with even faster speeds tomorrow. you might wanna buckle up. only from xfinity. the future starts now. hello, i'm craig melvin, and this is "dateline." >> i'm craig melvin, and i'm hello, i'm craig melvin, and this is "dateline." natalie morales. and this is dateline. >> all of a sudden i realize, why are they late? there's something definitely

wrong. he said your family was in an accident. and my world just dropped down from underneath me. >> the scene told the story -- >> why did you find? >> something i don't want to see again. >> yuck >> a deadly crash on a dark road. two gone, one barely alive. to a tragic accident. but look closer. can all of the broken glass and twisted metal, was there a clue to a crime? >> the last thing i wanted to have was to have to take a double fatality and not treat it as a homicide. >> murder. and no one saw coming. two families in torment. >> i couldn't deal with it. >> we were both just -- >> a small town trial with big emotions. >> you took it. you did it. >> and the verdict that would shake them all. >> hello, and welcome to dateline.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ a dangerous highway in big sky country. that was a setting for a deadly crash that would seem to unite to families in shock and heartbreak. except they were about to find out that the truth about what. . >>,. happened on that fateful night might be darker than anyone knew. here is keith morrison. >> march 19th, 2009. night fell heavy in montana's flathead valley. something off that night. something wrong. a mary and randy winters house, anxiety spiked. where was she? >> it just felt like something was not right. katie >> it's hard to explain that there is something not normal. you can set your clock.

but the new driver, just 16, a long way from her boyfriend's house. although she was in very late the feeling seeped in like a poison, something wrong. >> i called her starting about five after eight and no answer. >> called the house where she was at and they said she had left 15 minutes before that. >> i was thinking she had went off the road between their house and us. not far away another family the other half of our story was on the road. aaron thompson was driving her son home. he played the drums. >> i was attending concerts and this was the first one i didn't attend because i had car troubles. >> this is caden's stepfather, jason thompson. >> my car was in the shop and i finally faced and drop me off and that's why wasn't with them. >> soon the poison, the anxiety

seeped under jason's doors, through his windows. under his nerve endings. >> just all of a sudden i realized, what's going on? why are they late? i just struck to me that something definitely was wrong. >> justine winters, the fear would deepen. justine's dad randy was a a national guardsmen, volunteer firefighter. he was trying to keep his head. new what he had to do. randi got in his truck, drove out of town to the road coming home for he knew he she take coming home from her boyfriends house. and then he saw, in a construction zone on a highway 93 overpass. >> what did you find? >> something i don't want to see again. you could say, a fireman's worst nightmare. >> someone tried to hold him back, he kept on. >> then i find her over at the side. >> his perfect daughter, his justine, obscenely broken. but amazingly, still alive. >> how did she look?

>> i didn't really see a lot of her there but i got to see her at the hospital. >> she was pretty bad? >> you don't want to ever see your kid in the hospital. >> every bit of her was damaged horribly. broken bones, brain damage, ruptured organs. the chance she would survive slim, to the doctors. but the winter's news could've been worse. in the few miles away where the phone rang at jason thompson's house the news was much worse. the caller was the county coroner. >> he said, jason, your family was in an accident. and i'm sorry to have to tell you this on the phone but they are just killed. . in my world just dropped out

from underneath me. >> jason's wife, 35-year-old erin thompson was four months pregnant. their son caden who just put the drums at his school concert was 13, and just like that they were gone. the crash was head on. in jason thompson's life, the lights went out. >> i'll never forget that news. >> laura of course will erin's mother, diana. >> we were both just bonkers, just -- >> nor her sister amber who with her husband missed erin so much they made plans to move to montana to be close. not possible now. >> that was the hardest piece of news we could fathom. >> to lose both of them and the baby. it just doesn't even seem like

it could be real. >> in the little house he shared with the love of his real life where he'd been waiting in such excitement for their baby to arrive. jason like job of old was overcome by the heaviest sorrow. a whole life of sorrow. >> it's like i'm nine years old in 79 when my sister dies, and then 19 years old at 89 when my mother dies of cancer. and now i'm 39 -- in 09, and i lose my family. >> missing that concert, you lived. >>. yeah. >> has that been to wrap your head around? >> i've been embracing life but i didn't tend to fear death anymore. there's times when i would have welcomed it. >> but the dreadful truth of it

