the tiny reserve of money. she's in the winners circle. >> yes, it said, isn't it? it said that after all of this, it worked out with such a nice need both for her. >> the judge had little sympathy for the convicted killer, sentencing came to life without parole. but the man that put his chronic health problems that traditionalist trial, time is in short supply. edward died in prison at the age of 75. >> that's all for this edition of dateline. i'm andrea counted. thanks for watching. ks for watching. >> hello, i'm andrea canning. and this is dateline. >> it was the little girl who

learned that first, the 12-year-old, she who was there the beginning when the family secret was born. >> not something we like to talk about. >> why did it get started? >> i honestly didn't know what else to do. >> why did she keep it so long? >> she was all i had. >> well evil did its work. >> the things he had walked away, we couldn't even stand it. >> what with that secret do? >> everybody has a secret or two, but this? >> hello, welcome to dateline. it wasn't uncommon for him to be gone for days at a time. he was a long haul truck driver, after all. or did he run off with another woman? when lloyd for disappeared, it was almost anyone's guess where he went, at least two people

knew and it was a secret they carted for 27 years. but the terrible truth was about to be revealed. here is keith morrison with, the family secret. >> yes, families. i suppose you could say this one, the family, not the secret, got started in the middle of nowhere, which is what they like to call it here and ainsworth, nebraska. it wasn't so surprising, perhaps, that one young lloyd ford was done with school, he got out, joined the navy, sailed off to see the wide world from an aircraft carrier. this man at the center of the secret. sandy is his eldest daughter. >> my dad was a fun guy. he was bumping, he love people. people loved him. people tended to gravitate towards my dad. >> especially women. that was not a secret. when floyd went back to little

insert after -- one of the hometown girls caught his eye at the county fair. before long, they were married. and that is how sandy came along. and her little sister, pamela, who loved her dad, but apparently wasn't the only one. >> all of the women around her had huge pressures on him and his brother. i've always heard he had to have a woman in his life. >> when lloyd and his wife took the little family out west, it was, so they say, to get away from some other woman. anyway, that's where little tommy was born. lloyd learned to be a real family man. >> he loved fishing. he would take us fishing and bring strings official or bring beneficial. >> usually had for breakfast. >> we did. >> then, well, the kids are always the last to know what happened or why. but it was a long before their mob suddenly packed them up and headed back to nebraska.

>> divorces, the child will take one side or the other, i took my mom's. my dad was a bad guy. my dad did something to make my mom leave. >> they left him still, of course. even when he started courting a new woman. judy, twice divorced, three kids of her own, including kimberly, julie's only daughter, who all in all was happier on those rare occasions when there was no man around her mother. >> i personally like the best when it was just her, the boys and i. no husband. because her attention would focus. >> they would lose her. >> yeah. >> but a new man came along, what was she like that person? >> they were it. we still got fed and take care of, the norm, you know? but it was all about that. >> and in 1973, it was all about lloyd.

they married and got divorced and then remarried and tried to pretend a brady bunch live at this very house on clark street and boise, idaho. lloyd jong-il of hall trucks, judy styled hair. they joined the schreiner's, what bowling, planned fishing trips. lloyd's youngest, tommy, lived with him and his staff bob. pamela stayed with her mother in nebraska and really visited. and 1980, sandy was 20 and off to college. still, as always, called lloyd every week. until the day judy answered the phone. >> when i first called, judy told me that he was away on business. so, i called back a few days later and she said, no, he isn't home yet. i thought, that's funny because he's usually home and two or three days and he'll be back. and i called the next week and he still wasn't home. i called my mom. so, i think my mom called out

to judy. she said, well, the truth was that she thought lloyd had ran off with another woman and she didn't think he was coming back. >> days went by and then weeks. no word from their dad. at the end of the school year, tommy step mom sent him back to nebraska to live with his birth family. >> it was hard. i mean my dad, or tom and especially, he was everything to us. >> and he thought he loved you and now it seems, perhaps, he didn't even care. >> you know, when we first heard, i think we really believed he would be back. if he left judy, he would be back to get us. >> that summer, floyd's father hired a private investigator. >> my grandfather would come in almost every week to give me updates. had we heard anything, the detective had found anything. he was following leads, nothing

