Dateline NBC - Family Business

Episode Date: September 21, 2021

An explosion in a rice field in Colusa County, California kills the manager of a multi-million dollar farm. Police soon discover his death was no accident. Keith Morrison has chosen this episode as one of his most memorable classic episodes. 

Hello, I'm Keith Morrison. Most behaviors, most human behaviors, have very deep roots. We're all made of the same stuff, after all. Same emotions, good ones, bad ones, tugging at each one of us. Been that way since there were people. Maybe that's why we call some stories biblical, because those same ancient themes keep coming back and back. And in this story, in the great central valley of California, those connections are impossible to miss.

This is the inheritance, or family business. There is an Eden in the American West, a wide, flat, earthen cornucopia whose bounty daily fills the bellies of millions, whose great farms employ legions of workers and enrich with their profits families that pass the land down, father to son, generation after generation. They live modestly here in California's Central Valley. Multi-millionaires in crop dusters and battered pickup trucks, deeply conservative, self-reliant, tough enough to thrive in a dangerous business

that takes guts and brains and too often lives. Here among the churning, slashing machinery, the high voltage power that helps grow the food of life. Death can take a man unawares, even on a sleepy summer day. We just looked up and there he was. Like the day a little boy burst from the field of sunflowers next to Brandy Hayden's place. He was beet red, sweaty. He just covered in mud, head to toe. He had his tennis shoes in his hands. Carrying his shoes.

Carrying his shoes. You mean he'd been running barefoot? He said he took them off. I think that he got stuck in the mud, in the sunflowers. Brandy and her kids live in a rambling house next to one of those big farms in Colusa County. Idyllic life out here. Quiet, predictable. Until the Saturday afternoon, that little boy appeared, like magic, from the sunflower field. Couldn't have been more than

seven years old or so. So what'd he say? He said that his dad was on fire and he needed to call for help. On fire? How could that be? He was serious? He was serious. He was very serious. Once he started to talk, was he making sense? Yes. He was able to talk, you know, the whole time.

Answer whatever questions I had. There was no hesitation. Brandy called 911, passed along details as relayed to her by the little boy. Brandy, what is it the little boy came exactly that his dad... Okay, when you say he turned, his dad turned something on for the water, I'm guessing maybe an irrigating pot? Uhating pot, and it blew up like a bomb. As they waited for the fire department to arrive, Brandy began tending to the boy, Fabian Ayala. Gave him some water to drink, and then I took the water and rinsed all the mud off and checked under his shirt to see if there was any major injuries or not. Were you hurt?

No. Not at all? Uh-uh. This is Fabian three years later. major injuries or not. Were you hurt? No. Not at all? Uh-uh. This is Fabian three years later. His family by his side. He told us about the last day he spent with his dad. He would take me out when he had something to do.

Fabian's dad, Roberto, was a farm manager, a demanding sun-up to sun-down job, so to squeeze in quality time with his family, he'd often take one of his three kids with him. A proud man, always pictured with his chest out, his chin up. On July 16, 2011, that Saturday, Roberto needed to flood a rice field by turning on a series of high-voltage irrigation pumps. Fabian by his side in his pickup truck, Roberto drove the quarter-mile distance from one pump to the next.

And then he stopped, got out, walked to the big electrical box. He was just going to the rice field when we heard this big explosion. I go out and see what happens. He's just laying on the ground. So what did you do? I yelled his name out, and he wasn't answering. So I want to go and try and get help. So what did you do?

You ran? Yeah. Through what? Through fields, to flower fields. Yeah, they're big, tall. So you're running through them trying to... Yeah. Through what? Through fields, to flower fields. Yeah, they're big, tall. Yeah. So you're running through them trying to... Yeah. How far did you have to go?

I don't know. Pretty far. Far indeed. More than two miles. Running, running, running. Blindly through the field of golden flowers that closed in about him. And I saw the house, and I just went towards it. Do you remember what you said to them? Something happened to my dad and he was down that way and can you help me? And they said yes. They called the police department and they came as quick as they can. When firefighters reached the irrigation canal from which little Fabian had run for help,

it was obvious there was no life left to save. Roberto Ayala's body must indeed have been on fire, just as Fabian said it was. Why became clear when they found burn holes about an inch wide near the bottom of his feet, an obvious sign of electrocution. A locker-sized electrical box used to turn on a high-voltage irrigation pump had apparently shorted out and exploded. With such intensity, metal fragments blew out the windows and peppered the passenger side of Roberto's new Ford F-250. Miracle little Fabian wasn't killed, too.

We received a phone call that something had happened. Roberto's wife, Fabiola. It was when we received a call from the police department, and they said they had Fabián, and that Fabián was okay, but they couldn't tell us what happened to Roberto. We thought he was in the hospital. And you didn't know what happened to him? We didn't know what had happened. We called the hospital, and the hospital didn't know anything about what had happened.

We called the hospital, and the hospital didn't know anything about what had happened. About an hour, an hour and a half later, they arrived with Fabian. My mom asked my brother, where was my dad? And my brother just started screaming that he was dead. What was it like to see Fabian in that situation? I think someone being older wouldn't be able to handle it as well as my brother did. It was pretty amazing, wasn't it? To run all that way. I wouldn't have been able to run that much.

I wouldn't have known what to do or to stay strong the way he did. I just, I wasn't there and I couldn't control myself. I don't know how he did it. Farm accidents are as old as the wheel. Bad things just happen sometimes. Still, sheriff's investigators scoured the area, taking photos and collecting every bit of debris they could find, whether it looked like it was from an electrical box or not.

One of our jobs for the jurisdiction is to investigate all industrial accidents. Because, said Sheriff's Detective David Song, in Colusa County, the sheriff does double duty as the county coroner. OSHA eventually will take over that investigation if it's determined to be that type of thing. There was an autopsy, too. Routine, of course. They told us that the victim had been electrocuted, he had been burned, and he had been near an explosion. Pacific Gas and Electric sent a team over, which confirmed it looked like an accident and sadly not unique. He said well we've seen stuff similar to this what might happen is the the operator will get into the panel with a tool for some reason

and cross the leads with that tool and cause a plasma type of explosion and that could have been what happened here. The other thing he did say is, we've never seen anything this big. This is what the electrical box would have looked like before the explosion, about the size of a high school locker. And after the explosion, that box was nowhere to be found. All that was left was a splintered post where it once stood. Hard to know what to make of that. Investigators continued digging as explosive experts tried to determine what exactly

happened to Roberto. They're about to unearth the first clue. He came across a piece of metal. That piece of metal said to him that there was something more going on. When people hear the words fortunes and California in the same sentence, their minds generally go to some internet sensation like Google or Apple. But just 50 miles from Silicon Valley is the Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley, the valley where fortunes were made long before the arrival of microchips and semiconductors.

The farm Roberto Ayala ran, worth tens of millions of dollars, all going to just one extended family, the Moors. They were very, very private. This is Mary, part of the Greater Moore clan. Her family, like many of the big farming families around here, keeps its wealth private too. I knew that there was money there, but they didn't flaunt it in any way, and you weren't told about it. You just knew that it was there. And she learned early, she said, that the family fortune was also a tool to keep the descendants in line. My dad would say, like when I was in high school, if you ever get into drugs or do anything, I'm kicking you out of my will. Though she could never have inherited the land, that birthright was passed from father to son, not daughter.

