stick around for what turns out to be your eventual murder after you already suspect your husband? >> in linda's case, for the rest of her life. >> 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." >> my whole family is just heartbroken. we're all shells of people walking around. the happiness in our life has been taken from us. >> they were high school sweethearts rearing five strapping sons. >> it was a rowdy house, and our parents loved it. >> then that terrible night. >> she's got blood everywhere, everywhere. >> a mother murdered, but as

shock set in, leads poured in. witnesses reported strangers lurking, a car speeding through the neighborhood. and there were footprints out behind the house. >> i'm putting alarms on every door because somebody's out there. >> but detectives, they decided the killer wasn't out there, but inside the house. now with one of their own under arrest, the family was furious. >> you see these people? this is love. this is belief. and this human being, please listen to us. >> did investigators rush to judgment? is there any idea beyond your own fevered imagination that that's what happened? you don't have a clue. >> i think that i do have a clue. >> was the real killer still out there? >> hello and welcome to

"dateline." an unexplained death can fray even the strongest family ties. but when tragedy struck the duenis household, grief pulled them closer. clues at the crime scene seemed to tell one story. but as investigators dug deeper, they wondered if this loving family had a killer in their midst. here's keith morrison with "a killing in cotton wood." >> on the afternoon of may 4, 2012, casey duenis walked out on the field for the start of his very favorite thing, high school baseball. a double header. spring was in its full glory here in northern california. his senior year was almost done. this was the place he loved. the game he loved.

>> people sometimes talk about having premonitions of things. did you have anything like that at all? >> it was just another day, just another one of my countless baseball games, countless baseball games. >> pleasant, of course. though no one knew it as they whiled their way through a golden afternoon. redding, california, with its famous sun dial bridge, its parks, its middle america field, is a whole different place, a different life than the california whose reputation blairs technicolor from the botoxed and tmz narcissism 600 miles to the south. drive a few minutes from redding and you're on the ball diamond and a little place called cottonwood here in the shadow of mighty mount shasta. an anchor, a constant, just like the people casey knew would be in the stands. so, were they there?

>> yep. >> both of them? >> both there. >> always there? >> always there. never missed a game. >> his parents, mark and karen duenis. side by side by the dugout as always. >> they were together since they were, what, 17 years old. >> they practically lived in each other's skin? >> exactly. >> his mother had brought the chocolate chip cookies she passed out after every game and which she was justly famous. his father made sure he finished work in time for the opening pitch. what kind of parents were they? >> they were the best parents that you could ask for. >> this is jason their eldest son and here is the photo of jason's graduation with his proud parents the day he became a fireman. >> they would do anything for us and they did. >> mark and karen were from big mormon families. high school sweethearts who married as teenagers and watched their own brood quickly expand,

all boys. jason, jacob, tyler, troy, and casey. boys bursting with testosterone. >> it was a rowdy house. we had football games inside the house. we were egged on buy our parents and they loved it. >> karen was a full-time mom and once the boys were old enough, taught part time at nearby shasta college. for decades mark got up at 2:00 a.m. to drive for u.p.s. just because it freed him to coach his son's teams come afternoon. and to spare his wife middle of the night disruption, mark slept in a separate bedroom, had for years. >> my dad treated her better than anybody could treat their wife. my mom was the queen. >> they lived, simply they lived paycheck to paycheck. they never had a lot extra. >> son tyler. for them it was all about family? >> always. >> they all stayed as close as any family could be. when jason got married, he moved into the house right next door.

helped celebrate mark and karen's silver wedding anniversary as they all did. by 2012, they were grandparents many times over. had been married nearly 33 years. >> one thing i always looked up to and loved about their relationship was that they still dated. >> tyler's wife tina. >> after that long, sometimes you can lose that, and i never saw them lose that. >> but change does come for everyone. and by 2012 in their early 50s, mark and karen were making some changes. karen went back to school, nursing school. >> this was a plan that they had talked about? >> it was the perfect situation. she got to stay home with the kids, all growing up, and now she was ready to start her career. if you think about it, a pretty dang good plan. he worked his whole life. he could start his business collecting a pension, and she