is that accidents just like the one here happen all around america every day, every night. still, just as the permanence of loss began to sink in, before anyone had given a thought to a now diminished future, there is another piece of news. this time, on this road. the fatal accident we might not have been an accident at all. >> coming up, -- >> the last thing i wanted was to have to treat it as a homicide. >> a prosecutor's stunt decision when dateline continues. with flonase, allergies don't have to be scary. spray flonase sensimist daily for non-drowsy, long lasting relief in a scent-free, gentle mist. (psst psst) flonase. all good. i'm gonna pull over and stretch my legs. i think you were supposed to keep left there. hmm? what is this place? the other side of the rest stop.

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have almost morbidly domed the words, pray for me, i drive highway 93. they say this because of nights like march 15th 2009. but soon everyone would know this crash on this night may have been no accident. a revelation, which in jason thompson's devastated mind would register later. just now, his whole life was a bomb creator. >> erin was like my heart, my soulmate. i've waited all these years looking but i had an idea. and i was searching for her.

>> and she, as she told everybody, had been looking for him. erin was a single mom when jason met her brilliant smile. she was a hairdresser who loved to dance. and she was a seeker in all matters spiritual. her mother, diana -- >> when she was single and a young mother she was wondering what she was going to do with her life. she answered her own question and said, wow, as long as i'm about the business of spreading love it doesn't matter. >> erin married jason in the summer of 2006 in the glorious montana sunshine. and young caden seemed as pleased as she was. cayden, who shared his mother and new stepfather's craving for outdoor adventures. >>. backpacking on the coast, in the mountains, river rafting. it was all about just sharing that time together. >> yes, and there was that plan erin had with her sister amber.

>> we always had a dream of growing up and living right next door to each other and raising up our families. >> soon the plan expanded beautifully when erin and jason announced they were expecting a child. >> every day i would praise my life, prays my wife and my little baby that i was going to have. it only made sense. >> and then came march 19th, to build a nine. as the news and the grief spread, there is still hope for one of the victims of the crash. justine winter was alive, though barely with a broken neck and broken legs and major internal injuries. doctors told the family they didn't think she'd live through the airlift to a hospital in seattle. >> what did they tell you? >> they told us that she wouldn't live. >> i said [bleep] i don't care,

she's flying that airplane and don't give me any grief. >> and she did survive the flight to seattle and the emergency operations to state together the broken pieces of her body. she was unconscious when she arrived. the doctors kept or that way, induced a coma so she could avoid the pain or any recognition of her desperate condition. her but her body slowly began to knit itself back together. until, more than a month later, -- >> her eyes just went boom, that was just like the most incredible feeling of, she's there, she's in there, in your heart just beating. >> it was days later before justine could understand what was going on around her. the news had to be faced eventually. so when she seemed ready they told her. >> when you told her what happened and the accident and how those other people had died how did she react?

>> it was very emotional for her. it was very devastating. >> and that what was discovered was, quite frankly, unimaginable. four in the middle of that river of tears and grief on the one side abject and grief on the other there was an undertow and a twist nobody saw coming. while justine's spent 45 days in the hospital recuperating and months more here at home in montana healing. it didn't take investigators very long at all, a matter of hours really to solve the mystery of who and what caused this crash. in fact the first montana highway patrol officers who raced to this scene in that construction zone believed that justine winter's car was the one that crossed the centerline and smashed into erin thompson's car. but the worst of it, the inconceivable part was that

investigators told fat headache county attorney that this was not an accident at all. >> but was your first reaction, what do you think? >> nuts. this was the last thing i wanted was to have to take a double fatality and have to now treat it as a homicide. >> homicide? yes. right there in justine's car officers found what amounted to a minute by minute narrative of the events leading up to the collision in text messages. in those messages the prosecutor said, was the evidence. he believed required him to press criminal charges against that girl doctors had quite miraculously saved, justine winter. charges of murder. >> the prosecutor lays out his case while jason gets yet another shock. >> coming up. >> suing.

