guilty once again and he was sentenced to life without parole, plus five years. that's all for this edition of dateline. i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. this is dateline. this is a tragedy on top of a tragedy now. >> it happened so quickly. their parents in the backyard spa. their mom in trouble. >> my dad just panicked. >> a sudden slip, a fatal fall. >> you're losing your mother. you're watching her go right in front of you. >> right. >> someone else was watching her too. a curious neighbor. >> it was scary. the look on his face was almost undescribae. was this drowning really an accident?

>> sheas a huge gash on her head. something like that is not consistent with falling down. >> a husband and father suddenly under suspicion. >> he's crying, we're crying. he said they think i hurt mom. >> three daughters standby their dad and one prosecutor stands firm. >> he's holding his wife of almost three decades under the water. my job is to get justice for christie hall. >> was it murder? hello. welcome to dateline. a young woman peers into her neighbor's yard and sees something for a few mysterious seconds. a man, a woman and a moment that's unsettling. what she saw and what she did would set in motion a chain of events that would divide a family and a jury.

he's keith. it's unsatisfying not to have that answer. >> so it is. even if we've seen something or we think we have. and does the question of the heart of the whole puzzle, is this woman right? >> she didn't know for sure what she saw. >> a question on which all the rest will turn? why don't we begin here. sprawling suburbs. creeping out to the rim of mountains around the eastern flank of los angeles. here's where chris and christie hall had come to live out golden years. though they were far from old

when it happened. just experienced with life and each other. >> a's always been chris and christie. they were a unit. >> these are the daughters. all of them have heard scores of times the story of how their parents met. >> i parentally she was a little flir if i out of the gate. >> in short order, chris and christie married. she was 17. he 20. and as the girls grew up, they said they never doubted for a second the powerful bond of love. the parents for them and with

each other. >> they were probably closer with our parents than most children. christie the glue of the family. chris the mirror. >> my dad is more kicked back, relaxed and quiet. they were a perfect balance, i think. >> for years, chris hall was a police officer in san bernardino until he was shot in the line of duty. then he went off to become police chief in two small towns in id. then in 2005, anticipating an empty nest and eventual retirement, bought this place back in mesa. which they loved for backyard pool and spa and life in the spring of 2007 seemed to have hit a sweet spot, as ashton and brianna remember their mother telling them. >> we happened to be laying on the bed with her and she just started talking. she's like i am just so happy that i have you girls and dad.

it was kind of one of those conversations that you don't have every day. >> still, there was work to be done. courtney was still living with parents as the work began. they decided to rinse off in the spa before the contractor arrived at 6:45 a.m. it was june 7, 2007. chris got up first. turned on the spa to warm it up. called brianna at college dorm. >> there's your wakeup call, babe. get on going on that run. back at the house, kourtney dozed. just after 6:30. chris looked in on courtney again. second call and headed back to the spa.

normal moments. i got up out of bed. i was putting on my robe and just heard this maniced scream. panicked scream from my dad yelling for me. i ran to the hallway to the back porch and i saw him just trying to pull out my mom out of the spa. >> what's the emergency. >> it was she who dialed 911 as she and her father struggled to lift her mother out of the spa. >> first moments of the worst day of my life. >> is it possible for people to understand what it's like to be in that situation. >> i don't think so. to see just both your parents in the worst that you've ever seen them. obviously my mom unconscious and my dad just panicked and for the first time in my life, seeing him just that way not knowing what to do. >> he was a cop.

he was used to dealing with those kinds of things. >> he's a cop. he's used to dealing with those kinds of things with people who were not his wife. it was hard for the emts to help. >> he didn't want to leave her. he was just holding her hand. yelling hr name. >> worked on christie for more than 20 minutes. no vital signs. none. >> no words to describe just the fear and the anxiety. >> your losing your mother. >> right. >> and you're watching her go right in front of her. >> we tried to save her together and we just couldn't.

