dennis murphy: but what?t out, they decided they couldn't let pedro go home. so they charged him with "depriving a victim of medical care." for bloodying christian's nose and then leaving him on the side of the road. robert lopez: i had-- a suspicion that, you know, the meeting took a wrong turn and that they-- they got into an argument. what could have happened? what exactly is pedro capable of? dennis murphy: meanwhile, the search for christian was only getting bigger, and for his family and friends, more desperate. dennis murphy: what's goin' through your head? is it like, "it's me, alex. i'm out here in the woods. i'm tryin' to find you. where are you?" alex aguilar: yeah, i think when we were searching, it was just more just to do something, 'cause you feel so useless and so helpless so you're just there looking-- dennis murphy: and, what, posters are going up? alex aguilar: we're hanging posters, we're handing out fliers during the football game, 'cause this was football season. dennis murphy: gainesvil

dennis murphy: rest for wendy.enjoyed playing dress-up and who fatally married a stranger till death he did part. craig melvin: that's all for this edition of dateline. i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. sunday, rag ♪♪ ♪♪ >>> this sunday, raging inferno. wind-driven wildfires in the los angeles area burn out of control forcing hundreds of thousands to flee and leaving behind apocalyptic scenes. >> this is one of the most

dennis murphy: but dr. sievers, sometimes spending four hours at a time with julie, ultimately diagnosed a spectrum of food allergies. her beloved shellfish was out. but this doctor was in, in her life, in her affections. we all know a lot of doctors in the course of our life. you've known a lot of doctors you've worked with. what was different about dr. teresa sievers? it's very hard to find someone that truly you feel cares about you as a human. you know, there's something about her caring about my family, about my career, about my life. so you don't find that very often. it means pain relief without surgery, pills, or injections. dennis murphy: so how is it that the dreams of this adored physician and aspiring tv doctor never came to be? well, settle back, because there's a story there in, an exceedingly grim one. go back to june 29, 2015-- another muggy monday dawning in the southwest coastal town of bonita springs, florida. teresa had been away for the weekend for a family celebration up in new york wi

dennis murphy (voiceover): but veronica was determined to try. she and her then husband dennis adopted 10-year-old annie in january 2007. annie, who had bounced around from house to house, finally had a home, parents, and brothers who adored her. veronica kasprzak: she was the immediate cool, big sister. she liked being the oldest, being in charge, and teaching them all of this cool stuff. dennis murphy (voiceover): she was wanted, happy, making memories-- [inaudible excitement] opening gifts on christmas morning, her first trip to the beach. not that everything was perfect, mind you. veronica kasprzak: there was still definitely, a i'm going to test you. as much as you say you love me and you're keeping me, i'm going to make-- i don't believe you. dennis murphy: how would she challenge you, for instance? just the quintessential, i'm not going to do what you say. i'm going to do whatever i want. so there's a psychological tussle going on there. uh-huh. [inaudible] just have him drive me everywhere. dennis murphy (voiceover): which only intensified

dennis murphy: are you hearing your assailant scream? no. dennis murphy: cry out in pain?scream. dennis murphy (voiceover): what she could hear when she stopped shooting was the sound of someone breathing, and then sudden footsteps running out the door. had one of the home invaders fled? tracey edged down the bed. she couldn't see much. the bedroom was hazy with gunsmoke. but she heard her kids calling for her, she said, and she ran to bert's room. i opened the door. and bert almost took my head off with the bat. (crying) and i don't remember having a conversation with them at the time. i remember just being so happy that they were fine. both of us are on pure adrenaline, just, like, trying to just grasp of what just happened, you know? and you know, are you ok? yeah, yeah, we're fine. dennis murphy (voiceover): tracey says she shepherded bert and her younger children into the hallway, thinking they were finally safe. but according to both tracey and bert, their nightmare was far from over. the intruder lying shot on tracey's floor was still alive. bert could see it was du

dennis murphy: dr.lis noted injuries lovely hadn't seen, including a bruise on pravin's arm that went all the way to the bone, possibly a defensive injury. theoretically, if you're stumbling around the woods in the dark and you trip and you hit a rock, could that cause that kind of injury? that's really not enough. so the more you became familiar with the body you're looking at, did you think, this boy suffered a terrible beating, or i don't know what caused this? if the body was found the way it looked on a city street, you would think that somebody hurt him. dennis murphy: but who? lovely was determined to find out. and she'll have help. lovely forms a powerful bond with the radio host obsessed with her son's case. can they solve this mystery together? coming up-- monica zukas: she was completely shattered. she just said, this isn't my kid. something's wrong. i'm like, boy, there is another mother that's asking the same questions that i have. andrea canning: --two mothers united in a common cause-- mo

