she was my very best friend. i called my mom and she didn't answer. i pretty much knew in my heart that something was wrong. >> a mother vanished. >> i cried myself to sleep. it was the just awful realizing that your worst nightmare had come true. >> a family anguished. >> she's gone. >> do you have any idea how hard that was? >> now the questions begin. in a southern gothic mystery. >> the case is puzzling. >> we didn't really know what had happened. >> who would ever imagine you would have a murder in your

family? >> soon there would be secrets. >> we were dealing with a person that was leading a double life. >> and one of them would prove deadly. >> have you ever said "i know that you did this"? >> it hurts too much for me to say it out loud. >> keith morrison with "secrets in a small town." good evening, welcome to "dateline." i'm lester holt. her life ended in mystery on a dead end road. a mother of three who had gone missing. for police, the investigation seemed to hit a dead end, too. but they promised this family they would never quit. then a small town story led to a very big break. and to a suspect that surprised just about everyone. here's keith morrison. >> suppose for a minute you were sitting in your car, smack dab in the middle of tuscaloosa, alabama, and you pointed

southwest down i-69 and kept a sharp eye out after half an hour or so. you would roll into a sweet little place called moundville. one stoplight, one general store. been around for quite a while. it's a sad truth, as the sheriff says, even here where everybody used to know everybody. >> it's not that way anymore. so many people are moving in from around the world. >> trying to escape the crowds. >> escape the crowd or running from something. >> where have you gone, andy griffith? mayberry has left us. sheriff ellis fights real crime now. >> the cream heime here is the s in any city, just a smaller version. >> still, neighbors tend to know more of each other's business than they might in tuscaloosa, for example, which can be a

nuisance if you need to keep a secret. especially if your secret is about murder. to begin with, this thoughtful young woman was just 17 in 2007 when things started coming apart in the way things do when parents don't talk about it. kelsey mayfield saw the troubled look in her mom's eyes, mostly. her mom teresa. >> i could tell she was very stressed. >> ever clear to you what she was stressed about? >> money would be the main thing. she just wanted to be sure she had enough money to take care of her family. >> a lot of that going around, of course. moundville not excepted. like so many americans kelsey's dad scott had to work two jobs, neither of which paid well, just to keep his head above water. >> very hard-working man. it took two jobs to take care of our family. >> but money trouble aside, teresa seemed to have a happy life, as anybody could see,

including teresa's mother reba. >> all teresa ever wanted was to have a husband that cared for her, somebody she cared for and to have a family. >> it was sweet and kind of corny. even after kelsey's two brothers arrived she could see the signs of her parents' affection for each other. >> every night before he went to work he would give her a kiss and say good night, say i love you. >> to the town, teresa was the softball mom. the trunk of her car always a muddle of bats and balls, she shuffling kids back and forth. there was a time i haa softball game and tanner and cody had a baseball game all at the same time. she stayed 30 minutes at each game. >> just watching on the clock to make sure it was equal. >> she was just an amazing mother. there was nothing she would not do for myself or my brothers. >> then there was the sweltering morning, june 2007.

teresa drove off to run errands and didn't come back. kelsey was baby sitting the boyes, then 8 and 11. hours ticked by. she called mom. where are you? >> she didn't answer. then i called her back around lunch and she didn't answer. i called all day long. >> her dad was at work. her mom was -- who knew where? it just wasn't like her to do this. >> is she the sort of person who would take her cell phone with her? >> yes. it was attached to her hip. >> you could easily get ahold of her? >>. h. >> and you couldn't? >> no. >> by nightfall, no word. kelsey called her dad who by now had gone from the day job to his night shift at a factory. >> i'm sure you told your dad you were worried. >> we kept in touch to see if one of us talked to her. >> did he seem worried? >> he did. we could never get in touch with her. >> at midnight it was clear.

something was terribly wrong. scott left work to file a missing persons report with the police. and then they all waited. what was it like for you that night? >> it was awful. i was very scared when she didn't come home. and i pretty much knew in my heart that something was wrong. >> the next morning kelsey woke up in a house that no longer felt like home. she called her grandmother reba at her home in prattville, two hours away. >> she said, is mama there, at your house? i said, no. she's not here. she said -- mama didn't come home last night. >> what was going on here? >> i was just turning upside down. i'm just tied in a knot. >> reba called teresa's younger sister ashley at her office at the local circuit court. >> mama called me and said, teresa's missing. i said, let me make some calls.

