♪ ♪ /s ♪ ♪ 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. >> 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

undescribable. >> what had she seen? was this drowning really an accident? >> she's got a huge gash on her head. it's not consistent with falling down. >> a husband and father is suddenly under suspicion. >> he's crying, we're crying. he said, they think i hurt mom. >> three daughters stand by their dad. and one prosecutor stands firm. >> he's holding his wife of almost three decades under water. my job is to get justice for christy hall. >> was it murder? hello and welcome to "dateline" extra. i'm craig melvin. in this hour, a story that calls to mind the master of suspense, a plot straight out of an alfred hitchcock film. a young woman peers into her neighbor apartments yard and sees something for a few sektds. a man, a woman and something that is unsettling. was it some kind of 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 know? >> it's emotionally unsatisfying not to have that answer. >> so it is. even if we've seen something, or if we think we have. and thus the question at the heart of the whole puzzle. is this woman right? >> i know what i saw. 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, cala

mesa, california, suburbs creeping out to the rim of mountains on the eastern flank of los angeles. here is where chris and christy hall had come to live out their 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 ams been chris and christy. they were never thought of as separate. they're a unit. >> these are the three daughters, courtney, the oldest, is a teacher. brianna a 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. christy had gone to see a relative at the air force base in nearby san bernardino. 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 christy got married. she was 17, he 20. and as the girls grew up, they said they never doubted for a single moment the powerful bond of love, their parents with them and with each other. >> they were probably closer with our parents than most children. they're the parents i hope to one day be. >> christy, the vivacious glue of the family. chris her perfect mirror. >> our dad is a little more kicked back, relaxed and quiet. but they're 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 idaho. then in 2005, anticipating an empty nest and eventual retirement, the halls bought this place back in cala mesa, which they love for its 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. she started talking. she was like, i'm just -- i'm 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. it was not a new house, could use some remodelling. particularly the bathroom. courtney was still living with her parents as the work began. >> they were going to be doing the tile work and stuff so we wouldn't have a shower for that day. >> so, shower out of commission, they decided to wake up early, put on their bathing suits and rinse off in the outdoor 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 and then called brianna at her college

dorm in san diego. >> here's your wake up call, babe. get out and go on that run. >> back at the house, courtney dozed through her first wake up while chris and christy made their way outside to the spa. just after 6:30, chris looked in on courtney again, second call, then headed back to the spa. life's last normal moments. 6:37 a.m. >> i got up out of bed. i was putting on my robe and i just heard this panicked -- panicked scream from my dad yell 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. >> we have an emergency. >> it was she who dialed 911 as she and her father struggled to lift her mother out of the spa. >> it was the 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 your

parents in the worst times 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. >> because he was a cop. he was used to dealing with those kinds of things. >> he's a cop used to dealing with those kinds of things with people that were not his wife. >> so courtney took charge. after calling 911, she started cpr on her mother with her father. emt eric nor wood was the first to respond. >> he just started -- help my wife, oh, my god, help my wife, help my wife. >> chris was kneeling at his wife's side, more in the way than anything. and so hysterical it was hard for the emts to help. >> it 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. >> the paramedics worked on christy for more than 20

minutes. no vital signs, none. >> no words to describe just the fear and the anxiety. >> you're losing your mother. >> right. >> you're watching her go right in front of you. >> we tried to save her together and we 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. and the safey for "most parallel parallel parking job" goes to... [ drum roll ] ...emily lapier from ames, iowa. this is emily's third nomination and first win. um...so, just...wow! um, first of all, to my fellow nominees, it is an honor sharing the road with you. and of course, to the progressive snapshot app for giving good drivers the discounts -- no, i have to say it --

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returning now to someone who was watching, here is keith morrison. >> on the morning of june 7, 2007, brianna hall was on the road from san diego driving home from college to what, she didn't know, except her eldest sister

courtney 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 brianna. 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 said that my dad would be a few more minutes. >> chris, so frenzied at the scene, had calmed down by then. he was a cop among cops, after all, and he understood what was necessary to help them sort out what happened. >> i can't start to imagine what

you're going through, okay. just, you know, it's a death investigation and we have to do this. >> happy to help, he said. whatever would get him back home to comfort his daughters as quickly as possible. >> they're all so close. >> chris told investigators what happened how, as courtney slept, he and christy 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. >> as christy 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 face down in the spa. he called courtney then, he said, and they began a frantic effort to revive her.