would, you know, start her career in nursing. >> not so easy, of course. nursing school is a tough thing, and not just for karen either. her brother joe, wife jackie. >> her commitments changed. having grandma there when you need her, having mom there when you need her, she was going to have to study. >> and she was struggling with the classes, she felt like she should be doing better. i remember a text dad said, i just got back from the e.r. and got a chance to work with people finally, and i love it. and so she was on her way. she was really on her way. >> and so that made the fourth. casey joined his parents at home after his ball games. then it being friday night, he and a friend went to see a movie, "the avengers." >> started at 9:15, and told my parents everything was fine. >> do you remember the last thing you said to your mom? >> she handed me a $20 bill and i thanked her and hugged her good-bye.

>> it was late when casey returned, and almost immediately fell asleep. then what do you remember next? >> it felt like i put my head on the pillow and two seconds later, the door is open. dad's at the door freaking out. >> and seconds later. >> 911, your emergency? >> the duenis family was about to discover that a perfectly ordinary evening had ended in tragedy. coming up. >> she's got blood everywhere. everywhere. >> a dad devastated. is one tragedy about to become two? >> i remember him coming in the door and just collapsing. >> falling to the floor. >> when "dateline" continues. (sneeze) skip to cold relief fast. alka-seltzer plus power max gels. with 25% more concentrated power. oh, what a relief it is! so fast!

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it was 12:30 a.m., now may 5th, 2012. cas casey duenas home from a movie with friends, unlocked the door and moved quietly down the hallway to his bedroom. had it not been so late he might have stopped by his mother's bedroom to say good night. but the house was dark. everyone was sleep. so it looked to an exhausted casey. who fell into bed and almost immedia immediately into a deep sleep. then 25 minutes later.

>> dad's at the door freaking out. go next door, go next door, go get jason. something's happened to your mom. go get jason, go get jason, go get jason. >> he did as he was told. running to his brother jason's house. >> what is your emergency? >> while the father beside himself calling for an ambulance. >> what happened? >> i came in the room, i heard her. she's got blood everywhere. everywhere. i don't know. i have no idea. >> you have no idea what happened? >> no. >> you don't know where she's bleeding from? >> no, i mean, there's blood everywhere. >> are you with her now? >> yes. oh, it's in her chest. it's in her chest. >> jason woke up to the horror two ways at once. fire alarm, brother alarm. >> as a firefighter i have a pager. the pager went off and i could hear casey coming up the stairs yelling at me in a panic. there's something wrong with mom.

you got to come next door right now. >> did you have any sense of what it was? >> i had no idea what i was going to walk into. >> what he walked into was a nightmare beyond dreaming. his father was in a full-blown back panic and lying on the floor in a puddle of blood was his mother. as a firefighter he froze. >> if i were to come on that situation now, i would immediately start cpr. there was a great deal of blood. so for somebody to live through that, that much blood, i didn't think it was going to happen. i believe i just missed her last couple of breaths. >> minutes later, emts arrived and karen duenas was announced dead. a massive gash to her chest. not long after that the young detective arrived, logan stone

house. a year under his belt as an investigator, but this would be his first big homicide case as lead detective. and lo and behold. >> i didn't know what i was walking into until i saw a picture on the wall and realized whose house i was in. >> you knew these people, right? >> i did. well, i went to high school with the second oldest son jacob. >> and here he found himself looking at the bloody body of jacob's mother karen. the lady everybody loved, who brought cookies to all the games at school. who could have done this? detective stonehouse had been on the force long enough to be well aware that violent crime was up around here. some said significantly. ever since california's overcrowded prisons nearby were forced to reduce populations and had to release some potentially dangerous offenders like drug addicts, possibly desperate for money for a fix. so was this a home invasion robbery gone wrong? the detective took a look around

the house. he and fellow officers fanned out around the neighborhood. there were some footprints outside the property, right? >> there was. there's a wood fence that surrounds that piece of the property and there's a back gate back there. and there was a little trail that led out to a canal area. >> and the first patrolman on the scene told them he had seen a car speeding away as he raced toward the duenas house. neighbors reported seeing two strangers nearby that evening. and here in this crime scene video taken the next day, a screen on the window in karen's bedroom that looked suspiciously like it had been cut open. had intruders entered here? was anything disturbed around the house? >> no. actually, the bedroom was pretty much intact. there wasn't drawers taken open like someone had burglarized the place. >> also even though the screen appeared to be cut, didn't look like anybody had actually gone in that way. and so the detective had some questions for the only man known

