welcome memory, there's a brutal one of her and what happened churning somewhere like a storm, surprising and devastating when it hits. i'm craig melvin. >> and i'm natalie moralis. >> and this is "dateline." >> i caught something out of the corner of my eye. it was my mom. she was laying on the ground. i went over expecting her to get up or to say something. i put my hand on her shoulder. i kind of turned her. and i could see blood everywhere. >> their family always made the best of bad times. >> she didn't deserve to tie that way. >> detectives had a suspect, but not much of a case.

>> i was told unless they can find the proverbial smoking gun, they will not take this case to trial. >> this case did not have a lot. >> blow off the dust, fan the ashes and even an ice cold case can heat up again. >> when i read the file, my response was oh, my gosh, how is this guy walking around? how is he not in custody? >> some worried answering that question could cost this d.a. his life. >> they tell me that he is making plans to murder you and your family. >> he killed once. would he kill again? >> when will he stop being dangerous to you? >> when he's dead. hello and welcome to

dateline. joan lockwood was planning to move when a murder ruined her plans. an ominous killer was still out there lurking and leaving joan's family living in fear. but they weren't the only ones whose lives might be in danger. here is keith morrison with "the threat." tucked away in the corner of this cemetery is the final resting place of a woman called joan, barbara joan lockwood. she wasn't a famous woman, joan, wasn't rich or celebrated. she lived a quiet life in a quiet place and was buried here more than three decades ago. but oh, if ghosts could rise from their graves, if joan could speech to us now, what questions could she answer? what vision for this man, this

tough, aggressive prosecutor who now fears for his life? >> this man is a threat to me. he's a threat more importantly to my family. >> some cases refuse to lie down and die. >> here we are now. >> joe lived when she lived a thousand miles south of that cemetery a few miles from the beach in l.a. in a suburb called torrence on a quiet street named sharon lane. tlgs there was joan, her husband, and their four children. >> people would describe her as the most caring person they ever met. >> my mom left her kids. we were first and foremost

her -- what was important to her. >> the whole neighborhood knew that. >> the neighbors loved my mom and will flat out say we didn't even know your dad. >> maybe that was at least partly because of bill bradford's job. bill worked as an aerospace engineer, very high security, top secret clearance, with a company called trw. >> and liftoff. >> trw back in the 80s was an aero defense firm. >> so his reputation at work, did you know much about that? >> i knew he was good at what he did. but he was always very secretive about it. >> you just don't talk about it. >> yeah. you just don't talk about it. >> in fact, bill bradford didn't talk much about anything. to anybody. even his own family. >> he was just very much, you know, here is my role. i work. i come home.

i eat dinner. then he went to his bedroom. >> just to be alone or what? >> to work on his stamp collection. >> exacting, organized, introverted. joan's polar opposite. and eventually, that disconnect took its toll. bill moved out. joan moved on, filed for divorce. the kids grew up and moved away. and in the fall of 1988, joan sold the house on sharon lane. >> my mom was trying to finish up the sale and the move from torrence to start her life over again. >> it was a friday evening. joan was packing, getting ready. shawn and a younger brother called her on the phone and told her we're coming over. it was just getting dark when they arrived. >> so we opened up the door, went in. calling for her. nothing. as i went through the front living room, i caught something out of the corner of my eye.

it was my mom and she was laying on the ground. and i could see blood everywhere. >> in a panic, shawn called 911 and then called her brother, brett. >> and she says mom has been hurt. she has a hole in her neck. she was frantic. >> then the police and paramedics arrived and cordoned off the place where she lay. >> i could see numerous bullet holes in the back of her neck. >> keith mason was a detective, tor torrence pd. >> in all my years, i've seen people shot in homicides, but never this time times. >> this was an execution. >> definitely. >> what shawn had seen, her mother on the floor, had been so confusing, but now she saw nothing because they kept her away. >> one of the paramedics met me and i looked at him and said, will she be okay? >> thinking she was still alive? >> yeah. i wasn't processing. but he finally looked at me and

just shook his head no. and that's when i realized that she was dead. >> had she seen what was coming? did she know her life was over? >> they had taken the body out. someone had taken a carpet cleaner to clean up the blood and basically my last memory is a carpet cleaner of my mom's blood. which she didn't deserve to die that way. >> sweet, kind hearted joan bradford was 52. who did it? why? next to her body was a clue. >> i saw a bullet lying on the floor by her food foot from a .38 caliber or .357 caliber handgun. >> when a detective asked me if i knew anybody who had a gun, my initial response was no.

