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DEATH ROW STORIES

Nathan Dunlap

Aired January 16, 2015 - 21:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NATHAN DUNLAP, SENTENCED TO DEATH: I wanted them dead and they're dead.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: And you didn't take the kind of think that life was --?

DUNLAP: Important to somebody else? Because I didn't have no association with them. To me, their life wasn't nothing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: In 1993, Nathan Dunlap killed four people at a Chuck E Cheese's restaurant just outside of Denver, Colorado. He was sentenced to death.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is remorseless as he talks about his murderous decision-making.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: Does it bother you that they are dead, Nathan.

DUNLAP: No.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He killed four people and he's paid for it with his life.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: Colorado had not executed anyone since the late 1960s. But support for Dunlap's death sentence was overwhelming.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The death penalty. No doubt in my mind.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Dunlap should be allowed to come out of the penitentiary only in a pine box.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He took lives that he was not entitled to take for self-defense, self-preservation, nothing. This man is a mass murder and he deserves death.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: For 20 years as Dunlap appealed his death sentence, violence continued to strike Colorado.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Masked gunmen walked into columbine high school.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Shooting at the theater. There is somebody shooting in the auditorium.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: And cries for vengeance increased.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Too many criminals. Have all of them die. Kill all of them, Colorado. That will take care of all this crap.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: in 2013, Nathan Dunlap's execution order landed on the desk of Governor John Hickenlooper. And in an odd twist of fate, the governor's own political fortunes would come to rest on his decision.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are going to have an election in 2014 where one of the question is, is do we want to kill this one person?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: The case sparked a raging debate over capital punishment and posed the question what should be done with society's most heinous criminals?

GOV. JOHN HICKENLOOPER (D), COLORADO: The death penalty composes (ph) was highly emotional issues for any of us. It is life and death. It is justice. All the stuff comes back together when trying to decide what to do with the worst of the worst.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is a body in the water.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was butchered and murdered.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Many people proclaim their innocence.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In this case there are a number of things that stink.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This man is remorseless.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He needs to pay with his life.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The electric chair flashed in front of my eyes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Death in conviction at all cost. Let the truth fall where it may.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: In Aurora, Colorado on the night of December 14th, 1993, evil was about to strike in the most unlikely of places.

JOE PETRUCELLI, AURORA POLICE: It was Chuck E. Cheese. It was a family place. You go to play games. You go there to play with your kids.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: 20-year-old Bobby Stephens, father to a newborn baby boy was working a double shift in the pizza restaurant's kitchen.

BOBBY STEPHENS, FORMER EMPLOYEE, CHUCK E CHEESE: I picked up the Chuck E. Cheese job as a second job to help with the income and, you know, help with Christmas that was coming. I'd only been there for two weeks but it was business as normal.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: Also working that night were 19-year- old Sylvia Crowell, a student at nearby Metro State College. Ben Grant, a 17-year-old high school wrestler and Colleen O'Connor, also 17, a senior at Eagle Crest High School. Marge Kohlberg, 50 and a mother of two was working her first night alone as manager.

That was in a dining room, sat 19-year-old former employee Nathan Dunlap.

GEORGE BRAUCHLER, DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Nathan Dunlap worked there for a time. But ultimately, he has let go. He has a bit of an attitude problem and is bit of a discipline issue for the management. On the particular night in question, Nathan goes into the Chuck E. Cheese's and he orders dinner.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Dunlap plays video game, plays a shooter video game, (INAUDIBLE).

DAVID SIROTA, JOURNALIST: Chuck E. Cheese closes. Dunlap goes into the bathroom, waits in the bathroom.

BRAUCHLER: He goes to the mirror and he gets himself psyched up. Looks at himself, tells himself he can do this. He pulls out the gun, walks outside. And he starts to shoot people in the head.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: Bobby Stephens was walking inside after a smoking break.

STEPHENS: As I went back into work as when I started hearing gunshots. I thought somebody dropped something.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: Sylvia Crowell who had been cleaning the salad bar was the first person shot. She never saw Dunlap coming. Ben Grant, vacuuming, was killed next.

STEPHENS: I heard the next two shots. The only thing that came to mind was the kids are out there popping balloons.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: Colleen O'Connor saw Dunlap approaching. She sank to her knees, clasps her hands together and pleaded to her life. But Dunlap fired a bullet through the top of her head.

