erin was like my heart. all these years, and i was searching for her. all of a sudden i realized what's going on? why are they late? something definitely was wrong. he said, your family was in an accident. my world just dropped out from underneath me. >> the scene told the story. >> what did you find? >> something i don't want to see again. >> a deadly crash on a dark road. two gone. one barely alive.

a tragic accident. but look closer. in all the broken glass and twisted metal, was there a clue to a crime? >> the last thing i wanted was to have to take a double fatality and have to not treat it as a homicide. >> murder, an accusation no one saw coming. >> i couldn't deal with it. >> two families in torment. >> we were both just, oh. >> a small-town trial with big emotions. >> you took him. you did it. >> and the verdict. >> we, the jury -- >> that would shake them all. keith morrison with "crossing the line." >> hello and welcome to date line extra. i'm craig melvin. big sky country, a small town, and a famously dangerous highway. that was a setting for a deadly crash that left shock and heartbreak in its wake, except they were about to find out that this tragedy was also a mystery, and the truth about what

happened on that late winter night might be darker than anyone knew. here's keith morrison. >> march 19th, 2009. night fell heavy in montana's flathead valley. something off that night. something wrong. at mary and randy winters' house anxiety spiked. where was she? >> it just felt like something was not right. >> it's hard to explain that there's something not normal. >> you could set your clock by their daughter justine. that reliable. but a new driver too, just 16. due home at 8:00 from her boyfriend's house. and though she wasn't very late, the feeling seeped in like a poison. something wrong. >> i called her starting about five after 8:00, and no answer. i called the house where she was at, and they said she had left 15 minutes before that.

>> i was thinking she had, you know, went off the road between their house and us. >> not far away, another family, the other half of our story, was on the road too. erin thompson was driving her son home from a school concert. he played the drums. >> i had always attended all of kaden's concerts, and this was the first one i didn't attend because i had car troubles. >> this is kaden's stepfather, jason thompson. >> my car was in the shop and finally fixed, and so aerin dro me off. that's why i wasn't with them. >> soon the identity seeped through. >> all of a sudden i realized what's going on? why are they late? it just struck me that something definitely was wrong. >> at justine's winter house, the fear was deep.

justine's dad was trying to keep his head, knew what he had to do. randy got in his truck, wenlt t the road he knew she would take coming from her boyfriend's house. then he saw it in a construction zone. what did you find? >> something i don't want to see again. you could say a fireman's worst nightmare. >> someone tried to hold him back. he kept on. >> and then i saw her over at the side. >> his perfect daughter, his justine, obscenely broken. but amazingly still alive. >> how did she look? >> i didn't really see a lot of her on -- you know, on the gurney there. but i got to see her, you know, at the hospital. >> she was pretty bad? >> you don't want to ever see your kid in a hospital. >> every bit of her was damaged horribly.

broken bones, brain damage, ruptured organs. the chance she'd survive, slim said the doctors. oh, but the winters' news couldn't have been worse. and a few miles away where the phone rang at justin thompson's house, the news was much worse. the caller was the county coroner. >> he said, jason, your family was in an accident. and he said, i'm sorry to have to tell you this on the phone, but they were just killed. and my whole world just dropped out from underneath me. >> jason's wife, 35-year-old erin thompson, was four months pregnant. her son, kaden, the boy who had just played the drums at his school concert was just 13. and just like that, they were gone. the crash was head-on. and in school counselor jason

thompson's life, the lights went out. >> that night of that realization, i'll never forget that, that news. >> nor, of course, will erin's mother, diana. >> we were both just bonkers, just -- oh. >> or her sister, amber, who with david, her husband, missed erin so much, they'd made plans to move to montana to be close. not possible now. >> that was the hardest -- the hardest piece of news we could fathom. >> and to lose both of them and the baby, it just didn't even seem like it could be real. >> and here in the little house he shared with the love of his life, where he'd been waiting with such excitement for their baby to arrive, jason like job of old, was overcome by the heaviest sorrow of a whole life of sorrows. >> it's like i'm 9 years old,

you know, and 79 when my sister dies, and then i'm 19 years old at 89 when my mother dies of cancer. then now i'm 39 in '09, and i lose my family. >> missing that concert, you lived. how has that been to wrap your head around? >> it's been an embracing of life, right? but i definitely didn't -- didn't fear death anymore. there's times i would have welcomed it. >> but the dreadful truth of it that accidents just like the one here happen all around america every day, every night. still just as the permanence of loss began to sink in, before anyone had given a thought to a now diminished future, there was another piece of news. this time, on this road.

