baby store. make the pledge to shop small. please. shop small on small business saturday. > why would she leave us behind like that? >> she was the mother they adored, and then she was gone, dead of a drug overdose. >> did she do it intentionally or was it an accident? >> four children, their lives shattered, their questions unanswered. >> until december 5th, 2002. what happened? >> our lives got turned upside down. >> suddenly, the truth came crashing in about someone they had only heard about years ago. >> one television news report, you learned -- >> someone was with our mom when she died and left her there. >> a man, whose identity would astonish them. >> when you look at his face, do

you see who he resembles? >> he was a man who traded on trust and faith, but this man had a secret life. >> the story unfolded, one strange turn after another. >> a chilling mystery uncovered tonight on msnbc reports "broken vows". here now is stone phillips. >> it's a fact of life, we all know it's true, people, events, even our own family histories are not always what they appear to be. tonight, the story of a family that discovered something about their mother's mysterious death some 30 years ago and always wondered why it happened and how. now, it turns out her death was only part of the mystery. she, in fact, had a secret life. it was a tragedy steeped in scandal, the truth buried for three decades, but this secret would finally come out and this family would never be the same. >> i grew up not knowing how my mother died.

i would tell people either she died of cancer or she died of a heart attack because i didn't know. >> at times, i would have the picture in my mind where she would be standing over my crib and, you know, giving me a hug and saying good-bye. >> we wondered why would she leave us. we're a nice family. why would she leave us behind like that? >> as the story unfolded, it was one strange turn after another. >> she was the center of their universe. then suddenly gone. that's how rita perry's children remember their mother in the summer of '73. rich, 16, chris, 14, jim, 8. at age 3, emily was the only one home when it happened, asleep in her crib, when an anonymous call brought police to their house in the middle of the night. their 41-year-old mother was found unclothed and unconscious on the floor. she was rushed to a nearby hospital, but it was too late. when the perrys buried their mother here in needham, massachusetts, secrets were

buried with her. tonight, the voices of three brothers and a sister fill three decades of silence, as they share the painful truth they were never supposed to learn. >> when we first got together as a family to discuss all this, emily made a comment that, i bet our mom's just rolling over in her grave knowing all this stuff is coming out. i think it was rich who said, i bet you she's jumping up and down saying, i can't believe it took you 30 years to figure out i didn't leave you on purpose. >> the circumstances surrounding rita perry's death never made the newspaper here. just a brief obituary, saying she had passed on after a short illness. there was no mention of the emergency phone call to police or who might have made it. rita's husband from whom she had recently separated was among the first to be notified, and it fell to him to pass the news to the kids.

rich and chris were away at a basketball camp, summoned from the gym to see their father. >> my father is not a man to show a lot of emotion, but he was -- his eyes were teared up. >> took his glasses off, said your mother killed herself. she overdosed on drugs. >> jim, who was headed into the third grade, was the next to find out. >> it was pretty tough to handle at 8 years old. i used to have a recurring nightmare that she was in the hospital, and i would go up to the doctor and tell the doctor that she's not dead, she's just asleep. >> as the perrys tried to come to grips with their mother's death, all they could point to were her long bouts with depression. the family traced rita's mental illness to the loss of her firstborn child, a boy named tommy who had died as an infant. rita had been a nurse and believed, while pregnant with tommy, her exposures to x-rays caused the illness that proved fatal. >> she could never move on from

that pain. she was always suffering. she would go through weeks of couldn't get up, just a malaise. everything to dispel the depression that clouded her life. in 1966, she spent a year in a psychiatric hospital, underwent electroshock therapy and, later, even resorted to brain surgery, doctors performing an operation similar to a lobotomy. as a result, she lost some memory and had to relearn certain things. according to her family, her dark moods receded and there were many happy times. >> i can remember her coming to our little league baseball games and things like that, sitting in a chair and watching. probably had no idea what was going on in the game, just smiled and watched her kids play. one of the reasons we were so surprised she up and left us all of a sudden. it made no sense to us. >> as the only girl and youngest in the family, emily always wanted to know more about her mother, especially when she became a mother herself. >> what was the thing you most

