reporter: rick s next call was to phoenix police. explained to him who i thought was responsible, what his vehicle description was, where he was at, and how the three crime scenes were linked. reporter: it was just the tip the cops needed. now they had to find dwight jones. before he struck again. coming up this was a homicide investigation kind of in overdrive, wasn t it? it was. reporter: closing in on a killer. but not before police find more victims. my guts just absolutely dropped. reporter: when unraveled continues. reporter: when un continues. and ask your doctor about biktarvy. biktarvy is a complete, one-pill, once-a-day treatment used for h-i-v in certain adults. it s not a cure, but with one small pill, biktarvy fights h-i-v to help you get to and stay undetectable. that s when the amount of virus is so low it cannot be measured by a lab test. research shows people who take h-i-v treatment every day
why weren t you there? because i went to lunch. that s the only reason i wasn t there. reporter: the grief is still raw for natalie collins. you gonna change the way you live? i hope not. i don t think steve would want that. he was not about hiding in the shadows. i am not going to let him have died for nothing, and i will find a way to make him proud. reporter: no one can say for sure exactly what set off dwight jones. after the bloodshed was over, some videos surfaced that jones had posted before the murders. hello, youtube, and welcome to my channel. reporter: in them, dwight raged against his wife and the professionals who worked on the custody case. you ve ruled i have a psychiatric problem based on some piece of that she hired? reporter: the videos underscored some troubling questions. dwight jones was obviously disturbed, so, why wasn t he stopped? did the legal system fail everyone? could six murders have been prevented?
coalition to end sexual and domestic violence. they ve had no problem, whatsoever taking a position, a strong position, around dui s or driving under the influence. but for for some reason, we have had a very hard time, over the years, making the same argument with regards to domestic violence. reporter: habitual drunk drivers are quickly and legally separated from their car keys. but dwight jones, a documented domestic abuser, did not lose his right to own a gun. after holding his son captive in that standoff with police in 2009, he was allowed to plead guilty to disorderly conduct which did not prevent him from legally buying the handgun he used to kill. and there was the mental health treatment strongly recommended by dr. steven pitt and ordered by the court. dwight didn t go. but the court did not follow up with that. there was no consequence for that. reporter: just before his death, steve pitt was proposing a story to dateline, about
hostage for an hour. reporter: dwight was also committed to a mental institution for evaluation. connie remembers the report on dwight said he was not an imminent threat. but the psychiatrist that evaluated him called me and told me that he was dangerous. and that i should get a bodyguard. reporter: enter anymore enter richard. reporter: connie hired rick the cop turned private investigator to do surveillance on dwight. and to assess how much of a threat he posed. rick and his team tailed dwight took photos and video of him. and also combed through dwight s cluttered, debris-filled room in the family s home and found some books with seriously disturbing titles. how to get even with people, how to injure people in street fighting, it starts to put a makeup of somebody who s trying to plan something. reporter: ut sounds to me the
reporter: police described what happened next. he began firing at them. somewhere between seven and eight rounds were fired. all officers were safe and okay. and eventually in this action, they found that mr. jones had killed himself. self-inflicted gunshot wound. your ex-husband s dead now. yes. you feel safe? finally? yes. reporter: with a tremendous amount of courage, and with rick s help, connie jones and her son had lived to see her personal terrorist s last day on this earth. but other people were killed. innocent people. good people. productive people. that is a hard thing to come to grips with. reporter: six people gone, three of whom apparently had nothing at all to do with dwight jones. just in the wrong place, at the wrong time. like the paralegals,