my brother turned around and nodded and he looked at me and said dad has one. and i stopped and went, you're right. >> but where was bill bradford and his gun? coming up -- >> he did, in fact, own a model 66 smith & wesson handgun. we did find a box in his bedroom. it was supposed to contain a smith & wesson, but it was empty. >> and a peek inside that failed marriage. >> when he pushed her down, her head hit a rocking chair and shattered it. >> at one point when i was 16, my father looked me in the eye and said life is a bitch and then you mariry one. >> when "dateline" continues. >> when "dateline" continues we're at the movies and we need to silence our phone. who knows where that button is?

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>> reporter: it looked like a mob hit. whoever murdered joan bradford clearly wanted to be absolutely sure. >> it was brutal. it was close up. it was very revengeful type of shooting. >> reporter: there was no sign of a break-in. her purse was untouched, and no one in the neighborhood saw anything. so detectives turned their investigation to joan's inner circle. they asked their children about their mother, their father and the marriage. shaun didn't hold back. >> it wasn't a good marriage. >> reporter: how long had you known that? >> it was obvious when i was a

teenager. they never hugged. they never kissed. they rarely spoke. >> reporter: and when they did speak, bill was controlling, condescending. >> at one point when i was 16, my father actually looked me in the eye and said "life's a bitch and then you marry one." >> my parents got in a fight. then he pushed her down. her head hit a rocking chair and shattered it. i mean, that's what i grew up in. >> reporter: when they finally separated, the divorce was nasty. >> my father refused to pay child support. he refused to pay spousal support. everything he did was to extend the divorce. >> reporter: it took over five years for joan to get divorced. as part of the settlement, bill was ordered to pay child support and alimony, but he did not make the payments as required. joan and her attorney were able to garnish all that unpaid support from bill's share of the house proceeds.

>> the total amount that was garnished was $40,000. >> that's not that bad. >> it really wasn't that much. >> but it bothered him? >> it bothered him because she won. >> to lose $40,000? he lost control. my father does not like losing control of anything. >> reporter: bill never saw it coming. suddenly he was almost $40,000 poorer, and the day after bradford had all that money garnished, his ex-wife was dead. so the cops went looking for bradford. the trouble was he seems to have disappeared. he didn't pick up his phone. he didn't answer the door at his apartment. detective mason went back to headquarters, inserted the name "bill bradford" in his database, and -- >> he did, in fact, own a model 66 smith & wesson handgun .357

magnum. >> reporter: which just happened to fire the same kind of bullets found at the crime scene. so detective mason got a warrant to search bradford's apartment. there was no sign of him or the gun, but -- >> we did find a box in his bedroom that was supposed to contain a smith & wesson, but it was empty. >> reporter: saturday passed. still no sign of bill bradford. police even put up posters, hoping for leads. and then on sunday, two days after the murder -- >> he came into the police department. >> well, well, well. >> myself and another detective asked him if he was aware of the fact that his ex-wife was dead. >> i'm sorry to see her dead, but, um, we never had a very good relationship. >> this guy sat there and looked at me like i'm sitting here looking at you. i thought boy, you are a cold, calculating guy. very cold, nonchalantly, like

who cares. >> bradford confirmed what his children said. he was very upset about all that money from his share of the house sale that was suddenly sent to joan. so upset he left his apartment for almost two whole days. >> i went to the redondo pier. >> you spent the night at the pier? >> i spent all the time at the pier from then until this morning at 6:00. >> what the hell was he doing at the pier in his car? >> he stated that he didn't feel good. he wanted to be alone and think. i said well, you live alone. he said well, i didn't want to talk to people. i didn't want to talk on the phone. i just wanted to be alone. >> reporter: but alone at the redondo beach pier for nearly two days? the police asked him about his .357 magnum. joan had been shot with hollow point bullets. bradford admitted he once bought ammo like that. but as for the gun itself -- >> i put my stuff in storage, and i've been unable the locate it.