The custom started with the Moore family patriarch who handed the farm down to his two sons, Roger and Gus. Each of them had a son, born just a year apart, Paul and Peter, who were in line to one day run the farm as partners. Cousins, but raised more like brothers. Here they are in 1978, clad in cutoffs, fishing barehanded Latter-day Huck and Tom. In 1980, they were on the same high school football team. Roger's son Paul was smart and handsome, bit of a playboy. Well, Gus's boy Peter, just two rows down, was tough and blunt. Hot-headed, really.

Pete has a reputation, I think, over in Calusa County. His mouth, basically, has given him a reputation because of the things that he has said. I'm a little different than the rest of them. Oh boy, so he is. Calls him as he sees him, even when it comes to his own family. There's too much money involved and everybody's afraid of what they might lose if they say something, even if it's right. There was one family member Pete did have a deep connection with.

His grandfather, the family patriarch. He... He was special. He taught Peter about farming, about tending the orchard. He had demacular generation, so I was his eyes. But when his grandfather, his patron,

died, Pete's life changed quite suddenly. After we buried my grandpa, in short order, I was pretty much told by my dad and my uncle that they didn't need my help anymore. And I don't know whether it was animosity because I had gotten so close to their dad or what it was. And after a particularly ugly fight with his dad, Pete was exiled from the land of plenty, moved north of this evening into town, and started a landscaping business. My wife and I had nothing. I mean, and when I say nothing, I mean nothing to do with the Moors. And Paul?

Paul remained the family golden boy his doting grandmother made sure he never went without. Paul married a local beauty. This is his wedding video. And he waited for the day when he'd reign over the land. But he was never involved in the big questions, when and what to sow, when to reap. Those multi-million dollar decisions were left up to Roberto Ayala, who had once been a lowly field hand. But anyone could see Roberto was a natural farmer and gradually trust and responsibility

and the owner's affection came to rest with him. Paul and I were the boys in the family. We should have been the next in line. It wasn't fair. It was a slap in the face. And to make matters worse, Roberto brought his brother Eduardo in as his assistant. The cousins, their birthright withheld, fumed.

Paul would come over and tell me horrible stuff about Ed and Robert, that Robert was sane about me. He said that Robert told Paul that he was going to get my share of what my dad was going to leave me at the ranch. Fair to say, though, that your nerves were a little bit raw about Ed and Robert. Oh, no, I was mad. I'm going to be honest with you. There was a lot of animosity. So much so that one day Pete jumped into his truck

and drove down to the farm and called Roberto out. And I told him, well, let's go. Your intention was to fight him. Oh, yeah. It settles things. But Roberto politely declined. He had a farm to run. And the next time Pete heard anything more about Roberto Ayala,

it was that he was dead. What did you think when you heard that he was dead? Well, I was told it was an accident. Which is certainly what it was. A beast according to the experts from PG&E. But just to be sure, Detective Somm called explosives experts from a neighboring county. Just to ask them, hey, have you ever heard of an electrical panel like this blowing up?

And they hadn't and at their own insistence came out to look at what we had and formed the opinion that it was possibly an explosive device. They, in turn, called ATF and FBI. To some, that felt like jumping the gun. Last thing he wanted was the big city feds treating him like a country cop crying wolf. And now I've got ATF and FBI showing up. I was a little overwhelmed. I was a little concerned that maybe, you know, we're calling these big agencies for help. And really what we have is an accident.

We had bomb guys saying it was a bomb, but they're bomb guys. Right. You know, we're not 100% convinced it's a bomb yet. And then, three days after the explosion. We got a visit from Paul Moore. Paul, Pete's beloved cousin, the handsome golden boy of the pair, told Detective Somm he found something out of the scene of the accident. Something that shouldn't have been there.

He came across a piece of metal that he found. It looked like galvanized iron or some kind of galvanized metal. And that piece of metal said to him that there was something more going on. Did he have any other ideas about what may have happened? He did. He had told us that his cousin Pete had made some threats towards the victim in the time leading up to the incident. And there was more. Paul showed Detective Somm's texts he received from Peter, sent from the very rice field where Roberto was killed. And that text was dated in time the day before.

The focus shifts from the nuts and bolts of electrical explosions to an explosive personality. Pete had a reputation for being a real hothead. Without hardly an effort, Pete could piss you off. At the time of the bombing, then Colusa County D.A. John Pointer had been in office for nearly 30 years, knew where the skeletons were buried, and knew just about every prominent family in the county, including the Moors. If I said they were odd, that'd be a pretty good way of summarizing it. Odd?

Yes. Odd how? You don't hear a lot about a lot of families, but you'd hear about the Moore family. Because they'd complain publicly about other wings of the family, or at least complain in such a way that people... Complain in a way that other people found out about it. And the two cousins? Pete, I've known for years, almost since I've been here. I had a reputation for being a real hothead. A lot of mouth. He couldn't back it up, but he had a lot of mouth. Without hardly an effort, Pete could piss you off.

So when Paul came to the authorities and said, I think Pete is responsible for this, did his suspicion seem plausible? Yes. Yeah. It did. Because we knew that Pete didn't get along with his family. We knew that Pete had a hot head. We knew that Pete had access to the property.

And for Paul to denounce Peter, who was like his brother? Sad perhaps, but made sense to the DA's office, which signed off on the warrant to have Pete's house searched. It was just a few blocks away. We went out to grab a bite to eat, and when we came home, we saw them all at the house, searching the house. Mary Ellen is Peter Moore's wife. Couldn't believe it. Did you think it had something to do with what happened at Ronald? We didn't. Well, I didn't think that first. I just said, what are they doing at our house? I got out of the car and I said, what the is going on here? And two cops came over and grabbed me and escorted me to the front of my house.

When Mary Ellen and Peter asked investigators what was going on, they were handed the search warrant, stating investigators were looking for anything connected to bomb making. I said, how do you know that it was a bomb? We don't even know it was a bomb. That was the first you heard of such a thing? Because we thought it was an accident. Did they seem to be accusing the two of you?

Yes. Both of you? Yes. Were you frightened? Oh, yes. What were you afraid of? That they thought we did it. Around Colusa, the raid on Peter's house just days after Roberto's death was big news.

The neighbor began sending out real-time updates on Facebook. There was a parade of cars driving around in the whole neighborhood. As these detectives were asking him questions. And as they were ripping my house, going through my house. And when they left? They took our computers and our cell phones. We had a business. Nobody could call us. But meanwhile, the whole neighborhood was watching this. Yes. But the search, said Detective Zahomm, didn't yield a thing. We didn't find anything as far as bomb-making materials, instructions on bombs, even anything remotely close to that, like gunpowder or anything like that.

