This is a picture of my mom and dad on their wedding day.
They got married in Las Vegas at the Little White Chapel,
and they both look so young.
My mom looks like a movie star, and my dad looks very
dapper, handsome.
It's hard to believe after all these years,
everything that he put the family through
for greed,
jealousy, malice.
He wasn't the person that, um,
is depicted in this photo.
Oh my God.
He looks like the devil. Look at him.
He looks like the devil.
That's not my dad.
It doesn't look like him at all.
Oh my God.
[The Paper Chase's "What's So Amazing About Grace?" plays]
[strings continue playing sinister tune]
[static crackling]
-[knock at door] -[creaking]
-[banging on door] -[creaking]
[water dripping]
-[banging on door] -[creaking]
[sinister chord strikes]
[Sara] I grew up in what I thought was a normal, happy, healthy home
in Fontana, California.
It was myself and my brother.
He's 18 months younger than me, so we were really close in age.
We'd go down to the park and play.
And it was just a normal childhood.
Mom would whistle and we'd hear and we'd come in for dinner
and have dinner and go back outside and play again.
I was never in the house.
We always were outside doing something.
My parents' names are Bill and Betty Gray.
My mom was great.
She was just very fun, very fun-loving, very funny.
They were affectionate towards one another.
I don't remember them fighting very often.
Growing up, I was a daddy's girl because he made me
feel safe.
He made me feel loved,
but now I hate him.
I hate what he's done to our family.
I hate what he did to my mom.
I wish he would've died,
because then he would be gone and she would be here.
I miss her a lot.
Our property in California had two homes sitting on it.
One home was vacant, but my dad kept a lot of his hunting
rifles in that house,
and my mom had the idea of renting the property
so that we had more money.
They rented it to a gentleman who, I don't recall his name,
but one day, the tenant left.
I guess the guy didn't have his rent money, so he left in
the middle of the night
with three of my dad's rifles,
and he was livid.
[echoing] Guy thinks he can steal from me?
My dad wasn't gonna let anybody get away with his guns.
[echoing] Stay here.
[Sara] He said he was gonna go find that SOB,
and he was gonna make him pay,
and I didn't make too much of it at the time.
When he got back,
I overheard him talking to my mom.
He had gotten most of his guns back, but the guy that
took them was dead.
He got what he deserved.
[Sara] That he had killed him and pushed him off the bridge.
I really don't know what my mom thought.
I don't know if she was scared,
and she didn't say anything because she was scared.
I don't know if she truly believed that he did what
he did, but she didn't challenge him.
To my knowledge,
I don't believe anybody ever came looking for him.
I was probably
12 or 13, so I didn't know what to believe.
All I know is what I overheard.
Looking back now, I believe my father murdered this man,
and he got away with it.
My dad didn't stick with one job for very long.
He liked being his own boss.
He thought he was too good for a nine-to-five job.
He wasn't making as much money as he wanted to, so he would
quickly change to something else.
He would get frustrated.
Whenever my father would start talking about money and lack of
it, that was just a huge red flag that something bad is
about to take place.
One day, my mom woke up, the sun was coming up,
and this was like at 3 or 4 in the morning, and she thought it
looked awful orange, and she got up out of bed
and looked out the window and noticed that it wasn't
the sun, and the barn caught on fire.
[as Sara's mother] Fire! Fire!
[Sara] My mom came running into my brother and my bedroom
and woke us up and said,
"There's a fire, you need to get dressed."
I started crying immediately,
and I was scared that the house was going to catch on fire
and we were all going to die.
Me and my brother just stood there and watched it burn with
a lot of our animals in it.
And the barn burned to the ground.
I mean, there was nothing left but concrete,
and the police told my dad it was an arson.
Then they started asking him a bunch of questions about,
is it somebody that's out to get you?
He's like, "No,"
and he seemed pretty calm.
My dad seemed to be OK with that,
which I thought was very unusual,
very out of character,
but the animals that were in the barn perished.
They all died, and he just
acted like it was no big deal, just seemed kind of like blank.
At the time,
I was very young, very impressionable.
All I remember him getting excited about was saying that
it was arson.
They didn't know who was responsible for it,
and the insurance paid out on it.
