obvious question? why are you still doing this? why are you talking to me now, against -- >> against the advice and counsel of my family? well, it may be foolish, but i think it's the right thing to do. think it's the right thing t do she was a beautiful woman a smart woman. she didn't need to travel those paths. >> she was a mother of five with a double life. >> she lived her church lifestyle. >> yes we're talking casual encounters. >> then she was murdered. >> i am appalled she was found that way. >> somebody wanted to make a statement. >> what would her life reveal about her death? >> she had had communications with at least two other men. >> he asked me, do you know who she was seeing? >> from the shadows of the internet and the depths of the human heart.

>> he was very controlling and he was losing control. . december 1st, 2011, one of those days that make teeth chatter, a raw dam. austin starbuck then 21-years-old was nearing the end of his shift at a glass installation shop in washington half an hour or so north of spokane when his phone childrened, text messaged. >> yeah, it was from logan. >> logan, his younger sister at school. >> yeah, i remember she said, i'm cold, come pick me up. >> but where was their mother? wasn't she supposed to be there? austin dutifully collected his sibling in this cold afternoon

and dark. >> i couldn't take her to my mom's house. nobody answered her phone, i had no way to get in. i took her to my dad'sous write had a key. >> evening came, kids afraid, no, more like irritated. >> please come home. >> it had happened by then. hello, everyone, i'm darragh brown in new york. we have breaking news this hour the latest on president trump's visit to paris. she joining dozens of world leaders, marking the 100th anniversary of the end of world war i. at this moment he and the first lady are just arriving at the french presidential palace where president trump's and macron will hold talks. after today's talks, there he is walking up to macron. president trump and the first lady will then travel some 50 miles to the american cemetery in bellawood, france, where the remains of more than 2200 americans have been killed in

battle. the president is there with ma krorn. right now we will go to kristen welker, who is joining us. she is traveling with prumpl. she -- president trump. she's the msnbc correspondent. >> reporter: hello, let's set the scene here for why president trump is here in paris this weekend. he is here to mark the 100th anniversary of armistice day to essentially celebrate peace among allies and it was stunning, darragh, as he was landing yesterday, as he was touching down here in par israelis. he lashed out at the host leader, french president emanuel macron, someone considered to be one of his very good friends. why? well, it all started when macron said that europe should consider building its own military to protect against outside forces, including the united states. >> that clearly infuriated president trump he took to twitter. he said that suggestion was very insulting. now, this is so notable.

because these two have had a relationship that's been so close. it's been described as a bromance. you remember macron's visit to the white house. there was a lot of back slapping, smiling. yet, it's also a relationship that has been deteriorating because the two have clashed on a range of foreign policy matters, everything from iran to foreign climate change. so this clash that we saw when president trump touched down really underscored the state of that relation. it's really setting up high drama as we head into this week some we will be watching for the body language between president trump and macron. here's the other big thing we're watching for. darragh, will president trump meet on the side lines with russia's president vladimir putin? as of right now, the president says there is no expanded bilateral meeting planned between the two leaders. we know the two will be at the

same dinner and same lunch. there will inevitably be interaction. how robust will it be? this will be the first time those two leaders will meet effectively since that very controversial summit they had in helsinki over the summer. what's at stake? what's at the backdrop? of course, we know the russia investigation continues to ramp up. back at home we knew that was going to happen once the mid-terms wrapped up. of course, it comes as president trump just suffered a defeat on domestic soil. democrats took back the house of representatives. as you know, as we have all be reporting on throughout the week. so what does that mean for president trump for this white house? it means they are bracing for a blizzard of investigations, subpoenas, as it relates to russia. as it relates to the president's business, his finances. so that's the backdrop as this weekend gets under way here. but again, the purpose of this weekend, darragh the broader themes to celebrate peace among

allies, the end of world war i. president trump set to visit two cemeteries with american soldiers, darragh. >> and kristen, you mention this tweet as he was touching down. has that alterred the mood at all? how has that set up the circumstances for him going into this meeting with macron? >> reporter: there is no doubt that that will have an impact. the french are paying athe engs to every single move that this president makes. >> we will go in right now and listen to president trump and macron speaking. [ speaking french ]

[ speaking french ] i wanted to welcome my good friend president trump and i want to thank you for this visit after a very important finding. i do appreciate the time that you came here after your visit

in 2017 and now a state visit in washington beginning of this year. i think it's very important to celebrate also news and the great solidarity between our two nations and we are the best allies and this is what i told them, our people. obviously, we will discuss a lot of topics, iran, syria, yemen, africa, trade climate and a lot of common global issues and, obviously, we will discuss about our difference coalition, which is very important. i appreciate mr. president trump's views that we feed a sharing with nato. that's why my proposals for european defense ought to be consistent with that. because it means more europe is in nato, more capacity, in order to take our part of the burden. i think it's very fair and it's

very important. so thank you very much for being here. this is our pleasure and our people are very proud to have you here and i want to thank you here today for your solidarity 100 years ago when we celebrate reform for our people. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. . >> well, i very much appreciate that, mr. president and we have become very good friends over the last couple of years. we have much in common, in many ways, perhaps more ways than people would understand, but we are. we have very much similar in our views. and i appreciate what you are saying about burden sharing. you know what my attitude has been and we want a strong university. it's important for us to have a strong europe and whichever way we can do it the best and most efficient would be something that we would both want. i just want to thank you very much for the graciousness we so

beautifully received, we were so beautifully received last night. we look forward to spending the next day-and-a-half with you and today and tomorrow are going to be very important and we'll be discussing many things, not only military and aid and nato and others, but we will also be discussing trade and we have been discussing that for a little while. i think we've made a little progress. we'll see if we can get it over the line as they say. we'll see what happens. but trade is very important and we're also very much focused, the president and, on terrorism. terrorism is a very big subject for both of us and we see what's going on in the world and it's not a good picture, but we've made a lot of progress. we've done things together that were quite bold recently, six months ago, very bold. and the terrorism will be a big factor and a big part of our discussion today so i want to thank everybody for being here and, mr. president, thank you

very much. >> mr. trump you seem insulted about what they say about europe making its own defense. can you explain? >> we're getting along from the standpoint of fairness and i want it to be fair. we want to help europe. it has to be fair. right now the burden sharing has been largely on the united states, as the president will say. he understands that. and he understands that the united states can only do so much in fairness to the united states. so we've, we're rebuilding our military. we just approved $716 billion. the year before that we had $700 billion. so we're almost completely rebuilding our military with the latest and the greatest and we want -- we just want to absolutely be there. we want to help, we want to be a part of it. but different countries have to also help. that's only fair and i think the president -- we've already discussed this and the president and i very much agree on that. >> i do agree. i think we will work closely

together in syria, president trump knew what happened as a certain of that role this year. we are working together to make a -- a super operation against capital weapons and we will work together in middle east and africa and some, but it's unfair to havef the european security today being assured just by the united states and we need a much better assurance. that's why i believe we needan . what president trump has to protect, one of the states of the united states, he doesn't ask france or germany or another government of europe to finance his. that's why i do believe we need more investment. it's exactly what we do in france. it's the first increase in the budget for defense for the coming year.

