>> i caught something outta the corn of my eye. it was my mom. she was laying on the ground. ver expecting her to get up or to say something. i put my hand on her shoulder. kinda turned her. ani could see blood everywhere. t >>heir family always made the best of bad times.y m always looked for the good in everything. >> but no one could fix this. >> autopsy showed vetotal of fi shots. >> she didn't deserve to die that way. >> reporter: detectives had a suspect. but not much of a case. >> i was told, "unless they can find the proverbial smoking gun, they will not take this case to trial." >> this case did not have a lot. >> everything just kinda, like, went cold case. >> reporter: blow off the dust. fan the ashes. and even an ice-cold case n heat up again. >> when i read the file, my kisponse was, "oh, my gosh. how's this guy wal around? how is he not in custody?" >> reporter: some worried

answering that qstion could cost this da his life. >> they tell me that he is making pla to murder you and your family.s >> a guy who is on a mission. >> reporter: he killed once. wod he kill again? when will he stop being dangerous to you? >> when he's dead. i'm sorry, lester holt,nd a this is "dateline." here's keith morrison with "the threat." on the southern bank of the columbia river, tucked away in a corner of this little cemetery is the final resting place of a woman called joan. barbara joan lockwood.e sn't a famous woman, joan, wasn't rich or celebrated. she lived a quiet life in a quiet place, and was buried here three decades ago, but oh, if ghosts could rise from their av gr, if joan could speak to us now, what questions could she

answer? what advice for this man, this tough, aggressive prosecutor who now fears for his life. >> this man is a threat to me. he is a threat, more importantly, to my family. >> in the annals of criminal justice, some cases refuse to die.own and they fester. >> and here we are now. and all that's atppened, i to say this, but i think that we have to take this seriously. >> yes. bu begins with her. joan. she lived when she lived a thousand miles south of that cemetery a few miles from the beach in l.a. in a suburb called torrance. on a quiet street named sharynne lane. there was joan, her husband bill bradford, and their four children. this is joan's only daughter, shawne. >> people would describe her as the caring, moster sweeted pn they ever met. >> there were three boys, brett,

the eldest. >> my mom loved her kids. we were firstnd foremost what was important to her. her whole neighborhood knew that. >> neighbors loved my mom and will flat-out sayve we didn't know your dad. >>bill bradford's job. bill worked as an aerospace engineer, very high security, top secret clearan in a company called trw. >> and liftoff. >> trw back in the '80s, it was an aero-defense firm. >> top of the top. >> if you'ren engineer. >> so his reputation at work, did you know much about that? >> i knew he was good at what he did. but he was also very secretive about it. >> you just don't talk about it? >> you just don't talk about it. >> in fact, bill bradford didn't talk much about anything. to anybody. even his own family. >> he was just very much, you know, here's my role.

i work, i come home, i eat dinner, then he went to his bedroom. >> to be alone or what?rk >> to won a stamp collection. >> exacting, organized, introverted. jones polar opposite, eventuallt thisconnect took its toll, bill moved out, joan moved on, filed for divorce. the kids grew up, moved away. in the fall of 1988, joan ld the house on sharynne lane. >> my mom was trying to finish up the sale and theove from torrance to start her life over again. >> it was a friday evening. joan was packing, getting ready. shawne and a younger brother called her on phone, told her we're coming over. it was just getting dark as they arrived. >> so we opened up the door, went in, calling for her, nothing. as i went through the front living room, i caught something out of the corner of my eye.

it was my mom. and she was laying on the ground,ou and i see blood everywhere. >> in panic, shawne called 911, and then called her brother brett. >> she says mom's been hurt. she has a hole in her heart. she was frantic. >> then police and paramedics arrived and cordoned off the place where she 4ri6rd. >> i could see numerous bullet holes in the back of her neck. >> keith mason was ae,detectiv torrance pd. >> i've seen people shot, but never this m y times. >> this was an execution? >> definitely. >> what shawne had seen, her mother on the floor had been so confusing, but now she saw nothing because they kept her away. >> one of the paramedics met me, and i looked at him and said will she be okay?

