well, this is gonna be a nightmare. reporter: when aaron and zach flew the nest, the griffith s lives seemed to get only busier. they joined a motorcycle class through their church and frequently were a golf foursome with friends craig and temple bradley. everybody that knew keith loved him. great guy. reporter: did he become your best friend? yeah, definitely. one of my very best friends. reporter: temple felt that way about julie, too. she had a heart of gold. she would do anything for you. but she also wasn t afraid to tell you exactly how it was either. reporter: did she get people s feathers ruffled? oh yeah. yeah, but everybody loved her. reporter: after early retirement from the water company, keith found a second career as traveling lawnmower salesman, which left julie to spend a lot of nights alone in the house. but keith never worried for her well being in a safe neighborhood, their own door watched over by their beloved great dane cleo. aaron s wife, ali.
religious, conservative parents that he is gay. it was definitely hard. i mean, it went from my mom was my best friend and going to talking to her multiple times a day to just being completely just completely shut off. reporter: julie visited zach that fall. they tip-toed around the elephant in the room but the time together gave zach hope. reporter: was that the step, as you look back, to patching things up between you and your mom? yeah. reporter: there was a way forward? there was definitely a way forward. we just needed more time. reporter: but then, came that cold night in january. 911, where is your emergency? there s a house on fire in canterbury and there s not a fire truck here! reporter: a deputy drove toward the griffith home, his dash cam recorder catching this quick glimpse of the blaze. then, the fire trucks arrived. mccracken county sheriff s detective matt carter received a call in the middle of the night. reporter: this is a bad fire? very hot
julie griffith was a wife. was it a bungled burglary or was it something else entirely? here s dennis murphy with consumed. reporter: the canterbury hills subdivision in paducah, kentucky, is a good place to raise kids. tidy homes kept up by neighbors living ordered lives. so as the front porch lights winked out on just another day, what happened one cold january night in the wee hours was especially alarming. a roaring all-consuming fire, was devouring one of the nice homes. it was awful, half of the house was gone. reporter: what would rise from those ashes was far more than a fire marshal s investigation into cause. there would be a probe into the deepest roots of a treachery beyond most people s comprehension. it s not true. no way.
with fire. reporter: it took about an hour for firefighters to knock down the flames. hours more for them to make their way through the blackened wreckage of the house to what seemed to be the heart of the fire, the master bedroom. ghastly, what they would discover. investigators make a pair of discoveries and realize they are dealing with both a tragedy and a mystery. coming up. he recovered a projectile. reporter: really? when dateline continues. ds advil is. relief that s fast. strength that lasts. you ll ask. what pain? with advil liqui-gels. do you want ready to wear clothing without all the hassle? you can, with bounce dryer sheets. we dried one shirt without bounce, and an identical shirt using bounce. the bounce shirt has fewer wrinkles, less static, and more softness and freshness. bounce out wrinkles, bounce out static.
reporter: what had they all missed? a monster. a liar. a cheater. he s destroyed my entire family. reporter: before it became charred rubble, the house was home to a longtime paducah couple, keith and julie griffith. church going, golf playing high-school sweethearts 36-years into a marriage that had produced two sons. aaron, the older. they were very supportive parents. they were loving. they loved my kids. reporter: aaron took after his dad, athletic, easy going, level-headed. younger brother zach was more of a firecracker like his mom. there was the time, for instance, in the sixth grade, zach grabbed a shovel and started digging a hole for a koi pond in the backyard. my parents come home. they re, like, what are you doing? i m, like, we re gonna have a pond. reporter: were they okay with it? yeah, they were fine. and they were kind of, like,