but that's why i do believe that we need more, more european friends. thank you. >> reporter: president trump and france's president macron discussing things there at the presidential palace in france. president trump is there for the 100th anniversary of the end of world war i. and he's having a bilateral meeting today with macron and with others later this morning and we're going to cut back to kristen welker who is in paris and traveling with the president. kristen, obviously, macron not shieg away from his idea of having an european army and president trump discussing it. >> that being the foremost topic of this meeting first off this morning. what's your take away here? >> reporter: a couple of take away, darragh. first of all, you heard both leaders reaffirm their firm

commitment to each other. they both used the same phraseology, we're very good friends. that's not surprising. >> that is the type of optics you would expect to come oust a diplomatic meeting like this. at the same time, you're right. president macron not backing away from his comments. but i would say president trump sort of down playing the controversy swirling around it. i think the question first put to the president was specifically about that tweet that i mentioned before the two leaders started speaking the tweet that president trump sent out yesterday saying it was very insulting that president macron would suggest building his own military. he sort of pivoted and said, look, what we are talking about here is fairness and burden sharing and the need for everyone to effectively pay tear fair share when it comes to burden sharing. so he pivoted. he tried to sort of redirect the conversation back to his big talking point, really, whenever he's here in europe, meeting

with his european allies. meaning he wants allies to pay more the united states is sharing a larger part of the burden he would argue. i think these are the types of optics you would expect on day one of this weekend the nearly 80 world leaders coming towing to celebrate the end of world war i. look, this is the first of several events, dhar remarks we will be watching the body language between these two men very closely as this weekend unfolds. >> kristen, we also heard them say they're going to be discussing iran and syria and trade and climate as well. now, how is the climate change topic going to be presented here at this meeting? >> reporter: well, let's just pick apart a few of those topics. climate change, for one. remember when president trump announced he was pulling out of the paris climate agreement, president macron was among the leaders who very firmly and very swiftly fired back at president trump and said, it was the wrong idea.

we know that in their conversations, president trump macron had tried to urge president trump away from that saying that effectively the united states has to be a leader when it comes to climate policy. and so this is one of their first areas of major disagreement and then on the iran nuclear deal a very similar situation. have you president macron making public statements, but also urging president trump privately, not to pull out of the iran nuclear agreement. in fact the last time that president macron was at the white house, that was the focus of their conversations. the fact that president trump did it anyway, i have been speaking to french officials here, they say president trump macron felt not only embarrassed by the visit, but really upset by the fact that the two leaders have clashed on some of these core issues and, of course trade continues to be an ongoing issue and a point of difference when it comes to president trump and his european allies. they have said that his decision

to impose tariffs is hurting their commitment so, all of those issues are very thorny and at the backdrop of this critical weekend, darragh. >> kristen, real quick. is there any comment about president trump not staying for this paris climate meeting that's happening after? >> reporter: well, and it's also a meeting that is aimed at focusing on peace. and so there has been a lot of discussion about the fact that president trump isn't going to be attending. i spoke with a white house official who said, look, this is merely a scheduling -- merely a scheduling issue. but the bottom line is, the french feel as though it's a very offensive decision. >> kristen welker live for us in paris. thank you so much for that kristen. we will be keeping up with the president's activities. for now, we take you back to our "dateline" in progress. our "dateline" in progress

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if there is such a thing as a fate worse than death, then certainly someone seemed to intend that shannon starbuck met one. lead detective mike rickets. >> shannon starbuck was there posed on her bed in a matter to bring disrespect to her. >> show shannon starbuck was beyond embarrassment, her family and close friends as you can well imagine were not.

>> she had so much going for her, for it to all end like that and the way it ended. she did not deserve that. >> it was an ugly thing? >> she did not deserve that. whatsoever. >> i'm appalled that she was found that way. you know, awful and it's embarrassing for her. it makes me mad. >> who could be so cruel? well, of course, it's the homicide detective's job to figure that out. >> it could mean many things. it could be someone upset and angry or it could mean somebody else. >> the investigation ban the the very day shannon's body was found and as luck would have it, among those beyond the police tape that night was a man police surely would have looked up southeastern or later, didn't have to. shannon's ex-husband clay was clearly looking for them. what was going on? he wanted to know. his ex-wife was missing. was she okay? >> he was asking to talk to the

lead do it. he wanted some answers. >> reporter: first responders at the scene wouldn't tell him anything about what was found inside the house, not even that shannon was dead. an ex-husband after all is no longer a next of kin so he went to the sheriffs station where he met a detective. >> i said, well, come in, we need to have a chat. and his response was, well, your jacket says major crimes. what's going on? nobody will tell me anything. >> the detective broke the news, shannon was gone. waited for clay to collect himself and then. >> i start by asking him very simple things. gave him a little history, was she on medication? does she have any enemies you know and what i ask everybody in that situation is, what do you think happened? >> he asked me, do you know anybody that wants to harm her? do you know who she was see something do you know, you know, were you over there is this when did you see her last? you do have any idea of these

things? >> clay recalled telling the detective he knew his wife had been dating again. in fact, he's pretty sure she had a profile on a website that caters to mormon singles. i said, well, last i knew, there was an lds planet website and i don't know. i don't have any idea who she is seeing. you'd need to look or talk to somebody else. >> reporter: oh, and they would talk to plenty of others. that was just day one of the investigation and as a logical step in a case like this, the ex, himself, would have to be checked out thoroughly. right then the detective had no more for clay starbuck. >> i said, we'll talk to you again later. why don't gow take care of your kid? >> even as he left the station, the detective recalled clay starbuck seemed eager to help. >> he told jim to look at her phone and her computer, it will tell you what you need to know. >> reporter: of course no, detective worth his salt need to be told. that shannon starbucks cell

phone was right there in the bedroom. couldn't miss it said detective lysle johnston. >> the phone was sitting on a table right next to her bed. just a couple of feet away from her body. >> like she had just been using it or something? >> correct. >> we wanted to see her cell phone right away. it will tell us who she met with last. >> there was a text message saying he had car trouble, asking her to take the kids to school and later exchanges about who would pick them up. not terribly interesting stuff. except, that's not all they found on shannon starbuck's phone and what else was there was very interesting sfwr she had had communications with at least two other men that appeared she was planning on meeting with unor two of them. >> now that got the detective's attention and then it fairly jumped at them a particular text, a request, very specific,

very explicit one. >> there was a text message that was that shannon asking her to pose a specific way. >> if ha >>. >> the hair rose on ricket's neck. almost the way she was posed. a coincidence in the detective had to think it was anything but. >> coming up -- >> they were normal text messages. then they moved into more sexually suggestive text messages. >> investigators took a hard look at two men shannon seemed to have contact with the day of her murder. one guy posted a picture of himself. but -- >> we found that he had actually stolen it from another person's website, a doctor who lived in new york city. >> who was this mystery man? and what was he hiding? and what was he hiding

. >> when ""dateline"" continues. s clear lights. color lights.

