this is going to be a nightmare. when aaron and zach flew the nest, the griffith s lives seemed to only get busier. they joined a motorcycle class through their church, frequently were golf foursome with friends, craig and temple bradley. everybody that knew keith loved him. great guy. did he become your best friend? yeah. definitely. one of my very best friends. temple felt that way about julie, too. she had a heart of gold. she d do anything for you. but she also wasn t afraid to tell you exactly how it was, either. did she get people s feathers ruffled? oh yeah, yeah. yeah but everybody loved her. after early retirement from the water company, keith found a second career as a traveling lawnmower salesman, which left julie to spend a lot of nights home 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.
that wouldn t look good to a jury. the development brought aaron to a tipping point. were you no longer wavering at this point, aaron? had you come down on the side of, oh my god, my father killed my mother? yeah. yeah. now aaron, too, wrote his dad a letter. if he was guilty it s time. it s time to man up and do what you should have done two years ago. keith s defense attorneys went to the prosecutor to hammer out a plea deal. they agreed on 30 years in prison for the murder and for soliciting the hit. moments later, keith was standing in a paducah courtroom speaking the words his family and friends never in a million years thought they d hear him say. yes, he murdered julie. there s no excuse for what i did. and i can t take it back. and she was my best friend. and i don t know what happened to me. but i did it. there s nothing i can do about it. temple bradley who works near the courthouse was there. my heart was breaking.
they would leave and go to dinner or go to town and leave the door unlocked. because cleo was the guard dog. fulfilled as the griffiths lives seemed to be, keith and julie were transformed when aaron and ali brought into the world their first daughter, aria. a first child, it was a greatest day of her life i think. julie lived for my little girl. she wanted to be a part of everything that she did. and julie was there for ali when she went into labor for their second daughter analiese. her white knuckled dash to the hospital earned julie the affectionate nickname nascar nana. the flashers were going and honking the horn. what is she saying to you? talking to you. don t have a baby in my car. keep your legs crossed. don t have the baby in the car. everything seemed to be going great for the griffiths in 2013. keith had weight loss surgery and dropped more than 100 pounds. julie was over the moon with two granddaughters. but also that year came the rift. zach disclosed to
hour all the way back, hoping to get caught. reporter: as for the future, keith says, he is prepared to die in prison. i don t have anything to live for, except maybe forgiveness. reporter: from who? from my boys. reporter: and that s why you re talking today? exactly. yes. reporter: well, it s between you and them, but i ll i ll tell you, my take on it is you got some distance to make up. oh, i know i do, i ve got a lot to make up. reporter: of the countless things keith stole from his family, resilience was not among them. aaron and zach are closer than they ve been in years, and now that they know what happened to their mother, they say they can finally mourn her passing and focus on keeping her spirit alive for those two little granddaughters who were the center of her universe. my oldest daughter will remember. she talks about her almost every day. we have pictures of her up in her room. as my youngest gets older we ll
reporter: six days after the cold-blooded murder of julie griffith, family and friends gathered at her church to say goodbye. between the visitation and the memorial service, son, zach, was overwhelmed. just showed, like, what an amazing woman that my mom was, to have that many people come out just to say that, you know, they just wanted to give their condolences. reporter: to close friends craig and temple bradley, julie s husband, keith, was more emotional that day than they d ever seen him. tears. tears. sadness. i d never seen him cry, you know? in my life. reporter: but even as the griffith family mourned, zach and his brother were feeling uneasy about the investigation which seemed to be focused exclusively on their father. i was angry. i felt that the detectives, the sheriff s department, were on a manhunt, and they were after my dad.