about his mother. now, you may have a serial killer on your hands. serial killer of spouses. something like that. that was the thought. two wives, one missing, the other dead. and the one thing they had in common was ralph candelario. but suspicion alone wasn t enough. it wasn t proof. so the investigation continued? yes. in an effort to shake him, or maybe even get a confession, they sought help from the one person whose presence back at the hospital made ralph break down and cry. shannon. cbi had me call him, bugged my phone and tried to get him to tell me what happened. she must have been so scared. she was terrified. it was probably one of the hardest things she s ever had to do. ralph? hey, this is shannon. but shannon did it. i ve been waking up having panic attacks. i can t deal with this. i want to know what happened. can you tell me anything?
details. about, for example, the drawer pulls in his house, the ones investigators removed to test for fingerprints. in the event that one of the invasion persons touched them. now here s ralph with the police at his house just after pam was murdered. noticing the missing knobs. what happened to all the knobs? he was very upset that they were missing. i don t understand why the knobs are gone. and he would know you re looking for fingerprints of these home invaders. well, yes. but what if they didn t find any fingerprints besides his and pam s? well, in his letter written a few days later, ralph provided a new detail that accounted for that possibility. all of a sudden, now his attackers, he remembered that
bull [ bleep ]. i said, this is the worst i could barely stomach to finish it. and aaron, shannon s ex-husband, ralph s son? aaron went to a very dark place indeed. oh, you have no idea. you were 11 years old when your mother disappeared. yes. coming up, secrets in the basement. i had been going through some of my dad s stuff in the basement and found a box of stuff that supposedly she had taken with her. when dateline extra continues. growing odors. that s why we graduated to tide pods sport. finally something more powerful than the funk. tide sport removes even week-old sweat odor. it s got to be tide.
about as well as you expect anybody to get hit by a sledgehammer or whatever. first you re just kind of shocked, then a little bit of denial. suddenly i realized that that last conversation i had with her was that was it. no fresh start now. her mother was dead. and then shannon saw ralph. and he lost it. he just turned into a sobbing, shaking maniac. ralph s face was banged up. he had bruises in several places. he was confused. like a man coming out of a concussion. just exhausted. my head still just hurts. and then as soon as he was able, and still in his hospital clothes, ralph talked to agents of the cbi. sorry to hear about your loss. it s been a horrible day.
well, you know, the sucker would rather go out than actually face his destiny that way. reporter: suicide attempt, 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.