Page 16 - Finally Ralph News Today

Letter about the murder of his wife would be the accepted true account of that terrible event. but heres what pams daughter, shannon, thought. >> it felt overly dramatic and really just glamorous that he was the victim of this. and that wasnt -- that made me sick. >> and angry obviously. >> yeah. >> her sister kelseys interpretation? >> i thought it was very strange. i thought that he had some work to do on a story because it sounded really phony. >> entitled to their opinions, of course. but th...

The way, dont want to embarrass you, but i have found that investigators of homicides are the biggest softies on the planet. >> were not supposed to let that out, but once in a while it happens. >> reporter: youre not supposed to care as much as you do, but you really do. >> you do. >> oh, absolutely. >> you become very attached. >> those girls are special. pam had a part in that, and theyre -- hopefully theyll be able to live on her legacy. >> reporter: and ralphs legacy? because of him, aaron ...

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 got the news. >> all i could think to myself was finally. >> what was that like?...

>> revealed by the first rays of a warm morning sun. >> her head -- there was just blood all over. and there was blood on the floor. and i touched her cheek. and she was cold, cold, cold. and i ran out of the house. >> and that, said ralph, is when he saw his neighbor and yelled for help. but who did it? robbers? or someone else? normally, said walsenburg police captain vince suarez -- >> you always look at the closest people to the victim. >> except in this case, ralph as also a vick tim, and c...

Along. everything was fine. she said, this is it, im done. >> 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...

>> all of a sudden, now his attackers, he remembered that 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...

>> you actually went and looked? >> oh, yeah, i went through a lot of those mines myself. >> alone? >> mm-hmm. >> youre looking for the remains of your own mother. i mean, i cant imagine what that -- >> i cant explain it. its always been a fire that just drives you to do something. >> and then one day -- >> i had been going through some of my dads stuff in the basement. i found a box of stuff that she had supposedly taking with her. a denim jacket her mother had given her, passport was there. >>...

Her husband, ralph, was badly beaten. ralph told police his version of the events. then a letter arrived at a local newspaper. was the news fit to print or an exercise in creative writing? thats what investigators wanted to know. continuing with "tangled," heres keith morrison. >> its a grand name perhaps for a weekly paper in an out of the way little town, the world journal. but then walsenberg was a thriving coal mines offered endless promise. now antique stores like pam and ralphs filled the ...

>> 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 candelario, guilty of count number one of first degree murder. >> reporter: guilty. but the end of ralphs sto...

Said his captors held him and abused him for nearly two days. >> in my mind, if youre not going to tell me what happened, and youre going to dance around the issue and tell me different stories. what are you hiding? >> investigators wondering the same thing, tried to find answers in the evidence. on a laptop they found hits for, match.com, just days before the murder. somebody had been visiting the site at least. >> that would have been our suspicion. >> its going to be either pam or ralph. >> r...