sleepovers just aren't what they used to be. a house full of screens? basically no hiccups? you guys have no idea how good you've got it. how old are you? like, 80? back in my day, it was scary stories and flashlights. we don't get scared. oh, really? mom can see your search history. that's what i thought. introducing the next generation 10g network. only from xfinity. >> i'm crai . i'm craig melvin. and i'm natalie morales. and this is "dateline." >> and i'm natalie morales. >> and this is dateline. >> she was there. >> she walked into the room and it was bright and. >> and then she was not. >> my initial reaction was, oh my god, what has happened. >> the mother that they adored.

missing. in her place, her trail of blood. >> my biggest fear was that we were going to find her. >> police found instead was a puzzle. >> and then in my 28 years i have not seen that before. >> a missing woman. a mystery with few clues. >> did you find any parting the prints? hairs? anything? >> but that one men have a motive? >> he steals $300, 000, and you're about to be exposed for it. >> with except without proof, how could anyone trust the jury? >> do you think that they had any evidence against you at all? >> did they have anything? >> could anyone solve the mystery? >> we the jury, find the defendant, david ok. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> hello, and welcome to dateline. when someone goes missing, one of the hardest things for those left behind is not knowing the

truth. was it voluntary, or foul play? the three children in this story arrived home one evening to discover that their mother was missing, but for them, the truth about what really happened may have been the hardest thing of all. here is keith morrison. >> the key was waiting for them under the math, that evening in june 2006 outside of the mother's house. silence. no one home. where was she? she was always on time to pick them up from their dads place. but tonight, he had to drive them. and this just wasn't like her. where would she? conrad, the eldest, put the key in the lock. but the key in the door. chelsea, in the middle, crossed the threshold. stopped. what was this? >> once we took a few more steps in, we realize something was wrong. >> this was the moment, the defining one.

nothing to say, after this. >> and there was a lot of blood. everywhere. >> then the adrenaline kicked in, and stick took over. >> we just dropped our stuff, and split from the house. >> panic rising now, conrad was 15 that, his little sisters tulsa and savannah. trying to make sense of a horribly frightening scene. >> my mom usually keeps it speck and spent. there's hardly any dust anywhere, let alone anything out of order. >> and now, things were anything but. >> where the desk was, you could see that there were papers scattered around. drawers were ripped open. >> and you went into the bedroom? >> i think that's the first place my sister ran into. and then, so she, quickly called us in and then we followed her. >> what did you see there? >> there is blood on the ground. >> a lot? >> yeah. >> her mom's bed, it was made.

but. >> it was half hazard lay thrown together, you know, not quite smoothed out. >> and she would've done it a different way. >> right. >> at that point you are pretty upset i imagine? >> yeah. my biggest fear was that we were going to find her. that's what scares me the most. is that we find somewhere in the house. >> but they did not. no debbie hawk, not anywhere. >> there was some drag marks, some smear marks leading out to the garage where they stopped. >> and debbie's van was gone too. >> my initial reaction was, oh my god, what has happened? who could've done this? >> the girls ran to a neighbor's house, conrad called 9-1-1. >> my mom's room, her bathroom, and there is blood on the carpet. >> after the initial shock of it, i start to be reasonable, and, think wait a minute, let's not overreact here. clearly she cut her hand with

enough and i for something. and she was bleeding. and she raced out of the car to go to the emergency room. this was all just a big understanding. >> but it was not. though there were plenty of misunderstandings to come. and questions that stubbornly refused to be answered. like, where was debbie hawk? what happened to her? and what happened to the sacred bond that once held three children together. back in the beginning, even the police were confused. >> this case seemed very unusual for the state. >> the head of the case at the time? derek madison, along with the kings county investigator, aaron. both had worked other cases. and out among the suburbs in the almond orchard, and that giant, dairy farms splayed across the valleys of flat valley farm. but this did not smell right at all. that daren matteson.

>> it was appear that she was drug out of the house against her well. in my 20 years i had not seen that before. >> whatever happened here must have been planned. full out. >> it looked like a staged crime sheen. her jewelry, and her bedroom laid out like she had put it. nothing was missing but her fan. >> had someone had tried to make it look like guy debbie hawk had been kidnapped? or was it the intention, a failed intentioned perhaps, to show that she had just left home. >> i think it was designed to look like a missing persons case. the bed was made. most of the crooks not to that. >> and had the perpetrator been looking for something? >> there was paperwork that normally would have been put away, at least stacked up. it wasn't, it was scattered and. this financial document was on top. >> significant? maybe. but certainly significant weather sounds neighbors reported hearing in the middle of the night. the night before deadbeats kids

arrived at her doorstep and discovered she was missing. >> several neighbors heard a loud scream. it was a blood curdling type. >> why did no one call 9-1-1? >> that was not the type of neighborhood that bad things happen in. >> and not the type of person that bad things happen to. she was an accomplished -- with a some pharmaceutical firm. and had a wide around of friends. >> she was very wriggle, and to us royalty. she definitely fits the bill as the princess. >> she should've been a kennedy. >> which is why the ribbons that suddenly blimp everywhere around hanford, where royal purple. and the people who put the ribbons on, and up, also joined a search to find her. they walked the river banks, and peered among the trees. not a trace. by then, as you can imagine, the whole town knew about the

