turn on the last of her music, and i call her name in my car and cry. i'm craig melvin. >> and i'm natalie morales. >> and this is "dateline." >> what he was trying to do is protect his family. that's all he ever wanted to do. even when the man was dieing, that's what he was doing. >> a quiet family night at home, shattered by intruders. >> the gun was like right here. >> a devoted father and husband, dead. someone murdered her husband, but left her alive. and that left police suspicious. was it possible she was involved in her husband's murder? >> the indicators are in cases

like this that it's the spouse, not a random act. but why would she kill a man she obviously loved? >> they never fought. they were very happy. >> this was a family affair, right, but it was another family that was keeping secrets. one father who fought to save his son, another who used his son to save himself. >> he's a monster. hello and welcome to dateline." joe morsy is a respected scientist who loved his work. that's where he met kay who shared his passion and would eventually become his second wife. then, late one night, joe, his wife and son were attacked inside their florida home. investigators did not know what to make of the circumstances surrounding this crime or the stunning betrayal that followed.

here is josh with "broken bonds." >> what would you do for your family? >> i was about to not answer it and something told me to pick up the phone. >> her mother was on the line. >> you could just hear the sirens and she kept saying you have to come here. they broke into the house and he's dead. they killed him. >> he was joseph morrissey who had been married for 12 years. their suburban florida home documented by police video was now a crime scene. >> there was so much chaos going

on. the whole street was blocked off. there was tons of police cars and the sirens and you could smell the smoke. i just remember running down the street and the police officers were trying to stop me. and i just kept going and she was just standing there in the middle of the street and she just looked so small and so hurt. i ran up and dave her a big hug. she was covered in blood and she just kept saying, he's dead. he's gone. why would they do that? he's gone. >> when i arrived at this house, it was 1:30 in the morning. >> detective brian kendall quickly learned the key facts. joe had been brutally stabbed to death in his own home while his wife and young son had escaped. the detectives spoke briefly with kay. >> she gives me a brief synopsis of what happened that night. >> believable? >> at that point, yes. that's the only thing i had to go on at that point.

>> she told the detective that a man had entered their home some time after 11:00 p.m. and began a reign of terror that started with tieing their hands and feet with zip ties and ended with the murder of her husband and their house on fire. kay's story suggested a robbery gone bad. but to figure out for himself what had happened, the detective worked from the outside in. >> the screen to the window right over here was leaning up against the house. there was a vertical slice down the middle of the screen, and this window was wide open. >> that's how kay told you the guy first came into the house? >> correct. i walked down this hallway here. there was a pair of scissors. long flex cuffs on the ground. when i walked into the master bedroom, another zip tie was on the ground at the foot of the bed. there were bath towels laying on the ground on the bed itself was

a wedding ring, which i thought was unusual. >> kay had said that the man that came in asked for jewelry. >> demanding cash, valuables. >> but he didn't take them. >> at this point he didn't take the ones that were in this room at least because when i looked in the closet there was a large significant amount of jewelry. >> so if this is a robbery, it's kind of a strange robbery because they didn't take the stuff they supposedly wanted. >> then he sees the blood. >> right down on the floor here, large amounts of blood. i could see a man's feet outside the sliding glass door. >> this is where joe was killed. >> he was murdered and stabbed right next to the sofa. >> kay said she dragged his body out of the file and on to the patio and that's where his body lay april 6, 2010.