the fatal accident might not have been an accident at all. >> coming up -- >> the last thing i wanted was to have to treat it as a homicide. >> a prosecutor's stunning decision when "crossing the line" continues. us money back on our bill. well, that seems fair. we didn't use it. wish we got money back on gym memberships. get money back hilarious. with claim-free rewards. switching to allstate is worth it. capdynamic lightingrs elevated comfort

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returning now to "crossing the line," it looked like a straightforward accident, a head-on collision along a notoriously dangerous montana highway. a teenager miraculously survived but a pregnant woman and her son were killed instantly. then in an unexpected twist, investigators discovered it might not have been an accident at all. here again is keith morrison. >> for decades, montanans have

almost morbidly intoned the words, pray for me. i drive highway 93. they say it because of nights like march 19th, 2009, except as everybody would soon note, this crash on this night may have been no accident. a revelation which in jason thompson's devastated mind would register later. just now his whole life was a bomb crater, a ruin. >> erin was like my heart. she was my soul mate. i've waited all these years looking, but i had an ideal, and i was searching for her. >> and she, as she told everybody, had been looking for him. erin was a single mom when jason met her brilliant smile. she was a hairdresser who loved to dance, and she was a seeker in all matters spiritual. her mother, diana. >> she was single and a young mother, and she was wondering what she was going to do with her own life. she answered her own question

and said, well, as long as i'm about the business of spreading love, it doesn't matter. >> erin married jason in the summer of 2006 in the glorious montana sunshine. and young caden seemed as pleased as she was. caden, who shared his mother and new stepfather's craving for outdoor adventures. >> backpacking on the coast, in the mountains, river rafting. we started kind of annual adventure days in summertime. it was all about just sharing that time together. >> yes, and there was that plan erin hatched with her sister, amber. >> we always had a dream of growing up and living right next door to each other and, you know, raising up our families. >> and soon the plan expanded beautifully when erin and jason announced they were expecting a child of their own. >> every day i would praise my life, praise my wife and my little baby that i was finally

going to have, you know, and it all made sense. >> and then came march 19th, 2009. but as the news and the grief spread, there was still hope, remember, for one of the victims of the crash. justine winter was alive, though barely, with a broken neck and broken legs and major internal injuries. doctors told the family they didn't think she'd live through the air lift to a hospital in seattle. >> what did they tell you? >> they told us three times that she wouldn't live. >> that she wouldn't live. i said bull -- she's flying in that airplane and don't even give me any grief. >> and she did survive the flight to seattle and the emergency operations to stitch together the broken pieces of her body. she was unconscious when she arrived. the doctors kept her that way, induced a coma so she could avoid the pain or any recognition of her desperate

condition. while her body slowly, slowly began to knit itself back together, until more than a month later -- >> and her eyes just went poof. that was just like the most incredible feeling of she's there. she's in there. and your heart just beating. >> it was days later before justine could understand what was going on around her. but the news had to be faced eventually. and so when she seemed ready, they told her. >> when you told her what happened in the accident and how those other people had died, how did she react to that? >> it was very emotional for her. it was very devastating. >> and then what was discovered was, well, quite frankly unimaginable for in the middle of that river of tears, relief on the one side, abject grief on the other, there was an under tow, a twist nobody saw coming.

