>> i have a lot of guilt still in me that makes me sick how i could do something like that. i'm the responsible one. >> a working mom, new at the office. she loved her job and ly loved her handsome, young boss. >> the thing that i never wanted to face was the hurt that i was going to cause. >> a passionate 9:00 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. tell me what's happening. >> cheating husbands, scheming

that would come next. >> my god. oh, my god. >> every emotion possible all in one second. >> i went, oh my god. >> murder in the dark. who was behind it? 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. >> i'm "dateline." here's keith morrison. >> look at this place now. so ordinary with its pharmacy, its grocery store, its carefully tended parking places so like the suburban strip malls from bismarck to bakersfield but that night, that cold night a heat gathered here, sweet

couldn't go anywhere because i am thinking everybody is looking at me. >> 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. >> but of course that's not what happened. and this parking lot, there will be a body here before we're done. oh my god. >> careful when you stir the hot pot of desire. this 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

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 had fallen in love at first sight in their case first sight met admiring each other in the gym. >> we went 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 kandi moved to idaho, 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 locaters inside squad cars. >> he loved every minute of his job. >> as if it was a sign of this is where they longed, kandi's career as a paralegal took off, too.

anybody who walked in the door. >> it didn't hurt that she was pretty. >> no, it didn't. and her co-worker idolized kandi. >> you became close? >> we became close. she was like a mother to me. >> 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. 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. >> i start thinking what is going on? why are you acting like this? >> and then one night after a late flight in from california, rob laid down beside his wife in bed and it all came tumbling

>> he just started to cry. 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. the typical response is get the hell out. >> you throw the clothes out the window. the last person on this planet that you would think to have an affair would be robert. >> of course it was devastating, crippling. every day she went to work and every day sophia saw her friend turn herself inside out. 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.

>> 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. >> 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. my foot and hold my breath 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 would have been? what did you think it was? >> i just was boring. >> 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

his name was emmett corrigan. >> my friend, she said, emmitt, you've got to meet kandi. she's as passionate and aggressive as you are and she would be great for you. >> something lifted in kandi hall. by the time those words left her friend's mouth, kandi knew, she just knew. when w has a decision to make and it will have consequences she never intended. deadly ones. >> the text popped up and rob read it.

test 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 has had an affair. now my attorney who i work for has fired me. >> 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

it was pretty much an ego boost for me. >> she really wasn't trying to get back at her husband, says kandi. at least not consciously. >> i was thinking about me and only me. it made me feel good. it made me feel like i was on top of the world. >> 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. hitches in kandi's new found fantasy life. to start with, emmett corrigan was also married and lived in a quiet cul-de-sac just a couple miles from kandi with his 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.

theirs was in college in utah, in 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. >> we both were like, you know what, i think i'm ready to be a parent. >> first came twin girls followed soon by a son and then another daughter. >> he loved being a dad 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 made 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 in the fall of 2010. and made the fateful decision to hire a paralegal named kandi hall. not that he had any idea he was

anymore than his wife ashley understood his private motivations. did you suspect she was involved with him? >> with emmett? >> 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 a great lawyer. >> you saw her and she was an older woman. >> she was almost 40. i was 28. it wasn't something that i felt like a competition of i guess. >> but for the many reasons that plainly escape those who aren't seated smack on the hot stove of desire themselves, emmett and kandi thought otherwise. so 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, suddenly messy hair and hastily rearranged clothes, they were only fooling themselves. >> i noticed a significant change in her attitude.

about what rob had done to happy. >> spring in her step again. >> oh, yeah. >> such timing. now that robbed seemed to want to fix their marriage, kandi became a study in pretense. honesty took a holiday. >> i was living in a lie. being in an affair is living one big lie. you lie about everything. >> and she lied to herself too. you were tin together striding across the bow of the "titanic." this is going to be it for you forever. >> yes. >> 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 she couldn't hide it. >> the text popped up and rob read it and it said, i wish i was there with you tonight.

kandi, what is this? >> i said,ion. he calls emmett. 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. and 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 good looking guy. he's an attorney. what good am i? 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.

anymore and later in the bedroom he was, like, what's that all about? i was, like, well, we miss you. he just kind of yelled and screamed and left. >> ashley 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 tried to surprise him by cleaning out his car and found a weird envelope. >> a weird envelope? 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.

had 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 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 had just turned 4, was screaming one night for probably two hours. my dad is going to die. he's going to die. i just held him. i 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 walgreens

>> i said, no, i'm not doing this. he's like, oh, we are doing this. >> when "dateline" continues. ? julia we have a heart for you.

