[Joseph] Diane was very bubbly and personable.
Wasn't afraid
to speak to anyone about anything, ever.
[Dot] When she first got married,
she found her Prince Charming,
and everything was going to be good.
-[indistinct background talking] -[David speaking]
I think he tried in the beginning.
[Diane speaking]
[Joseph] But things got ugly really fast.
[David arguing]
[Dot] I think she was kind of trapped at that point.
[Audrey] I was a baby, who...
just saw my dad...
kill my mom.
[opening theme music playing]
-[background laughter] -[David laughs]
I was opening the door.
-[Diane chuckles] -[David speaking]
[Diane continues chuckling]
[man speaking]
[man speaking indistinctly]
[narrator] It's Christmas Eve, 1995.
David and Diane Malone celebrate
their first Christmas together as a married couple.
[indistinct talking in the background]
[David speaking]
[background talking continues]
-[Diane chuckling] -[David speaking]
I used to have, like, Christmas Eve at my house every year.
And Diane would come, she'd videotape everybody.
She just was kind of out there.
She was beautiful.
You know, they both were very good-looking,
and easy on the eyes, as they say.
David was very charismatic,
and people were kind of drawn to him.
I really wasn't... that...
close with him.
But he was good to her.
Everything was good.
Everybody was happy.
Look, I'm even sitting down.
I am five years older than her.
She is the baby.
Mmm... There was four of us.
My older sister, Karen, myself,
-and my brother, Joseph. - [Diane speaking]
[child babbles]
[Joseph] Diane was very bubbly and personable.
Wasn't afraid to speak to anyone
about anything, ever.
[whining] Aw.
[Joseph speaking]
[Joseph] That's who she was.
Absolutely crazy, doing weird things all the time,
and always wanted to be on camera.
[Joseph speaking]
We used to do that with her hair all the time.
We all had long hair.
[Diane speaking]
-[Dot laughs] -[laughs raucously]
So funny, entertaining everybody, as always.
-[laughs] -[Joseph speaking]
-[indistinct background talking] -[Joseph chuckles]
[Dot] And this is the way she wanted everybody to be around her.
She was definitely, uh, a presence when she entered the room.
[Joseph] This looks like it was a time
when she may have been trying to model.
Yeah. She's got that, like, '80s thing going on, with that haircut.
[Dot] When she was a teenager,
s-- when she kind of started going off a lot,
I think that's when she met David.
David grew up in Long Beach.
He was adopted by his mom,
I think he was six months old.
By the time he was six, his adopted father had passed.
He did a lot of sports when he was in school.
Baseball, softball, that kind of stuff.
So, he was athletic and,
you know, a good-looking guy. He surfed,
and everybody knew who he was.
When she brought him home one day,
I was like, "Yeah, I know... I know, David."
We both surfed, and I would see him in similar circles.
He was always about himself.
That's how I would describe him.
He's not an ugly guy, physically, but...
I don't understand why she was attracted to him at all.
I think she was infatuated with his cockiness,
and the way he carried himself.
She was infatuated with all of it.
I think it was mostly his looks, at first.
He made like he was going to take care of her,
and he was her Prince Charming.
He was able to sweep her off her feet.
[Diane speaking]
[Dot] He always came across as, like, Mr. Nice Guy when he was out in public.
[inaudible]
Always a gentleman,
you know, complimented people, things like that.
[man talking indistinctly on TV]
But I didn't know we'd see that side of him.
I always saw the other side,
when he was home or at my house,
when he would not be so nice.
But there were so many times they had arguments and fights,
and... and he would call my house
and talk to my mother and say, "Oh, convince Diane to come back to me," and...
and my mother would be like,
"Oh, yeah, Diane, it'll be okay."
[inaudible]
He had, uh, definitely a way of, uh, convincing people.
But I was never convinced.
[Joseph] I'm gonna be honest with you.
I don't get a good vibe from that person.
And I... I never did.
Everything about him,
it doesn't matter if he looks like he's happy or normal in the picture,
I just know who he is...
inside.