was coming up. >> they heard stories. he moved to michigan, he boarded a plane and never made his connection. even a story that he was not mount st. francis on it erupted. sandy and her sister, pam, longed for answers. a phone call even. but there was nothing. where was their father? whatever happened to lloyd forward? here is a hint. sandy didn't know the family secret, snorted pam. but kimberly did. she knew all about it, where lloyd went and why. because she was there. if she revealed it, would anyone even believe the chilling details she carried and had hidden for so long? >> coming up -- >> as fight my whole life waiting for the other shoe to drop, you know? >> here it was. >> the secret slips out.

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if you're over 50, talkeith morrisonor (voiceover): the sad thing >> the sad thing about a family about a family secret is all the pain secret is all of the pain that has trail behind. lloyd for dropped off his family's radar 1980, let them offer another woman or some other life. whatever it was. the children of his first marriage utterly abandoned, devastated. >> the ground you stand on

doesn't seem stable anymore because every single thing that we had build, trust our security, and was gone. >> the sisters didn't now, the answer to their decades old questions might involve a complicated relationship, soledad family. particularly between a mother and daughter. between judy and her daughter, kimberly. little cam, nervous, needy, desperate to be perfect. >> how does a little girl attempt to be perfect for her mother? >> she tries not to make her mad. you know? the things that i know would make her happy, clean the house. we all worked in the yard. everything had to be just so. so nice when someone came over. so look normal. >> if it, if the love could be so good, so warm and enveloping, happy. if only the various can be kept at bay.

>> you learned to read her moods? >> yeah. really well. if she wasn't in a good mood, we stayed god. out of the house. >> out of her way. >> yeah. >> because? >> you don't want to see her upset. >> that, said, kemp was the woman her children knew so intimately. not like that you have presented herself one way or another to the outside world. >> she was different for everybody. to a newcomer or her friends, she's a very loving, giving person. but what they didn't see was that she would do whatever it took to get what she wanted. >> you saw what was happening when you look at. >> sure. she knows and a certain situation what she needs to say. i should laugh here. maybe i should cry. >> watching this, said can, she knew very well that loved one moment to the next could be given or withdrawn.

>> she was the one we feared. did as you were told. >> if you wanted to do something, you just didn't don't? >> no, we never did that. never. did want to rock the boat. i was afraid that she was going to leave. >> thus, it was abandonment kim beard when her mother brought men home. >> she was all i had. >> because it was changing all of the time, all of these men were coming into her lives, your life and then go again. you had her. >> right. >> anyway, judy stayed put. it was lloyd who would not be sticking around. after her husband seemed to disappear up the base of the earth, judy filed for divorce. what lloyd did and show up at the hearing, judy got everything. kim remembers a rainy afternoon when her mother pond off their wedding ring. she remarried, a man named tom,

life went on. a quarter century past. by 2007, kim was 40. a single mother of two teenagers of her own. still held and her own mother's emotional way. but unspoken guilt increasingly clouded her mode, even at work. this was her boss, gary ziegler. >> what did she seem like to you? >> it always seemed like she was carrying something deep down inside her, some sort of baggage. can put my figure on it for a long time. >> gary had -- what would you call it? antenna for these things. >> he had called me to come out and have a cup of coffee with him. he could read me really well. he's, like let's rock? i fell apart. >> told him the whole thing. >> told him everything. >> and that is how a family secret contain for more than 20

years was leaked for the first time to an outsider who listened in something like this billy. >> everybody has a secret or two. but this, i deliberated for days and telling anyone. >> you decide not to keep the secret. >> correct. i knew the way i was raised that if biden do the right thing -- >> theory called the prosecutor's office, which called the boise police department, which opened an investigation into law is long ago departure. the 27-year-old disappearance, a case they never knew existed, but they certainly did now. and that is how one day the cops showed up at kim's jordan step. >> i spent my whole life waiting for the other shoe to drop. you know? >> here it was. >> kimberly secret was out. what really happened to lloyd.