wanted to know? >> did she do it intentionally or was it an accident? >> in 1998, 25 years after her mother's death, emily called the police in needham, looking for anyone who might have been on the force in august, 1973. >> i did end up getting a phone call back. it was the police officer that was there. >> who had responded that day? >> who had responded. he recalled the whole scene. i was blown away. wow. he said, i remember you, he said, you were the baby in the house. >> i said, yeah, that was me. >> he remembered you had been upstairs in the crib? >> he did. gave me details i hadn't known about, i was a little shocked about. >> such as -- >> she was laying in the hallway, in front of the kitchen. i guess i always assumed she was in bed. i thought she had been in bed and just gone to sleep. he asked me a question which i thought was really bizarre. he asked me did my mother have a boyfriend. >> had you ever heard anything about a boyfriend?

>> no, never. i mean, to my knowledge, my mother had just been separated. i had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. >> when the conversation ended, the officer told emily to call again if she had other questions. >> four years would pass before emily pursued her search again. this time, with her father. >> we took a walk on the beach, and i wanted to know everything. where did you get married? what was it like when you were dating? i asked about the baby, tommy. did that really cause all of her depression? >> was that his sense, that's where it started? >> i think that was his sense, that it was really devastating to her, she had never gotten past that. >> he told emily her mother had sought out counseling for her depression, and as a devout catholic, had become especially close to a priest. >> i said, oh, who is he? what was his name? he says i can't remember. >> someone who had been supportive and helpful? >> in times of sadness.

that she would talk to and to get help with her depression. he said, i think that your mother named your brother, jim, after this priest. >> this was someone counseling her, whatever, she thought very highly of him, and when i was born, she decided to name me after him. i didn't really think any more of it at all. >> once again, the perrys put it aside and went on with their lives. >> a lot of questions, but that's where it stood in your minds, until december 5th, 2002. what happened. jim? >> our lives got turned upside down. >> no major delays to report -- >> jim was checking the weather report on television. >> there was a snowstorm going on. i was watching the news because i had a knights of columbus meeting that night. they started to release details of this file on this priest by the name of father james d. foley. >> newly released church documents on a priest in the boston archdiocese.

>> hidden in the church file was the fact this priest may have fathered two children, was present when a woman died of an accidental overdose. >> jim's mother had died of an overdose so that detail hit home with him. the idea that the priest might have fathered children did not. then, as he continued to watch the news report, jim heard this. >> documents revealed that the woman died in 1967, probably in needham, was mentally ill, and had a lobotomy. >> the date was wrong, rita perry died in 1973, but the other specifics seemed to fit including the priest's first name. >> i said, wow, this guy's name is james. my sister told me my dad thought maybe i was named after a man named james who was a priest. the phone lines were burning up that night. >> still, they couldn't be sure the woman in the news reports was their mother. so anxious for more information,

emily called the police officer she spoke to a few years earlier to see if any police records were available. this time he wasn't so helpful. he said the records are gone, don't get me involved, leave me out of it. he basically hung up. i felt like it was a slap in the face. >> if the police offered no help, eric mcleash, the attorney who obtained foley's file, did. jim called him that night. >> he introduced himself on the phone. he said, there's a ring of familiarity to some of this. i wanted to go over it. i knew after talking to him a couple of minutes, in fact, this was his mother. >> so suddenly, after all these years of questions, with one television news report, you learn -- >> someone was with our mom when she died and left her there. not just someone, a priest, was with our mom when she died and left her to die. >> hi. father foley? >> yes. >> we wondered if we could talk with you. >> that was just the beginning?

>> that was just the beginning. >> three brothers and a sister go in search of the truth. were they prepared for what they would learn? >> we all looked at each other and said, can you believe this? >> when msnbc reports "broken vows" continues.

in the short time it takes to watch a local news report, the children of rita perry learned the circumstances of their mother's death were far different than first believed.