But, I had to kind of keep it toward myself,
and let her make her own decisions and mistakes.
-[child crying] -[woman laughs]
[narrator] By 1995, despite family reservations,
Diane and David take the next step with their relationship.
[indistinct talking]
[faint laughter]
[Dot] A little while later, they got engaged.
But I don't know if she was really ready to get married yet,
even though she thought he was the one.
[Joseph] Before they got married, they had a fight.
She came home.
He was outside of our house,
and he was drunk, and he was banging on the door.
My mom got up and said,
"Diane, what's going on? Who's out there?"
And she's like, "It's David."
So I got up, and I said, "Diane,
you need to go out there and take care of this right now,
or I'm going to."
Eventually, he left.
But soon after that,
we had an argument about her marrying him.
It got to the point where...
it was physical, where she, like, hit me.
And I grabbed her shoulders and I said,
"This is what he's gonna do to you. I know it."
[man speaking indistinctly]
[Joseph] David loved to play sports,
and that was great.
But he would take it to a level.
There was a lot of fights that happened.
He could be volatile.
[Diane speaking]
[continuous indistinct talking on TV]
[man clears throat]
[Joseph] She told me about this.
And I believe that he pissed somebody off,
and they got him in the parking lot,
and then the rest of the guys must have been waiting in the side,
and he probably deserved it,
to be honest with you.
[Diane speaks indistinctly]
[Diane speaking]
I do remember the attitude, like, he had in that video.
The face...
That's all I ever see.
But she stood by his side.
She goes, "Oh, no, it wasn't him. It was the other person."
I said... I said, "Okay. If you're sure,
and you're gonna stand by him for this,
that's your choice."
And I believed her, let her live her life.
And this is what she wanted.
She trusted him.
[narrator] September 23rd, 1995,
Diane and David tie the knot.
[Joseph] And she looks beautiful.
She looks great.
This is their wedding day at the Plainview Inn.
She looks happy.
Everybody looks happy.
[Dot] She just said, you know, this is what she wanted to do,
and we all went along with it.
I thought she found her Prince Charming.
They... They were good for a little while.
You know, everything was okay.
[Diane singing indistinctly]
[narrator] A week after their wedding,
Diane and David are in Hawaii for their honeymoon.
[Diane speaking]
[woman chuckling]
[laughter]
[chuckles]
[helicopter whirring]
[Diane speaking]
[Diane chuckles]
[Dot] She was happy,
and I wish it could have stayed that way.
[Diane chuckles]
[David laughs]
[Dot] Near the end of the trip, she did say there was issues happening.
But the beginning seems like it started out okay.
[David speaking]
[Diane speaking]
[David speaking]
[Joseph] He actually talked about throwing her off the cliff.
It kind of verifies the things that I knew about him.
[Diane speaking]
-[Diane giggles] -That kind of shows you that...
maybe she did see something early on
that she was worried about.
[Dot] Only the beginning of...
a rough... rough time.
[Diane speaking]
[laughs nervously]
[David speaking]
-[laughter] -[Dave] That's right. We got...
[woman] It's this guy here, right?
[David speaking]
[Diane chuckles]
Everything was okay
after the honeymoon, and everything was okay for a long time.
[David speaking]
[Diane speaking]
[David speaking]
[Diane speaking]
[Dot] Unless alcohol is involved,
and David starts to get a little nasty.
[David speaking]
[Diane speaking]
[Dot] He wanted her to stay right here next to him.
Wouldn't want anybody else to go near her.
[Diane speaking]
He started to become a little more possessive as time went on.
She was ignoring it.
[gurgles and spits]
They say love is blind, right?
[men shouting indistinctly]
-[men cheering] -[man] Yeah! Yeah!
-Yeah! Yeah! -[whistle blows]
[Joseph] When I would be with him and Diane at family events,
I think that he felt like he... he just had to kind of be there.
[woman speaking]
[indistinct background talking]
[Joseph] And if he was going to be there,
he was going to do what he wanted to do,
and entertain himself.
