there's no way i believed that she would do it. narrator: she wasn't the only one. the jury in kaity's first trial couldn't reach a verdict. lisi: i just remember honestly going out, walking to my car, crying for about two minutes in the parking lot, and then saying, "okay, that's it. that's enough. it's time to get back to work and see if we can put this case together again." narrator: and that's what happened. in a second trial, in november of 2017, kaity conley was found guilty of first-degree manslaughter and sentenced to 23 years in prison. she still maintains her innocence, but the dna, the evidence from the typewriter, the attempted frame-up, the web searches, and the purchase of the colchicine all pointed in one direction -- to a young woman with a bizarre motive for murder. vannamee: a lot of people have had a difficult or a tough time accepting the fact that kaitlyn conley is guilty for the death of mary yoder.

but when you look at all the forensics in the case and everything leads you back to one person and that's kaitlyn conley, there's no doubt that she was guilty and responsible. ♪ narrator: up next, after nearly two decades of marriage, a divorcee is starting fresh. she was dating a whole bunch of different guys. she was doing some online dating. narrator: but dangerous secrets lurk in cyberspace. the whole internet world is risky. you just never know who's out there. narrator: romance leads to horrific violence. i'd never seen anything like this. narrator: and science exposes a killer convinced he's outwitted both detectives and forensic analysts. ♪

♪ in the summer of 2011, chanin starbuck, a 42-year-old mother of five, was ready to start a new chapter in her life. chanin was trying to get an education and a way to support herself and the kids. narrator: recently divorced, chanin got certified as a dental hygienist and was finally out on her own. getting independent was a big accomplishment, especially for a single mom with a brood of kids ranging in age from 12 to 21. bourchier: chanin got pregnant on her honeymoon, and then the first son was born, and he was a -- he was a whipper. he was a cute little guy. chanin and the children's father, clay starbuck. were married and divorced two times in a love match that sometimes burned a little too hot.

clay and chanin did not have your normal relationship. you know, you've heard of on-and-off. this was more intense than that, really. they just couldn't seem to keep it together. narrator: still, the couple attempted to raise their children together. clay moved out and ended up in a house, i think just a little over a half a mile from chanin. he stayed pretty close. narrator: all told, chanin and clay had been together for most of her adult life. in addition to supporting herself, part of chanin's new life involved dating other men. chanin was using a number of different websites. to some degree, this can be risky. narrator: on the afternoon of december 1st, 2011, chanin didn't show up to drive her children home from school. no one could get in touch with her, which was unusual. it wasn't like her to not tell anyone where she went.

she wouldn't leave the area and not tell her kids. narrator: clay starbuck asked police to do a welfare check at chanin's house. no one answered the door, but nothing appeared to be wrong. there was no reason for police to enter the house. chanin's children spent the night with their father and tried to find her. and the next day, i got up and i started calling, and i knew then that something was wrong. narrator: family and friends kept calling the police. so, the next night, they checked the house again. nothing seemed changed from the night before, but this time, with a key from the landlord, they went in. the house was dark. it was dark inside. there was no lights on. narrator: moving through the house with flashlights, officers didn't see anything unusual until they got to the master bedroom.

there was a female laying on the bed with no clothes on. i was startled. i stepped back for a second. i took a look, a further look with my flashlight, and i could see that it was chanin. narrator: she was dead, in a scene of unusual violence. this doesn't seem to be a "typical" killing. i mean, there was some evil involved here. narrator: first responders thought she might have been strangled. even worse, the body had been staged in a humiliating, sexually suggestive manner. dresback: i'd never seen anything like it. i was 35 years old in law enforcement, and the last 20 were in homicide, and that's the first actual posing involving sexual devices and in a sexual way that i'd ever seen. narrator: her family was devastated by this murder and shocked by the brutality. i did lose part of me.

i definitely did. she was my whole life. narrator: a few things appeared clear immediately. this staging of the body would have taken time -- so much time that chanin's killer would likely be familiar with the house and knew he wouldn't be disturbed. even more telling, there was no forced entry. the evidence, at least at this stage, indicated chanin knew her killer. ♪

narrator: chanin starbuck's murder shocked her family, her friends, and her community. she was my whole life. i wanted a little girl, and she was -- oh, my god, she was perfect.