>> ashley called the sheriff of his town who called sheriff ellis. >> to see if they knew anything. his response to me was, it's bad. it's bad. >> it certainly was. they found teresa's truck on a dirt road less than a mile from home. she was slumped behind the wheel and she was dead. this much was perfectly clear. it wasn't an accident. >> coming up, the investigation begins. >> we had to ask ourselves who would get her to this location and why was she murdered? >> when "secrets in a small town" continues. exclusive to the military, and commitment is not limited to one's military oath. the same set of values that drive our nation's military are the ones we used to build usaa bank. with our award winning apps that allow you to transfer funds,

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it was a lover's lane, a quiet dusty dead end road miles from main street in moundville. a spot so uncommonly traversed a car with engine running, tail lights blazing late into the night could go unnoticed. it was here they found teresa mayfield's truck, body inside, gunshot wound to the head. teresa's younger sister broke the terrible news to their mother. >> when i went to the house, mama was sitting in the recliner. i knelt down on my knees. i grabbed her and i said, mama, she's gone. she's gone. do you have any idea how hard that was? teresa's daughter kelsey had spent a sleepless night waiting in vain for her mother to come home. >> how did you find out?

>> my dad told my brothers and i. it was awful realizing your worst nightmare had come true. for a brief second i thought she had committed suicide just because i knew how stressed out she was. but then i also knew how much she loved her family. >> everybody who knew teresa knew that. even sheriff ellis who drove out to the crime scene -- if that's what it was. corporal boyd, alabama bureau of investigation, met him there. this case was personal for you, sheriff. >> yes, sir. my daughter and ms. teresa and scott's daughter played softball together. >> so you would see teresa at the ballpark. >> every game. felt like part of my family was gone, too. >> they had a look around the truck. no sign of a struggle. dusting revealed no viable fingerprints. there were no footprints. not even a loose hair. puzzling. was there any thought once you

saw the scene that this was a suicide? >> there was things missing that prevented the suicide theory. >> like what? >> if you're going to commit suicide with a gun, it's usually at the scene. >> it was clear teresa had been murdered, shot with a gun which was now missing. and what was more, her cell phone -- the one that was always attached to her hip -- was nowhere to be found. >> did it look like it could have been a robbery? >> well, the wallet wasn't taken. the purse was on the console. but the contents of the purse had been dumped out in her lap. >> a clumsy attempt at staging, you might say? >> yes. >> there was one important clue the killer left behind. >> we noticed ha the only window down was the driver's window. so we figured she had to have known the person because she let down her window.

we had to ask ourselves who could get her to this location and why was she murdered? >> someone in moundville had to know something. from there, the investigation went -- where? >> investigating her inner circle. trying to find a motive. >> usually, so i'm told, in cases like this, the husband has got to be a person of interest. >> yes. >> so as the family gathered to mourn the loss of teresa, scott couldn't be with them. he was down at the sheriff's office answering questions. >> he came willingly. >> yes. >> no issue. did he ask for an attorney or anything? >> no, he did not. >> corporal boyd chatted with scott for three long hours. during the whole time, he was cooperative and helpful. >> you know, the standard questions that we would ask is, you know, is anyone having an affair? are you having an affair? no. was she having an affair? no. >> good marriage? happy marriage? christian marriage.