>> stabbing always personal. >> they are. they're up close. there is no way to do it from a distance. >> everything about that says this wasn't a robbery. this is somebody that wanted to him joe in particular. >> in addition to that, joe still had his wedding band on. valuables that if it was a robbery, it would have been taken out of the house. >> what's more, his wife kay was still alive, not stabbed, not even once. they do a brutal vicious murder. why is she alive? >> why indeed. in murders like this, the spouse is often the first suspect, sometimes the only suspect. all of that became clear that night to kay's daughter. >> i remember when they took her to the police station and she asked me to stay and watch the house. and i remember sitting there and they would come up and ask me questions, the different detectives and the police officers and, you know, they asked me, you know, did they

ever fight? or were they arguing? or was there tension between them? >> absolutely not. >> they never fought. they always were very happy. >> nobody goes through life and never fights. everybody fights. >> i remember they would fight over, you know, him leaving socks on the floor or a wet towel or something like that. but if they ever had any arguments, they were few and far between. they were a good match. >> they started dating when christina was a young girl. both were divorced single parents at the time. but it was science that brought them together. they met at a cancer research institute. kay was a biomedical lab student back then and joe was a respected phd that connected research to see if there was a connection between cell phones and cancer among other things and his work had taken him from across the globe. >> he was hard working and very, very humble, the most humble person i know. he never dragged about anything.

he was always trying to be a good guy and teach us to do the right thing. >> joe and kay dated for a year. and then joe popped the question on a roman holiday. >> i thought it was so cool he proposed on the top of the vatican. it was fun to plan a wedding. they made sure the kids were all included. >> that meant not only christina but also a son of joe's. >> it wasn't just a wedding between the two of them. it was like all of us becoming a big family. >> it wasn't long before they wanted a child of their own and decided to adopt patrick, a baby boy from south korea. >> he was a very hands on father. he was always doing something with patrick. all the time. it was either baseball lessons or hockey practice or going

fishing. i mean, they were together all the time. >> but now joe was gone. patrick and kay had survived. and detective kendall had some questions for kay. on coming up, kie describes in horrifying detail what happened. but does her story match the evidence? (sneezing) ♪ grab a kleenex ultra soft tissue and grab every moment. made with superior softness, for your comfort. kleenex. the softest ultra tissue.

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joe morrissey had been savagely stabbed to death in his own home. his wife was being questioned at the police station in plantation, florida. >> kay, maybe it will be easier to start with what happened from the beginning last night. >> i was in my craft room, which is in the front of the house. and the tv was on, and i heard a noise, like something fall down. i thought it was my husband going to bed. >> she told police her husband had been watching tv in the family room. their five-year-old son asleep in the master bedroom. then suddenly, kay looked up. >> i saw him. and the gun was like right here, and he was right there and i couldn't believe it.

i was like -- i could not believe that this was happening to me. >> there was a young man in the room pointing a gun right at her. kay said the man asked her where her husband was. she told him she thought he was sleeping in either the family room or their bedroom. >> she said, if you lie to me, i'm going to shoot you. i'm going to kill you. >> what does your radar say at the beginning? is she telling the truth? >> initially i want to believe her, but the indicators are in cases like this that it is the spouse or a domestic issue or some other personal issue, not a random act. >> then kay told police, the man took her into the family room where her husband was. >> and he yelled, wake up to joe. joe of course jumped up. and i said, joe, just calm down. it's okay. wake up. don't move. just do what he tells you to do and we're going to be okay. and then he said, i don't want you guys looking at me. don't look at me or i'm going to shoot you. i said, okay, we won't look at

you. >> kay told the police she heard the intruder talking to someone she never saw via walkie-talkie. >> he said, just listen to me. don't talk to me. just be quiet. >> she said the assailant, a young man with a gun then tied their wrists with zip ties. >> i thought he was going to shoot it. then he was saying, where is the wallet. joe only had $2. i said, i don't use cash. i don't have any cash. at that point he said i want to go to the atm to get money out. >> according today, the gunman cut their hands free and the three of them got into one of morrissey's cars, leaving their five-year-old son asleep in the house along with whoever had been on the walkie-talkie. >> on their way to the bank, joe

drove. once there, kay managed to get them to park in view of the atm camera, as you can see on this tape. then the assailant told kay what to do next. >> get out of the car. go get the money. he said, remember, if you do anything stupid, i have your kid and i have your husband. >> the man wanted $5,000. >> i tried the $5,000. i tried $2,000. i was trying for $100 and they said, no, that was it. >> that's what the machine said? >> yes. >> how much did you end up getting $500. >> after that, kay said they drove back to the house frantic to see their son. was he still asleep? was he okay? as they enter the house, the gunman barked out orders. >> he said don't do anything stupid. joe and i were looking at each other saying, why is he coming back?