justine spent 45 days in the hospital recuperating and months more here in montana healing. it didn't investigators long at all, a matter of hours really, to solve the mystery of who and what caused this crash. in fact, the first montana highway patrol officers who raced to this scene in that construction zone believed that justine winters' car was the one that crossed the center line and smashed into erin thompson's car. but the worst of it, the inconceivable part was, at least as investigators told ed corrigan, this was not an accident at all. what was your first reaction? what did you think? >> nuts. this was the last thing i wanted was to have to take a double fatality and have to now treat it as a homicide. >> homicide?

yes. right there in justine's car, officers found what amounted to a minute-by-minute narrative of the events leading up to the collision in text messages. and in those messages, the prosecutor said, was the evidence he believed required him to press criminal charges against that girl doctors had quite miraculously saved, justine winter. charges of murder. >> coming up -- >> she did not swerve. she drove head-on into that other vehicle. >> the prosecutor lays out his case while jason gets yet another shock. >> they're suing you. >> for her pain and suffering. >> when "crossing the line" continues. -oh! -very nice. now i'm turning into my dad. i text in full sentences. i refer to every child as chief. this hat was free. what am i supposed to do, not wear it? next thing you know, i'm telling strangers defense wins championships.

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investigators are convinced that justine winter internally crashed her car into erin thompson's, killing the pregnant mother and her 13-year-old son caden. their evidence, threatening text messages sent by justine just minutes before the fatal collision. here again is keith morrison. >> the sorrow ran deep in montana's flathead valley. that awful spring and summer of 2009. deep and wide, the whole valley, in fact the country heard about the cash that killed caden and erin and her unborn child and heard a strange and disturbing story that 16-year-old justine winter took deadly aim at erin's

oncoming car, crossed the center line, and plowed right into them on purpose. shocking? oh, yes. as was the alleged reason. justine, said the police, was trying to commit suicide. how did they know? they found the evidence on justine's phone, they said. text messages which she wrote herself and which, once county attorney ed corrigan saw them, well, gave him no choice, he said. he charged her with deliberate homicide, montana's equivalent of murder. >> justine purposely went into the wrong lane of traffic and smashed head-on into another car. and by doing so, she should have known her actions could have killed somebody. and under those circumstances, i think deliberate homicide was the only charge we could find. >> so you decided to charge her as an adult. why? she was 16.

>> she was. the taking of two lives is not, in my opinion, a delinquent act. it is a crime. it needs to be prosecuted as a crime. and if convicted, it needs to be on her record for the rest of her life. >> perhaps because of her own massive injuries, her continuing operations, her age, justine after pleading not guilty was released to house arrest, fitted with an ankle bracelet to await trial. she was allowed to attend classes and at home her parents fumed. no matter what those text messages said, the idea that justine would cause that crash on purpose, just crazy. >> are you angry at all of this? >> it builds up inside, and it gets to a point where you can't take it anymore. >> it turned out -- and it was frankly hardly surprising in a town this size -- the two families actually knew each other. justine's mother and erin's mother had worked at the same school. erin's family made it perfectly clear that what they wanted from justine most of all was a

heartfelt apology and some sort of indication she took responsibility for the act with which she was charged. they actually saw that as a way toward forgiveness, and most people around town thought that was a fine idea. but from justine and her family, there was just an awkward silence. then early one more in the fall of 2010, an entirely unexpected knock at the door took emotions to a whole new level. >> this private investigator, you know, just hands me these papers like he's serving me papers. it said that they're suing erin's estate. >> they're suing you. >> suing me for her pain and suffering. >> it was true. in a legal preemptive strike, justine winter's attorneys had filed a lawsuit on her behalf against erin's estate as well as three companies in charge of the construction zone where the crash occurred. the lawsuit claimed erin had negligently operated her car,

resulting in the collision, and also that the companies had failed to add kwaequately const and main the vicinity. >> i can't guess to beg-- begin guess what they were thinking about. that wasn't justine's decision. that was a decision made by her attorneys. >> the attorneys. their names, maxwell battle, and dwa david stufft. according to the winters, the attorneys assumed them the lawsuit, assuming justine was found not guilty, would give them a better shot at an insurance company reimbursement later. >> there was no intent going for the estate, making that family endure more than they've already endured. >> but the optics were awful. >> the timing could have been, who knows, better. >> you pick up the newspaper. you'd look at the blogs. you'd hear the radio, and you