>> and where do you think you left it? >> i haven't the slightest idea where it went. >> did it strike you odd that this fellow is so well organized would misplace a gun? >> oh, yes, it struck me odd. i knew right away he didn't misplace it. no doubt in my mind because of the type of fellow he was. >> reporter: but bradford did have an alibi. a parking stub. sure enough, he entered the pier parking lot the friday of the murder, 7:29 p.m. so he said he could not have killed joan, unless -- the detectives put together a timeline. joan answered a phone call at 7:00 p.m., but by 7:15, when shaun arrived, she was dead. >> we figure that's the timeline, 7:00, 7:15, right in that time. >> it's a pretty narrow window. >> right. >> reporter: could bill have shot joan, then arrived at 7:29 at the pier? they made the drive themselves. it took just seven to eight minutes.

it all fit. >> when one of the detectives said your father is a prime suspect. it's the only thing that made sense. there was no one who could hate my mom so much to want her dead, except my father. >> reporter: so just days after interviewing bill bradford, the detectives made their move. >> i arrested him. if there is no way in the world i'm going let this guy go. >> you have to be a dope not to think he did it. right? >> there was a ton of circumstantial evidence, all leading to him. >> reporter: murder solved, case closed, right? oh, no, it was just getting started. >> reporter: coming up -- >> i spent a number of months looking over my shoulder. >> a family living in fear, with good reason. >> i was afraid that someone was after me. >> someone? >> my father.

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>> reporter: september 1988. hot and hazy in l.a., beach weather, but bill bradford wasn't at the beach anymore. no view from a jail cell. and while he waited in custody,

detective keith mason went over to see the d.a., where he described his case and waited for the go-ahead to charge bradford with murder for killing his ex- wife. didn't quite work out that way. >> the head d.a. right away said, "do you have the gun?" i said, "no, we don't have the gun." he said, "do you have anybody who could put him at the house at the time of the homicide?" i said, "no." he says, "i don't think we're gonna do anything with this case." >> reporter: uh-oh. >> i was mad. i was upset. i knew we just let a murderer out the door. >> reporter: so bill bradford went home, went back to work at trw. but his children weren't celebrating.

in fact, they feared their father, and worried they just might be his next victims. >> i spent a number of months looking over my shoulder wondering who was following me. i can remember cars following me at various times, and just kind of randomly driving places, trying to figure out what was going on, to lose who was tailing me. >> reporter: bret said he too was followed. so he installed a home security system, started sleeping with the lights on. >> i was jumpy. i would walk into my apartment and i would actually search it. underneath the kitchen sink. all my closets. i would look under my bed. >> reporter: why? >> because i was afraid that someone was after me. >> reporter: someone? >> my father. my father murdered my mother, and i don't know why he did it. so the next question is, "would he murder me?" >> reporter: the late 80's was a busy time for l.a. homicide detectives. murder rates were headed for their all-time peak around them. so detective mason, no choice really, moved on. a year passed. then two. the bradford case got buried.

>> i would sit around and wonder, oh you know, i'm going to grab that bradford case out and i'm going to read that again. maybe there's something i missed. maybe there's something i didn't do. maybe there's something i could do. >> reporter: but all those somethings led to a bunch of nothings, not one new lead. mason stayed in close contact with shaun, who by this time was engaged to be married. her father wasn't on the guest list, but shaun was worried he'd show up at her wedding. >> we actually had plain clothes cops that were armed at our wedding. >> reporter: you were that nervous? >> yes. he killed once. my belief was my father killed my mom. he's not welcome. i believe he did this. this isn't safe. >> reporter: and she felt nothing but relief when her father missed the wedding, his only daughter's wedding, but he was around, bold as brass. >> i would go out to a big

place, there he'd be. he'd be walking around. >> reporter: wow. >> and i would think right away, you know, you're free, you're free, but i hope not for long. >> reporter: but it was long. very long. the joan bradford case was ice cold. the '80s turned to the 90s, and then the millennium. bill bradford remained free, celebrating the new year, the new millennium like everybody else. and then a few months later -- >> i finally retired, and there was no new evidence. everything just kind of, like, went cold case. so i left and went on to greener fields. >> reporter: by then bill bradford retired, too,