I had no reason not to believe him,
but at the same time, I had mixed emotions,
but I didn't share them with him because I didn't want to
get on his bad side.
This is one of my favorite pictures.
My parents, proud owners of a pawn shop.
They're standing behind the countertop with the guns
behind them.
The pawn shop was my dad's baby, it was his whole life.
He was in seventh heaven.
He thought he was on top of the world.
The biggest seller at a pawn shop was a gun.
The police shopped in there. The sheriffs shopped in there,
and my dad was the man in charge.
He was the man on top, and he was the man to see,
and that made him feel very powerful,
because he was allowed to carry a gun,
and he just let people know that he had a gun and he wasn't
afraid to use it.
He joined the Elks Club, where he met a lot of people,
him and my mom's age, that they could hang out with
and do things with and promote his business and just
take my mom out and show her off,
and they'd go dancing, and...
[sighs]
They were just happy.
I didn't see any animosity between the two of them.
One day, I was home with my mom.
The phone rang,
and my dad had called and said the pawn shop's on fire.
Oh my god, Bill.
And he was like,
"I can't believe this is happening to me again."
When the pawn shop went up, there were explosives in there.
There were bullets in there,
and there were tenants that lived below in the pawn shop.
It was a very dangerous situation,
and my mom and I were told to stay away because it wasn't
a stable structure,
and she was crying, and I was consoling her.
And I became very upset
when I found out about the fire
because I knew in the back of my head that my dad probably
did it.
When the family finally got all together and my dad showed up,
he was just like, "Betty, don't worry.
"We have insurance. We can rebuild.
The insurance money will cover it."
Everything's gonna be fine.
[Sara] I didn't face him at all.
You know, this is just too much of a coincidence.
Is there any way that dad could be involved?
My father was a suspect,
but they could not prove it, and he was never charged.
He had my brother there saying,
"No, my dad couldn't have done this, he was with me,"
[eerie music playing]
but as time went on, I learned that they stopped
at the pawn shop before they went fishing.
My brother told me.
He told me that he waited in the car while my dad went in
and grabbed some items that he needed.
It wouldn't have taken him very long to do what he did
to light the fires,
but I think he had my brother there as a witness
and was using him to save his own butt.
Once again, my dad got a big old fat insurance check
in the mail, and they rebuilt bigger
and stronger.
I remember one day, it was my mom's birthday,
and my mom came up to me, and she goes, "Where is it?"
And I says, "What do you mean, where is it?"
And she goes, "Where's the five dollars?"
And I says, "I don't know what you're talking about."
And she goes, "Grandma sent me five dollars in my card,
and now I can't find it."
[echoing] I didn't take anything, mom!
[Sara] My father overheard my mom and myself arguing,
and he proceeded into the kitchen where we were.
The next thing I know, he backhanded my mom.
[slap lands]
He pushed her up against the wall and lifted
her by her neck, and said,
"Sara would never steal from you."
How dare you accuse her?
[Sara] It frightened me. I know it frightened my mom.
The look in his eyes was pure demonic,
filled with hatred and disgust, and I was in shock,
and I started yelling at my dad,
[echoing sobbing]
"Don't touch her, put her down, leave her alone,"
[echoing] Dad, stop! Bring her down!
and then he finally released her.
And he says, "Don't you ever, ever accuse Sara of taking
anything ever again."
I was afraid for my mom,
and her safety,
and I didn't know what was gonna happen next.
One day, my dad and I were working the pawn shop,
and before lunch,
a guy came in with a folder and put it down
on the front counter and called my dad over and says,
"I have your insurance papers ready to sign,"
and I says, "Insurance papers for what?"
And he says, "Life insurance for $250,000."
So my dad said, "Well, Betty's not here.
"She won't be back for a couple of days.
Can Sara sign, can she forge Betty's name?"
And he goes, "Well," he says, "no, not really."
He says, "It doesn't work like that,"
and my father was very insistent,
and then that's when the insurance guy said,
"OK, we're only doing this one time."
He says, "Sara, you can go ahead and sign your mom's name
to the policy."
Well, I had a lot of reservations.
I just didn't feel easy about it at all.