someone may have been with her the night she committed suicide. not just anyone. a priest. they wanted to know more. it wouldn't take long. >> hi, father foley. >> the door to father james d. foley's hidden past had been opened. the night the story broke, the perrys watched this scene on the local news, reporters paying a visit to the 69-year-old priest who may have been with their mother the night she died. >> do you know anything about a woman you may have fathered children by having a heart attack in your presence? >> no. >> at first, the newly embattled priest denied any knowledge of the damning information contained in his personnel file. >> do you have any idea where they might have gotten the information? >> no idea whatsoever. >> and you have no children? >> absolutely none. i think my record in the archdiocese is above reproach. >> but when handed a letter he

himself had written in 1994 acknowledging his tragic involvement with an unknown woman, her death, and the possibility he had fathered children, foley's denials came to an end. >> i, of course, have to recognize i did. >> soon, the interview ended, too. >> this is something very personal, very confidential, very private. i don't think it's an issue for public airing. >> amazing to watch. this is when we all start to say, this person was there when our mother died and knows firsthand the details of what happened that night, something we all have been searching for. >> adding to the perrys' astonishment is how the boston archdiocese released foley's files in the first place. >> there was apparently some kind of mix-up in the files, two

james foleys. father james d. foley this father foley and another father foley who was an accused pedophile. they were supposed to release the file of the accused pedophile. this file got released by accident early. >> this woman died. >> the day after the story became public, the perrys joined attorney eric mcleash to pour through the documents, to search for answers about their mother's death and try to make sense of the disturbing notion a catholic priest might be father to two of them. >> here was a priest preying on someone explicitly vulnerable, a woman who was first a parishioner. i think any relationship between a priest and parishioner is an abuse of power, and beyond that a woman mentally ill to the point she had a lobotomy. >> what was your reaction to this? >> denial. this can't be us. >> nowhere in the file did the perrys find their mother's name or explanation of how the relationship began. they can read between the lines. his first assignment in 1960 had been st. bartholomew's in

needham, the same church they attended. both jim and emily were born after that and questions of their paternity were very real. in 1962, the first hint of trouble. a request by the father for a change of assignment for personal reasons on the advice of his confessor. within weeks, he was moved to a parish in east boston. four years after that, they discovered foley asked for a post even farther from needham, offering his services in calgary, canada. in a letter to church officials in calgary, the boston archdiocese praised the young priest but advised he had a problem in boston. shortly after he began work in calgary, his problem, as the file described it, arrived from the east. >> our mother. >> your mom? >> yep. >> she was the problem. >> that was a startling revelation for the family. their mother had apparently left her husband and children and followed james foley to calgary,

but she hadn't stayed long. according to the church file, rita perry and the priest went to san francisco for a few weeks, then went their separate ways, rita back to massachusetts, foley returning to his post in canada. two years later, foley was accused of being involved with another married woman. he denied the relationship was sexual, but the public scandal spelled the end of his service in calgary. as the perrys read on, their anger grew. by the time foley returned to boston in 1968, it seemed clear church officials in both cities were aware of his pattern of reckless behavior. >> one of his traits is to exhibit every confidence and promise he can overcome the difficulties. even while giving such assurances, his difficulties were increasing. he seemed capable of living a dual life. >> he's up there for, what, two or three years and they knew exactly what was going on with this guy. >> the critical information for the perrys came from documents dated 20 years after their mother's death. in 1993, church officials in

boston, scrutinizing personnel files, questioned father foley about the problems he had had in calgary. >> when he got that call to come in, he took that as a chance to get it all off his chest. >> handwritten notes recorded foley's confession about an elicit relationship with a woman from needham. >> two children born, she had a lobotomy. overdosed while he was present. started to faint. he clothed, left -- >> left. >> -- came back and called 911. she died. >> that would indicate he left her there to die. she faints from an overdose supposedly. he panics, leaves the house. at some point later -- >> we don't know how long he's gone. >> half hour or hour. and comes back later and calls the police. >> at least one church official hearing the story had the same serious misgivings as the perry family.

