Page 8 - Jon Ralph News Today

Im going to get my neighbor to help me here. [ knocking ] ralph, were getting help for you, ralph. okay? >> reporter: the police arrived, went into the house with guns drawn. and there at the entrance to the kitchen, still in her nightgown, lay pam candelario, her head covered in blood. >> i knew she was dead when the ambulance showed up because they didnt go into the house. they just stayed and were working on ralph. >> reporter: ralph wasnt shot, but he was hurt. and he was airlifted to the ne...

>> how are they doing? >> hes not good. crying. he told me to go help her. shes in the kitchen. im going to get my neighbor to help me here. ralph, were getting help for you, ralph. okay? >> the police arrived. went into the house with guns drawn. and there at the entrance to the kitchen, still in her nightgown, lay pam candelario. her head covered in blood. >> i knew she was dead when the ambulance showed up, because they didnt go into the house. they just stayed, and were working on ralph. >> ...

Shes in the kitchen. im going to get my neighbor to help me here. [ knocking ] ralph, were getting help for you, ralph. okay? >> reporter: the police arrived, went into the house with guns drawn. and there at the entrance to the kitchen, still in her nightgown, lay pam candelario, her head covered in blood. >> i knew she was dead when the ambulance showed up because they didnt go into the house. they just stayed and were working on ralph. >> reporter: ralph wasnt shot, but he was hurt. and he wa...

>> i knew she was dead when the ambulance showed up, because they didnt go into the house. they just stayed, and were working on ralph. >> ralph wasnt shot, but he was hurt. and he was air lifted 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, five, six, seven people. you dont have murder cops on staff. you dont have forensic professionals on staff. >> so by the tim...

>> ralph stuck to his story. a deadly home invasion. >> and then i found her. >> yeah. >> and thats, you know -- >> yeah. >> i tried to deal with that. >> shannon pressed ralph for details. >> the one guy that hit me that i saw from the front was taller than me. >> okay. >> and he had a dark complexion. you know, he had marks on his face. >> and then something that didnt sound quite right. >> and i dont know. and thats -- and it felt like a split second. >> a split second? remember, in his lette...

Event. heres what pams daughter felt. >> 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 then so were the cops. recovered memory? no, said the cbis jody wright. more like a cover-up. >> nothing in...

>> something like that. >> that was the thought. >> two wives, one missing, the other dead. and the one thing they had in common was ralph candelario. but suspicion alone wasnt enough. it wasnt proof. so the investigation continued? >> yes. >> in an effort to shake him, or maybe even get a confession, they sought help from the one person whose presence back at the hospital made ralph break down and cry. shannon. >> cbi had me call him, bugged my phone and tried to get him to tell me what happene...

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 married. >> wait, what? your mother and aarons father? >> yes. >> who does that? >> i dont know. but i cant tell you how much it felt like i got hit by a bus. >> do you know what that meant? it meant that by the time...

>> aaron and his brother moved in with ralph. aaron couldnt move on. she had to have left some trail somewhere. barely a teenager, he taught himself every web search engine, looked for years. but found no sign of his mom online. and a terrible suspicion took hold of him, hardened into something like certainty. his mother must be dead. his father must have done it. >> and after that, it became more of, okay, where would he put her body? >> he was maybe 13 or 14 when he thought about those old coa...

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