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investigators are convinced that justine winter that justine winter and intentionally crashed her car into erin thompson's killing the pregnant mom and her 13-year-old son cayden. their evidence, threatening text messages sent by justine just minutes before the fatal

collision. here again, is keith morrison. >> the sorrow ran deep in montana's flathead valley. deep and wide, the whole valley, in fact the country heard about the cat crash that killed cayden and aaron and her unborn child. and heard a strange and disturbing story that 16 year old justine winter took deadly aim at iran's oncoming car, crossed the centerline, and plowed right into them. on purpose. shocking? oh yes. as was the alleged reason. justine said to police, was trying to commit suicide. how did they know? they found the evidence on justine's phone, they said. text messages which she wrote herself and which ones county

attorney ed corrigan saw them, we'll, give him no choice, he said. he charged her with deliberately homicide. montana's equivalent of murder. >> justine purposely went into the wrong way to traffic and smashed head on into another car. by doing so she should have known her actions would've killed somebody and under those circumstances i think deliberately homicide was a legitimate charge. >> you decide to charge president, why? she was 16. >> she was. the taking of two lives is not in my opinion a delinquent act. it is a crime, it easily prosecuted as a crime. if convicted it needs to be on her record for the rest of her life. >> perhaps because of her own massive injuries and continuing operations, her age. justine, after pleading not guilty, was released to house arrest, and fitted with an ankle bracelet. she was allowed to attend classes a glacier high. at home her parents fumed. no matter what those text

messages said the idea that justine would caused that crash on purpose were just crazy. >> are you angry about all of this? >> it builds up inside and it gets to a point where you can't take it anymore. >> turned out, and it was hardly surprising in a town this size that the two families actually knew each other. justine's mother and aaron's mother had worked at the same school. aaron's family made it perfectly clear that what they wanted from justine most of all was a heartfelt apology. and some sort of indifference indication she took responsibility. they actually saw that as a way to work forgiveness. most people around town thought that was a fine idea. but for justine and her family, it was just an awkward silence. >> then early one morning in the fall of 2010 it entirely unexpected knock at the door to promotions to a whole new level. >> this private investigator

handmade these papers like he's serving newspapers. he said they are suing aaron's estate. >> suing you? >> suing for her pain and suffering. >> it was true. in a legal preemptive strike, justine winter's attorneys had filed a lawsuit on her behalf against aaron's estate as well as three companies in charge of the construction zone where the crash occurred. the lawsuit claimed aaron had negligently operated her car resulting in the collision. and also that the companies had failed to adequately construct and maintain the facility causing hazardous and confusing conditions for the traveling public. >> i can't even begin to guess what they were thinking about when they decided to file that lawsuit. >> inflame the whole town. >> inflamed the whole town. this was ingesting's decision, it was made by her attorneys. >> oh yes, the attorneys. their names, maxwell battle and david stuff. and according to the winters,

the attorneys assured them that if justine was found not guilty it would give them a better shot at an insurance company reimbursement later. >> there was no intent of going for the estate in making that family endure more than they had already endured. >> but the optics were awful. >> but the timing could have been, who knows, better? >> to pick up a newspaper, look at the blocks, hear the radio. what you got were those awful people, those discussing terrible people, what are they thinking trying to sue the victims of this crime. >> that's what was portrayed but the actual intent was not that. at all. >> this court is now in session. >> -- by the time justine trout started in january 2011 appetite of public opinion had turned as bitter as the montana winter. the hearts of aaron thompson's family, to, had toughened. and justine who showed up in an almost childlike poke it out

hair band certainly didn't look the part of an accused killer facing 200 years behind bars, but there she was. with the two families just a few feet away she watched investigators testify to a certainty that it was justine's pontiac grand am that crossed the centerline. >> you can see all this debris from the initial impact of the crash. >> slamming into erin subaru so hard but it was driven backward into the highway barrier and crash reconstruction disagreed. >> justine winter's car encroached into the northbound lane striking mrs. thompson's vehicle. >> but what evidence was there that justine had done it, as the law says, purposefully? investigators pulled the so-called black box out of justine's pony i can analyze the data. they found another sign that point to suicide. she had taken off her seatbelt.

the black box also recorded speed, acceleration and braking and found that justine was exhilarating, florida, so to speak in the five seconds before the crash, speeding up from 81 to 86 miles an hour before hitting the brakes the last second. >> she did not swerve and she drove head on into the other vehicle. >> to back it up prosecutors pulled the spirometer from justine's car and they're right above the mark indicating 85 miles per hour found an orange mark, it's known as a slap mark. the experts testified that happens when the needle smashes against the consulate high-speed. finally, prosecutors reveal the reason, they said, behind it all. justine, like many 16-year-old girls had a boyfriend. hers was named ryan. it was quite hot, this relationship.