disappearance of debbie hawk, and they knew something else to. two days after she vanished there was a find, and it wasn't good. but it wasn't debbie. instead, police found her van, it was parked on the streets in the high crime part of fresno. 30 miles from home. the deputy check the than, medications for nasal allergies and asthma were missing. and this is where. the windows were down, the keys in the ignition, the license plate had been replaced with a stolen one. >> it appears that whoever left at their wanted someone to get in and drive off. >> oh, and one more thing. the then's backseat was covered in blood. >> at that point, whoever was driving the van would become a suspect in debbie hawk's disappearance. >> police were very sure that was exactly what the color wanted. it was a ruse, and attempted plant blames somewhere else. and some people had already

begun directing blame. at one individual. they thought they knew who did it. >> she had said to me, you know, if anything have hurts to me, you know where to look. >> but suspicion runs fast, the truth dawdle along. has it arrived? even now? >> someone seemed to hold a grouch against debbie hawk, but who? and why? coming up. >> i was like, she needs a taste of her own medicine, she's going to get hard, she's going to get what she wants coming to her. >> when dateline continues! teline continues i go to spin classes with my coworkers. good for you, shingles doesn't care. because no matter how healthy you feel, your risk of shingles sharply increases after age 50. but shingrix protects. proven over 90% effective, shingrix is a vaccine used to prevent shingles in adults 50 years and older.

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>> you could not go anywhere that summer of 2006, without seeing those purple ribbons. a vivid reminder of debbie hawk, a mother of three who had vanished from her home in hanford, california. leaving only traces of blood. before long, in her absence, debbie was famous. as if everyone in town had known the woman her children so loved. >> she'd walk into the room, and it just kind of brighten. >> never a dull moment. >> she was all for her family, her children. >> these are her parents angie and bud triantis. >> hardworking, to me she was just perfect. she was the perfect daughter. and i dearly love her and mr.. >> there was a lot of lives

that have been shattered because of her demise. >> demise, yes, no getting around it now. in july of 2006, the case was reclassified from missing person to homicide. a formality, really. they know from the moment that they arrived at the house, said d.a. investigator, arend lablue, somebody killed debbie. >> we kept up hopes, obviously, for the family's sake. but it was clear, she was not alive based on the crime scene. >> investigators poked around debbie's life history. looking for clues. >> she was very talkative, friendly. likable. always was the length of the party. >> this is debbie sister, diane, who recalled how friends set her up on that line day years ago. >> firecracker. >> he was the date, dave hawk.

>> she was short, and attractive, and a lot of fun. and pretty good sense of humor. he would say something and she would pop back out with something that you did not expect. >> they were married within a year, they built a home along his families almond groves. >> i think they both wanted to have a family, and i think that was the impetus for the acceleration, i would say, of the relationship. >> though debbie's big sister wasn't sure what she saw in him. >> he seemed very quiet, very opposite of my sister. >> then, before long, conrad, arrived, and chelsa, and savannah. >> i still remember christmases where my brother would run around and deliver gifts to everybody, and everyone was getting along. there was some happy memories there. >> but sadly, along of unhappy

ones to. >> pretty much from what i can remember, fighting and are were pretty much routine. >> and after nearly nine years, this marriage, like so many others, fell apart. >> we might have been a little bit more different than we were willing to admit early on. >> even at that age, i could definitely see, the water was about to boil over. >> the kids were nine, eight, and, for when the device was divorce was finalized in 2000. and young conrad, chelsa, and savannah learned how to never gave the choppy waters known all too well by divorce. >> they just couldn't talk to each other, really, so i tried to start in and help resolve that. >> you are kind of a mediator. in a way. that's a tough ball for a kid to play? >> it was better than having them yell at each other on the

phone. >> and living apart, said conrad. >> my mother was happier than ever. i think all our lives improved. >> debbie did well enough as a pharmaceutical representative that she could be able to buy her own home. >> she could finally start living her life the way that she wanted to. >> except, there were issues. once after they separated during the squabble of divorce, she claimed he tried to choke her. >> she said, he just look like a crazed animal. and i thought he was going to kill me. and not too long after that, she had said to me, you know, if anything ever happens to me you know what to look. >> dave said the choking thing never happened, that it was never violent with her. >> i have never choked anybody. >> things settle down eventually, though there was always some dispute. and the things that conrad says he heard his that say about his mom? awful. >> things like, she needs a taste of her own medicine.