>> thinking she was still alive? >> yeah. i wasn't processing. but he finally just looked at me and just shook his head no. and that's when i realized. and that she was dea >> had she seen what was coming? did she know her life was over? >> the had taken the body out. someone had taken a carpet cleaner to clean up the blood, and basically, my last memory is a carpet cleaner of my mom's blood, which she didn't deserve to die that way. >> sweet, kind-hearted joan bradford was 52. who did it? why? next to her body was a clue. >> i saw a bullet lying on the floor by her foot from a .38 caliber or a 357 caliber handgun, and they both fire the same bullet. >> when the detective asked me

if i knew anybody who owned a gun, my initial response was no. my brother turned around and nodded, and he looked at me and said "dad has one." and ied stoppnd went you're right. >> but where was bill bradford and his gun? when we return -- >> we did find a box in his oo be they were supposed to contain a smith & wesson, but it was empty. >> and a peek inside that failea marr. >> at one point when i was 16, my father actually looked me in the eye and said "life is a bitch and then you marry one."

the game can be tough on skin. get triple action moisturizer and 48 hour protection. from full time keeper... ...to part time coach. new dove men+care sportce. tough on sweat, not on skin. ...a reason to reunite (hulk roar) (dog bark)un

protect the erse with ziploc sc johnson marvel studios' avengers: endgame in theaters april 26

it looked like a mob hit. whoever murdered joan bradford clearly wanted to be absolutely sure. >> it was brutal.it was close-u. it was very revengeful type of shooting. >> there was no sign of a break-in. her purse was untouched, and no one in the neighborhood saw anything. so detectives turned their attention to joan's inner circle. they asked their children about their mother, their father and the marriage. shaun didn hold back. >> it wasn't a good marriage.

>> how long had you known that? >> it was obvious when i was a teenager. they never hugged. they never kissed. they rarely spoke. >> and when they did speak, bill was controlling, condesceing. >> at one point when i was 16, my father actually looked me in the eye and said "life's a bitch and then you marry one." >> my parents got in a fight. then he pushed her down.it her head a rocking chair and shattered it. i mean, that's what i grew up in. >> when they finally separated, the divorce was nasty. >> my father refused to pay child support. he refused to pay spousal everything he did was to extend ooe divorce. >> it t over five years for joan to get divorced. as part o the divorce, he had to pay child support and alimony, but he did not make the payments as required.

joan and her attorney were able to garnish all that unpaid support from bill's share of the house proceeds. >> the total amount that was garnished was $40,000. >> that' not thatbad. >> it really wasn't that much. >> but it bothered him? >> itecothered him bse she won. >> to lose $40,000? heost control. my father does not like losing control of anything.>> ill never saw it coming. suddenly he was almost0, $40 poorer, and the day after bradford had all that money garnished, his ex-wife was dead. so the cops went lookingor bradford. the trouble was he seems to have disappeared. t pick up the phone. he didn't answer the door at his apartment. detective mason went back to headquarters, insted the name "bill bradford" in his database, and -- >> he did, in fact, own a model

66 smithsonian handgun .357 magnum. f> which just happened to fire the same kind bullets found at the crime scene. so detective mason got a warrant to srch bradford's apartment. there was no sign of him orhe gun, but -- >> we did find a box in his bedroom that was supposed to contain a smithsonia & wesson, t was empty. >> saturday passed. still no sign of bill bradford. police even put up poster, hoping for leads. and then on sunday, twor days aftethe murder -- >> he came into the police department. >> well, well, well. >> myself and another detective asked him if he s aware of the fact that his ex-wife was dead. >> i'm sorry to see her dead, but, um, we never had a very good relationship.y >> this gusat there and looked at me like i'm sitting here looking at you. i thought boy, you are a coldca ulating guy.