>> right. i asked did they argue. he said no. >> scott answered all the questions about what teresa was doing that morning. he said he phoned teresa from the morning job, a wake-up call and two hours later she called him. but the call faded out. he couldn't hear a thing. >> scott said it sounded like she was on the road. >> he thought nothing of it then, he said. but now -- was it a distress call? no way to know. there was one thing that call certainly cleared up for investigators. scott could not have killed teresa. he was something like 30 miles away up near tuscaloosa and had a breakfast receipt to prove it. >> he stopped at hardees and had a receipt showing he was there. >> scott joined his family caught up in the terrible business of grieving. >> i kept wondering why it was happening to our family. >> it was awful. who would ever imagine you would have a murder in your family?

>> investigators tried with the help of friends to fill in the gaps of teresa's last hours. they spoke with scott and teresa's friend dawn lavender. she had plans to shop with teresa that morning. >> i'm sure she was upset. >> she did cry during the interview. she was at her house waiting on teresa to come pick her up. she was going to ride with her. she finally got a chance to talk to teresa around 7:00. >> after that call, nothing. dawn told the investigators she phoned teresa over and over. each time the phone went to a recording. just to be sure of this, they pulled teresa's cell phone records and began plotting a timeline of her whereabouts, but the picture the records painted wasn't what they expected. that morning call to scott -- the one he couldn't hear -- teresa didn't call from moundville. >> the cell tower shows it's

pinging from tuscaloosa. >> that's miles and miles away. >> right. there is no way she could have made the call and been back to the location where she was murdered at. >> courtesy of the cell towers you were able to show that teresa couldn't have made that call. had to be somebody else using her phone and, what do you know, her phone is missing from the crime scene. >> correct. >> so the person who likely killed teresa mayfield must have used teresa's cell phone to call her husband, scott. what could that mean? did the killer know scott? did scott know something he wasn't sharing? >> coming up -- >> we were dealing with a person that was leading a double life. >> secrets andies. >> this was betrayal. >> that's a very good word. >> when "dateline" continues. the applebee's 2 for $20. ] an appetizer and two entrees for 20 bucks. and it just got even better with all-new southwest flavors. but only the best dishes make the menu, and the competition is cutthroat. it's not cutthroat at all.

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it's a funny thing about secrets. they can only stay hidden for so long. especially in a little place like moundville. it didn't take long for sheriff ellis and corporal boyd to stumble on a secret scott had been keeping. >> while we were at the crime scene, scott had a young lady to come pick up the boys. >> it was only later when the fog of grief had lifted that one of teresa's relative wondered to police, who was that woman hanging around the day teresa died? ellis and boyd tracked her down. what they discovered -- well, that changed everything.

or seemed to. the perpendiculson they were ta was scott's mistress. >> she was under the impression that scott was not married at that time. >> what did you make of that when you heard it? >> we knew that wasn't correct. >> a love triangle? jealous homewrecker kills wife, claims husband? no, not even close. scott's girlfriend thought his marriage was over, his divorce finalized. >> what was her reaction to getting the real story? she must have been upset. >> more hurt probably than upset. i think she had fallen in love with him. >> he'd been lying like a sidewalk. >> that's right. >> you had no idea that woman was associated with him that way either, did you? >> i had met her once or twice. uh just thought they were friends. i didn't think it was anything else. >> this was betrayal in all capital letters. >> that's a very good word.

>> you're betrayed. >> by two -- yeah. taken advantage of. >> kelsey may have been surprised but teresa's mom and sister knew better. this wasn't scott's first dance with infidelity. oh, no. there had been others. in fact, scott and teresa divorced during one of his affairs. that was just after kelsey was born. then, three years later, teresa took him back, remarried him. >> she wanted to have her family back together. that was her whole thing -- family. >> what was it like for you when scott came into your house? what would happen here as he walked in the door? >> i tried to be social with scott. he hurt my sister and i would not forget it. >> for a while things were as teresa hoped. but wishes don't always come true. soon scott was back to his old

ways with that girl cops were talking to in tuscaloosa. you know how gossip can be. scott went from bereaved widower to cad. and maybe worse. >> you must have been aware of the fact that people were suspicious of him. >> it bothered me hearing the bad things people had to say about him. i knew my dad was never capable of doing something like that. you know, i was going to have his back regardless. >> but, to investigators, scott's affair and the fact that he lied about it to police was suspicious. ellis and boyd asked the girlfriend to help them out by recording her conversations with scott. maybe he'd let something slip. [ phone ringing ] >> hello? >> hey. >> are you okay? >> yes, i'm okay. they just left. look, all i want to know -- did you do it?