So if Pete was doing something, he wasn't doing it at his house? Not that we could find any evidence of. He denied he had anything to do with it? Yes, he did. Though Pete couldn't and didn't try to deny his hatred for Roberto Ayala. Why did you hate him? He was arrogant. He flaunted stuff in my face. Felt the man had, as if this were some biblical epic, stolen his birthright. Lots of people around town knew about that, especially the Ayal's. So when they heard that Peter Moore's

house was being searched... I thought it was Pete all along. Why? He was always the one that had something mean to say. He was always the one that hated him. I didn't... That was the only person I could think of. There was a lot of town talk going on, a lot of gossip, rumor. About a week after his house was searched, Pete got a visit from a friend who had heard some things. I was working one day and he saw me, a highway patrol friend of mine, and he backs up in his highway patrol car and somebody goes, what the hell are you doing? And I go, I'm working. He goes, no you're not. He goes, you go get in your car, you get to Yuba City,

go to Sacramento, get an attorney, Pete. They're coming after you. You're their number one suspect. Pete's in the crosshairs, but investigators are about to learn that their victim may have made a very different and deadly enemy. The letter implied that Roberto had messed with a drug cartel. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has become something of a legend at solving puzzles. These little bits and pieces, fragments of this and that, were about all that was left around Roberto Ayala's body the day of the explosion. Story in there somewhere, thought the ATF. Agent Brian Parker was assigned to find out what it was.

What does this tell you overall? Well, what it tells us is that there was an incredible amount of force in the explosion. Most of these pieces were once part of the electrical box. You have washers, different types of hardware in here, screws, nuts, wire. Other pieces are just trash. But a few fragments, just a handful, look like they were pieces from a different puzzle. Odd. Cells from a 9-volt battery, gal were pieces from a different puzzle. Odd. Cells from a 9-volt battery, galvanized steel that's been ripped apart. Parker sent off these misfit bits and pieces to the ATS West Coast Crime Lab for analysis.

To determine whether or not there was explosive residue present on some of the fragments that were collected out at the scene. Like gunpowder, gasoline, or nitroglycerin? Correct. Then there was this. Discovered on the fifth day at the scene. Like gunpowder or gasoline or nitroglycerin? Correct. Then there was this. Discovered on the fifth day of the investigation, the panel box door found 160 feet from the site of the explosion. About four feet tall, about two feet wide, probably weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 to 20 pounds.

This, where the large hole is, would be the bottom of the panel. The forensic scientists of the ATF continued their battery of tests, hunting for bomb residue, fingerprints, DNA. All the while, Detective David Somm was on Peter Moore's tail, waiting for him to make a mistake. Did he go to ground? Did he leave? What did he do? He didn't leave. What were people saying around town that you were hearing?

We were hearing that people were saying that they thought Pete did it. They were following us everywhere. Didn't make a secret of it either, said Mary Ellen, from them or the neighbors. How did they start to look at you? Like we were guilty. After they raided my house, I spent days crying, days and days. You know, I'd be at work and just crying because you don't know what's going on. You don't know who to trust.

How much were you watched? I'd wake up in the morning to people outside my house. They watched me get up every day, go put a shirt on, and go out and be in the public's eye when everybody thinks you're a murderer. Even some of Pete's own relatives seemed convinced of that. Though his sister Mary stuck by him. I'm amazed at how much talking goes on there with no actual evidence of, you know, it's a lot of gossip and people in your business. Mary placed a call to one of the investigators, told him they were going after the wrong guy.

He was extremely rude and said, you and your family just need to accept it. Your brother did this. I just broke down in tears because I thought they just didn't like him as a person. And I think they just, to me, my opinion was they wanted it to be him. Four weeks into the investigation, Peter Moore was not just the top suspect.

He was the only suspect. They had no physical evidence, though, that a murder had even occurred. But they continued to watch and wait, and the weeks slipped by. And then a month after the explosion, there was news from the ATF crime lab. They had found something. There was the presence of explosive residue on the metal fragments that we submitted. So it was a bomb, a murder. Then the very next day.

I'm sitting in my office. We're talking about what we're going to do next. And the civil deputy walks in with a big manila envelope. And he says, I think this is for you guys. It says Colusa County Sheriff's Office, Colusa, California, no street address. And in the upper left-hand corner, it says Ayala case. And then there's eight stamps on it, which, and it was pretty light. So it was way too much postage. Because inside was just a single sheet of paper, an open letter to the cops. What did that letter say? Basically, it was claiming responsibility for the bombing. The letter, full of misspellings and bad grammar, had been written on a label maker, then photocopied.

Its author claimed to be a military-trained contract killer who'd been hired to kill Roberto over a Mexico deal gone wrong. And that it was MS-13 behind it. It's a violent El Salvadorian criminal street gang. And that Roberto was supposed to be a target of this group? The letter implied that Roberto had messed with a drug cartel and that MS-13 had been contracted. The author of the letter taunted the detectives, writing that lab results would find military-grade powder but no DNA, which was true so far. But the point of the letter wrote its author was a warning. Roberto's brother, Eduardo, was next on the hit list. The

writer said he had turned down the job to kill Eduardo. But a second assassin would soon be on his way. Did you think it was a hoax? Do you think it was real? I didn't know what to think. I'd never seen anything like that before in my career except on something similar on TV. But one thing about that strange letter was all too obvious. Whoever wrote it had inside knowledge. Because nobody, besides the cops, knew what the ATF had discovered. We hadn't told anybody it was a bomb. So for somebody to just write a letter

claiming responsibility for a bombing, you know, that lended some credence to the fact that the author of that letter was the real thing. Weird. All too weird. Detective Psalm and the others went home for the weekend to digest what they had just read and seen. And then, Monday morning, Psalm's phone rang. 7 a.m. He says, hey, get in here. We got another one of those letters. I came to work.

There's a second letter sitting on my desk. This one was a slightly smaller manila envelope or half-sized manila envelope, but configured the same way label maker address i alla case and uh way too much postage again what was inside that one it was a diagram of a bomb invitation from a killer the letter said if you have any questions place an ad in the sac Bee, make sure it's the last ad. On August 15, 2011, 30 days after Roberto Ayala's death, investigators received in the mail this hand-drawn picture of a bomb. What did you think when you saw that diagram? Shock. We were amazed.

Absolutely amazed. I had never seen anything like that before. The device, as shown in the diagram, was a two-inch pipe bomb placed next to a one-liter soda bottle full of gasoline. Spray-painted black. A large bolt tied off with a fishing line and acting as a drop weight would fall on a rat trap, causing it to strike a firing pin. Kind of like a Rube Goldberg device. The author also said there was a second secret triggering device as backup.

Either way, the bomb was designed to go off when Roberto Ayala opened the door of the electrical box. It could have been almost anything though, right? Now suddenly, Agent Parker saw how they all fit. Those confusing bits and pieces he'd been pouring over for the past month. It was almost like someone had sent us the cover of the puzzle box. So now they matched the bits to the diagram. The first thing I looked for was this bolt and there it was. The thing that made it exceptionally clear was the fact that the bolt still had some fishing string attached just underneath the head of the bolt, which is how

it was depicted in the diagram. So it would have been hanging from that string as a weight. Right. And so that was very clear that that bolt was in fact part of our device that was described in the letters. And there were fragments of a plastic soda bottle, black paint still clinging to them, again just like the diagram. There was a spring that was similar to a rat trap spring. There was gasoline on the victim's clothing. And then we recovered pieces of a 9-volt battery that we were able to determine that had no business being in that panel. So if you found the writer of those letters, you had found your killer?