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no one else lets you do that. see how much you can save. choose by the gig or unlimited. xfinity mobile. a new kind of network designed to save you money. call, visit or go to xfinitymobile.com. on the morning of june 7, 2007, breanna hall was on the road from san diego, driving

home from college to what she didn't know except her elder sister courtney had called and it sounded bad. >> she said, there was an accident. you need to just, you know, come home right away. >> it was courtney who eventually broke the news to ashton and breanna. their mother, their father's wife of close to 30 years, was dead. but neither courtney nor chris waited at the house to tell the sisters what happened or to comfort them. nor did they linger over the body at the hospital. they couldn't because father and daughter were escorted to separate squad cars and driven to the police station to talk about the accident. what was that ride like? >> quiet. you know, i just remember crying the whole time. i couldn't comfort my father. he couldn't comfort me. we got to the station and they stead my dad would just be a few more minutes. >> chris, so frenzied at the scene, had calmed down. he was a cop among cops, he said, and he understood what was necessary to help them sort out what happened.

>> i can't even start to imagine what you're going through, okay? and just, you know, it's a death investigation, we have to do this, okay? >> reporter: happy to help, he said. whatever would get him back home to comfort his daughters as quickly as possible. >> this is gonna kill them. they were all so close. >> reporter: chris told investigators what happened, as courtney slept he and christi were in the spa bathing. >> she got out, went in, went to the bathroom, got some more coffee, tried to wake up courtney. courtney didn't wake up. apparently she came back out. >> reporter: as christi returned to the spa, said chris, they passed each other on the patio. he went in the house then, stopped by courtney's room to make sure she was awake, then went right back outside and saw his wife floating facedown in the spa. he called courtney then, he said, and they began a frantic effort to revive her. >> i could tell we were losing

her. >> reporter: from what, a fall? must have been. >> tell me in your gut what you think happened. >> i think she slipped -- she slipped or something. i don't know. that's all i could think. >> reporter: but apparently chris hadn't noticed the nasty three-inch laceration on christi's head. now suddenly the point of the police interview is revealed. >> the gash she has on her head -- >> she has a gash on her head? >> she's got a huge gash on her head. something that's not consistent with just falling down. >> reporter: not consistent th just falling down? why would the police think that? >> you've been around for a while. >> i know where you're going, and no. >> reporter: in fact, why was this ex-police chief being questioned at all about the apparently disastrous accident that killed the love of his life? and the answer was right next

door. when chris and christi hall took their outdoor bath that morning in june, someone was watching. her. >> i got up at 6:00. >> reporter: lindsay patterson was on leave from the navy visiting her mom who lives just over the backyard wall from the hall house. lindsay was inside in the bathroom that faced away from the hall house and out onto the street when she heard a noise. >> it was a horrible scream. it was this something was wrong kind of scream. >> reporter: a woman, she thought? she went outside to tell her mom. >> i said, did you hear that scream? she said, yeah, but i think it's just kids playing in the pool. >> reporter: kids? at 6-something in the morning? lindsay walked over to the brick wall between their homes. she stepped on the planter and looked over the wall, she said. >> at that point i saw a man with his hand -- one hand on top

of a woman's head and then one hand on her back. and she was facedown in the water. >> like something was going on? >> that's what i assumed. >> reporter: that is, she thought she was looking at a sex act in progress. >> i don't know why it didn't seem right, but something made me want to look again. >> reporter: probably 90 seconds between her first and second looks, and this time she said she only saw the man in the spa. >> he's leaning back, just relaxed in the hot tub. but i don't see her. he's got his elbows back and he's kind of looking around like nothing. >> reporter: where did the woman go? lindsay told her mom something seemed strange. >> she tells me, lindsay, stop being nosey and don't worry about it. but it just didn't seem right. it wasn't enough time for her to have gotten out and gone inside the house. >> reporter: so, said lindsay, she went to the wall again, her third and final look.

