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. uh-huh. and it looked like the poker had been put back in its original place. reporter: here s what ralph wrote. i picked up the poker to stir up the fire. i saw blood on the end of it and put it down. so investigators studied ralph s manifesto for clues and, thanks to the huerfano world journal, so did everybody else in town. neighbors like mike and dena. it sounded like a novel to me. a bizarre one, at that. reporter: shannon, who had been angry at ralph for not
reporter: ralph kept explaining. kept offering not less but more 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. reporter: 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. well, i really don t understand why the knobs are gone. reporter: and he would know you re looking for fingerprints of these home invaders? yes. reporter: 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 they wore gloves with l.e.d. lights on them, which would explain why no one else s prints would be on the knobs of the drawers. reporter: you ever heard of glo
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
oh, it s been a horrible day. reporter: best he could remember, said ralph, he got up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, then decided to go downstairs to make sure the wood burning stove was still lit. but on his way to the bottom of the steps, he said, somebody hit him from behind. and then again from the side. i put my arm up, and boom. i mean, it just hit me like a ton of bricks. it hit me hard, you know, and so i went backwards. the ringing. i couldn t see no more. reporter: ralph was knocked unconscious. i mean, i don t remember anything else other than waking up in the morning. reporter: then said ralph, still disoriented, he tried to sit up. i looked down the hallway. i could see pam, her legs. she was she was there. reporter: revealed by the first rays of a warm morning sun.
and i know that i need to cope with whatever answer comes. your opening.ut yes, your honor. then here it was, february 25th, 2016. victory, had tied prosecutor ndl ryan brackley s hands, in one way, anyway.er well, we tried to tell the entire story about ralph candelario and ralph as in other words, the very suspicious disappearance of dena, the first wife, whose bodt has never been found. but ec ultimately, the judge deniedt that motion, and we went to trial without that piece. you ve already heard about the prosecution s evidence. ralph s open letter to the huerfano world journal which, said prosecutor matt durkin, had been exposed as an elaborate lie. that letter was in itself a very sensational story, but it was inconsistent with all of the physical evidence in the