to be in the house all evening. the husband, of course. mark duenas. what was his story of what happened that night? >> he told us that he had been up with karen. they were watching a movie. and then once karen went to bed, he tried to stay up a little bit longer to watch a giants game. he was falling asleep during it so he decided to go to sleep himself. >> mark in his room, karen already down the hall, he said, in hers. the detective took mark to the major crimes unit where mark who had been awake more than 24 hours by now, finished the story himself. >> i was asleep. i hear crazy noise. you know, you hear a cat sound like. it wasn't cats. it was a weird sleek -- >> talking? >> no, i just heard some weird screaming type stuff. >> what did you do from there? >> i ran -- i got up because i didn't want those, whatever was going on to wake up my wife.

i'm sensitive like that. and i went to that door by the kitchen, opened it up and looked out there. i didn't see any cats. shut it, walked down the hallway, looked under, the lights were on. i figured she's up. opened the door, and that's when i found her. >> the detectives questioned mark for more than three hours. had him change so he they could keep his shorts and t-shirt for testing, then sent him home to his children. >> i remember him coming in the door and collapsing. >> falling on the floor. we were really worried about him because he kept saying like his heart like. so we thought maybe he was having a heart attack. i mean, he was -- he was a mess. >> as the duenas family planned a funeral, their big extended family including joe and wife jacquie descended on cottonwood. >> i had never seen a person more broken. >> what was your perception of how he took it? >> he took it incredibly hard.

he still does. >> along with unbearable grief for the family came anxiety. >> i live next door. i'm worried for my family. i'm putting alarms on every door because somebody's out there. >> but the police did not seem to think that. in fact, within a day or two, one of the detectives announced, no need to worry about some unknown killer stalking the town. now, why would he say that? >> coming up. investigators were about to hear a strange tale from none other than karen's husband. >> i'm scared when i think about t. >> but what did his story mean? when "dateline" continues. i feel like we're forgetting something.

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they measure times of unit of pain after karen duenas was murdered. >> the best way i can explain my mom is she was pure of heart is the best way to say it. >> the whole big family, karen's family as well as mark's, parents, brothers, sisters, gathered to support each other and mourn and struggle with the question that hung in the air. who did this? but the word on the street was there was no question at all. >> we immediately heard rumors,

outlandish rumors. i don't know where you're getting this. >> the boys heard them, too. rumors the detectives knew the killer was mark, to which the family said -- >> it's ridiculous. i know there's no way possible he could have done it. >> my parents were best friends from as long as i could remember. >> but if that was true, then why would detectives be so suspicious of a man married to his high school sweetheart for almost 33 years, a man without so much as a traffic ticket on his record, let alone a violent act? well, it's true that when wives are murdered, husbands are frequently implicated and mark did discover the body. but there was another reason. just minutes after mark sat down to talk to those detectives, he volunteered information that sounded to them like a motive for murder. >> what was going on in our

life, um, and it scares me when i think about it. >> it was an odd little story. one day at work toward the end of 2010, said mark, a u.p.s. coworker asked him if he'd ever gone on facebook. mark said, no. haven't you ever wondered to people you used to know? facebook might tell you. and mark thought about it and said, well, there was this girl he used to talk to back in high school. wasn't a real girlfriend or anything, but he was curious about whatever happened to her. so sure enough, the colleague found the woman on facebook. and pretty soon she and mark were texting and talking on the phone, catching up. >> we talked and we visited. we kind of got carried away with little texting here and there. >> carried away? well, that may be a little strong in this age of sexting and lurid electronic. yes, they did text for several months. even said, i love you, a time or

