i'm craig melvin. thanks for watching. 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. watching her go. >> someone else was watching her, too. a curious neighbor just moments before witnessed something astonishing. >> it was scary. the look on his face was almost indescribable. >> what had she seen? was this drowning really an

accident? >> she's got a huge gash on her head. something like that's not consistent with just falling down. >> a husband and father suddenly under suspicion. >> he's crying and we're crying. he said that think think i heard mom. >> three daughters stand by 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 cristi hall. was it murder? >> hello and welcome to "dateline extra. requests i'm craig melvin. a plot straight out of an alfred hitchcock film. a young woman peers into the neighbor's yard and sees something, a man, a woman, unsettling. was it some kind of an accident? a crime? maybe even a murder? what she saw and what she did would set in motion a chain of

events that would divide a family and a jury. here's keith morrison. >> we know the truth and we know everything that happened. >> how do we know what we doe? >> emotionally unsatisfying not to have that answer. >> so it is. even if we have seen something or if we think we have. and that's the question at the heart of a whole puzzle. is this woman right? >> i know what i saw. and i know the conclusion of my story. >> of course she does. of course she does. so, why does this other woman think this? >> she didn't know for sure what she saw. >> a question we say on which all the rest will turn. why don't we begin here? call mesa, california. riverside county. historic missions. sprawling suburbs, creeping out to the rim of mountains around the eastern flank of los

angeles. here's where chris and cristi hall had come out to live out the golden years though they were far from old when it happened. just experienced with life and each other. >> as far back as i can remember it's always been chris and cristi. never thought of as separate. they were a unit. >> these are the three daughters, courtney the eldest is a teacher. brianna, a personal trainer. and ashton, the youngest, here just returned from playing professional volleyball in europe. and all of them, of course, have heard scores of times the story of how their parents met. ♪ it was 1978. cristi saw a relative at an air force base and quite by chance while she was there encountered a security guard who to her at least looked just like elvis. it was blair christopher hall, chris to his friends. >> apparently she was a little flirty at the gate.

>> in short order, chris and cristi got married. she was 17. he 20. and as the girls grew up, they said they never doubted far single moment the powerful bond of love their parents with them and with each other. >> a bunch of us probably closer with our parents than most children. they're the parents that i hoped to one day be. >> cristi glue of the family. chris, her perfect mirror. >> my dad is more kicked back, relaxed and quiet. they were a perfect balance i think. >> yes. >> for years, chris hall was a police officer in san bernardino until she was shot in the line of duty and then went off to become police chief in two small towns in idaho. and then in 2005, anticipating an empty nest and eventual retirement, the halls bought this place back in california which they loved for its backyard pool and spa. and life in this spring of 2007 seemed to have hit a sweet spot

as ashton and brianna remember their mother telling them. >> we happen to be laying on the bed with her. she just started talking. she was like, i am just -- i'm so happy that i have you girls and dad. >> it was kind of a conversation that you don't have every day. >> still, there was work to be done. it was not a new house, could use some remodeling, particularly the bathroom co. courtney was still living with her parents as the work began. >> they were going to be doing the tile work and stuff so we would haven't a shower for that day. >> so shower out of commission, they decided to wake up early, put on the bathing suits and rinse off in the outdoor spa before the contractor arrived at 6:45 a.m. it was june 7th, 2007. chris got up first, turned on the spa to warm it up and called brianna at the college dorm in san bernardino. >> here's your wake up call, babe. go out on the run.

>> back at the house, courtney dozed through the first wakeup. chris looked in on courtney again, second call and then headed back to the spa. life's last normal moments. >> i got out of bed and heard this panicked -- just panicked scream from my dad yelling for me. i ran down the hallway to the back porch and i saw him just trying to pull out my mom out of the spa. >> 911 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 our lives. >> is it possible for people to understand what it's like to be in that situation? >> i don't think so. it's -- to see just both of your parents in the worst times that

you have 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. >> because he was a cop. he was used to dealing with those kind of things. >> he is a cop used to dealing with those things with people that are not his wife. >> courtney took charge. she started cpr on her father with her father. emt an firefighter eric norwood first to respond. >> they just started, help my wife, oh my god, help my wife. >> chris hall was kneeling at his wife's side more in the way than anything an hysterical that it was hard to help. >> took us a little bit to get him out of the way. >> he didn't want to leave her. he was just holding her hand, yelling her name tie paramedics worked more than 20 minutes. no vital signs, none. >> and no words to describe just the fear and the anxiety.