cardinal law, head of the boston archdiocese, questioned whether foley's actions constituted criminal activity because the woman overdosed but foley only later called police. >> when i read that, stone, i think of my mother fainting, i think of knowing where my house was in needham, i think of knowing that glover hospital was 1.4 miles from my house, and i think that people take overdoses of pills all the time, get their stomach pumped, and they live. that's what i think when i see that. >> how long were you gone, father foley? how long did you wait? what happened? did you even call? it's so disturbing on so many levels. >> as if the relationship with their mother had not been enough, the perrys learned from the church file foley admitted

to yet another affair after rita's death. in 1994, the boston archdiocese recommended father foley resign as pastor, enter a treatment program, and later face his civil and moral responsibility toward his children. in this letter to a church official, father foley complained about the recommendations. though he acknowledged the affair, the suicide and the questions about paternity, he argued it could all remain concealed, as it had been for decades. >> i will regret to my dying day the circumstances, but i cannot turn back the clock nor bring back the dead. how can the church suffer scandal from an episode that will never possibly be revealed. who will reveal it? the cardinal? myself? a family member? the concern here is -- >> scandal. >> publicity. negative publicity. >> they went right to that and the key was trying to demonstrate the fact there's no chance this is going to be a

scandal and take that one step further, so there's no issue, who would reveal this? the cardinal? >> during his deposition, cardinal law admitted to having concerns about scandal, not just for the church, he said, but also for the family of the dead woman. still, in a 1994 document, the cardinal was quoted as saying, father foley should spend his life in a monastery doing penance. he didn't. though under pressure, he resigned his parish post and went through treatment for five months. by 1996, the archdiocese returned foley to limited duties. >> you also find in that file a welcome-back letter from cardinal law where he welcomes him back to the archdiocese and places him in the parish where rich and emily attended. >> where you were at the time going to church? >> yes. they deemed he was okay and put him in my parish. >> the didn't ask who the family was, never thinking, you know, i

might put him in, you know, in the path of the family again. >> emily, did you have any contact with him? >> i don't think so. he may have known who we were, it's a possibility. >> foley told church officials one of rita perry's relatives knew of their relationship. he claimed she threatened to open an investigation into rita's death if he ever contacted the children. >> page after page, the documents sketched out the perrys' new family history. one evening was hardly enough for them to make sense of all they had seen. >> we were shaking our heads, we all looked at each other like, can you believe this? we were beginning to see some light. why did our mother die? >> i think as a family, as kids, we decided we were going to finish what was unfinished 30 years prior, that the adults, the police, at the time didn't look into all the unanswered questions. we at that point said we're going right to the end. one person could fill in the blanks, and that's father foley. >> the perrys knew they needed

to meet the priest face to face to question him. and, if necessary, confront him if they wanted to find out what really happened in the last moments of their mother's life. >> what kind of a man is james foley? they're about to find out. >> it was chilling and i was shaking, hard to look at the guy. >> a guy who might be her father, when msnbc reports "broken vows" continues. i wish you guys had layaway -- well... 'cause i could pay a little at a time... but actually we do -- and

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. hey there, i'm veronica de la cruz. president obama said penn state should prompt soul searching. america's top priority should be the safety of our children. penn state put mike mcqueary on administrative leave citing complexities of that scandal.

s.e.c. eight employees for not uncovering better than y madoff's ponzi scheme. mexico's interior minister and seven others were killed in a tragic helicopter crash near mexico city. venezuelan security forces rescued washington nationals catcher after he was kidnapped from gunmen wednesday night. i'm veronica de la cruz. back to our program. >> announcer: msnbc reports "broken vows" continues. >> the children of rita perry are about to meet the mysterious stranger who was with their mother the night she died, a priest who may be father to two of them. how do you face someone like that after all those years of secrets and silence? >> the reality is, you need to

meet the man himself, father foley. >> uh-huh. >> yes. >> the last person alive to talk to our mother. >> we had some questions. >> it had been more than five weeks since the perrys first learned of father james foley's intimate history with their mother, plenty of time to imagine what they might say to the man they believed could have saved her life. the boston archdiocese helped arrange a phone call between jim and father foley. that led to the face to face meeting. >> jim had promised father foley we'd be calm and cool and collected. we looked at each other and said, i don't know if we can do that. we really had to make a conscious decision to check our emotions at the door and go into the room and sit down and listen to him. >> the stakes were high, especially for jim and emily, who suspected the man sitting across the table was their biological father. >> emily, how were you feeling as this began? >> it was scary. it was chilling and i was shaking and hard to look at the