>> at that point he was getting out of the jacuzzi and he was in a very big rush. she's still nowhere to be seen. the look on his face was almost undescribable. it was almost as if he had just gone into another world. it was scary. >> reporter: it was instinct that told her something was wrong, said lindsay, so she called 911. >> 911. state your emergency. >> reporter: so now, hours and hours later, the detectives confronted chris with lindsay's story. why, they asked, didn't her story match his? >> so am i supposed to believe the witness is lying? >> i'm not saying she's lying. she sounds like a truthful kid or whatever. but i don't know, you know? i can't explain what she's saying she saw. >> reporter: so now that question we posed as we began -- did lindsay patterson really

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talk to your doctor today. see if lyrica can help. after his wife's drowning death, they asked chris hall to explain what happened that morning.

here again, steve morris. > chris christi hall's daughters clung together june 7, 2007, the worst of all days, waiting for their father to return from the police station. and they wondered, why was it taking so long? then the phone rang and they had their answer. >> you know, broken-up words, and he's crying and we're crying. that was when he said, they think i hurt mom. i mean, he was very upset. >> but he didn't sound surprised when he said, they hurt -- >> he was crying. >> he was upset. >> very upset. >> reporter: but by the time police investigators were questioning chris, remember, they had heard from lindsay patterson, and at the station, chris' version differed in one crucial way from lindsay's story. >> me holding her down in there, there's nothing that took place in that jacuzzi that would explain that. there was no sex.

there was no -- i don't even think we had any contact while we were in the jacuzzi other than when i was getting her out of the jacuzzi. >> reporter: but investigators were looking at christi's body and looking at signs of a struggle and more than one nasty blow to the head. so police had to believe which version, chris hall's or lindsay patterson's, was more likely the true story of what happened. tom dove is an investigator for the riverside d.a. >> i think they thought this was enough to say this was not an accidental drowning. it was purely much more suspicious than that. >> reporter: so before the night was over, chris hall was arrested and charged with the murder of his wife.

the girls could stop waiting. he wasn't coming home. >> it was obviously a tragedy losing our mother that day. but this is a tragedy on top of a tragedy now. >> because knowing our parents wouldn't just -- >> the farthest thing from the truth. >> reporter: and one that has been infected by some kind of madness, said the girls. christi was the love of their father's life, after all, the center of everything for him. how could anyone so happy in his marriage and his life be accused of harming her? and she was happy, too, they said. as happy as she'd ever been. they knew it, they said, based on that mother/daughter talk they had. not long before she died. >> she just kept reiterating how happy she was. >> kind of odd. >> me and bree will always -- >> of course we didn't think much of it at that time, but that being the last time we actually saw her -- >> kind of burned into your memory now. >> yeah. >> reporter: but, right or wrong, the legal trigger had been pulled. chris hall spent almost two months in jail until his daughters received the payout from christi's life insurance policy and used the money to

meet his $1 million bail. and then he went back to what was to be his retirement retreat to prepare with the help of his daughters for a murder trial. >> that's very surprising to have a client in a murder case out on bail, but he was a special man and this was a special situation. >> reporter: these are attorneys who would eventually defend him, though at first they'd only heard about the case. steve harmon and paul grech. >> you said two things, special man, special situation. >> i think both of us can say this is a man that we like and that we know and we don't feel he could have done anything like this. >> reporter: so chris hall and his daughters prepared for a trial which they hoped would make clear to everybody, the police, the neighbor, the world, that chris would not, could not, did not harm the love of his life. >> there was never in 30 years of marriage one moment of violence. there was no motive for this man to kill his wife. >> reporter: harmon and grech had a look at neighbor lindsay patterson's eyewitness account and suggested it was really not

conclusive at all. it was tragically incomplete. >> she saw three snapshots. what is missed by everyone is the wife getting into the jacuzzi, slipping, falling into the jacuzzi, hitting her head, going unconscious, and drowning. >> reporter: see this sharp corner sticking out into the spa? hitting her head on this would certainly have opened a gash and knocked christi out, said the attorney. >> she didn't see what was really happening during the times when she was not looking. >> reporter: that scream that made lindsay patterson look over the wall? lindsay, they pointed out, was in a bathroom that faced the street. she wasn't in the backyard when she says she heard it. could have been anybody. and courtney, who was inside her own house near the spa, didn't hear a thing. >> we don't think that she's lying. just think she misinterpreted what she saw. >> reporter: and, anyway, lindsay to a certain degree