dennis murphy (voiceover): and dustin?s new theory, he was no attacker, but collateral damage. one boy dead because of the fight over another. he had no life value to her. and she used him. and killed him. and killed him. dennis murphy (voiceover): but how could the prosecutor prove his new theory? it came down to this. investigators had always kept the journal top secret. but if tracey had created it, she obviously knew about it. so if investigators could prove she knew about it, they could prove that she'd created it. got it? that's why the prosecutor lost it one night when he was talking to tracey's old friend mary higgins. he told her the investigation had been reopened. he said something like, there's more to this than what people know. and i said-- i don't know why i said it. i don't. i said, do you mean that stupid notebook? and ben just-- he just turned white. i kept saying to him, what? what? and he said, how do you know about a notebook? dennis murphy: should mary higgins have known anything about the existence o

dennis murphy: what had he deleted? a lot of text messages. dennis murphy: to whom?rwood. sirius underwood was by far the one he was in contact the most. what's your thinking? when we first talked to josh, he never mentioned sirius underwood. why would they be lying to us about that? dennis murphy (voiceover): why, indeed? the story told by the phones, the concealed relationship, fed a growing theory of the crime, that they were looking at a long distance killing between ohio and alaska. if that was their case, then technology was going to be as valuable to them as dna or bloody fingerprints. the first big question-- did the killer, assuming he was a man, have a phone on him when he did the shooting? and what tower near the murder scene had the phone pinged off? we had tons of-- and i'm not exaggerating-- thousands upon thousands upon thousands of phone calls that hit all these various towers. dennis murphy (voiceover): in that electronic haystack, a sharp-eyed cop noticed a call around the time they believed brandy was killed. it was made from a number with a 310 ar

dennis murphy: a ghost, indeed.on's home, they found this, disturbing videos he apparently shot as he snuck around the neighborhood. turns out jason scott was as scary a peeping tom as investigators had ever seen. video of someone walking through the woods, videotaping people through their homes in various states of dress and undress, getting ready for work or getting ready to go to bed. this is deeply creepy stuff. absolutely. dennis murphy: the person who knew him best was marcus hunter, the accomplice first arrested with jason scott. but marcus wasn't talking. investigators wondered, was he afraid of jason? another former co-conspirator was telling investigators jason was no one to cross. agent: these guys would say, if i ever got into a fight with jason, jason, you know, wouldn't fight me back. but two weeks later, he-- he'd be the type of guy to come back and burn my house down. dennis murphy: three weeks after his king-for-a-day deal, jason scott was still walking the streets. and investigators knew enough abo

here's dennis murphy with secrets of the snake river. dennis: in country so beautiful as the palouse, the wheat and bean fields running up and down the bumps and hollows of eastern washington as far as the eye can see, it's hard to imagine anything bad happening out here. but gaze and listen closely, and sometimes you'll uncover secrets in the shadows, murder and betrayal as close as the stranger sleeping beside you. here in the city of clarkston, a 40-year-old single mom was raising her two young sons. she also had two older daughters. [inaudible] dennis: rachael anderson was her name, just five-foot-and-a-bit. and how susie jeppson enjoyed her company. we were just friends from the get-go. she was spunky and fun, and she just loved to laugh. dennis: her grown daughters were out of the house. amber-- she was my hero. she was my everything. she just had a really fun spirit about her. dennis: ashley-- she raised us, gave us everything we needed, taught us everything we need to know. dennis: rachael had been married and divorced three times

dennis murphy: rest for wendy. the kind young woman who loved animals and enjoyed playing dress-up and who fatally married a stranger till death he did part. craig melvin: that's all for this edition of dateline. i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. sunday, rag ♪♪ ♪♪ >>> this sunday, raging inferno. wind-driven wildfires in the los angeles area burn out of control forcing hundreds of thousands to flee and leaving behind apocalyptic scenes. >> this is one of the most devastating fires i've seen in california. >> what are the questions you're hoping to answer. >> the same ones you're asking. the same ones that people in the streets are asking, yelling about, what the hell happened? >> we'll talk exclusively to california's democratic governor gavin newsom and senator alex padilla. plus expansive agenda. with just one week before he returns to the white house, president-elect donald trump suggests he might use military force to take control of the panama canal and greenland. >> i can say this, we need them for ec

