a guy that she had been talking to online for quite some time, you know. maybe she ran away to be with him. reporter: a missing person s case was opened, but nothing came of it. aaron and his brother moved in with ralph full-time. but aaron couldn t 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, well where would he put her body? reporter: he was maybe 13 or 14 when he thought about those old coal mines around walsenburg. did you actually go out and look? oh yeah, oh yeah. i went through a lot of those mines myself. reporter: alone? mm-hmm. reporter: you re looking for the remains of your own mother. i can t imagine what that i can t explain it.
my boys, and i m taking off. his mother, dina, was simply gone. aaron was devastated. what did your father suggest may have happened to her? that she possibly had moved to missouri. a guy that she had been talking to online for quite some time, you know, maybe she ran away to be with him. a missing persons case was opened, but nothing came of it. aaron and his brother moved in with ralph full-time. but aaron couldn t 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 coal mines around walsenburg. you actually went and looked?
you know. maybe she ran away to be with him. reporter: a missing person s case was opened, but nothing came of it. aaron and his brother moved in with ralph full-time. but aaron couldn t 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, well where would he put her body? reporter: he was maybe 13 or 14 when he thought about his old coal mines around walsenburg. did you actually go out and look? oh yeah, oh yeah. i went through a lot of those mines myself. reporter: alone? mm-hmm. reporter: you re looking for the remains of your own mother. i can t imagine what that i can t explain it.
but aaron couldn t 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 coal mines around walsenburg. you actually went and looked? oh, yeah, i went through a lot of those mines myself. alone? mm-hmm. you re looking for the remains of your own mother. i mean, i can t imagine what that i can t explain it. it s always been a fire that just drives you to do something. and then one day i had been going through some of my dad s stuff in the basement. i found a box of stuff that she had supposedly taking with her.
reporter: i got to say, by the way, don t want to embarrass you, but i have found that investigators of homicides are the biggest softies on the planet. we re not supposed to let that out, but once in a while it happens. reporter: you re 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 they re hopefully they ll be able to live on her legacy. reporter: and ralph s legacy? because of him, aaron will go on searching, hoping to learn what happened to his mother. yeah. i will be looking. probably in oh, in some way my entire life i ll always be asking questions. reporter: and shannon he needs to realize this isn t over. he didn t just murder someone and have nothing afterwards. he left behind family. he left behind a disaster. and if i m the only thing to remind him of that, then that s what i m there for.