>> of course not. they told me i would be the number one prime suspect because i'm the husband. >> do you still love me? >> yes, i do. >> if you did have anything to do with her dying was it because you loved me? >> i didn't have nothing to do with it. no, no, no. i had nothing. my hands are clean as they can be. >> so, infidelity? yes. murder, hmm, didn't sound like it. >> we could prove that he was an adulterer. we were trying to prove the murder. >> guess there's no crime against being a lying sack of -- you know what. >> it's not against the law to have a mistress. >> so now the corporal and the sheriff reverted to standard procedure. they followed up every tip, tracked down every tenuous lead, knocked down rumors. somebody called scott from teresa's cell phone that morning, whether he heard it or

not. the investigation dragged on. weeks and months went by and there was knnothing. >> you have no idea how that anger will get the best of you. not knowing who done this. you want the person that done this to be punished for out. >> kelsey took on the most difficult job of her life. at 17 she stepped into her mother's shoes, defended her father, tried to maintain something of a normal life for her little brothers. >> me trying to fill my mother's shoes, those are some big shoes to fill. i just felt like it was my responsibility to help my dad take care of my family. >> so you were able to continue to have a relationship of trust with your father. >> right. >> he was there for you guys. >> yes. he tried to be strong for us. so, you know, we wouldn't have a breakdown.

>> by the first anniversary of teresa's death, there was still no arrest and the story was old news. so teresa's mother plastered this poster on doors and windows and telephone polls around moundville hoping it would dislodge some clue. and then, the weirdest thing happened. >> we found out that just about as quick as we were putting posters up, they were being taken down. >> taken down by someone who didn't want teresa's killer found, she presumed. and a dark thought crystallized in reba's mind. was it scott? >> you know, he never acted like a grieving husband. if he had, i wouldn't have had these thoughts. >> your thoughts actually increased over the course of the time you were with him. >> yes. >> but you know what they say about assumptions. it wasn't scott. >> me and my brothers took them down. >> at first i was okay with it. once they put the posters up and everywhere i went i saw my

mother's face it broke my heart seeing her face splattered all over the poster. >> so expectations faded again. a couple more months went by and then a girl who knew kelsey heard a strange little story. overheard a guy saying he saw someone with a gun on a dirt road around the time teresa was killed. >> did she associate it with this crime? >> she knew miss teresa was killed down that way. so she just reported it. >> was this the break they were looking for? well, we can tell you this. the tip led to real flesh and blood. in fact, to a quite literal snake in the grass. >> coming up, a curious incident from teresa's past. could it shed light on the crime? >> i looked at her and said, you need to stay away from that woman. >> when "secrets in a small

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under a setting sun on a sweltering summer night two years after her death teresa mayfield's friends and family gathered to remember. >> i talked to her almost every day. i miss those talks. >> they took turns talking about the softball mom, the sweet woman gunned down on a lonely country road. a murder that was a mystery. >> my family will not stop searching or doing whatever it takes to find out who took teresa's life. >> when scott got up to speak you can bet people were paying special close attention. >> yes, she was a loving wife, loving mother, and a loving friend to the community. yes, she would do anything for anybody at any time.

