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, raising 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. >> 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 belief in this human being. please listen to us. >> did investigators rush to judgment? do you have any idea beyond your own fevered imagination that's what happened? you don't have a clue. >> i this i that i do have a clue. >> was the real killer still out there? i'm lester holt, and this is "dateline." tonight, keith morrison with "a killing in cottonwood." >> on the afternoon of may 4th, 2012, casey duenas walked out onto 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, it was just another one of my countless baseball games, countless baseball games. >> wasn't of course, though no one knew it as though wiled their way through a golden afternoon. redding, california, with its famous sun dial bridge, its parks, its middle america feel, is a whole different place, a different life than the california whose reputation blares technicolor from the narcissism to the south. drive a few minutes from redding and you're on the ball diamond

at a little place called cottonwood, here at the anchor of mt. shasta, just like they knew their mother would be in the stands. they were there? >> both of them. >> always there? >> always there, never missed a game. >> his parents, mark and karen duenas, 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 to the players after every game and for 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 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 by 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 sons' 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? >> yes, 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 own business while collecting a pension, and then 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 and wife, jackie. >> well her commitments changed, having grandma there when you need her or having mom there when you need her, she's going to have to study. >> and she was struggling with the classes. she felt like she should be doing better but i remember a text that said "i just got back from the er and got the chance to work with people finally and i love it." so she was on her way. she was really on her way. >> so that may the 4th casey joined his parents at home after his ball game. then, it being friday night, he and a friend went to see a movie "the avengers."

>> started up 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? >> put my head on the pillow and two seconds later dad is at the door freaking out. >> and seconds later -- >> 911, your emergency? >> the duenas family was about to discover that a perfectly ordinary evening had ended in tragedy. >> she's got blood everywhere. everywhere. >> when we return, a dad devastated. is one tragedy about to become two? >> i remember him coming in the door and just collapsing. >> falling on the floor. ♪

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it was 12:30 a.m., now may 5th, 2012. casey duenas, home from a movie and late dinner with friends, opened the front door, unlocked as usual, and moved quietly down the little hallway toward his bedroom. had it not been so late he might

have stopped by his mother's room to say good night, but the house was dark, everyone asleep, so it looked to an exhausted casey who fell into bed and almost immediately into a deep sleep, and then 25 minutes later -- >> dad is at the door, freaking out, go next door, go next door, go get jason. something's happened to your mom. go get jason. >> jason ran next door to his brother jason's house. >> 911 your emergency. >> while his father mark beside himself called mmg. >> she i came in she's got blood everywhere. i have no idea. >> you have no idea what happened? you don't know where she's bleeding from. >> no, i don't, there's blood everywhere. >> are you with her now? >> yes, oh it's in her chest, a big xwash in her chest. >> and jason woke up to the horror two ways at once, fire department alarm, brother alarm.

>> i was asleep as a volunteer firefighter i have a pager, the pager went off, and i could hear casey coming up the stairs, yelling at me, in a panic q 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. there was his father, in full blown panic and lying on the floor in a puddle of blood was his mother, and the rookie firefighter for an instant to his eternal regret, froze. >> if i would have come on that situation now, i would have immediately started 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 pronounced

dead. the cause, multiple stab wounds, including a massive gash to her chest. not long after that, the young detective arrived, logan stonehouse, 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 in until i saw a picture on the wall and realized whose house i was in. >> you knew these people, right? >> i did. 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, the one who brought cookies to all the games at school. who could have done this? detectives were 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 was 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 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 the 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, 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'm in my room asleep. >> what happened? >> i hear crazy noise, and you know, you hear a cat sound like, it wasn't cat cats. it was a weird -- >> was it talking? >> no, i heard weird screaming type. >> what did you do?