coming up -- >> she says, how would you like it if floyd was gone? we're thinking, there's no way she would do it. who would do that? >> when dateline continues. hen dateline continues

>> kimberly had a secret, terrible, unspeakable, guilty family secret. she kept it, nurse, and cried about it for a quarter of the century. until, finally, no longer able

to hide the awful truth, she's building to her boss. now, she's about to tell us. >> it's really hard to visitors. almost killed me. >> it was late afternoon, spring was coming. it was 1980. lloyd was still around, the kids reside. cam was, as usual, trying to be the perfect little daughter, helping around the house. they are in the kitchen, kim says, when you look down at her and asked a very curious question. >> cooking dinner. she says, how would you like it if floyd was gone? gone to a 12-year-old? going, divorce, moving out? >> what did you think when you heard that? >> sounded all right. >> kim was used to juries on even love life. divorce didn't sound like disaster. she loved having her mother to herself. here's cans memory of what her

mother said to her. >> wouldn't it be nice if he wasn't here? we could be together, you know? just because of me. when that nice? just like i was wanted. >> but then, suddenly, unmistakably said kemp, of her mother's idea changed. didn't sound like divorce after all. >> she made a list of all of his thoughts. >> remember he said? >> i never really questioned her. i just sat there let her talk. >> safe. >> yeah. >> and this went on? >> a couple days. maybe a week. each day, it was a little more revealing. until finally she blurted it out. what would you think if he was dead? >> did you think that that meant -- >> i thought maybe get cancer or sick, you know? >> maybe he was going to die and he was -- she was preparing? >> yeah, i mean you never know. >> that was not what judy had

in mind, said cam. soon, it was much clear what she did intend. >> she said, you know, what if i killed him? >> what if i killed him? >> right. she was be so vague. i'm thinking, there's no way she would do it. this is so surreal. who would do that? >> and then that was the last that was set for a while? >> for a bit. and then she started going through scenarios. you know, what if i smothered him? what if i slip has the. you're sitting there and you're like, why are you telling me this? >> she was 12, just for her mother's approval, which is why, she said, she muffled the sudden voice in her head but asked why she was being sent to the store to buy sleeping pills. >> when you went on that aaron, did you have any notion of what they were for. >> she sent it to the store all of the time. >> later on, you saw her doing

something with a sleeping pills? >> crushing them up. >> hunting them up. to powder? >> yeah. >> kim watched jimmy prepare lies favoritism, ice cream with butterscotch topping. watch judy mix and those crushed sleeping pills. watch floyd devour it. next morning, when the boys went after school, judy kept him at home. so she knew her stepfather statement bed, saw her mother crash more pills in law's copy, in his soup, in more ice cream. later, said cam, she heard a racket behind the bedroom door. >> lloyd was trying to get out to go to the bathroom. and they had their fishing poles behind the door. he had the hooks in his hands. >> how. >> yeah. i don't even know that he felt the pain. >> did he say anything? >> he was all tangled up and mumbling. the only thing i understood was, like headset, what in the heck is wrong with me?

he kept falling into the wall. >> she's telling him he's going to be fine. you will feel better soon. >> that, kansas, judy turn around to her, gave her another errant. >> i was told to go outside and get the trunk. clean it out. >> did you understand why you're doing that? >> i think i was too afraid to comprehend what was going on. i was living second to second, during which he was telling me to do. >> but she remembers, she said, clear as if it was this very morning, what happened when she dragged an old trunk back into the house. >> she had come out of the bedroom and she was standing there, smoking. i was in the living room. she just put it out and said, i'm ready. >> coming up -- one moment of horror and a lifetime of pain. >> you just stuff it deep

