again.er it was, said the prosecutors, one of the more disturbing motives for murder they d ever heard.alph so his religious beliefs were more important than somebody else s life?so ralph candelario s life was more important than anyone else s life.th reporter: so the jury got the case. and they worked till the end of the day and then through a w second and then a third. tick tock.th whether they convict him or r they don t is going to be a they don t is going to be a different set of emotions. reporter: and then in the mbr middle of the third day ree we the jury find the defendant, ralph leroy , candelario, guilty of count number one of first degree murder. reporter: guilty. but the end of ralph s story? oh, no.safe on the day set aside for his sentencing ralph decided the plot needed one more twist. the jail issued him a safety razor to clean up for court. ralph used it to slash his wrists and throat.ouua his own son was not sympatheticl
going to tell me what happened, and you re going to dance around the issue and tell three different stories, what are you hiding? reporter: investigators, wondering the same thing, tried to find answers in the evidence. on a laptop, they found hits for match.com just days before the murder. so somebody had been visiting the site at least. that would have been our suspicion. reporter: well, it s got to be either pam or ralph? right. reporter: and then they found ralph s real life mistress. yes, he had one. and she said they carried on for most of the time he was married to pam. so now shannon thought back to the last time she saw her mother. because i asked her if she was happy. reporter: so what did she say? she realized that she had given up her family because she had destroyed this relationship with me and kelsey. and she s gotten into this new marriage. telling me that she just wasn t as happy as she should have been. reporter: lots of circumstantial evidence.
painstaking police work before investigators finally had enough evidence to arrest ralph candelario for the murder of his wife pam, but they d have to find him first.y ralph was on vacation or maybe on the run. i initiated some phone callsm with ralph so that we could try to track him down. they tracked his cell phone and caught up with him. driver, get your hands in the air. in northern california. walk back to the sound of my voice.pam back to me.en you all right? yeah. charged him with first degrew charged him with first degrew murder. pam s daughters were relieved when they got the news. all i could think to myself was finally.is what was that like? it was like yea, then it was like this is reality all over again. it s starting. meaning, of course, reliving the crime at the trial.ea i m antsy. i m eager.o co you want to go and testify? you want to go and testify? yeah. i want this to be over.
between donald trump and congress one wilson. and five living former presidents all appeared together in texas for a good cause, a concert to benefit victims of the hurricanes. now back to dateline. back. i m craig melvin. when ralph candelario s account of the home invasion was published, it was the talk of the town. welcome back. i m craig melvin. when ralph s account was published, it was the talk of the town. but could this story be true? ralph said yes. and police wondered if the truth was in there somewhere. here is keith morrison. ralph candelario appeared to believe that his 3,300-word letter about the murder of his wife would be the accepted true account of that terrible event, but here s what pam s daughter shannon thought. it felt overly dramatic and
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