starks: chanin was tortured, and she was beaten so bad that she couldn't have an open-casket funeral. it was a horrific thing to think about your friend, having to suffer and be tortured like she was. narrator: investigators on the scene theorized chanin had been strangled and that affected how they collected evidence. we swabbed for dna prior to moving chanin's body from the crime scene. narrator: but the most shocking part of this crime was what chanin's killer did after the murder. bryant: when cops come upon chanin's body, the first thing that strikes them is how bizarre the positioning is. shover: i'd never seen anything like this. i've never seen a dead body positioned and staged the way this one was. narrator: this staging took time, and a lot of it. so did the attempt to clean up the crime scene.

johnston: all of the bedding has been removed, and it is in the wash machine. whatever staining had been on the bedding is most likely removed in the wash, and so we're unable to match it up. narrator: oddly, for a crime with clear sexual motivations, chanin had not been raped. the autopsy revealed petechial hemorrhages in chanin's eyes -- confirmation that strangulation was the cause of death. and this gave investigators a possible break. there was something chanin's killer apparently didn't realize. chanin may have just taken a shower. her hair looked like it was air-dried. narrator: that meant her body might provide a good, freshly cleaned template for the killer's dna. if there's any kind of suspicions that someone may have been manually strangled, typically, the medical examiner will take swabs of the neck.

narrator: while those swabs were being taken, detectives continued processing the scene. soon, chanin's ex-husband, clay, who lived about a mile away, arrived. i told him that chanin was found and that she was dead. and upon that news, he almost collapsed on the ground. shover: he was very upset. of course, he wanted to go in there. he wanted to see her. i told him he couldn't. it was a crime scene, and we were gonna secure the residence immediately. narrator: clay told police that chanin had been out of contact for about two days, which was out of character, and a big problem for detectives. johnston: at that particular time, we're not certain when chanin was murdered. narrator: and chanin's autopsy didn't provide much help in narrowing that time frame. she was cold when found, so body temperature couldn't be used to nail down a time of death.

this meant establishing alibis for potential suspects would be nearly impossible. for now, though, clay starbuck had a theory about who killed his ex-wife. dresback: when i said, "who do you think did it?" he said, "just look on her computer and look on her phones." maybe it had been an internet date that had gone wrong. narrator: a search of chanin's cellphone provided vital information about her final days and hours. at 8:06 on the day she was last seen, she got a text from a man named tom walker. the two texted "good morning" to each other. at 8:29, tom made a request. tom had sent a text to chanin requesting that she pose herself in this kind of provocative way and send him that picture. narrator: alarmingly, this mirrored almost exactly the position in which chanin had been posed after her murder.

♪

narrator: in the two days that chanin starbuck went missing before her body was discovered, she exchanged a series of text messages with family and friends. chanin's last apparent communication -- asking her ex-husband clay to pick up the kids from school -- was at 3:17 p.m. on december 1st, two days before her body was found. we're using that as kind of the last known time we believe she's alive. narrator: that timeline looked to clear clay as a suspect in chanin's murder. they know that clay was with the kids from about 3:30 on. that creates a pretty tight window that would excuse clay. narrator: but it didn't do much for the chief suspect in this case -- tom walker. he and chanin had met online, and he asked her to photograph herself

in the exact same sexual pose in which her body was ultimately found. to detectives, this seemed like more than a coincidence. tom admitted that he had made the request for the photograph. narrator: chanin didn't respond to this request. as for tom walker, he had no history of violence. but since analysts couldn't pin down chanin's exact time of death, he was still a solid suspect. it's very common to have the time-of-death problem because the body doesn't necessarily tell you. best you can get from a body is range. narrator: meanwhile, other searches of chanin's communications uncovered a new potential suspect. his name was john wilson. it didn't take very long to figure out that the john wilson listed on facebook was a fake profile and this person did not want to be found. narrator: using the e-mail address john wilson gave to chanin,

detectives contacted him, and he refused to divulge his real identity. so, detectives did what's called a reverse directory on one of the numbers john wilson used to call chanin. it was traced to a pay phone outside a library at washington state university. i mean, who uses pay phones anymore? narrator: the answer, at least in this case, was someone who wanted to hide his identity and even his location. the problem for john wilson was that there was a surveillance camera near this pay phone, and it recorded this image of someone walking to that phone at almost exactly the time records showed chanin took the call. investigators who were still contacting him by e-mail gave him a choice. he could voluntarily identify himself,

or they could put his picture on tv and ask the public to identify him. with that, john wilson came clean. his real name -- john kenlein. and he had a good reason for trying to hide his identity. he's cheating on his wife. narrator: kenlein admitted contacting chanin, and even said he went to her house during the period she dropped out of contact. kenlein remained a solid suspect for the same reason tom walker did. detectives still weren't sure exactly when chanin was killed, so they couldn't alibi any of their suspects. bryant: chanin was seen when she dropped the kids off, and then her body not found for almost three days later. narrator: but then, to the surprise of everyone,