>> i ran -- i got up because i didn't want those, whatever it was going on to wake up my wife, because you know, i'm sensitive like that, and i went to the 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, so i figure 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 they could keep his shorts and t-shirts for testing and then sent him home to hadis children. >> i remember him coming in the door and just collapsing. >> falling on the floor, we we were really worried about him, he kept saying his heart. we thought 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 karen's brother joe, and wife jackie, descended on cottonwood. >> you've 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 lived 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.

they measure time in units of pain in little cottonwood, california, during the surreal minutes and hours and days after karen duenas was murdered. >> the best way i can explain my mom is 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 going, 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 -- >> that's ridiculous. i know there was 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 when 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 lives, 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. co-worker asked him if he'd ever gone on facebook. no, said mark, he hadn't. well, asked the colleague, haven't you ever wondered what happened 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, carried away with a little texting here and there. >> carried away?

well, that may be a little strong in this age of sexting and lured electronic dalliances. they talked and texts for several months, even said "i love you" a time or two, 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 i've just maybe, uhm, me or her, you know, just little innocent, uhm, you know -- we're not into any of that nasty porn, none of that, it was what do you look like now. she had sent a picture of her and she goes your turn. she does a quilt, took a picture of her quilt and showed it to me. just innocent stuff. she had a picture of her grandkid 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 of more than three decades or their kids or grandkids, 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, the 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-hum. >> she was never going to leave me. >> never going to leave you. >> 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 didn't do it, and i, i mean -- it's crazy. >> it's just like o.j., we need to be out there finding the real killers, right? lapd, they didn't have to 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. >> for youngest son casey it explained the tension between his parents a few months before his mother's murder. >> there was a good span where they didn't get along but it was a while before. >> yes, 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 just seeing, you know, it's my dad, along with other family members, but

you know, of course it 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, in a way. >> coming up, mark duenas is in for a bitter shock. >> he was upset, like, are you kidding me? >> and what his family did next which surprised everyone. sort of thing hardly ever happens. >> yeah, like never. i sneeze... there goes my sensitive bladder. sound familiar? then you'll love this. always discreet. incredible protection... in a pad this thin. i didn't think it would work. but the super absorbent core turns liquid to gel for incredible protection. so i know i'm wearing it... but no one else will. always discreet. i've discovered incredible... bladder leak underwear that hugs every curve. can't tell i'm wearing it... can you? always discreet underwear. for bladder leaks.

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returning to our story, karen duenas, a mom to five boys, has been murdered. her husband, mark has done something unusual, he volunteered to police that months earlier he was carrying on a relationship by phone and by text with a woman who was once his teenage crush. mark insists it was innocent, certainly not a motive to kill his wife.

his sons believe him, but what about detectives? again, keith morrison. >> 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 $1 million bail, to await trial >> to see him in that situation is surreal. you hope the system works, because there's an innocent man up there having to go through this. >> the whole extended clan, including karen's family, told anybody who would listen that the police made a huge mistake. >> you've never heard him 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. >> family support is 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, but 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 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, and theirs, filled the galleries every day to support him. >> we 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 that 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 said he meant he had to kill karen not 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 said, 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 that we did have was that he wanted casey to find karen. >> he's sleeping peacefully, is that the idea? >> correct. >> and he covered his tracks? >> correct. >> except, of course, casey didn't discover the body, so, said the state, about 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 got a -- my wife and blood everywhere. >> what did he say? "i killed my wife" the state says and a well-known barnyard expletive. listen again.

>> i killed my wife and blood everywhere. >> an unintended confession caught on tape, or so said the prosecution. so you 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 listened to it i don't know 100 times, 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, i got my wife and blood everywhere. >> "i found my wife" and then that sound the state claims was an expletive the defense said was reading the word "sick" so i found my wife sick. listen again. >> i got, i -- my wife sick and blood everywhere. >> 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 happened? what are they waiting for? they didn't arrest him until 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 intended on theft could certainly have been surprised by karen, then killed her, then fled. there was an unidentified car parked nearby 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 those 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 for 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'd you feel about it? >> i was pretty confident. you could see in the jury's face that 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 fate turned. >> coming up, jurors get the case and aren't impressed. >> i thought the sheriff's department did a terrible job. >> really, terrible job? >> terrible job.

