she's still there. i still feel her with me. i dream about her a lot. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. i'm craig melvin. >> and i'm natalie morales. >> and this is "dateline." >> a mystery in los angeles. a missing woman. >> he said cindy, where's my mom? and i just instantly knew. and i said michael, call the police, i'm on my way. >> a loving mother. >> always there for me. >> a beloved friend. >> she was jut so easy to like. >> vanishes. >> something was very, very wrong. >> was she murdered? was it for her money? >> how much money did she have in the bank? >> i think it was over seven figures. >> or was it something or someone else? >> it really threw him for a loop. when he found out that my mom

had met somebody else. >> police had a suspect and a case that was about to take an unbelievable turn. >> one the most shocking things i've ever seen in a courtroom. hello and welcome to "dateline." deede keller had made a comfortable life for herself. a successful realtor in southern california, she lived in a charming neighborhood where she was surrounded by family and friends. then suddenly deede disappeared. as her loved ones launched a frantic search, investigators would follow the trail of clues to a suspect with a dark obsession. but the final twist in this case would leave the courtroom stunned. here's josh mankiewicz with "betrayal of trust." >> southern california's south

bay. a singularly stunning strand of shoreline with familiar names like hermosa, redondo, and manhattan. >> we call it the sandbox. no one thinks that this part of los angeles exists, but it does. >> this seaside playground is lined with beachfront properties worth millions. and nestled among these small beach towns is an oasis called el segundo. >> it's main street usa. >> it's a great place to raise kids. >> and in 2003 one of the rainmakers in the real estate business selling those beautiful homes in el segundo and the south bay was a woman named julia keller, known as deede. >> she really just embraced everyone that came into her

path. >> deede's best friends, mortgage executive cindy ertman and real estate sales partner linda dondero. >> she was good at her job? >> i loved working with deede. everybody did. >> she was just so easy to like and always wanted the best for everybody. and her clients were very loyal over the years. >> deede was loyal too. not only to her clients but as a divorced mom to her children, mike and julie. >> i remember my mom explaining to me when i was about 10 years old that as you get older we're probably not going to be as close or you won't like me quite as much. and it never happened. if anything, we just got closer. >> but deede keller had a heart problem. not literally. it may have been a little too big. she loved without limits. and she simply hated to disappoint or let anyone down. she loved dogs so much she literally couldn't say no to another one. she was surrounded by them at home. >> i always joked that as soon

as i graduated college that's when she started, you know, replacing us with dogs. you know, she never stopped being a mom. >> and she never stopped sort of loving everybody i guess. >> no, she never did. she was ready to be embraced and to emarbitration you whenever you wanted it. >> but there was one area her life in which deede keller's honesty and embrace hadn't caught hold. >> your mom was so lucky and life was so easy in so many ways. she couldn't quite make the man in her life thing come out right. >> she had a wonderful life. but no, i guess she hadn't fioud that person. >> she did have a long-range relationship but that ended sadly in 1997. soon after she met someone new. he was a real estate client named erwin howard, a pilot, an airline mechanic, originally from bolivia. >> i remember deede telling me that she was not going to date anyone else until they loved,

treasured and adored her. and she did feel loved, treasured and adored by erwin. you know, he treated her like a queen. >> when erwin popped the question, deede said yes. at deede's bridal shower in march of 1998 erwin dutifully delivered his fiance to the surprise party. but the smiles didn't last after the engagement was over and the marriage began. >> it wasn't more than six months after they were married, she just blurted out that she had married him on the rebound. >> and was having second thoughts? >> apparently so. >> it was very hard for her to think about ending it because of what it was going to do to him because she knew he loved her. >> so much in fact that the marriage lasted another four years after that conversation. ultimately their divorce was amicable, and a year after the split in the summer of 2004, deede seemed to be finding her

footing once again. she'd begun dating a well-known south bay car salesman named bobby lowe. that new relationship was going so well that on the evening of thursday july 8th bobby lowe took deede out to dinner at this restaurant to meet his father. >> i talked to her before her date. >> any sign that she was nervous about anything? >> she was in a happy state when i talked to her, and we had made plans to hopefully get together the following night, so i could get the update on the date. >> but that conversation never took place. >> i called her on friday, and she didn't call me back, which was not unusual for deede. i called her on saturday and she didn't call me back. that was pretty typical. but by sunday i started getting concerned. >> concerned too was daughter julie. she talked of meeting her mom that same friday during a layover at l.a.x. as julie