>> having discovered he was not exactly husband of the year, some people nursed a lingering suspicion. yet here he was devoted to the care of his children and full of praise for his dead wife. >> she did a wonderful job raising these kids. she was the one who got them to practice on time, got them to ball games on time. >> when sheriff ellis walked up to the podium he looked at teresa's mother reba and vowed he'd get justice yet. >> ms. reba, i won't quit until we find out what happened to ms. teresa. >> in fact, as he spoke the sheriff and the corporal were chasing down their first honest to god lead in, what, over a year? didn't seem like much really. not at first. just an overheard story from a guy in a bar. something about how he and a friend ran into someone with a gun. not uncommon here except it happened around the same time and not far from where the

murder occurred. ellis and boyd tracked the kid down. he repeated the story for them. >> they were on a dirt road. they came upon a snake -- a rattlesnake. they were trying to kill it , find something to kill it with. >> trouble was they were out of rattlesnake killing tools and an suv happened to pull up behind them. the driver was a woman in her 40s or thereabouts who, said the young man, offered them a sure fire way to dispatch that rattlesnarattl rattlesnake. >> the lady had a gun. >> right. >> it was a handgun inside a plastic bag. >> i think she handed him the bag for him to take it out. >> that was weird. why was it in the bag. >> right. >> a peculiar story for sure. certain details were fuzzy. the kid couldn't remember the exact day but he did recall with absolute clarity who the driver was.

because he knew her. knew her name. here was the most curious thing of all. it was a name you've heard before. dawn lavender. small town moundville suddenly got smaller. dawn lavender, you will recall, was teresa's friend, the one who said she waited in vain for teresa to pick her up on the morning of the murder. great buddies, according to dawn. but maybe not so much, said kelsey. >> if her and my mom saw each other at games they would speak. they weren't friends or anything. >> they went out? >> i think my mother did it because she was bored and wanted out of the house. >> at least on one occasion it was certainly memorable and not in a good way. they went to a local casino one night, she said. her mother came home stumbling. >> i thought she was drunk. i knew that couldn't be right. she didn't drink. she didn't even know where she

was at. you couldn't understand a word she was saying. my dad and i got her and put her in bed. >> how long did she sleep? >> she slept for two days. two straight days. >> what did you think about that? >> i thought it was strange. she really didn't remember what happened. she just knew she had taken some pills, i believe. >> how did she get them? >> i believe dawn gave hem the to her. >> do you remember how teresa was stressed out the last weeks of her life? the night of the casino trip dawn gave her xanax just to calm her down, dawn told her. it certainly did that. out like a light calm for two days. >> i looked at her and i said, teresa, you need to stay away from that woman. she is no friend of yours. >> how did teresa respond? >> she said, i learned my lesson. >> or maybe she didn't. because the morning of the

murder teresa arranged to run errands with dawn. or at least that's what dawn said. then it all clicked together. dawn on the dirt road, a gun in a plastic bag. teresa's car window down as though she knew her killer. sheriff ellis and corporal boyd picked apart dawn's interview. they pulled her phone records. there it was. plain as day. dawn's lies caught by cell phone technology. >> it painted a clear picture that dawn was in the location of teresa the morning she was murdered. >> why in heaven's name would a woman who claimed to be teresa's friend want to kill her? good question which perhaps they would get answered once they accused dawn lavender of murder. which they did. she, however, had but one thing to say to police. >> she just kept saying that it was wrong, that we made a mistake.

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on june 11, 2010, almost three years to the day teresa mayfield was killed, sheriff ellis and corporal boyd drove to the wire factory where dawn lavender worked. she was halfway through her day shift. they told her she was under arrest for the murder of her friend teresa mayfield. >> she first wanted to know why we were arresting her. when we got to the jail she said this was wrong, that we made a mistake. >> the corporal and the sheriff were only too happy to explain to assistant d.a. tim evans how one clue led to another and then to the conclusion. but the prosecutor had questions -- pointed ones. >> you could tell it would be difficult. >> where was the smoking gun? where was the murder weapon? where was one single fingerprint tying dawn to the crime? >> as far as physical evidence, we really didn't have any.