too. but was it some kind of affair? well, judge for yourself. >> was there ever any pictures sent or anything like that or was it always just -- >> there's pictures that, um, just maybe, um, me or her, you know, just little innocent, um, you know, we're not into any of that nasty -- none of that. it was just, what do you look like now. she'd send a picture of her. she goes, your turn. she does a quilt. she took a picture of her quilt, showed it to me. just innocent stuff. she had a picture of her and her grand kid and stuff like that. >> and not once did they try to see each other. in fact, when an opportunity came up, they decided, no, it wouldn't be fair to their respective spouses if more than three decades or their kids or

grand kids. so they didn't. but as mark told the detectives, karen found out what he'd been doing when she went through a phone bill and it hurt her feelings. so he promised to stop. except he didn't. >> mark went and bought a secret phone to continue that communication that karen wasn't aware of. >> it was the woman who put a stop to it and she sent karen this letter, postmarked just a little less than three months before the murder. asking for forgiveness, promising it would never happen again. karen told a couple of her kids about it. she was pretty upset for a while. how important was that? >> definitely say everything together showed that karen was not happy in their relationship. >> mark told them otherwise, that it was a happy marriage, that texting thing just a blip. but the detectives didn't believe it, so they confronted mark. >> when did you find out that karen was going to leave you, mark? >> leave me? >> um-hmm. >> she was never going to leave me. never going to leave me.

honestly. >> in fact, investigators believed it all backed up what they suspected from that very first night. here, just hours after the murder, when they first accused mark of killing her. >> i said, i didn't do it. i mean, it's crazy. >> just like o.j. we need to be able to find the real killers, right? l.a.p.d. didn't have to go find the real killers. >> i know you're doing your job, but i would never lay a hand on my wife. i did not hurt her. i did not kill her. i walked in and found her in her condition. >> mark's family, by the way, said he told them all about that texting relationship. they said didn't seem like such a big deal. >> it sounds to me that it was just them confiding in each other about their marriages and their families and, you know, just an outlet. >> her youngest son casey had explained why there had been some tension between his parents a few months before the murder. >> there was a good span where

they didn't get along, but it was awhile before. >> yeah, and they seemed to be back together again? >> they seemed better than ever. >> and those claims by investigators about a pending divorce? not a chance, said the boys. >> they never were going to give up. they taught us that. i'm sure a little bit of trust was lost, you know. someone keeps something from you, but, you know, it was something they worked on and they got over. >> all that grief-infected summer, a cloud darkened over the duenas family. when casey graduated from high school in june -- >> i remember walking to where we'd be seated and seeing my dad along with other family members, but, of course, there was one spot missing. >> and five months went by that way, as if those early police suspicions had faded away. but, of course, we know better. don't we? >> coming up.

mark duenas is in for a bitter shock. >> he was upset, like are you kidding me? >> and what his family did next would surprise everyone. >> this sort of thing hardly ever happens, like never. >> when "dateline" continues. ons has 4x more hydrating power than the $400 cream. for skin results you'll see, or your money back. olay. face anything. for even more hydration, try olay serums. car vending machines and buying a car 100% online.vented now we've created a brand new way for you to sell your car. whether it's a year old or a few years old, we want to buy your car. so go to carvana and enter your license plate, answer a few questions, and our techno-wizardry calculates your car's value and gives you a real offer in seconds. when you're ready, we'll come to you, pay you on the spot, and pick up your car. that's it. so ditch the old way of selling your car, and say hello to the new way--

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>> welcome back to "dateline." i'm craig melvin. karen duenas was brutally murdered leaving her loved ones devastated. adding to their grief were investigators' suspicions that karen's husband mark was involved. mark told detectives he'd had a secret phone relationship with a former high school crush and karen was upset when she found out. now another surprise was about to jolt the duenas family. here again is keith morrison with "a killing in cottonwood." >> it was evening in cottonwood, california. october 5th, 2012, five months to the day after the murder of karen duenas. her widower mark and their son casey were watching tv. there was a knock at the door. and when mark saw the detectives -- >> he was upset. couldn't believe it. like, are you kidding me?