got, those disgusting, terrible people. what are thinking? they're trying to sue the victims of this crime. >> that's what was portrayed, but the actual intent was not that at all. >> all rise. district court is now in session. >> misunderstood or not, by the time justine winter's trial for deliberate homicide started in january of 2011, the tide of public opinion had turned as bitter as a montana winter. the hearts of erin thompson's family too had toughened. and justine, who showed up in an almost child-like polka dot hairband certainly didn't look the part of an accused killer facing as many as 200 years behind bars. but there she was. with the two families just a few feet away, she watched investigators testify to a certainty that it was justine's pontiac grand am that crossed the center line. >> here you can see all this debris from the initial impact of the crash. >> slamming into erin's subaru so hard it was driven backward into the highway barrier and

crash reconstructionists agree. >> justine winter's car encroached into the lane, striking mrs. thompson's vehicle. >> but what evidence was there that justine had done it, as the law says, purposefully? investigators pulled the so-called black box out of justine's pontiac, analyzed the data, and found another sign that pointed to suicide. she'd taken off her seat belt. the black box also recorded speed, acceleration, and braking and found that justine was accelerating, flooring it so to speak in the five seconds before the crash, speeding up from 81 to 86 miles an hour before hitting the brakes at the last second. >> she did not swerve, and she drove head-on into that other vehicle. >> to back it up, prosecutors

pulled the speedometer from justine's car, and there right above the mark indicating 85 miles an hour, found an orange mark. it's known as a slap mark made, the experts testified, when the needle smashes against the console at high speed. and finally prosecutors revealed the reason, they said, behind it all. justine, like many 16-year-old girls, had a boyfriend. hers was named ryan. it was white hot, this relationship. he was her world. but that day in march, there had been a tiff. they'd had words. and so that night she drove ryan home, asked him to get out of the car. he said they were through. then justine drove north to clear her head. she was on her way home when, detectives testified, she began texting ryan. apparently while behind the wheel. the first text half an hour before the crash. >> good-bye, ryan. just live your life knowing you did change me.

my last words, i love you, ryan. >> then her texts became somehow threatening. >> if i won, i would have you, and i wouldn't crash my car. >> and ryan answered. >> you kill yourself, i kill myself. so come on. don't be selfish. >> that's the only thing i want to live for. you, ryan. you keep me living. >> stop. you hurt yourself, and i'll know, and i'll do the same. >> that's why i'm going to wreck my car, because all i can do is [ bleep ]. it sh good-bye, ryan. i love you. >> then the final message from ryan. >> you killing yourself is just another way for you to run away. >> just five or six minutes later, prosecutors said justine winter drove her car into erin thompson's lane of traffic to commit suicide, but instead killed mother, child, unborn baby. the prosecution had made its

case for murder. now the question was what could justine winter's attorneys possibly say to make a jury believe otherwise? >> coming up -- >> it was a way of exercising power and control in the relationship. >> the defense takes on the heart of the case, those texts, when "crossing the line" continues. do you think it's going to surprise your daughter? absolutely. wait, is mom here yet? where's mom? she's in this car. what the heck? whoa. yo, whose car is this? this is the all-new chevy traverse. this is beautiful. it has apple carplay compatibility. do those apps look familiar? ohhhhh. do you want to hit this button? there's a hidden compartment. uhh, whoa. mom, when i'm older can you buy me this car? i wanna buy me this car. he'let's see whatll forensics thinks.. sorry i'm late.