from what, a fall? must have been. >> in your gut, what happened? >> she slipped in. she slipped or something. i don't know. that's the only thing i can think of. >> but chris apparently hadn't noticed the nasty three-inch laceration on christy's head. and here suddenly the point of the police interview is revealed. >> the gash she has on her head -- she's got a huge gash on her head. >> okay. >> something like that is not consistent with just falling down. >> not consistent with just falling down? why would the police think that? >> you've been around for a while. >> i know where you're going, and no, there's nothing -- >> 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 chris and christy hall took

their outdoor bath that morning in june, someone was watching. her. >> i got up at 6:00, got my coffee. >> lyndsay patterson was on leave from her i.t. job in the navy, visiting her mom who lives just over the backyard wall from the hall house. lyndsay 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 just -- something was wrong kind much 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? lyndsay walked over to the 6 foot brick wall between their yard and the hall's. 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. >> it's 90 seconds, she said, between her first and second looks. this time she said she only saw the man in the spa. >> he was leaning back just relaxed in the hot tub, but i don't see her. he's got his elbows back, he's kind of looking around like nothing. >> where did the woman go? lyndsay told her mom something seemed strange. >> she tells me, lyndsay, stop being knowsnosy, don't worry ab 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 lyndsay, 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. >> it was instinct that told her something was wrong, said lyndsay. so she called 911. >> 911, state your emergency. >> i heard a woman scream. >> so now, hours and hours later, the detectives confronted chris with lyndsay's story. why, they asked, didn't her story match his? >> so, am i supposed to believe the witness is lying? >> i'm not going to say she's lying. sounds like a truthful kid, whatever. i don't know, you know. i can't explain what she's saying she saw. >> so now that question we posed as we began, did lyndsay patterson really know what she saw? to your bumper, cause....

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after his wife's drowning death in the backyard spa, police asked chris hall to explain what happened that morning. what chris did not know was 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 christy hall's three daughters clung together in grief and shock all through the dismal evening hours of that worst of all days, june 7, 2007,

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, it -- 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. >> very upset. >> but by the time police investigators were questioning chris, remember, they had heard from lyndsay patterson. and at the station chris's version of events in the spa differed in one crucial detail from what lyndsay described seeing that first time she peered over the wall and into the halls' backyard. >> that specifically 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 contact in the jacuzzi other than when he was getting her out of the jacuzzi. >> investigators were getting a look at christy's body and saw wounds that suggested to them a struggle and one nasty blow to the head. police had to choose which version, chris hall's or lyndsay patterson's was more likely the true story of what happened. tom dove is a senior investigator for the riverside d.a. >> i think they felt there was enough to say this was an 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 now. >> because knowing our parents -- >> the farthest thing from the truth. >> and one that felt infected by some kind of madness of the

girls. christy was the love much their father's life, after all, the center of everything to him. how could anyone so happy in his marriage and his life be accused of harming her? 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 kept reiterating how happy she was. and me and bree always cherish it. >> didn't think that much of it at the time. that being the time we saw her. >> kind of burned in your memories now. >> yeah. >> right or wrong, the legal trigger had been pulled. chris hall spent almost two months in jail until his daughters received the pay out from christy's life insurance policy and used the money to meet his million dollar 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. >> these are attorneys who would eventually defend him, though at first they only heard about the case. steve harmon and ball gretch. >> you said two things, special man, and special situation. >> this is a man we like and we know, and we don't feel he could have done anything like that this. >> they prepared for a trial that they hoped would make clear to everybody, the police, the neighbor, the world, that chris could not, would 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 look at the neighbor's eyewitness account and suggested it was not conclusive at all. it was tragically incomplete. >> she saw three snapshots. what is missed by everyone is

the wife getting into the jacuzzi, slimg, falling into the jacuzzi, hitting her head, going unconscious, and drowning. >> see this sharp corner sticking out into the spa? hitting her head on this would certainly have opened a gash and knocked christy out, said the attorney. >> she didn't see what was really happening during the times when she was not looking. >> that scream that made lyndsay patterson look over the wall, she was in a bathroom that faced the street. she wasn't in the backyard when she heard it. could have been anybody. and courtney who was inside her house near the spa didn't hear a thing. >> we don't think she's lying. she misinterpreted what she saw. >> anyway, lyndsay, to a certain degree, didn't know what she was seeing in her glimpses that morning. >> something was wrong. >> and 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 just not having enough time for her to have gone inside. >> so it's like you kind of got three different snapshots. >> right. >> of something gun on there. >> right. >> and had to kind of work out what this was. >> i wasn't thinking at that point 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 others' best friends. this is not fair to him because he truly loved her more than anyone. >> and yet the prosecutor was going to try to move that this family man and former cop murdered his wife. could it be done?

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i'm dara brown with the hour's top stories. eight boys and their soccer coach are desperately waiting to be rescued from the cave in thailand where they've been trapped for more than two weeks. four boys were rescued from the cave on sunday and it could take days to rescue the nine people still trapped. less than 24 hours to go until president trump announces his pick for the supreme court. sources tell nbc news all four contenders are still in the running but the mainly focus is on brett kavanagh and thomas hardiman. now back to "dateline." chris hall was charged in the drowning death of his wife christy. as prosecutors were preparing to layout their case, hall's daughters stood by him, proclaiming his innocence. would anything change their minds about their dad? here again is keith morrison. >> bert is a hard charging man.

