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,
Their own door watched over by their beloved great dane cleo. aaron s wife ali. i would leave and go to dinner, the door was unlocked because cleo was the guard dog. keith and jewelry were transformed when aaron and ali brought into the world their first daughter ariya. when i had that child, it was the greatest day of her life. she wanted to be a part of everything she did. and julie was there for ali when she went into labor with her second daughter elise. the white knuckle dash to the hospital gave her the name nascar nana. she says, don t have a baby if my car. keep your legs crossed, don t have a baby in my car. everything seemed to be going great in 2015, keith had weight loss surgery and dropped more than 100 pounds.
Regretting what i d done. i probably drove 100 miles an hour all the way back, hoping to get caught. as for the future, keith says he is prepared to die in prison. i don t have anything to live for. except maybe forgiveness. from who? from my boys. that s why you re talking to me today? exactly. yes. well, it s between you and them. i ll tell you, my take on it is you ve got some distance to make up. i know i do. i ve got a lot to make up. 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. like i said, she talks about her
One word, and that was tragedy. wow. that does make the hair on your neck stand up. it does. 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.
Cause. there will be a crow into the deepest roots of treachery beyond most people s comprehension. it s not true. what have they all missed in. a monster. a liar, a cheater. he s destroyed my entire famil family. before it became charred rubble the house was home to a long-time paduca couple. keith and the julie griffin. high school sweet hearts, 36 years into a marriage that had produced two sons, erin the older. they were very supportive parents. they were loveling. they loved my kids. aaron took after his dad, athletic, easy going, levelheaded. younger brother zach was more of a fire cracker, like his mom. there was a time for instance in t