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. reporter: 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. reporter: well, why didn t he say anything about that before? his explanation was that he was embarrassed. from my understanding, it might be a bit difficult to talk about but the smallest details could be very important so keep that in mind. reporter: ralph agreed to show the investigators exactly
delaying tactic, whatever it was it didn t work. a day later the judge ordered ralph back to court. people versus ralph lee candelario sentencing. reporter: and ralph, bandaged up, got another day in the spotlight. your honor, i have maintained that i have been innocent through this whole process. reporter: and then a keen observer might almost have heard the jaws drop around the courtroom. pam will be resurrected. we will be able to see her again. we will be able to watch her laugh and sing and do all the things that made her such a special person. and in that regard, i put my hope in that future. but until then, i am going to file an appeal for this particular motion. reporter: for now his future is life without the possibility of parole. i had never had a weight so heavy lifted. it was 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 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.
it s a grand name perhaps for a weekly paper in an out of the way little town, the world journal. but then walsenberg was a thriving coal mines offered endless promise. now antique stores like pam and ralphs filled the gaps left behind by departing commerce. i think in all small towns, you see, maybe a degree of selling the heritage because there s nothing else left to sell. so no surprise said eric mullens of the world journal. invasion and killing at the candelario place was a big deal for the weekly paper and for the whole town. we didn t know who was out there. people like their neighbors, dina and mark. i was afraid. i didn t even want to go to my paint class that i do in the evening because i was afraid to be out. a lot of people got guns. a lot of neighbors told me. i went out and got a gun. you know? i want to protect myself.
pam was there with me, just a few feet away. things took a turn for the worst, he wrote. then he pointed his gun at me and fired. it just clicked. i can t fully say what happened to me at that point. in fact, he was so scared, he said, he soiled his pajamas. he wrote that his ordeal began after he and pam went to bed on tuesday night, not wednesday, as he originally thought. 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.