concedes she didn't know what she was seeing in her glimpses that morning. >> something was wrong. >> yet you hadn't really seen anything. >> i -- no. but i knew something was wrong. i don't know if in my brain i was putting things together, but between the scream, the position that he was holding her, and the -- just not having enough time for her to have gone inside. >> it was like you've kind of got three different snapshots. >> right. >> something going on there and had to kind of work out what this was. >> yeah. you know, i wasn't thinking at that time, oh, this man just murdered his wife. >> but now, based largely on that account, chris hall would go on trial for murder. and it was a trial for his daughters, too. >> he loved her. they were each other's best friends, and this is just -- this is not fair to him because he truly loved her more than anyone. >> and yet the prosecutor was going to try to prove that this

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gathering more evidence that could lead to an arrest. weinstein has unequivocally denied any allegations of nonconsensual sex. now back to dateline.

would anything change their minds about their dad. here again is keith morrison. burke strunsky is a hard charging man, senior deputy d.a. in riverside. that takes skill, persuasive power. he would need them in the murder case of the former police chief and family man chris hall. >> mr. hall, on the surface, looks like a loving family man. he looks like a good father, somebody that had the support of his family. >> reporter: so he did. but he wasn't buying the loving father and family man, no. when he heard about chris hall's very obvious grief, the wailing that went on after the so-called accident, the phrase that crossed his mind was, it's an act. >> i think it was a wonderful performance by the defendant of acting like a bereaved husband, but when you look at his

actions, how little he did to help his wife. >> reporter: who tried harder to save christi? not chris, said the prosecutor, but his daughter. >> she called 911. she helped him get the body out of the spa. she is the only one who did chest compressions. he had no interest in truly helping his wife. >> a matter of opinion, of course, but prosecutor strunsky poked around in chris hall's past as a policeman, and what did he find? >> this man had an uncanny ability to fabricate stories. >> seven years earlier, while hall was chief of police in cascade, idaho, he was charged and convicted of misuse of money, embezzled money, spent time in jail. a white collar crime, hardly murder. but what struck the prosecutor is that he says hall tried to cover it up. >> to plan a fraud, not just lie about it but lie about it effectively. >> i think it was very telling

about who we were dealing with. >> suddenly the prosecutor's prospects were looking better. at the trial, he made lindsay patterson his star witness, of course. it was her story, after all, that got the whole thing started. but, almost as important, he called the riverside county medical examiner who testified that those lacerations on christi's head could not, in his opinion, have been the result of a single accidental fall and the m.e. argued that the particular type of bruising on christi's face and body was a hallmark of homicide. >> sure. >> totality of injuries were not consistent with somebody slipping and falling and then a rescue attempt. >> and there was a clump of hair in the bottom of the spa, still intwined with a broken plastic hair clip. that, said the prosecutor, could only have come from a violent struggle. >> when you lose that amount of hair, it's not reasonableably explained by any kind of fall. >> reporter: there were some minor hiccups in the case. lindsay patterson, for example, was a little inconsistent about how long she looked over the

backyard wall that first time she saw something going on. was it just a few seconds? or as long as a minute? but either way, said the prosecutor, lindsay was sure she saw physical contact. that was the important thing. >> he was given the opportunity to explain any physical contact that could in any way reasonably explain what lindsay patterson missaw. in other words, were they washing each other, involved in a sex act? was there anything that she could have misinterpreted? and at the end of the day you're not just stuck with the fact that lindsay patterson made a mistake. you have to believe lindsay patterson hallucinated about everything she saw. >> and what made lindsay's story all the more convincing is she told it before finding out what happened to christi. she dialed 911 a full minute and a half before anyone from the hall house did. before lindsay had any idea how