it was truly circumstantial. we didn't really know anything about what happened. >> as far as evans could see the case was a maybe at best. she had no reason to kill teresa. so, you know, to bring a case against her would be tough, i would think. >> the case with dawn is puzzling. when you're working with a circumstantial case every piece of evidence is definitely important. >> not that corporal boyd and sheriff ellis thought for a second they were wrong. they believed dawn was the killer. they told the prosecutor not only dawn murdered teresa but they were convinced she tried and failed to kill her with a xanax overdose at the casino. >> the sheriff's department believed that was an attempt on her life, but we had nothing to support that. >> if tim evans was to get a conviction he needed more evidence, some concrete proof that dawn pulled the trigger. you can bet dawn wasn't about to tell them anything.

but that doesn't mean she wasn't talking. >> we had another young lady getting out of jail. she came to us and said that dawn had been talking about the murder. >> but that could have been just gossip, mind you, from a jailhouse snitch who couldn't back it up. but dawn did have a cell mate. >> she was in a jam herself. she wanted us to try to help her. we can put a word in to the d.a. or put a word in to the judge. >> that was enough to get cooperation from her? >> right. >> the objective was simple. get dawn a talking. wrangle something that at least sounded like a confession. ellis and boyd outfitted the cell mate with a digital recorder, no bigger than a match box. on a friday afternoon as dawn sat in her cell reviewing her case file, her cell mate walked in and waited for some incriminating tidbit.

what she got instead was the whole sickening story. here's what dawn told her cell mate. around 7:00 a.m. dawn called teresa with a lie to set the plan in motion. >> i wasn't taking any more vacation days. i told her my car was dead. >> she claimed her car had broken down, could teresa pick her up? of course she said yes. finished drying her hair, got into her car, made the short drive to the dirt road. there, standing alongside the road was dawn. >> she turned away and i shot her. i see this blood coming out. i'm like [ bleep ]. i touched her neck. >> oh, no. >> anyway, i crawled inside the truck. drove it.

>> with calculated cold precision, dawn lavender lured teresa mayfield to the dirt road. she then shot her in the back of the head. then steered her car into the brush, hoping it would stay hidden for a while. >> you're going to have to lie. >> i know. poor little innocent dawn. >> cold blooded killer. >> if you think about it, that's exactly right. >> yeah. terrible to look at it that way though. >> yeah. >> it was all there. a prosecutor's dream confession. she even referred to herself as a cold blooded killer. but there was one question anyone with a beating heart wanted to ask. why? there had to be an answer. of that they were sure. would they ever get it out of her? >> why in the hell did you do it? >> coming up --

>> at some point she was calling herself a hit man. >> a hit man, but for whom? another painful revelation was in store for teresa mayfield's family. >> it hurts too much for me to say it out loud. >> coming up sunday on "dateline" -- >> hi, guys. >> he's pretending to be a sweet-talking stranger. >> how would you like free ice cream? >> yeah! >> but this is really a hidden camera test. could your child be lured into his vehicle? >> have you ever been in an ice cream truck? >> watch and see how real the danger can be. >> he could easily shut that door and take off. >> hey, guys. >> what would you like? >> natalie morales puts kids to the test -- including her own. >> i'm partly almost crying. at the same time i can't believe it. >> advice that every paren

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>> i have to look just like poor innocent dawn. not the cold blooded killer i am. >> dawn lavender sounded for all the world like she was boasting as she confessed to her cell mate that she murdered teresa mayfield in cold blood. in fact, in recorded conversations with her cell mate dawn not only admitted to shooting teresa but said she tried once before. that strange night at the casino when teresa came home stumbling was her first attempt at murder. >> i had everything you could