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i'm darragh brown. the president is in france for the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the end of world war i. he and the first lady will later go on to an american cemetery where the remains of more than 2,200 are killed in battle. back in this country, at least nine people have died near sacramento, california. thousands of homes have been destroyed in just two days. that's what's happening. now back to "dateline." strange, the small things that can offer comfort, however cold in the midst of horror. once long before her death, shannon told her mother how she wanted her funeral to be. more of a talk. now a blessing in the midst of

so much grief. >> so mum was able to give shannon what she wanted for a funeral, if that was something you really want. >> her old classmates went to the funeral and brought along the candy they used to share, cramming for tests. >> i felt kind of silly but i brought a tootsie roll. then i didn't feel so silly because somebody else had brought chocolate. i didn't feel like i was the only one. >> reporter: but nothing could sweeten the bitterness, nothing. >> the children were allowed to see her and i remember one saying, she was looking at her, they said, it doesn't look like mom and i don't think he even recognized her. >> that's how badly she had been beaten. it made her family furious that someone did that to her. so in the days that followed,

they seethed. quite unaware that investigators thought they had a huge break in the hunt for her killer. lead detective mike rickets? they were normal text messages. then there were, they moved into more sexually suggested text messages. >> on the last day she was seen alive, shannon exchanged text messages with men she had apparently been seeing. rocketing to the top of the list of suspects was the gentleman that asked her to pose a certain way, take a picture and send it to him. >> it was alarming because the text mimicked somewhat what we found at the crime scene as far as shannon being posed. >> shannon did not take or send the picture. but the question. >> that wasn't just a red flag to investigators. that was a cannon shot. within a manner of hours, the detective had that man on the

phone. after all, his number was right there in shannon's cell. >> i told him who i was and asked him if i could come speak with him and he stated yes. >> he was a car salesman from spokane named tam walker. he told them he had nothing to hide. >> i texted him at 8:06. i said, good morning, sexy. she texted me back 14 minutes later and said, good morning, handsome. >> walker admitted texted with shannon that morning. he denied he had been anywhere near her house. he said he was at work and a funeral that day. >> were you at work all day thursday? >> except for funeral. >> except for the funeral in. >> yes. >> did you have any involvement in her death in. >> no. >> they set out taking a dna sample. the problem was they sure weren't exactly sure when shannon was killed.

besides, they had lots of people to interview. that's what happens in a murder investigation. everybody gets pulled in. especially those closest to the victim. detectives even called shannon's eldest son austin in for questioning. >> within was the last time you saw her. they asked me a little more how our relationship was. >> austin lived with his father and told the police, yes, he was closer to his dad since his parents split up and if the question seemed crew. the adult son had to be looked at, eliminated, if possible. >> did it feel weird to be put in the position of suspicion like that? >> yeah. he tried more leaning on me like, did you do it in did you do it? it wasn't like i know you did it. it wasn't like that. he'd stand up. i work at a glass company i should cut glass. i had some older cuts on my hand, he's like where'd you get that one from? >> they talked to the other man in the family, blake, 18 and

naturally the ex-husband, clay. what was he doing on december 1st the day shannon went missing the day she likely died? >> he told me at that time that his car had broken down on high desert draf in deer park. >> clay said he spent the day fixing his car, never seeing shannon, if at all. who was shannon with that day? as detectives continued to dig, they found out what might be an answer right there in shannon's phone. a message from a different man. one named jon wilson. an one named jon wilson . >> wilson seemed to be meng messaging her using another name. just wondering06. >> it appeared from the communications they were trying to meet, set up a date or they were going to meet on december 1st, 2011. >> the very day detectives believe shannon was murdered. but when they traceed that phone number from which this jon

wilson called, they found themselves looking at a public pay phone. but when they googled the names jon wilson and justwondering06, they found profiles on dating sites and facebook and quickly realized this man wasn't who he appeared to be. >> it was a pretty minimal site, though. >> a photograph purporting to be this jon wilson guy. >> correct. >> we found he had stolen it from another person's website a doctor who lived in new york city. >> as to now you know jon wilson is not the person you see on the screen? >> correct. >> a phony picture. a phantom who was clearly interested in keeping his real identity a secret. but why? exactly who was this latest m t mystery man? coming up -- >> he is completely worried about live life, his personal

life, professional life. >> how do you track down a guy determined to hide? >> he's doing everything from public locations. >> what does all this sort of thing tell you? >> well, it called us a lot of concern. the certainly could be our suspect. >> one detective would try his luck with an instant message. >> i said i need to talk with you about shannon starbuck. and i bet it wasn't 20 minutes my phone rang. >> when "dateline" continues. ms my phone rang. >> when "dateline" continues i can breathe again! ahhhh! i can breathe again! ughh! vicks sinex. breathe on.

what's a 40-something single woman to do if she's looking for a little romance and who isn't? why not press a button, type in your name. see what happens. it looked like that's just what shannon starbuck did. >> i said, well get online. she says, i'm online, i'm online on a dating site. >> it's not uncommon for this day and age to online date. so i don't know why -- >> and she wouldn't have put herself in danger or harm's way,

whatsoever. >> you would think. >> but, in fact, that was something shannon's children did worry about. a lot. >> i'm sure you know "dateline" nbc in "to catch a predator"? . >> i've seen that, it's where wardos go on the internet. >> now those sons were eager for investigators to find their mother's killer and detectives were, in fact, chasing down a new lead in connection with shan nos's internet dating. >> there is a murder investigation, there is no stone unturned. >> hiding under one particular rock was one likely suspect. the man calming himself jon wilson who planned to meet with shannon on december 1st the last day she was seen alive. detectives quickly figured out he was some kind of an imposter that posted a fake picture in his online dating profile. and had been communicating with shannon to hide his real

identity. >> they were all public places, public phones, universities, places like that. >> boy this guy is careful? >> right, he's doing everything from public locations. >> what does all this tell you? >> well, it's caused us concern this certainly could be our suspect. >> they traced one of the pay phones he used to call shannon. it was here outside a university lie braemplt it happened to have a under surveillance camera. was this jon wilson? only one way to find out. detective johnston sent him an instant message of his own. >> i identified myself as being from the sheriffs office, said i need to talk with you about shannon starbuck. and i bet it wasn't 20 minutes my phone rang. >> it was him, all right. yes, he told the detective he knew shannon starbuck. yes, the two had been seeing each other, but. >> he was very hesitant to identify himself.

i had asked him for his name, who it was i was speaking to. >> it sounded shaky for the investigator. distrustful. >> it was obvious that he didn't seem to believe that i was with the sheriff's office either. >> mike rick elts was listening in on the conversation and scribbled a note. >> tell him we need to have his true identity shortly or i am going to post this picture and show it all over the media and i will find out who he is. >> and at that point he told me his true name. >> suddenly wanted to cooperate? >> well, he didn't really want to. he expressed the fact na he had been having an affair. he was married. >> that was his explanation for the fake name the skull going around, hiding from his wife. his name was john kenline, he was a school teacher. he had agreed to talk to the detective in person but asked to have the conversation at the office of his lawyer a man robert coss zbli he's completely

stressed out. he is completely worried about his life, personal life, professional life. >> this interview is done with yourer mission and your attorney's? >> -- your permission and your attorney's? >> yes. >> tell me how december 1st panned out. >> december 1st the last day shannon was seen alive. detectives knew the answer from messages on shannon's phone the man they were talking to had plans to meet shannon at her house. but they wanted to see if he'd tell the truth. >> at 10:30 i was at her house. i knocked on the door. >> what he told us was that he had made prior arrangements to meet with shannon. >> so he actually went to her house? >> he did go to her house. >> only she never answered the door, he said. so then he went to a public phone to calm, left a voice message. zblmpbls zblmpbls. >> la voic message. zblmpbls zblmpbls. >> he even stopped by her house