very cold,tl nonchalany, like who cares. >> bradford confirmed what his children said. he was very upset about all that money from his share of the house sale that was suddenly sent to joan. so he lefrt his apant for almost two whole days. i went to the redondo pier. >> you spent the night at the pier?>> i spent all the time at pier from then until this morning at 6:00. >> what the hell was he doing at the pier? in his >> he stated that he didn't feel good. he wanted to be alone and think. i said well, you live alone. he said well, i didn't want to talk to people. i didn't want to talk on th phone. i just wanted to be alone. >> but alone at the redondo days pier for nearly two the police asked him about his .357 magnum. joan had bee shot with hollow point bullets. bradford admitted he once bought ammo like aat. but for the gun itself -- >> i put my stuff in storage, and i've been unable the locate it. >> and where do you think you left it? >> t haven't slightest idea

where it went. >> did it strike you odd that this fellow is so well organized would misplace a gun? >>oh, s, it struck me odd. i knew right away he didn't misplace it. no doubt in my mind because of e type of fellow he was. >> but bradford did have an alibi. a parkingst . sure enough, he entered the pier parking lot te friday of murder, 7:29. so he said he could not have killed joan, unless -- the detectives put together a timeline. joan answered a phone call at 7:00 p.m., but by 7:15, when shaun arrived, she was dead. >> we figur that's the timeline, 7:00, 7:15, right in that time. >> it's a pretty narrow window. >> right. >> could bill have shot joan then arrived at 7:29 at the pier? they made the drive themselves. it took justev sen to eight minutes. it all fit.

>> one of the detectives said your father is a prime suspect, it's the only thing that made sense. there was no one who could hate my mom souch to want her dead. except my father. >> so just days after l interviewing b bradford, the detectives made their move. >> i arrested him. if there is no way in the world i'm going let this guy e. >> you hav to be a dope not to think he did it. >> right? >> there was a ton of circumstantial evidence, all leading to him. >> murder solved, case closed, right? oh, no, it was just getting started. >> coming up --pe >> i snt a number of months looking over my shoulder. >> a family live income fear with good reason. >> i was afraid that someone was after me. >> someone? >> my father. >> when "dateline" continues.

♪ september 1988. hot and hazy in la. beach weather, but bill bradford

wasn't at the beach anymore. no view from a jail cell, and while he waited inustody, detective keith mason went over to see the d.a. where he described his case, and waited for the go-ahead to charge bradford with murder for killing his ex- wife.dn di quite work out that way. >> t head d.a. right away said, do you have the gun? i said, no, we don't have the gun. he said, do you have anybody who could put him at the house at the time of the homicide? i said, no. he says, i don't think we're going to do anything with this case. >> uh oh. >> i was mad. i was upset. i knew we just let a murderer out the door. >> so bill bradford we home, went back to work at trw, but his children weren't celebrating. in fact they feared their father, and worried they just might be his next victims. >> i spent a number of months ok loing over my shoulder wonderg who was following me.ca

i n remember cars following me at various times, and just kind of randomly driving places, trying to figure out what was going on, to lose who was tailing me. >> bret said he too was followed. so he installed a homeecurity system, started sleeping with the lights on. >> i was jumpy. i would walk into my apartment and i would actually search it, underneath the kitchen sink, all my closets, i would look under my bed. >> why? >> because i was afraid that someone was after me. >> someone? >> my father. my father murdered my mother, and i don't know why he did it so the next question is would he murder me? >> the late 80's was busy time for la homicide detectives. er murder rates we headed for their all time peak around then. so detective mason, no choice

really, moved on. p a yearsed, then two, the bradford case got buried. >> i would sit around and wonder, oh you know i'm gonna grab that bradford case out, and i'm gonna read that again. i ybe there's somethin missed. maybe there's something i didn't do. maybe there's something i could do. >> but all those somethings ledn to a bunch of gs, not one new lead. mason stayed in close contact with shaun, who by this time was engaged to be married. her father wasn't on the guest list, but shaun was worried he'd show up at her wedding. >> we actually had plain clothes cops that were armed at our wedding. >> you were that nervous? >> yes, he killed once. my belief was, my father killed my mom. he's not welcome. i believe he did this. this isn't safe. >> and she felt nothing, but

relief when her father missed the wedding. his only daughter's wedding, but he was around, bold as brass. >> i would go out to a big place, there he'd be. he'd be walking around. >> wow. >> and i would think right away, you know, you're free. you're free, but i hope not for long. i hope not for long. >> but it was long. very long. the joan bradford case was ice cold. the '80s turned to the 90s, and then the millenium. bill bradford remained free, celebrating the n year, the new millennium like everybody else. and then a few months later -- >> i finally retired, and there was no new evidence, everything just kind ofke, went cold case. so i left and went onto greener fields. >> by th bill bradford retired too, eventually moved to the