guy. >> with no objection from father foley, rich tape recorded the meeting. it would be a revealing conversation, a short history of what the priest called a long and complicated relationship. >> i always tried to be a good priest. i knew that i was a hypocrite. i had done things that i regretted deeply, deeply, deeply. >> he had his face in his hands a lot of the time. >> face down in his hands? >> face like this, like it was hard for him to look at us and tell his story. >> foley claimed rita perry first formed an attachment to him during religious instruction and, eventually, he gave in to the relationship. >> it was very tawdry. going to dinner or going to a motel. i'm ashamed of that. >> you were aware of her mental history and problems she was having? >> she was pretty stable most of the time i knew her. but i knew she had had emotional

problems. >> foley told the perrys he tried to end the relationship with that transfer to east boston in 1962, but that their mother pursued him. once again, the priest's vow of celibacy gave way and, he says, rita's attachment grew stronger than ever. >> she begged me and begged me to be able to bear my child. she told me i don't expect anything from you, you won't have any responsibility. no one will know that it's your child, but i need to have your child. >> rita became pregnant, and in 1965, jim was born. as the perrys had learned from the church file, the following year, foley transferred to canada, where their mother went to see him. >> you can't tell from that document, but not only was my mother in calgary, but i was there, as well, as a 16-month-old child. >> you? >> me. potentially his son. >> rita had brought with her the baby she had named after the priest.

>> and she had james with her, and i felt totally up against the wall at that time. and so i went off with her and we drove to san francisco. >> what was the intention of that trip? >> i just thought i was leaving the priesthood and going to get married or something. >> you thought it was permanent? >> yeah. >> no one in rita's family remembers her and jim being away from the home in 1966, but rich and chris say it's possible and that has certainly given them a new understanding of the deep depression their mother suffered later that year. it was following her trip west that she entered this psychiatric hospital and eventually underwent brain surgery. two years later, foley's involvement with that other married woman in calgary led to his transfer back to boston, where he was immediately reassigned. >> no treatment, no supervision, total disregard for what went on in canada.

>> that set the stage for father foley to reenter rita perry's life. >> this is the worst part of all, that in '68 or '69, i called her. >> what was her reaction when you called her? >> she had had the operation. and i guess a function of that operation is that you lose a certain bit of your memory. so her first words were, do i know you? >> rita perry had no recollection of the priest she had been involved with for so many years, the man who was quite possibly the father of her youngest son. >> we had heard from our aunt that she actually called her sister and asked, do i know this man? who is he? >> so he had to worm his way back in and reestablished a pattern with her. >> but the relationship was rekindled? >> yep. >> he had made the contact this time? >> yep. >> he was pursing her? >> yep. >> what made you want to pursue

her at that point? >> i think it was i was very depressed, i just missed the intimacy of the relationship. >> in july, 1970, emily was born. three years later, rita separated from her husband, and then on that august night in 1973, the fatal overdose. now, for the first time, emily and her brothers could ask the questions about what went on that night between their mother and father foley. >> do you remember if you had had sexual contact with her that night? >> yes, i did. it was quite late when we went to bed. sometime later in the night, there was a quarrel, a disagreement. it was over the fact that she was expecting me to stay the full next day.

i hadn't planned on that. she was very disappointed and began to cry and got a bit hysterical and it went on a long time. we were having a hard time reconciling the fact she wants to potentially harm herself over him not being able to stay the next morning. it just didn't make sense to us. >> i believe that their last fight was probably about, you know, i just -- as my mother is saying, i recently got separated from my husband, now is the time. you do your part. you leave the priesthood like you said you were going to. >> he's telling her, absolutely not, i'm not going to do it. that might get her more upset than i just can't be with you tomorrow. >> father foley told the perrys that after the argument, their mother came out of the bathroom clutching a full bottle of pills. >> said she couldn't get the cap off, would i take the cap off. so i was very angry and i just took the pills and threw them behind the sofa where she couldn't get at them. >> our mom was a registered

nurse. i couldn't imagine her having trouble opening a pill bottle. >> sometime later, as she fainted, i realized she must have taken some pills. so i waited a while, a few minutes, and then i tried to revive her and i couldn't. she was -- she was pretty heavily out. at that point, i panicked. i knew that she had to be treated, hospitalized. and so i grabbed my things together, didn't have very much, i made a call to 911 and left. >> the timing of that call for help was critical to the perrys because foley's story of what he had done after rita collapsed had changed since his interview with father mccormick almost a decade earlier. >> we asked him about the clear handwritten notes of she

