Finally Ralph News Today

thank you for watching. >> im craig melvin. >> and im natalie morales. >> and this is dateline! >> he said he couldnt handle talking about it. i was angry at him. if youre not going to tell me what happened, then youre going to dance around the issue and tell three different stories, what are you hiding? >> it started as a teen romance. >> two of my girlfriends are like, theres this guy, and you need to meet him. >> i was in love, yes. >> it ended in one of the strangest love stories y...

bus. >> right before their wedding, her mother and his father got married. >> they told us, we ran off, we eloped. who does that? >> two families and a small town left stunned. but it was nothing compared to what happened next. >> he looks like hes been shot. he said someone broke in last night. >> a deadly attack in the dark of night. her mother murdered. >> i realized that last conversation i had with her, that was it. >> his father bruised and bewildered. >> i dont remember anything...

Said the cbis jody wright. more like a cover-up. >> nothing in his statement matched anything that i knew to be at the crime scene. it just didnt make sense. none of it. >> it wasnt really that ralph changed his story in his "world journal" manifesto, not exactly. more like he kept adding to it. so he watches very carefully what youre doing and tailors his story to match what he thinks youre finding. >> exactly. >> ralph kept explaining, kept offering not less, but more details. about, for examp...

Had destroyed this relationship with me and kelsey, and shes gotten into this new marriage, telling me that she just wasnt as happy as she should have been. >> lots of circumstantial evidence, almost enough. not quite. and then the antique rugs. >> i was searching the kitchen area and found in the washing machine two small size rugs. and the rugs were still very wet. and they were balled up to one side. >> but when ralph saw the rugs during a walk-through with the police, he didnt seem to recogn...

Motives for murder theyd ever heard. so his religious beliefs were more important than somebody elses life? >> ralph candelarios life was more important than anyone elses life. >> reporter: so the jury got the case. and they worked till the end of the day and then through a second and then a third. tick tock. >> whether they convict him or they dont is going to be a different set of emotions. >> reporter: and then in the middle of the third day -- >> we the jury find the defendant, ralph leroy c...

>> what did that feel like? >> it was a crush. you were crushed. >> what happened? no one knew. except that now these two had one more thing in common. both products of broken homes. the wedding day approached, just a few days to go, when shannons mother, pam, and aarons dad, ralph, invited the bride and groom-to-be for dinner and a talk. ralph was every bit a devout a believer as pam. so some premarital guidance perhaps? oh, no. nothing like that. >> they told us, we ran off, we eloped and got ...

>> she walks in on a burglary. burglaries arent uncommon in walsenburg especially with all the drugs around. >> reporter: then, said the defense, one of the bad guys saw pam and -- >> he hits pam in the head hard. hes standing there in the kitchen, fire poker in his hand, wondering what to do. >> reporter: the robbers must have thought pam and ralph had already left on vacation. >> this family was supposed to be gone. that was the talk around town. >> reporter: so, for the jury it came down to w...

Evidence to arrest ralph candelario for the murder of his wife pam, but theyd have to find him first. ralph was on vacation or maybe on the run. >> i initiated some phone calls with ralph so that we could try to track him down. >> they tracked his cell phone and caught up with him. >> driver, get your hands in the air. >> in northern california. >> walk back to the sound of my voice. back to me. >> you all right? >> yeah. >> charged him with first degree murder. pams daughters were relieved when...

They wore gloves with l.e.d. lights on them. which would explain why no one elses prints would be on the knobs of the drawers. >> have you ever heard of gloves with l.e.d. lights? >> we researched it, because i had never heard of that. they do exist. >> in the letter, ralph also changed the time of pams death, backed it up by more than 24 hours. why? could that perhaps have been a response to this investigators challenge? >> she didnt die at 3:00 in the morning. it had to be earlier than that. w...

>> the best he could remember, said ralph, he got up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. then decided to go downstairs to make sure the wood-burning stove was still lit. but on his way to the bottom of the steps, he said, somebody hit him from behind. and then again from the side. >> and i put my arm up, and, boom, i mean, it just hit me like a ton of bricks. it hit me hard, you know. and so i went backwards. the ringing -- i couldnt see no more. >> ralph was knocked unconscious. >> ...