>> i'm lester holt and this is "dateline." >> southern california's south bay. a stunning shoreline. >> we call it the sandbox. no one thinks that this part of los angeles exists but it does. >> this seaside playground is lined with beachfront properties worth millions and nestled among these small beach towns is an oasis. >> it's main street usa. >> a great place to raise kids. >> and in the south bay a decade ago, one of the rainmakers in the real estate business selling those beautiful homes in the sandbox was the woman on this business card. deede. >> she embraced everyone that came into her path. >> deede's best friends, a mortgage executive and real estate sales partner. she was good at her job? >> i loved working with deede. everybody did. >> she with a so easy to like and always wanted the best for everybody. her clients were very loyal over the years. >> deede was loyal too not only to her clients but as a divorced mom to her children, mike and julie. >> i remember my mom explaining to me when i was about 10 years old that as you get older, we're probably not going to be as close and you won't like me quite as much. it never happened. if anything, we just got closer. >> but deede keller had a heart problem. not literally. it may have been a little too big. she loved without limits and she simply hated to disappoint or let anyone down. she loves dogs so much she couldn't say no to another one. she was surrounded by them at home even in her real estate ads. >> i joked as soon as i graduated college, she started replacing us with dogs. she never stopped being a mom. >> never stopped loving everybody? >> she never did. she was ready to be embraced and to embrace you whenever you wanted it. >> there was one area of her life in which deede keller's embrace hadn't caught hold. >> life was so easy am so many ways but she couldn't make the man in her life thing come out right. >> she hadn't found that person. >> she did have a long-term relationship but that ended sadly in 1997. soon after, she met someone new. he was a real estate client named irwin howard, a pilot and airline mechanic originally from blof bolivia. >> she did feel loved, treasured and adored by him. he treated her like a queen. >> when he popped the question, deede said yes. at deed's bridal shower in march of 1998, irwin delivered his fiance to the surprise party. but the smile didn't last after the engagement was over and the marriage began. >> it wasn't more than six months after they were married that she just bliurted out she married him on the rebound. >> was having second thoughts? >> apparently so. >> it was hard for her to think about ending it because of what it would do to him because she knew he loved her. >> so much in fact the marriage lasted another four years after that conversation. ultimately their divorce was amicable and a year after the split, in the summer of 2004, deede seemed to be finding her footing once again. she had begun dating a well known south bay car salesman named bobby lowe. that new relationship was going so well that on the evening of thursday, july 8th, bobby lowe took deede out to dinner at this restaurant to meet his father. >> i talked to her before her date. >> any sign she was nervous about anything? >> she was in a happy state when i talked to her and we had made splans to hopefully get together the following night and so i could get the update on the date. >> that conversation never took place. i called her on friday. she didn't call me back, which was not unusual for deede. i called her on saturday and she didn't call me back. that was pretty typical. by sunday i started getting concerned. >> concerned too was daughter julie. she talked of meeting her mother that same friday during a layoff at lax as julie headed to cabo san lucas, mexico. >> we laid over in los angeles. i didn't get a text. it was a little odd. but didn't think much of it. >> deede's son, mike, was beginning to worry after he returned from a business trip to the san francisco area. >> when i called her cell phone, the voice mail was full. that had never happened with my mom. she prided herself on being responsive. >> so you go over to your mom's house? >> i went in the back gate and instantly it was clear that she had not been there for a while. >> what made that clear? >> the dog's water dish was bone die. my mom would die of thirst before her dogs went without water. >> the first call was to cindy. >> cindy, where's my mom? i instantly knew in that moment that something had happened. i just knew. i just said, michael, call the police. i'm on my way. >> where was deede keller? >> not only was there no water left outside for deede's beloved dogs, but detectives noticed lots of other things wrong inside the house. her purse was there but her wallet was missing. and this was a woman with money. lots of it. how much money did she have in the bank? >> i think it was over seven figures. >> who got that money in the event of her death? >> the beneficiaries were her two children. 