That was our opinion, yes. Along with the diagram was a second letter, in which the bomber repeated his earlier claim that he was a reluctant assassin. After a career of killing, he wrote, I want to save a life before I take my life. The bomber repeated his warning. Roberto's brother Eduardo was next. In fact, the whole Ayala family was in mortal danger.

He said, I wanted to make sure you get this letter and have time to help these guys. So it was sent as if I've been assigned to do something, I don't want it to happen, I want you guys to prevent it. That was basically the gist of the letter. Did you warn Ed? Not exactly. There are things in the investigation

that we could not release. There was information about the letters that we could not release. There was information about the letters that we could not release. Keeping that stuff confidential was important to the integrity of the investigation. But the man's life might be in jeopardy. We did talk to Ed. We gave him as strong a warning as we could without going into specific detail. One of those details was that the killer had been given a deadline. And the letter said,

I was given eight weeks to do this job and it will be reassigned in five weeks. I wanted to give you guys time to help these guys and do something about it. So you at least had some time. Maybe. Maybe. Dave tells me that they had received a letter, and the letter had mentioned me.

Roberto's brother, Eduardo. And he says, be careful. Watch yourself. But it wasn't just Eduardo and the crosshairs. The letter writer claimed whoever was now driving Roberto's now-repaired pickup truck, that white F-250, the bomber wrote, is in great danger. And who was that person? Roberto Ayala's son, Jesus. The threat against the Ayalas was looking very real. It was real. It didn't just look real. It was real.

A lot of sleepless nights. Because this former Marine not only had a farm to run, but, as he saw it, a murder to solve, and now two families to protect. Going through my mind is just look out. Take care of the...

Take care of my brother's family. Primarily, take care of my brother's family, take care of my family, and look out for myself. Look over your shoulder. The first thing Eduardo did was hide the pickup truck. But now, with the truck out of sight with the killer or killers, he's found a different or better place for a bomb. Once everybody's asleep, all I could do was just think

and think and run things through my mind. It's somebody sneaky and violent enough to plant a bomb to kill somebody, and he did it to one person. There's nothing that's going to stop him from doing it to somebody else. In this second letter, the bomber left open one possible line of communication.

The letter said, if you have any questions, place an ad in the Sacramento Bee, August 21st issue, help wanted, make sure it's the last ad. And so they placed this classified ad and waited for a killer to call. Investigators get a fresh piece of evidence and answering machine message. And have you seen it all? I've been taken out of my desk, Will. Pete Moore, wanting to talk about being disinherited

to police. Would that spell a motive for murder? Who ever heard of such a thing? Letters from a purported killer. Plus a diagram of what certainly looked like the actual bomb that killed Roberto Ayala. Was it real? A ruse? A lucky guess? If it was for real, who sent it? Was it from the lead suspect, Peter Moore? Or Hitman, as the letter claimed?

Or was it from somebody who wasn't even on Detective Somm's radar? Whoever it was, five weeks into the case, it was about the only lead investigators had. So they played along with the guy, placed an ad, as requested, in the Sacramento Bee. And sure enough, somebody responded. Cops rushed to see him, perhaps arrest him. He was pretty surprised when he got a visit. False alarm.

It was just an unlucky guy looking for a job. The killer, though? The killer never called. So this whole MS-13 thing, this Mexico deal gone wrong, was just some sort of game the real bomber was playing. Trouble was, nobody knew the rules or the purpose or where the game might end. But more than one way to find a guy brazen enough to send that material to the cops. We had the letters that we wanted to get analyzed. We wanted fingerprints.

We wanted DNA. The letters and envelopes came back clean, just as the bombers said they would. What was going on? To investigators, one theory seemed the least likely, that Roberto was mixed up with the drug gang MS-13. The Ayala's are a classic bootstrap story. Roberto, a very religious man, who worked his way up from field hand to farm manager, oversaw the day-to-day operations of a multi-million dollar spread. He knew the land. He knew the machines that worked it. He was utterly committed to that work.

What did working that farm mean to your dad? That was everything. Even our lives and his life, our whole life revolved around it. We were always there as growing up. First jobs as kids, right? Yeah. Learned how to drive on the farm, pretty much do everything on the farm. Tell me about your dad.

What kind of a guy was he? He was a hard worker, someone to look up to. We admired him. And it did not go unnoticed on the Mover farm. Over the years, owners Roger and Gus came to rely a great deal on Roberto. They treated Roberto more like a favored son than just an employee. How important was family to Roberto? Probably the most important thing.

It all revolved around this. We didn't have much, but everywhere he went, we went too. So we were always together. Whatever went wrong, he was the one to go to. He was the one to keep everybody together.

Latino culture celebrates a coming-of-age ritual called the quinceañera, when a girl turns 15. So when Roberto's daughter, Paola, turned 15... He went all out. I was his only... I was the only girl, so he did everything he could to make that day the best. So what kinds of things do you do? You have to have your father-daughter dance.

You just feel like you're the only person that exists at that moment. Like, you just feel important. You really do feel like the princess. Probably won't ever forget that. But of course, for teenagers, there is another rite of passage. Butting heads with parents Which that last morning may have, pure chance, saved Jesus' life We always went to work together And for some reason we had an argument that morning

So I didn't get to tag along with the rite that day Oh no, because you might otherwise have been there I would have probably been the one to get off to go check that pump. Why would anybody want to hurt him? I can't find a reason to why somebody would want to do it, to want to kill him. And this bomber, whoever it might be, came very close to also murdering Fabian. If you want my butt in push, bring a child into it. Then D.A. John Pointer found Fabian's plight to be particularly heartbreaking.

I couldn't imagine seven years old and seeing my dad blown up and running all that way. People don't understand. It was like maybe a couple miles as the crow flies, but to run through what we call Calusa mud, which is the rice fields. And it's just, I mean, he had to take his shoes off. He's literally covered with, you can hardly walk through it. And for him to run all that way, it was amazing. I remember asking him if he knew what 911 was and he told me, and he was right. And I asked him, you know how to use a cell phone? And he said, yeah. And I asked if your dad had a cell phone and he said, yes, he did. I said, why didn't you use your dad's cell phone? Why didn't you call for help? And he's reaching out like this and he said, I can't. It's in his pocket and he's on fire.

Yeah, that stays with you. And now these taunting letters from Roberto's killer, almost taking prideful delight in how he'd killed the man and almost murdered the boy. Who could it be? Who would do such a thing? And why? Then, four days after the diagram showed up, one of the alpha males of the Moore clan walked in the front door. Roger Moore, Paul's dad, and like his son, wanted to help catch the killer and told the detectives he had important evidence to share. It was an audio tape answering machine messages his nephew Pete left on his phone.