desert, and by the look of it, had plenty of money, and one day, together, his children faced the facts. >> bret and i were sitting down, and he looked at me an, so it's real. our father's getting away with murder. at that point it was like, ok, he got away. there is nothing we could do. and you know, what do you do in that situation? >> they didn't know, of course, how could they? what was going on in here in secret? didn't know who else was thinking about their estranged father, and what he may have done. >> coming up: closing in --to >> you've got have some evidence. >> all that stuff hiding in pl >> and authorities wondered whether others had been at risk. >> did you really this think he was going to go a? kill a lawy >> no question.

the game can be tough on skin. getand 48 hour protectiurizeron from full time keeper... ...to part time coach. new dove men+care sportcare. tough on sat, not on skin.

e get triple action moisturizer and 48 hour protection. from full time keeper... ...to part time coach. new dove men+care sportcare. tough on sweat, t on skin.

♪

billbradford's children were convinced their father had gotten away with murdeng their mother joan, shot her in cold blood, and walked away a free man. >> knowing that all the evidence points to unfortunately your father, and knowing t'st he going to get away with it, it didn't sit right. >> but something was being done. in 2000, about 12 years after joan's murder, an ambitious prosecutor named john lewin wast poking throughhe unsolved files at the torrance pd. >> when i read the file, my response was oh, my gosh how is this guy walking around? how is he not in custody? >> it seems so obvious? >> it seems so obvious. >> but so difficult to prove, especially without any new solid evidence. so lin called in cold case detective jim llace, who seemed to have a knack for f making sense o complicated cases. >> thi case did not have a lot. we didn't have anything new. >> but you've got to have some

evidence. what do you do? >> you are looking for the bings hiding in plain sight try,ing to readween the lines. sometimes when we do cold cases like this, i think of it as death by a thousand paper cuts, where we're assembling big cumulative cases from a lot of little pieces that don't seem like much burgs when you put it all togethis is the best inference from evidence. >> wallace took a deep dive into all that evidence, a file of mostly interviews with a theme. >> the first response from m friendsether it's f or kids or neighbors is william bradford. so there is one person who would want her dead. it still didn't mean he's the killer, but it does mean of all the reasonable options, he is the most reasonable option. >>e hey learned all about th bradford's troubled marriage, about bill's apparent need to be in control, about the jntentious divorce, the money he was forced to pn. >> there was some court orders

to pay about $40,0 to uh my hafe's attorney and i was very depressed from tt point on. >> they micro-analyzed bradford's pole interview, dissected every word. >> i don't really talk about it very much -- >> i'm looking at word choices in all the interviews, i'm looking for deception indicators.mb >> do you reme anything particularly about that process in that interview? >> yeah. the investigators asked him how he felt about when he first learned that his wife was murdered. >> i'm sorry to see her dead, but um, we n er had a very good relationship. >> that's a very unusual way to answer that, right? >> about your wife. >> yeah. you didn't wanna see her dead. that i in some ways, a bit of a tacit admission in that you were the one person who could ac tually say that you last saw her dead. >> then there was bradford's strange story about spending two nights at the pier, in his car. he even had a parking stub to prove it.lk >> when you o his family, and you brought up, um-- "hey,

is your dad-- is he that kind of, you know bch, meditation, put on my saals and relate to the ocean kinda guy?" um, no. >> exct he was very upset, maybe you doubt him. but it's a reasonable thing for a person to say. >> to sleep in their car for two days? >> lewin and wallace were both convinced there was another reason bradford stayedthe pier. it just happened to be where joan'sttorney had an office. the very same attorney who er helped h garnish that forty thousand dollars from her nd ex >> by his own statement, he was pacing, walking up and down e pier. in front of the lawyer's office.w, nohe lawyer, had he been there and bradford waited for him for two days, i have no doubt in my mind this would've been a double murder suicide >> you really think that he was gonna go and kill a lawyer? >> no question. >> you're speculating. but i mean, you say, "no veestion." but really, you o idea. >> things are logical and reasonable.