STEPHENS: I was loading some utensils into the dishwasher. I turned around and Nathan Dunlap came through the kitchen door. Right then is when I knew I was in trouble. To be honest the only words out of my mouth was, (INAUDIBLE). And he raised the gun and shot me.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: The bullet hit Bobby in the jaw. He fell to the floor.

STEPHENS: As he stood there, I was expecting for me to be shot again and that would be the end of it. But I played dead. I held as still as I could be and it actually worked. He walked on. And I got up and I ran out the kitchen. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: Dunlap entered the office where he

forced Marge Kohlberg to unlock the safe. After it was open, he shot Marge in the ear.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As Nathan was gathering the cash, he notices that Marge is still moving. He shoots her in the other ear.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: Bobby Stephens, covered with blood, stumbled through the ding room and fled through a side door in search of help.

STEPHENS: All I saw was a patio light. And I stumbled along the way, but I ran to the light as fast as I could.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Emergency, 911.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have a man who's been shot in my house right here. He came from Chuck E. Cheese. He says there were a lot of people shot there.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have a call to Chuck E. Cheese.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. We have officers and paramedics en route.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Someone searching the place. We have several people down. Shot and DOA.

EVA WILSON, FORMER PROSECUTOR: Of course, the media picked up on it quickly. Parents are responding. People are calling each other. The parking lot is a zoo.

PETRUCELLI: Everyone, the whole community was shooting at Chuck E. Cheese?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No! No!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The normally festive pizza shop was transformed into a scene of carnage and chaos.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My best friends are in there. They won't say anything. And it drives us crazy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police say it is the worst crime in Aurora in years.

JODIE MCNALLY-DAMORE, MOTHER OF COLLEEN O'CONNOR: We always had the news on. Always. For some reason that night we didn't. The phone rings and it's my sister. She said, there's something on the news about Chuck E. Cheese. Is that the Chuck E. Cheese restaurant that Colleen works at? So we went down there and they told us to go into Tony Roma's. We went in Tony Roma's and Colleen wasn't there. And then I started shaking. I started shaking.

BOB CROWELL, FATHER OF SYLVIA CROWELL: A friend of mine called. He was on the police force. And he said there's been a shooting down at Chuck E. Cheese. He said you better come down right away. MCNALLY-DAMORE: The police officer came up and said your daughter has

been air lifted to Denver general.

CROWELL: We were told that she was taken to a hospital. So I went and saw that she was breathing. But that was about it. The doctors said she didn't have a chance.

MCNALLY-DAMORE: The doctor said she's brain dead. I didn't know what brain dead meant. So I looked at the minister that was there and said, is her soul in or out. Do you know what I'm saying? And he said, she's with God now.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: Outside Chuck E. Cheese, police canvassed the crowd for leads.

PETRUCELLI: My partner says you are not going to believe this. We just talked to a guy outside who is telling who did this. His name is Nathan Dunlap and he is an ex-employee here. And he had been bragging that he was coming back to kill a manager. So we had the name right off the bat.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: Police had a suspect. But now they had to find him. And once they did, the story would become more complicated than they ever could have imagined.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR (voice-over): As police in Aurora, Colorado began investigating the brutal murders at Chuck E. Cheese's, they immediately focused on the suspect. Disgruntled ex-employee Nathan Dunlap. Dunlap had apparently been very open about his plans.

BRAUCHLER: Sometime in December he begins to tell his compatriots, his friends that he intends to rob Chuck E. Cheese's and he's going to kill everybody in there.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: Following the shooting, concerned parents rushed to the scene. Among the crowd was Nathan Dunlap's mother, Carol.

PETRUCELLI: We started talking with her. And her views at that point was that, he didn't do this, but if you think he did, let's get this taken care of. She called him. And she told him, you need to come home and talk with the police right now.

NATASHA GARDNER, JOURNALIST: They ended up finding him at his girlfriend's house. He was having sex with her. And when he got the call to come back to his house which was his mother's home, he got in the shower.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: After scrubbing away physical evidence, Nathan was picked up by police and questioned. DUNLAP: Left my house around 9:10, 9:20.

PETRUCELLI: Nathan told them I went to Chuck E. Cheese. I was hungry.

DUNLAP: I went in, ordered a sandwich.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: Nathan said he learned about the massacre from the news.

PETRUCELLI: They thought for sure he's part of it, but what do we have to hold him? Nothing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: Shooting survivor Bobby Stephens was unconscious in the hospital and unable to help police. But once they interrogated Nathan's girlfriend, Tracy, things changed.