He wouldn't lift a finger to do anything.
-[man chuckling] -[Diane speaking]
[chuckling continues]
[chuckles]
[Dot] Uh, he just was worried about drinking his beer,
and going to sit someplace and watching football, or...
some sort of sports on TV.
If he couldn't find somebody to talk to him,
he would go off in his own little corner.
[people talking indistinctly]
[narrator] Eight months after their wedding,
in May 1996,
Diane and David joined her family
to celebrate her brother Joseph's graduation.
David picks up the camera and starts filming.
[David speaking]
[David laughs scornfully]
He was pointing out her flaws
in front of my mom, me, my sisters,
Didn't care.
Did not care. He had no respect for anyone.
[Diane speaking]
-[David speaking] -[Diane chuckles]
[Dot] Little by little,
he just made, like, nasty remarks to her,
and she'd just kind of blow it off.
"Oh, don't listen to him," whatever.
You know, I didn't like any of it.
[Diane speaking]
[narrator] Three years after they get married,
in November 1998,
Diane gives birth to their first child, Audrey.
[Joseph] Audrey was born in November.
And everybody was happy.
[Diane speaking]
[Dot] Uh, when she came home,
it was... it was very exciting.
I have some great pictures of her.
She was, uh, very vocal.
[cries]
[Diane] What's the matter?
[Dot] She loved it. She loved taking care of her.
She loved taking her out, doing stuff, dressing her up.
-[Diane chuckles softly] -And then, David,
I think he tried in the beginning,
you know, tried to help and do stuff.
[Diane speaking]
[David speaking]
[Dot] When he was at my house,
he had make big to-do
about how he was taking care of everything,
and that was great.
My sister would sit down,
and, you know, he would take care of the baby.
[David speaking]
[chuckling]
Aw! [chuckles]
[Audrey] It's very emotional to look at that footage,
to see and hear both of them.
[man speaking indistinctly on TV]
[Diane speaking]
[Audrey] But being able to see my mom,
you know, she was, like, a literal angel.
She was just such a light to everyone.
You could see it in the footage.
You know, you could even hear it in her voice,
just her joy.
[Diane exclaims playfully]
They do come across as a team,
and they come across
as they care about each other,
and they love each other.
I think she was recording the snippets of happy moments.
And that was... that was it. Those were the snippets.
It was not like that.
It was not happy.
It was chaos.
And it was just fighting.
[Dot] And he would get annoyed about stupid things,
and then he would start abusing her verbally.
The house was dirty, or she didn't look good,
and "clean this up," and "clean yourself up,"
and we started to see it more and more.
[narrator] In 2000,
David's harassment towards Diane becomes physical,
and she calls the police.
I think she did get a little afraid,
and she just didn't want him in the house anymore, because...
He would throw stuff at her, kind of shove her.
I think that's when the cops were called.
But then, he would just go to his mother's house for the night.
He would, like, get flowers, and make this whole big deal about it,
and how wonderful he was, and he was going to change, and...
And then, she took him back.
[narrator] By Easter, 2000,
Diane is pregnant for a second time.
[Dot] When she was pregnant with Stone, uh,
it didn't seem as bad,
until she started getting bigger and bigger.
He would call her fat and disgusting, and,
you know, it was... it was terrible.
She would call me up, crying.
How do you say that to somebody who's, like, carrying your child?
[Diane speaking]
[elderly woman speaking]
[Dot] She was very stressed through the whole pregnancy.
She was very stressed.
That's when the red-wine thing kicked in.
She was drinking a little more red wine than she should have been.
I think that was kind of her way to try to cope.
[wind blowing]
[Diane speaking]
[narrator] In December, 2000,
Diane is nine months pregnant when she calls the police,
after fighting with David.
Her mother-in-law, Joan,
tries to reason with David.
And Diane decides to gather evidence of what David is really like,
by recording the conversation.
[David speaking]
She's confronting him about abusing my mom.
[David talking indistinctly]
-[continues indistinctly] -[David arguing]
Yes.
