Left stunned. But it was nothing compared to what happened next. He looks like hes been shot. He said someone broke in last night. A deadly attack in the dark of the night. Her mother murdered. I realized that last conversation i had with her, that was it. His father bruised and bewildered. I dont remember anything else, other than waking up in the morning. Was it a robbery . The televisions on. Was it revenge . You were 11 years old when your mother disappeared. A missing woman, a murdered woman, and a lie. I didnt get through more than a page and a half, and i threw it. I could barely stomach to finish it. Welcome to dateline extra. Aaron candelario and Shannon Palmer were young and in love and engaged to be married. But their family was rocked by scandal. Then murder. Aarons father was found at the crime scene dazed and confused. But his confusing story had Police Questioning his version of events. Heres Keith Morrison with tangled. You cant put words to that. It was very surreal. 9
They told us, we ran off, we eloped. Who does that . Two families in a small town left stunned. But it was nothing compared to what happened next. He looks like hes been shot. He said someone broke in last night. A deadly attack in the dark of the night. Her mother murdered. I realized that last conversation i had with her, that was it. His father bruised and bewildered. I dont remember anything else, other than waking up in the morning. Was it a robbery . The televisions on. Was it revenge . Youre always going to look at the closest people to the victim. Or was it something much darker . You were 11 years old when your mother disappeared. A missing woman, a murdered woman, and a lie. I didnt get through more than a page and a half, and i threw it. I could barely stomach to finish it. Welcome to dateline extra. Im tamron hall. Aaron candelario and Shannon Palmer were young and in love and engaged to be married. But their family was rocked by scandal. Then murder. Aarons father was foun
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
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.
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. but remarkable as ralph s letter was, it still wasn t the whole story. a few weeks after the murder, he mustered up the