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>> i didn't know. something was very wrong. >> mike called his mom's best friends. cindy had last spoken to deede three days before as deede prepared for a date rushed to the house. >> you could tell the dogs had been, you know, running around for days but the way the tv was on and the way the shades were, i felt like thursday night had never ended. i felt like friday morning never came. >> cindy immediately phoned deede's new boyfriend, car salesman bobby lowe. he reported they had dinner on thursday at a local restaurant. then returned to deede's house for a night cap. >> he said she had too much wine and she laid down on the couch and was starting to fall off to sleep and so he just said good night and let himself out. >> anything about what bobby lowe said sound in any way suspicious to you? >> not at all. >> the next call to el segundo police and soon on the scene, then detective sergeant carlos mendo mendoza. >> this doesn't happen to el segundo especially people known as well as deede is. >> what detectives found in their initial search of deede's home only deepened the mystery. in the kitchen, deede's purse. her cell phone still inside but no wallet. a vodka bottle that police learned was usually kept in the freezer was out on the counter. and in the living room, the tv was on cnn. >> we discovered whenever she left the house, she always put the tv on to a classical music station so it would relax the dogs but it was on cnn when we came into the house. >> so deede was watching cnn and had the dogs there and was having a drink and then left for some reason suggesting kind of whatever happened happened in a big hurry. >> she didn't have time to do her routine that she usually does before she leaves. >> it appeared deede had left in her car. the garage was empty. her silver 1999 mercedes gone. strangely, police found the car keys sitting on deede's patio. >> we decided to call the l.a. county sheriff's departments homicide bureau to come in and assist us. >> and answering that call, veteran detective jimmy gates. >> there was no forced entry whatsoever and when we started walking through the house, i noticed several articles that were very valuable. >> she let in whoever it was and it wasn't robbery. >> absolutely correct. if she didn't let them in, that person let themselves in and they may have had a key. >> gates wondered, had deede left in her car with someone she knew? and how did her car get taken without its key? if you don't have a key, is it as easy to steal a car as movies depict? >> not 1999 mercedes. it's hard to hot wire and steal it. you almost need a key to gain access to it. >> if your car doesn't have a key, the next stop is a car dealership to have a new one made. but first gates and his crew searched the house looking for deede's spare mercedes key without success. and gates quickly became convinced of one thing. you thought finding deede's car was going to be the key to this. >> that was going to be extremely important. >> deede's friends and family printed up posters and along with law enforcement launched a massive search. >> an army of people banned together to try to help find her and we broke up into teams and we mapped everything out in one-mile increments to search every parking lot looking for her car. >> we would ask people have you seen this woman? have you seen this car? it was frantic. it was heartbreaking. >> it was leading nowhere. at the same time detective gates wondered who might have a motive to abducted deede from her home. those most common of motives, love, money, jealousy, are all of the ones police hug first like old friends. deede made a lot of money being a realtor. >> she was successful, yes, sir. >> how much money did she have in bank? >> i think it was over seven figures. >> seven figures. a lot of murder committed for less than that. who got the money in the event of her death? >> the beneficiaries were her two children. >> detectives noticed? ing about the whereabouts of deede's two children, mike julie, at the time of deede's disappearance. >> both out of town at the time their mother went missing. >> why is that significant? why wouldn't reverse be more true? >> i thought mother goes missing and mike is gone in san jose and julie is down in a resort and it's my experience that sometimes people dissipate stress after they commit a crime in different ways. some people drink. some people take drugs and some people leave the area just to dissipate stress. >> there was strangely one more person who just happened to have been traveling near the time of deede's disappearance. her ex-husband, erwin howard, had just flown to his home country of bolivia and erwin was a mechanic who worked for american airlines in l.a. a common thread in all these trips, nearby lax airport, and so the detective thought what better place to dump a car? l.a. is a big place. a lot of parking lots. >> a lot of parking lots. it took a few days. >> you looked through them all? >> every one of them. >> no mercedes and no shortage of persons of interest. a lot of people close to deede keller were about to be hugged like old friends. >> coming up, deede's daughter, julie, rushes back from vacation to help find her missing mother. >> it was the most surreal experience. >> never suspecting detectives have questions for her when "dateline" continues. of