here's keith morrison. >> in the beginning was desire. natural human desire for connection, for love. so she aimed her arrow at that online ocean of intimate strangers and found him. late afternoon a sun beating down on an apartment complex. >> this woman is just screaming. >> the whole complex must have heard it. terrifying howling, desperate. >> there was a man down there. they could see him. he had a knife. he was stabbing the screaming woman and nobody was helping her. >> it's really bad. >> i understand. we have officers on the way. >> too late. too late. >> the bloody ending, but the story, the whole terrible tale is much deeper than that one thing, dreadful though it was. a story christopher at the los angeles time spent months unraveling strand by strand. >> it's a story about trust and betrayal and a story about family. >> about a woman, two protective daughters. and what those daughters did when the man came into their mother's life before the death in the parking lot. >> the story became a podcast produced with the podcast netw

here's keith morrison. >> reporter: there is an eden in the american west. a wide, flat earthen cornicopia, whose bounty fills the belly of millions. great farms employ legions of workers and enrich with the profits families that pass the land down. father to son. generation after generation. they live modestly here in california's central valley. multimillionaires and crop dusters and battered pick-up trucks deeply conservative. self-reliant. tough enough to thrive in a dangerous business. th

here's keith morrison. >> they keep him in here, deep inside the multiple walls and the armed doors and the rolls and rolls of razor wire, the confessed stabber, the convicted killer of that sweet young woman all those years ago. he's lucky to be alive probably, given the nature of the crime and the appeal from that girl's mother for the death sentence, which makes what that mother tells us about him now very puzzling indeed. >> let him go. it's the only thing his mother has. it's her only child. let him go. >> her name is carol dodge, and the amazing story she will tell us tonight began on the worst day of her life. it was a thursday, june 13th, 1996, midmorning. she placed a call to a beauty salon to talk to her daughter angie. >> i dialed angie's number at work. and a lady answered, and i said, this is carol dodge, angie's mom. and she said, angie's been found dead. >> just over the phone? >> and i remember saying, god, no. please no. this can't be real. >> it happened, it turned out, the night before in the tiny second floor walkup where the independent 18-year-old had just started

here is keith morrison. >> reporter: a hot august night in texas, 2014. the lone figure knew where to go, knew where the store kept the cash. grabbed $18,000, and was gone. but it was only money. and no one got hurt. not that time, anyway. the story begins here in ft. worth, texas, which turned out to be the perfect growing up place for a rough and tumble free spirit named ashlea harris. >> i was around 10 when she was born and so the perfect age to pretend she was my baby. >> reporter: melissa hill is ashlea's eldest sister. >> she marched to the -- a beat of a different drum. she would wear just things that did not match. her hair was just -- didn't seem combed, you know. >> reporter: she was never the little princess type? >> no. no. >> reporter: there were three girls in the family. ashlea was the baby. their mom, monica, remembers how ashlea loved sports and music and art and bingo! >> it was our mom and daughter bonding time, and she'd just get all giddy and excited. >> reporter: by the time she got to high school, ashlea had lots of friends, even a

here's keith morrison. >> you have to understand. 29-year-old man, fred. >> before he got mixed up with fred, frank, aka el cubano had so many possibilities. he'd just recently married a wonderful woman, a schoolteacher who had no idea what her husband had done or what he was facing. but it was too late for that. frank did not go home to his wife that evening. he submitted to a pair of handcuffs and was carted off to jail. and fred -- fred did go ho home under the watchful eye of the undercover cops who also conducted a thorough search of the restaurant for those notes fred wrote. they found nothing. nor did fred contact anyone else that evening. and so the next morning. >> we just showed up at 9:00 in the morning and he had on his pajamas and you could tell he hadn't slept a lot that night. very shocked and very upset while we were there. and our response was we're here to arrest you. >> they took him away and when they searched his house, they found one last piece of evidence in a trash can. one of those notes fred scribbled in the

here's keith morrison with "manson." >> reporter: april 14th, 2016. a clear blustery day in the high desert outside los angeles. inside the walls of the california institution for women a gray-haired 66-year-old inmate appears before a parole board, as p she has done many times before. but this time something remarkable. >> a parole board panel is recommending the release of former charles manson follower leslie van houten. >> leslie van houten a name on the list forever linked with the most notorious crimes of the 20keth center any wp charles manson. >> you don't understand me. that's youron trouble. not my fault you don't understand me. i don't understand you either! >> the story of charles manson, his family, and all the horror they wrought is buried in archives. i memorialized in media. long obsolete. and yet somehow it feels present. that hot summer night that caught the world utterly unprepared. when los angeles became suddenly a very scary place. it was august 9th, 1969, around 8:00 a.m. a officer jerry derosa was a young cop with the lapd work

here's keith morrison with more. >> i really thought it was a random act. >> while the investigation raced forward, the polk county sheriff's office told justin michael's family virtually nothing. didn't tell them they found the man who sold the murder weapon, nor that they had to figure out who he actually sold it to. because surely whoever bought the gun must have been the killer. >> i asked him at that point to look at the photo lineups. the first set of six photographs i showed him contained the photograph of david moffitt. mr. bahlmann looked at it and he said, "i can't be 100% certain." he said, "the guy had a hat on, had sunglasses on." he goes, i wish i would have had him take it off. then he pointed at the picture of david moffitt and said, i'm 90% sure that's the person that i sold the gun to. >> what happened when he looked at the picture involving andy wegener? >> when i showed him the photo lin-up with andy wegener, he looked at it and immediately looked at it and pointed to andy wegener and said, "that's very odd." he said, "this is strange."