eventually moved to the desert, and by the look of it had plenty of money. and one day, together, his children faced the facts. >> bret and i were sitting down and he looked at me and said, "so it's real. our father's getting away with murder." >> at that point it was like, ok, you got to -- there was nothing we could do, and, you know, what do you do in that situation? >> reporter: they didn't know, of course, how could they, what was going on in here. in secret. didn't know who else was thinking about their estranged father and what he may have done. closing in -- you've gotta have some evidence. >> all that stuff hiding in plain sight. trying to read between lines. i always think of it like death by a thousand paper cuts. >> reporter: and authorities wondered whether others had been at risk. you really think that he was going to go and kill a lawyer? >> no question. >> you're speculating.

>> we don't leave our common sense at the door. in this situation, we would have to leave our common sense in another zip code. another zip code i'm a performer. -always have been. -and always will be. never letting anything get in my way. not the doubts, distractions, or voice in my head. and certainly not arthritis. new voltaren provides powerful arthritis pain relief to help me keep moving. and it can help you too. feel the joy of movement with voltaren. neuriva has clinically proven oingredients that fuel five, indicators of brain performanc: memory, focus, accuracy,

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hello, i'm dara brown. the u.s. has hit a record 70,000 new coronavirus cases in a single day. florida topped 11,000. despite those numbers, disney world is opening again this weekend. the park has announced a number of safety measures to protect park personnel and guests. and president trump has commuted the sentence of roger stone. now back to "dateline." w back t. welcome back to "dateline." back in 1988, joan lockwood had been murdered and detectives

believed all signs pointed to her ex-husband been bill bradford, but the d.a. did not believe they had enough to make a case. once again, here is keith morrison with "the threat." >> reporter: bill bradford's children were convinced their father had gotten away with murdering their mother, shot her in cold blood, and walked away a freeman. >> knowing that all the evidence points to, unfortunately, your father, and knowing that he's going to get away with it, it didn't sit right. >> reporter: but something was being done. in 2000, about 12 years after joan's murder, an ambitious prosecutor named john lewin was poking through the unsolved files at the torrance p.d. >> when i read the file, my

response was, "oh, my gosh. how's this guy walking around? how is he not in custody?" >> reporter: it seemed so obvious. >> it seemed so obvious. >> reporter: but -- so difficult to prove. especially without any new solid evidence. so lewin called in cold case detective jim wallace who seemed to have a knack for making sense of complicated cases. >> this case did not have a lot. we didn't have anything new. >> reporter: but you've gotta have some evidence. so what do you do? >> you are looking for the things hiding in plain sight. trying to read between lines. sometimes, when we do cold cases like this, i always think of it as death by a thousand paper cuts. you know? where we are assembling, big cumulative cases-- >> reporter: right. >> -- from a lot of little pieces that don't seem like much. but when you put it all together, this is the best inference from evidence. ♪ >> reporter: wallace and lewin took a deep dive into all that original evidence, a file of mostly interviews.

with a theme. >> the first response always, if it's from kids or friends or neighbors, is, "william bradford." so there's one person who would want her dead. it still doesn't mean he's the killer. but it does mean that, of all the reasonable options, he is the most reasonable option. >> reporter: they learned all about the bradford's troubled marriage, about bill's apparent need to be in control, about the contentious divorce, the money he was forced to pay joan. >> there was some court orders to pay about $40,000 to my wife's attorney, and i was very depressed from that point on. >> reporter: they micro-analyzed bradford's police interview, dissected every word. >> i'm looking at word choices in all the interviews. i'm looking for deception indicators. >> reporter: do you remember anything particularly about that process in that interview? >> yeah. the investigators asked him how he felt about when he first learned that his wife was murdered. >> i'm sorry to see her dead, but we never had a very good relationship. >> that's a very unusual way to

answer that, right? >> reporter: about your wife. >> yeah. you didn't wanna see her dead. that is, in some ways, a bit of a tacit admission in that you were the one person who could actually say that you last saw her dead. ♪ >> reporter: then there was bradford's strange story about spending two nights at the pier, in his car. he even had a parking stub to prove it. >> when you talk to his family, and you brought up, um -- "hey, is your dad -- is he that kind of, you know, beach, meditation, put on my sandals and relate to the ocean kinda guy?" um, no. >> reporter: except he was very upset. maybe you doubt him, but it's a reasonable thing for a person to say. >> to sleep in their car for two days? >> reporter: lewin and wallace were both convinced there was another reason bradford stayed at the pier. it just happened to be where joan's attorney had an office. the very same attorney who helped her garnish that $40,000 from her ex-husband.