again, frustrated. peered through her windows, didn't see anything, he said. then he told detectives, he spent the rest of the day and into the eveninger, changing messages with shannon. >> i texted her and i got a text message in reply from her that said, up, did you come over? and she says, something to the effect of how about tonight or later tonight? >> you really wanted to see her? >> right. >> but never did? or at least he never said he did? >> right. >> it was, however a problem with his story. for much of december 1st john kenline couldn't tell detectives if anyone had seen him, in other words, no one to really back up important portions of his alibi. lead detective mike rickets

didn't know what to think. >> here is an individual that's going to great lengths to hide his identity, but at the same time here's an individual that is being as detailed as he possibly can in providing us as much information as he k. so i was on the fence, but it was someone that we had to investigate. >> boy, did they ever. to see if the school teacher shannon's mystery man was telling the truth or trying to cover up a crime, detectives waded through all of his communications with her. >> we didn't let the idea go that he could still be our killer. i don't remember the number of days, but it was a week or two after the homicide we realized shannon had called 911. >> 911? spokane county sheriffs detectives were about to discover a new piece of evidence. it was a recording, eerie and goor garbled and fleetling. it might just be enough to help

solve the murder. coming up -- >> the records that we get from the phone company reflect a 911 calm. >> a break. and a shock. >> 911, what are you reporting? hello? >> it hit me really hard. it was like a rock in my stomach. >> when "dateline" continues. -whoa. [ indistinct talking ] -deductible? -definitely speaking insurance. -additional interest on umbrella policy? -can you translate? -damage minimization of civil commotion. -when insurance needs translating, get answers in plain english at progressiveanswers.com. ♪ -he wants you to sign karen's birthday card. it's a high honor. -he wants you to sign karen's birthday card. hi susan!hs) honey? i respect that. but that cough looks pretty bad... try this new robitussin honey. the real honey you love...

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and with xfinity mobile, you get the best wireless coverage for your phone. ...you're about to find out! you don't even know where i live... hello! see the grinch in theaters by saying "get grinch tickets" into your xfinity x1 voice remote. a guy just dropped this off. he-he-he-he. there is nothing quite like a murder to put the most intimate parts of life on public display. investigators had tracked down two suspicious men chanin was dating, one a married teacher was at her house on the day she likely died. the other sent chanin a racy text message that almost mimicked the crime scene. they offered alibis, of course, but since the detectives didn't know exactly when chanin died, they couldn't check them out.

funny how one little break can make all the difference. >> it hit me really hard. it was like a rock in my stomach. >> detective mike rickets wasn't expecting it, not at all, that piece of evidence that suddenly surfaced weeks into the case. his colleague detective lyle johnston had just gotten a record of the calls dialed from chanin's phone. and there it was staring back at him. >> the records that we get from the phone company reflect a 911 call. >> a 911 call. 9:17 a.m. december 1st, not long after chanin dropped the kids off at school, the 911 operator failed to properly file the call with the sheriff's department. you may not know this, but some cell phones don't store 911 calls in their call list, an effort to protect callers in dangerous situations like somebody had been kidnapped, say. so all that meant detectives trying to solve a murder had no

idea chanin called 911 until they got the records from her wireless carrier. were you able to find out what was in the 911 call, how long it lasted, when it came? >> yes, they were able to based on date and time find a recording of the exact call. >> it was just 28 seconds long. it started with a noise. could you hear it? you could. >> and, unfortunately, for the 911 call operator, i believe he talked over it and he didn't hear it. >> 911, what are you reporting? >> so brief, so garbled that listening to it now, they became convinced this must have been chanin as she was being attacked. 9:17 a.m. >> 911, what are you reporting? hello? >> what it sounded like was if somebody was struggling over the phone. you could definitely hear a

female's voice kind of urgh. but that's all it amounted to. >> but who was the attacker, the car salesman, the teacher, or somebody else? now the investigators had to go back over those alibis and compare them to the time of the 911 call. they started with the salesman, tom walker. were you at work all day thursday? >> except for the funeral. >> his phone never pings off any of the towers in the deer park region. he's at work on december 1st. he attends a funeral. we confirmed that. >> the salesman, the guy who sent that racy request for a photo, was in the clear. that left the school teacher, john kenlein. he admitted he was actually outside the deer park house that morning, 10:30, but in the hour before that, when it appeared chanin was being attacked according to the 911 call, he said he was not at chanin starbuck's house but at a star bucks in spokane getting coffee,

a specific frappuchino that the store had a record of selling. >> i hear there was a great to-do about whether he ordered some specific and unusual drink. >> correct. that's the case. he purchased coffee at about the same time the 911 call had come in. it was just a little variation in time. but well within the timeframe that he couldn't have been at starbucks and he couldn't have been in deer park at the same time. >> and so the man who once looked so suspicious convinced detectives he was telling the truth. >> they looked at him every which way you could be looked at. they checked out every part of his story, and every single fact, everything that he told them checked out 100%. >> now he just had to deal with his wife. and detectives? they went back through the list of possible suspects. chanin's killer was still out there.

a killer, judging from the story chanin's friends were telling, might have been building up to an attack. during the last six months of chanin's life, said summer stark, her friend was convinced somebody was out to get her. >> chanin's house had been broken into and minor things. moving the things or the barbecue would be messed up, knocked over, lights would be unscrewed. you could tell somebody had been in, but things weren't missing sometimes. just odd things that you would notice just weren't right when you would come home. >> chanin filed police reports. the incidents were investigated but never solved. chanin had been accusing clay. >> chanin thought clay was behind everything that was happening, that he was either trying to scare her or trying to assess a way into her home. >> but the police didn't find any evidence of that. and clay said the idea was ridiculous.

besides, he said, he was in alaska on at least one of those strange disturbances supposedly happened. >> at first i was like, no way, i didn't do that. then the date hits me. and i'm like, well, for sure, i didn't do that. i wasn't even here. >> in fact, he said, he and chanin got along better than most divorced couples. >> chanin and i made things work. we would text or say, hey, i'll get the kids. i know next weekend is my weekend, but can you take them that weekend? >> but now that chanin was dead, detectives had to rethink her suspicions as related to them by summer. and she wasn't the only person who viewed chanin and clay's relationship through something other than rose-tinted glasses. chanin's siblings, for example, who said chanin accused clay of cheating on her, claimed that was the reason for both divorces. and the last breakup was so nasty they said that in the months before chanin died clay stopped paying child support.

>> we were paying her rent. >> power. >> paying food for her children. >> she was going to the food bank for food. >> my mother was paying for her school and her computers. >> fascinating how the issues of a divorce can seem to change depending on who's doing the looking. now the detectives were. and they at least began to make that kind of progress that comes from dead ends. >> i was able to eliminate tom walker and john kenlein. >> one name they hadn't been able to cross off their list seemed more and more important. >> clay starbuck was never eliminated as the suspect. >> clay starbuck, the ex-husband, and by now they had something else to consider -- a slew of unflattering tidbits from chanin's family.