headed for cabo san lucas, mexico. >> she's like you know, i might have an appointment that morning but if i don't i'll come by, i'll text you, we'll have coffee. so i laid over in los angeles. i didn't get a text. i thought it was odd but didn't think much of it. >> deede's son mike was beginning to worry after he returned from a business trip to the san francisco area. >> when i called her cell phone, the voicemail was full. and that had never happened with my mom, and she provided herself on being responsive. >> so you go over to your mom's house. >> so i went in the back gate and then instantly it was clear that she had not been there for a while. >> what made that clear? >> the dog's water dish was bone dry. my mom would die of thursday before her dogs went without water. >> mike's first call was to cindy. >> and he said cindy, where's my mom? and i just -- i instantly knew in that moment that something

had happened. i just knew. and i just said michael, call the police, i'm on my way. >> where was deede keller? not only was there no water left outside for deede's beloved dogs but detectives noticed lots of other things wrong inside the house. her purse was there but her wallet was missing. and this was a woman with money, a lot of it. >> was deede's hefty bank account a factor in her disappearance? investigators follow the money trail. coming up -- >> who got that money in the event of her death? >> the beneficiaries were her two children. >> and detectives wondered where were deede's son and daughter when she vanished? >> both out of town at the time their mother went missing. >> when "dateline" continues. std to any adventure. but when allergies and congestion strike, take allegra-d... a non-drowsy antihistamine plus a powerful decongestant. so you can always say "yes" to putting your true colors on display. say "yes" to allegra-d.

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on a sun-splashed sunday in l.a.'s south bay clouds were rolling in over one household. it was july 2004. el segundo real estate agent julia keller, known to the world as deede, was missing. deed yeah deede's son mike had gone to her home when he hadn't heard from her in three days. the biggest red flag, deede's beloved dogs left without food or water. >> what did you think happened? >> i didn't know at that point.

i just knew that something was very, very wrong. >> mike called his mom's best friends, linda dondero and cindy ertman. cindy, who'd last spoken to deede three days before as deede prepared for a date, rushed to the house. >> you could tell just the dogs had been, you know, running around for days. but the way the tv was on and the way the shades were i felt like thursday night had never ended. i felt like friday morning never came. >> cindy immediately phoned deede's new boyfriend, car salesman bobby lowe. he reported they'd had dinner on thursday at a local restaurant, then returned to deede's house for a nightcap. >> he said she'd had a little bit too much wine and she laid down on the couch and was kind of starting to fall off to sleep and so he just said good night and let himself out. >> anything about what bobby lowe said sound in any way suspicious to you? >> not at all.

>> the next call, to el segundo police. and soon on the scene then detective sergeant carlos mendoza. >> this does not happen in el segundo, especially people that are known as well as deede is. >> and what detectives found in their initial search deeof deed home only deepened the mystery. in the kitchen deede's purse, her cell phone still inside but no wallet. a vodka bottle that police learned was usually kept in the freezer was out on the counter. and in the living room the tv was on cnn. >> we discovered that whenever she left the house she'd always put the tv on to a classical music station. so it would relax the dogs. but it was on cnn when we came into the house. >> so deede was watching cnn, had the dogs there, was having a drink, and then left for some reason? suggesting kind of whatever

happened happened in a big hurry. >> she didn't have time to do her routine that she usually does before she leaves. >> and it appeared deede had left in her car. the garage was empty. her fe her silver 1999 mercedes gone. but strangely, police found the car keys sitting on deede's patio. >> we decided to call the l.a. county sheriff's department homicide bureau to come and assist us. >> jimmy gates was the detective who answered that call. >> there was no forced entry whatsoever, and when we started walking through the house i noticed several articles that were very valuable. >> so she let in whoever it was, and it wasn't robbery. >> absolutely correct. if she didn't let them in, that person let themselves in. and they may have had a key. >> gates wondered, had deede left in her car with someone she knew? and how did her car get taken without its key?

