thank you for watching. i m craig melvin. and i m natalie morales. and this is dateline! he said he couldn t handle talking about it. i was angry at him. if you re not going to tell me what happened, then you re going to dance around the issue and tell three different stories, what are you hiding? it started as a teen romance. two of my girlfriends are like, there s this guy, and you need to meet him. i was in love, yes. it ended in one of the strangest love stories you ll ever hear. i felt like i got hit by a bus. right before their wedding, her mother and his father got married. they told us, we ran off, we eloped. who does that? two families and a small town left stunned. but it was nothing compared to what happened next. he looks like he s been shot. he said someone broke in last night. a deadly attack in the dark of night. her mother murdered. i realized that last conversation i had with her, that was it. his father bruised and bewildered.
bus. right before their wedding, her mother and his father got married. they told us, we ran off, we eloped. who does that? two families and a small town left stunned. but it was nothing compared to what happened next. he looks like he s been shot. he said someone broke in last night. a deadly attack in the dark of night. her mother murdered. i realized that last conversation i had with her, that was it. his father bruised and bewildered. i don t remember anything else, other than waking up in the morning. was it a robbery? the television s on. was it darker? you re 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 didn t get through more than a page and a half, and i threw it. i could barely stomach to finish it. but the family was rocked by scandal and then murder. aaron s father was found at the cri
Stories. Where are you hiding . It started as a teen romance. Two of my girlfriends are like theres a guy. Youve got to meet him. A deadly attack in the dark of night. His mother murdered. I realized that last conversation i had with her, that was it. His father, bruised and bewildered. I dont remember Anything Else. Was it a robbery or was it something much darker . You were 11 years old when your mother disappeared . A missing woman, a murdered woman, and alive. I could barely stomach to finish it. Welcome to dateline. Shannon palmer and Eric Candelario were young and engaged to be married, but their family rocked by scandal then murder. But his confusing story had Police Questioning his version of events. Heres Keith Morrison with tangled. Cant put words to that. It wwas very surreal. 911, where is your emergency . Its true the old saying when you marry someone, you marry their family too. We need an ambulance. It e looks like hes been shot. He said someone broke in last night. Him
Sure. of course, they would need to look at shannon and aaron, too, given their falling out with pam and ralph. but they were cleared almost immediately, because they were nowhere around? yeah, they were not involved. dead-end. the crime scene people did find some things, mind you, including a bloody fireplace poker that turned out to be the murder weapon. the marking on her head was the exact replica of the shape of the fire poker, the end of the poker. they cataloged everything they found. broken glass in the backdoor. they even took the knobs off drawers and sent them to the lab hoping the intruders left dna or fingerprints on them. then, quite unexpected, something remarkable turned up. and right through the front door of the local newspaper so what did you think when you first read that document? i felt i had my own little version of the pentagon papers in a way. coming up, a letter that had everyone in town talking. i remember reading it and
and that s going to come back to you. okay. but that s when ralph reported the invaders were in his house just a few hours. now in his letter, he remembered the ordeal lasting nearly two days. and do you remember we mentioned it a while back that broken glass in the back door? the thing was, the glass fell out the door, not in, as you would expect it would do if somebody was breaking into the house. the police, of course, brought that up with ralph. and what did he write in his letter? i went out the back, and the rear door glass was broken. some pieces fell out when i opened the door. ralph even had answers to questions he wasn t asked, like, why was the fireplace poker exactly where it belonged by the fireplace? normally if you used a weapon, you re going to find it somewhere around where your victim is. and it looked like the poker had been put back in