at that point i thought he was going to kill us. i really did. >> once back in the house, the gunman took them back to the master bedroom and kay said tied their hands and feet with zip ties and put towels over their heads. >> why would they put towels over their head if this person has already seen them? >> then the gunman told joe to come with him. >> so joe goes, i can't walk. and he goes, i want to see you hopping. hop, hop, hop. and then all i heard was that joe said, oh, please. please don't do it. and i saw the fire. >> please don't do it? >> he said. >> joe did? >> yeah. i thought he was talking about the fire, but i guess he was talking about him shooting him or stabbing him. >> it was a horrifying story. >> if she's faking us for some reason, it is pretty elaborate. >> and she's doing a good job at it. >> kay's daughter christina was there when the q & a at the police station was over. >> we went back to my house, and she didn't really say much. she was just quiet.

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i could not believe that this was happening to me. >> police investigating the home invasion murder of joe morrissy had to consider whether his wife kay was somehow involved. >> we did a comprehensive background investigation on kay. we went through all her phone records to find out if she had a boyfriend or was dating somebody. >> police found no evidence that kay strayed in her marriage. they were finding plenty at the crime scene to support her story, broken window screen, zip ties and towels. her story seemed to be holding up. christina believed from the beginning that her mother was innocent, purely a victim. but what she didn't know was how brutal the murder was. >> she didn't want us to know. i remember sitting at the funeral home.

she was very firm. she just kept saying it's going to be a closed casket. i want everybody to remember him as the lively person that he was. and i knew then that it was -- it couldn't have been good. >> and when i sat down with kay, she told a story filled with love and courage on that awful night. >> we were surrounded by evil. my insides were just shaking. i was just thinking about patrick. >> that was the theme that kay told me, how her five-year-old son patrick was foremost on her and her husband's lives. that's why kay became panicked when they were forced to go to the bank by the man in the gun.

i said, we can't leave patrick here. he stays. he told us there were people there and that they had guns. >> there you are getting in the car with your husband and some guy with a gun and leaving your five-year-old at home with -- >> we don't even know. >> we don't even know who that was. it is just crazy. i mean, i'm crying hysterical. >> in the car, kay feared for her and joe's lives as well. as they returned from the bank to their home, they heard a siren. kay thought help was on the way. they would be saved. the gunman thought this might be the end of him and of them. >> when he heard the siren, he becomes very strange. he started singing and taunting us. they're coming for me. i'm going to kill you. i was just so horrified. >> but help did not arrive. once at home, when the gunman forced kay and joe back into the master bedroom, at least they found patrick, thankfully, still asleep. and in that moment, kay says, a father's love came shining through. that's when joe morrissey tied up and helpless made a move to save his young son's life.

>> patrick is now awake, and he's now sitting on the bed. so joe says to him, patrick, do it for daddy. just lay down and pretend you are asleep. >> do it for daddy. >> do it for daddy and he just lays there and pretends to be asleep. >> kay says the man with the gun forced joe to go to the other side of the house. in his final moments with his attackers, kay says family was first in joe's mind. >> he starts pleading, please, you know i have kids. please don't do it. >> those would be joe morrissey's last words. then kay saw an orange glow. their home was on fire. the attackers had fled and now she had to get patrick and herself out of the house. but her ankles were still tied and she could barely move. desperate to find something sharp to free her feet, kay hobbled to a nearby bathroom. >> i took everything out of the drawers. i couldn't find the scissors, so i called patrick and i said to patrick, you have to be a big boy. you have to help mommy. >> and he did. kay told him where to find a pair of scissors and patrick

brought them to her, cutting the zip tie was difficult, but kay was finally able to do it. the five-year-old boy had saved his mother. then she had another job for her son. >> i said, patrick, please, just go across the street and knock on the door. mommy is going to stay here. remember your karate moves. please just kick the door. >> kay saw the neighbor's door open and patrick run in. she knew he was safe. one family member taken care of. now kay was on a mission to save joe. she would not leave him behind no matter what the risk. >> and then you run back into a burning house. >> yes, i went back in there. and when i saw joe, it was so hard to pick him up. i remember seeing so many wounds, so much damage to his body, i couldn't even think anymore.