>> he was constantly trying to belittle her and make her feel like she was inanimate. >> i always thought he was a creep. >> those dental school classmates were eager to pass on a few of the stories chanin told them about clay. >> he was always bugging her, i guess, if you will, wondering what -- you know, what are you doing? or can you do this? or -- trying to keep her in a -- yeah. >> clay wouldn't leave her alone, some kind of control freak. they didn't know clay, of course, never met him. but their opinion went from bad to worse when chanin came into school visibly upset one day telling them that clay sent her a gift, a sex toy. >> it was in like a little gift bag, if you will, hanging off her door knob. >> with a note. >> with a note. from clay. >> that said -- >> that said, here, enjoy. i can't have you so you can have this. or something like that. >> he was very jealous. he was very controlling. and he was losing control.

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>> still, said summer, it seemed almost like a joke the first time chanin wondered out loud if clay might try to hurt her. >> i told her quit being so dramatic. she's kind of being a drama queen. and you know, that's ridiculous. that only happens in the movies or on "dateline." and i just said you're just so full of it. >> but according to summer, chanin was scared, particularly

after the windows were mysteriously shot out of the car parked in her driveway. chanin changed the locks in her house, didn't even give the kids a key, telling friends she was afraid clay would find a way to steal a copy. >> she was very vocal about her fear that he would kill her. >> hardly surprising those stories would tend to put a sinister spin on everything that police observed about clay, starting with that very first police interaction the day chanin's body was discovered. detective dressback thought something was off the minute clay arrived at the station and he told clay the news. >> and he goes, oh, my gosh, what happened to my wife. i said, well she's dead. and his knees buckled and everything became very histrionic crying and wailing, and that was okay for a while. but it became ridiculous. >> ridiculous? >> it became ridiculous. >> even more ridiculous, more

suspicious, said the detective, was when clay, told he was free to go, didn't. >> then i couldn't get rid of him. he would not leave me alone. >> kept wanting to talk. >> he kept wanting to talk. what he kept telling me was the same thing over again. look on her phone, look on her computer, that will tell you everything you need to know. >> it's suspicious to you but it's not really evidence. >> no, not necessarily. it's suspicious, circumstantial, but suspicious to me. >> which meant that right there on day one clay needed to be checked out but good, and they began with his alibi for that december morning. his day started with car trouble and his text to chanin. asking her to take the kids to school. he said he spent much of december 1st walking between his home and the spot the car broke down, about a mile away. >> he told me that he had to go back and forth to his residence four times that day to work on his car and get tools, to eat, to take a nap. >> but detectives couldn't find anyone along that route who

remembered seeing clay. and another odd thing, his cell phone was off for several hours, no pings to trace. but in the area clay said he walked, a little shoe leather produced a stroke of luck attached to a house. >> there was a camera on the side of the house. >> a home surveillance camera pointed in the very direction they remembered clay telling them he walked. and no sign of clay as far as they could tell. >> i mean, there's no indication that he ever passed by there that day. >> what did you think when you saw that? >> i thought that he was lying. >> one statement that looked like a lie, one dead cell phone, a complaint about overdue child support and a bunch of tales about alleged threatening behaviors, which, try as they might, they couldn't verify. the detectives didn't have enough for an arrest let alone a murder charge. they needed something more, something to tie clay directly to the crime scene. and? enter the dna.

>> i believe it was january 24th, 2012, when i obtained the initial dna report. >> they had submitted several samples from chanin's body for dna testing. thought the most important thing would be from her neck where she was strangled and her fingernails as she fought off her attacker. some of the samples came back labeled unknown male. which didn't match any of the known suspects, but some other of the dna material could be narrowed down to a very small pool of candidates. starbuck male. >> clay starbuck or austin starbuck or blake starbuck. >> there was no getting around it, dna didn't lie, after all. detectives were now convinced that a starbuck male killed chanin. but which one? was it possible one of chanin's own sons killed her? not a chance, said detective rickets.

>> we obtained records that indicated they were at work and at school. we eliminated them as suspects. >> only one man left standing now, but not for long. on february 6th, 2012, two months after they found the body of chanin starbuck, they arrested clay and charged him with murder. it was the moment chanin's siblings and mother had been waiting for. >> when clay was arrested, it was a big relief. >> we felt as though clay should have been arrested right off the bat. >> i knew that he was the one that murdered her. >> it was, of course, a victory for the detectives, too, but it came at a terrible price. >> i didn't want it to be clay starbuck. i didn't want to take those children's father from them. >> chanin and clay's five children, still in shock over their mother's death, now had another blow to absorb. chanin's brother was especially worried about the three young

young es in the family. >> that means they have no guardian then, so we all just decided that it would be best that we try to get custody of the kids and get them out of that situation. >> but the starbuck children weren't going anywhere. austin, just 21, filed to be the guardian for his younger siblings so they could all stay together and fight together for their dad. >> it's hard to grieve, you know, over our mother when we're fighting for our dad's innocence. >> yes, they said, their dad was innocent. and if that meant sacrificing their mother's good name to save their dad, so be it. coming up -- >> she lived a couple different lifestyles. her church lifestyle, her home lifestyle and then her online dating lifestyle. >> the things we were able to

find on the laptop were not normal dating relationships. most of them can be confirmed to be only sexual in nature. >> chanin's private life was about to become very public. >> a string of strangers, now potential suspects when "dateline" continues. when "dateline" continues see the w. and hit the town with these girls. in a clinical study, 4 out of 5 users felt better joint comfort. move free ultra. movement keeps us connected.

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at first the arrest of clay starbuck for the murder of his ex-wife chanin seemed to be playing out with all the predictability of a well-worn movie plot. in hindsight it all seemed so obvious, at least to chanin's close friends and family. >> we knew that clay killed her, just because he had been stalking her and causing her so much grief. we knew what he did to her.

>> but you might be surprised to hear the starbuck children weren't buying any of it. so you believe that your dad is innocent? >> yes. >> there's no way he could have possibly done it? >> no. >> arguably the only witnesses with ringside seats to the long-running drama were their five kids. and those kids, every single one, including the three youngest, seth, marshall and logan, rally to their father's defense. >> he didn't do it. he's a nice, caring, loving person. why would you kill your ex-wife? >> that he still loves. >> that he still loves and leave all your five children parentless? >> yes, so often what a family looks like depends on who's doing the looking. the kids? all their lives they said it was their father who was the long suffering one, not their mother. in fact, they said their mother chanin was not always what she seemed to be.

over the years, they said, she would up and leave, taking them with her, to live with other men. more than once. for months at a time. but they said their dad would always take her back. >> even through all this, he would always say he loved her. just through this last divorce he would say that -- like no matter what, he could forgive her and take her back. >> the older starbuck boys said it was patently obvious to them that the case against their dad was a frameup from start to finish. >> there's no physical evidence. >> there were a couple times where i actually laughed out loud reading what they had said in there and how ridiculous the story is that they put together of what he did and how he did it. >> none of it, they said, beginning with the dna evidence detectives found so incriminating, that male starbuck dna, in all likelihood, they said, came from one of them, austin or blake.