>> if you don't have a key, is it easy to steal a car as movies depict? >> it's certainly not a 1999 that's hard to hotwire. it's hard to steal it. you almost need a key to gain access to it. >> if your car doesn't have a key, the next stop is a car dealership to have a new one made. but first gates and his crew searched the house, looking for deede's spare mercedes key. without success. and gates quickly became convinced of one thing. you thought finding deede's car was going to be the key to this. >> that was going to be extremely important. >> deede's friends and family printed up posters and along with law enforcement launched a massive search. >> an army of people banned together to try to help find her, and we broke up into teams and we mapped everything out in one-mile increments to start to search every parking lot looking for her car. >> we would ask people, have you seen this woman? have you seen this car?

it was frantd ic. it was heartbreaking. >> and it was leading nowhere. at the same time detective gates wondered who might have had a motive to abduct deede if her home. those most common of motives, love, money, jealousy, are always the ones police hug first like old friends. >> deede made a lot of money being a realtor. >> she was successful. yes, sir. >> how much money did she have in the bank? >> i think it was over seven figures. >> seven figures. a lot of murders committed for a lot less than that. >> absolutely. >> who got that money in the event of her death? >> the beneficiaries were her two children. >> and the detective noticed something about the whereabouts of deede's two children, mike and julie. at the time of deede's disappearance. >> they're both out of town at the time that their mother went missing. >> why is that significant? why wouldn't the reverse be more true? >> i thought that the 340rmothe

goes missing and it just so happens mike's in san jose and julie's down at a resort and it's been my experience that people sometimes dissipate stress after they commit a crime in different ways. some people drink. some people take drugs. and some people leave the area just to dissipate stress. >> and there was strangely one more person who just happened to have been traveling near the time of deede's disappearance. her ex-husband, erwin howard, had just flown to his home country of bolivia. and erwin was a mechanic who worked for american airlines in l.a. the common thread in all these trips? nearby l.a.x. airport. and so the detective thought, what better place to dump a car. >> l.a.x. is a big place. >> very big place. >> a lot of parking lots. >> a lot of parking lots. and it took a few days. >> you looked through them all. >> every one of them. >> no mercedes. and no shortage of persons of interest. a lot of people close to deede

keller were about to be hugged like old friends. >> coming up, detectives were about to get blunt with julie and her brother. >> all of a sudden he says did you have anything to do with your mom's disappearance? >> i think it was more "did you kill your mother?" >> when "dateline" continues. amazon prime video is on xfinity x1.

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in the days after the disappearance of el segundo realtor deede keller all of l.a.'s south bay seemed to be looking for her and for her missing mercedes. leading the search, her best friends cindy and linda. >> a lot of times when people disappear they get the immediate family working on it and everybody else is like, well -- >> not in this town. >> she had an army. >> deede's daughter julie rushed back to l.a. from a trip to mexico. >> it was the most surreal experience. >> only to be greeted by suspicion. >> l.a. sheriff detective jimmy gates had discovered that in the event of their mother's death julie and her brother mike stood to inherit more than a million dollars. so he confronted deede's kids, using one of the oldest tricks in the investigator's handbook. >> do you remember an interview that he did with jimmy gates? >> i do. >> in which he asked you some pretty basic questions like, you

know, what's your name, where do you live, pretty ordinary stuff, and then all of a sudden he says, did you have anything to do with your mom's disappearance? >> i think it was more "did you kill your mother?" >> and you're what, startled or angry? >> it was a horrible question, but i can understand why it needed to be asked. >> detectives asked similar questions of julie. next, in attempting to rule out as suspects those closest to deede, detectives turned their attention to her ex-husband, erwin howard. it turned out that although deede and erwin had been divorced for more than a year at the time of her disappearance friends told police she had recently invited him back into her life. about six months earlier deede had been in a car accident and as she recovered she needed help with her dogs. deede also apparently felt bad about the pain their divorce had caused erwin. >> she called erwin to help her because that was what he did

best, was to help and assist her. so he helped kind of nurse her back to health and take care of the dogs and the house and her. >> and in taking a hard look at erwin howard the detective found he had a rock solid alibi. on the night of deede's disappearance, july 8th, erwin had clocked into work for his job as an airline mechanic at the american airlines hangar at l.a.x. at 8:30 p.m. he said he worked all night. but it wasn't just erwin's word. he had to use an electronic key card to get into the hangar. >> that's a pretty good alibi. that's not something that generally the employee can influence. >> that's correct. that's absolutely correct. >> that left the last person to admit seeing deede alive, her new boyfriend, car salesman bobby lowe. lowe said he left deede's house between 11:00 and midnight that night, then gone to the gym the next morning. >> what possible motive could