I can't imagine hearing that attitude
on a daily basis.
I mean, she must have been so upset and hurt all the time.
[David speaking]
[coughs]
[Audrey] You know, the second my grandmother said,
"You're abusing your wife,"
he jumps, and he gets aggressive, and he loses it.
And he starts saying, you know,
"No, you're abusing me."
That's not what was happening.
You know, but he's manipulating the situation,
because that's what he does.
David...
[David sneering] Oh... No... Yeah.
[David mockingly] Ooh.
[Dot] She'd never said he actually hit her.
Not to me.
She must have felt really trapped,
but she was trying to get out, obviously.
That's why she recorded this.
[Joseph] It proves that he's abusive to her
for a long time.
He's just an ugly person inside.
He's an absolute monster.
She must have realized, at that point, that...
her life was in danger.
[David speaking]
[in a high-pitched voice]
[Diane speaking]
-[David continues indistinctly] -This is Christmas morning,
in 2000, and...
-my dad is filming. - [David] Bye, bye, Santa. Bye...
And you see me, little baby me,
-about two years old... -[David] ...Santa Claus!
...coming out to see all the toys.
[David speaking]
I was always wanting to be the center of attention.
[David speaking in a high-pitched voice]
[Audrey] My mom is behind me.
And he has been really sweet.
[Diane speaking]
It's hard to watch this. [chuckles]
This is my dad opening the gifts
that my mom got for him for Christmas.
-[talking indistinctly] -He just looks pissed off.
A couple of weeks before,
he hurt her physically, and, and...
You know, she called the police.
It's almost like he's more mad at her than she is at him.
She's still got him a gift.
He's lucky he got anything. [titters]
He's lucky he's there.
[Diane speaking]
[Diane] I don't know.
[Audrey] Nine months pregnant,
he had just hurt her, physically.
And she's still got to go out and get him a gift.
And... And he's gonna act like that.
I mean, it's just nonsensical.
[David speaking]
[baby babbles]
[narrator] Five days later, on December 30th, 2000,
Diane gives birth to their second child, Stone.
[woman speaking]
This is when my baby brother Stone was born,
and I'm interacting with him for the first time.
Give me...
[Diane talking]
[laughs] Audrey, do it!
[David speaking]
[Audrey] I look at that little girl and you know, I think
what a nightmare I was experiencing
on the other side of this.
You know, this was a great moment,
but that's all that was.
It was the moment,
and then everything outside of that was just scary.
[David speaking]
We're in our living room on Alabama Street,
camera's facing the kitchen,
and me and my brother Stone are kind of horsing around.
You know, my dad was playing with us.
[David speaking]
[Baby Audrey]
[David speaking]
[Baby Audrey]
[David speaking]
[Audrey] All of it was just words right there.
And that same doorway is where I was sitting
when my dad threw that glass bowl
against the wall, and it shattered around me.
Right where my brother is sitting
right in that spot, that's where I was
probably just a week later or something like that.
He was so controlling, I could see that in him
that he was trying to control how she was,
and what she was going to do,
and when she was going to do it.
And I was I was very concerned about that.
[David speaking]
[Audrey] Oh yeah.
[Dot] She became very insecure.
She thought she couldn't do anything.
Without him being there.
And she became dependent on him
[David speaking]
[Audrey talking]
With every pregnancy,
once Diane kind of recovers, he's like,
"Nope, We're going to have another baby."
I just felt like they were just digging
a deeper and deeper hole.
That they would not be able to financially get out of.
[narrator] In 2002, Diane becomes pregnant
for a third time.
[Dot] When she got pregnant with Mason,
we were like, "Oh, my God, this is so bad."
And it seemed almost intentional.
I said, "He is trying to keep you here."
[David speaking]
We saw all the signs.
I mean, she knew they were there,
but I think she was kind of trapped at that point.
[Audrey talking]
[Joseph] Once they had their third child,
that's when things got ugly, really fast.
I think that Diane started to question,
"What are we going to do?