but it couldn't have come from the youngest, marshall, who learned in the process that he was not clay's biological son, was conceived during a relationship chanin had after their first divorce. murder, as we say, exposes all kinds of secrets. >> the evidence they have is trace dna. it's like i go up to you and touch you on the hand. it's that small. >> but there is starbuck dna. >> yeah. >> and there are some who have said, if it's not him, was it one of you guys. >> there's starbuck dna in the starbuck house. >> kind of funny how that worked. we all lived there. my dad lived there months before this happened. his hair everywhere, his sweat. >> the kids coming over back and forth from our house to her house. >> according to the starbuck children, their father was essentially a victim of a kind of marital profiling. a suspect simply because husbands and ex-husbands of murder victims are always suspects.

if not for that bias, they said, the investigators would have found the real murderer. >> the evidence is shoddy. >> and there's so many other possible suspects, they say. take this theory of blake's. not long after clay's arrest, there were news reports about a man named israel keys. he was arrested for murdering a young coffee barrista in alaska and later admitted he'd killed many more people, some in washington state. a serial killer whose family hailed from, of all places, a town just a few miles from chanin's house. well, why would you think it was israel keys? >> because he has killed over ten women. he admitted to four in washington. he was arrested a month about after my dad, so he wouldn't have been on the radar until then. >> serial killer? maybe. but here's the biggest reason they don't believe their father is a murderer.

it was the children's bombshell. their mother had been keeping a dangerous secret, they said, a secret life, one austin said he figured out when he was just 8. >> she lived a totally different lifestyle. she lived her church lifestyle, her home lifestyle and her online dating lifestyle. >> to hear the starbuck kids tell it, their mom, known to most people as a prim and proper mormon homemaker, lived a racy and risky personal life. a secret from even her closest friends and family but impossible to hide from them, the kids. >> it wasn't normal online dating. it wasn't like she didn't meet some guy and be with him for three, four, five months to a year at a time. she was with him for, you know, just a short visit. you know, on to the next one. >> was it true? sitting in jail awaiting trial, clay told his public defenders derek reed and jill gannon neagle, the same thing he said to sheriff's detectives, look at her phone, look at her computer.

>> the things that we were able to find and confirm on the laptop were not normal dating relationships. it was sexual relationships. and most of those can be confirmed that they were only sexual in nature. >> and explicitly so. >> explicitly so. >> with videos and photos and you name it. >> yes. >> all there on the laptop, evidence of trips to meet men she had connected with online but didn't know in person until she made herself completely vulnerable to them, these strangers. >> several men. i don't think that we can even give a number of the amount at least e-mail addresses. >> two, three, ten, 15? >> ten would be a minimum, i would say. >> we tried to keep it as close to the incident as possible, and in november of 2011 -- >> the month leading up to her murder. >> -- we can verify ten men she

was communicating with electronically most of which she had met one on one and we can verify that. >> every one of them a possible suspect. that's what clay's public defenders thought. >> well, investigators had run down leads from chanin's phone the lawyers said. that crack team didn't follow up on any of the potential leads from her laptop. it was there. they had it, right? >> it was there. they swabbed it. at some point somebody suspected something. i'm not quite sure why they didn't follow up. but isn't this all just a smoke screen? because the evidence is pretty clear that clay starbuck's alibi doesn't hold up, and the alibis of those other people do. >> the alibis of the ones they looked into. >> so armed with the evidence they found on that computer alone, defense attorneys were confident they would instill in the jury at least reasonable

doubt. as the day of the trial approached the starbuck children were giddy with the anticipation that soon dad would be coming home to stay. >> i know he didn't do it. we need to fight for our dad's innocence, get him out, so we can go back and hit it on the head again and find out who did it and solve it. coming up -- at trial, the jury hears a prediction once made about chanin. >> he said i wouldn't be surprised if we found her dead with her throat slit open. copd makes it hard to breathe.

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world war i armistice this weekend. at least nine people are dead from a wildfire near sacramento, california. it triggered a massive evacuation. join me at the top of the hour. n join me at the top of the hour every trial for murder has this simple question at its core -- whose version of the truth will the jury believe? and in the case of chanin starbuck, the two competing realities set for display could not have stood in starker contrast. >> we'd been waiting over a year for this moment. >> as you can say i'm an a mission. i want him put away. >> the divided family couldn't have been farther apart in the small spokane county courtroom when the trial began in may 2013. the prosecution set out to prove clay starbuck was a jealous, controlling and ultimately violent man who murdered his devout and long suffering ex-wife.

well, the defense prepared to argue that chanin herself recklessly courted danger and, quite possibly, died at the hands of one of the many strangers she met online for sex. to chanin starbucks' friends and family who heard in advance what the defense had planned, it sounded like an old fashioned smear campaign. >> that's all they had to go on. that's the only thing that they could turn chanin into was this awful person. >> she wasn't a sexual deviant. she wasn't -- she wasn't running around sleeping with everybody in deer park and spokane. >> the state presented its case first, argued in court by larry steinmetz, and he began not with sex but with that other less titillating root of all evil -- money. the jury heard from summer starks that chanin didn't have any.

>> with respect to miss starbuck's financial situation, how would you define that? >> dire. >> do you know whether or not miss starbuck had been receiving any child support or spousal maintenance from mr. starbuck during that period? >> she had told me she did not. >> clay owed more than $9,000 in back child support. eliminate the ex and his financial obligations would die with her, thus a money motive said the prosecution. and then they brought it up -- sex. or rather chanin's love life, not the sex life the defense had in mind, but the romantic kind that sometimes produces jealousy, the other age-old motive for murder. >> miss starbuck now a single woman dating other men, much to the chagrin and dismay of the defendant clay starbuck. >> chanin's newfound romantic freedom enraged clay.

one of the couple's friends testified that clay seemed unnaturally obsessed with his ex-wife's personal life. >> he basically gave me a litany of things about chanin, about what she was doing and how she was seeing lots of other men. >> and one of the kids' teachers testified that she heard clay predict something that sounded to her quite chilling. >> he said, i wouldn't be surprised if we found her dead, i wouldn't be surprised if we found her with her throat slit open. >> then the view from the detectives who testified how it seemed to them clay was just a little too eager to direct their suspicions away from himself. and towards some anonymous online lover. >> i don't very often have people pushing at me a piece so much that it pushes everything else, all the other information out. just constantly pushing that at

me. >> jealous, resentful and on the morning of december 1st luring chanin out of her house with a phony story about a broken-down car. remember clay texted chanin, asked her to take the kids to school, then shut off his phone to avoid detection, or so said the prosecutor. a killer laying a trap. >> taking the children out of the house, steaki inin ining -- out the house, entering the house, waiting for ms. starbuck to return. >> they played that snippet of a 911 call that the prosecution said confirmed the time of the attack. >> 911, what are you reporting? >> then an expert told the jury about the dna they found on chanin's neck. >> is this match that you described an exact match to clay starbuck and the male bloodline of his family? >> yes. >> the dna had to be clay's. he was the one with the weak

alibi. and detectives had already cleared his sons, though the prosecutor called them as witnesses anyway. >> during the school week, what time would you normally go to school? >> it was just after 9:00. >> on december 1 of 2011, did you work that day, a thursday? >> yes, i was. >> and someone else cleared by his alibi, john kenlein, the married teacher, was forced to appear, admitted an affair with chanin. >> we engaged in a sexual relationship yes. >> he was not here to be ashamed but to testify about curious messages he received from chanin's phone, messages sent long after the 911 call. >> again, sir, could you read that? >> did you stop by, question mark, question mark, question mark. do you want to come over tonight? >> those messages found on chanin's phone, investigators believe, could only have been

sent by chanin's killer. and by this time you believed she was dead? >> right. based on the 911 call, we believe she's deceased and yet someone is using her cell phone to communicate. >> and to prove it must have been clay who sent those messages, they entered into evidence this seemingly innocuous text message from around 3:00 p.m. that afternoon. >> at 3:06 p.m. chanin starbuck phone to logan starbuck phone, send marsh a note, dad will be there in ten minutes. >> send marsh a note? who besides his mother might know the nickname marsh? the youngest starbuck marshall came to the stand. >> how often would your dad call you marsh? >> a lot. he also called me son and marshall. >> but he did call you marsh a lot? >> mm-hmm.