Tracy admitted Nathan had arrived at her house with bundles of cash and a gun asking her to help dispose of the evidence. That afternoon, police took Nathan into custody. Over the next few weeks, investigators learned that before going to Tracy's house, Nathan visited two other friends and bragged about killing people execution- style at Chuck E. Cheese.

WILSON: He told them what he did. He showed them the evidence of it. He showed them money. He showed trinkets he picked up. These are the people, they were charged as accessories.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: On December 23, 1993 police charged Nathan Dunlap with four counts of first-degree murder. Prosecutors would now need to decide what punishment to seek -- life in prison or the death penalty.

For local residents the murders at Chuck E. Cheese's crossed a clear red line. Enough was enough.

BILL RITTER JR., FORMER GOVERNOR, COLORADO: I became the district attorney of Denver in June of 1993. And it was at the beginning of what later became termed the summer of violence. Because of the amount of pretty high profile crimes and it was on the 10:00 news almost every night.

LARRY KING, CNN HOST, LARRY KING LIVE: An epidemic of violence is sweeping American children out of homes and classrooms and onto our meanest streets.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cops say they have never seen anything like it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Our quality of life is being threatened when our children can't play in the street.

BRAUCHLER: There were children that were just random victims because one gang member shot at another.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Our babies, our babies. Leave the babies alone.

WILSON: I tell you, the public is frightened.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: Amplifying nationwide fears, the media seized upon a label for a new class of ultra violence offenders.

ELLEN WARREN, REPORTER: Criminologists call them super predators.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Super predators.

RITTER: The super predators was about kids who is had access to guns and didn't seem to have developed a conscience over time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Police departments in the cities warn of a new generation of quote "super predators" who have no compulsion about taking human life.

RITTER: The narrative became about violence, gang violence, juvenile violence, and having Nathan Dunlap kill four people at a Chuck E. Cheese fed right into that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: For many, Nathan was the definition of a super predator and deserved nothing less than death.

GARDNER: He had escalating violence throughout his teenage years. He started robbing places with a golf club and that escalated to guns eventually.

WILSON: We learned that Nathan Dunlap had been involved in some very serious crimes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: Prosecutors first tried Nathan for one of the robberies and convicted him. With a violent crime now on Nathan's record, the DA's office announced they would aggressively pursue the death penalty.

DAVID LANE, CRIMINAL The Dunlap case arose in Arapahoe County which is part of a district in Colorado which is now and has in the past been madly in love with the death penalty.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: By the time Nathan's murder trial began in 1996, the verdict seemed to be a foregone conclusion.

SIROTA: The trial then essentially becomes about whether what Nathan Dunlap did is deserving of the death penalty.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: In fact, before trial, Nathan's defense team made an offer to the state. Nathan would plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence.

WILSON: It comes down to what's the appropriate sentence that we were seeking? Is it appropriate to plead this to life in prison? And it was not.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: At trial, Nathan's lawyers called almost no witnesses and offered little defense for his actions. It took the jury only three and a half hours to come to a verdict.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We, jury, find the defendant, Nathan Jerard Dunlap, guilty of murder in the first-degree.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: And during sentencing, the jury delivered a clear message giving Nathan four death sentences, one for each victim.

WILSON: It has to be all 12 jurors say I personally agree with the death sentence. If one person says no then it's a life sentence.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: Though he had been impassive during trial at the hearing where the judge officially imposed the death sentence, Nathan responded directly to remarks by the victims' family members.

DUNLAP: Man I don't give (bleep) about you, your mama, your whole (bleep) -- I don't give a (bleep) about you.

PETRUCELLI: Nathan lost it. He blew up. He was screaming.

PETRUCELLI: I think people in the courtroom got to see Nathan Dunlap as Nathan Dunlap.

DUNLAP: I don't give a (bleep), man. I will kill you right now. (Bleep).

PETRUCELLI: How angered he could be. How vicious he could be. When you saw him and you saw the look on his face, he was a different person.

DUNLAP: (Bleep). I can't do this, (bleep).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: But in the years to come, disturbing new details would emerge about Nathan Dunlap. Details that would help explain his violent actions. And also weigh heavily in the governor's decision whether or not to put Nathan to death.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR (voice-over): Before Nathan Dunlap was sentenced to death for killing four people at a Chuck E. Cheese's restaurant, questions began to arise about his mental state.

