u.s. talks tough. >> we will follow them to the gate cans of hell. >> but after hundreds of air strikes, the terror group is gaining ground. >> so you are better off? >> well, of course. >> and my exclusive interview with susan rice, the president's national security se