>> yes, it had been an intimate act, an angry ex-husband killing the mother of his children, then staging the scene as a humiliating sex crime, premeditated murder said the state. and as evidence of clay starbuck's twisted state of mind, the prosecution offered this final piece to the puzzle. detectives said they found chanin's death certificate on a wall in clay's house pinned up like a trophy. >> as a reminder, she's no longer in my life, she's no longer going to cause me any misery or pain. >> so no smoking gun but a pile of circumstantial evidence deep enough, the prosecution hoped, to bury any chance of acquittal. >> at the heart of this killing -- and i would submit the motive -- greed, anger, obsession and jealousy. >> and, through it all, clay and his defense waited to tell an

entirely different story about a risky life and unsolved murder. coming up -- >> unsolved, the defense would argue, because investigators blew it right from the start at the crime scene. >> they swabbed the face of the cell phone and they got dna. not his. the phone doesn't have mr. st starbuck's dna. starbuck's dna (nicki palmer) being a verizon engineer is about doing things right.

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clay starbuck, on trial for murdering his ex-wife, had something big in his corner, something he believed would establish reasonable doubt. chanin's laptop computer, it held evidence, he said, of his ex-wife's dangerous secret life. >> we're talking about casual encounters with people who aren't using real identities. >> in fact, chanin's own children were convinced that one of those men must have been her killer. >> make no mistake, there were

men that she talked to the day before. >> that was the story the defense and the children were poised to tell in court. and then a ruling from the judge. the evidence was inadmissible. the children's story, the activities revealed in the laptop, the evidence pointing to other men chanin knew intimately, it was all too speculative, too prejudicial. and it was out. the jury wouldn't hear it. suddenly at the defense table, the air went out. >> i think the court was thinking we don't want to make this a forum to run somebody who was murdered down. unfortunately, this isn't something that's just being made up. we didn't create this, these allegations. >> clay starbuck's lawyers needed a plan b. so they went after the murder investigation itself. pointing out in court all the

things investigators failed to do. >> on the right hand, they found on one of the nails what tested positive for blood. they don't test it. don't even look at it. in fact, you'll hear from the crime lab that they intentionally swabbed around the blood. >> it was a recurring theme for the defense -- they didn't test it. evidence collected but untouched by lab techs. and under cross-examination detective rickets was pilloried for making the decision. >> did you direct anyone to collect any piece of evidence from the master bathroom that would be consistent? >> no. >> as far as you know have you or have you directed anybody to have that? >> no. >> and if there was any potential trace evidence or any evidence on that, we don't know? >> we don't, right. >> the crime lab didn't test it?

>> right. >> but there were also issues with the evidence that was tested, said the defense. that cell phone, for instance, the one the prosecution went to great lengths to say clay used after killing chanin -- >> they swabbed the face of the cell phone and they got dna. and they got this dna and it's not his. unidentified male. the phone doesn't have mr. starbuck's dna on it. >> and more unidentified dna found on chanin's neck, where she was strangled. >> fair to say going back to the term match, that there was another contributor on the sample referenced miss starbuck's neck male contributor that has not been identified? >> correct. >> whose dna was that, the defense asked? no one knows. but the presence of male starbuck dna at the crime scene was no mystery at all.

not only had clay lived in that house but the dna could have been transferred from children going back and forth between parents as marshall explains. only his audio could be shown not his face. do you ever share clothes with austin now? >> yes. if all my shirts are dirty or something i'll borrow one of his shirts. and i use also blake's old sweatshirt. >> the matter of the alibi. neighbors in the area where clay starbuck claimed his car broke down testified that they did see a car matching that description parked by the side of the road. >> i came up early in the morning to smoke a cigarette outside. i had seen it parked up the street. >> austin told the court that the jury should not be suspicious about clay's phone being off that day. >> why would he have it off? >> so he wouldn't be interrupted when he was sleeping because he had back surgery and he needed his sleep. >> yes, the back surgery. the reason clay was in deer park and not out working on the

pipeline at the time of chanin's murder. clay was simply too weak, said his kids. didn't have the physical strength to kill their mother. >> so my mom, she's 5'10", 5'11", 180 pounds. she's not a small lady. she's not big, but she's not small. >> debilitating surgery? absolutely said clay's doctor. >> he would probably still be somewhat limited after surgery, yes. >> austin also addressed that so-called trophy the prosecution brought up, chanin's death certificate supposedly hanging on clay's wall. it was actually his, said austin. as executor of chanin's estate, he needed copies of the death certificate. and he wanted to keep one safe where it wouldn't be lost. >> and where did you put that? >> the master bedroom my dad stayed at in a closet we use for a gun safe it was behind a key locked door handle. >> but the star defense witness? clay starbuck himself.

>> mr. starbuck, you were married to ms. chanin starbuck at one time? >> yes. >> speaking in calm, deliberate tones, he told the court his back surgery forced him out of work which is how he came to be more than $9,000 behind in child support and alimony. >> i couldn't do anything about it till i went back to work. that was my goal. >> money was no motive said the defense, and as for jealousy, not him. his talk about chanin's online dating had been misconstrued. >> why did you tell people about that information? >> concerned and to see if we could help her. >> some of the officers testified that you told them about the same sort of activity after the death of miss starbuck. >> yes. and they were interested in anything that could help them with the investigation as well

so that's why. >> on the stand clay starbuck patiently followed his lawyer's lead, no gaffes, no slipups. >> did you kill chanin starbuck? >> no, i did not. >> thank you, no further questions. >> when it was over clay and his defense team felt so confident they encouraged him to talk with us about the case and some things that did not come out in court. in an exclusive interview, clay starbuck explains why he believes he's about to go free. >> there's been many statements in this that have not been true from a law enforcement standpoint. >> the case has been botched, in your view? >> i would say botched is fair game. there's some smart people who have made elementary mistakes. there's some smart people who have made elementary mistakes. -[ slurping ] ♪