>> you're losing your mother. >> watch. >> watching her go right in front of her. >> we tried to save her together an we just couldn't. >> the ambulance rushed her off to the hospital where she was declared dead. she had drowned in the family spa. a private family tragedy. except -- maybe not so private after all. someone was watching.

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returning now to "someone was watching," here's keith morrison. >> june 7, 2007, brianna hall was on the road from san bernardino driving home to college to what she didn't know except that her elder sister courtney called and it sounded bad. >> she said, there was an accident and you need to just, you know, come home right away.

>> it was courtney who eventually broke the news to ashton and brianna. their mother, their father's wife of close to 30 years, was dead. but neither courtney or chris waited at the house to tell the sisters what happened or 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 said my dad would just be a few more minutes. >> chris had calmed down. he was a cop among cops and understood what was necessary to help them sort out what happened. >> i can't even start to imagine what you're going through. okay? again, just so you know, it was -- it's a death investigation and we have to do

this. okay? >> happy to help he said, whatever would get him back home to comfort his daughters as quickly as possible. >> just going to kill them. they were all so close. >> chris told investigators what happened. how as courtney slept, he and cristi were in the spa bathing. >> she got out. went in, went to the bathroom, got some more coffee. tried to wake up courtney. kourtney didn't wake up apparently. >> as cristi returned to the spa, they passed each other on the patio. he said stopped by courtney's room and then back outside. and saw his wife floating face down in the spa. he called courtney then and they began a frantic effort to revive her. >> i could tell i was losing her. >> from what? a fall? must have been. >> in your gut tell me what you

think. >> i think she slipped in. she slipped or something. i don't know. only thing i can think of. >> but, chris hadn't noticed the nasty three-inch laceration on her head and here suddenly the point of the police interview is revealed. >> the gash she has on her head -- >> she's got a gash? >> a huge gash on her head. okay? something like that's not consistent with just falling down. >> not consistent with just falling down? why would the police think that? >> i mean, you've been around for a while. >> sure. i know where you're going. no. >> why, in fact, 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 they took their outdoor bath that morning in june someone was watching. her. >> i got up at 6:00. got my coffee.

>> lindsey patterson on leave from her i.t. job in the navy visiting her mom living just over the backyard wall from the hall house. lindsey was inside in the bathroom facing aout on to the street and heard a noise. >> it was a horrible scream. it was just something was wrong kind of scream. >> a woman's? she thought. she went outside to tell her mom. >> and i said, did you hear that scream? and she said, yeah, but i think it's just kids playing in the pool. >> kids? at 6:00 something in the morning? lindsey walked over to the 6-foot brick wall between their yard and the halls. she stepped on the planter, she said, and looked over the wall. >> 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 face down in the water. >> like something was going on? >> yeah. that's what i assumed.

>> 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. >> 90 seconds between the 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 el backs back and just looking around like nothing. >> where did the woman go? lindsey told her mom something seems strange. >> she said, lindsey, stop being nosy. 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. >> so, said lindsey, 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 is still nowhere to be seen. the look on his face was almost

undescribable. it was almost as if he had gone into another world. it was scary. >> it was instinct that told her something was wrong. said lindsey. so she called 911. >> 911, state your emergency. >> i heard a woman screaming. >> so now, hours and hours later, the detectives confronted chris with lindsey'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. sounded like a truthful kid or whatever but, i mean, i don't know. you know? i can't explain what she is saying she saw. >> so now that question we posed as we began, did lindsey patterson really mknow what she saw? in every town, across america. small businesses show their love to you.

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after his wife's drowning death in a backyard spa, police ask chris hall to explain what happened that morning, what chris did not know is that his neighbor had also talked to police and she told a very different story than the one chris was telling. here again is keith morrison. >> chris and cristi hall's three daughters clung together in grief and shock through the dismal evening hours of that worst of all days june 7th, 2007. waiting for their father to return from the police station and they wondered why was it

taking so long? and then the phone rang. and they had their answer. >> you know, broken up words and he's crying and we're crying and 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 -- >> he was crying. he was crying. >> he was upset. >> very upset. >> but by the time police investigators were questioning chris, remember, they'd heard from lindsey patterson and at the station chris's version of events in the spa differed in one crucial detail of what lindsey described seeing the first time she peered over the wall into the hall's backyard. >> that specifically me holding her down in there, there's nothing that took place in that jacuzzi to explain that. there was no sex. there was no -- i don't think we had any contact while we were in the jacuzzi other than when i was getting her out. >> but investigators were getting a good look at cristi's

body an saw wounds that suggests a struggle and a blow to the head so the police had to choose -- which version chris hall's or lindsey patterson's more likely the true story. tom dove a senior investigator for the riverside d.a. >> i think they felt there was enough to say this was not an accidental drowning. it was purely much more suspicious than that. >> and 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. >> knowing our parents -- >> farthest thing from the truth. >> and with unthat felt infected think a madness said the girls, krstristi was the love of their father's life, the center of everything for him.