Hey, Rob, this is Pete. I've worked for 21 years doing what I'm doing so that I could eventually one day have a chance to farm. Pete wanted to talk about having been disinherited. And as you see now, I've been taken out of my dad's will. The phone messages contained nothing directly incriminating. But after being diverted by those strange letters about assassins and a drug gang, the investigation was now back to where it started, that Peter Moore was the prime suspect. But, just as all eyes were focused in one particular direction, the very next day, the phone rang. Investigators discover a brand new suspect.

We may have somebody else to look at. But as police go after more evidence, someone comes after them, leaving a taunting message out in the field. Here I am. I'm doing this to you. Now come find me. Six weeks into the investigation, Detective Psalm and Agent Parker had an audio tape, texts, letters, and diagrams. Fragments of leads pointing in wildly different directions. To Pete Moore, or a drug cart cartel or a crazed assassin. And now they had another lead to work on.

Somebody made an anonymous call to the sheriff's department. The caller basically stated, you need to be looking at Paul Moore. Paul, not Peter. Paul, not Peter. For all the produce that comes rolling out of Colusa County, California, its population of humans is small, just 22,000. Everybody seems to know just about everybody here.

So when a would-be anonymous tipster called the sheriff's office, it turned out he wasn't anonymous at all. The detective who took the call recognized the voice and phoned him right back. Says, hey, you need to come in and talk to us. The caller, as it turned out, was this man, Dave Moore, cousin of Roger and Gus, with a multi-million dollar spread of his own, and a passion for warbirds. Dave's stepdaughter had once been married to Paul. This is a video from their wedding day. A messy divorce followed a few years later.

So David and Susan Moore came into our office. Susan Moore is Dave's wife. What did they say when they got into the office? The first thing they told us was a wiretapping incident. Wiretapping? Yes. Dave and Sue claimed Paul tapped his wife's phone to spy on her during divorce negotiations. And sure enough, here are the court documents.

In 1997, Paul was arrested on four counts related to tapping both his wife's and in-law's phones. He pleaded guilty to one count of electronic eavesdropping, a felony. The other charges were dropped, and Paul served no jail time. But the wiretapping story was just a prologue to what they were really there to talk about. Who do you think is capable or responsible for actually setting up an explosive device in that panel. I think, like, probably 90% Paul. But David and Susan couldn't really give a reason why Paul would want to kill Roberto, other than they felt Paul just had the kind of personality to do something like that.

Well, Pete didn't. So you don't think Peter is capable of actually developing a fairly sophisticated device to create an explosion? I'm doubtful of it. I don't know him that well, that well, but I really wouldn't think he could. And I also think he doesn't have the moxie to do something like that. What do you mean moxie?

Just the meanness in it. The meanness? Yeah. But Peter had actually threatened Roberto, wanted to fight him. And as far as anybody knew, Paul had never done anything like that. Nevertheless, based on this new information from David and Susan Moore, detectives asked Paul to come in for another meeting, which he did quite willingly. Took time off on a Sunday afternoon, and Detective Psalm asked Paul directly. Do you have a prior criminal record? Yes. I was into drugs and stuff when I was younger. Committed felonies, in fact. Then he said he just grew up and now wanted to help in any way he could, even if it meant informing on his beloved cousin, Peter.

I think Pete was a little envious of Robert. I think he felt his dad treated Robert better than Pete got treated when he worked there. He said something about his dad taking him out of the will. One thing, though, Paul, like his second cousin Dave, didn't think that Pete was capable of making that bomb. Somebody must have helped him. I just don't think Pete has the technical ability to do it. Unless he seriously had some help. Okay. So this type of thing was done by somebody who's pretty intelligent.

Maybe got some know-how. Well, that's kind of what you guys said, and I think that's right. Who do you think is capable of response? But remember, Paul's ex-in-laws told Detective Son that Paul was more likely the guilty party. Probably 90% Paul. So now, the detective turned the tables a little, suggested maybe it was he, Paul, who was jealous of Roberto. I didn't hate Robert. Okay.

Did you not like him? I didn't like the fact that he would cop an attitude with me. And just over something stupid, you know, and little. Detectives saw him press Paul about his past. You've got several incidents

here at work where... I have a criminal record. You've been involved in some bad stuff. Okay. You've cut phone wires. I've tried to help you guys out through this whole thing. You're going to start copping an attitude. I'm not trying to cop an attitude with you, but I'm having trouble with some of the stuff you're saying. I know my word doesn't mean I'm a felon. I was a drug addict. Living Inclusive sucks with this. Everybody knows about it. I have to put up with a lot of s*** here.

So, this must have put a whole different complexion on Paul. It did. Having thought for some time that maybe Peter was your guy, what was that like? It's possible we may have somebody else to look at. And indeed they did. Attached GPS trackers to both Peter and Paul's vehicles, which produced precisely nothing. More weeks slipped by. Eduardo Ayala, aware he and his family could be the killer's next targets,

lay awake at night, thinking. I would imagine Peter trying to build this bomb. Had to do it on a work bench, obviously. But he's got the shakes. So I think about that. Did he or did he have somebody else do it for him? Boy, and then I think the same thing about Paul. By working side to side with the guy, I could see that he was a smart, super smart guy. By the time the rice crop came in, first couple of weeks of October,

the whole case had gone into a kind of stall. ATF agent Brian Parker was particularly frustrated. While the door of the electrical panel had been recovered, the box itself, where the bomb had been placed, was still missing. The most logical place where that remains of that panel was was in the river that was directly behind where the explosion occurred. So they called in an FBI dive team, which spent days mucking through the bottom of the canal next to where the

bomb had gone off. And Agent Parker, who'd been monitoring the search, had a strange incident as he was leaving one day. And all of a sudden the tire went flat. This is what flattened the tire, a homemade spike. The spike was constructed of a harvester sickle that was welded to a two-inch washer. Further inspection in the area, we found another one of these spikes. Almost like a challenge to us. Here I am, I'm doing this to you now, now come find me. Basically, they're coming,

they're coming after the cops. Investigators may be able to fight back with new ammunition as they finally turn up scientific evidence of one of the letters the killer sent. There was a DNA profile on the back of one found the electrical box in which the bomb had been placed. But after months of sitting in water and mud, there was no trace of DNA or fingerprints. The only story this peeled metal told was, This case is going nowhere. Now, with little hope of finding that key piece of evidence that would put the case away, the detectives tried that good old-fashioned tool of policing, shoe leather and tire tread,

round-the-clock surveillance of Peter and Paul Moore, aided by tracking devices with a particularly helpful app. They're called geofences. I put a geofence, pretty big geofence, around where I live. I put a geofence around the sheriff's department. Protection he felt he needed after someone targeted law enforcement with those spikes on the road. If the vehicle or the GPS monitor travels into those locations, you get an alert. In addition, Detective Somm would routinely log in to check on the whereabouts of Peter and Paul's trucks. And on the morning of Thanksgiving Day, more than four months after the bombing, Somm turned on his computer to find the GPS tracker on Paul Moore's truck had gone dead. We had no signal whatsoever. And this is also the type of GPS that you could call, you know, just like calling on the cell phone and wake it up because they go to sleep when they're not moving.