>> kay managed to drag joe out of the burning house and on to the patio. she held out hope that while badly injured he was still alive. paramedics arrived but there was nothing they could do for joe morrissey. kay's husband was gone at the age of only 46. >> and that was the last time you saw him. >> you saved yourself. you saved your son. >> but i didn't save joe. i just couldn't. it was the most horrible thing that ever happened to me, to learn that he was dead. >> it was a heart-breaking story and one that police came to believe. they cleared kay. >> we found no evidence that would support us to believe that she was involved in any way in this murder. >> now it was up to investigators to find out who had done such horrifying things to this family.

a family detective kendall believed that had been targeted. but so far it wasn't making any sense. >> if it was just something personal in nature, why not just come in and kill him and leave? >> the search for answers was on. and it would lead to a very different find of family. >> police close in on a suspect. >> honestly, i think you could be involved in it. >> okay. >> i never thought it was somebody they knew. before discovering nexium 24hr to treat her frequent heartburn, marie could only imagine enjoying freshly squeezed orange juice. now no fruit is forbidden. nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts for all-day, all-night protection. can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn?

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here is what's hachg. a public health emergency was declared in san diego county where two people tested positive for the coronavirus. china confirmed more than 1700 health workers have been infected and six have died from the virus. and a dangerous arctic glass makes its way from the northwest

to the east this weekend. temperatures are expected to drop as low as minus 20 degrees saturday before quickly rebounding back above freezing on sunday. now back to "dateline." joe morrissey had been savagely stabbed to death in a home invasion but ended with his family's house set ablaze. police were trying to figure out who could have committed such a brutal crime. kay's daughter from her first marriage first thought it might have something to do with the

renovations. >> i honestly thought maybe it was the contractor because they had had a lot of people coming in and out of their house doing work. i never thought it was somebody who they knew. >> like some random thing where people came to rob the house and everything went wrong. >> yeah. that was my first guess. >> who didn't like joe. >> the only person i didn't know that did not like him was his ex-wife and their family. it was a nasty divorce. there was feelings there. >> police looked at his previous marriage, but determined it had nothing to do with the crime. they had a narrow thread to pull on, something kay mentioned to them. >> the only thing she was able to tell me was a brief description on what the suspect who first entered the house looked like. >> kay had not recognized that man at the time. only later did she realize she might have seen him once several months earlier. joe had been a scientist, a husband and a father. but he was also a landlord and kay thought the man might be related to the tenants at the

townhouse they owned. >> i found a family member who could match the description of what kay gave me in her initial statement. checking more into this person, i found he had a warrant for his arrest. >> what was his name? >> randy pontador jr. >> and with that name, the investigation was heading from the loving morrissey family to the other family in this story. randy was 21 and into drugs with an arrest warrant for violating his probation on a burglary rap. >> did you go talk to him? >> we couldn't find him. >> but detectives could find his father, randy sr., at the townhouse. randy sr. said he hadn't talked to his son in a while. when police went looking for randy jr., an alert officer noticed something suspicious. >> k-9 sergeant sees stuck between the lid of the dumpster and the dumpster itself a zip tie.

i drive down there. i immediately identify it as the same make, size as the ones used in the murder. that's a solid piece of evidence. >> that's your first break? >> yeah. >> randy sr. allowed police to search the business without a warrant. >> immediately see there is a bag of the same type of wire ties that were used to tie up joseph morrissey. they also sell knives at the business. there is an empty box that holds a 15 inch knife. when he's ask, where is the knife that belongs in this box, he tells them, it should be there.