SIROTA: There are some outbursts that he has in which psychological evaluators start asking is he fit to stand trial?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: during the run are-up to trial, Nathan's behavior became erratic including violent mood swings, signs of depression, and even incidents of spreading feces over his cell and on himself. Nathan's sister, Adinea, arranged to visit him in jail.

ADINEA DUNLAP-ASHLOCK, NATHAN'S SISTER: When I first saw him was when I began to think, OK, something is not right. His eyes were glassy. And his hair was with everywhere. And he was rambling. And I was trying to get him to calm down.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: Nathan was put on suicide watch and moved to a padded cell.

DUNLAP-ASHLOCK: His eyes reminded me of seeing my mother when she was in a manic episode. So when I saw him, I saw her eyes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: Throughout their childhood, Adinea and Nathan's mother, Carol, suffered from bipolar disorder, a serious mental illness that caused extreme mood shifts and unpredictable behavior.

GARDNER: Nathan Dunlap's mother who at that times berate the children, wake them up in the night. Walk around the home naked.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: During Carol's manic episodes she might have experienced hyper sexual behavior in addition to severely abusing her children.

DUNLAP-ASHLOCK: As a child when you see that it was very confusing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: Carol, whose father and brother were also bipolar, was in and out of institutions.

DUNLAP-ASHLOCK: My mom would go to the hospital. We wouldn't nearly understand what was going on. So my dad would take care of us. The abuse and intimidation from my dad started very early with Nathan by grabbing him by the collar, picking him up. It wasn't anything for him to hit him and knock him.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: Nathan wasn't the only target of Jerry Dunlap's rage.

DUNLAP-ASHLOCK: My dad did sexually abuse me probably from the time I was about nine until 14. And there was a time where Nathan came down stairs when some of this was going on. And my dad thought he saw it. And I think after that, the abuse was really bad. I mean, it was horrible.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: Due to the severity of his crime and signs of mental instability, before trial Nathan was sent for testing.

SIROTA: He was brought down to Pueblo for a psychological evaluation about whether he was legally insane.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: Numerous psychiatrists at the Colorado mental health institute observed Nathan, trying to determine whether he was competent to stand trial.

DUNLAP-ASHLOCK: We are identifying that what he's looking like is similar to what we have experienced with my mother, her brother, and her father.

BRAUCHLER: They spent time observing him very closely and sent him back with a report that didn't just say Nathan Dunlap was competent to stand trial but said he was a malinger, a faker. That he tended to enhanced or invent symptomology (ph) consistent with what he wanted to be true.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: But state psychiatrists never had full access to Nathan's medical records or family history. And the defense believed the evaluation was biased.

SIROTA: There is an entire argument over whether he actually does have mental health problems or whether he's faking, in an effort to make an insanity plea or avoid the death penalty.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: During trial, Nathan's attorneys never mentioned his psychiatric evaluations or the idea he may have been suffering from a mental break during the massacre.

SIROTA: The defense is afraid if those charges came out, it would inflame the jury even further against Nathan Dunlap. So it's never a factor in the ultimate death penalty verdict.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right around this time around the '90s, Colorado executed its first prisoner in about three decades.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Colorado department of corrections inmate Gary Davis was pronounced dead at 8:33 this evening.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: Gary Lee Davis's execution sent Nathan into a tail spin.

WILSON: The guards were taunting him that he was next. And that day he had a manic break. He really just started ranting and raving, and had to be hospitalized shortly thereafter.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: Nathan's ongoing psychiatric struggles brought about a major shift in his appeal strategy. Now, with new team up lawyers, the legal arguments would be based squarely on Nathan's mental health.

WILSON: They proceeded to file over a period of years his motion for post conviction relief, alleging that the trial attorney was I ineffective. And so therefore he didn't receive a fair trial.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: If granted post conviction relief Nathan's sentence could be converted to life in prison. And his appeals would bring up a critical question that had long surrounded the death penalty -- how mentally ill does a convict need to be to avoid being executed?

BRAUCHLER: There is no competent, credible doctors that will tell you his evil conduct was the product of being in a manic state, that his conduct was somehow altered by being bipolar or suffering any other mental illness.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: The idea that Nathan could escape death due to mental illness enraged the victims' families and the sole survivor.