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welcome back to dateline extra. i'm craig melvin. the prosecution had made their case. now it was the defense's turn, and they had their work cut out for them. could they convince the jury to see justine winter's text messages in a different light? once again, keith morrison. >> every day in this montana courtroom, the family of now 17-year-old justine winter dutifully shuffled to the front row seats directly behind the defense table, their faces by their attorneys' decree, they say, an intentional blank, emotionless. their apparent demeanor, a spur in the hide of an already angry town. but almost no one knew what was really going on. justine's mother, mary, who had been struggling with alcohol, caved in to the stress. >> tell me how it's changed your life. >> i ran away.

i couldn't deal with it. i just left the house. i didn't come back. >> justine's brother, kyle, dropped out of college to help keep things together at home and get justine to her medical appointments. and randy, her father, the strong and tall as a montana spruce firefighter and national guardsman, turned angry and bitter at the continuing prosecution of his little girl. >> i could be sitting in the living room watching tv, and all of a sudden i hear something. i just completely lose it. i just start crying. >> the whole world said justine's dad seemed intent on misunderstanding, demonizing his little girl. yet he said she'd always been so good, kind, thoughtful, and responsible, was getting almost straight a's in high school, but mostly wouldn't harm a bug literally and cared about people, would never, never want

to hurt that sweet woman or her son or her baby. >> always had a smile. always -- always wanted to help is who she was. >> what kind of a little girl was this? >> she was a -- just a good girl. >> but it might interest you to know that as the winters spoke to us here, they were doing so against the expressed advice of their attorneys. and when it was time for justine's defense team to make its case in court, attorneys maxwell battle and david stufft told the jury that everything the prosecution told them, everything they knew about the case so far was wrong. >> what happened out there was an accident. >> including where the crash occurred. remember, the prosecution's experts testified there was no doubt justine crossed the center line and veered into erin thompson's lane, causing the crash. but a forensic engineer hired by the defense said his research turned that finding on its head.

he claimed it was erin who drove out of her lane in that construction zone and struck justine. and the defense went further, claiming that slap mark near the 85-mile mark on the speedometer of justine's car was planted there by investigators. that the black box that measured speed and braking was plain wrong. that justine always wore her seat belt. and finally, a psychologist said -- well, actually a lot of experts said a spat with a boy wasn't enough to lead to a suicide attempt. and those texts, they should not be considered a suicide note at all. >> it was a way of exercising power and control in the relationship to make that kind of threat, that it was always clear that it was never meant. >> what would justine winter say about what happened here that night, about those texts? the jury would never know. she did not testify on the advice of attorneys, said her

family. and of course that was her perfect right. but there was another reason too. justine suffered a brain injury in that crash, so her recollection of the last few days leading up to the crash and that night itself here, she doesn't remember. she is charged with a crime about which her memory is a complete blank. so, then, how could the jury know that justine knowingly crossed the center line, having decided to commit suicide by hitting the other car? a question we put to the prosecutor. >> in order to draw that conclusion, you have to read her mind essentially. you've been a prosecutor for years. you know that car accidents happen in the most bizarre ways, that people do crazy things on the road. but you clearly said this was a situation in which i know what somebody was thinking when they drove across that lane of traffic and into that other car. i just don't know how you can know what she was thinking.

>> i can't know what she was thinking. nobody knows what she was thinking at the time. she doesn't know what she was thinking at the time. >> precisely. >> all i can do is base my decision on what the evidence shows. >> did the evidence clearly show that justine winter had made up her mind to commit suicide by driving into an oncoming car? up to the jury now. >> coming up -- >> everyone just cried about it. >> a verdict comes quickly, but the pain and one final question remain when "crossing the line" continues. we're about to move. karate helps... relieve some of the house-buying... stress. at least you don't have to worry about homeowners insurance. call geico. geico... helps with... homeowners insurance? been doing it for years. i'm calling geico right now. good idea! get to know geico.

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tensions reached a crisis point for the thompson and winter families as they waited for a verdict for justine. here again is keith morrison.