he's just murdered his wife, and right after he murders her, he drives to a place that he's to never known o, and sleeps in his car for two days and it just so happens that the lawyer's office is right there. we don't leave our common sense at the door. in this tuation, you know, we'd have to leave our common sense in another zip code. >> bradford had been beaten. this attorney made that happen. ug had to die, too. >> and, walllace t, he must have intended to use the very same gun with which he ralled joan. the 357 magnum bdford said he "lost." >> i haven't the slightest idea of where it went. >> wallace did a little research on the hollow-tip bullets bradford admitted he once had. remember, those were the same kind of bullets that killed joan. and wallace discovered that particular type of hollow pointr ise. less than one percent of all the ammo sold. "wow, what are the odds he's either the unluckiest person in the world, who just happens to have all of these o usal factors that happen to

align perfectly, tmake this perfectly innocent person look really guilty. or he's really guilty. >> so with all those circumstantial clues and a clear motive and means, lewin and wallace, drove out to the desert and arreed bill bradford. it was m 2001. 13 years after joan was murdered. >> he had just popped open a beer. i don't think that bill realizes that you will never see this ever again. this is a guy we're just going to vacuum suck out of his life who has no idea. >> bradford was charged with first degree murder. and one of the detectives phoneu sh my first reaction was do you w knowt today is? no. it's mother's day. and he stopped and he said, "oh my gosh, i'm sorry." i said, "no, that's fitting for the mother that he took away 13 years ago." >> bradford quickly lawyered up,

while his family braced themselves for trial. would their fath walk free? or be locked up for life? >> i wanna use theord apprehensive because, after years, can a case be won? >> coming up, a trial. >> getting a little nervous? >> i was because i didn't know how this would all fit together. >> and a threat. >> his cellme has come forward. bradford's making plans to murder you and your fami. >> when "dateline" continues. when you see an intruder...

you act fast. boo so do we. raid kills roaches 7 times faster than the next leading ant and roach spray. 7 times faster? raid! get raid and get tough on roaches fast. sc johnson that we're p "four on four" with a barbershop quartet? [quartet singing] bum bum bum bum... pass the ball... pass the rock.. ...we're open just pass the ball! no, i can't believe how easy it was to save hundreds of dollars on my car insurance with geico. [quartet singingshoot the j, shoot the jaaaaaay... believe it! geico could save you fifteen percent or more on car iurance. believe it! geico could save you fifteen percent get triple action moisturizer. and 48 hour protection. getfrom full time keeper...er. ...to part time coach. new dove men+care sportcare.

tough on sweat, not on skin.

f bill bradformer aerospace engineer was coming back to torrance.r to be tried fordering his ex-wife joan. it was 2002, and though 14 years

after the murder d.a. lewin had a pile of the same old circumstantial evidence, he charged ahead. were you confident, going into this trial? >> vy confident. i thought that, circumstantially, it was an solutely overwhelming case. >> really? the original d.a. rejected it. weak, he called it. no smoking gun, no dna, no rdewitnesses. >> we felt this buen. we'll never get another case like this ever filed again, if one.se th >> getting a little nervous by this point -- >> oh, i was -- i was. because i didn't know how this would all fit together, not having done a circumstantial case like this before, i really woied. >> nevertheless, in the winter of 2002, lewin and wallace took their first cold, circumstantial case to court. >> the way we presented the case was this is a man who was in an abuse relationship. he would not accept that his wife wanted her fair share.

and when he lost, to him it was the losing. he couldn't take losing. >> and so in a violent rage, said lewin, bradford executed his ex-wife. bradford's children testified that was probably almost as hard as finding my mom murdered. i didn't know until the trial that she had been shot execution-style. >> her father's defense mostly centered on bradford's sterling reputation as a high security aerospace engineer, loving father and family man. and pointed out the lack of physical evidee connecting him to the crime. and the jury kept suspense alive, was out for two days. and then on a cool april morning came the verdict, broadcast by a local fox station. >> we the jury in the above entitled action find the defendant william terry bradford guilty of the crime of murdey. >> g

finally justice for joan bradford. >> i went from suspecting that my ather murdered my mom to having it confirmed. because there's always that little pnt that still wanted to be daddy's little girl and wanted to believe that this was something else. >> it was shaun's birthday a few areks later when her father was sentenced to 26 yes to life.e he'd be 85 by time he was eligible for parole. >> i remember telling his daughter that this man's not going to last five years in prison. so i thought it would be a life sentence. >> i was a lot more relaxed. people kept saying oh, he'll be dead in five years, so, you know, i'evsafe. he's ner getting out. >> safe? maybe not everybody.