it would end. here's what the jury heard her say in that call. >> i saw him put her under water and hold her there. >> and she was still on the phone with 911 when chris hall came outside and found his wife's body floating in the spa called out for courtney. investigator tom dove. >> i heard it best described during the trial as a cosmic coincidence that someone could see something that they perceived to be more than just some kind of kinky action in the jacuzzi in the morning and that actually turn out to be true, that a woman was actually drowned in that spa. that is not a coincidence. that is what she saw. >> the prosecution's theory? somehow, sitting in the spa that morning, chris was overcome by some private fury, who knows what -- a hidden violence is what strunsky called it -- and then killed his spouse when he thought nobody was looking.

>> chris hall ambushed his wife, grabbed her by the hair, slammed her head twice into the concrete edge. he's holding his wife of almost three decades under the water showing absolutely no mercy and no remorse, an absolute desire to end her life at that point. >> and then -- >> he then gets out of the spa, walks into the house where his plan is to wake his 22-year-old daughter, who he can use as an alibi witness. >> one little quibble -- why? in fact, as convinced he was of hall's guilt, he conceded why was a problem. didn't legally have to know, he said, but he just didn't. there it was. >> it's emotionally unsatisfying not to have that answer, not to know the entire narrative of what happened. >> but you'd want to know why this guy, married to this woman

for almost 30 years, apparently happily, would suddenly turn on her and drown her in the pool. >> right. and i'm not sure we got the answers to that specific question. >> kind of an important question, isn't it? >> it's an important question and a question we ask in all spousal homicides. >> so proof enough? or reasonable doubt? almost three years after christi hall's death, a riverside jury would have to decide. big news from advil, advil liqui-gels minis. our first concentrated pill that rushes powerful relief. a small new size that's fast, cause it's liquid. woohoo! you'll ask, what pain? new advil liqui-gels minis.

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tums chewy bites. -oh! -very nice. now i'm turning into my dad. i text in full sentences. i refer to every child as chief. this hat was free. what am i supposed to do, not wear it? next thing you know, i'm telling strangers defense wins championships. -well, it does. -right? why is the door open? are we trying to air condition the whole neighborhood? at least i bundled home and auto on an internet website, progressive.com. progressive can't save you from becoming your parents, but we can save you money when you bundle home and auto. i mean, why would i replace this? it's not broken.

chris hall's daughters sat through every miserable minute of their dad's trial for murder here at the courthouse in riverside, california. their review of the prosecutor's portrait of their father, it was a lie, they said. >> it's hurtful for us to hear someone basically say that he knew our parents better than we do and he knows our father is a sociopath and that we're blind to it and he knows that there was hidden violence in our parents' marriage and we just didn't see it. you're basically telling us that we didn't know our whole lives were a lie. >> they're just talking. there's no proof of that. >> chris hall had never been violent, argued the defense. had no motive, no reason to suddenly turn on his wife. it had to be a freak accident. so, said the defense, lindsay patterson didn't really know what she saw.

in fact, if she'd really witnessed chris hall drowning his wife, why then didn't she claim to see cristi's body in the spa when she looked again? didn't make sense. but the highlight was the hall daughters' testimony, emotional, quite powerful. so it put prosecutor strunsky in a strange position, at odds with the victim's own family. >> things were so clear. if we had any inkling he had done this, believe me we would have said so. and we would have seen that. >> i think that's what they truly believe in their hearts. it weighs on me greatly, but my job is to get justice for cristi hall. >> now it was up to a jury to decide. after six days of testimony, two days of deliberation, they couldn't.

it was a deadlock. the judge declared a mistrial. chris hall walked out of court with his family, free but not quite in the clear. and nothing at all like a victory for the hall daughters. what was it like to get that hung jury? what did you think then? >> this was tragic. >> that was devastating to us. >> you expected a not guilty verdict? >> oh, yeah. not a doubt. >> deputy d.a. burke strunsky was devastated too and determined to retry the case. but first he sent his investigator on a mission to explore the life and marriage of chris hall. and what do you know? in idaho where hall had been a disgraced police chief, the investigator uncovered a startling accusation. >> chris was a great, great con man. >> former los angeles police officer jerry winkle is a county commissioner up in idaho now. but, once upon a time, he was chris hall's friend. that is, before a night of poker and booze when he said hall made a disturbing revelation, that he'd shot himself in the leg when he was a cop in order to get medical retirement benefits.

