guilty of murdering his ex-wife. even afterwards, cindy was about to rekindle a connection with an old friend and the story she d tell him would come with a surprising if you twist. here again is keith morrison with prairie confidential. reporter: murder can have so many innocent victims. like the children. angila and richie s. forever deprived of both parents now. i am what the kids have now. i am. they have been with me for the past year and they will continue to be with me. and they need to know that their dad is a good man. reporter: step-mother cyndi, the kindergarten teacher, said she was doing her best in trying circumstances. raising as step-kids, the children of the woman her husband had just been convicted of murdering. she did get some help, mind you, from her sister abby.
reporter: it was bad between those two. scary. i got a frantic phone call from her one morning and i was like, calm down what s going and she says, it s richie. i just woke up, came out of my bedroom, went into my living room and he s sitting on my couch. and looked at me and said, see, i told you i can get to you if i wanted to. reporter: is that what happened here? an angry ex-husband s revenge? hello. hi. are you richie? yes, ma am. reporter: a few hours after the murder, after talking to angila s fiance, chris, detectives goodman and mattice called richie in for a talk. but he didn t seem to know what was going on. and i ll tell you, angila s dead. oh really? yeah. did he seem upset by what had happened? he didn t. no. that strike you as odd? it did. yes. well, you d wanna have some reaction. it s the mother of his child. that s what we would expect.
reporter: life without parole. that was kind of a shocker in the courtroom that day, in fact, wasn t it? it was a surprise. but, i mean, it s certainly, in my mind, well deserved. reporter: from cyndi? not a flinch. from her sister? it almost almost feels like a death of someone in the family. everything changed. at least before there was some sort of a hope that, you know, even if it was a long period of time, there s still that hope that, you know, we can make memories again and go on trips and, you know, spend time together outside of prison walls. and that s gone. reporter: but for angila s sister? she s a horrible person. she s exactly where she needs to be, and i m so thankful that the judge saw her for the individual that she is. the monster that she is. reporter: cyndi wilder, now