he was her world. but that day in march there had been a tiff, they had words so that night she drove ryan home asked him to get out of the car, he said they were through. the justine drove north to clear her head. she was on her way home where detectives testified she began texting ryan. apparently, while behind the wheel. the first text, half an hour before the crash. >> goodbye ryan, just live your life knowing you did change me. my last words, i love you ryan? then her text became somehow threatening. >> if i won, i would have, you and i wouldn't crush my car. >> you tell yourself i kill myself, so come on, don't be selfish. >> but the only thing i want to live for, you, ryan, you keep me living. >> stop. >> you hurt yourself and i'll know, i'll do the same. >> that's why i'm going to wreck my car because all i can

do is mess up. it shows you would rather me die because i want to kill myself, good by ryan, i love you. >> then a final message from ryan. >> you killing yourself is just another way for you to run away. >> just five or six minutes later prosecutors say justine drove her car into erin thompson's little traveling to commit suicide. instead she killed mother and child and unborn baby. the prosecution had made its case for murder. now the question was what good justine winter's attorney could possibly say to make a jury believe otherwise. >> coming up, the defense takes on the heart of the case. those text. when dateline continues. dateline continues. ♪ it's the most wonderful time of the year ♪ it's spring! non-drowsy claritin-d knocks out your worst allergy symptoms including nasal congestion, without knocking you out. feel the clarity and make today the most wonderful time of the year.

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here's what's happening. president biden on sunday announced a bipartisan deal that would extend the debt

ceiling for the next two years in exchange for a number of spending cuts. the bill is expected to go to the house on wednesday evening. authorities in new mexico have arrested a suspect in connection with the saturday shooting at a motorcycle rally that killed three people and injured at least five more. police said the shooting broke out between members of motorcycle gangs, now back to dateline. >> welcome back to dateline i'm craig melvin. the prosecution had made their case. now, it was the defense's turn. could they convince the jury to seek just into text messages in a different light? once again, keith morrison. >> every day in this montana courtroom the family of now 17 year old justine winter dutifully shuffled to the front seat behind the defense table. by their attorneys decree they

say intention blink, emotion list. their parent demeanor a spur at the height of an already angry town. but almost no one knew what was really going on. justine's mother mary who have been struggling with alcohol given distress. >> tell me how it's change your life. >> iran, i couldn't deal with it, i just left the house. i didn't come back. >> justine's brother kyle dropped out of college to help keep things together at home and get justine to her medical appointments. and randy her father, the strong and tallest montana spruce firefighter and national guardsmen turned angry and bitter at the continuing prosecution of his little girl. >> i could preceding him living in watching tv and all of a sudden i hear something and i just lose it and start crying. >> the whole world, said

justine's dad, seemed intent on misunderstanding and demonizing his little girl. yet he said she'd always been so good kind thoughtful. and responsible. she was getting almost three days in high school. but mostly wouldn't harm a book, literally. and cared about people i would never ever want to hurt that sweet woman and her son or her baby. >> always had a smile, always wanted to help, it's who she was. >> what kind of girl was this? >> when she was just a good girl -- >> but in my interest to you to know as the winters spoke to us here they were doing so at the expressed, against the advice of her attorneys. when it came time for the attorneys to make their case in court the attorneys told the jury everything the prosecution told, everything they knew about the case so far was wrong.

what happened out there >> what happened out there was an accident. >> including where the crash occurred. >> remember the prosecution experts said there was no doubt justine crossed the centerline and veered into erin thompson's lane causing the crash. but a forensic engineer hired by the defense said his research turned that finding on its head. he claimed it was aaron who drove out of her lane in that construction zone and struck justine. and the defense went further claiming that slap mark near the 85 mile mark of the speedometer of justine's car was planted there by investigators. that the black box that measured speed was plain wrong. that justine always wore her seatbelt. and finally, a psychologist said what a lot of experts said. but a spat with a boy wasn't enough to lead to a suicide attempt. and those tax, they should not be considered suicide know at