think of mashed up. i gave it to her. >> she wouldn't die? >> she did not. woke up the next night. >> the answer to the whole puzzle comes down to one word. dawn uses it when telling her cell mate what she did. >> i mean, we tried over dosing her. >> we? dawn wasn't acting alone. she had a coconspirator. >> i don't know if she was trying to be a show-off because she was calling herself a hit man. >> how much was it supposed to be? >> 20. 15, 20. >> dawn was a hired gun for -- you guessed it. scott mayfield. >> she was a loving wife, loving mother. the man who praised his dead wife, his grieving children by his side was the architect of her death. a revelation that finally made sense of a trail of disturbing stories the investigators were

running down for months. >> we had one guy that worked in moundville. scott offered him $500 to kill his wife. a little while later we got a call from another guy's son saying his dad wanted to talk to me. scott approached him about killing his wife. >> his response to scott was, get a divorce. that's what divorces are for. >> then a third man told them a story. >> he told us that scott mayfield hired him, had given him $15,000 to kill his wife. he didn't have any intention on killing her. she just wanted the man's money. >> what's the old saying? two is a coincidence, three is a pattern? which is why even before dawn told her tale on tape, in fact on the same day dawn was arrested, a warrant was issued for scott. kelsey was outside mowing the lawn when she saw a cop car whiz by, then another and another.

she called her dad on his cell phone. i asked him where he was at. he said, the cops have me pulled over. >> your dad was being arrested. that had to be a shock. >> i was confused. so i asked the arresting officer why are you arresting my dad? he said it was solicitation and conspiracy. >> to commit murder. >> to commit murder, yes. >> in other words, he said your father was responsible for the death of your mother. >> mm-hmm. >> still, as he sat behind bars awaiting his day in court he assured his children that it was all a mistake. he was innocent. >> what did you expect would happen? >> i thought he would be found not guilty and he would be able to come home. >> at that point the case against scott was almost entirely circumstantial. that was until dawn got to talking to the cell mate, the one with the little recording device. sure enough as the whole story spilled out there was scott's name on tape.

proof at last. >> did scott give you the gun? >> he stole it from his daddy. >> dud you give him the gun back? >> once the job was done, the car half hidden by brush, dawn said she drove to tuscaloosa and dialled a familiar number from teresa's cell phone to let her boss know his wife was dead. >> did you tell him to let him know it was done? >> i called. >> the only thing left was to collect the $20,000 scott promised her and to go. except -- >> did he give you money? >> he said you keep your mouth shut and i'll keep mine shut.

>> but she didn't keep her mouth shut. >> from what i could tell he was just a coward. he wanted a divorce but he didn't want to live with the responsibilities that accompanied a divorce. >> in other words he didn't want to pay her alimony. >> or child support. evil is the only thing you can use to describe that man -- evil. >> on may 19, 2011, almost four years after teresa mayfield was gunned down on the lonely dirt road her mother, sister and daughter sat in a courtroom. and listened as dawn and scott having pleaded guilty to murder and attempted murder were each sentenced to two consecutive life sentences. >> he looked straight at me like he was looking at a tree or something. there was no emotion. neither was there anything from dawn. it was like they were empty inside. >> for kelsey, it was simply overwhelming.

at the moment of sentencing, for the very first time, she saw her dad not as the loving father who took her shopping for her senior prom dress but as a man who orchestrated the death of her mother. >> have you ever brought up the issue with him? said, i know that you did this? >> one day i will. i don't have it in me right now to confront him and tell him what i know. it hurts too much for me to say it out loud. for me to tell my dad i know what he did. and that i -- uh hate what he did. but he's still my father. i will always love him. >> her mother loved him, too. loved him through infidelity and trouble. loved him always. even as she loved her children, her family. as she tried her best to make life good while he plotted to kill her. couple years earlier you had a

great, full, lovely family life. and now -- >> there's really not a word you can use to descre what our family has been through in the last four years. it's been a very difficult four years. >> you've got such a nice sunny disposition. how do you do that? >> i get my strength from my mother. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline." we'll be back again for "dateline sunday" at 7:00/6:00 central. i'll see you tomorrow on "today". i'm lester holt. for all of us at nbc news, good night.