you know, we had such a connection. no kidding. both jehovah s witnesses, both home schooled by their mothers. or at least aaron was home schooled until his parents marriage broke up. we were so drawn to each other, that two people were so driven, and so optimistic, and just wanted to do big things in life. so after high school, they got engaged, and full of excitement, planned a wedding. then one night shannon s mother, pam, sent the girls off to bible study and told their father, jerry, they needed to talk. she looked up and says, i don t want to be married to you anymore. i don t want to be here. everything was fine, fine, fine, then we seemed to be getting along. everything was fine. she said, this is it, i m done. what did that feel like? it was a crush. you were crushed. what happened? no one knew. except that now these two had one more thing in common. both products of broken homes. the wedding day approached, just a few days to go, when shannon s mother, p
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. the best he could remember, said ralph, he got up to use
and ralph s marriage, on the other hand, thrived. they moved into a big house on a corner lot in the walsenburg, an owed coal mining town about 50 miles south of pueblo. they opened up an antiques mall in the center of town. then bought a vacation home in oregon. that was the happiest i ever remember seeing her. for nearly three years, shannon still hurt, rarely spoke to her mom. but then one day pam asked her to lunch. she was so focused on wanting me to know that we had a future together, her and i. wow. so finally she was coming around on her own accord. it felt like it, yeah. you know, when i told her, i said, i can t handle you being my mother and being doing what you did, i said. but i want to be your friend and i want to try this. so this is a break-through lunch. it seemed like it at the time. it was a break-through lunch, yeah. or a beginning at least. and then just a few days later
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? yeah. the only thing, you know, that i know, is that a lot of stuff was stolen from the house. okay. ralph stuck to his story. a deadly home invasion. and then i found her. yeah. and that s, you know yeah. i tried to deal with that. shannon pressed ralph for details. the one guy that hit me that i saw from the front was taller than me. okay. and he had a dark complexion. you know, he had marks on his face. and then something that didn t sound quite right. and i don t know. and that s and it felt like a split second. a split second? remember, in
true. remember those two men fingered as possible killers? they had records, drug offenses, burglaries. she walks in on a burglary. burglaries aren t uncommon in walsenburg especially with all the drugs around. reporter: then, said the defense, one of the bad guys saw pam and 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.