>> they were not. detectives had suspected mark all along, and now they had a warrant for his arrest. mark duenas was charged with first degree murder, held on a million dollars bail to await trial. >> to see him in that situation was surreal. and you hope the system works because there is an innocent man up there having to go through this. >> the whole extended klan, including karen's family, told anybody who would listen that the police made a huge mistake. >> i've never heard them call anybody a name. he just isn't that type of guy. >> i can't think of one time where he raised his voice to anybody. >> that family support was what persuaded an attorney 600 miles away in southern california to take the case. ron powell is his name. >> at first i'm not thinking i want to go up there. you know, when i saw her family saying, well, can you help us, that type of stuff. and us meant mark. that's when i started to think, you know.

>> the victim's family wants the accused represented by you because they believe he's innocent? >> correct. >> that's sort of a once in a while thing. hardly ever happens. >> yeah, like never. >> but 14 months after the murder when mark went on trial, the family, his, karen's and theirs filled the galleries every day to support him. >> you were there because you know that person. >> the judge allowed cameras in court, but no audio. so we can't play you the testimony of that woman from idaho and decided to conceal her identity. that's the one he texted and phoned, but hadn't seen in more than three decades. still, was to be with her said the state that mark killed his wife. and on the stand. >> at one point she said mark had mentioned that if they were meant to be together, something bad would have to happen. >> the woman didn't seem to know what mark meant by that, but the prosecution claimed he meant he'd have to kill karen. not just so he could be with the idaho woman, but so that he wouldn't have to share his

pension with karen, his wife of 33 years. anyway, said the state, karen must have been angry at mark and might have told him that night she intended to leave him. she wanted a divorce. >> the facts of the case showed that something happened that night between mark and karen, whether that be her discussing divorce or whatever the case may be, and he became upset and murdered karen. >> the prosecution based that theory around a story told by some teenagers two or three blocks away who said they heard a scream between 10:00 and 11:00 p.m. the pathologist testified karen could have been killed as early as 10:30, or as late as 2:30 a.m. but the state said it must have been 10:30, after which mark must have washed his clothes, slashed the screen to make it look like an intruder came in, then went to bed and waited for son casey to come home from the movie. >> one of the theories we did

have was that he wanted casey to find karen. >> and he's sleeping peacefully. is that the idea? >> yes. >> and he covered his tracks? >> correct. >> except, of course, casey didn't discover the body, so said the state at 1:00 a.m., mark had to make the 911 call himself. and when detectives went back and listened to that call, they heard what sounded to them like an incriminating mistake. >> 911, your emergency? >> i've got a -- i shot my wife and blood everywhere. >> what did he say? i killed my wife, the state claims. then a sound they say is a well known barn yard expert. an unintended confession caught on tape. or so said the prosecution. >> so he got it all together, and all planned, and then he blew it on the 911 call. >> i believe so. i'm sure if you just killed your wife, you'd be pretty stressed on the inside, which would make some things come out that you didn't mean to have come out.

>> but to the defense it was quite simply bunk. >> i've listened to it. i don't know, 100 times now. i don't hear that. >> defense attorney ron powell told the jury, mark found his wife just after someone attacked her and told 911 this. >> 911, your emergency? >> i got a -- i shot my wife and blood everywhere. >> i found my wife. and then that sound the state claims was an expletive the defense said was really the word "sick." so, i found my wife sick. >> do you think if they heard it that clear that this guy says, i killed my wife, and he's the only one home, you don't think they're arresting this guy if that had happened? what are they waiting for? they didn't arrest him till four months later. >> meanwhile, said the defense, police failed to follow-up on plenty of evidence, that in a town plagued by drug-related crime, intruders' intent on theft could certainly have been surprised by karen, then killed

her, then fled. there was an unidentified car parked nearby at the time of the murder. another car seen speeding away from the neighborhood as the cops raced to the duenas house. the two strangers seen in the neighborhood, and a trail of footprints leading away from the duenas backyard. and as for the screams heard by teenagers a couple of blocks away? >> the entire block where mark lives hears nothing. the woman next door sleeps with her window open, hears nothing. the person on the other side of the house is jason duenas who has his window open. he hears nothing. >> the defense put on a witness who said karen told her the very week of the murder that she and mark were making plans nor a bright future together. and the idea that mark would kill karen so he could pursue a happily married woman from idaho he hadn't seen in more than 30 years was simply ridiculous, said the defense. >> it sounds like a great motive when you look at it from a distance, but then when you get to it, it sounds like puppy

