Secrets in the Ashes

Dateline NBC

NBC News

Culture, News, Social, True Crime, Society & Culture

4.4 • 40.3K Ratings

🗓️ 27 January 2026

⏱️ 82 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A South Texas house fire kills Patricia Leigh Mills, while her young son escapes. When her husband remarries just months later, suspicion grows and questions emerge. Andrea Canning reports. Lester Holt and Andrea Canning go behind the scenes of the making of this episode in ‘Talking Dateline’ Listen on Apple: https://apple.co/4td30en Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5Oux58Fg1yJWv9ku93Tn27

Transcript

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0:00.0	Tonight on Dateline.
0:02.0	It can't go down as a homicide.
0:05.0	It can't go down as anything but an accident.
0:08.0	She wanted me to kill her husband.
0:10.0	She sent me a picture like here he is.
0:12.0	Go get him.
0:13.0	I have to go through the high end and the whole widow process.
0:18.0	You can hear her complaining that she'll have to be the grieving widow.
0:21.6	It would all just be an act.
0:23.6	Gave me chills.
0:24.6	That made me think this is something she's done before.
0:27.6	You started to dig deeper.
0:30.6	You find some posts taking your suspicions to a whole new level.
0:35.6	Oh, yes.
0:36.6	I thought back to the affair.
0:39.4	It made me question her part in my aunt's murder.
0:43.8	There was a fire.
0:45.5	She didn't make it out.
0:47.4	What do you say to a six-year-old who just lost his mom?
0:50.6	We had zero evidence on Elson.
0:53.4	Lots of suspicion, my own included.
0:55.5	Just when you think the story couldn't get any bigger, it just goes on and on.
	...

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