all. >> it was a way of exercising power and control in the relationship to make that kind of threat. but it was always clear that it was never meant. >> what would justine winter say about what happened here that night. she did not testify on the advice of attorneys and her family and of course that was a perfect right. but there was another reason, to. justine suffered a brain injury in that crash so her recollection of the last few days leading up to the crash and then at itself, here, she couldn't remember. she is charged with a crime about which her memory is a complete blank. so then, how could the jury now that justine knowingly crossed the centerline having decided to commit suicide by hitting the other car? the question they put to the prosecutor. >> in order to draw that

conclusion you have to read your mind. but you've been a prosecutor for years, you know accidents happen in the most bizarre ways people do crazy things on the road. but you clearly said this was the situation in which i know what somebody was thinking. when they drove across that lane of traffic and into the car. i just don't know how you can know what she's thinking. >> i don't know what she's thinking, nobody knows what she was doing at the time. she doesn't know what she is thinking. all i can do is based medicine on what the evidence shows. >> did the evidence clearly show that justine winter's had made up her mind to commit suicide by driving into an oncoming car? up to the jury now. >> coming up, everyone just cried about it. >> authorities comes quickly but the pain and one final question remained when dateline continues. continues. non-drowsy claritin knocks out symptoms

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attorneys twist the story as they saw. but the family believed in the facts of the case. >> they were, you were unusual as victims because of this willingness to forgive justine. >> it's the adults in her life that are steering her in this direction. it's not her decisions. it's these adults. i have plenty of anger towards them. >> for justine's family, to, there is considerable strain, so much that justine's father randy buckled under pressure and was rushed to the hospital and not present in the courtroom. >> i will ask the court to file the verdict and to read it, please. but after just four hours of deliberation a jury came back. >> we the jury enter the following unanimous verdict to the charge of deliberately homicide for the death of aaron thompson, guilty. for the death of cayden odell, guilty.

>> this was an absolutely horrible experience. >> it was like the whole courtroom, i felt like, everyone just cried about it. >> how did she look, mary? and she was brought off to jail? your little girl. >> she looked very stunned. she didn't look back. >> just a week after that verdict justine winter marked her 18th birthday in a jail cell. and then came sentencing day. and everyone wondered, would justine finally tell aaron's husband, her family, what they desperately wanted to hear? >> in your ideal world what would you like to hear from justine? >> to be sorry for what she took from us because it was huge. >> but just before sentencing the family received this, a

statement written by justine. and it wasn't even close to what they were looking for. initially called her self a miracle who was wrongly convicted of horrific crime. she wrote that she would never ever to millionaires take her own life or anyone else is. that this was an accident that had been blown out of proportion. but she didn't need time behind bars, just a chance to turn her revaccination into a positive one. so with the statement in mind the family of aaron and katie took the stand to have their own say. >> i want for you to make something positive of your life through this. but you still have yet to grasp the truth. >> caden's father, the same message, more anger. >> you took him, you did it, and you need to own it. you kill my boy, you need to own it.

we >> and finally cayden stepfather, jason. the elementary school counselor first displaying compassion then a rare stream of venom aimed at justine's defense team, the attorneys battle and staff. >> i've chosen not to believe that you in crashing that car that night wanted to harm or whatever think about harming them. but it is been very difficult to hold on to that thought given that you've been led by these two men and influenced by them to not do what is most important in all of this which is to show and demonstrate to us that you are sorry for having taking them. >> then finally the moment as justine winter herself took the stand to speak for the first time. >> of one to speak with you for two years now. of one to let you guys know that my heart that to you.

and as every single one of you came out here today when heartbreaking. i just hope that you guys will be able to forgive but i will never be able to say that i intentionally crossed the centerline wanting to take three lives from all of you. with a but before the judge allowed >> before the judge allowed justine to leave the witness stand the prosecutors asked a question on behalf of the victims families. a question that froze the courtroom. >> what they want to hear from you for a long time is i'm sorry. can you tell them that? >> go i'm sorry for your loss, but i cannot win and know what you mean by you want me to say

that i'm sorry we. >> so the hammer came down. >> the defendant is committed for a period of 30 years with 15 years suspended. >> justine was sentenced to 15 years in prison. and her father, back on his feet and in court for sentencing day began his own prison term, the one deep inside his own soul. >> this is done betrayed me. you can say -- you serve your country and then you feel betrayed. >> you feel betrayed by the country who fought for? >> yes. the judicial part of the system. >> they took her, this once promising college bound honors student to sell in the montana women's prison where she instantly became the youngest in may in the place. >> and two months later those attorneys who declined our request for interview were off the case. that civilized it was dropped