>> by his own statement, he was pacing, walking up and down the pier. right in front of the lawyer's office. now, the lawyer, had he been there and bradford waited for him for two days, i have no doubt in my mind this would've been a double murder-suicide. >> reporter: you really think that he was going to go and kill a lawyer? >> no question. >> reporter: you're speculating. but i mean, you say, "no question." but really, you have no idea. >> things are logical and reasonable. he's just murdered his wife. and right after he murders her, he drives to a place that he's never known to go, and sleeps in his car for two days. and it just so happens that the lawyer's office is right there. we don't leave our common sense at the door. in this situation, you know, we'd have to leave our common sense in another zip code. >> bradford had been beaten. this attorney made that happen. he had to die, too. >> reporter: and, wallace thought, he must have intended

to use the very same gun with which he killed joan. the .357 magnum bradford said he "lost." >> i haven't the slightest idea of where it went. >> reporter: wallace did a little research on the hollow-tip bullets bradford admitted he once had. remember, those were the same kind of bullets that killed joan. and wallace discovered that particular type of hollow point is rare. less than 1% of all the ammo sold. >> wow, what are the odds? he's either the unluckiest person in the world, who just happens to have all of these causal factors that happen to align perfectly, to make this perfectly innocent person look really guilty. or he's really guilty. ♪ >> reporter: so with all those circumstantial clues and a clear motive and means, lewin and wallace, drove out to the desert and arrested bill bradford. it was may 2001. 13 years after joan was murdered. >> he had just popped open a beer. i don't think that bill realizes that "you will never see this ever again." "this is a guy we're just gonna vacuum suck out of his life, who has no idea." >> reporter: bradford was charged with first degree murder.

and one of the detectives phoned shaun. >> my first reaction was "do you know what day today is?" said, "no." "it's mother's day." and he stopped and he said, "oh my gosh, i'm sorry." i said, "no, that's fitting for the mother that he took away 13 years ago." >> reporter: bradford quickly lawyered up, while his family braced themselves for a trial. would their father walk free? or be locked up for life? >> i want to use the word apprehensive. because, after years, can a case be won? coming up -- >> we felt this burden. >> a trial -- >> reporter: getting a little nervous by this point? >> oh, i was. i was. because i didn't know how this would all fit together. i really worried 37 >> and a threat. >> his cellmate has come forward. he has said bradford is very angry at you and he is making

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>> reporter: bill bradford, former aerospace engineer was coming back to torrance to be tried for murdering his ex-wife joan. it was 2002, and though, 14 years after the murder, d.a. lewin had a pile of the

same old circumstantial evidence, he charged ahead. >> you were confident going into this trial? >> very confident. i thought that, circumstantially, it was an absolutely overwhelming case. >> reporter: really? the original d.a. rejected it. weak, he called it. no smoking gun, no dna, no eyewitnesses. >> we felt this burden. we'll never get another case like this ever filed again, if we lose this one. >> getting a little nervous by this point. >> oh, i was -- i was because i didn't know how this would all fit together, not having done a circumstantial case like this before, i really worried. >> reporter: nevertheless in the winter of 2002, lewin and wallace took their first cold, circumstantial case to court. >> the way we presented the case was this is a man who was in an abusive relationship. he would not accept that his wife wanted her fair share and when he lost to him, it was the losing. he couldn't take losing. >> reporter: and so in a violent rage, said lewin, bradford

executed his ex-wife. bradford's children testified for the prosecution. >> that was probably almost as hard as finding my mom murdered. i didn't know until the trial that she had been shot execution-style. >> reporter: her father's defense, mostly centered on bradford's sterling reputation as a high security aerospace engineer, loving father and family man and pointed out the lack of physical evidence connecting him to the crime and the jury kept suspense alive. was out for two days. and then on a cool april morning came the verdict broadcast by a local fox station. guilty. finally, justice for joan bradford. >> i went from suspecting that my father murdered my mom to having it confirmed.