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stories. home of kentucky derby is suspending racing. churchill downs announcing friday after the death of 12 horses in the past month. track officials say people use the time to re-examine safety measures. and you're in van der sloot, man suspect -- the main suspect in the unsolved 2005 disappearance of high school student, natalee holloway, will be extradited to the u.s. proving officials saying that he's expected to be charged with extortion and fraud of her parents. now, back to dateline. >> welcome back to dateline, i'm major canning. ack to>> judy had spiked her husband's ice cream with the people she had her daughter can

buy. what happened next with something kim would fight very deep. we now continue with, the family secret. >> kimberly, 12 years old, saw her mother standing in the living room up their house on clarks state at boise, idaho. behind the bedroom door, her stepfather was in a stupor, it is by the very slipping pills kim said her mother had sent her to buy. now, said can, she heard her mother say -- i'm ready. >> she told me to go in the bedroom, which i didn't like because we weren't allowed in there. she had been in their prior, checking on him and whatnot. at some point had put him on the floor. on a sheet. and i really didn't know exactly how she was going to do it until i walked in and saw the gun at the end of the bed. she went over and turned up the stereo really loud.

she said it would cover the noise. first she asked me to pull the trigger. >> she gave me a big? and >> no. she was holding it. >> she was holding the gun. >> she wanted -- >> pointed the gun? >> right. >> where? >> at a chess. she said, pull the trigger. as refused to do it. i started screaming at her, what do you want? what do you want from me? what do you want me to do? she said, just cover my ears. i put my hands on either side of her and close my eyes really tight. as she kept saying something. it seemed like forever. and i just screamed instead, you're gonna do, it just do it. it was a moment later. it was the loudest notice i ever heard in my life. i ran out the back yard into the alley. >> cam cowherd there, shaking and listening.

>> i was horrified. i just sat there. i was crying and screaming, rocking back and forth. and listening. >> listening for what? >> for his voice, her voice. something. >> because you didn't think she had actually done it? >> i wasn't sure. maybe she missed. maybe he woke up. you know? a part of me really wanted him to wake up. but i midway way back to the house. >> back to her mother. >> i think she hug me, told me she loved me. >> that was supposed to make it okay. >> yeah. >> it didn't? >> no. >> what happened then? >> i had to go into the room. and the smell was still there. >> small of what? >> gunpowder. and i didn't look at him. i just got the end of my sheet,

didn't i was told. >> the sheet he was lying on? >> fallen down on. she had one end, i had the other. and he was too heavy. he was so heavy. >> this is where you got -- >> i didn't touch a. >> what did it feel like? >> he was still warm. >> but very obviously dead? >> yeah. >> but she was not finish there. not even close. her mother, she said, had another job for her. >> she said, well, with a lift him up and put him in the trunk. i had grabbed him under his legs. and he was so heavy. we got him in there. she just shut the lead, close the latches and way truck at a back and put it next to the house. >> out the door and on the porch? >> stack some boxes on it.

>> judy rented a carpet cleaner. kept helped her clean the blood off of the floors. she scrub the blood off of the wall. she made it look normal. >> but that trump kept sitting there on the porch. what did she do with it? >> a couple of days before she murdered him, she told the boys that we were going to plant peach tree outback. so, we were to take a big hole to put the treatment. and a few days after the murder, the whole civil them, there's no peachtree. she had changed her mind. >> did you ever figure at how she got that trump from the porch to the hole i gotta build them? >> she had asked my brother, shane. >> now there are two people in on it. you and she. did you talk to shade about it? >> not really. >> your brother and sister. the two of you said, my god,

were complicit. that competition ever happened? why not? >> we didn't talk about it. she swung me to secrecy. made me promise. >> there was more to the secret. judy, said, can devised a cover story at when she said it, it sounded true. >> she totally loved that my husband left me for another woman. >> and that was really believable? >> yeah. and there is such a short time after floyd left. floyd was murdered. >> but he had that stuck in your head, wide left. that's fiction. >> that's what we had to say. >> kemp stepped inside, locked up and kept the secret, kept another. happy it wasn't over. if you must, or she said, judy had another job for cam and her brother, shame. couldn't leave a body in the backyard, said judy. they'd have to dig it up. move it.