if you really want to tap into your body's innate ability to heal-- dennis murphy: you can still find dr. teresa sievers even today on those youtube videos promoting health, healing, and a good life. she had helped so many, spreading her gospel. tragically, her message, like her life, cut short before she was finished. hello, i'm craig melvin, and this is "dateline." hello, i'm craig melvin, and this is "dateline." i had to do it. you're dead. rachel brady: ever since i heard it, it's been replaying in my head over and over. [footsteps crunching] it was all very unbelievable. craig melvin: it happened on thanksgiving-- two teenagers missing. i just buried my head into my hands, and i started to cry. craig melvin: where they were and what they did would launch a terrifying case. why did this have to happen here? craig melvin: with a deadly end. nobody's leaving until we figure out what happened. craig melvin: a man at home, alone and afraid. what would you do if you felt in danger? they were really attacking his home. you have a right to protect your home, and to protect yourself. he p

dennis murphy (voiceover): despite the horrific events that took away her daughter, veronica is still as determined as ever to continue to do good work and to help children in need. she and james have since adopted five more children. it is just what annie would have wanted them to do. man: you know i don't have a full day, so give me a break. that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm andrea canning. thanks for watching. crew: that's good. hello, i'm craig melvin, and this josh mankiewicz: she was a design original. christina, the fashionista. the most fantastic wardrobe. josh mankiewicz: it was news nationwide when she vanished. she went out to drinks with friends, and never came home. i said, something's wrong. we realized this is real. josh mankiewicz: who was the last too see her? and where was her ex model boyfriend? he doesn't call when she she's missing, and he won't say where he was. someone had something to hide. he thought he was getting away with it. she was fighting for her life. all i can do is pray, with all that i have, tell me what happened that night. [music play

dennis luken: he was a very creative-- matt murphy: super manipulative-- dennis luken: --charismatic-- matt murphy: --handsome-- dennis luken: --charming, intelligent. he was a nightmare to everybody. keith morrison (voiceover): but not to her. to debra newell of orange county, california, the man who presented himself on the dating website, dr. john meehan, anesthesiologist, looked very promising. he was the total package-- a doctor, very intelligent, family man, loved his kids. keith morrison (voiceover): not that attracting men had ever been difficult for debra or any of the women in the family, according to her daughter terra. men kind of flock to them. really? what is it about the women of your family? well, they have really great hearts, and they're pretty decent-looking. keith morrison (voiceover): good women, happy, successful, attractive. i love those bar stools. keith morrison (voiceover): debra owned a thriving interior design firm and a moving company and a silk flowers business. had dozens of employees, certainly no money worries, but she was in her 50s, marriage is behin

dennis murphy (voiceover): josh and sirius are serving their sentences in separate maximum security prisons. brandy's parents are raising her daughter. the family is left with a snapshot album, itself getting older, but the young woman pictured in the pages inside staying the same, never to have her own album of her daughter graduating, getting married. time ran out for brandy on a dark hilltop before she could kiss her daughter goodnight. that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm andrea canning. thanks for watching. >>> hello. welcome to this special holiday edition of "morning joe." happy almost 2025. we're on tape this hour, bringing you some of our top recent discussions, including one about how president-elect trump is already claiming some preemptive policy victories before even taking office. we spoke to "the washington post" opinion columnist dana mill bank about that. as you point out in "the washington post," the president-elect doesn't take over for six more weeks, but, magically, he has already made america great again. you write in part this, "he has solved the border cris

dennis murphy: do you ever get up in the morning just shaking your fists in outrage at the heavens, "pedro, why did you do this to me?" not just christian is the victim. you've become a victim, too. erika friman: it's so difficult, sometimes to think of it that way. i would still give anything for christian to be here. there's not going to be another joke he tells or a smile i see when i look up from working or something. it's not going to happen again. they're just memories. craig melvin: that's all for this edition of dateline. i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. >> good morning and welcome to this saturday edition of morning joe weekend. it was a busy week, as we are now just days away from donald trump's return to the oval office. let's get right to some of the conversations you might have missed. >> i'm curious what you thought. as a man who has known joe biden for many, many, many years, including through this presidency, what you saw on his face, what you heard in his voice last night. >> you i heard in his voice last night was a concern, a legitimate concern. he outlined

dennis murphy: but she thinks, he would have been proud of her. lovely varughese: i believe, it was pravin's spirit who brought us all this way. he wanted us to know what happened to him, and who did this to him, and we got it. we know who did this to pravin. that's all i needed to know. that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm andrea canning. thank you for watching. >> good morning. >> and welcome to this. >> saturday edition of morning joe. weekend. >> it was. a truly busy. >> week as. >> president donald. >> trump took office. >> for. >> the second time. let's get right to some of the conversations you might have missed. >> some reddit users are now boycotting the social. >> media site x. it's in. >> response to a. >> gesture elon musk made. >> he owns the. platform during. >> donald trump's. >> inauguration on monday. >> some saw the gesture. to be. >> extremely similar. >> to, or exactly. like a. nazi salute, though. >> musk denies the allegation. >> now. several reddit groups dedicated to a wide range. >> of interests, from. >> formula