[sobbing]
I wish I would have never signed it.
I knew I shouldn't have signed it when I did.
I feel so guilty about that.
Damn him.
He knew I didn't want to do it and he made me do it anyways,
and he told me to never tell mom what I did,
and that even made me feel more uncomfortable.
I signed it,
reluctantly, and now, looking back, I know if I wouldn't have
signed it that she would still be here.
This is my mom's business card.
She was called the Cake Lady.
She became very famous for her wedding cakes.
One of the first wedding cakes that she made
was my wedding cake,
and when she got her business cards,
she was in seventh heaven.
She was like,
"I'm a businesswoman, I own my own business."
It succeeded in what she started out to do,
and it was a bigger success than she could have even
imagined it would be.
So she became overwhelmed quite a bit because she had the house
to take care of and my dad and the pawn shop,
and then she would do her cakes in between.
But I think
her making cakes was a way of her to escape.
My dad became jealous of the time that she spent doing
her cakes instead of
coddling him,
and he became resentful and says, "I can't believe
"you have another cake to do.
"When are you gonna call this quits?
When are you gonna be done?"
But that was something that she had that he could not take
away from her.
At that time, I was pregnant,
but I hadn't shared the news with anybody.
The only people that knew was my husband and myself,
and, um, I was going to
tell my mom and dad that night.
About one o'clock in the afternoon,
went to get into my vehicle.
As soon as I closed the door,
a black sedan pulled up behind my vehicle.
And all four doors opened in the sedan.
Two police got out, and my dad got out,
and I knew immediately that something
horrible had happened.
What happened?
I says, "Is it mom?" And he says, "Yeah, it's mom."
And I says, "Where is she?"
And he says, "We need to go in the house and talk,"
and I says, "No, I'm not going anywhere 'til I get some answers,"
and one of the detectives said that she had died.
And I got very hysterical, started screaming and crying.
[distant sobbing] No! No!
I was like,
"Where's mom?" And he says, "She's in Idaho."
And I says, "What is she doing in Idaho?"
And he says, "Oh, she went over to hang out with her friend
for the weekend,"
and he says, "Your mom and her friend were murdered."
I asked him, I says, "How were they killed?"
And he says, "They were each shot once in the head
while they were in bed."
My father was unreasonably calm,
and he says, "Well, it looks like an occult did it."
[exhales]
This picture is of several red candles
that were lit, and they melted down to nothing,
and I believe the countertop in front of it was written in
my mother's blood, it says, "Satan loves you."
That goes along with the other writings down the walls
in my mother's blood.
Helter Skelter, pigs, kind of like taken out of the book
Helter Skelter.
My dad was saying that it was a Satanic cult that did it,
and it was a random killing,
and things already weren't adding up.
These were premeditated murders.
These were not done just on the fly.
He had a plan.
He knew what he needed to do and what he wanted to do.
A very evil, conniving person.
As if killing her wasn't enough, and you're picking up
pools of blood and taking the time to set the candles up
and writing Satan loves you and the other things that he did
throughout the house.
It makes me sick.
I was not in a good way.
My brain was all over the place.
My dad says, "Come here and sit down,"
and he put his arms around me.
I says, "We had some news to share with you,"
and he goes, "Oh yeah, what's that?"
I says, "Well, I hate to tell you this now,
"and I hate to tell you like this,
"with all this going on, but you need to know
that I am pregnant."
[echoing] I'm gonna have a baby.
"I've known for two weeks. I haven't told anybody,
and we were going to tell you guys tonight."
[discordant electric guitars playing]
He, for the first time, showed emotion,
and he squeezed me really tight,
and he goes,
"Oh my god."
He goes, "Oh my god, if I would have only known, I am so sorry.
I'm so sorry, honey. I wish I would have known."
Why didn't you tell me sooner?
And I felt uncomfortable
because of his reaction.
It was like, what would matter if you did know?
And I didn't understand.
And then I put two and two together.
That was his way of telling me that if he would have known I
was pregnant,
that he would not have killed my mom.
I had stayed the night with my dad that night in his home,
and I didn't sleep all night.
I couldn't get my father's reaction out of my head.
So I got up the next morning. I heard my dad.