STEPHENS: In my head he had to be crazy. I mean, how else would a sane person walk into a child's pizzeria and shoot five people? He selfishly took the lives of four other people. And I am strong believer in an eye for an eye.

CROWELL: The fact that the death penalty was ordered, that was right. That was the thing to do. As far as life in prison, Nathan Dunlap doesn't deserve that. He deserves to die.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR (voice-over): In June 2005, 12 years after the Chuck E. Cheese massacre, another crime occurred in Aurora that would have a profound effect in the Nathan Dunlap case and the death penalty in Colorado. Javad Marshall-Fields and his fiancee Wolfe were on their way to dinner.

RHONDA FIELDS, MOTHER OF JAVAD MARSHALL-FIELDS: Javad had a brilliant smile. Vivian just loved life. They were both recent graduates from Colorado State University. She had just graduated with a B.A. in nutrition. My son had just graduated with a bachelor's degree in speech communication and rhetoric.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: Just three miles from where the Chuck E. Cheese's massacre had taken place, Javad and Vivian were stopped at a red light when a car pulled alongside and someone opened fire.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Gunmen attacked this car with bullets killing Javad Marshall-Fields and Vivian Wolfe.

FIELDS: Finding out I lost my son was the most devastating event that I have ever experienced in my life. I was very, very angry. I was very upset. And so, I went straight to the police department and started asking questions.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Javad had witnessed a friend's murder at a barbecue the summer before. And despite receiving death threats, Javad had decided to testify in court against the accused killer.

FIELDS: He felt it was the right thing to do because he saw his best friend got shot down in cold blood. Javad was murdered five days before the trial was set to begin.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: Months later, Sir Mario Owens and Robert Ray who had been implicated in the barbecue shooting were indicted for Javad and Vivian's murders.

SIROTA: This case becomes one of the biggest cases in Colorado. And prosecution in this case, also in Arapahoe county, they seek the death penalty.

BRAUCHLER: I think it's clear why we sought death in this cases of Sir Mario Owens and Robert Ray. Listen, they murdered a witness to a murder. It's not just its own killing. It is an attack on the criminal justice system.

FIELDS: They had killed before. So the thought was do you give them more time, more life on top of life?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: But the state's case against Owens and Ray was largely circumstantial and getting death wasn't guaranteed. So Rhonda Fields took an active role pushing for the ultimate punishment.

FIELDS: I wasn't a supporter of the death penalty prior to the death of my son. But now, I believe there are some crimes that are so heinous that they deserve the highest punishment that the state has to offer.

RITTER: I have seen mothers, people were killed who have been taken apart by it and their lives ruined. But I have seen people who get a different thing.

FIELDS: I didn't want another family member to have to experience the grief and the pain that I did. And so I worked with my elected official at the time to pass legislation to strengthen the state's witness protection laws. I was able to pass two bills just as a citizen just working through my own elected official. And so from there, I was tapped to run for office. And I did. And I won.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: Rhonda was elected to represent Aurora in the state legislature. She won in a landslide.

SIROTA: Rhonda Fields becomes a leader on two issues -- one, for gun control. Very, very pro gun control. Two, she's very pro death penalty.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: During the time Rhonda was pushing for death for her son's killers, Nathan Dunlap's lawyers continued to work on his appeals.

GARDNER: This was not a chance to prove he was innocent, to set Dunlap free. The focus was on his mental health and any other mitigating factors that could have gone into a jury's decision about whether he should be put to death.

SIROTA: Nathan Dunlap's attorneys make a pretty powerful case about bipolarity saying that this was not properly explored in the original case.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: By 2006, prison doctors had finally diagnosed Nathan as bipolar and put him on the powerful drug lithium. Once medicated, Nathan's behavior on death row changed radically. And he became a model prisoner.

DUNLAP-ASHLOCK: He was an entirely different person from the young man even that I knew. So it certainly has to be a part of why he did what he did.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: As Nathan's appeals were reviewed by the courts a movement to fully ban capital punishment in Colorado was picking up speed.

LANE: I think that America has hopelessly entangled two concepts. One is justice and the other vengeance. And we need to untangle those.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: With polls showing nationwide support for the death penalty dwindling a bill was introduced in Colorado state legislature to outlaw executions.

CLAIRE LEVY, FORMER STATE LEGISLATURE: We just felt strongly that we need to start this debate and we needed to put it out there.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: As passage of the bill looked more and more likely, it seemed possible that Rhonda's son's killers and Nathan Dunlap might escape the ultimate punishment after all.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's been 7,000 murderers in Colorado in 40 years. We have executed one person.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR (voice-over): In 2009 a bill banning capital punishment had strong support in the Colorado legislature.