And where are you? Well, we couldn't get a response from it. Device may have just died or been found. So I'm going into his car with his partner, drove to Paul's house to see if the truck was there. We got to his house, and I look at the kitchen window, and he's staring at me. Okay. Hoping Paul hadn't recognized him, Detective Zom hit the road.

As we're leaving town, I look in the rearview mirror, and there he is following us in his truck. He pulls in behind us. I speed up. He speeds up. I'm up to about 85, and he's still gaining on me. He pulls in the opposing lane. I slam on the brakes, and he keeps going. We pace him.

I lose pace of him at 95. I called him in, and CHP was actually able to get a stop on him. What was that all about? I have no idea who chases the police. That's the first time that's ever happened to me in my career. So by now, your suspicions were ratcheted up quite a bit, I would think. Yes, they were. Were you worried about your own safety?

At parts during the investigation, there were concerns for our own safety. You know, we're dealing with a person who is violent enough to plant a bomb. But was that person Paul Moore? Paul had a criminal history, to be sure, but was he a killer? There were certain things about Paul's past Detective Psalm was unable to share with us for reasons we'll explain later. But we discovered, in old court records, a saga of smart, expensive lawyering dealing with misdeeds that go way beyond tapping an ex-wife's telephone.

In 1997, Paul was arrested after an incident in San Francisco one night. Ugly accusation. Rape, false imprisonment, assault with a deadly weapon, trying to run his alleged victim over with his pickup truck. Charges that could put Paul in prison for a decade or more. Instead, Paul spent nearly three years driving back and forth between his place here in Colusa and San Francisco, engaged in a series of court maneuvers. The result? Paul simply got probation after pleading no contest to assault with intent to commit rape,

but denying blame for the offense. The other charges were dropped. But the conviction put Paul on California's sex offenders list, searchable by county. And out of fear that someone in Colusa was bound to find out his secret, Paul went into exile near Santa Cruz. However, as part of the original plea deal, Paul's intent to commit rape conviction was dropped, vacated in 2007, seven years later. In exchange, Paul pleaded no contest to the assault with a deadly weapon charge, which meant Paul was no longer a registered sex offender. And the prodigal son was welcomed home.

That part of his past, a carefully guarded secret from most of the folks here in Colusa County. But Pete's past was not a secret. Everybody knew he didn't like Roberto Ayala. And everybody knew he was a suspect. Around town, could you hear what people were whispering? Pete. Pete, Pete, Pete.

Pete, Pete, Pete. But not Paul. Not Paul. Then, five months into the investigation, there was news, of a sort, from one of the crime labs. A male leg hair was found under a label of one of the envelopes, and the DNA came back, matching nobody. No one in the Moore family or anyone in the CODIS database, anyway. Odd. Had it been planted there to throw off investigators?

Then one of these envelopes finally gave up what appeared to be a real clue. There was a DNA profile from fingerprint ridge detail. Then one of these envelopes finally gave up what appeared to be a real clue. There was a DNA profile from fingerprint ridge detail on the back of one of the stamps that was affixed to the envelope that one of the letters was sent in. So what came back from these DNA tests? The contributor of the DNA from the fingerprint material was similar to Paul Moore. Case closed. Right. Not this time. This time, there was a but. Similar to Paul Moore, but it wasn't a match.

The DNA sample was so minute that forensic scientists were unable to build a full genetic sequence, meaning the DNA may have come from Paul Moore, but the scientists couldn't say it was a 100% match. And while the DNA didn't match anyone else in the Moore family, including Peter, the fact that Paul couldn't be excluded was nothing that would hold up in court. It was beyond frustrating to hear that we have an almost match, but we can't say for sure. Still, it did give them an idea that getting one shot at it might work. A killer seemingly revealed by a blank sheet of paper. Got chills going back in my neck. I'm like, this is not happening right now.

The DNA evidence that came back as a partial match to Paul Moore was not enough to get him charged with Roberto Ayala's murder. Far from it. But it was enough to get some people in town whispering. Rumors run. Rumors are like bad smell. They move fast. Eduardo heard those rumors,

heard that maybe Paul had something to do with Roberto's murder, which placed Eduardo in the Hitchcockian situation of working side by side with the man who may have murdered his brother. I look at him just like I'm looking at you. I talk to him just like I'm talking to you. And in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, you're the one that did it. And while that DNA result from the stamp wasn't strong enough to hold up in court, it was significant enough to get a warrant to search Paul's home. But whatever that was worth, five long months after the bombing. He had done some kind of major cleaning of his house. So we'd actually had conversation about this. Like a what's the point conversation?

That was one of the things that was talked about, and the decision was made, and I didn't want to leave it untouched. Sure, but your expectations were not that high. No, they weren't. With just this one crack at Paul's house, Detective Somm wanted to make sure they did a thorough search. So he cobbled together a team of investigators from various law enforcement agencies. Before we served the search warrant, we had a briefing. One of the cops helping them was a detective from a neighboring town, Jose Chuy Ruiz.

They actually showed us a diagram of the bomb, and that's pretty much what we were instructed to look for. Anything related to that? Yes, for. Anything related to that? Yes, exactly. Anything related to bomb making. They arrived en masse right after daybreak. Unannounced, of course. Paul waited outside while each investigator took a piece of the house. And in they went. I found some manila envelopes, a copier, and also a printer. The problem, though, was that Paul's home, owned by the Moore family, doubled as the farm office.

There were printers and copiers, envelopes. He expected to be there, too. As you went around and you found those things, what were you thinking? We really want that one really, really good piece of physical evidence. And what you found so far wasn't it? No. Okay, so specifically, what did you find of probative value? I didn't find anything.

We took his cell phones. There were two cell phones in the car. But basically nothing? No. Detective Ruiz was assigned to the dining room, which clearly doubled as an office. What did you see? I saw a lot of paperwork. There was lots of paperwork. Files everywhere on that table. The room was full of paper?

Yes. The sun was just breaking over the horizon. Long rays of morning light angled through the blinds. Detective Ruiz was picking through all those papers and office supplies when a curious thing caught his eye. It was the way that almost horizontal beam of light glanced off a blank sheet of paper. I noticed that that white sheet of paper had several impressions on it. Impressions? Yes. You mean some writing on it? Yes, like when you draw something on the top sheet of paper and it goes through.

To the next sheet down. Yes, and that got my attention right away. It's like when you draw something on the top sheet of paper and it goes through. To the next sheet down. Yes. And that got my attention right away. I picked it up and it was one of those moments where I was like, hmm. I turned the different angles, the paper bowed in half. And it was one of those, I was like, got chills going back in my neck. And just the hairs are standing up. I'm like, no way this this is not happening right

now and one of their officers that was helping us looked at me he goes what are you looking at because it was just a blank sheet of paper and i was like you're not going to believe this and i said you need to go get detective song like now and he's holding this white piece of paper in his hands and he's kind of got it bent a little bit and he's like, look at this. And I immediately, I looked at this and I'm going, oh my God. What he's holding in his hand is an indented writing copy of the diagram that we received in the mail. This is the sheet of paper Detective Ruiz found. You can see the indentations of the both threads in the middle of the page about a third of the way down. And here's that same sheet of paper enhanced by the ATF crime lab.

