and aaron candelario was 11 years old. his parents had recently separated, were sharing custody. and one day after a weekend at his dad's house, aaron went home to find -- >> there was just a note on the coffee table that was in kind of sketchy handwriting but, you know, nevertheless it said i love you, my boys, i'm taking off. >> his mother dena was simply gone. aaron was devastated. what did your father suggest may have happened to her? >> that she possibly had moved to missouri. a guy that she had been talking to online for quite some time, maybe she ran away to be with him. >> a missing person's case was opened, but nothing came of it. aaron and his brother moved in with ralph full-time. but aaron couldn't move on. she had to have left some trail somewhere. barely a teenager, he taught himself every web search engine, looked for years. but found no sign of his mom online. now a terrible suspicious took hold in him. his mother must be dead. his father must have done it. >> after that it became more of, okay, well, where would he put her body? >> he was maybe 13 or 14 when he th