so his religious beliefs were more important than somebody else s life? ralph candelario s life was more important than anyone else s 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 don t 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 of ralph s story? oh, no. on the day set aside for his sentencing ralph decided the plot needed one more twist. the jail issued him a safety razor to clean up for court. ralph used it to slash his wrists and throat. his own son was not sympathetic. well, you know, the sucker would rather go out than actually face his destiny that way.
and it lasted nearly two days. he woke up on thursday morning. i thought my nightmare was over. but i looked down the hall, and i could see pam s legs in the kitchen. that s when he ran out of the house and found his neighbor who called 911. of course, the world journal printed all that though the police weren t too happy about it. and eric mullens? i remember taking it home and reading it and putting it down and thinking, no, it didn t say that. and picking it back up again. but remarkable as ralph s letter was, it still wasn t the whole story. a few weeks after the murder, he mustered up the courage and told the police while he was held captive, he had asked to go to the restroom and he was sexually assaulted in the bathroom. why didn t he say anything about that before? his explanation was, that he was embarrassed. it might be a little bit difficult to talk about, but the smallest details could be very important, so keep that in mind. ralph agreed to show the inves
exactly. it was wonderful. 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 hits pam in the head hard. he s standing there in the kitchen, fire poker in his hand, wondering what to do. reporter: the robbers must have thought pam and ralph had already left on vacation. this family was supposed to be gone. that was the talk around town. reporter: so, for the jury it came down to whose story to believe. prosecutors said the police cleared those suspects right back at the beginning. but nothing could clear ralph. and nothing could soften a truly shocking allegation ralph murdered pam because divorce would get him disfellowshipped, cast out, from his church. pam wasn t leaving. and so he had only one option left. reporter: if he became a widower, he d be free to marry again. it was, said the prosecutors, one of the more disturbing motives for murder they d ever heard.
huerfano world journal which, said prosecutor matt durkin, had been exposed as an elaborate lie. that letter was in itself a very sensational story, but it was inconsistent with all of the physical evidence in the investigation that had occurred to that point. which the prosecution listed in detail for the jury to hear. but there s always more than one side to a story. defense attorney dariel weaver told the jury that when she read carefully through all the prosecution material, here s what jumped right out at her. when you take a good hard look at their evidence, when you see that they ve interpreted the evidence to fit the conclusion that they drew in the first 12 hours of this case, you see that all it is is assumptions and suppositions and cut corners. reporter: but, said the defense, if the jury looked at facts and not assumptions, they d see ralph s story about what happened to pam had to be true. remember those two men fingered as possible killers? they had records, d