bobby lowe have to want deede either dead or out of the picture? >> there was no motive that i could determine whatsoever. >> and lowe provided investigators with two important clues. first he said while he was at deede's that night her dogs had all started barking at something outside, as if someone were lurking. and the next morning he discovered someone had keyed the side of his ford explorer, leaving a long scratch. >> which suggests what, somebody's following them on that date? >> absolutely. that's what it meant to me. >> but who was following deede and bobby? who was that angry? that act of vandalism pointed away from bobby lowe. >> i was an investigator for several years and i'd never known anybody to vandalize their own car. >> that kind of thinking is what would make it a perfect alibi. >> sure. sure. if he's sophisticated enough that his background indicated he

was a well-liked guy, kind successful himself, and didn't have a lot of enemies. >> and then even as investigators looked at suspects came the news that all who knew deede had at once hoped for and feared. deede's car had been found, not at l.a.x., not in l.a., but 2 1/2 hours down interstate 5 in san diego. that silver mercedes had been parked on this street in downtown san diego for days, earning it several parking tickets. when the local pd ran the plate, it came up as belonging to a missing person. and when the truck was finally opened, there was a body wrapped in sheets, covered by a blanket, which was itself decorated with dog paws. deede keller was no longer missing. police asked to meet with deede's family. >> it was just a wide range of emotions.

there was almost some type of relief they had found her because we were starting to think at that point how long could this go on. >> hard eest days of my life. hardest days for my children and all her friends and her family. >> deede keller was dead at age 54. an autopsy showed she'd been asphyxiated. and the clues that were and were not left in her car were about to take this case back in a familiar direction. >> coming up -- just days before she was murdered, deede had a visit from a stalker. >> she said she was in the shower, kind of pulled her out of the shower, and they had this huge altercation, he was calling her every name under the sun. >> when "dateline" continues. t . invisible trailer? and it's not the trailer right next to us? this guy? you don't believe me? hop in. good lookin' pickup, i will say that. oh wow. silverado offers an optional technology package with

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hello. i'm dara brown. here's what's happening. the trump administration will deploy tactical border patrol officers to work with i.c.e. in

ten so-called sanctuary cities. the deployment will run from february to may. a 14-year-old boy is arrested and charged in the high-profile stabbing death of a new york city college student. he was taken into custody last night in manhattan. this comes two months after 18-year-old barnard college student tessa majors was attacked by a group of three teenagers. now back to "dateline." welcome back to "dateline." i'm craig melvin. deede keller was missing. and when she was found, her family's worst fears were realized. deede was gone. the apparent victim of a gruesome crime. but with a discovery detectives would uncover a crucial clue, one that would convince them deede's killer was someone close to her. here again is josh mankiewicz with "betrayal of trust." >> on a downtown street in san

diego in july 2004 deede keller had finally been found, dead in the trunk of her silver mercedes. the car had been the subject of a massive search ever since deede had been discovered missing a week earlier from her home two hours north in el segundo. homicide detective jimmy gates, who'd always thought finding the car would be the key to finding deede, now gave the mercedes a thorough going over. >> fingerprints or dna on the car? >> there wasn't one fingerprint either on or in that car or was there any partial print. nothing. >> deede's or anybody else's. >> nobody's. >> so what does that say? professional. >> someone took -- went to great lengths to make damn sure they weren't going to be identified through fingerprints. that's for sure. >> but the killer did leave a clue in the tape wrapped around deede's body. >> i'd never seen tape like that. it appeared to us to be consistent with red duct tape. >> that started gates in one direction.