You know, what is the plan?"
In my opinion, I think that David didn't like that.
How dare she question him.
He would throw things, get loud, and intimidating,
and it would just be so scary, like, I would freeze.
You know, very often she would put me
in the room with my brothers,
and kind of put like a gate up or you know, put something
so that I couldn't get to ... get involved.
He was getting more abusive physically.
He physically was pushing her and throwing more stuff,
and calling her names, and putting her down.
I guess one day she woke up and she had enough of that.
You can only take so much.
That's when she started to call the police more and more
because their fights just got worse.
It's the only way she got him out.
[Audrey] If he was putting us in danger
when their fight would lead to one of us being in harm's way,
it was at those points
where he would end up being kicked out.
I remember telling my wife,
I said, "We've got to get her away from him."
She had called me
and she said, "I want to drink this bottle,
but I know it's wrong."
I said, "Dump it down the drain right now.
Do it."
She was definitely drinking as a result of his abuse.
I think at that moment when she called me,
that was the time when she finally realized
that she had to make a decision.
[Dot] She went to AA.
She realized she was in a really bad place.
And the only way you get out of that really bad place
is to get rid of the people that caused that.
So he had to go.
[narrator] In March 2004,
David moves out and in with his mother.
[Joseph] I knew that she had a long path to be rid of him,
and it wasn't going to be easy.
But she looked great.
She had lost a bunch of weight.
And she was the same person that I remember
before she married David.
[making guitar sounds]
[Dot] She became confident again, like she used to be.
We started to see who she was before she got married.
[Joseph] She was happy.
[chorus singing]
But David saw Diane as something that was his.
[David speaking]
I think that really set him off,
that it was actually going to be over.
[Dot] Once he saw that
she was not coming back, that's it.
He wasn't going to let anybody have her.
[Audrey] O n the night of September 13th, 2004,
that night sticks with me,
like it was yesterday.
[crying] I didn't know what happened, really.
I didn't understand that I lost my mom.
I didn't know that she was dead.
[siren blaring]
[Dennis] I think it was the oldest daughter
had notified a neighbor, um...
that something had happened to her mother.
That neighbor, they made an immediate phone call
to 911 to summon some help.
Once the officers responded,
there was little doubt that it was a homicide scene.
The scene was horrific.
Diane Malone has sustained
some incredibly serious injuries.
[narrator] On arrival, police discovered Diane,
her two young sons and Audrey.
[Audrey] Every single inch of that street
was taken over by ambulances and cop cars.
Just the entire area
was swarmed with police.
Nobody knows what's going on.
I was questioned,
and the only thing I can remember saying
was it was a robber.
A robber did it. A robber came in and hurt my mommy.
[narrator] Officers, led by Lieutenant Dennis Farrell,
immediately start investigating.
I saw enough to know that a horrible assault
had taken place in the... in the house,
and it involved a stabbing
as well as a blunt trauma assault.
One of the members of my homicide squad
was assigned specifically to oversee
the collection of evidence.
You're looking for your weapon.
Anything that they feel might have been used as a weapon.
The night that was found, that was taken as evidence.
We learned rather quickly,
even though the husband did not live in the residence.
He apparently had been there.
There was no indication that anybody else
had forced their way in or anything of that nature.
In a very short order,
we were notified of a witness
who had seen Mr. Malone fleeing the house.
One of the officers on the scene
took note that there was a trail of blood drops,
[camera shutter clicking]
That officer then began to follow the blood drops.
He came to the house of David Malone's mother.
And not only were there blood drops
leading up to the house,
there was blood on the front doorknob
leading into the house.
[narrator] Officers speak with David's mother, Joan.
They learned she was at the home on Alabama Street,
earlier that evening.
She had left when Diane returned home
from an appointment,
leaving her alone with David and the kids,
[Dennis] She said there was trouble in the marriage.
That her son had been living with her for some months.
On that, he was not there, and she had no idea where he was.
Once somebody commits the ultimate crime of murder,
they're a wild card.
You don't know what's going on in their head.