they buried it in an old trunk they had the property. on the, yard comes, that they started digging. >> we're digging for quite awhile and we came to the trunk. it was falling apart. >> they looked at their mother. what should they do? >> she was so cold, matter-of-fact. grab what you can. as we started pulling it out, there was this horrendous smell. >> he hasn't disintegrated? >> not much. and you can still see his tattoos on his arms. they had decided that it wasn't going to work i just read very. >> so he stayed there. >> he stayed. and you just stop it deep inside. and try to be normal.

>> but of course, it wasn't normal at all. over the years, said can, it was only her conflicted ties to her mother that powerful motional glow, that kept the too close and secret horror bottled up. that and her mother's promise. >> hundreds and hundreds of times she reassured me that, you know, i will go turn myself and if it will make you feel better. >> what should she do? a perfect daughter could never betray her mother, nor could anyone, apparently, and the circle of defeats -- to see that grew and grew. but but trails were coming. and not just one. finally, kemp would learn what what happened to a daughter who disobeyed her mother. >> coming up -- >> my first reaction was one of disbelief almost. >> the police have a job for cam. go undercover to catch her mother. >> well, i just wanted to talk to people something. >> when dateline continues.

>> kimberly was a keeper of an awful family secret, the secret she had never been able to tell her old steps older -- siblings, boys children, that she had attended the murder of their own father. so, they do nothing. nothing at all. in 1981, less than a year after

floyd's murder, judy got married again. life went on as before. 15 years after the murder. judy sold the house and clark street -- street chickens libre they're, who moved in with his new wife, who learned about the secret and insisted, get rid of the body. so, now, kim, married with two kids of her own, return to that childhood home and told her siblings where today. >> i had to go show them where it was. because no one remembered. >> but you did. >> sure. still burned in my memory. >> kim's brothers and a cousin dug up floyd's remains, took it to a dumpster. the secret circle grew and camp felt she loved her mother still, but warned her to. it was ever harder to keep silent. >> i guess i made a deal with her, which was, i would never come right out of tel aviv buddy. i told her that unless somebody

asked me directly, because i won't lie. she didn't like that answer. so, she would always call a do mental check on me. and then do her own stand by promise that she will do the right thing. >> if the time came. >> right. >> but she didn't. now, kim had told. 27 years after the day she helped another cover for murder, detective bryan lee was at her door. >> my first reaction was one of disbelief almost. really? could this have been kept quiet that long? >> what does she look like when she came to the door? >> i wouldn't say she was surprised. almost expecting, probably, that we were going to be there. >> so, she told it again, relieved that getting rid of it. then came the requests she didn't expect. more than a request, really. she would have to go undercover

and record and a criminality phone call with her mother. >> what was that conversation like? >> it was so hard. i was going to have to betray her. to get what they wanted. >> hello? >> hey. >> hey. what are you doing? >> not much. >> here is the call begins, they chatted for a bit about nothing much. and then -- >> we'll, i just wanted to talk to you about something and i will bring it up again. but i started seeing a counselor up here. i talk about everything. but, anyway, i gotta go again today. but, just some things i want to get clear my head. >> yeah? >> it's not something we like to talk about, but why did you pick me to help you kill lloyd? >> honey, i didn't. >> what, why was i there? >> i don't know. this is a setup phone call? >> no. >> can i call you back? >> okay.