he doesn't know where it is. >> do you think at this point he's covering up for his son? >> i think that he's aware that things are not going good for his son. but it doesn't seem like he wants to cover for his son. >> so this is a good citizen letting the police do their investigation. >> correct. >> and if the chips fall on his son, then they do. >> correct. >> okay, randy. >> investigators eventually located randy jr. and brought him in for questioning. >> randy jr. seemed composed, very interested to know what information i had about the case, very willing to talk to me. >> if i didn't have a warrant, i would have freely talked to you guys. >> okay. >> no problem. i don't have no connection with this murder. i don't know who did it. i want to clear my name because i did not commit this murder. >> and as for that knife that was missing from his dad's shop, randy jr. had an explanation for that. >> he had stolen that knife weeks earlier and had sold it to a friend of his that he knows on the street. >> i used to buy dope off him. i'm positive he still has it. >> i asked him to further describe him and he draws a picture and it is an exact replica of the knife we believe to be involved in the murder. >> randy jr. denied any

involvement in the murder. >> it could have been a random hit. you never know what it is. >> it's not random. >> it couldn't be a random place. it couldn't be a random time. >> it's not random. >> but he seemed to know details of the crime that only someone involved would know. >> you have seen a lot of these guys sit in the interview room and think they're going to outsmart you. >> i think everybody at one point thinks they're a little smarter, yeah. >> was randy jr. one of those? did he think he was sending you guys down some road he wanted you to go down. >> i don't know what his true motivation was because each story he gave us included a little bit about the murder itself.

>> then the detective pulled out the heavy artillery. he tried to crack randy jr. by telling him his own father thought he did it. >> everything you [ bleep ] has been a lie. your dad is crying. >> why is my dad crying? >> because of what you did. come on, dude, i feel bad for your dad. >> if police thought they had this case solved, if they thought randy jr. and a drug buddy had committed this crime, they were in for a shock. thanks to a most unusual

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as police investigated the home invasion murder of joe morrissey, his widow kay was

dealing with not only her own grief and trauma, but also with her son patrick's. >> when patrick would ask you what happened to his father, what would you tell him? >> i tried to answer him thinking age appropriate because he was five years old. and i would say, you know, daddy had a little boo boo on his heart and he died. but patrick, he's a very smart boy. he sat right next to me and said to me, very stern, said, do you mean to tell me that detective kendall call you and told you mrs. morrissey your husband had a little boo boo on his heart and that's how he died? and i said, no, patrick. and so he goes, i want to know how my daddy died. and that escalated into all kinds of questions from there. >> and you answered them. >> in the days after the murder, police were zeroing in on randy jr. when they received an unexpected phone call from his younger brother shawn.

>> he tells us his brother is not involved. he actually provides his brother with an alibi. >> you are convinced that randy jr. was in fact at the morrissey home that night? >> definitely yes. >> so is shawn lying to you? >> we know shawn is lying about that part of it, yes. >> police knew shawn had an alibi for the night joe morrissey was killed. he was not his brother randy's accomplice. shawn came in not only to give his brother an alibi for the murder but to tell a story that shocked the officers. he wasted no time. >> basically i'm going to tell you something. my dad did it. >> his father, randy sr. >> it was a bombshell. we were surprised we were hearing the father was at the resident. >> and shawn proceeded to tell a chilling story about his father, how his dad felt wronged by his landlord joe morrissey and went to joe's house to kill him. he had tried to shoot joe, but his gun shouldn't go off. so he repeatedly stabbed joe. shawn said his father was even able to recite joe's last words.