but he also looked closely at the way deede's body had been placed in that car. >> someone took great care to place her in that car, and that indicated to us that someone cared deeply about her. >> so part of this says professional and part of this says somebody that knew her. >> that's exactly correct. >> but the suspicions that said professional soon fell away in favor of those that said someone who knew her. not her children but someone who had re-entered deede's life in the months before her death. her ex-husband, erwin howard. >> did you ever think of erwin as violent or dangerous? >> no. i never suspected that he would do something physical. >> but detectives soon learned something had changed in erwin howard in the months before deede's murder. remember, after a car accident in january 2004 deede had invited erwin back into her life, to help care for her and

her dogs. that request had apparently been misinterpreted by erwin. we know he started wearing his wedding ring again. >> erwin wanted back into her life, and sounds to me like on some level she sort of appreciated that part of him that adored her and wanted to take care of her, even if it's someone you're not going to be with anymore. >> right. >> do you think she made that point clear enough to him? >> no. >> she was too nice? >> always too nice. and very trusting. >> and that may be why, investigators thought, erwin seemed surprised when just two weeks before deede's murder winn gained access to deede's computer and found e-mails referring to a relationship with a new man, bobby lowe. >> and i think that really threw him for a loop when he found out that my mom, you know, had met somebody else. and that's when things started getting scary.

>> scary because erwin, detectives learned, had started doing things that pointed to an obsession with deede. and how did they know that? in one of those only in a small town coincidences deede's son mike lived just down the block from deede's new boyfriend bobby lowe. one night mike was sitting in his living room when he saw a familiar green range rover driving by. and inside was erwin. >> as the evening went on, he continued to drive by the house. >> did you call your mom and say by the way, erwin's driving around the block while you're with bobby lowe? >> i didn't. i didn't really put two and two together. >> but the very next day, now just ten days before her murder, deede would call her friend cindy ertman in a state of panic. >> she was crying hysterically. she said that she was in the shower, erwin came into the house without her knowing, pulled her out of the shower, and they had this huge

altercation and that he was calling her every name under the sun. >> deede told the same story to her friend linda dondero. >> i said do you realize that erwin's behavior is escalating, deede? and she said yes. >> and you said call the police? >> no. i said have you changed your locks? and she said no, i'll do it on the way home. and of course she never did. >> but investigators soon learned that in those conversations with her friends deede had left something out. a detail she mentioned only to her daughter julie. that during that argument erwin howard had also slapped her. >> i said mom, you have to call the police. you have to get a restraining order. and then i remember her asking me not to tell michael and that she was going to handle it. and i remember being torn like okay, this is my mom telling me i got it but also thinking maybe she didn't have it.

>> a few days later it was clear julie was right. the very night her mom went missing julie got another phone call. this time from erwin. >> i got on the phone and he's like jules, jules, jules, what is your mom thinking? and i said erwin, you know, i really -- i don't want to talk about this. i feel like this is between you and my mom. and he's like, well, you just need to pray for her soul. and i remember thinking it was a little odd. but then you know what? i mean, given his -- his grasp on the english language sometimes he'd say some funny things or get something wrong. but i just remember thinking that was an odd comment. >> detective gates now felt erwin howard's motive for killing deede keller was clear. but proving erwin had the means to commit the murder was another matter. and erwin steadfastly maintained his innocence to investigators. from the moment he stepped off the plane as he returned from bolivia after the murder through

the months after, even though he was clearly the prime suspect. and the case against erwin was not without its problems. it's one thing to stalk someone, quite another to kill them. there was no physical evidence tying erwin howard to the crime. and there were those key card records showing him clocking into his job at american airlines the night of the murder. still, detective gates took the information he had gathered to the l.a. county district attorney's sxofs asked for a warrant. >> they declined to file charges. >> they won't file? >> they won't file. >> did jimmy gates have the wrong man in his sights? was there ever going to be enough evidence to arrest a killer? any killer. >> coming up -- >> it's like lightning striking. twice. >> make that three times. >> one of the shocking things i've ever seen in one miff cases in a courtroom. >> when "dateline" continues.

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summer had come and gone in l.a.'s south bay without an arrest in the murder of beloved el segundo real estate agent deede keller. and as the months dragged on, detective jimmy gates kept pounding the pavement, building what he thought was a strong circumstantial case against keller's ex-husband erwin howard. but the l.a. county's d.a.'s

office had so far declined to issue a warrant for howard's arrest. deede's son michael wanted answers. >> there was a long time when erwin was walking around free. >> seemed like decades. it was so frustrating, painful, emotional. >> jimmy gates was feeling all those same things. and soon his hard work started paying off. that unusual red tape found on deede's body? a specially trained body found erwin's scent on it. and detectives found similar tape at erwin's workplace, that american airlines hangar at l.a.x. but what about erwin's alibi? computer records showing him at work in that same hangar the night of deede's disappearance and that he'd worked a ten-hour shift. it turned out that the more detectives dug into that alibi the less solid it seemed. detective gates painstakingly