>> the call was over. a failure. what did you think when you heard that? >> maybe a little nervous. >> i bet. >> but she was pretty keen to what was going on i think. >> but then, judy called back. they push the record button. >> hello? >> you know, i can't say anything except that you don't know the regress that i've had and that i still have. i don't know that i can answer your question. i don't remember a whole lot of it. you know, we had talked and i was trying to figure out how to get out of it. i remember you just say, do, it do, it do, it do it. >> mom, i was 12. >> i now, kim. i know that. but i'm just telling you what i was hearing. you know what i mean?

and it was like, at that point, there is no turning back. i guess i felt like i was in a hole that i was trying to dig myself out of a pit. i was in hell, i guess. i don't know. and i'm so sorry i took you there with me. >> the police had what they needed. but judy wasn't vanished. >> i guess the only thing i can tell, you can, is that i love a more than i love life. >> i love you too. i'm sorry that i failed you. i am sorry that you have to go through this. i know that doesn't even begin to help, but i lay down my life where you, if that means anything to you. >> felt like i was going to die. i betrayed her. i betrayed my whole family. >> and now, the police wanted more. >> they wanted me to go over to

the house and show them where everything had happened. >> once again, point out the spot where he was buried. >> yeah. >> he was burned into her memory. for three days, the police dug up the past in the backyard on clark street. >> we had to go over and process that area, we whittle the body was. it's part of validating the story that kim told. >> so, it was anything left? >> we found fragments of bone. >> seven bone fragments, all that was left of floyd ford. police were able to determine that at least ten members of judy's family have helped keep the secret. >> in your experience, and one that many people are aware of such a dark thing, doesn't stay hidden for very long? >> now. that's what was puzzling to us. help this was kept quiet for that long. >> it's just a measure of control over those folks that would be unusual. >> very much some.

>> but the statute of limitations applied now. only one person could be held accountable. only judy. thus, the lawful ensure that kim's awful secret would be exposed in court, the crime revealed, justice served, but what it be justice or even the whole truth? kim had turned on judy, but this mother had quite finished yet with her daughter. >> i know she was screaming, do, it do it, do it. just, do it. >> coming up -- judy tells her story and there is one more twist and store. >> a jury could acquit her. >> when dateline continues.

we moved out of the city so our little sophie could appreciate nature. but then he got us t-mobile home internet. i was just trying to improve our signal, so some of the trees had to go. i might've taken it a step too far. (chainsaw revs) (tree crashes) (chainsaw continues) (daughter screams) let's pretend for a second that you didn't let down your entire family. what would that reality look like? well i guess i would've gotten us xfinity... and we'd have a better view. do you need mulch? children's birthday, missed what, we have a ton of mulch.

their graduations, their weddings, sandy's brother water down the aisle. lloyd missed that all, because family was told, he'd left them all, just didn't care. >> just not having him there was really hard. but to think he had walked away, we couldn't even stand up to the point that my brother and i have never had pictures of my dead out in the house. because if you have a picture there, someone is going to have to ask about your dad and you're going to have to admit that the person that you thought you were closest to in the whole world had just turned

and walked away. richard dead now? i don't know. >> of course, it was all a lie. their father never left them. and the truth, when police finally called to tell them -- >> it was almost indescribable to think that he had been murdered the way he had been murdered. with absolutely never guard for human life, just. not treated like a piece of garbage. that was hard. >> yes, and then they discovered that lloyds on some, talk, had unknowingly dug his father's great friend judy told him to prepare a back yard hole to prepare petry. >> i think it is almost impossible to comprehend that type of evil. >> sandy much online as the boise police dug up all that was left of their father. those seven bone fragments. they try to understand how judy

got her own children to help murder their father. >> my dad was the only dad these kids knew. yet, somehow, she got these kids to participate in the murder, to bury the body, to dig up the body later that year. how do you get your kids to do something like that? where is your mind of someone that would do something like that. >> a separate -- december 20, 2000, seven judy, now 61-year-old grandmother, took her dogs for a walk. that is where police arrested her. when they took her downtown -- >> she requested an attorney, right as we sat down. >> that was it? >> yep, there is no interview. >> no surprise? >> not to be, really. she had 27 years to think about that decision. >> judy was charged with first degree murder. that is when patrick or, then a statement, began reporting the state -- >> this is someone who had no criminal record, her friends described her as a kind, loving person, some of the trusted.