mobile devices. cell phones, tablets, digital cameras, laptop computers, and a thousand others. they help us get where we're going, they keep us in touch and informed, they help us work and play. and they all use rechargeable batteries. millions upon millions of them. but these batteries aren't just rechargeable they're recyclable. together, individuals and businesses have recycled over 70 million pounds of batteries and cell phones. a network of over 50,000 free drop-off locations across north america makes the process easy and convenient, no matter where you live. recycling these batteries keeps them out of community landfills, and also preserves their materials for use in new products. we all enjoy the freedom that mobile technology gives us. let's accept the responsibility to pass that freedom on. find out how recycling works, how it helps, and how you can answer the call to recycle. visit call2recycle.org. in the days after the disappearance of el segundo realtor deede keller. all of l.a.'s south bay seemed to be looking for her and for her missing mercedes. leading the search, her best friends, cindy and linda. many times people disappear. immediate family works on it and everyone else is like, well -- >> not in this town. she had an army. >> deede's daughter, julie, rushed back to l.a. from a trip to mexico. >> it was the most surreal experience only to be greeted by suspicion. l.a. sheriff's detective jimmy dates discovered in the event of their mother's death, julie and her brother, mike, stood to inherit more than a million dollars so he confronted the kids using the oldest trick in the investigator handbook. do you remember an interview you did with jimmy gates in which he asked you basic questions. what's your name? where do you live and ordinary stuff and then he asks did you have anything to do with your mother's disappearance. >> it was more did you kill your mother? >> are you startled or angry? >> it was a horrible question. i can understand why it needed to be asked. >> detectives asked similar questions of julie. next in attempting to rule out as suspects those closest to deede, detectives turned their attention to her ex-husband, erwin howard. it turned out that although deede and erwin had been divorced for more than a year at the time of her disappearance, friends told police she recently invited him back into her life. about six months earlier, deede had been in a car accident and as she recovered, she needed help with her dogs. deede also apparently felt bad about the pain their divorce had caused erwin. >> she called erwin to help her because that was what he did best was to help and assist her so he helped kind of nurse her back to health and take care of the dogs and the house and her. >> and in taking a hard look at erwin howard, the detective found he had a rock solid alibi. on the night of deede's disappearance, july 8th, erwin clocked into work for his job as an airline mechanic at 8:30 p.m. he said he worked all night but it wasn't just erwin's word. he had to use an electronic key card to get into the hangar. that's a pretty good alibi. that's not something that generally the employee can influence. >> that's correct. that's absolutely correct. >> that left the last person to admit seeing deede alive. her new boyfriend, car salesman bobby lowe. lowe said he left deede's house between 11:00 and midnight that night and then gone to the gym the next morning. what possible motive could bobby lowe have to want deede either dead or out of the picture? >> there was no motive that i could determine whatsoever. >> and lowe provided investigators with two important clues. first, he said, while he was at deede's that night, her dogs all started barking at something outside as if someone were lurking. and the next morning, he discovered someone had keyed the side of his ford explorer leaving a long scratch. which suggests what? someone is following them on that date? >> absolutely. that's what it meant to me. >> but who was following deede and bobby? who was that angry? that act of vandalism pointed away from bobby lowe. >> i was an investigator for several years and i never known anybody to vandalize their own car. >> that kind of thinking is what would make it a perfect alibi. >> sure. sure. if he's sophisticated enough but his background indicated he was a well liked guy, kind of successful himself and not a lot of enemies. >> then came the news that all who knew deede had once hoped for and feared. deede's car had been found, not at lax, not in l.a., but 2 1/2 hours down interstate 5 in san diego. that silver mercedes had been parked on this street in downtown san diego for days earning it several parking tickets. when the local pd ran the plate, it came up belonging to a missing person and when the trunk was finally opened, there was a body wrapped in sheets covered by a blanket, which was itself decorated with dog paws. deede keller was no longer missing. police asked to meet with deede's family. >> it was just a wide range of emotions. there was almost some type of relief that they had found her because we were starting to think at that point how long could this go on? >> hardest day of my life. one of the hardest