dissected the procedures at the hangar, and he found this. erwin howard could swipe into work at the employee parking lot using a key card at this turnstile, then clock in inside the hangar. but he could also leave whenever he wanted by walking out the large bay doors and catching an employee shuttle back to the parking lot. there would be no record of his leaving. jimmy gates discovered that on the night of the murder winn er used his key card to swipe into the park lot at 8:24 p.m. and again at 10:21 p.m. and for a third time at 1:47 a.m., which completely blew apart his alibi, that he'd been at work the whole time. >> so he would swipe his card to get back in -- >> absolutely. >> -- after there was no record of him leaving. >> right. >> by now you're convinced

erwin's the guy. >> absolutely. all the witnesses, all the evidence, everything pointed directly at erwin. >> and there was one more key piece of evidence. the day after the murder a witness saw a mercedes on the street in el sundegundo. she thought it belonged to a friend so she sped up to catch her. >> she sees it's not her friend and she sees a male hispanic driving the car. and she remembers that license plate. >> the license plate belonged to the mercedes owned by deede keller. the man driving? the witness helped a police artist draw this sketch. >> who does it look like? >> it looks like erwin. >> the witness was then shown a photo line-up, and she picked out erwin howard. >> that's like lightning striking. >> twice. >> and then it struck again. six months after the murder jimmy gates' phone rang. it was deede's next-door neighbor, who'd been interviewed once and had offered nothing of value. but now apparently she was

having an attack of conscience. the neighbor now told the detective that she'd seen erwin on june 30th, the day erwin had confronted and slapped deede. >> she said the conversation lasted 15 or 20 minutes where he articulates he was mad enough to strangle her with work gloves. >> that's what deede's neighbor says err wip saa erwin said to ? >> correct. >> yo y. do you think she didn't tell you for six months? >> i have no idea why a neighbor during a murder investigation jut wouldn't simply tell the cops the truth, that he wanted to kill her. >> armed with that new and threatening statement, detective gates was able to get his warrant, and sooner winn howard was under arrest for the murder of deede keller. now the case was in the hands of l.a. county deputy district attorney john lewin. >> what made this case different? >> i love cases where you have a

very good idea who the suspect is but it's a question of kind of putting the evidence together. so a circumstantial case is where you have high motive but you're looking at lots of little facts and seeing okay, what can you turn this into. >> it would take three years for the case against erwin howard to come to trial. cameras were not present in the courtroom that day when trial began in the fall of 2008. john lewin laid out his case in a devastatingly thorough 2 1/2-hour-long powerpoint presentation to the jury. >> opening statements are like a check. i'm writing a check, the jury hears it, and if i do my job right after opening all they're waiting to see is if there are funds in the bank. >> in other words, if you deliver during your case what you say you're going to deliver in the opening statement, you're going to get a conviction. >> that's my hope. >> but never in this prosecutor's wildest dreams did he believe his opening statement

would have the effect it did on erwin howard and his defense attorney, andrew flyer. >> you heard that opening statement and something changes. >> something changed. after the opening statement i went back into lockup and i spoke to erwin and i said hey, listen, remember how i was speaking about the circumstantial case and it could be powerful? i think there could be some problems now. and his answer was i need to tell you something. >> that something would stun deede keller's family and friends. and the prosecutor himself. >> one of the most shocking things i've ever seen in one of my cases in a courtroom. >> "dateline" returns after the break. frequent heartburn waking him up. now that dream is a reality. nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts for all-day, all-night protection. can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn?