a new piece of evidence emerged. johnston: i find a 911 call, which was something that we were never aware of in the past. operator: 911. what are you reporting? ♪

narrator: about three weeks into chanin starbuck's murder investigation, detectives came upon a surprise piece of evidence -- a 911 call traced back to chanin's cellphone. you really hear just what seems to be a female voice and sort of a gurgle or a gasp or some sort of struggle. narrator: and then the call ended. why did police only learn about this vital piece of evidence now? because of a common safety feature on chanin's phone. certain cellphones at that time wouldn't record 911 calls so that if someone were kidnapped or needed to make a 911 call without a third party knowing, it wouldn't reflect in their records. narrator: but a later search of chanin's physical phone records showed she had made this call.

during that call, the 911 operator followed protocol to the letter. the 911 operator attempted to call the number back, but it just goes to voicemail. narrator: one minute later, chanin's phone lost contact with the cell tower, suggesting it had been powered off. there was nothing the 911 operator could do. bryant: because it's on a cellphone, they don't have the specifics to tell them exactly where that call originated. and therefore, no cars were dispatched to check the area. narrator: this call was made at 9:18 on the morning chanin dropped out of contact. it narrows the window. it narrows the time of death. narrator: but while this potentially answered a lot of questions, it raised a lot more. if chanin had been killed around 9:18, why were there messages from her phone later on that same day? one of two things was going on.

either she didn't die at or about that time, or she didn't send those texts -- either, very important for detectives. narrator: and also important for the two chief suspects, tom walker and john kenlein. they both had solid alibis for 9:18 on the morning in question and were ultimately cleared of any involvement. but one possible suspect did not have an alibi for that timeframe. and that was chanin's ex-husband, clay starbuck. it is definitely making clay starbuck look like a stronger suspect than ever. narrator: but how to prove it? for that, detectives turn to one of the few lucky breaks they had in a very difficult case. chanin had just gotten out of the shower before this happened. narrator: and if chanin was strangled after she showered, this would be fresh dna almost certainly deposited on her neck

at the time of her murder. because dna technology over the years has gotten more sensitive, we can now develop dna profiles from just a few skin cells. so, six or seven cells, we can get a dna profile. narrator: using a process called y-str dna, which targets the y chromosome confined to males, analysts lifted a dna profile from chanin's neck and face. the profile matched the "y" profile for clay starbuck and any of his male children. narrator: two of the starbucks' children were adult males, and both had solid alibis for the time of the murder. that left only one person -- clay starbuck. the dna profile that we got left little doubt in our mind that it was clay starbuck. narrator: but clay had an explanation for his dna. he used to live in the house. of course his dna would be there. analysts disagreed.

where his dna was found, on a body that was freshly washed, didn't appear to be a casual transfer. this is highly unlikely, especially for that dna to be found in so many important locations. narrator: chanin's family says clay couldn't tolerate her seeing other men. that was the last straw for clay. he was losing any ability to control her. narrator: the evidence appears to indicate that clay snuck into the house while chanin drove the kids to school, something he had done many times before. he's just not even human. he stalked her. and that was horrifying. narrator: but this time, he planned to kill her. he hid himself and waited for her to return home. she took a shower. as she came out, he put her in a choke hold and strangled her to death,

not realizing his arm left touch dna, his genetic signature, on her neck. he checked her cellphone, saw the sexually explicit request, and realized that posing her in this way was an ideal way to throw off police. afterward, he cleaned the scene, going so far as to wash the bedding and wipe down the washing machine. later that day, he used chanin's phone to send a series of text messages. this made it seem she was still alive. it broadened estimates for her time of death, and it gave him an alibi. clay really is diabolical in using this cellphone. narrator: but what ultimately broke the case wide open was chanin attempting, however unsuccessfully, to call 911.

operator: 911. what are you reporting? narrator: clay starbuck and his children say he's innocent. but in june of 2013, he was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole. even detectives admit that as brazen as this crime was, clay came very close to getting away with murder. in all of my years of investigating crime scenes, i've never seen someone take so much time in a crime scene to pose the person, to dispose of evidence. sparks: the forensic evidence definitely helped this case because the dna that they were able to gather helped seal it that it was a male that had killed her and it was a starbuck male that had killed her. if she had not made that 911 call, as brief as it was, the authorities never would have narrowed the time frame. they never would have been able to eliminate suspects other than clay.