Murder Cops News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

thank you for watching. >> i'm craig melvin. >> and i'm natalie morales. >> and this is dateline! >> he said he couldn't handle talking about it. i was angry at him. if you're not going to tell me what happened, then you're 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, there's this guy, and you need to meet him. >> i was in love, yes. >> it ended in one of the strangest love stories you'll ever hear. >> i felt like i got hit by a bus. >> right before their wedding, her mother ...

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 he's 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 don't remember anything else, other than waking up in the morning. >> was it a robbery? >> the television's on. >> was it...

Investigation of this magnitude. >> you have small town departments, five, six, seven people. you don't have murder cops on staff. you don't have forensic professionals on staff. >> so by the time shannon arrived at the hospital looking for her mother, an agent of the colorado bureau of investigation was there to meet her. along with aaron. how did she take it? >> about as well as you expect anybody to get hit by a sledgehammer or whatever. first you're just kind of shocked, then a little bit of denial. >> suddenly i realized that that last conversation i had with her was -- that was it. >> no...

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 didn't go into the house. they just stayed, and were working on ralph. >> ralph wasn't 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 do...

Th that. i know you want it. surplus military equipment has been made available to law enforcement. this is equipment rotting in warehouses that a past administration didn't want you to have. some day they'll explain that one to me. i have heard the reasoning. you're getting it and it's coming in droves. as we get additional equipment, we send it out to our great police. when an officer is hurt, it's a wound inflicted on our entire nation. in my administration, we strongly believe that criminals that murder cops should get the death penalty. every day -- [applause]