months later, d.a. lewin got a call from the prison about bill bradford. >> they tell me that his cellma has come forward. and he has said that bradford is very ang at u, and he is talking about making plans to murder you and your family. >> of course in lewin's ne of eswork idle threats from rentful jailbirds were not exactly new. but this bill bradford guy caught his attenton. he seemed as cold blooded as they come. so lewin went to talk to the informant. >> normally, if somebody comes to you with a sty like that, they want to a little time offt their sennce or something. >> they want something, absolutely. so -- >> not this guy? >> nothing. one of the first thing i asked rwis why are you coming foard. and he said um, i hate the guy. i couldn't believe how he would talk about his wife and how he killed her. now he is talking about killing

somebody else's family, and i just couldn't stay quiet. >> lewin polygraphed the informant. he passed. and then added a warning. >> that bradford had said that he thought he was going to get out very quickly. >> on appeal? >> on appeal. and when he got out, he was going to either himself or somebodyelse, he w going to blow my family's heads off in front of me so that i could suffer, and then he was going to kill me. so i immediately took it seriously that it was a credible threat. >> but then bradford lost all his appeals and gradually lewin stopped looking over his shoulder. he went on to successfully prosecute many more cold, circumstantial cases, including several with jim wallace. n in fact the two have bee featured on "dateline" four times. th.bradford case faded away until 15 years later -- the fall of 2017. >> i come home from work and my husband says, "you have a letter from department of corrections""

and i went, "okay, it's one of two things -- he die or parole." i open it up and healthcheck's still alive. ng so option number two. his parole heari at the prison was coming up. which meant that bill bradford, a convicted killer who once re allegedly ened to murder the d.a. and his family could very soon be back on the street. coming up -- >> how are you feeling about this? >> nervous. >> a decision, but is it final? >> when will he stop b dangerous to you? >> when he's dead.

♪ the california health care facility.n' but be fooled by the name this is indeed a prison.d

anhome to bill bradford, who 2018, had been in prison 16 years. which meant he was up for parole. in january 2018, bradford's two children traveled to the prison for his hearing >> i made a promise to myself that i would speak for my mom. i went to the parole. >> what was it like to see him there? >> i saw a man who has notged well in the last 15 years. >> deputy d.a. john lewin went to the hearing too. memories of death threats all too fresh in his mind. >> i understand the lais the law. and they have to look at parole for him. this man is a threat to me. he's a threat, more importantly, to my family. this is not personal in terms of any vendetta or about being right. this is about public safety. and protecting those of us who sacrifice a lot to do the jobs

we do, whether you're police office or prosecutors or judges. >> cameras weren't allowed inside the hearing as the coissioners began asking bradford about the brutal murder he committed. >> for the first time in thirty years, i heard my father admit to killing my mom. >> however, there's a reason for doing such a thing, which is that he has a chance to get parole. >> yes, he did. however, the way he went about admitting it wasery unique. the commissioner was asking about "wre is joan, your ex-wife, now?" he stops and goes, "wait, is that the woman i shot?" d the commissioner stops and said, "you tell us. did you kill your ex-wife?" "yes, i did." "why?" don't remember." >> he appears to have dementia of some sort? >> yeah. >> bradford's attorney, maya emig, told the commissioners that bradford's dementia and a e basket of otr health problems are getting worse.