days for my children and all of her friends and her family. >> deede keller was dead at age 54. an autopsy showed she had been as fixated and the clues that were and were not in her car take this direction to a family direction. >> days before she was murdered, deede had a visit from a stalker. >> she said she was in the stalker and pulled her out of the shower and they had this huge altercation and he was calling her every name under the sun. >> with hotwire's low prices, we can afford to take more trips this year. hit the beach in florida... >> and a reunion in seattle. when hotels have unsold rooms, they use hotwire to fill them. >> so we got our four-star hotels for half price! >> men: ♪ h-o-t-w-i-r-e, hotwire.com. ♪ could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. mmmhmmm...everybody knows that. well, did you know that old macdonald was a really bad speller? your word is...cow. cow. cow. c...o...w... ...e...i...e...i...o. 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>> there wasn't one fingerprint either on or in that car or was there any partial print. nothing. >> deede's or anyone else's? >> nobody's. >> what does that say professional? >> someone went to great lengths to make sure they weren't identified through fingerprints, that's for sure. >> the killer did leave a clue in the tape wrapped around deede's body. >> i had never seen tape like that. it appeared to us to be consistent with red duct tape. >> that started gates in one direction. he also looked closely at the way deede's body had been placed in that car. >> someone took great care to place her in that car and that indicated to us that someone cared deeply about her. >> so part of this is professional and part of this says someone that knew her. >> that's exactly correct. >> but the suspicions that said professional fell away in favor of someone that knew her. not her children but someone who would re-enter deede's life in the months before her death, her ex-husband, erwin howard. did you ever think of erwin as violent or dangerous? >> i never suspected he would do something physical. >> detectives learned that something had changed in erwin howard in the months before deede's murder. remember, after a car accident in january 2004, deede had invited erwin back into her life to help care for her and her dogs. that request had apparently been misinterpreted by erwin. we know he started wearing his wedding ring again. erwin wanted back into her life and sounds to me like on some level she sort of appreciated that part of him that adored her and wanted to take care of her even if it's something that you're not going to be with anymore. >> right. >> do you think she made that point clear enough to him? >> no. >> she was too nice? >> always too nice and very trusting. >> and that may be why investigators thought erwin seemed surprised when just two weeks before deede's murder, erwin gained access to deede's computer and found e-mails referring to a relationship with a new man, bobby lowe. >> i think that really threw him for a loop when he found out that my mom, you know, had met somebody else and that's when things started getting scary. >> scary because erwin, detectives learned, had started doing things that pointed to an obsession with deede. and how did they know that? in one of those only in a small town coincidences, deede's son, mike, lived just down the block from deede's new boyfriend, bobby lowe. one night mike was sitting in his living room when he saw a familiar green range rover driving by and inside was erwin. >> as the evening went on, he continued to drive by the house. >> you call your mom and say, by the way, erwin is driving around the block while you're with bobby lowe? >> i didn't. i didn't really put two and two together. >> the very next day now just ten days before her murder, deede would call her friend, cindy, in a state of panic. >> she was crying hiysterically. she said she was in the shower and erwin came into the house without her knowing and pulled a huge altercation and he hey was calling her every name under the sun. >> deede told the same story to her friend linda. >> i said do you realize that erwin's behavior is escalating, deede? she said, yes. >> you said call the police. >> no, i said have you changed your locks. she said no. i'll do it on the way home. of course she never did. >> investigators soon learned that in those conversations with her friends, deede had left something out. a detail she mentioned only to her daughter, julie. that during that argument, erwin howard had also slapped her. >> i said, mom, you have to call the police. you have to get a restraining order. then i remember her asking me not to tell michael and that she was going to handle it. i remember being torn. okay. this is my mom telling me i got it. but also thinking maybe she didn't have it. >> a few days later, it was clear julie was right. the very night her mom went missing, julie got another phone call. this time from erwin. >> i got on the phone. he's, like, jewels, jewels, jewels, what is your mom thinking? i said erwin, i don't want to talk about this. i feel like this is between you and my mom. he's, like, well, you just need to pray