[as Bill] Morning.
[Sara] And he goes, "Well, what do you think?"
And I says, "I don't know,
what do you mean, 'What do I think?'"
And he goes, "Well, look at my face."
I was like, "Your beard's gone. You shaved off your beard."
And he goes, "Yeah, how's it look?"
I says, "Why did you shave it?
Are you trying to change your appearance?"
And he says, "No, it was just time for a change."
I'm a new man.
[Sara] And he had had that beard for years.
That was a huge red flag, huge.
When I saw my father without his beard, it triggered
something inside of me,
and it made me believe that he did have something to hide.
This is the Roundy house in Idaho Falls.
I had never been there before.
The first time I was there was when I went with my dad to pick
up my mom's car to bring it back to Jackson.
My mom had gone to Idaho Falls
to Reeda's house for the weekend.
Her and my mom were very close friends.
I only went to the house the one time.
It was hard. I didn't wanna be there.
It felt really creepy, it felt evil.
I just didn't want any part of it.
I wanted to get in the car and go.
This house represents evil to me for the things that took
place inside of it.
Two innocent women's lives were taken.
None of it made any sense.
While things weren't really setting well with me,
I still wasn't sure if he was responsible.
It was like I walked into a nightmare
and I couldn't get out.
The following day, my mom's best friend called,
and she asked me to come to the house.
She says, "I need to talk to you about your mom.
I don't want your dad to know that you're here."
So I walked in and we both started crying and we were
hugging each other.
[echoing] There's something you need to know.
She says, "Sara, nobody's told you this, but your mom was
having an affair,"
and I says, "My dad needs to hear this.
You need to tell him,"
and she says, "He already does know."
[echoing] Your dad found out about it.
[Sara] "Your dad found out.
"He was rummaging through your mom's closet and came upon
"a bag that was full of letters and envelopes and cards
to your mom from this person."
When I learned that they weren't living as husband
and wife but they were still residing in the same home,
it hurt me.
I was sad, I thought everything was OK.
My mom told her friend, "If anything happens to me,
it was Bill."
He's responsible for your mom's death.
I was drained, I was tired. I had just had a baby,
and the last thing I wanted was my dad around my family,
and so I chose to confront him.
This was several months after the murder.
Dad.
He was sitting on the couch, and I says, "I need to ask
you a question,"
and he says, "What is it?"
And I says, "Did you kill my mom?"
Tell me the truth.
And I says, "Look at me
and tell me, did you kill my mom?"
And he said nothing.
He wouldn't look at me, and he wouldn't give me an answer.
By him not saying anything, it said everything to me.
My emotions were all over the place.
I knew in my gut
that he did it.
I knew why he did it.
My father killed my mother because he was jealous of
the relationship she was having with her new boyfriend,
and he did not want her to leave him and take half of
everything that they owned.
I believe Reeda was just in the wrong place at
the wrong time,
and once I spoke with the police, things started
coming together,
and they shared with me a report
from a security guard that had seen my dad
the night of my mom's murder,
that my father was in Idaho Falls,
I did not know this.
These are from the scene.
[Sara] And they had some photos that they wanted to share with me,
and they showed the blood on the wall and the candles.
There were a couple cigarette butts that were laying in
the same vicinity,
and they just happened to be the brand that my father smoked.
I asked them, you know, if you have such
an overwhelming amount of evidence, why haven't
you arrested him yet?
And they said because it was all circumstantial.
They weren't gonna get that smoking gun.
What they were gonna get was me and what I could bring
to the table.
I realized that I was my mom's only voice
and that I had to help her
to bring her murderer to justice,
even if it meant prosecuting my father.
I spoke with the detectives regularly,
gathering information from them and giving them information
that I had to hopefully help them along in their case.
[unsettling music playing]
One day, my father came over to my house,
and I wasn't quite sure why he was there.
He just came over and wanted to talk.
He asked me if I was working with the police.
I just told them what they already know.
And I told him that I have been in contact with them,
and, um, you are their only suspect,
and they are coming after you.
I'm not going down for this.
[Sara] It was hard.
Up until that time, I was my dad's cheerleader,
and I stuck up for him.
I loved my dad a lot.