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it was the 11th of march, 2011. this was it. the big event.

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 couples have all the time. abandon and wonder why it doesn't work out. >> the thing i never wanted to face was the hurt 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. >> 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,

the mistake of telling her husband that in desperate state of worry she asked 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. i grabbed his face. 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. he didn't take it. he didn't open up about anything. >> that t family member who 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 i know i had never done. so when he walked out, i flipped

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. 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. 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 kin maybe this is the grand finale. >> he needed a wake-up call. >> he did. he needed a wake-up 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 and 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.

i'm going to go through the drive-through. i said, i'll be right back. >> here's kandi's explanation for the way the meeting with her lover was arranged. >> i was pulling out of the driveway and emmett texted me, what are you doing? i said, i'm going to walgreens. he said, i was just there. met met -- met me there. >> and then what happened next you can watch it yourself right here on surveillance tape. >> i go to walgreens. go through the drive-through. and i pull around and i park my car. he pulls up and i get in his truck and we go to fred myer. >> there they are again getting gas at fred myer when emmett opened the truck's rear door. >> he pulls out all of these prescription bottles. i said, what are you taking? he said, well, if you don't want to grow a penis, don't take it. then he got back in the truck and we drove off.

that's where they were tangled up in each other when her 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. 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 was in his pickup truck coming to walgreens to look for his wife. >> phone call from rob. he goes, are you with emmett? i go -- took a deep breath -- 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? he says, yeah. wait right there. we'll be right there. you wait right there. and that's when i said, no,

we're not doing this. he's like, oh, we are doing this. >> there are moments in life when big choices are made. this was not a good one. >> coming up, a late-night rendezvous turns deadly crime. >> i went, oh, my god. i'll never forget.

here at a walgreens 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. roamed the beauty and cosmetic aisle looking for his wife, kandi, who was also in a pickup truck with her lover, emmett. here you can see rob leaving the store looking at kandi's parked bmw and 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.

she had been with her boss, emmett corrigan, and he said to rob, what's up, chief? 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. he has just this look on his face, like, oh, man. i get out of the truck. but 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. chosen words carefully. that is not what happened. >> rob is standing next to me. he's, like, what are you doing out with my wife at 10:00 at night? and emmett said, rob, she doesn't want to be with you anymore. okay. she's done. i mean, really, rob, what did you make last year, maybe

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. >> 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. >> at that moment emmett's eyes got huge and he pushed himself off his truck and went up 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. rob, we got to go. as i was walking to my car, another car came by. i had stopped and at that point i hear pop, pop, pop.

backfired. i had no idea. i stopped. 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. >> frantically kandi's fingers somehow found the numbers, 911. >> oh my god. robert! robert! 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 the judge will soon see, they can certainly be amended. what we know for sure is that

>> i gave him a kiss on his cheek. i will never forget ever. but he took that last, you know, deep -- it was very surreal. he was 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

- listening to music in the shower can help you conserve water, so start your favorite song when you get in, and when it's done, time's up. you've probably conserved at least ten gallons of water. saving the environment never sounded so great. ashley corrigan did not go to sleep after her angry husband announced he was going to the walgreens drugstore in meridian, idaho. 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 ashley entered a twilight zone of her own. >> it was the ultimate humiliation.

but you know that marriage you were trying to save, here's all the answers why it was going wrong. now, you don't have a marriage to save anymore. it was just like every emotion possible. i went through a divorce and death all in one second. >> bizarre. >> and then i had to get prepared to tell my kids. what story do you tell little kids? there's been an accident and your daddy's spirit left his body so he won't be on earth with you anymore. they all just kind of stared at me, likeat >> what now indeed. and 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 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.