because there's always that little point that still wanted to be daddy's little girl and wanted to believe that this was something else. >> reporter: it was shaun's birthday a few weeks later when her father was sentenced to 26 years to life. he'd be 85 by the time he was eligible for parole. >> i remember telling his daughter that this man's not going to last five years in prison. so i thought it would be a life sentence. >> i was a lot more relaxed. people kept saying, "oh, he'll be dead in five years." so, you know, i'm safe, he's never getting out.so, you know, i'm safe, he's never getting out. >> reporter: safe? maybe not everybody.never getting out. >> reporter: safe? maybe not everybodgetting out. >> reporter: safe? maybe not everybody. months later d.a. lewin got a call from the prison about bill bradford. >> they tell me that his cellmate has come forward and he has said that, "bradford's very angry at you, and he is talking about making plans to murder you

and your family." >> reporter: of course in lewin's line of work idle threats from resentful jailbirds were not exactly new but this bill bradford guy caught his attention. he seemed as cold blooded as they come. so lewin went to talk to the informant. >> normally, if somebody comes to you with a story like that, they want to -- a little time off their sentence or something. >> they want something, absolutely. so -- >> not this guy. >> nothin'. one of the first things i ask him was why are you coming forward? and he said, "um, i hate the guy." "i couldn't believe how he would talk about his wife, and how he killed her." and he said, "now, he's talkin' about, you know, killing, somebody else's family and i just couldn't stay >> reporter: lewin polygraphed the informant. he passed and then added a

warning. >> that bradford had said that -- he thought he was going to get out very quickly. >> on appeal. >> on appeal and when he got out, he was gonna, either himself or somebody else, he was going to blow my family's heads off in front of me, so that i could suffer and then he was going to kill me. so i immediately took it seriously that it was a credible threat. >> reporter: but then bradford lost all his appeals and gradually lewin stopped looking over his shoulder. he went on to successfully prosecute many more cold, circumstantial cases, including several with jim wallace. in fact, the two have been featured on dateline four times. the bradford case faded away until 15 years later. the fall of 2017. >> i come home from work and my husband says, "you have a letter from department of corrections"" and i went, okay, it's one of two things -- he died or parole. i open it up, he's still alive. >> reporter: so, option number two. his parole hearing at the prison

was coming up. which meant that bill bradford, a convicted killer who once allegedly threatened to murder the d.a. and his family could very soon be back on the street. coming up -- >> i made a promise to myself that i would speak for my mom. i went to the parole. >> a decision. >> i was stunned. >> but is it final? >> this is a very bright man. he has resources. he has motivation. >> when will he stop being dangerous to you? >> when he's dead. >> when "dateline" continues. >>. we do have a ratt problem. ♪ round and round! ♪ with love we'll find a way, just give it time. ♪ at least geico makes bundling our home and car insurance easy. it does help us save. ♪ round and round! ♪ with love we'll find a way, just give it time. ♪ ♪ round and round! ♪ what comes around, goes around. ♪

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welcome back. prosecutordown lewin had ever reason to take bill bradley seriously. a fellow inmate volunteered that he was boasting about plans to kill the lawyer and his family if he got out of prison. the bradford children also felt threatened by their father. with parole around the corner, could their nightmare become a reality. here's keith morrison with a conclusion of "the threat." the california health care facility, but don't be fooled by the name. this is, indeed, a prison, and home to bill bradford, who by 2018 had been in prison 16 years, was mad he was up for

parole. that january two of bradford's children traveled to the prison for his hearing. >> i made a promise to myself that i would speak for my mom. i went to the parole. >> what was it like to see him there? >> i saw a man who has not aged well in the last 15 years. >> deputy d.a. john lewin went to the hearing too, memories of death threats all too fresh in his mind. >> i'm understand law is the law and they have to look at parole for him. this man is a threat to me. he's a threat, more importantly, to my family. this is not personal in terms of any vendetta or in terms about being right. this southbound public safety and protecting those of us who sacrifice a lot to do the jobs we do, whether you're police officers or prosecutors, or judges. >> cameras weren't allowed inside the hearing as the

commissioners began asking bradford about the brutal murder he committed. >> for the first time in 30 years i heard my father admit to killing my mom. >> however, there's a reason for doing such a thing which is that he has a chance to get paroled. >> yes, he did. however, the way he went about admitting it was very unique. the commissioner was asking about where is joan, your ex-wife now. he stops and goes, wait. is that the woman i shot? and the commissioner stops. you tell us, did you kill your ex-wife? yes, i did. why? i don't remember. >> he appears to have dementia of some sort. >> yeah. >> bradford's attorney told the commissioners that bradford's dementia and basket of other health problems were getting worse and that john lewin has nothing to fear from a confused and frail old man. >> nothing has happened in 16 years.