how they wondered could anyone so happy in the 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 the mother/daughter talk they had. not long before she died. >> she just kept reiterating how happy she was. >> kind of odd. >> we'll always -- cherish this. >> didn't think that much of it at this time but that being the last time we actually saw her -- >> kind of burned into your memory, isn't it? >> yeah. >> right or wrong, the legal trigger had been pulled. chris hall spent almost two months in jail until his daughters received the payout from cristi's life insurance policy and used it to meet the million dollar bail and then went back to what was supposed to be the retirement retreat and prepared for a murder case. >> he was a special man and this was a special situation.

>> these are attorneys who would eventually defend him though at first they only heard about the case. steve harmon and paul gretch. two things there, special man, special situation. >> i think both of us can say this is a man that we like and that we know and don't feel he could have done anything like this. >> so chris hall and daughters prepared far trial to hope to 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, never one moment of violence. there was no motive for this man to kill his wife. >> harmon and gretch had a lock at the 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 drawning. >> see the sharp corner sticking out into the spa? hitting her head on this would have opened a gash and knocked her out, said the attorney. >> she didn't see what was happening in the times not looking. >> that scream that made her look over the wall, lindsey they pointed out in the bathroom that faced the street. she wasn't in the backyard saying 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. >> anyway, lindsey 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 seen anything. >> no. but i knew something was wrong. i don't know if in my brain i was putting things together but from between the scream, the

position that he was holding her and then not -- just not having enough time for her to have gone inside -- >> it is like you got three different snapshots. >> right. >> of something going on in there. >> right. >> and had the kind of work out -- >> yeah. >> what this was. >> you know, i wasn't thinking at this point 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 family man and former cop murdered his wife. could it be done? ♪ at lincoln financial,

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minnesota democratic senator al franken facing accusations of multiple women of inappropriate contact said in a statement he plans to stay in the senate. he apologized again to the women and to the minnesotans for the scandal and said he's committed to regaining the trust of voters. navy called off the search for three missing sailors a. aircraft crashed into the sea of japan yesterday. now back to "dateline extra." chris hall was charged in the drowning death of his wife cristi. as prosecutors were preparing to lay out the case, hall's daughters stood by him proclaiming his innocence. would anything change their minds about their dad? here again is keith morrison. >> burt is a hard charging man. ex member in good standing of the san francisco d.a. now senior deputy d.a. in riverside. that takes skill, persuasive

powers, he would need them in the murder case against 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. he was somebody that had the support of his family. >> so he did. but he wasn't buying the loving father and family man bit. 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 -- >> who tried harder to save cristi? not chris said the prosecutor. but his daughter. >> she called 911. she helped him get the body of the spa. only she did chest compression. he had no interest in truly

helping his wife. >> matter of opinion, of course. but prosecutor pokes around in the chris hall's past as a policeman and what did he find? >> uncanny ability to fabricate stories. >> seven years earlier as chief of police in cascade, idaho, charged with and convicted of misuse of public money. embezzled $19,000, spent 10 months 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, to lie about it, not just lie about it but effectively. >> i think that was telling about who we were steeling with. >> the prosecutor's prospects were locking better. at the trial, he made lindsey patterson the star witness, of course. it was her story, after all, that got the whole thing started and almost as important he called the riverside county medical examiner who testified that those lacerations on her

head could not in his opinion the result of a single accidental fall and the m.e. regarded the type of bruising on the face and body was a hallmark of homicide. >> totality of injuries not consistent with somebody slipping and falling and a rescue attempt. >> and there was a clump of hair in the bottom of the spa still entwined with a broken plastic hair clip. that, said the prosecutor, only could have come from a violent struggle. >> losing that amount of hair, not explained by any kind of fall. >> there were some minor hiccups in the case. lindsey patterson, for example, was a little inconsistent about how long she locked 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, lindsey 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 lindsey patterson missaw. washing each other. involved a sex act. anything that she could have misinterpreted and at the end of the day, you're not just stuck with the fact that patterson made a mistake. you have to actually believe that lindsey patterson hallucinated about everything she saw. >> what the story all the more convincing said the prosecutor was she told it before finding out what happened to cristi. she dialed 911 a full minute and a half from anyone from the hall house did. before lindsey had an idea of how it would end. here's what the jury heard her say in the call. >> and i saw him holding her under water. >> she was still on the phone with 9 is 1 when chris hall came outside and found body in the spa. called out for courtney. >> and now there's -- >> investigator tom dove.