You don't know what ... what fears
and apprehension they have,
and you don't know what grudges,
what payback they want to deliver.
[Dot] I had a knock at my door
at three o'clock in the morning,
a policeman at my door.
And they said, "Your sister is Diane?"
I said, "Yes". I said, "Is she okay?"
And then they wouldn't answer me.
And then I sat down, and they told me that
there was an altercation and...
Diane did not survive.
My whole world ended.
[Audrey] They bring us to my Aunt Dot's house.
I remember coming inside
and... I sat on the couch in this one spot,
kind of like nestled between the couch cushions.
And I just remember sitting there for days,
not moving.
And I had to call my sister and my brother.
And tell them what happened.
It was probably
one of the hardest phone calls I've had to make.
I don't want to ever have to tell anybody that ever again.
It's just horrible.
I lost a piece of my heart that day.
It was my job...
to identify her
and I saw what he did to her.
It's the hardest burden I've ever had to carry in my life.
He didn't love her.
No one would ever do that to a person that they loved.
[narrator] As the families struggle
to process their grief,
and prepare for Diane's funeral,
David continues to evade police.
[Dennis] We spoke to his employer,
went to the bars, went to the parks,
we went to the stores he frequented,
went to anywhere he might be.
For the first 48 hours, there was no incoming information
on where he might be hiding.
There was a good deal of media attention to this
and it just seemed that
if this could happen to this beautiful family,
it could happen anywhere.
The media is an instrument.
The more people that are aware of this,
the more the case develops.
[phone ringing]
[Dennis] On the 16th,
three days after the murder,
one of the Long Beach police officers
received a call from an associate of David Malone's.
David Malone had contacted them,
asking for help in getting out of town.
[narrator] It's a major breakthrough,
and officers quickly devise a plan to meet David,
a block away from his mom's house.
The beauty of our plan,
it was David's plan.
David came up with the idea that I'll meet you,
you can drive me out of town, give me some money
and then I'll leave you alone, I'll be out of your life.
But there's always in the back of our mind,
"Are we being led down the wrong path?"
Very close to 11 o'clock at night,
David came walking around the corner,
carrying equipment that would make one think
he was about to go surf fishing
in the nearby Atlantic Ocean.
For some reason, he came to a sudden stop.
Once he stopped, the police officers
made an immediate decision to confront him.
They exit the vehicle, they warned him not to flee.
It was a now or never moment.
He offered no resistance.
That he simply dropped what was in his hands,
put his hands up and gave himself up.
No one else was jeopardized.
No one else was put in a position of danger.
That was the best possible outcome
we could have hoped for.
Once David Malone was in custody,
he was charged with murder in the second degree.
Now, here's somebody
really who could be described as a monster
for the horror he visited upon his wife,
[narrator] Facing a sentence
of 25 years to life in prison,
David decides to put up a defense.
I was told that his defense was she attacked him first.
I'm 6 1, 215 pounds.
So is David.
Diane would not want to fight against him.
I couldn't even believe that
he was trying to defend himself.
I do remember talking to the prosecutor,
and he was worried
that he would lose if he went to trial.
I was beside myself,
but I don't think they had the evidence
to prove that this is actually what happened,
and the way it happened,
and then he could have
potentially gotten a different charge.
[narrator] Prosecutors offer
a plea deal of 17 years to life in prison.
[Dot] The D. A. said to us,
"You're better off taking the plea
at this point."
Audrey would end up having to go on the stand.
And at the time she told me
that a burglar came in and did this.
And I said, "Are you sure?"
She goes, "Yeah, but there's...
I have a secret and I can't tell anybody."
I was a baby who just saw my dad kill my mom.
[Audrey] On the night of September 13th, 2004,
it was just a regular summer night.
I was this five-year-old girl.
My mom was out
and she had my dad's mother, Joan, babysitting us.
We were kind of winding down for the evening.
I had my teddy bear wrapped in my arms,
my favorite teddy bear.
I remember waiting to go to sleep,
because my mom wasn't home.
