and there at the entrance to the kitchen, still in her nightgown, lay pam candelario, her head coveredd. >> i knew she was dead when the ambulance showed up because they didn't go into the house. they just stayed and were working on ralph. >> reporter: ralph wasn't shot, but he was hurt. and he was airlifted to the nearest trauma hospital. walsenburg, as local reporter eric mullens knew, was not equipped to handle an investigation of this magnitude. >> you have small town departments with five, six, seven people, you don't have murder cops on staff. you don't have forensic professionals on staff. >> so by the time shannon arrived at the hospital looking for her mother, an agent of the colorado bureau of investigation was there to meet her along with aaron. how did she take it? >> about as well as you'd expect anybody, you know, to get hit by a sledgehammer, whatever. first, she was kind of shocked, then a little bit of denial. >> then suddenly i realized that last conversation i had with her was -- that was it. >> reporter: no fresh start now. her mother was dead. and then shannon saw