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teenager justine winter was convicted of deliberately homicide in the car crash death of a mother and son. with the victims family finally getting the ecology they've been waiting for? here is keith morrison with the conclusion of our story. >> shortly after justine winter walked out of this courtroom in kalispell montana she landed here, more than 450 miles east across the state at the women's prison in the years. she sat down with us quite well aware of how all this time she'd been the target of so much curiosity and anger. >> i'm curious to know what your thought process was as you want about deciding, yeah i think we'll talk now? >> i don't know, i guess it was probably that i was being shown in a different light than what i wanted to be shown. >> when you read accounts of

your case, when you see the comments people right with that leg? >> they really hard to read. i heard one that said i needed to hang from the news on a tree. >> what is if you look inside? when you saw the comment for example. >> i'm really weird and with my brain injury i feel it in the second but it's hard to recall it afterwards. >> that brain injury is the reason she said she sometimes smiles which is a mean to. why everything came out wrong, she says, when she took the stand and spoke at sentencing. and why, she says, and even the prosecutor says she believes this, but she recalls nothing about the crash. >> i don't remember the night of the accident but i remember events that i know had to have happened right before the accident happened. >> what events with those be? >> i remember doing stuff to get ready for prom because prom

was supposed to be two days after the accident. but other than that i do not remember a whole lot about march. >> what do you member of the last time you saw your boyfriend? >> i have no idea. i remember we spent fools of time together. >> you are inseparable basically? >> yes. >> in love? >> kids love. >> it's pretty strong love that kid love, isn't it? >> i remember if i wasn't with him i was texting him all the time. >> but as for those texts following the argument with ryan just before the crash, justine says despite what many believe she would never ever have tried to commit suicide. knowing, as she does, that her grandmother, brandi's mother, killed herself when her dad was just a boy. in fact, she says, the most likely explanation is she was just playing a game of sorts with ryan.

>> he liked controlling everything having to do with my life and he would threaten suicide twice. that's what i would think was happening is that i was playing his own card back at him. >> i'm going to kill myself, then. >> yeah. >> -- i don't think they were text messages that were to be taken seriously. >> if you look at them through justine's eyes they don't make a serious threat. but the jury didn't look at it through your eyes. >> no. >> despite her conviction and all the evidence and the fact that she has no memory of that night justine still claims that she must of been wearing her seatbelt. she cannot imagine driving her car 85 miles an hour. it's just not the sort of thing she ever did, she says. >> something happened to swerve across and hit another car. that's in about right? >> yeah. >> it's probably you who caused the accident, it's fair to say that? >> yes.

>> if you say it's probably you cause that accident, are you able to say yeah, you know, if i did it and i probably did cause it i just feel horrible about it. and i take responsibility for it. >> yeah. >> it's impossible for you to say that? >> if i knew then i would take responsibility for it. if it was me i take complete responsibility for. and i do. >> and now, finally, having said the words almost that aaron and katie family long to hear justine says she is finally through with what she called the pity party she hoped for herself. >> all i would change about the accident is that they lived. and if it had to be so be that they lived and i didn't i'd be okay with that. because i don't -- know like seeing anyone else in

the pain i know my family was put in a lot of pain because of the accident but they've got to see me grow up. >> and the other family cannot see that. >> yes. and i don't want to put them in anymore pain. and i want to make everything okay for them. >> after serving a little more than four years of her 15 year sentence in prison, two dozen 15 justine winter was granted parole. forensic widower, jason, only an empty chair and an empty acre as he and so many --

you tries to keep putting one foot in from the other. >> it's a dance between the grief of their loss to the joy and the blessing of having experience them. >> it's like seeing a meteor. you would encourage your luck that you saw this meteor, you just be thankful that you are blessed to see it and so we just have to click that. wow, how amazing that we got to spend the good part of our life with two of the most precious people on the planet. >> oh do this one is about and they were watching they were watching >> hello, i'm craig melvin in this is dateline.