station, kandi hall's 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 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 is looking at me. everybody knows who i am. >> everybody knows what i did. >> yes. but it did happen and i own it. >> there's something else that happened. 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

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. >> this was no sudden crime of passion, said the prosecutors. idaho deputy attorney general general and jason spillman. >> this is case of a man hunting down his wife's paramour and waiting 17 minutes to have the opportunity to kill him. >> thank you, your honor. >> 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

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. and then the jury saw emmett and kandi arrive in the parking lot and eight minutes later heard kandi's 911 call after shots were fired. >> oh my god! robert! robert! >> what happened? the prosecutor said the secrets 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 the third shot. >> the theory backed up by forensics. the shots were fired from close

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. >> 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 was started by

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 hyper ability as well as explosivesness, and explosive temper. >> what really happened? rob didn't testify that a doctor backed his claim that because of his head wound he couldn't remember. so the defense offered a theory that emmett started a fight and the gun fell on the ground and emmett grabbed it and shot rob and then rob fired back in self-defense. 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. >> kandi hall. >> kandi, who repeated the story on the stand she told us of

emmett becoming enraged and hearing the two men scuffle before 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 didn't see or hear a physical altercation, isn't 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 changed aft >> 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

his heart that i never stopped loving him. you don't just stop loving someone. >> and watching it all, emmett's wife, ashley. >> 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. >> 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.

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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

he had 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 and grabbed my

it. last thing i remember was the gun pointed at my head and the feeling of being hit upside the head of 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, crazy things happen and you're asking us to believe that the crazy thing that happened starwh got shot. >> yeah. >> when he pulled the trigger. >> yep. >> and then you must have taken the gun and fired two shots at him. >> yep. >> of course you hit a hole through his heart and one in his head which sound for all of the world, when you hear that, that those were targeted shots. is it possible you shot him and then decided you were going to shoot yourself? >> no, absolutely not. i have never been suicidal.

case of course just not robert's version of it. but it was enough for a verdict. >> robert dean hall guilty or not guilty of first-degree murder? not guilty. >> not guilty. hearts rose and fell. but then, not so fast. >> is robert dean hall 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 the stomach. tears sprang to his eyes. hall was sentenced to 30 years in prison. he'll be eligible for parole in the year 2030 just past his 60th birthday. >> as we hit here now having been convicted of intentional murder, you're still not taking responsibility for it as that.

>> 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 i had never gone there that night to get my wife. >> or if you went that somehow you mino 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 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 was the thing you used to destroy yourself. >> yep.

>> he also thinks about his two daughters whose lives, graduations, 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 fina this story of betrayal and retribution. rob's wife, kandi incredibly is now in 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. she served 18 months for that, on parole now and we're told, writing a book, her version of things. before she went to prison, she talked to us about regret.

in me, a lot. 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 i don't know if they're going to ever be able to get through that? hopefully one day i can prove to them that it was just a mistake. >> maybe her book will persuade five children and a widow named ashley that it was just a mistake, or maybe not. in the years since, ashley has re-married and as a way to find healing and peace has written three books herself and has become a popular blogger and speaker with a message to stand strong and faithful. >> i think there's thousands of people in this country that come 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.

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. >> 12 news at 10:00 starts rivet -- right now. >> metro center got getting

membershipbenefits you may not know existed. we start right nowment. -- now. we begin with breaking news. firefighters working to control a fire in gilbert right now. you could see flames shooting into the sky. team 12 nikko sanchez is live right now. nikko? >> the good news at this hour is that most of the games are out. we want you to take a look behind us because there have been flare ups within the few minutes even. you can see crews are fighting from the ground and from above. even though we don't see many flames, the structure is still scorching hot and it smells like it. let's take a look a video from the blaze earlier. flames so massive you could see them from miles away and firefighters calling it a stick farm because it's an apartment complex under instruction --