>> chris had been drinking beer, and he came right out and told me that he had shot himself. >> but there was more. d.a. investigator tom dove had discovered a secret. not in chris' past but in cristi's. >> there had been infidelity in the marriage six years prior, while chris hall was in custody in idaho. >> cristi's affair was relavely brief, years ear, but she'd been in phone contact with the man just days bore she died. had chris found out? impossible to know. but when investigator dove talked to cristi's co-workers at the clinic where she was an x-ray technician, several of them said they noticed a sudden change in her usually vibrant personality. one co-worker offered more. >> she told us that she was contemplating a divorce.

>> if true -- and it was only an if -- it might well persuade a jury. but also prosecutor strunsky needed to explain what lindsay patterson saw or didn't see. why didn't she see cristi's drowned body when she peeked over the wall a second time? >> we were not able to explain to the jury why she didn't see cristi at that point. and i think that allowed the defense to make the argument that cristi hall was inside. >> the prosecution hired a water expert to do a re-creation of the halls' spa. andrea zafaris has been assisting law enforcement nationwide in drowning investigations for the past 20 years. she got in the spa while strunsky videotaped from the spot where lindsay was watching. >> from the center of the pool and towards where lindsay was standing, anywhere i was laying you could not be seen from lindsay's viewpoint. so once i sank below the surface and hit that bottom, you could not see me at all from lindsay's viewpoint. >> now the prosecution was ready. in may 2011, one year after e

first jury deadlocked, burke strunsky went back to court armed with his new evidence for a brand new panel of hall's peers. jurors heard medical experts testify about the injuries to christi's head and once again heard lindsay's 911 call. >> i saw him put her under water. >> cristi's co-workers testified for the prosecution. and jerry winkle traveled from idaho to tell jurors what he thought of chris hall. >> i was ashamed to admit that he was once a police officer. >> but, if the prosecution had upped its game in the year between the two trials, so had the defense. that's when well-known attorney steve harmon and paul grech entered the scene, and they came out swinging. that story about cristi's affair, for example? >> there's a shadow hanging over all of this stuff. very human sort of shadow, which is that she was having a little

affair. right? had a boyfriend. >> yes. if the husband knew about it. but the wife never, ever mentions it and tells the husband. no one tells the husband. >> quite right, said the judge, and because there was no evidence that chris knew about his wife's affair, he ruled it out of the trial. and the story about hall shooting himself for retirement benefits? >> that was just absolutely a lie. that's wrong. there was never, never any evidence or indication or not even a moment's breath that he shot himself. >> anyway, the story was prejudicial, said the judge, so he threw that out, too. as for what lindsay patterson says she saw, chris hall holding his wife's head under water, the defense had prepared its own visual demonstration, had taken pictures from her angle at the wall to show that it could look like two people were touching in the spa even if they weren't.

>> this is what she described seeing in her testimony. but, on the close-up, what do you notice? >> they're not touching but they're in position where they could be. >> but that's different than actually touching. >> again, the hall daughters were there every minute, their father's enduring champions. and this time more family members came to court. two of cristi's own siblings testified for chris. >> they said the same thing, we have not a doubt in our minds that this was not a moment of violence, this was not a murder. the victim's own sister and own brother. that's an amazing thing to see. >> perhaps it was. but listen to this. the defense had one more very significant witness. a witness who oozed credibility. the city medical examiner from neighboring san bernardino county who stuck his neck way out to disagree publicly in a court of law with the medical examiner from riverside.