he said, i got kids. i think i'm dying. >> according to shawn, randy sr. wore shawn's brand-new white sneakers during the murder. >> he said, trust me, they weren't white when i was done with them. >> shawn painted a different picture of his dad than his brother had. shawn said his dad was a violent man. >> my father used to beat us bad. i mean, really beat us. >> with a violent past. >> my father is just known to be one of the craziest guys you ever met. i used to call him rampage. i used to call him scarface. >> his father had been trying to scam joe morrissey out of money by breaking light switches at the townhouse and by faking a slip and fall injury so he could sue joe. >> this was nothing wrong with

that light. >> nothing. >> so this fall down the stairs was a bunch of [ bleep ]. >> but his younger brother looked up to their father and would do anything for him. >> he's going to do anything and everything he has to do to make sure to cover my father because he loves him. >> but his father loved randy jr. back, then why would he get him involved in the crime in the first place? and then let his take the wrap for him. >> my son is already caught, so i'll just throw everything on him. >> shawn said he was more than disgusted. he loved his brother and had been protecting him since they were young. now he needed more protection than ever, which shawn felt required him to turn in his own father for a crime of which he was not even suspected. >> he went there to kill him. >> shawn says the murderous scheme was set in motion when his dad received a letter from joe morrissy. it informed him that he owed

just over $1,600 and his lease would now be month to month. that letter arrived the day of joe's murder. >> how did your dad react to that letter? >> like, i'm not going to let him do it. >> because it was like an insult to him. >> he took it like that. it was a man that wanted his money. >> but your dad saw it as provocation. >> yeah. >> and i'm going to teach him a lesson. >> yeah. >> then he says his dad roped in randy jr. >> my brother didn't know whose house he was going to. and my brother didn't know that somebody was supposed to die in that house. >> only to turn his back on him afterward and let randy jr. fall under suspicious for the murder. >> he says they caught him, not me. i said, you fix this or i will. >> that's what you said to your father. >> i told him straight up. >> fix this or i will. >> yeah. >> and that's when shawn turned his back on his father and went to police trying to save his brother by informing on his dad. if that didn't stun the officers, then what shawn did

next did. >> before we could even ask him to wear a wire, he offers to wear a wire. he wants his father to be held responsible for this. >> have you ever seen anything like that before? >> no. >> this son was going to become a police informant, wear a wire and try to get his own father to admit to a murder. the sound quality on the wire is poor, but for police, randy sr.'s guilty came through loud and clear. >> what is the part of that conversation that says to you, guilty. we got him? >> i think when he tells shawn that, we have no case, our case is weak. he tells shawn that she can't identify me. she can't even identify randy. putting himself there. >> what's more, this security video from the business next door to randy sr.'s window tint shop shows a man behind it tending a big fire a couple hours after the murder, exactly

where police had found burnt evidence from the crime. >> you can't make out the person's identity. it's definitely a large person. randy sr. is over, you know, probably 300 pounds. we suspect it's him. >> by friday night, four days after the murder, both randy sr. and jr. had been charged with a slew of crimes, including murder, attempted murder and arson. that randy sr. would let his son take the fall is all the evidence kay's daughter needed. >> he's a monster. you don't care about your own kids, you are not going to care about somebody else's life. >> case closed? not by a long shot. >> two very different families meet in court for justice. >> he wanted to kill mr. morrissey.

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sorry! he's a baby!

. welcome back. randy sr. and his son randy jr. were both charged with murdering joe morrissey. but a second son, shawn, told detectives jr. was an unwitting accomplice. shawn claimed his father was the master mind behind the crime. now father and son were about to

face trial, a tragic tale of two contrasting families was near its bitter end. here's josh mankowitz with the conclusion of broken bonds. >> a quiet night, intruders entered the home of jay morrissey, and committed unthinkable crimes. >> you're living your life the way you think you're supposed to and evil just walks in and rips rr life apart. >> tom coleman and steven prosecuted the case against randy sr. and. >> there are no circumstances you can look at and go maybe this had gone differently. there's nothing the morrisseys could have done that would have prevented this other than never meet the tundadors. >> these two families did intersect with disastrous results, all prosecutors say because a tenant got angry at a