for her soul. i remember thinking it was a little odd but then, you know what? given his grasp on the english language sometimes he would say some funny things or get something wrong but i just remember thinking it was on odd comment. >> detective gates now felt erwin howard's motive for killing deede keller was clear but proving that howard had means to commit the murder was another matter and he steadfastly maintained his innocence to investigators from the minute he stepped off the plane from bolivia to months after even though he was clearly the prime suspect and the case against erwin was not without its problems. it's one thing to stalk someone. quite another to kill them. there was no physical evidence tying erwin howard to the crime and there were those key card records showing him clocking into his job at american airlines the night of the murder. still, detective gates took the information he had gathered to the l.a. county district attorney's office and asked for a warrant. >> they declined to file charges. >> they won't file. >> did jimmy gates have the wrong man in his sights? would there ever be enough evidence to arrest a killer? any killer? >> coming up, finally a break. >> that's like lightning striking. >> twice. >> make that three times. >> one of the most shocking things i've ever seen in one of my cases in a courtroom. >> when "dateline" continues. kate and i have been married for 15 years. that's 3 moves, 5 jobs, 2 newborns. it's no wonder i'm getting gray. but kate -- still looks like...kate. with nice'n easy, all they see is you -- in one simple step, nice'n easy with colorblend technology, gives expert highlights and lowlights. for color that's perfectly true to you. i don't know all her secrets, but i do know kate's more beautiful now, than the day i married her. with the expert highlights and lowlights of nice 'n easy, all they see is you. and lowlights of nice 'n easy, geico's defensive driver,ke 13. good student and multi-policy discounts could save you hundreds of dollus. engineer: uh geico's discounts could save you hundreds of "doll-ars." it sounds like you're saying "dollus." dollus. engineeif you could accentuate the "r" sound of "dollars." are...are... are... engineer: are... arrrrrr. arrrrr. someone bring me an eye patch, i feel like a bloomin' pirate. geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. honestly, i feel like i nailed that. summer had come and gone in a.'s south bay without an arrest in the murder of beloved el segundo real estate agent deede keller. and as the months dragged on, detective jimmy gates kept pounding the pavement building what he thought was a strong circumstantial case against keller's ex-husband, erwin howard. but the l.a. county d.a.'s office had so far declined to issue a warrant for howard's arrest. deede's son, michael, wanted answers. there was a long time when erwin was walking around free. >> seemed like decades. it was so frustrating, painful, emotional. >> jimmy gates was feeling all those same things and soon his hard work started paying off. that unusual red tape found on deede's body, a specially trained dog found erwin's scent on it and detective found similar tape at erwin's workplace, the american airlines hangar at lax. what about erwin's alibi? computer records showing him at work in the same hangar the night of deede's disappearance and that he worked a ten-hour shift. turned out that the more detectives dug into that alibi, the less solid it seemed. detective gates painstakingly dissected procedures at the hangar and found this. erwin howard could swipe into work at the employee parking lot using a key card reader at this turnstile but he could leave whenever he wanteded by walking out the large bay doors and catching an employee shuttle back to the parking lot. there would be no record of his leaving. jimmy gates discovered that on the night of the murder, erwin used his key card to swipe into the parking lot at 8:24 p.m. and again at 10:21 p.m. and for a third time at 1:47 a.m., which completely blew apart his alibi that he had been at work the whole time. so he would swipe his card to get back in after there was no record of him leaving. >> right. >> by now you're convinced erwin is the guy. >> absolutely. all of the witnesses and evidence pointed directly at erwin. >> there was one more key piece of evidence. the day after the murder, a witness saw a mercedes on the street in el segundo. she thought it belonged to a friend so she sped up to catch her. >> she sees it's not her friend and sees a male hispanic driving the car and she remembers that license plate. >> the license plate belonged to the measurrcedes owned by deede keller. the man driving, the witness helped a police artist draw this sketch. who does it look like? >> it looks like erwin. >> the witness was shown a photo lineup and she picked out erwin howard. that's like lightning striking. >> twice. >> and then it struck again. six months after the murder, jimmy gates' phone rang. it was deede's next door neighbor who had been interviewed once and offered nothing of value but now apparently she was having an attack of conscience. the neighbor now told the detective that she had seen