ex-member in good standing of the san francisco d.a.'s office 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. 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 whaliai 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 grieved husband. when you look at his actions, how little he did to help his wife. >> who tried harder to save christy? not chris, said the prosecutor,

but his daughter. >> she called 911. she helped him get the body out of the spa. she did chest compression. he had no interest in helping his wife. >> a matter of opinion, of course, but prosecutor poked around in chris hall's past as a police man, 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 with and convicted of misuse of public money, embezzled $19,000, spent ten 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 lie about it effectively. >> i think be that was very telling about who we were dealing with. >> suddenly the prosecutor's prospects were looking better. at the trial, he made lyndsay 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 christy's head could not, in his opinion, have been the result of a single accidental fall. and the m.e. argued the type of bruising on christy's face and body was a hallmark of homicide. >> the 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 entwined with a broken plastic hair clip. that, said the prosecutor, that only had come with a violent struggle. >> when you lose that amount of hair, it's not explained by any kind of fall. >> there were some minor hiccoughs in the case. lyndsay 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, lyndsay was sure she saw physical contact. that was the important thing. >> he was i have go enthe opportunity to explain any physical contact that could in any way reasonably explain what lyndsay patterson missaw. were they washing each other, were they involved in a sex act? was there anything she could have interpreted? at the end of the day you're not just stuck with the fact that lyndsay patterson made a mistake. you have to actually believe lyndsay patterson really hallucinated about everything she saw. >> and what made lyndsay's story all the more convincing, the prosecutor said, she told it before finding out what happened to christy. she dialed 911 a full minute and a half before anyone from the hall house did. before lyndsay 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. the 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 a jacuzzi in the morning and then that actually turn out to be true, that a woman was actually drown ed 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 the prosecutor called it. 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 the resistance. >> 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 a alibi witness. >> one little quibble. why? in fact, as convinced as he was of hall's guilt, he conceded the 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. i'm not sure we got the answer

to that specific question. >> kind of an important question, isn't it? >> it's an important question, a question we ask in all spousal homicides. >> so, proof enough? or reasonable doubt? almost three years after christy hall's death, a riverside jury would have to decide. find the remote yet? nah. honey look, your old portable cd player. my high school rethainer. oh don't... it's early 90s sitcom star dave coulier... cut...it...out! [laughing] what year is it? as long as stuff gets lost in the couch, you can count on geico saving folks money. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance.

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♪ brown paper packages tied up with strings ♪ ♪ these are a few of my favorite things ♪ ♪ ♪ the jury in chris hall's murder trial heard dramatic testimony from his neighbor lyndsay 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 keith 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 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 -- >> and the tough part, 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, lyndsay 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 christy's body in the spa when she looked again? didn't make sense. but the highlight was the halls' daughter's testimony. quite powerful. it put the prosecutor in a strange position, at odds with the victim's own family. it's 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. it weighs on me greatly, but my job is to get justice for christy 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? >> that was tragic. >> that was devastating to us. >> you expected a not guilty verdict? >> oh, yes. >> not a doubt. >> deputy d.a. was disappointed, too. and was also 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 team, 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 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 christy's. >> there had been infidelity in the marriage for six years prior while chris hall was in custody in idaho. >> christy's affair was relatively brief, years earlier. but she'd been in phone contact with the man-days before she died. had chris found out? impossible to know. but when investigator dove talked to christy's coworkers at the clinic where she was an x-ray technician, some of them noticed a sudden change in her usually vibrant personality. one coworker offered more. >> she told us she was contemplating a divorce. >> if true, and it was only an if, it might well persuade a jury. also the prosecutor needed to

explain what lyndsay patterson saw or didn't see. why didn't she see christy'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 christy at that point. and i think that allowed the defense to make the argument that christy hall was inside. >> the prosecution hired a water expert to do a recreation of the hall spa. andrea has been assisting law enforcement nationwide with drowning investigations for the past 20 years. she got in the spa while she was videotaped in the spot lyndsay was watching. >> from the center of the pool and towards where lyndsay was standing, anywhere i was laying, you could not be seen from lyndsay's viewpoint. so ones i sank below the surface and hit that bottom, you could not see me at all from lyndsay's viewpoint. >> and now the prosecutor was ready. in may 2011, one year after the first jury deadlocked, he went

back to court armed with his new evidence for a brand-new panel of hall's peers. they heard expert testimony about the injuries to christy's head and heard lyndsay's 911 call. christy's coworkers 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 gretch enter the the scene and they came out swipging. that story about christy's affair, for example? >> there is a shadow hanging overall 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 chris knew about his wife's affair, he ruled it out of the trial. 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 lyndsay patterson said she saw, chris hall holding his wife's head under the 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 christy's own siblings testified for chris. >> and 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 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. this was a public official who

said straight out that christy's head injuries could and perhaps should be explained by an accidental fall. you 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 the hall family lived so close to the san bernardino border, if christy 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 turn and embrace home and loving daughters or a pair of handcuffs and a life in prison. my day starts well before i'm in the kitchen.

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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 all for this edition of "dateline: extra." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. this is an msnbc special series. ♪ >> cool. if you could only define it. >> define it would diminish what cool is. >> find it. >> everybody's trying to sell you cool. most of the time it don't work. you can't measure, you can't market. it is what it is. >> catch it. >> i just don't actually think cool exists. i don't think it's actually a thing. >> you could make a killing. >> cool equals dollars. >> sounds like you're off to a good start. >> that's the eternal quest for those who try to capture cool. ♪ cash money, money