And here's the original bomb diagram mailed to investigators back in August. Most amazing thing in the world. This is the smoking gun. Unbelievable. Couldn't believe it. Exciting doesn't begin to describe elated maybe then what happened i went out and arrested paul moore pete moore seems to be in the clear but he's got yet another shock in store there's no scale for this. This changes you forever.

Little Calusa, California was dumbstruck. Paul Moore arrested for the killing of Roberto Ayala? Few even knew he was a suspect. Mary, Paul's cousin and Pete's sister, got a barrage of texts at work. It was bittersweet. There was a part of me that was relieved that it was over for Pete or that he wasn't, you know, mixed in with it. And at the same time, I was sad because it was my cousin that we grew up with, you know, and it was part of my family. My youngest sister, Mary, called me on the phone and she said,

they just arrested Paul for the murder of Robert Ayala. And I was in the middle of the parking lot and I fell to my knees and just started screaming. But human nature is a funny thing. Suspicion once embedded is remarkably resistant to actual evidence and might disprove it. When Paul Moore was arrested and charged with the murder of Roberto Ayala, his cousin Peter began to experience that particular phenomenon quite personally. Around town, people still seem to believe that Pete was the murderer. Ironic, perhaps, that for all his bluster, Pete has never been arrested,

never been in trouble with the law, runs his own business, has been a good father, and over the years has taken in wayward teens to give them a better start. Kids like Nick Hecker. You know, other foster homes, they do it for the money. Pete, he didn't ask for any money in return. He fed me, clothed me, gave me a car to drive.

And now I look at Pete like a dad. And anybody that has anything bad to say about Pete's never really took the time to get to know him because he's a good, loving person with a huge heart. And I need more Pete's in this world. So why were the cops so focused on Pete to begin with? Well, as Pete tells it, his cousin Paul planned the whole thing, set out to frame him, first by lying to him, telling him that Roberto, or Robert as Pete calls him, was out to steal his birthright. Paul would come over and tell me horrible stuff about Ed and Robert. Like he said,

Robert told Paul that he was going to get my share of what my dad was going to leave me at the ranch. So Paul would come over and say stuff to me, and he knew he was going to make me want to go say something or fight with somebody. And Pete said he was simply blind to Paul's manipulation. When you're going through your everyday life, and someone's set you up for over a year and a half, you don't know who to believe, and so it kept everybody at odds. And my life was so spun out of control, and I couldn't figure out what was going on. But Pete's wife, Mary Allen, said she could clearly see Paul was baiting Pete.

He would talk to him all the time. And when Pete got home, wouldn't he be upset about it? Oh, yeah. He'd be angry, upset, telling us things that we didn't even know if they were true. Dave and Sue Moore told investigators they, too, thought Paul had been setting Pete up. They talk a lot between themselves, too. And I think Paul has been able to manipulate Peter.

But Pete just didn't see it, didn't realize he was being played by his cousin? That just couldn't be. We grew up together. We were together every day. Our parents bought us walkie-talkies when we were seven and eight years old. And I'd sit in my back bedroom where my bedroom was,

and he lived right down on the block, the corner down there, and we'd talk to each other until we went to sleep. But now Peter's cousin Paul, the princeling, the golden boy, was about to go on trial for the murder of Roberto Ayala. And as for Pete, the person who was treated in this town like he bore the mark of Cain... I've had several low points in my life, and there's no scale for this. This changes you forever. The next chapter wasn't a lift from the book of Genesis,

more like the story of Job. Well, one thing that's kind of unique maybe, or special about Colusa County, is every time I've ever had a big case, I can go into almost any coffee shop or restaurant and they're solving it for me. And those things can get twisted pretty fast. They get twisted really fast. In this case, it was constantly, well, you know Pete Moore did it, you know Pete Moore did it.

And my response was, well, that's not the direction I'm going in. Not the direction at all. In fact, D.A. Pointer was about to put Pete on the prosecution team as a key witness against Paul, making Pete work with the same people who at one point were hoping to put him in prison. And that uncomfortable fact was irresistible catnip for Paul's defense attorney. Pete's first day on the stand. She said, you're a murderer, aren't you, Mr. Moore? It was Pete, said the defense. Pete, who had the motive to kill one man and implicate another.

A master plan that would give him everything he wanted. Peter is the one who has indicated, I've been in landscaping for 20 years. I'm broken down. I want to be in the farming operation. What better way to take out Roberto and to take out Paul? In the months following Roberto Ayala's murder, investigators suspected Peter Moore was the bomber and built a case against him. So when Peter's cousin Paul was arrested, his defense asked an obvious question.

What if the cop's first instinct was correct? What if Pete did it? Peter has animosity towards Roberto. Peter has made threats to Roberto. Peter is the one that wants in to the farming operation. Linda Parisi, Paul Moore's attorney, presented in court a mirror image of the state's case, acknowledging that one cousin was out to frame the other. Only in her version of the story, Paul was the stooge

and Peter the mastermind. Peter is the one who has indicated, I've been in landscaping for 20 years. I'm tired. I'm broken down. I want to be in the farming operation. What better way to take out Roberto and to take out Paul? To counter that argument, the prosecution was forced to call Pete as a witness, knowing that would make him a punching bag for Parisi. She said, oh, she told me. She said, you're a murderer, aren't you, Mr. Moore? I said, those are your words, not mine. She thought that she could, by grilling Peter, uncover the evil, the monster. Then Assistant Attorney General David Drewliner was Pete's wrangler during the trial. I was completely satisfied that there was no monster to uncover. And so I, for the most part, let her go at him. A courtroom tactic not appreciated by Pete.

After the first day, I said, you guys need to get this lady off of me. She's like, she saw me like a dog on a piece of raw meat. And they looked me right in the eye and said, there's nothing we can do for you. This is an open investigation and we have to let her ask anything or the jury will think we're hiding stuff. I mean, you've got to be kidding me. One hour, his testimony felt like eight, I can tell you that. It was excruciating because I knew what he was going through, and I was waiting for him to explode at any minute.

Paul's attorney, Linda Parisi, claimed that Pete somehow planted the imprint of the bomb diagram in Paul's home. Mr. Moore, who works at that desk daily, he never notices it. It just raises so many questions. It just beggars the imagination to think that Peter would know enough about when the police are going to arrive and know that some junior officer is going to happen to notice this very faint little image of a diagram on a white piece of paper,

which he never would have seen if the light hadn't been just right on that table that afternoon. If I'm Peter Moore and I engage in this and they don't find it, all right, my plan didn't work. But if they do find it, it's a home run for me. But Paul's fingerprints were all over that piece of paper, and Peter's were not. I would agree that that shows that this had been in the house and that he may have touched it. Peter, of course, denied he placed that blank sheet of paper in Paul's home, said he hadn't been in Paul's house in years. Then at the trial, defense attorney Parisi played a wild card. She confronted Pete with this, a video found on one of Pete's computers seized just days after the bombing. Slow motion video of a rat trap snapping on carrots and the like, but ending on a burst of flame

as the trap sets off a lighter, just like a bomb. And I submit to you, this video more or less comports with the diagram. Well, it shows a rat trap hitting a lighter or something. What it shows, though, is a rat trap, which is an unusual kind of triggering device. It shows a screw activating the rat trap and then an incendiary component. So was Pete investigating bomb-making ideas? Not a chance, countered the state. There is nothing on this hard drive that indicates to me that anyone was using it to research how to build explosives.