>> as a montana jury prepared to decide the fate of 17-year-old justine winter, the members of erin and caden's families struggled to hang on to the frayed remnants of their former good will. they had tried so hard not to be angry at justine. that is until they were served with that lawsuit blaming the crash on erin and then watched defense attorneys twist, as they saw it anyway, what the family believed were the facts of the case. >> you're unusual as victims because of this willingness to forgive justine. >> it's the adults in her life that should be -- that are steering her in this direction. it's not her decisions, you know. it's these adults. so i've had plenty of anger towards them. >> but for justine's family too, there was considerable strain. so much that justine's father, randy, buckled under the pressure and was rushed to the hospital and not present in the

courtroom. >> i will ask the clerk to file the verdict and to read it, please. >> when after just four hours of deliberation, the jury came back. >> we, the jury, enter the following unanimous verdict. to the charge of deliberate homicide for the death of erin thompson, guilty. for the death of caden o'dell, guilty. >> this was an absolutely horrible, numbing experience that put my head into my knees. >> it was like the whole courtroom, i felt like everyone just cried about it. >> how did she look, mary? >> she was led off to jail, your little girl. >> she looked very stunned. she didn't look back. >> just a week after that verdict, justine winter marked her 18th birthday in a jail cell.

and then came sentencing day. and everyone wondered would justine finally tell erin's husband, her family, what they desperately wanted to hear. >> in your ideal world, what would you like to hear from justine? >> to be sorry for what she took from us because it was -- it was huge. >> just before sentencing, the family received this. a statement written by justine. and it wasn't even close to what they were looking for. in it she called herself a miracle who was wrongly convicted of a horrific crime. she wrote that she would never, ever in a million years take her own life or anyone else's. that this was an accident that had been blown out of proportion. that she didn't need time behind bars. just a chance to turn a horrific situation into a positive one. and so with this statement in mind, the family of erin and

caden took the stand to have their own say. >> i want for you to make something positive of your life through this, but you still have yet to grasp the truth. >> caden's father, the same message, more anger. >> you took him. you did it. and you need to own it. you killed my boy. you need to own it. >> and finally caden's stepfather, jason. the elementary school counselor first displaying compassion, then a rare stream of venom aimed at justine's defense team. >> i've chosen not to believe that you, in crashing your car that night, wanted to harm or would ever think about harming them. but it has been very, very, very difficult to hold on to that thought given that you've been led by these two men and influenced by them to not do

what is most important in all of this, and show and demonstrate to us that you are sorry for having taken them. >> then finally the moment as justine winter herself took the stand to speak for the first time. >> i've wanted to speak with you for two years now. i've wanted to let you guys know that my heart goes out to you. and as every single one of you came up here today, my heart was breaking. by i just hope that you guys will be able to forgive that i will never be able to say that i intentionally crossed the center line wanting to take three lives from all of you. >> but before the judge allowed justine to leave the witness stand, the prosecutor stepped to the podium and asked a question

on behalf of the victims' families, a question that froze the courtroom. >> what they've wanted to hear from you for a long, long time also is "i'm sorry" c." can you tell them that? >> i'm sorry for your loss, but i cannot -- i don't know what you're meaning by you want me to say that i'm sorry. >> and so the hammer came down. >> it's the order of the court the defendant is committed for a period of 30 years with 15 years suspended. >> 15 years in prison. justine will have to serve 7 1/2 before she has any chance of parole at all. and her father, back on his feet and in court for sentencing day, began his own prison term, the one deep inside his own soul. >> the system betrayed me. you could serve a country and

you feel betrayed by it. >> you feel betrayed by the country that you fought for. >> about the judicial part of the system. >> they took her, this once promising college-bound honor student, to a cell in the montana women's prison, where she instantly became the youngest inmate in the place. and two months later, those attorneys, stufft and battle, who declined our requests for interviews, were off the case. that civil lawsuit was dropped, and that's when justine winter decided to tell us her side of the whole sad story. >> coming up, an exclusive interview with justine. >> you say probably you caused that accident. are you able to say, i take responsibility for that? >> when "crossing the line" continues. [burke] vengeful vermin.