>> he found this to be an accidental death, not a homicide. >> this was not some ordinary hired gun. this was a public official who said straight out that cristi's head injuries could, and perhaps should, be explained by an accidental fall. he didn't rule out homicide. >> he didn't rule out homicide, but he said the preponderance of the evidence was towards an accidental drowning. what i've always been astounded by with this case is that the hall family lived so close to the san bernardino border, if cristi had slipped and fell four or five blocks over, the pathologist in that county would never have filed criminal charges. an accident of geography. >> so now a second jury would have to sort through these two sets of allegations, these two opposing realities, and decide whether chris hall would return and embrace home and his loving daughters or a pair of handcuffs

and a life in prison. dietline returns after the break.

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welcome back. with new evidence presented by both sides during the retrial, the jury was finally able to

reach a verdict. now, with the conclusion to our story. >> may 2011. for the second time, 12 men and women of riverside, california filed out of the courtroom, a second jury to make a life decision about chris hall. did he murder his wife? which medical examiner should they believe? the defendant's character? perhaps, most important, what did lindsey patterson see when she peeked three times into the hall's backyard. >> do you have dark moments of the soul where you think, i may have misinterpreted, misremembered? >> i say that every day. whether i misinterpreted, whether i thought i saw something that was not there. i didn't see everything. >> yeah. >> but i saw what i saw, and i know the conclusion of the

story. i know it. i know it. right here. you know? >> of course, his daughters say they know the truth too, real thing in their hearts. >> we were the three most critical jurors in that courtroom. believe me, if we had heard anything or had any inkling our father could have done this, as much as it would have hurt and love our father, we want that justice for our mother. >> jurors deliberated for two days and broke for a long weekend. it was memorial day. the daughters felt good. >> things can only go so wrong for so long before something actually has to go right for us. >> we just did a lot of talking about the future, and being over, and, you know, being finished, and, honestly, i was concerned about dad and how he

was finally going to be able to grieve for the loss of his wife. >> then it was tuesday, 8:45 in the morning. the jury gathered. minutes later, a signal. they were ready. chris and his daughters rushed the courtroom, and in the end, it was very quick, guilty of first degree murder. their father would not be coming home. probably ever. >> he's being cuffed, and put away for life, and, yeah, it hurts, and we are angry about that. >> you can still hear those daughters. >> i can. grieving their father. >> absolutely. >> it weighs on them, but at the same time, i know who i'm dealing with when it comes to chris haul. in fact, he's the one that stole their mother from them. >> it's been a peculiar fact

that the victims' family stood together against the prosecution. no one knew the truth was more complicated. after the verdict at sentencing, a letter was instituted, from another of haul's brothers, billy carlton, who, until now, said not one word about the case. we would like to ask his honor for the maximum sentence, wrote billy, the pain my family suffered in the tragedy is unforgivable. >> i didn't want to hurt the girls, but i wanted to say what was on my mind. >> there was a deep divide, said billy. some believe chris was innocent, but he, and he says, others, including uncle steve, silently urged on the prosecutors. >> half the family was convinced he was innocent, and half the family was convinced he was not, and that's hard to do when you have a big family, and y'all have to be together.

>>. >> as loved as he was. >> exactly. >> does that explain why this group of people in the family decided to just let justice take its course? >> we had talked about it quite a bit, and you got to know when to show up and when not to show up just to keep what's left of the family together as you can have it. >> thank you so much for coming. >> haul convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life, some of the relatives met with the prosecutor and thanked him. >> thank you for putting that man away. he's a murderer. >> the hall daughters, having lost their beloved mother, a father they adored. >> devastating, really is. especially for our family, you know, to say we're close is an understatement, you know, to go

from that to being able not to be there with each other, it's -- it's the greatest heart break that anyone can ever experience i think. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline," thank you for watching. good morning. i'm dara brown in new york. headquarters, 7:00 in the east, and 4:00 out west. here's what's happening. on the road, president trump is on the first leg of the critical trip to asia, and why the white house said there was a positive side of the president's rhetoric about north korea. who met with who in the mueller probe? what it means for the president and a member of the cabinet. new reaction on key