so, there was a lot of confusion, there is a lot of shock. >> judy appeared before a judge, who determined she was not a risk and granted bail. six months later, her public defender went on the offense with a stunning claim. >> lloyd, she said, was an abuser. she killed him, she said, in defense of her life and her two children. >> this is a woman who loves she cared for her family. >> reporter or spoke to judy's youngest son. >> he told me that floyd was abusive. >> lloyd, abuse of? his own children for average at the accusation. >> that wasn't who my dad was. it was ludicrous to think that there was anything going on in the home with my dad and jt. >> no obvious. >> no bs. nothing. absolutely nothing. >> as the day for today's trial approach, her claim that void was a diffuser became big noise around boise. which he tried to bettered by defense?

was children, furious over what they considered libel bit their tongues when the prosecutor told them, don't say a word in your father's defense. the truth will come out in trial. except it didn't. the trial didn't happen. judy struck a deal. >> please state your name for the record. >> to plead guilty to second degree murder and confess. although the compression wasn't quite the story her daughter kim remembered. >> i had a rifle. i was sitting on the edge of the bed and i had the gun across my lap. he was sitting on the floor, by my dresser, the gun went off. it was a terrible smell. and he was dead. >> when you civic a top, what do you mean by that? >> your honor, i must have pulled the trigger. >> the judge asked about her daughter, kemp's role in the

murder. >> did you talk to your daughter about killing your husband? >> you know, she said that i did. i don't really recall that part. >> did you call your daughter to come into the room? >> i don't think so. i don't know why she was there. i know she was screaming do it, do it, do it. just do it. >> was she now accusing kim here in court? was she blaming her own daughter somehow? >> the past 30 years she's telling you, i love you that much. and when zero hour came -- >> she threw you under a bus. >> she left me there. >> so the emotion is [inaudible] >> sure. >> you're still that little girl who is trying so hard to make her mother -- >> that's one of the last pieces of my puzzle and working on. abandonment. >> abandonment is a family

issue, apparently. what's first family struggled with it for 27 years until they discovered he didn't leave them at all. now that they take to defend him from a charge they've lived to be a cruel by, they could not, not without a trial. the prosecutor abandoned them now? >> why was it so important to you to see this go to trial? >> this is my dad. this was the only thing that we could do for him. we felt the truth would come out. it would give him back his reputation. she had taken his life, that she has to take his reputation? >> hi, i'm sandra -- >> in march 2009, lloyds kids returned to idaho for j.d. sentencing hearing. >> we sat through her whole sentencing and the ending, the judge acknowledged us six kids and duty as victims. never once mentioned my father. >> this is village assess? >> no.

it feels like they wanted to get this case over with. that it wasn't important to them. >> roger, that chief deputy of the prosecutors office defended the decision. >> we thought that going through a trial where judy gets to take the stand and vilified their father for hours at a time would not be productive for them and would not be productive for the people. the risk, of course, is that a jury could acquit her. that, from our standpoint, would be the worst thing. >> the sentence? for drugging and killing would, for having the kids bury him, jake him up, keep their awful secret, ten years in prison. judy has declined our interview requests. kim has written a book called, unworthy, what would you do for your mother? >> how do you feel about her now? >> i don't feel a lot about her

now. she's dead to me. i don't mean that angry and better because then i'd be like her, but that is not my mom. my mom left a long time ago. >> the house on clark street sits empty. the backyard, overgrown. the secret, the deadly secret, bound the family almost three decades. the unraveling, torn apart forever. >> that's all for this edition of dateline. i'm andrea canning. thank you for watching. tching >> hello, i'm andrea canning. and this is dateline. >> he was a wealthy doctor with