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returning to "crossing the line," justine winter tells her story. here again is keith morrison. >> shortly after justine winter walked out of this courtroom in montana, she landed here, more than 450 miles east across the state at the women's prison in billings. and just weeks into a 15-year prison sentence for deliberate homicide, she sat down with us. quite well aware of how all this

time she'd been the target of so much curiosity and anger. i'm curious to know what your thought process was as you went about deciding, yeah, i think i'll talk now. >> i don't know. i guess it was probably that i was being shown in a different light than what i wanted to be shown in. >> when you read accounts of your case and when you see the comments people write, what's that like? >> they are really hard to read. i heard one that said i need to hang from a noose on a tree. >> what does it feel like inside when you saw that comment, for example? >> i'm really weird, and with my brain injury, i feel it in a second, but it's hard to, like, recall it afterwards. >> that brain injury is the reason, she says, she sometimes smiles when she doesn't mean to. why everything came out wrong, she says, when she took the stand and spoke at sentencing.

and why, she says, she recalls nothing about the crash. and even the prosecutor believes this. >> i don't remember the night of the accident, but i remember events that i know had to have happened right before the accident happened. >> what events would those be? >> i remember doing stuff to get ready for prom, because prom was supposed to be two days after when the accident happened, but other than that, i don't really remember a whole lot about march. >> what do you remember about the last time you saw your boyfriend? >> i have no idea. i remember we spent oodles of time together. >> you were inseparable. >> pretty much. >> in love? >> kid love. >> that's pretty strong love, that kid love, isn't it? >> yeah. i remember, if i wasn't with him, i was texting him all the time. >> but as for those texts following the argument with ryan

just before the crash, justine says, despite what many believe, she would never, ever have tried to commit suicide. knowing, as she does, that her grandmother, randy's mother, killed herself when her dad was just a boy. in fact, she says, the most likely explanation is she was just playing a game of sorts with ryan. >> he liked controlling everything having to do with like my life, and he threatened suicide twice. that's what i would think was happening is that i was playing his own card back at him. >> well, i'm going to kill myself then. >> yeah. i don't think that they were text messages that were to be taken seriously. >> if you look at them through justine's eyes, they don't seem that way. >> yeah. >> but the jury didn't look at it through your eyes. >> no. >> and despite her conviction, and all that evidence, and the fact that she has no memory of that night, justine still claims

she must have been wearing her seat belt and cannot imagine driving her car at 85 miles an hour. just not the sort of thing she ever did, she says. something happened, you swerved across and hit that other car. does that sound about right? >> yeah. >> it's probably you who caused the accident. that's fair to say. >> uh-huh. >> and if you say it's probably you who caused that accident, are you able to say, yeah, you know, if i did it, and i probably did cause it, i just feel horrible about that. >> uh-huh. >> and i take responsibility for that. >> yeah. >> is it possible for you to say that? >> yeah, if i knew, then i would take responsibility for it. you know, if it was me, i take complete, utter responsibility for it. and i do. >> and now, finally, having said the words, almost, that erin and caden's family longed to hear,

justine says she is finally through holding a pity party for herself. >> all that i would change about the accident is that they lived. and if it had to be, so be that they lived and i didn't, i'd be okay with that because i don't -- i don't like seeing anyone else in pain. i know my family was put in a lot of pain because of the accident but they've got to see me grow up. >> and the other family can't see that. >> yep. and i don't want to put them in any more pain than they've already had to be put through. and i want to make everything -- everything okay for them. >> but, oh, that will take a

long time. that sadness, as big as the sky. for erin's widower, jason, the dream is gone. only an empty chair, an empty ache remain. as he and so many in the family, as if climbing those montana mountains, try to keep putting one foot in front of the other. >> it's a dance between the grief of their loss to the joy and the blessing of having experienced them. >> it's like seeing a meteor. you wouldn't curse your luck that you saw this meteor, you would just be thankful that you were blessed to see it. and so we just have to cling to that, just that wow. how amazing that we got to spend a good part of our life with two of the most precious people on the planet.

that's all for this edition of "dateline extra." i'm craig melvin. thanks for watching. we were in love. >> they were so happy at first. but romance turned to danger. she fell from the edge. >> i would call this an accidental death. >> but was it? >> she said that if anything happens to me, you'll know who did it. >> a mystery of nearly 20 years heads into court and the husband is on the precipice. >> did you kill your wife jody? >> i did not kill jody. >> what happened on the cliff's edge.