landlord. >> who is this little scientist who thinks he's going to mess with me. no one is going to mess with my family and i was going to take care of this. that's what this was. >> in the end randy didn't seem to care about his family. in fact, prosecutors say he tried to pin the blame on his son randy jr. >> the phone calls to detective kendall about test the shirt for dna, that's your killer. and just piling on him, just trying to get himself out of trouble. >> randy jr. won't give him up. >> nope, doesn't give him up. >> randy jr. stuck by his dad even though his father threw him under the bus as soon as he came under suspicion. >> and never stopped. backed that bus over every time he could. >> the son is loyal to the father but the father is not loyal to the son. >> absolutely. >> the opposite of how joe morrissey treated his son in the end. >> exactly. we kept waiting for senior at some point in time to come

forward and say let me cut a deal, let me take life in prison, let me take the weight out of my kids. didn't happen. >> never going to happen. >> prosecutors thought it might be a tough case against randy sr. but then something surprising happened, after swearing to police that his dad was not in any way involved, ranran ran -- randy jr. took a deal and testified against his father. randy sr.'s trial was held two years after joe's murder. he faced the death penalty. kay desperately wanted to make sure he received it, and her testimony in court was powerful. >> i was like so scared. he never answered me. i kept calling him and he didn't answer me. >> on the stand, randy jr. told the jury how his dad intended to inflict even more harm on the morrissey family. >> he wanted to kill ms. morrissey and her son.

he said they got a little too, i told him no. i told i can't do that. >> can't do what? >> can't kill no kid and his mom. >> randy sr.'s primary defense was that he was not involved but the father went far beyond that. >> we went to trial and he buried both of his sons or tried to. >> because it wasn't just jr. once we got to trial. it was that shawn was the other person involved, and it was shawn trying to steal my business. he can't ever accept responsibility for anything. >> in court, randy jr. lashed out at his father. >> the fact that he will sit here and say that it was me and my brother who did this and planned this, i feel like that's wrong. he shouldn't do anything to hurt your kids. i think a father's job is to protect his kids, not to hurt

his kids. >> after 5 1/2 hours of deliberation, the jury convicted randy sr. on all charges. >> when they say guilty, i felt my heart. i couldn't breathe. i was very overwhelmed. >> the jury later voted unanimously to give randy sr. the death penalty and the judge agreed. randy jr. who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and cooperated with prosecutors was sentenced to 40 years in prison. kay morrissey is angry about that. >> i believe that the crime wouldn't have happened, one without the other one. they both deserved the death penalty. >> kay morrissey says she's not imprisoned bid fear. instead, she say, the nightmare has made her fear less. she even sent a letter to randy sr. saying as much. >> you are a coward and i am not afraid of you. >> yes. >> i am never leaving and will

always be here. so like you're saying, come and get me. >> right. >> tough guy. >> mm-hmm. >> i'm not going to be fearful. i mean, they attacked us in our house, which is your safest place to be. and so i started to become extremely fearless. >> but she's also struggled to put her life back together. kay's daughter says she can see the pain even as her mom holds patrick close. >> it's hard to watch my mom with patrick because you can tell they miss him and they should have him. they shouldn't have to figure it out without him. >> they still have each other. >> i believe god has a plan for us, and that's what we survived. >> and she has many memories of her dear joe. after he died, kay wrote about him and to him in a letter. >> joe, i know we will see each other again. in the meantime, please do watch over our children and do protect them from harm. joe, i thank you for being such

a great, loving husband and loving father. i love you so much and will love you forever. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline," i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. first up on msnbc, as the doj turns, new moves by attorney general barr may leave him at odds with the president, but the big mystery, why now. a new poll from nevada, the next key state in the battle for 2020, a surprise leader and what it means for some of the surging candidates. and breaking news on the coronavirus, the u.s. with a dramatic move this morning to rescue americans quarantined on a cruise ship. it's happened again, we told you about it last week, now the news from antarctica is even more concerning. details ahead. and with that, we say good morning to you on this saturday, february