Kevin Condie is the investigator who did the initial search of Peter Moore's computer. Sometimes what's not there is more important than what is there. And what was not there was anything indicating someone was looking for directions on how to build a bomb. What I saw was somebody who's just surfing the internet aimlessly. There was nothing about that video that was tied into making a bomb. And Pete told the court the laptop on which the video was found belonged to his son, who was then forced to testify, which did not sit well with Pete. I tried to keep my kids away from this. And once again, they tied my hands behind my back and I had no choice.

And so my son had to go on the stand. A sense of betrayal deeply felt by the man who speaks his mind. Everybody pretty much threw me to the wolves. For three days, you were essentially on trial. I mean, your cousin was on trial for murder, but it was like you were on trial for murder. No, I was on trial. I was.

I was on trial basically for my life, and I had no protection. With Pete now off the stand, the prosecution team still had a case to make, but with limited evidence. They couldn't mention the DNA found on the stand. Not conclusive. Nor could they tell the jury about Paul's previous assault and intent to commit rape convictions in San Francisco. Not relevant. In addition, Linda Parisi claimed there was no motive, no reason for Paul Moore to kill Roberto Ayala.

For all of law enforcement's investigation, they could not come up with anyone who said, I heard Paul Moore say he wanted to hurt Roberto. No, but they did find this document on Paul's computer, titled My Life. A rambling, self-pitying screed. What did I do wrong to be treated this way? I think my dad really thinks I'm stupid. He's always saying how smart Robert is. But ultimately, the trial came down to a single sheet of blank paper. Almost like a Rorschach test for the jury.

What would they see? Paul Moore's guilt? Or a plot to frame him? A verdict that will divide this tight-knit town and rip apart this family all over again. I'm going just started crying. For much of his life, Paul Moore had found ways to charm the folks around him and get away with bad behavior. At his trial here in Sacramento, Paul's defense attorney followed what was by now a familiar script. She accused Peter of murdering Roberto Ayala. Peter Moore

has a lifetime of making threats. Paul does not make threats to Roberto. Paul works with Roberto. Which is how Parisi presented Paul to the jury. Of course, as you know, Paul had a deeply troubled history with the law, violent sexual offense in his background, but the jury didn't get to hear about that. Nor were they told about the DNA, quite possibly Paul's, that was found on the envelope containing the bomb diagram. Excluded. So, would the jury see the same Paul Moore that prosecutors saw? He's almost like a Marvel comic book arch-villain.

He's bright. He's clever. He's evil as can be. And he's got a flaw to him. His flaw is his arrogance. The jury retired to think about it. And they were not fooled. After just five hours of deliberation, they walked back into the courtroom

and declared Paul Moore guilty of murder. The judge sentenced him to life in prison. I remember driving away from the courtroom and my wife and I were together. We just started crying because we knew it was over. You know, I did a job. I went in there. I, I did my job. I told everything I knew and it, and it wasn't easy because I basically put away somebody who I knew. And it wasn't easy because I basically put away somebody who I loved. But Pete is not so blind that he doesn't see how he was used by his boyhood playmate,

the kid with whom he once spent those long, lazy days on the river. The man he treated and trusted like a brother. What do you think Paul's motive was? Why did he kill Robert? He used to always talk about, oh, Robert thinks he's so smart. And so by killing him, he feels like in his own mind that he got one over on Robert.

I believe Paul was trying to finger me for doing it, and him and his dad would have the whole place to themselves. That's what I believe today. It's the only thing that makes sense to me. Pete wishes the Moores could all go back to the beginning, when the farm meant family. If I had it my way right now, I'd be running the ranch. Grandkids would be over here and enjoy themselves.

You know, it'd be like a family-run business. But that's just a fantasy, really. The family's divided more now than ever. It's almost like we're all our own worst enemies. And I've asked people in the family, where does all the anger come from? Because it's like the whole family's mad. I wish that there weren't so much hate and anger in our family and that we just, everybody treated each other

like a family's supposed to treat each other. Throughout the trial, Paul's father, Roger, believed his son to be innocent. And after the verdict, declined to talk to us. His own son convicted of murdering the man who he treated like a son. Other members of the Moore family declined our requests for interviews after the verdict. Even most of those who support Pete said they didn't want to stir things up. I know some of the people that you talked to, and I know they backed out,

and they called and told me. I respect them for calling and telling me, but it's all about what possibly might come somebody's way, you know. Would it be fair for us to say that some members of the family are afraid to talk to us because they're afraid they may be disinherited? That's a hundred percent true. Nobody wants to do what's right for fear of losing their chance at some money. Pete long ago wrote off the loss of his inheritance, but his reputation, his good name, those he very much wanted returned to him. And I get the feeling

that some people are mad it wasn't me. When you're looked at as a murderer, it's not like you can go out there and voice your opinion to somebody because you're a murderer, you know, and no one will take me serious anymore. And where I go from here, I don't know. I want peace in my life. I want to be left alone. What's the moral behind all of this, if there is one? Wow, it's a big question. It's just there's so much involved here. I'd say the moral of this story is be happy with what you have. Respect the family that you do have. One of the reasons then-District Attorney Poynter agreed to speak with us

was to make perfectly clear to his friends and neighbors that Peter Moore was in no way involved in Roberto Ayala's murder. Whispers are still working their way around town. People still talk. Mm-hmm. What do you hear him say? I guess the most recent one was, well, Pete must have at least been involved. So they've moved some.

Moved on indeed. Pete's dad, Gus, saw our original story and was so moved by his son's blunt honesty, he took him back into the fold. And when Gus died in 2015, he left Pete attractive farmland to call his own. And the Ayala's? I was relieved. I didn't have to look over my shoulder anymore. I knew at that point that everybody was safe. Roberta's family got a small workers' compensation payment. There was no settlement, though, from the Moore brothers' farm. But tough and resilient, they moved on.

Jesus got a degree in criminal justice. Paola is working her way through college. And Fabian? The boy who ran for miles through those fields of sunflowers trying to save his dad's life. At the time of our interview, he'd become a disciplined athlete, playing football, baseball, soccer, and wanted to talk to us about his dad. What did he want for you?

A good career. Did you talk about that with him? Yes. He told me to study hard. What do you want the world to know about your father? That he was a good person. Like, he would always want to do things. He would take me out when he had something to do. You were the apple of his eye, I bet you. Yes. You loved to be with him? Yeah.

Two families in the great fertile valley of California. One of them worth millions, and the other far more.