and that john lewin has nothing to fear fr a confused and frail old man. >> nothing has happened in 16 yrs. mr. bradford isn't connected to the mob, or the mexican mafia, or any prison gang, right? anevquite frankly he didn't en know who john lewin was. >> in the room thate day h didn't recognize him? >> don't even kno him. didn't remember his name. >> how did you know that? >> it was just apparent. he is not a threat at all the way he is. >> the prison's own psychologist examined him, and they came back with a rating. there's low risk, moderate risk, and high risk. he came back with a moderate risk.ss >> the that the commissioners are trying to focus on and wanted you to focus on, but you didn't want to, was he's notable of harming you anymore. >> but keith -- >> he's beyond dangerous. >> his mind is very clear. the man knew, was able to recite numerous different issues. >> lewin said he thinks what the defense attorney calls dementia

is really a severe case of selective memory. >> he denied remembering what he had done, denied remembering anything about me, he just had selective amnesia regarding this whole event. so the idea that he's helpless and doesn't have the capability to harm me or my family, it's absurd. >> when will he stop being dangerous to you? >> when he's dead. >> bradford's children also spoke at the hearing, urged the commissioners to keep their dad locked up. >> i had to go through and explain what i was concerned about for safety, not only to myself but to the general population. >> for sever hours the board questioned bradford, and listened tlewin and the family, and tried to determine if the old man was a risk. or releasable. and then they went to their chambers to make up their minds. and later that afternoon bradford's attorney, and lewin, were called in and were told. >> the question about whether or

not mr. bradford pose as current threat, the answer was no. >> no threat meant yes to parole.ll bi bradford would be released. >> i was furious. anpei said "if something hap to my family, the blood is on your hands. and you will own this." >> when bradford's children got the news, those old fears about their father suddenly returned. >> i was stunned. i couldn't believe they would a tuund and say he's not a risk. >> would i be a fool to say we are perfectly safe? no. my father killed once. >> the commissioners timed 's bradfordelease for february 2019. by then he wn i his mid-80s, more than 30 years removed from when he pulled that trigger.

could he reallyo it again? >> this isri a very bt man. he has resources and he has motivation. it takes very little to find out where my family is. all he needs is a gun and an ube uber. >> this is an 85-year-old guy who is on a mission. if he is able to still command his wits, then we have a problem still, because he was able to command his wits when he made the first threat. he we are now. we have not done something that has lessened his>> anger. now there was one more step before his release. california's then governor jerry brown would review the decision and could reverse it. to keep him in prison. the l..a. d.a.'s office wrote ae letter to t governor to do just that. so did bradford's family. >> i concted the governor's office. i wrote a letter. my broth wrote a letter, and i d two senators actually cosign a letter. >> how are you feeling about this?

>> nervous. i haven't heard back yet. i've done all i can do. >> he'sho a guy stews and plots and calculates and then he acts. >> lewin acted too. through the media, trying to persuade california governor jerry brown to keep bradford locked up. >> he's looking to even upe scores befor dies. >> then a week after memorial day 2018 came this letr from governor brown. the evidence shows that he meaning branded for currently poses an unreasonable danger to society if he is releed from prison, therefore i reverse the decision to parole mr. bradford. >> when it came in it was a lot of shock, but also a.ot of relief >> but john lewin? temporarily relieved, but still not satisfied. lewin is conceed that the governor's letter may not have enough impact on bradford's next

parole hearing, which could be scheduled for june 2019. >> when you read the letter, the letter doesn't mention anything about me, it doesn't mention ay' of the familconcerns. so it makes me concerned that what's going to happen is they deny him parole this time and then the next hearing, they let am out. i will fight tooth nail to oppose. >> but for now bill bradford remains behind bars. lewin and bradford's children feel safer. and thmighty columbia rolls by a little cemetery where a woman whreloved life and her child and put up with a difficult husband is at peace. at least for now. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm lester holt.

thanks for joining us. felicity huffman expected to plead guilty in court today in the u.s. college admissions scandal. the pressure is building surrounding iran as secretary oa state pompeo cancelsrip to russia to meet with allies did the president's top economic adviser just contradict him over chinese tariffs he says will be paid for by consers and businesses remembering peggy lipton, the it girl from the "mod squad" days former wife of quincy jones. mother and of rashida jo bs. we'll lookack at her remarkable life. plus meet the world war ii veteran with the fierce determination to receive the college degrhe s began in 1949 an