erwin on june 30th, the day erwin confronted and slapped deede. >> she said the conversation lasted 15 or 20 minutes where he articulates he was mad enough to strangle her with work gloves. >> that's what deede's neighbor says erwin said to her? >> correct. >> why do you think she didn't tell you for six months? >> i have no idea why a neighbor during a murder investigation just wouldn't simply tell the cops the truth. he wanted to kill her. >> armed with that new and threatening statement, detective gates was able to get his warrant and soon erwin howard was under arrest for the murder of deede keller. now, the case was in the hands of l.a. county deputy district attorney. what made this case different? >> i love cases where you have a very good idea who the suspect is but it's a question of putting the evidence together so circumstantial cases where you have high motive but you're looking at lots of little facts and seeing, okay, what can you turn this into. >> it would take three years for the case against erwin howard to come to trial. cameras were not present in the courtroom that day when trial began in the fall of 2008. the case was laid out in a devastatingly thorough 2 1/2 hour long power point presentation to the jury. opening statements are like a check. i'm writing a check. jury hears it and if i do my job right after opening, all they're waiting to see if there are funds in the bank. >> if you deliver during your case what you say you're going to deliver in the opening statement, you will get a conviction? >> that's my hope. >> but never in this prosecutor's wildest dreams did he believe his opening statement would have the affect it did on erwin howard and his defense attorney. you hear that opening statement and something changes. >> something changed. after the opening statement, i went back into lockup and i spoke to erwin and said, hey, listen, remember how i was speaking about the circumstancecircumstance case and it could be powerful and i think there could be problems now and his answer was i need to tell you something. >> that something would stun deede keller's family and friends and the prosecutor himself. >> one of the most shocking things i've ever seen in one of my cases in a los angeles courtroom in september 2008, something extraordinary was taking place. the murder trial of erwin howard expected to last three months was on the verge of ending in just two days. prosecutor john lewin presented a powerful opening statement. >> i had seen the defendant during the opening and i thought maybe, you know, something had gotten to him. >> the d.a. was right because after the opening defense attorney andrew flyer had spoken with howard who then made a stunning admission. >> for the first time in my career, i heard a defendant confess to a crime and i was the first one he told. >> until that moment, his defense was i wasn't there. i didn't have anything to do with it. >> correct. >> the defense attorney walked into the courtroom and made a statement that caused mouths to fall open. >> defense attorney gets up and he says that you're going to see something that you'll never see in a court ever. he says my client killed deede keller but he didn't murder her. >> what did that mean? >> they were trying to see if they could get manslaughter out of it. >> so deputy d.a. lewin asked to speak to erwin howard behind closed doors and made an offer. plead guilty to second-degree murder and be eligible for patrol in 15 years. >> my memory is that as i was saying this, he's nodding. >> this wasn't just about erwin admitting it to you. he had to come into court and admit it to everybody. >> erwin howard did just that. >> i do. >> surprising a courtroom filled with deede's friends and family. >> howard. h-o-w-a-r-d. >> there was a sense of relief that my gosh we'll hear the truth finally and erwin is going to confess. >> howard was guided through the sequence of events beginning with why erwin went to deede's house on the night of july 8, 2004. >> i wanted to talk to her. >> what did you want to talk to her about? >> to apologize for my act on june the 30th. >> june 30th, 2004, when after discovering she was dating another man, erwin stormed into deede's house, confronted her in the shower, tossed e-mails in her face, and slapped her. on that final night though, erwin says he knocked and deede alone after her new boyfriend left, he says, let him in. >> i said please listen to me. please listen to me. at some point i guess i raised my voice and the little dog started growling. >> erwin threw a pillow at the dog and that angered deede. >> she told me, how dare you hurt my dog and she slapped me. i reached towards her and i grabbed her hand. she started punching with her hand on my chest. i put her hand down. i pulled her toward me. she struggled. we struggled. >> erwin said he put deede in a sort of bear hug. >> i just kept holding her telling her please listen to me. i don't want to lose you. i love you. i don't want to lose you. >> how tightly were you holding her? >> i felt her body going limp. i stood there and i thought, i killed her. i killed her. i killed her. i killed her. >> erwin said he came back the next evening and put