love. >> the defense rested its case in a matter of hours. >> when it went to the jury, how did you feel about it? >> i was pretty confident. you could see in the jury's face they weren't buying this. >> then something odd happened. the day the jury went out, a female juror overslept and rather than delay the case, the judge replaced her with an alternate. and, yes, on such tiny wheels fates turn. >> coming up. jurors get the case and are not impressed. >> i thought the sheriff's department did a terrible job of investigating -- >> terrible? >> terrible job. >> when "dateline" continues. skip to cold relief fast with alka seltzer plus severe powerfast fizz. dissolves quickly. instantly ready to start working. ♪ oh, what a relief it is! so fast!

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investigation. >> in fact, the jurors we spoke to said that feeling was pervasive in the jury room. and the 911 call that prosecutors claimed was a confession, the jury couldn't decide what he said. >> we listened to it many, many, many times. >> 20 times at least. >> at least, yeah. >> still couldn't tell? >> no. >> no. >> the jury took vote after vote, 10-2 for acquittal at one point. but one juror was adamant about his guilty vote. which one? the alternate who replaced the woman who had overslept. >> that juror said, he's guilty and he's going to have to prove that he's not guilty. and i'm not going to change my mind. i'm going to hang this jury. >> the judge declared a mistrial. what was that like? >> it was heartbreaking. we thought my dad would be home that day. >> after mark and karen's extended family publicly

pleaded, do not retry mark, let it go -- >> you see these people? this is love. this is belief in this human being. this is not question in our hearts. please listen to us and know we love this man. >> so, was it over? oh, no, not even close. instead, shasta county's d.a. assigned a new prosecutor to the case, stephanie bridget. something to know about miss bridget. up to this moment she had never lost a case, not one. her secret? preparation, she said. she is very thorough. by the time you finish reading through it in your preparation, what did you think? >> i didn't have any doubt that mark was the one that killed his wife. >> one big change at trial number two? the very first words out of the prosecutor's mouth were the state's version of that 911 call. i killed my wife. blood everywhere.

no jury, she declared, could doubt the content of that call. >> you did say -- >> and prosecutors offered yet another possibly damning statement from mark himself during his first of three tape recorded interviews with detectives, which again he willingly submitted to without the presence of an attorney. >> that's the only cut i saw. >> in his very first interview, claimed the state, mark slipped and made an admission while describing the wound he said he found on karen's chest. >> like the guy knew what he was doing or something because the way he cut her, that's the only cut i saw. there was tons of blood. there was none there coming out when i -- whoever did -- i don't know. >> what was that again? listen carefully. >> there was none there coming out when i -- whoever did it, i don't -- >> when i found her, or when i

did it? no way to know what he might have said. but the state claimed it amounted to another quasi-confession. the second prosecutor also presented evidence the first prosecutor chose not to use. testimony, for example, from a criminalist who examined the clothes mark wore that night and found karen's blood, though not visible to the naked eye, all over. >> there was a big area on the front of the shirt that covered all the way down. there was blood on the back of the shirt. there was blood all across the waistband down the sides, different spots throughout the shorts. even blood on the inside of the boxer shorts. >> which you don't think he could have gotten there by touching with his hands or removing, changing, adjusting. >> absolutely not. not in all those locations. >> the prosecutor claimed mark must have washed off some but not all the blood after the stabbing, had a shower in his

clothes or something. and then she claimed she'd found the murder weapon, or what could be the murder weapon, a knife found in the wrong slot in the kitchen butcher block. mind you, there was no blood on it, but its handle was bearing a substance identified as either animal fat or some kind of cleaner. >> what it tells us is that he had something in the home available to him that could have caused that, that murder. >> so means, motive, opportunity for premeditated murder. but would a second set of jurors agree? >> coming up. they would want evidence, but just how much was there? >> do you have any idea that's what happened? you don't have a clue. >> when "dateline" continues. it's a buick. it's an alexa. check it out. alexa, turn on the outdoor lights. ok.