SIROTA: The effort to repeal the death penalty in Colorado came from the fact that there is a budget crisis. And the death penalty is a huge money drain. And there is one estimate that the Nathan Dunlap case cost the state $18 million.

RITTER: It is absolutely more expensive to handle a death case because of the time it takes and the appeals going forward for 20 years.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How can we better use resources to be more effective?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: In addition to the high cost, supporters of the bill argue that the death penalty was used inconsistently across the state.

GARDNER: In some counties the district attorneys go after a life without parole sentence. In some counties they are known for going after the death penalty. So should your geography really determine your fate?

JIM CASTLE, DISTRICT ATTORNEY: There have been many multiple murders in Colorado that have not been prosecuted as capital cases. So the question is why.

LEVY: When you actually try to probe in what sense is this justice, there is no answer other than, you know, an eye for an eye. This person did this horrible, unspeakable thing and we are going to do something back to them.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: Rhonda Fields who had continued to push for death sentences for her son's killers spoke out against the bill. FIELDS: I didn't want to see the death penalty be repeal had had in

our state. Because I think it is a tool that our DAs need to have access to. There has to be some level of accountability and punishment for people who commit multiple murders.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: In the end, the death penalty ban passed in the house but fell short in the state Senate by a single vote.

BRAUCHLER: If you look back over the last decade or so, I would guess, every two years the life for killers crowd convinces some legislatures to run a bill to lower the bar for the sanctions for heinous murders and those invariably fail. But I don't think that this is just what do I think is the appropriate law to have on the books regarding the death penalty. This is what the state of Colorado thinks.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: By the time the bill failed both of Rhonda's sons' killers, Sir Mario Owens and Robert Ray have been sentenced to death. They joined the only other occupant on Colorado's death row -- Nathan Dunlap. Critics of the death penalty notice troubling similarities.

CASTLE: Owens, Ray and Dunlap all went to the same high school. They are all were young African-American men at the time they were charged in their cases. And they were all charged to be in the same exact judicial district. Why are these three singled out and they are the only people on death row?

FIELDS: Race is extremely important. But it's not important as it relates to this concept of death penalty. We happen to have three African-American men who are on death row for the same thing -- cold blooded murder. In my view, it has nothing to do with race. It has everything to do about murder.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: Over the next few years Rhonda Fields would continue to be an important voice in favor of capital punishment especially because the Dunlap case was about to reemerge in the headlines.

After nearly 20 years of court proceedings, Nathan's defense team was running out of options. In 2012 the tenth circuit court rejected his final appeal. And a year later, the Supreme Court refused to hear his case. District attorney George Brockler, now in charge of the case, took decisive action.

BRAUCHLER: We set an execution date for August of 2013.

LANE: Now Dunlap's last effort to save his life is in asking the governor of the state of Colorado for clemency.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: In 2010 Governor John Hickenlooper, Jr., the popular former mayor of Denver had won the governor's seat in commanding fashion.

SIROTA: This clemency appeal arrives on John Hickenlooper's desk as the last hope for Nathan Dunlap's life.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: With eyes across the nation watching Colorado, Governor Hickenlooper would be forced to decide whether Nathan Dunlap should live or die.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR (voice-over): In May 2013 Nathan Dunlap submitted a petition for clemency to Governor John Hickenlooper. It was accompanied by a video.

DUNLAP: I regret what I did. I regret what I did to those victims' families. I came to realize that, you know, bipolar was playing a very are big role in what I was doing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: Nathan's petition requested as his sentenced be commuted to life in prison because his mental health issues were never taken into account at trial. It also argued that the death penalty in Colorado was infrequently used, arbitrarily sought and racially biased. District attorney George Brockler's office sent a counter argument to the governor.

BRAUCHLER: We addressed the mental health issues. They had been raised before at appeals court levels and now they are being raised yet again to ask the governor to act his like the 13th juror, the super juror.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They also gave him pictures from the crime scene, letters from the victims' families.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: As part of his process, the governor met in person with the victims' families.

CROWELL: Most of the victims' families were there. And most of us were very adamant that he deserved the death penalty.