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in a los angeles courtroom in september 2008 something extraordinary was taking place the murder trial of erwin howard, expected to last three months, was on the verge of ending in just two days. prosecutor john lewin had presented a powerful opening statement. >> i had seen the defendant during the opening and i thought, you know, maybe something had gotten to him. >> and the d.a. was right because after the opening defense attorney andrew flyer had spoken with howard, who then made a stunning admission. >> for the first time in my career i heard a defendant

confess to a crime, and i was the first one he told. >> and until that moment his defense was i wasn't there and i didn't have anything to do with it. >> correct. >> the defense attorney walked into the courtroom and made a statement that caused mouthsz t fall open. >> the defense attorney gets up and he says that you're going to see something that you'll never see in a court ever. he says, my client killed deede keller but he didn't murder her. >> what did that mean? >> they were basically trying to see if they could get a manslaughter out of it. >> so deputy d.a. lewin asked to speak with erwin howard behind closed doors and made an offer. plead guilty to second-degree murder and be eligible for parole in 15 years. >> my memory is as i was saying this he's nodding. >> but it wasn't just about erwin admitting it to you. he also had to come into court and admit it to everybody. >> yes. >> and erwin howard did just that 37. >> i do.

>> surprising a courtroom filled with deede's friends and family. >> howard. h-o-w-a-r-d. >> there was such a sense of relief to think that oh, my gosh, you know, we're going to hear the truth finally and erwin's going to confess. >> lewin guided erwin through the sequence of events, beginning with why erwin went over to deede's house on the night of july 8th, 2004. >> i wanted to talk to her. >> and what did you want to talk to her about? >> to apologize for my act on june the 30th. >> june 30th, 2004, when after discovering she was dating another manner winn stormed into deede's house, confronted her in the shower, tossed e-mails in her face, and slapped her. on that final night, though, erwin says he knocked and deede, alone after her new boyfriend

left, he says let him in. >> i said please listen to me, please listen to me. at some point i guess i raised my voice. and her little dog rosie started growling. >> erwin says he threw a pillow at the dog. and that angered deede. >> she told me how dare you hurt my dog. and she slapped me. i reached towards her. i grabbed her hand. she started punching me with the other hand on my chest. i put her hand down. i grabbed her, pulled her towards me. she struggled. we struggled. >> erwin says he put deede in a sort of bear hug. >> i just kept holding her and told her please listen to me, i don't want to lose you. i love you. i don't want to lods r lose you. >> how tight were you holding

her? >> i felt her body going limp. i stood there and i thought, god, i killed her. i've killed her. i've killed her. i've killed her. >> erwin says he came back the next evening and put deede's body in the car, using a spare key he had for the mercedes he started driving and headed for mexico. but he wondered how he'd get back across the border. so he left the car on a street in san diego and hired an off-duty taxi to take him back to l.a. >> erwin admitted to the murder, but he talked about it in a way that made it seem almost accidental. >> yes. he was willing to accept responsibility for the rage and for the anger. he was not willing to accept responsibility that the murder happened intentionally. >> but despite that lewin felt a second-degree murder conviction was the best he could secure. and after erwin left the stand

and took the plea, deede's friends and family had the chance to speak to him. they offered surprising words, of gratitude and forgiveness, to a now confessed killer. >> will he also will find it in our hearts to forgive you. >> you did the right thing with the circumstances, and for that i thank you. >> thank you. thank you for doing the right thing. >> i remember thinking that something really special had happened, that although nothing is going to bring my mom back we got the best possible outcome given the circumstances. >> it's rare in a murder trial to hear so much of a sort of lack of anger and vitriol toward the defendant. >> they're good people. they're not vengeful people. i think they also realized that

deede in hindsight had not handled things as best she could have in terms of terminating that relationship. >> erwin howard was granted parole in february 2019. deede's friends and family, their sorrow tinged with regret, now honor deede by urging other women not to ignore the warning signs of domestic violence. >> we want deede's life to count for something. so i just hope people will reach out for help, get support. >> i know you don't blame deede for this, but i know you always wish that she had been more forthright with the two of you because you would have acted even though she didn't want to. >> yes. we would have. >> there's no question. i would have done things differently if i could go back and relive it. >> but for deede's friends regrets give way to wonderful memories.

today there's a plaque at the local dog park, both remembering and honoring a woman whose big heart wouldn't ever let her turn away a stray. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm"dateline". i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. i'm craig melvin. >> i'm natalie morales. >> and this is "dateline." i have a lot of guilt. it makes me sick how i could do something like that. i'm the responsible one. >> a working mom, new at the office. she loved her job, and really loved her handsome young boss. >> the thing that i never wanted to face was the hurt that i was going to cause. >> a passionate 9:00 to 5:00 affair. the problem? she was married. and so was he. >> i grabbed his face and i was