Chapter 1: What happened to Patricia Leigh Mills in the house fire?
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Tonight on Dateline.
It can't go down as a homicide. It can't go down as anything but an accident.
She wanted me to kill her husband. She sent me a picture. Like, here he is. Go get him.
I have to go through the high end and the whole widow process.
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Chapter 2: How did John Michael escape the fire?
You can hear her complaining that she'll have to be the grieving widow.
It would all just be an act. Gave me chills. It made me think, this is something she's done before.
You started to dig deeper. You find some posts taking your suspicions to a whole new level. Oh, yes. I thought back to the affair. It made me question her part in my aunt's murder. There was a fire. She didn't make it out. What do you say to a six-year-old who just lost his mom?
We had zero evidence on Elson. Lots of suspicion, my own included.
Just when you think the story couldn't get any bigger, it just goes on and on.
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Chapter 3: What were the suspicions surrounding Delbert Mills after the fire?
This could have been the perfect crime. Could have been the perfect crime.
Secret recordings and two sinister murder plots was one woman at the center. I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline. Here's Andrea Canning with Secrets in the Ashes.
I'm never going to be able to rest and be happy unless he's just somehow gone. You're listening to something we rarely get to hear. Something's got to happen to him because that's my only way home. A murder plot being hatched. There would have to be a silence so there's no sound and the shot would have to be just right.
Like, whatever's going to happen, it has to happen, number one, when I'm at work or somewhere else where I can f***ing verify that I'm there. A deadly plan and an unlikely mastermind behind it. I knew that she was a terrible person. I didn't know that she was that heartless.
I found Facebook pages online where people complained about her by the hundreds.
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Chapter 4: How did Allison Salinas become involved in the Mills family?
Hundreds? Hundreds. My initial thought really was karma. It was an early June morning in 2003. Mildred Pugh was heading to the grocery store in Goliad, Texas. You're driving with a friend, and you see something. Yes. We see smoke, and the closer that we get to the smoke, then we realize that there's a house on fire. In front of the burning house, a child.
I looked out, and I saw a little boy, and all he had on was his underwear. Mildred jumped out of the car and ran over to help. And the little boy said, my mommy's in that house. Can you get her out? That little boy was John Michael Burdett, just six years old. He'd awoken moments before to a terrible sound.
Chapter 5: What evidence emerged regarding Delbert's potential involvement in Patricia's death?
Screaming. I'm being woke up to screaming.
And it's your mom.
This is my mom screaming. The house is on fire.
His mother, 31-year-old Patricia Lee Mills, was in the next bedroom.
She said, get out.
And were you screaming anything back to her? The living room was engulfed in flames, blocking the front door. There was some quick thinking that was going to happen here.
Once out, John Michael wanted to go right back in to save his mom.
Mildred told him to stay put. She approached a window. I could hear this woman's voice. What's she saying?
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Chapter 6: What role did Allison play in the investigation after her marriage to Delbert?
I don't know. I don't know what she was saying. But I was trying to assure her that that little boy wasn't still in the house. Oh, my gosh. And so I told her to hold on. The front of the house was engulfed in flames, so Mildred ran around to the back, but the door was locked from the outside. There was, what, a padlock? There was a padlock on the outside of the back door.
By now, two men had stopped to help. Together, Mildred and the men were able to force the back door open. Oh, wow. So are you able to go into the house, or is there too much smoke? We opened the door. And black smoke billowed out of the back door. Inside, Patricia Lee had gone silent.
Chapter 7: How did the investigation into Patricia's death evolve over the years?
I think the smoke got the best of her. What is the little boy doing while this is happening? Standing there watching it burn. Because that baby was watching his mama die. Do you remember that feeling of being helpless and standing there watching? Oh, very.
I very much remember just feeling absolutely like I could do more, but I can't because I'm going to hurt myself.
Firefighters arrived and put out the blaze. They found Patricia Lee in the front bedroom. She was gone. You get a call from your mom one morning with some really bad news. I was home alone. And my mom called. Jessica Lefferts is John's cousin. She was 18 when she got the news about her aunt, Patricia Lee.
Chapter 8: What was the outcome of the trials related to Patricia's death?
And I said, Mama, what's wrong? And she said, there was a fire. And I said, okay. And she said, John made it out. And I said, what about Lee? She got real quiet. And I said, Mama, what about Lee? And she said that she didn't make it out and that she was gone, but that John was okay. Patricia Lee's husband, Delbert Mills, was at work when the fire started.
He arrived at the scene to learn his wife was dead and his son was outside in an ambulance.
My dad pulls up and jumps in the back of the ambulance and he looks me, stone cold in my face, and your mom's dead.
My son is six right now. You were six. I know exactly how a six-year-old behaves and processes everything. And I can't even imagine you in that situation, hearing that about your mom and also having just gone through a fire.
Yeah, I mean, my thing is, like, at six, you don't even really know what death is.
No.
And being told somebody's dead is like, what does that mean?
You just know your mom's never coming home.
And you just know that she's gone. And you don't know why. You don't know how.
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