STEPHENS: I explained, you know. I remained quiet for this long. I haven't said anything. Now it's time for me to speak up. I think Nathan deserves to face his maker.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: But some in the room, including victim Colleen O'Connor's mother felt differently.

MCNALLY-DAMORE: Our family was the family that was more against the death penalty than anybody else. What I said to the governor was most of these years I haven't thought about Nathan Dunlap. What I have been doing is trying to heal. And I said to him, governor, I wouldn't want to be in your shoes for anything. I couldn't say yes.

RITTER: The governor has a lot of power here to sign a death warrant or commute a sentence. And so, you are really presented with, I think, one of the more difficult things a human being can be presented with. It is that final decision that comes down to just you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: On May 22nd, 2013, Governor Hickenlooper called the families to inform them of his decision. He then stepped in front of the cameras.

HICKENLOOPER: What we have decided is to grant a temporary reprieve. The point of having a temporary reprieve rather than clemency is out of respect to the rule of law.

SIROTA: John Hickenlooper ultimately decides to temporarily postpone the execution, temporarily but indefinitely. In the sense of as long as I'm governor, Nathan Dunlap will not be executed.

LEVY: A reprieve is the last thing anybody expected. It's a yes or a no issue. And a reprieve just defers it.

BRAUCHLER: It's like a time-out. The last reported use of the reprieve power we could find was in the mid 1890s.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They found him guilty and sentenced him to death based on laws passed in Colorado by Coloradoans that remain on the law to this date.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: Reaction was swift and bit (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm so furious, I can't tell you.

John Hickenlooper basically made a mockery of the judicial system.

CROWELL: I just felt like he's driving a tank over us.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This man, he's got to be a ball of wonder. That's all I can think of him.

HICKENLOOPER: We knew when we made this decision we were making the hardest decision, right? That we would be criticized from both sides. We try to hear all the voices and all the perspectives. You try to get to justice. Justice is really this passionate. That's part of the governor's role when the governor comes in. After this whole arc of judicial process and as to say do we miss anything? Is this really the right decision?

There is no question that this was cold-blooded in the most evil sense. And to this day, I can remember listening in 1993 to the details of what happened in Chuck E. Cheese. And you feel a physical repulsion and hatred its almost visceral, right? But that's not when you should make decisions. That's not, you know, necessarily where justice comes from.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: The governor acknowledges the psychiatric history played a role in his reprieved. But his executive order also caused him to question whether the state should be putting people to death at all.

HICKENLOOPER: Death is different, right? It is final. And the finality is so powerful that I think it makes us all look at it in a different sense. There is a reason 18 states banned the death penalty. And I wanted the state to have an examination of issues around the death penalty whether it is effective policy or something that is broken and really doesn't function very well.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: But by making the reprieve temporary the governor left open the possibility that the next election will decide Nathan Dunlap's fate. And the day after his announcement, one of the governor's biggest political opponents declared his candidacy.

TOM TANCREDO (R), GUBERNATORIAL PRIMARY CANDIDATE: Unlike the governor, 20 minutes after I actually enter the office and get a pen in my hand, I will rescind the order.

SIROTA: When the death penalty is subjected to an election, whether a gubernatorial election or a ballot measure we are saying essentially that the emotions of the mob should rule.

LANE: Certain things are not up for popular vote. I believe whether someone lives or dies should be one of those things.

LEVY: You know, it goes back to public stoning and lynching, you know? We don't have mob justice.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: In early 2013 a poll showed that a majority of Coloradoans still supported the death penalty and disapproved of how the governor handled the Dunlap case.

CROWELL: We believe in upholding the law. The law says execute him. And it's well deserved.

BRAUCHLER: The governor made it a political issue. I mean, there is one person in the state of Colorado who is more interested in the governor being re-elected than even the governor. That's Nathan Dunlap.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE NARRATOR: Despite running on a pro death penalty platform in 2010 governor Hickenlooper recently stated publically for the first time he's now against the death penalty. Meanwhile, Bob Beaupre who won the Republican gubernatorial nominations has unequivocally that if elected he will put Dunlap to death. Whether that will provide justice is still an open question.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is executing someone 20 years later really the kind of retribution that's making us as a society a better society?

MCNALLY-DAMORE: I've got a daughter murdered. I should be going kill him, kill him. Do you know how I feel? Nathan rotting where he's rotting is actually worse than death penalty. I think that he deserves to stay exactly in the hole that he is in and to suffer and so for him to think about what he did. Let him rot.