deede's body in the car using a spare key he had from the mercedes, he started driving and headed for mexico. he wondered how he would get back across the border so he left a car in san diego and hired an off-duty taxi to take him back to l.a. erwin admitted to the murder but he talked about it in a way that made it seem almost accidental. >> yes. he was willing to accept responsibility for the rage and for the anger. he was not willing to accept responsibility that the murder happened intentionally. >> second-degree murder. >> despite that, lewin felt a second-degree murder conviction was the best he could secure. and after erwin left the stand and took the plea, deede's friends and family had the chance to speak to him. they offered surprising words of gratitude and forgiveness to a now confessed killer. >> we will find a way to forgive you. >> you did the right thing with the circumstances and for that i thank you. >> thank you. thank you for doing the right thing. >> i remember thinking that something really special had happened. that although nothing is going to bring my mom back, we got the best possible outcome given the circumstances. >> it's rare in a murder trial to hear so much of the sort of lack of anger toward the defendant. >> they are good people. they're not vengeful people. i think they also realized that deede in hindsight had not handled things as best she could have in terms of terminating that relationship. >> erwin howard will not be eligible for parole until the year 2020. deede's friends and family, sorrow tinged with regret, now honor deede by urging other women not to ignore the warning signs of domestic violence. >> we want deede's life to count for something. i hope people will reach out for help, get support. >> i know you don't blame deede for this but i know that you also wish that she had been more forthright with the two of you because you would have acted even though she didn't want to. >> yes, we would have. >> there's no question i would have done things differently if i could go back and relive it. >> but for deede's friends, regrets give way to wonderful memories. today there's a plaque at the local dog park both remembering and honoring a woman whose big heart wouldn't ever let her turn away a stray. >> that's all for now. i'm lester holt. thanks for joining us. this sunday, the president seeks to ignite a new conversation about race in america. >> trayvon martin could have been me 35 years ago. >> the president's deeply personal remarks about the aftereffects of the george zimmerman trial add to the debate about the stand your ground laws, racial profiling and the plight of african-american boys in the criminal justice system and our society. >> if trayvon martin was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk? >> this morning a special discussion about race relations and the impact of the president's remarks on the black community and beyond. with us, the president of the national urban league, marc morial, chairman of the congressional black caucus, congresswoman marcia fudge. author and pbs host tavis smiley, former chairman of the rnc, michael steele, and harvard law professor, charles ogletree. plus, the remarkable financial collapse of a major american city. detroit files for bankruptcy. what's next for its residents including thousands of city employees and retirees. and what does it say about the plight of america's cities in this fragile economic recovery? we'll hear from the current and former governors of the state. the man now in office, republican rick snyder and his predecessor, democrat jennifer granholm. plus insights and analysis from david brooks of "the new york times" and nbc's chuck todd. >> announcer: from nbc news in washington, the world's longest-running television program, this is "meet the press with david gregory." >> good sunday morning. a week after the not guilty verdict for george zimmerman, justice for trayvon rallies held outside federal buildings yesterday in 100 u.s. cities including new york, here in washington, chicago, los angeles, and dallas. the message of rally organizers, trayvon's death should focus more attention on race, crime and justicen america. and that's where we begin this morning. we've got a special group assembled to talk about this issue, particularly after the president's remarks on friday afternoon. joining me, democratic congresswoman and chair of the congressional black caucus, marcia fudge of ohio. former chair of the republican national committee, now msnbc analyst, michael steele. harvard law professor who taught both barack and michelle obama at harvard, charles ogletree. author and pbs host tavis smiley and president and ceo of national urban league, marc morial. welcome to all of you. >> thank you. >> what a unique moment friday was for this presidency, for any presidency, and congresswoman, i want to start with you. describe the impact of the president coming out at the white house, speaking about race in such a personal and frankly off-the-cuff way. >> i was very proud, quite frankly. i think that it was timely, but more importantly, i think that he could feel the anger t

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