just about the same amount of time he spent with mary ann. occasionally you'll still find gary mcfarland at the beach where his dad archie brought him to surf. he thinks about father and mother and forgiveness. the lesson gary is still learning from archie mcfarland. >> i still love my mother. i don't harbor bitterness or resentment. there are tons of questions you'd love to ask and get answers to, but i'm not in a position, nor in my opinion anyone is in a position, to completely understand what's going on in somebody else's heart. >> that's all for this edition i'm craig melvin. >> and i'm natalie morales. >> this is "dateline." >> all of a sudden, i realized, what's going on? something definitely was wrong. he said, your family was in an accident. and my whole 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 now treat it as a homicide. >> murder and accusation no one saw coming. >> i couldn't deal with it. >> two families in torment. >> we were both just -- >> a small-town trial with big emotions. >> you took it. you did it. >> and the verdict -- >> we the jury. >> -- that would shake them all. hello and welcome to "dateline." a dangerous highway in big sky country. that was the 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 winter's 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. on her way home 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, no answer. called the house where she was at and they said she had left 15 minutes before that. >> i was thinking she had 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 caden home from a school concert. he played the drums. >> i'd always attended all of caden's concerts. and this was the first one i didn't attend because i had car troubles. >> this is caden's step-father. >> my car was in the shop. and so erin dropped me off. that's why i wasn't with them. >> and soon, the poison, the anxiety seeped under jason's door through his windows, into his nerve endings. >> just, all of a sudden, i realized, what's going on? why are they late? and it just struck me that something definitely was wrong. >> at justine winters' house, the fear was deep now. her father was a national guardsman, a firefighter, was trained to keep his head and knew what he had to do. he got in his truck, drove out

of town to the road he knew she'd take coming home from her boyfriend's house. then he saw it in a construction zone. on a highway 93 overpass. what did you find? >> something i don't want to see again. you can say a fireman's worst nightmare. >> someone tried to hold him back. he kept on. >> 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 the gurney there. but i got to see her, you know, at the hospital. >> she was pretty bad. >> you know, you don't want to ever see your kid in the hospital. >> every bit of her was damaged, horribly. broken bones.

brain damaged. ruptured organs. the chance she'd survive, slim, said the doctors. but the winters' news could have been worse. and a few miles away, where the phone rang at jason 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 caden, the boy who just played the drums at his school concert, was just 13. and just like that, they were gone. the crash was head-on. and the school counselor jason thompson's life, the light went out.

>> that night, that realization, i'll never forget that news. >> nor, of course, will erin's mother, diana. >> we were both just bonkers, just -- >> 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 piece of news we could fathom. >> and to lose both of them and the baby, it just didn't 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 overcomed with the heaviest sorrow. a whole life of sorrows. >> i'm 9 years old when my sister dies and i'm 19 years old

and my mother dies of cancer and now i'm 39 and in '09 and i lose my family. >> missing that concert, you lived. how's that been to wrap your head around? >> i've always been embracing life, right? but i definitely didn't fear death anymore. there's times where i would have welcomed it. >> but the dreadful truth of it is 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.

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morbidly say 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 a soul mate. i 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 was a seeker of all matters spiritual. her mother, diana. >> she was single and a young mother and wondering what she was going to do with her life. she answered her own question and just 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 step-father's craving for outdoor adventures. >> out backpacking in the coast, in the mountains. river rafting, how we started an annual adventure day in the summertime. it was all about 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, 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 wife and my little baby that i was finally going to have and, you know, 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 injury. doctors told the family they didn't think she'd live through the airlift to a hospital in seattle. what did they tell you? >> they told us three times she wouldn't live. >> i said bull -- she's flying in that airplane and don't 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 and any knowledge of her desperate condition. 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's 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 of relief on the one side, abject grief on the other, there was an undertow and twist nobody saw coming. for while justine spent 45 days

in the hospital recuperating and months more here at home in montana healing, it didn't take investigators very long at all, matter of hours, really, to solve the mystery of who and what caused this crash. in fact, the first montana highway patrol officers that raced to this scene in that construction zone believed that justine winter's 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 the county coroner, 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 now treat it as a homicide. >> homicide? yes. right there in justine's car,

officers found what amounted to a minute by minute narrative to the events leading up to the collision. in text messages. and in those messages, the prosecutors said was the evidence. he believed it required him to press criminal charges against that girl doctors had quite miraculously saved, justine winter. charges of? murder. the prosecutor lays out his case, while jason gets yet another shock. coming up -- >> suing you -- >> for her pain and suffering. >> when "dateline" continueds. ♪ [ dog snoring ]

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investigators are convinced that justine winter intentionally crashed her car into erin thompson's, killing the pregnant mom 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 crash that killed caden and erin and her unborn

child, and heard a strange and disturbing story that 16-year-old justine center 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 cory began saw them, well, gave him no choice, he said. he charged her with deliberate homicide. montana's equivalent of murder. >> justine 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.