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was one cool customer. taciturn and stoic when pressed by the prosecutor on cross-examination. >> are you a jealous person? >> not at all. >> do you ever get angry? >> not at all. >> ms. starbuck was granted 50% of your pension. did that make you angry? >> no. >> did it bother you? >> no. >> do you think that chanin starbuck's killer was trying to send a message? >> i don't know. >> but make no mistake, clay starbuck has plenty to say about his ex-wife chanin, about the detectives whom he believed ignored promising leads in order to hang her murder on him. >> they were after me. they had their guy. they didn't want anybody else. they wanted to drive me to prosecution. >> for starters, clay starbuck told us in an interview given near the end of his trial, the case against him is based

largely on a faulty understanding of the dna evidence. >> it was not considered a match of dna. it was not a 100% match, it was not a full inclusion nor could they exclude it. >> the starbuck dna found is actually a partial strand but can occur in nearly 1 in 3,000 males in the u.s., according to the state's crime lab, not nearly as accurate as standard dna testing yet that evidence, said clay, was blown out of proportion by investigators on a mission. >> mishandling. really, i can state a lot of things. >> the case has been botched in your view? is botched a big word or is it okay in this case? >> i would concur. i would say botched is fair game. there's some smart people that have made some elementary mistakes. >> but even if that was his dna at the scene, said clay, it proves nothing.

he told us that not only had he slept in that bed for years, he'd been there since his breakup with chanin. >> i left june of 2010. was that the last time that chanin and i were intimate? no. not even close. >> really? >> absolutely. >> feelings, hopes of reconciliation perhaps? no, not that at all, said clay. he had moved on. >> at the time of chanin's death i was seeing a gal in valdez, alaska, it was a long distance relationship. >> you were otherwise engaged? >> i was otherwise engaged. >> and he disputed all the nasty stories chanin supposedly told her friends about him, wondered why detectives would listen to what he considered to be gossip. she was terrified of you and she told her friends this. and so when she winds up dead and humiliated that way, who else are they going to look at but the person she was terrified

of? >> chanin's friends that you mentioned, if they make those comments, i don't control those comments. i have no way of knowing what chanin told them, but i would hope that they would follow the evidence. i would hope that they wouldn't chase somebody down over a comment made off the cuff. >> and those were secondhand stories about clay the jury never heard anyway. as for his alibi that morning in the surveillance video, it was nothing said clay. of course the camera didn't show him on that street, he never told the cops that's where he walked and they never asked. they didn't ask you where you went. >> no. >> they say you told them. >> i did hear that. >> are you saying their memories are bad? or something, that they're lying or what? >> there's been many statements in this that have not been true

from law enforcement standpoint. >> and speaking of alibi, clay said he doesn't believe the time of that 911 call means anything at all. >> it is so short, you can't tell what it is. >> but a call to 911, she winds up dead, they kind of go together. so the time of death makes most sense right around that time. just after because she would have been under attack at that point. most sense right often that time, just after, because she would have been under attack at that point. >> i don't see how with any of the evidence provided and statements by witnesses that anybody can make that assumption that a 911 call after a quarter after 9:00 and her death were exactly related. >> for more than two hours as he talked to us, clay starbuck remained quite unflappable. >> i can't see where you're a hard guy to argue with. >> actually i'm an easy guy to argue with because i don't argue. >> that's the problem. >> it makes me crazy. >> makes other people crazy. >> then i suggest you get

counseli counseling. >> never angry, never jealous. the only emotion clay starbuck pleads guilty to is disappointment. he was disappointed when his youngest daughter told him about explicit images she had seen on her mother's computer. >> it was pretty upsetting to you. >> disappointing. i wouldn't say upsetting. >> according to clay starbuck, murder never crossed his mind. >> she was a beautiful woman, a smart woman. she didn't need to travel those paths to find men to be with. it was senseless. >> did you try to stop that behavior by killing her? >> absolutely not. absolutely not. i wouldn't kill her. i wouldn't harm her. i wouldn't kick, bite, scratch, anything. i wouldn't do anything to her, and i wouldn't kill her. >> he faltered once, only once. the question was about his children. >> what have you wanted to say to them all these months?

>> you're making me get emotional, so i'll just leave it as very proud of them. >> a pretty tough thing for kids to handle. >> it is. it is. not only did they lose their mother, they lost their dad for a period of time. >> maybe forever. >> it's not going to be forever. it's going to be next week. >> he was quite a confident man. all he needed was an acquittal. all he needed was the jury to say those words, "not guilty." coming up -- >> i'll never see a courtroom again. >> i was sick to my stomach. in my heart of hearts, i know clay did this. >> the starbuck form. >> the verdict. >> i jumped up and i screamed. i screamed.

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for more than two weeks here in spokane, washington, discussions about the clay starbuck murder sounded a little political, polarized. and as the judge sent the jury off to deliberate -- >> you'll now be escorted off to the jury deliberation room. >> -- shannon's two familyies wo believed clay poisoned the kids about their mother -- >> i hope they learn the truth. >> -- and the children on the very other hoping their father to come back home. >> i hope after this is all done, we never see a courtroom again. >> of course, it was only those 12 strangers who could decide. the hours went by, and people close to the question on both sides were in some kind of agony. >> i was sick to my stomach. i was nervous. knowing what i know and in my

heart i know clay did this, all it takes is one person, one person not to believe, and we have to start all over again. >> not easy for any of them, but austin had an especially difficult task. a new father himself, and now after fighting with his uncle and grandmother over custody, he was guardian of the three younger children, and until this moment, he had been, said his siblings, like a rock. funny how these things sneak up on a person. >> if you could speak to your dad and just say one thing, the two of you, what would it be? >> i miss him.

>> then they were all in court. their opposing wishes on full display. they had been out one full day. here was their decision. >> in the state of washington versus clay d. starbuck verdict form a reads, count i, we the jury find mr. starbuck guilty of murder in the first degree. >> guilty. his face looked like stone. but something else was going on inside, said his lawyers. >> how was he when that verdict happened? >> shocked. >> he absolutely thought he was going to be acquitted. >> absolutely. >> but shannon's mother and siblings finally felt vindicated. all along they believed it was him, and now they agreed. >> as soon as the first guilty verdict was read, it was like a ton of bricks were lifted off of us. >> i got the text, guilty.

i jumped up and i screamed. i screamed. i was like yes, yes. >> clay starbuck was sentenced to life in prison. he's appealing his decisional all five starbuck kids say they still believe their dad is innocent, led by austin, head of the household, weight of the world on his shoulders. >> you know, it's not over yet. >> but he was convicted. >> yeah. but there's still appeals and other things we can do. >> well, that may be so. >> it's still not over. >> two years later in 2015 clay starbuck lost his appeal. >> i thought it would bring me more peace than it did. i was relieved that he found guilty, but it didn't bring me the peace that i thought it would. >> justice? sometimes what feels like justice to some doesn't to others, not at all. but this we can say. once there was a fine and lovely woman whose life was good and

useful, who loved her children. >> they were her world. and no matter what had happened, what was said, what's been said, what's been drug up, she loves them, and she wants them to be successful and have good lives. >> no, she did not deserve the way her life ended on that cold december morning in deer park, washington. good morning. i'm dara brown at msnbc head quarters. it's 7:00 out east, 4:00 oeft west. here's what's happening. what to expect as outstanding votes get counted in razor-tight races. >> when you're in the white house, this is a very sacred place to be. this is a very special place to be. you have to treat the white house with rocky mountains. you have to treat the presidency with respect. >> the president lashing out at the media before