mr. bradford isn't connected to the mob or the mexican mafia or any prison gang, right? and, quite frankly, he didn't even know who john lewin was. >> in the room he didn't recognize him. >> didn't know him. didn't know his name. >> how do you know that. >> his name. apparent the way he is. >> the prison's own psychologist examined him and they came back with a rating, there's low risk, moderate risk, and high risk. he came back with a moderate risk. >> the issue the commissioners are trying to focus on and wanted you to focus on but you didn't want to is he's not capable of harming you anymore beyond being dangerous. >> his mind is very clear. the manu, was able to recite numerous different issues. >> he thought what he thinks is called severe dementia is a case of selective memory. >> he denied remembering,

knowing me. he had amnesia about the whole event. the idea that he's helpless and doesn't have the capability to harm me and my family is absurd. >> when will he stop being dangerous to you? >> when he's dead. >> bradford's children also spoke up at the hearing and urged the commissioners to keep their dad locked up. >> i'm had to go on to explain what i was concerned about for safety, not only to myself but the general population. >> for several hours the commissioner questions bradford, listened to lewin and the family and tried to determine whether the old man was releasable. then they went to the chamber to make up their minds. later that afternoon bradford and lewin were called in and told -- >> the question about whether or not mr. bradford poses a current threat, the answer was no. >> no threat meant yes to

parole. bill bradford would be released. >> i'm was furious, and i said if something happens to my family, the blood is on your hands, and you will own this. >> when bradford's children got the news, those old fears about their father suddenly returned. >> i was stunned. i couldn't believe they would turn around and say he's not a risk. >> would i be a fool to say we are perfectly safe? no. my father killed once. >> the commissioner timed bradford's release for february 2019. by then he would be in his mid-80s, more than 30 years removed from when he pulled that trigger. could he really do it again. >> this is a very bright man. he has resources, and he has motivation. it takes very little to find out

where my family is. all he needs is a gun and an uber. >> this is an 85-year-old guy who's on a mission. if he's able to still command his wits, we have a problem still. because he was able to command his wits when he made the first threat, and here we are now. we have not done something that has lessened his anger. >> there was one more step before his release. california's then governor jerry brown would review the decision and could reverse it, to keep him in prison. the l.a. county d.a.'s office wrote a letter urging him do just that. so did his family. >> i contacted the governor's office. i wrote a letter. my brother wrote a letter. and i had two senators actually co-sign a let err. >> lewin acted, too, through the media, tried to persuade jerry governor through the media to keep bradford locked up. then a week after memorial day

2018 came this letter from governor brown. the evidence shows that he, meaning bradford, currently poses an unreasonable danger to society if released from prison. therefore, i reverse the decision to parole mr. bradford. >> when it came in, there was a lot of shock, but also a lot of relief. >> that relief would be temporary. in june 2019, bill bradford was, again, granted parole, and like last time, that decision needed approval. this time there was a new governor in office, gavin newsom. but it was the same result. like his predecessor, he, too, reversed bill's parole. so bill bradford remains behind bars, and the mighty columbia rolls by a little cemetery where a woman who loved life and her

children and put up with a difficult husband is at peace. >> that's all for this edition of dataline. i'm natalie morales. thank you for watching. ooirks . first up on mnsnbc, get out of jail freechlt president trump. sudden exposure. some hospitals in the south are doing the unthinkable. >> mickey mouse back to work. disney reopens as cases spike in florida. will the new safety measures be enough to stop the spread. >> blue sun. what the new polling says about the president's re-election prospects and whether democrats could take it all this fall. good morning to you on this saturday, july 11th. i'm cori coffin. >> and i'm