here again is keith morrison. >>> debra had fallen in love with a con man. john meehan for years -- >> he said this guy is pad neba, you need to get your mother a from him. >> her daughters went into rescue mode. the police in laguna beach had arrested john meehan for stalking a woman and discovered he rented an office space in which they found zip dties, cyanide and loaded gubs. >> what did all this say to you? >> that he might be a killer and she has to get out of this. >> john has an explanation of course, even for the cyanide. >> he said he has multiple sclerosis and if has the cyanide in case he needed to kill himself. >> he still continued to treat me incredibly well but he tried to isolate me from everyone. >> especially your family. >> especially my family. >> now afraid, she reckon sized with her daughters and read everything they had about him. >> what did you feel? >> confusion. i thought how could this man fake it to this degree. did he love me or was this all a gail. and i realized i was his newest victim. >> in april 2016, she fled from the hom

once again here's keith morrison. >> stop right there. turn around.op of your head. drop down to your knees. keep your hand on top of your head. you understand me? >> yes, i do. >> reporter: the scene that played out in front of the todd and rachel winkler's home in the airpark that monday morning, february 27, 2012, grew more bizarre by the moment. as neighbor marion cockrell watched the police surround todd, he saw something quite incomprehensible. >> they handcuffed him and took him off and we didn't know what was going on. >> reporter: todd, under arrest? charged with murder for killing rachel. what about her lover, the man with all the guns? no, it was todd in handcuffs. the investigators disappeared into the house and found a bloody crime scene. and rachel winkler, dead in her baby's bedroom. they found the couple's three young children safe and sound across the street at a neighbor's house. todd had dropped them off there before the police arrived. soon, todd himself was sitting in an interview room at the sheriff's department. where he admitte

here's keith morrison. >> reporter: there is an eden in the american west. a wide, flat earthen cornicopia, whose bounty fills the belly of millions. great farms employ legions of workers and enrich with the profits families that pass the land down. father to son. generation after generation. they live modestly here in california's central valley. multimillionaires and crop dusters and battered pick-up trucks deeply conservative. self-reliant. tough enough to thrive in a dangerous business. th that takes guts and brains and too often lives. here among the churning, slashing machinery, the high voltage power that helps grow the food of life. death can take a man unaware. even on a sleepy, summer day. >> we just looked up and there he was. >> like the day. a little boy burst from the field of sun flowers next to brandy hagan's place. >> he was beat red, sweaty. he just covered in mud. head to toe. he had his tennis shoes in his hands. >> reporter: carrying his shoes? you mean he'd been running barefoot? >> he said he took 'em off. i think he got stuck in the m

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. she wasn'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 graves, 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 lie down and die. they fester. >> and here we are now. and all that's happened, i hate to say this, but i think that we have to take this seriously. >> yes. but it begins with her. joan. she lived when she lived a thousand miles south of that little 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 thei

here's keith morrison.ikileaks "d >> reporter: there's a place, call it a pot of gold at the end of ambition, of the american dream. a place the few and lucky build their mansions by the sea. newport beach, orange county, california, where the most unexpected event would be murder. >> things like this rarely happen in newport beach, let alone in an area as secure as this area. >> reporter: let alone involving people like this, attractive, charismatic, living large. like nanette johnston packard mcneal. >> she had a beautiful home, drove an expensive car. and she was sort of living that dream california lifestyle. you talk about "housewives of orange county," she could have been on the show. >> reporter: yes, in fact, she told friends she turned down an offer to be on that show. about excess in orange county. she ended up on a show called "american thunder" about motorcycles, showing off her own excess, including a bike she bought for 50 grand. >> what's your favorite part of the bike? >> i love the way it l

here's keith morrison with "good & evil." >> how do you measure a mother's love? or gauge the ferocity of her impulse to protect. >> to love her as much as i could was about the only thing. >> how to measure a love as visceral as the beating heart in her own body. >> she was my first-born. she was my best friend. >> how to understand the four mothers you'll meet tonight and their connection. one that not one of them would ever have thought possible. not in a million years. anymore than they would have expected to meet her. their guardian angel. >> if i don't bring her home, who will? >> reporter: its a rare mystery that's truly a confrontation of good and evil. >> we have to go to the dark places in order to find answers. >> reporter: a rare mystery that needed an urgent answer, before the evil struck again. it was march 14th, 2014, early morning. an army of garbage trucks made their growling, clanking way around the thousands of trash bins and dumpsters in anaheim, california. their destination, a landfill that is also a literal mountain of garbage 500 feet high.