fainted, clothed, left, came back, called 911. >> we said, how do you explain this? >> he must have misunderstood me. i don't know where that came from. >> weeks later, the perrys met with bishop john mccormick, whose handwritten notes were in the church file. he insisted his memory of that conversation with father foley was clear. >> he said, oh, no, he left. he told me he had to clear his head, left the house and walked up and down the streets of the neighborhood. it wasn't just a couple minutes, i don't know how long it was. it wasn't just for a couple months. and came back sometime later and then called. >> he recalled that detail? >> very specifically. that was the shocking part of the story. >> mccormick heard that directly from foley. >> right. at the end he said it doesn't appear that jim even now is fessing up to what happened. >> the thought of her passing

away never entered my mind. my absolute conviction was that she would be all right, she would recover. >> she faints from taking an overdose of pills, and it never occurs to him that something like that could happen? >> maybe you could have left a note saying this is what she took? i mean, something. you know, she needs to have her stomach pumped? instead, let's let them show up, find a woman naked in her living room and try to figure out what's going on. >> do you think it might have been helpful to go to the police and tell them you were involved? did you ever feel any responsibility to do that? >> i didn't really. you know, the fact of the matter is i was scared to death, and i was protecting myself. >> >> i'm just thinking about how my mother would be here today

probably if it wasn't for his cowardice, and i want to blame him for my mother's death, basically. >> if he hadn't been so worried about himself -- >> maybe it would have been a little bit of a scandal in the town or the church, but it would have blown over. >> maybe you would have had your mother. >> i would have had my mother. >> do you go to her grave? >> i talk to her every day. >> a dozen times a day, father foley told the perrys, he recites psalm 51, king david's plea to be forgiven for adultery. >> i pray for your mother everyday of my life and this haunts me, that tragic death. i want you to know i take full responsibility for the relationship. i am deeply apologetic for the anguish and the suffering that all of you have felt. >> the perrys left with mixed emotions, appreciative that father foley had met with them, but not convinced they had heard the full truth. and there was still a major issue left unresolved.

was the priest really jim and emily's biological father? >> i just keep thinking to myself, as i'm sitting across from him, you know, here's the guy that could be responsible for my life and, at the same time, responsible for my mother's death. here's a guy who had a 13-year relationship with our mother which is five years more than i knew her because of him. and that this guy, who did all these things, could be my -- potentially my biological father makes me sick. >> with the puzzle only partially completed, rita perry's children want the truth and nothing less. >> have you asked father foley for a paternity test? >> confronting the past to face the future, when msnbc reports

"broken vows" continues.

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they knew a priest had been sexually involved with their mother in the midst of her depression and mental illness and knew he had been with her the night she died. but for the children of rita per perry perry, there was one mystery left.

did james foley, in fact, father two of rita's children? >> my father is and always will be the man who raised me. i love him dearly. >> nothing will change that? >> nothing will change that. our father's a man who converted to the catholic religion to satisfy our mother. he made a vow to the catholic church that he would bring his children up catholic. and he honored that. do i want to believe that that's my father, or the guy who couldn't honor his vow of celibacy? it's not a tough choice in what i want the answer to be. >> the perrys had serious doubts about whether father james foley had done enough to save their mother's life. now they were faced with resolving the question whether he was actually jim or emily's biological father. >> have you asked father foley for a paternity test? >> in the beginning of this, stone, it wasn't even the slightest concern for me. as time has gone on, i've had the desire to find out. yes, i reached out to father foley and asked him several

occasions to do the test for me. >> his response? >> as a condition of doing the test, he wanted me to sit down and meet with his lawyer. i told him we're not negotiating something here. i'm asking you if you will do the right thing morally to do this test for me. and ultimately, he came back and said, no, he wouldn't do it. my therapist is telling me every step along the way, you're waiting for this guy to do the human thing because there is a chance he could be your father. you want him to be a human being, and he's just not going to do it. >> how about you, emily? do you want to know? >> it's very troubling not to know. but i love my own dad and i feel like i'm betraying him if i want to know. it's a really confusing issue for me right now. >> there seem to be hints about