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november 2013, a chilly autumn wind played around the corners of the courthouse in the middle of redding. inside defense attorney powell said he had a certain advantage because now the prosecution knew his case. and besides, had these added a new wrinkle, the blood on mark's clothes and the knife from the butcher block. >> remember, this is a retrial.

they felt this time they needed to show the possibility of a knife. they never said this was the knife. they're just showing this knife could have done it. >> in fact, said powell, the new evidence was no more persuasive than the old. no blood but animal fat found on the knife and some sort of soap? how about somebody used the knife to cut a steak and then washed it? could you wipe all the dna off a knife you -- >> good question. i've learned now after this trial that blood will never leave clothes, but it will go right off a knife. >> as for the blood on mark's clothes, of course there was blood, said the defense defense. he handled her body and police didn't see the blood at first because his shirt was red and his shorts were black. and then there was the new prosecutor's insistence that karen was very unhappy in her marriage and wanted a divorce. was it true? >> no, there's nothing to support it. there's no facts to support it. there's no evidence to support it. >> this was the issue that went

right to the heart of the prosecutor's case. and her contention that the state had developed a clear idea of just what happened the night karen was murdered. >> i believe that most likely karen confronted him with information that she had about the affair he was having with the lady in idaho. she probably said, that was it, she wasn't going to have it, she was going to get a divorce. that's when he decided, i'm going to get the knife, i'm going to kill her. >> do you have any idea beyond your own fevered imagination, that that 's what happened? you don't be have a clue. >> all the evidence points to that, so yes, i do -- >> how does all the evidence points to that? >> we have a person who has been in a relationship with a lady in another state -- >> let me stop here for a minute. first of all, you said affair. now you're saying being in a relationship. he was doing what millions upon millions of americans have been doing since facebook came along. they hadn't seen each other 30

years. you can't call it an affair. >> it becomes an affair and crosses the line when you don't tell your spouse about it. >> you believe he was obsessed with this woman? >> i believe he wanted a lot more out of that relationship than she did. >> was it pure fiction? >> what else could it be? i know she has a law degree. i never saw a psychology degree. >> for mark and karen's sons, the psycho analysis of their mother amounted to an insult. >> the d.a. said things about my mom that were untrue. do they know my mom better than i know my mom, better than any of us? they act like they do. there's no evidence. >> what do you say to people whose reaction is, well, of course they're going to feel that way, this is his family. they just lost their mother. they don't want to lose their father, too. >> life is so much harder protecting my dad. we would be moved on. we would know what happened. if we thought that was the

truth. but we all know with our hearts that's not what happened. >> the jury in the first trial had been hopelessly dead locked came so close to acquitting mark and sending him home to his family. the second jury was back in less than a day, and their verdict was written on family faces in the gallery's first row. >> i still hear the sounds of the boys right behind mark, the crying, i still hear this. it was very tough. >> guilty of first degree murder. >> sick. i felt like throwing up to be honest. i felt sick. >> i felt bad for the family members because they're family members and they're not going to be happy with the verdict. but at the end of the day, it's karen who was killed and karen who that verdict was for. >> what would you say to them, this big extended family out there that doesn't think it's

justice at all? >> i would tell them i'm confident that the right person was convicted. >> mark duenas was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison, and his family will go on believing what they have always believed, that late at night on may 4th, 2012, unknown intruders probably drug addicts intent on theft, burst in, were surprised by karen, killed her, and then realizing what they had done, ran away without taking a thing. jason no longer lives right next door to the home he grew up in. in fact, the family recently and reluctantly sold the home, the place it happened. the memories and upkeep too much to bear. >> i mean, it was always in cottonwood, small town, nothing happens here. and then the worst you could imagine happened. >> casey and his brother troy no longer play baseball for the local college. the days when they look toward

the bleachers where their parents always sat side by side are gone forever. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. test. i'm craig melvin. >> i'm natalie morales. >> and this is "dateline." no one's going to get murdered in my family. that's in the movies. who would want him dead? someone came here with the intention to murder him, and then i'm thinking this person is still on the loose, you know. are we safe? >> she was a southern belle -- >> little lady. very fun. just someone you could have a good time with. >> and he was her longtime beau. >> he adored her, and she