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>> here are three members of the jury. this one is a retired chief probation officer and former cop. he was surprised by the case, he said, and not in a good way. >> i thought the sheriff's department did a terrible job. >> really? terrible job? >> terrible job in their investigation. >> in fact the jurors we spoke to said that feeling was pervasive in the jury room and the 911 call prosecutors claimed was a confession the jury couldn't decide what he said. >> we listened to it many, many times. >> 20 times at least. >> at least, yes. >> still couldn't tell? >> no. >> the jury took vote after vote, tended to acquittal at one

guilty vote.e juror in 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. >> afterwards, 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 a 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 awe new prosecutor to the case, stephanie bridgette. something to know about miss bridgette, 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 finished 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. >> and so two months after the first jury came back hung, a retrial. first order of business, the prosecutor subpoenaed 12 members of mark's family, including his most vocal supporters, which meant, of course, they could not sit in the gallery supporting mark during the trial. seven of the 12 were never called to testify.

so was it a strategy to prevent the jury from seeing a united family? no, said the prosecutor, it wasn't. >> that would be an unethical use of my subpoena power to do such a thing. >> are you saying this was not a strategy? >> absolutely not. >> what was it like in that second trial when you couldn't be there? >> it eats you alive, it's like they treated us like we were on this big coverup for my dad, but this he forgot the victim was my mom. >> 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. but 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 his shirt that could have had 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? >> absolutely. >> like 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 to 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 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.

november 2013, a chilly autumn wind played round the corners of that big courthouse in the middle of redding and inside defense attorney ron powell fretted that he had been short of a certain advantage because now the prosecution knew his case and besides had added these new wrinkles, the blood on mark's clothes and the knife in the kitchen butcher block. >> remember, this is a retrial now. they felt this time they needed to show the possibility of a knife. they never said this was the knife. they're just saying this knife could have done it. in fact, said powell the new evidence was no more persuasive than the old, no blood and animal fat found in the knife

and some sort of soap in how about somebody used the knife to cut a steak and then washed it? could you wipe all the dna off a knife you put in the dishwasher? >> 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. 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 is 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 go in there. >> do you have any idea beyond your own fevered imagination that that's what happened? you don't have a clue. >> well, you know, all the evidence presents, points to that so yes, i think that i do that. >> how does all the evidence point to that? >> we have a person who has been in a relationship with a lady in another state. >> let me stop you 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 for 30 years. you can't really call that an affair, can you? >> here's the big difference it becomes an affair and crosses the line when you don't tell your spouse about it 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's got a law degree.

i never saw a psychology degree. from mark and karen's sons, the psychoanalysis 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, you know, of course you're going to feel that way. this is his family. they've 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 deadlocked came so close to acquittal 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 voice boys right behind mark, it was very tough. >> guilty of first-degree murder. >> sick. i started throwing up to be honest, i was sick. >> i feel bad for the family members because the family members, they're not going to be happy with the verdict, but in, 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 got justice at all. >> well, i would tell them that i'm confident that the right person was convicted. >> mark duenas was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. he's already filed an appeal. 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 and his growing family still live right next door to the home he grew you up in, the place it happened, and casey still goes to bed every night across the hall from his mother's bedroom. and how is that to do? >> scary. i mean, it was always a cottonwood small town, nothing happens here and then the worse you can imagine happens. >> casey and his brother, troy, no longer play baseball for t local college now, but when they look toward the bleachers where their parents always sat side by side, cheering them on, there is no one there.

>> that's all for now. i'm lester holt. thanks for joining us. . this sunday, a presidency in crisis. new urgency in the russia investigation as president trump's former national security adviser mike flynn asked for immunity from prosecution to tell his story. >> flynn said himself if you want immunity you must be guilty. >> the president called it a pitch hu witch-hunt. a top republican disagrees. >> no, it's not a witch-hunt. it's mysterious why all of a sudden general flynn is out there saying he wants immunity. plus, supreme court battle. will senate republicans finish what democrats started? and end the filibuster to confirm neil gorsuch. russia, the supreme court and a struggling presidency. this morning i'll be joined by the senate's top two