I never liked going to sleep when my mom wasn't home,
because I liked her saying good night to me.
And I heard a knock at the door,
and my grandma Joan opened the door.
And my dad was there
and, you know, I saw him walk in and he wasn't...
really saying much, but I do remember
my grandmother saying, "You know, David,
you're not supposed to be here."
A short time after that, my mom came in the door.
My mom said, "You know, thanks for...
thanks for watching the kids", and my grandma Joan left.
She walked out the door,
and then my mom went into her bedroom,
which was right next to mine.
And I'm laying there.
I'm kind of waiting
for, you know, my good night kiss
and my good night tuck-in,
[Audrey crying] and I hear her scream.
Everything slowed down at that moment.
So I remember getting up from my bed
and very quickly realizing
that there was something weird going on.
I remember struggling with the gate
to try to open it, and try to unlatch it.
But I... I figured out how to get it open,
and I just turned the corner.
I was standing right at the threshold of the door,
seeing my dad hunched over, stabbing her.
My mom was just sprawled out on the floor,
just completely limp.
And she was just completely covered in blood,
from her chest up.
It was like I couldn't even recognize her face anymore.
It was just gone.
I just remember her hair was soaked with blood.
You know, she had really beautiful blonde hair,
and it was just red.
He was so focused.
He was so focused on what he was doing.
I just remember running up to him and grabbing his thigh
and trying to pull on him and try to get him off of her.
[Audrey sobbing] I was trying so hard
to stop him.
And he dropped the knife and he got up and...
[sobbing] he ran past me.
And I kind of followed him.
As he was leaving, he turned around ...
[Audrey sniffing] and he looked at me,
and he just looked so cold,
and he just turned around and he left.
He just... just walked away.
How do you do that?
[Joseph] He left them there,
like they didn't mean anything.
Audrey said that he killed her ...
right in front of her.
[Dennis] Whenever there's children
involved in these events,
they always pay the heaviest price.
They are the ones
that are tugged in two different directions.
[Dot] She was five.
So we thought the best thing to do was
to just take the plea and just let it go.
And we would deal with it now at this point.
[narrator] In August 2005,
David Malone accepts the plea deal
of 17 years to life in prison.
He admits in court to committing
the second degree murder of Diane Malone.
I was there for the hearing.
It was very difficult for me
not to jump over that gate.
I had to accept it that there was nothing I could do.
In my opinion, he got off easy.
Eventually, he's going to get out.
I'll never get to see my sister again.
[narrator] Since 2021, David has been eligible for parole.
Every two years, Audrey has to share her story
to ensure he remains behind bars.
[Audrey] The first parole hearing
when they... they contacted me
about making my statement
and, you know, doing that whole process,
it reopened a wound I had to dig back down into
what I experienced as a child,
and I just begged them, you know,
to please keep this [sobbing] monster away from me.
[Dot] I don't think he deserves to come out ever.
He needs to stay where he is
because he will find a way to do this to someone else.
If somebody else crosses his path,
and they fall into that web of lies,
He will do it again, I think,
and... and not think twice about it.
[Joseph] I want to remember her
the way she was before she met David,
but it's hard.
She was a fun person.
I would have liked to have seen her grow old
[sniffing] and had more family parties.
[Dot] I liked the way she was that the last time I saw her,
she was happy, moving forward,
and I think she was finally in a good place.
She was ready to move on.
She should have been allowed to have that chance
to live the rest of her life.
My mom is whispering to me through the gift-wrap tube.
What did I say?
[laughing] What did I say?
And she said, "I love you. I love you. I love you."
And I said it right back.
-Yeah. -Ahh!
This season on American Monster.
I thought he was a good man.
But behind closed doors he was a different person.
I really believed that they were going to be happy.
I was wrong about that.
We saw that dark side of him that nobody else did.
[Woman] Leaves you looking for a little bit more adventure.
It was almost like he was a puppet under her control.
He had a double life that mom was not aware of.
It's just hard to believe that he would do that.
It's nothing but evil.