>> reporter: it's josh mankiewicz from dateline. is there anything you wanna say? >> no shortage of suspects. just a shortage of detectives. >> reporter: all kinds of things go wrong in murder investigations, but the police department running out of money is usually not one of the things you think of. >> no. i pressed on. i did what i had to do. >> would she ever find justice? >> it's your father. your father was murdered, you're not gonna give up. >> i'm lester holt and this is dateline. here's josh mankiewicz with "something sweet." >> reporter: the course of true love takes some strange twists and turns, particularly when it flows out of an online dating site. occasionally, a cyber-fling blossoms into a marriage. those marriages -- what went right, and what did not. 60-year-old, happily retired, former corrections officer, living comfortably by himself in a house in the pennsylvania woods after his 36-year marriage had ended in divorce. ray had three grown children. monica is his middle child. tell me about your dad? >> a man's man. he was -- he loved outdoor ki

♪ >> here's josh mankiewicz with "a bronx tale." ♪ ♪ ♪ >> sing sing correctional facility, the maximumy prison in new york. this is the big house, home to some of the worst of the worst. killers, rapists, drug dealers. >> good morning. >> thank you. >> it is not where you'd expect to find this gentle woman. >> in sing sing they call me grandma. >> grandma is sister joanna chan, a mary knoll nun. >> i began working at sing sing more than 12 years ago. >> this is the battle about general adult. >> grandma volunteers at the prison, working with inmates in a theater program. >> she even teaches them chinese. >> through the years, grandma has helped dozens of men, but she says this inmate here on stage, a convicted killer has changed her. >> he's just so brave. watching him all these years i take such courage myself watching him. >> sister joanna remembers the first time she met this inmate. he was sitting alone eating. >> he said my family sent me 30 pounds of food. i said your family must love you very much. he said yes because they know i'm innocent. and that's how the whole story began.

here's josh mankiewicz with "mystery at heath bar rm." >> i need -- i need an ambulance. now. >> reporter: february 2009, coldwater, michigan. >> what's the problem? >> my wife! >> your wife? >> yes! >> reporter: in one day, one moment -- >> is she breathing? >> no! >> she's gone! she's gone! >> reporter: the innocent, simple life tom foley and his family once lived was gone >> oh, my god. oh, my gosh. >> 27 seconds, gets it off to foley. foley never would have imagined 23 years earlier. back then, number 30 -- >> going to be 15 seconds left exactly. >> reporter: -- scored the winning basket giving coldwater high school the regional title and earning young tom a place in coldwater's basketball hall of fame. >> i have goose bumps right now just talking about it. >> it was like victory was snatched from the jaws of defeat, and he came through with it. >> reporter: to what extent were you sort of known around here for being the kid that hit the game-winning shot? >> that went on for a long time. you know, maybe someone might come up, "hey, tom, you remember when you hit that

here's josh mankiewicz with the story of "deadly intent." >> reporter: you're looking at the life of the hogueland family of san diego played out in brief moments stretching across the years, from the prosaic to the profound. that's the mom, connie, just after she gave birth to son jonathan. >> look over here, guys. one, two, three. good one. >> reporter: here he is, six years later after losing a tooth. >> hey, jonathan, that's a great smile you have there. >> reporter: this is oldest daughter jill learning to play golf. >> that's a nice one, jill. >> reporter: and this is her little sister jacqueline. today the kids are grown. jacqueline is married. and jonathan has graduated high school. and looking back, the childhood they describe is one of stability and routine. >> just normal happy family i would say. >> we go to church on sundays. we'd have movie nights or family vacation that we would have taken. usually disneyland which is our favorite. everything was just as a family. everything was perfect. >> reporter: they loved each other and they had a good marriage. >> exactly. >> re

here's josh mankiewicz with deadly exchange. >> it's a dilemma that confronts every teenager. how to simultaneously fit in with your friends and rebel against everyone else. that is made a little easier by the knowledge, maybe the certainty that you're going to live forever. >> kids do dumb stuff all the time. >> so sneaking out of the house in the dead of night to meet other teenagers to drink, party, or just hang out, that's nothing new. usually teens sneak back home safely. this wasn't one of those times. >> some kind of like joke and i like just couldn't believe it really. i was just freaking out. i was like it can't be, it can't be. >> it was april of 2014 when two bright foreign exchange students living in montana slipped out of their home. >> he's barely breathing. > just minutes later, their amazing american adventure came to a sudden and tragic end. >> and where is he bleeding from? everywhere. it's horrific. >> no one ever knew that someone would die over it. >> it was just the worst thing that cog having ever happened to us. >> it all began so differently for darren

. >> here's josh mankiewicz with "the evil to come". >> it was hard to look away when peggy was in the picture. her beauty was captivating. and she loved that little girl. peggy's image survives in homemade movies from the days when she was relishing motherhood, blissfully unaware of the evil to come. >> i was always there for my mother. always. >> suzanne was that little girl and says her mom peggy was everything a mother should be. >> as a child, i ice skated. my mother would sit there all bundled up shivering. >> they grew up about 45 minutes north of new york city. >> we were able to go away to camp when we were little. my parents traveled. >> reporter: at first, peggy did what many women did in the 1960s. she stayed at home while her but peggy was drawn to something bigger than her suburban sanctuary. when suzanne was young, her mom was back in school earning her mba. >> she was probably one of the class. >> reporter: and then went into a man's business? >> and went into a man's business and worked very hard. >> much i can look the fictional character in the series "madman," she b

here's josh mankiewicz with "internal affairs." >> reporter: the darkroom is where a photographer's vision comes to life allowing others to see the world through their eyes. and with these shots, we can learn a little about the world this young photographer saw. and her sense of exactly when to snap the shutter. to capture the world in front of her. it's an impressive portfolio belonging to a young woman named denita smith. she began looking through a lens in childhood, and never stopped as her mother sharon remembers. >> she's always loved the camera. the camera was her friend. expressing herself. >> reporter: denita was beginning to turn all that talent into a successful trade; working as photojournalist on the student newspaper at north carolina central university in durham. >> she would see things that probably the average person wouldn't see. >> reporter: but there was something denita didn't see coming. a blind spot in her seemingly perfect life. something she never anticipated. never imagined. but maybe no one could. it was january 4, 2007. a crisp carolina morning. denita had a bus