>> right. you charged her as an adult. why? she was 16. >> she was. the taking of two lives is not, in my opinion, a delinquent act. it's 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, he continuing operations, he age, justine, after pleading not guilty, was released to house arrest. 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 was just crazy. are you angry about all of this? >> it builds up inside and it comes to a point where you can't take it anymore. >> 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 worked at the same school. erin's family made it clear what

they wanted most of all was a heartfelt apology and some responsibility. they saw that as a way to work forgiveness. and most people around town thought that was a fine idea. but from justine and her family, it was just an awkward silence. then, early one morning 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, and said they're suing, you know, erin's estate. >> 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 adequately construct and maintain the facility, causing hazardous traveling conditions for the public. >> i can't even begin to guess what they were thinking about. >> it inflamed the whole town. >> inflamed the whole town. that wasn't justine's decision. that was a decision made by the attorneys. >> ah, yes. the attorneys. their names? maxwell battle and david stuft. and according to the winters, the attorneys assured them the lawsuit, assuming justine was found not guilty, would give them a better shot at an insurance company reimbursement later. >> there's no intent of going for the estate, making that family endure what they've already endured. >> but the optics were awful. >> oh, the timing was, could have, who knows, better. >> you'd pick up the newspaper, hear the blogs, hear the radio

and what you got, those awful people, those disgusting, terrible people what are they thinking, 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 started in january 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 childlike polka dot hairband certainly didn't look the part of a killer facing as much as 200 years behind bars. but there she was. 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 agreed. >> justine winter's car encroached into the northbound 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 and analyzed the data and found another sign that pointed to suicide. she'd taken off her seat belt. 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 per 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 above the mark an of 85 miles per hour found an orange mark. it's known as a slap mark. made, the experts testify, 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. that day in march, there'd 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 text 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 that's all i can do is [ bleep ] up. it shows i would rather die. >> then the final message from ryan. >> you killing yourself is just another way for you to run away. >> and 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 a 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 -- the defense takes on the heart of the case. those texts. when "dateline" continues.

i'm dara brown. here's the top stories. a man is charged with the murder of jazmine barnes of texas. police say they may not have been the intended targets of the shooting. the partial shutdown enters week three after a bipartisan meeting yesterday with no new agreements. nancy pelosi says the house will start passing funding bills to reopen the government. now, back to "dateline."

welcome back to "dateline." 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 seats directly behind the defense table. their faces, by their attorney's decree, they say, an intentional blank. emotionless. their apparent demeanor, a spur on the hide of an already angry town. but almost no one knew what was really going on. justine's mother, mary, who'd been struggling with alcohol caved in to the stress. tell me how it changed your life. >> i ran away from it all. 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'd just completely lose it and start crying. >> the whole world, said justine's dad, seemed to tent on misunderstanding, demonizing his little girl. yet, he said, she'd always been so good, kind, thoughtful and responsible. getting almost straight-as 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

>> 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 "dateline" continues. hene c when "dateline" continues.

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as a montana jury prepared to decide the fate of 17-year-old jus tine winter, the members of erin and caden's family struggled to hang on to the remnants of goodwill. they 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 battle and stuffed twist, as they saw it, anyway, what the family believed were the facts of the case. they were 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. it's the adults. so i have 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 have 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. i put my head between my knees. >> it was like the whole courtroom, i felt like, everyone just cried about it. >> how did she look, mary, when 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. >> but 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 step-father, jason. the elementally school counselor, first displaying compassion, then a rare stream of venom at the defense team, the attorneys battle and stuffed. >> 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 was -- is most important in all of this, and to 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. but 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 wanted to hear from you for a long, long time also is "i'm sorry." 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. 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 serve your country and you feel betrayed about it. >> you feel betrayed by the country 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, stuffed and battle, who declined our request for 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 "dateline" continues.

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welcome back. teenager justine winter was convicted in a deliberate homicide death of a mother and son. would the victim's family finally get the apology they've been waiting for. here is keith morrison with the conclusion of our story. short sli after justine

winter walked out of this courtroom, she landed here, more than 450 miles east across the state at the women's prison in billings. she sat down with us, quite well aware of how all this time she had 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, when you see the comments people write, what's that like? >> they're really hard to read. i heard one that said i needed to hang from a noose on a tree. >> what's it fliebeel like insi when you saw that, for example? >> i'm really weird with my

brain injury. i feel it in the second but it's hard to recall it afterwards. >> that brain injury is the reason she said 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, and even the prosecutor says he believes this, that she recalls nothing about the crash. >> 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 the last time you saw your boyfriend? >> i have no idea. i remember we spent oodles of time together. >> you were inseparable basically?

>> in love? >> kid love. >> pretty strong love, that kid love, isn't it? >> i remember if i wasn't with him, i was texting him all the time. >> as for that text following the argument just before the crash, justine said 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. that, she says, the most likely explanation, she was just playing a game of sorts with ryan. >> he liked controlled everything having to do with, like, my life and he -- he threatened suicide twice. that's what i would think was happening is that i was playing his own card to get 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. >> well, if you look at them

through justine's eyes they didn't like a threat. >> yeah. >> but the jury didn't look like that. >> no. >> despite all the evidence, justine still claims she must have been wearing her seat belt and cannot imagine driving a 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 was probably you who caused the accident, it'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, 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? >> i mean, 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 hayden's family hear, justine said she is finally through the pity party she held for herself. >> all 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 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 theirs? >> yeah. 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. >> after serving a little more than four years of her 15-year sentence in prison, 2015 justine winter was granted parole. for erin's widower jason, the dream is gone. only an empty chair, empty acreage remain as if climbing those montayne that 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, blessing of having experienced them. >> it's like seeing a meteor. you wouldn't curse your luck that you saw this meteor, you'd just be thankful that you were blessed to see it so we just have to cling to that, that wow. how amazing that we got to spend

that time of our life with two of the most precious people on the planet. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. i'm craig melvin. >> and i'm natalie moralis. >> and this is "dateline." >> i don't go undercover every day. that's what made me nervous. >> they had a secret plan. >> were you armed? >> yes. >> and you were wearing a wire? >> yes. >> to solve a baffling case. a college student on a friday night out who vanished. >> she was a very shy girl but she was something special. >> the possible suspects just about everyone. the friend, her boyfriend, the my