jim and emily's paternity. according to the perrys' father, jim had been named for james foley. on her own, emily figured out her name was linked to foley, as well. >> his sister's name was emily. later, we found out that his mother's name was sheila. >> your name is emily sheila? >> emily sheila. >> his sister and his mother. >> his sister and his mother. yeah. that was shocking, too. >> still, the priest said there was no certainty that rita's two youngest children were his. >> good morning, mr. perry. >> jim and emily decided to ask a judge to order a paternity test. if foley was their biological father, it could change their understanding of their own medical history. they knew going to court would make this deeply personal matter uncomfortably public, but that was a price they were willing to pay. >> the fact father foley doesn't want to do the test now makes me want to do it even more. i want to take away that last shred of him being able to not

accept responsibility for what he's done. >> the priest wasn't required to show up for the hearing and didn't. his attorney argued the case should be dismissed. the judge later ruled in jim and emily's favor. foley had to take the paternity test. >> when you look at his face and you look in the mirror, do you see any resemblance? >> if i was a betting man, i would bet that he is my biological father. i think there is a resemblance. >> a month after the judge's ruling, foley, jim, and emily took the dna test that would determine paternity. it took about a week to complete the lab work, but to jim and emily, it felt like an eternity. the results left virtually no doubt. >> probability of paternity is 99.999%. so it came through as a positive on both jim and emily.

>> you know what, it doesn't change the way i feel about my dad. it doesn't give me a desire to have a relationship with father foley. i don't want anything from him except one thing, i want him to tell us the truth. that's the only thing i want from him is the truth. i don't think he's given it to us yet. >> one more mystery, a piece of rita perry's jewelry surfaces after 30 years. what special meaning does it have, when msnbc reports "broken vows" continues. so you earn 50% more cash. according to research everybody likes more cash. well almost everybody... ♪ ♪ would you like 50% more cash? no! but it's more money. [ male announcer ] the new capital one cash rewards card. the card for people who want 50% more cash. what's in your wallet? woah! [ giggles ]

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and now the conclusion to msnbc reports "broken vows."

in 2003 they looked into rita perry's death. thirty years after the fact they found nothing suspicious. they found no evidence of an investigation by needham police in 1973 and no police records, either because they were lost or possibly never existed. that lack of investigation, a missing autopsy report, and the absence of any police records has left the perrys to wonder if an institution as powerful as the catholic church in boston a might have used its influence to cover the tracks of a rogue priest. their attorney, eric mcleash, who has represented hundreds of victims of pedophile priests, says he can't dismiss that possibility. >> if someone had asked me that a year ago, would the police have ever covered up for a priest under these circumstances, i would have said huh-uh. but i don't think i can say that anymore. >> in january of last year, the day before "dateline" first broadcast this story, the perry family and the church agreed to a settlement.

the boston archdiocese paid the perrys an undisclosed sum, gave them an unqualified apology and called what father foley did exploitive, harmful, a violation of the sacred vow of celibacy and the trust that parishioners place in their priests. father foley remains on leave from his parish job and declined to speak to "dateline." so we turned one more time to that tape recorded conversation of father foley's voice and rita perry's words. >> your mother had a saying, based on time heals all wounds, time wounds all heels. she thought i was acting like a heel. she said, time will get you, time will wound you. and it turned out to be prophetic. >> finally this a piece of rita's jewelry recently turned up kept safe since her death by a relative.

it's a distinctive gold band that chris perry remembers his mother wearing occasionally. inside the ring, the perrys found hints of stories still untold. two sets of initials, j.f. and r.p., and a date, may 4th, 1962. that was three weeks before james foley asked to leave needham and his problem there behind. what promises were made on a date so special it was engraved in gold? whose hopes did the ring embody? the perrys told us they are not done asking questions just yet. >> we spoke to jim perry to find out how he's been doing since we first broadcast this story. jim told us his feelings toward father foley have changed from hatred to forgiveness. jim attributes that to the grace of god working in his heart. he told us he no longer wants to stand in judgment of the priest and has reached out to father foley through intermediaries hoping to arrange a meeting. turns out, jim says, time does heal all wounds. that's all for now.

i'm stone phillips. for ann curry and all of us at nbc news, thanks for watching.

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