>> i heard it best described during the trial as a cosmic coincidence that someone could see something that they perceive to be more than kinky action in the jacuzzi in the morning and then turned out to be true, a woman was drowned in the 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 the prosecutor 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, no remorse and 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 to walk his 22-year-old daughter who he can use as an al buy witness. >> one little quibble. why? in fact, as convinced as he was of hall's death, he conceded the why was a problem. didn't legally are to know he said but he just didn't. there it was. >> it's emotional unsatisfying not to have that answer. not to know the entire narrative of what happened. >> but you'll want to know why this guy married to this woman almost 30 years apparently happily suddenly turn on her and drown her in the pool. >> right. and not sure we got the answers to that specific question. >> kind of important question, isn't it? >> it is an important question, a question that we ask in all all spousal homicides.

>> so proof enough? or reasonable doubt? almost three years after cristi hall's death, a riverside jury would have to decide. ( ♪ ) ♪ i feel like fire ( ♪ ) the 2018 cadillac xt5. ♪ worship me beauty, greater than the sum of its parts. come in for our season's best offers and drive out with the perfect 2018 cadillac xt5. get a low-mileage lease on this cadillac xt5 from around $379 per month. on this 3 toddlers won't stop him..t5 and neither will lower back pain. because at a dr. scholl's kiosk he got a recommendation for our custom fit orthotic to relieve his foot, knee, or lower back pain, from being on his feet. dr. scholl's. born to move. i mwell, what are youe to take care odoing tomorrow -10am?

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the jury in chris hall's murder trial heard dramatic testimony from his neighbor lindsey patterson. patterson claimed she had seen hall in the spa with his wife moments before she drowned. she said chris hall's hand was on his wife's head and back while she lay face down in the water. now, it was the defense's turn to show that chris hall loved his wife, would never harm her and that her death was a tragic accident. here again is chris morrison.

>> 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 to us to hear someone basically say that he knows our parents better than we do. and he knows our father's a sociopath and that we're blind to it. and he knows that there was hidden violence in our parent's manlg and we didn't see it. you're basically telling us that we didn't know our whole lives were a lie. >> and there's the top it off, there's no proof of this. >> chris hall had never been violent. argued the defense. no motive, no reason to suddenly turn on his wife. it had to be a freak accident. so said the defense, lindsey patterson didn't really know what she saw. in fact, if she really witnessed chris hall drowning his wife, why then didn't she claim to see the body in the spa when she

looked again? didn't make sense. but the highlight was the hall daughters' testimony, emotionalful, powerful. it was at odds with the victim's own family. >> the kids were so clear. if we had any inkling he had done this, believe me, we would have said so. we would have seen it. >> i think that's what they truly believe in their hearts. and, you know, weighs on me greatly but my job is justice for cristi hall. >> now up to a jury. two days of deliberations, 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? >> tragic. >> that was devastating to us. >> you expected a not guilty

verdict? >> oh yes. not a doubt. >> deputy d.a. was disappointed, too, and determined to retry the case. first he sent the 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's past but in cristi's. >> there had been infidelity in the marriage while chris hall was in custody in idaho. >> the affair was relatively brief. years earlier. but she'd been in phone contact with the man just days before she died. had chris found out? impossible to know. but when investigator dove talked to the co-workers at the clinic where she was an x-way technician, several said they noticed a change in her usually vibrant permit. a 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. and also, prosecutor needed to explain what lindsey patterson saw or didn't see. why didn't she saw the 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 ordered a water expert. andrea is assisting law enforcement nationwide with drowning investigations for 20 years and got in the spa and videotaping from the spot ind si was watching. >> center of the pool and towards where lindsey was standing, you could not be seen. once i sank and hit that bottom, you could not see me at all from lindsey's viewpoint. >> now the prosecutor was ready. in may 2011, one year after the first jury deadlocked, burke went back to court armed with the new evidence for a brand new panel of peers.