He was everything to me,
but he was no longer my dad.
It was like the devil had gotten a hold of him,
and he was angry when he left.
Well, as time went on, other things started happening.
I was afraid that somebody was out to get me,
and he led me to believe that there might be a bomb in my car,
and he wanted to check my tires and all of this stuff.
He made me feel really uncomfortable,
and that gave me bad dreams.
I thought maybe if my dad could kill my mom, would it be
possible for him to kill me as well?
[sighs]
I don't even want to look at this.
[exhales heavily]
Because I don't want to remember.
I want it to all go away.
I'm ready to get off the roller coaster.
This is a picture of my dad,
looking very humble and happy.
This photo was taken
in our home on Stacy Lane.
That's where my mom and dad lived when my dad killed my mom.
It's a very handsome picture of him,
but it just, it's not him.
One October evening, there was somebody at the door.
They were knocking on the door, and I walked downstairs,
and two police officers were standing there.
The police arrested my father.
They found him sitting outside in front of my house,
where he told them he was just taking a rest.
He was on his way to Vegas.
"Well, this is the second time in two weeks that we have seen
you in front of Sara's house."
It scared me to death.
When the police told me that my father was caught outside of
my home two different times, I was shocked,
and when they searched the car, they found two loaded handguns
on the front seat.
They found several rifles and handguns in the trunk of
the vehicle, as well as a brown paper bag full of $80,000.
I knew he was going to
try to get in the house and kill me.
When I went to trial, it was the most emotional
rollercoaster I'd ever been on in my life.
I cried, I pleaded with my dad.
I says, "Daddy," I says, "please just tell us that
you did it so we can be done with this."
I says, "I love you so much, you're my father,
you'll always be my daddy,"
and I says, "I don't forgive you for what you did," I says,
"but I'm trying to understand,
and I just want you to stop this now, it's not necessary,"
and I got off the witness stand and walked across the courtroom
and two cops came up and grabbed me on both sides
because I was going to my dad to give him a hug,
and I was like, "Please stop this, just make it stop,"
and we broke for a time
so that I could compose myself.
I just remember falling into my aunt's arms and just
being so overwhelmed with every emotion you could think of.
I didn't want to be there anymore, but I knew I had to
finish what I started.
Trial lasted two weeks.
As it came to a close,
and they were getting ready to read the verdict,
and I started shaking --
I was shaking so bad I couldn't stop,
and I was just crying, and the judge said
to the jury, "How do you find the defendant?"
And they said,
"Guilty, first-degree murder."
About a week or so after the trial, I went to the jail
to see if he would talk to me and without a bunch of people
around and just reiterate with him, you know,
"I know you did this, I wish you would, you know, admit it.
"You're not gonna be any worse off than you are now if
you admit it,"
but I just, I was looking for closure.
I drove to Idaho Falls, and I asked if I could see him,
and the jailer came back, and he says that he doesn't have
a daughter anymore, and he doesn't wanna see me,
and I says, "OK, that's fine."
I says, "Would you please see to it that he gets this Bible?"
And he said, "Yes, most definitely."
He would give him the Bible, and that was the last contact
that I tried to have with him.
[laughing]
Oh, my goodness.
This was taken four months before she was murdered.
She was in California visiting her sister, and she looks
so beautiful.
She just looks very healthy and fit and happy,
like she doesn't have a care in the world,
but I know now that
her mind must have been muddled
with what-ifs --
What if Bill finds me, what if Bill tries to hurt me?
You don't see any of that in this picture.
She was very good at hiding things.
This is one of my favorite photos of her.
The things I loved about my mom the most was she was
so warmhearted.
She treated everybody with respect
and dignity.
I recall a time working at the pawn shop alongside
her when my father was at home ill,
and a woman came in, and she had a little baby,
and she wanted to pawn her wedding ring
so she could afford to buy some diapers,
and my mom told her to keep her ring,
and my mom went to her wallet and got $20 out,
and she says, "Here, I hope this helps you."
That's the kind of person my mom was.
Rick broke into the house and stabbed my mother.
Everything that was once there was broke into a million pieces.
He took a family that had so much hope
and could have done some good, and he just killed us all.