jurors heard medical experts testify about the jir injuries the head. >> and lindsey's 911 call. the 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 upped the game in the year before the two trials, so had the defense and well-known attorney steve harmon and paul gretch entered the scene and came out swinging. the story of the 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 the 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 lindsey patterson says she saw, chris hall holding his wife's head under the water, the defense prepared a visual demonstration, 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 closeup, what do you notice? >> not touching but 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 siblings testified for chris. >> 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 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 sitting 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. that was public official who said straight out that cristi's

head injuries could and perhaps should be explained bay accidental fall. didn't rule out homicide? >> didn't rule out homicide but he said the evidence was towards accidental drowning. what -- i have 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 sort through these two sets of allegations, these two opposing realities. and decide whether chris hall would turn and embrace home and his loving daughters a pair of handcuffs and a life in prison.

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chris hall's first trial ended in a deadlocked jury. but with new evidence presented by both sides during his retrial, the jury was able to reach a verdict. now, with the conclusion to our story, here is keith morrison. >> may, 2011. for the second time, 12 men and women of riverside county, california, filed out of the courtroom, a second jury, to make a life decision about chris hall. did he murder his wife?

which of the medical examiners should they believe? whose account of the defendant's character and, perhaps most important, what did lindsay patterson see when she peeked three times into the halls' back yard. >> do you ever have those sort of little dark moments of the soul where you think, i may have misinterpreted, misremembered -- >> it's something i've thought about every day, whether i misinterpreted, whether i think i saw something that wasn't there. i didn't see everything. >> yeah. >> but i saw what i saw. and i know the conclusion of my story. i know it. i know it. right here. i know it. >> of course, chris hall's daughters say they know the truth too, real thing. in their hearts. >> i think that we were the three most critical jurors in that courtroom. believe me, if we had heard anything or had any inkling that

our father could have done this, as much as it would hurt and as much as we love our father, we would want that justice for our mother. >> the jurors deliberated two days and then broke for the long weekend. it was memorial day. halls' daughters felt good. >> things can only go so wrong before so long before something has to actually go right for us. >> we just did a lot of talking about the future and this, you know, being over, this 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. and minutes later, a signal. they were ready. chris hall and his daughters rushed to court. and in the end it was very quick. guilty of first degree murder.

their father would not be coming home. probably ever. >> he was being cuffed. and potentially put away for life. and yeah. it hurts. and we are angry about that. >> you can still hear those daughters. >> i can. >> thinking you unfairly convicted their father. >> absolutely. it weighs on me. but at the same time, i know who i am dealing with when it comes to chris hall. in fact, he is the one that's stolen their mother from them. >> it had been a peculiar fact of this case that the victims' and defendants' families stood solidly together against the prosecution. what no one knew was the truth was more complicated. offer the verdict at chris hall's sentencing a letter was produced from one of chris hall's brother, billy carlton who until now had said not one public word about the case.

we would like to ask his honor for the maximum sentence, wrote billy. the pain that my family has suffered through this tragedy is unforgivable. >> i didn't want to hurt the girls. i had to say what was on my mind. >> there was a deep divide in the family said billy. some of the relatives believed chris was innocent but he and he said others including cristi's uncle steve mundy urged on the prosecutor silently. >> half the family was convinced he was innocent and half was convinced he wasn't. that's hard to do when you have a big family and you all have to be together once in a while. >> when it involves as member as loved as cristi was. >> exactly. >> does that explain why this kind of group of people in the family decided to just let justice take its course? >> we talked about it quite a bit. you've got to know when to show up sometimes and when not to show up, just to keep what's left of the family as together

as you can have it. >> thank you so much for coming. >> when it was over, hall convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life, some of cristi's relatives met with prosecutor strunsky and thanked him. >> thank you for putting him away because he is a murderer. >> and the hall daughters, having lost their beloved mother, fought to save a father they adored, and having lost that fight, aren't quite sure what they'll do now. >> for the family. to say we were close is an understatement, you know. to go from that to being not able to be there with each other. it's -- it's the biggest heartbreak that anyone can ever experience, i think.

>> that's outline for this edition of "dateline: extra." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. . this is something that you watch deadline for, about somebody else. not about your friend. not about someone you love. >> she was completely defenseless. she simply said, help me. >> my heart dropped. i want to know why. why. >> it's a baffling case of murder. millions and a mystifying piece of tape. at the center, husband and wife, self-made millionaires. >> he was very caring and loving. >> she had a per