she's going to get hers. she's going to get what she has coming to her. >> in fact, the very night he discovered debbie had vanished, conrad told police his that might have done this. >> i don't see any thing that would disqualify him from being able to carry that out. >> which is why, just hours after the kids discovered debbie was missing, it was 2:20 and by then. police called dave, welcome, up asked him to drive down to police headquarters for a top. and the phone call was curious, said investigator madison. because dave did not ask why. >> i've received calls in the middle of the night. my first thought, for, me's family. what's going on? especially if it's the police department. he did not. >> and when he arrived in the interview room? >> what's going on? >> dave did not seem to have much of a reaction at all. to learning his ex-wife, the mother of his three kids was

missing. >> at this point, i have no clue as to where she might be. i can tell you what's been going on in the last week. >> what did you expect? >> more surprise. any surprise. i did not see that at all. >> of course people do react in different ways to traumatic news. besides, dave told him that he was at home, asleep, in the early morning hours. when police believe debbie must have been killed. and the kids say they did not hear him leave the house. they were there to, at the time. and there was no evidence that dave was ever at the crime scene. >> did you find any dna? >> no. >> did you find any fingerprints? >> now. >> harris, anything? >> now. >> but then they just started to uncover the secrets of gave and debbie hawk. >> coming up. a family divided. >> i don't believe that he would be capable of doing something like this. >> my suspicion was growing stronger and stronger. >> when dateline continues!

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>> it was a frustrating summer, back into thousand and six. here in the farmlands of california central valley. those purple ribboned search teams came up empty. though they looked everywhere for weeks. police named dave hawk a person of interest.

but he seemed to have an alibi, all three kids were with him in his house the night debbie vanished. and besides, there wasn't a shred of physical evidence to tie dave to the scene of apparently violence abduction. his own daughter, who spent the day after the abduction with dave. told the police said could not have been him. >> i don't believe that he'd even be capable of doing something like this. >> but then they started poking around in the relationship between debbie and her ex husband. and there were some curious things that began to a marriage. for example, in the months before debbie disappeared, gave took debbie the court, and she was fighting back. kim aguirre was debbie's attorney. >> the issues that she was dealing with work custody, and support. >> david had asked the court for a reduction in his $553 a month child support payment. why? because he claims he only earned $6,000 a year. his salary came from his dad. who paid him $500 a month to

work on his almond farm. his only income, apparently, though derbies attorney found that hard to believe. >> he lived and what i understood to be a very nice home. he drove a late model suburban. that's hard to do an 6000 a year. >> so debbie asked the court for more time with the children. >> his response was to ask for half custody. the percentages where something like 65 with debbie and 35 with dave. and he wanted to make it an even 50/50. >> that's when the battle moved to these trust funds set up for the children's futures. the money came from dave's father. but dave control the funds. and debbie was sure dave was stealing from them to support his own lifestyle. why would she think that? well. this was actually the second set of trusts established for the children. several years before, a judge caught davis hand in the cookie

jar of the first trust. which listed both dave and debbie as trustees. dave was removed as trustee of those funds. but during the divorce, dave's father gave him sole control of a second, quite generous, trust fund. but when investigators ran the numbers on that second fund, administered only by dave? >> basically, there is supposed to be several hundred thousand dollars in each account. and instead, there was just a couple hundred or thousand dollars in each of the kids. he had been living off of it for up to five years at that point. >> something like $300,000 was missing. though dave cried poverty, he bought his girlfriend, mary, a 27,000 dollar lexus. took her on vacation to hawaii, and you $60,000 to pay off divorce classes, and the 1500 dollars he otis kids from the first set of truss. but here, said the detectives, was the heart of the motive for murder.

debbie, if she hadn't disappeared. was about to expose all of that in court. >> you still $300, 000, and you're about to be exposed for it. >> by a woman you despise. >> exactly. >> that's a pretty good motive. >> and there was another strange piece to the puzzle. remember that mess around debbie's desk? document scattered everywhere? sitting on top of the pile, was the records from the children's first set of truss, the one only debbie controlled. >> there was $166,000 in those accounts. >> the investigators in hanford, now focused hard on dave. searched his home several times, carted off lots of stuff. including a stun gun, which it turned out he bought a month before debbie disappeared. he told investigators it was for home protection for his daughters, and girlfriend, mary. >> he had never discussed it with mary, he had never discussed it with the children, at all. they did not know that it existed.

>> they could not find anything to connect to stun gun to the crime but. it was our. they also took his computers of course, and sense dave did volunteer work at a local church. they seized the church computer to. even cuffed him outside of his house, in full view of local television cameras. which were now buzzing around endlessly, asking, did you do it? >> but the last time, no. i'm getting tired of answering that question. no means no. but a fools at the hanford police department don't seem to understand that. they are on a witch hunt, that's what's going, and they're on a witch hunt. >> whatever they were on, they could not find the evidence to arrest him. dave remained a freeman, something that made his own son, conrad, very nervous. >> my suspicion was going stronger and stronger. >> conrad had already told police about the night after he discovered his mom was missing. when he signs that sharing a

bottle of wine with his girlfriend. >> they open, it and toasted, and had went out on the patio with cheese and crackers. i didn't want to jump to conclusions. but at the time at thought, my father and his coffin have really poor taste. >> conrad and dave spent that summer on the outs. it was after quite some time of not getting along terribly well. and in august 2006, two months after his mother's disappearance. child protective services took 16 year old conrad to a foster home. >> there were just a few altercations that we had, kind of like what my mom had gone through. >> investigators talked many times to david's girlfriend, mary. and eventually this exchange occurred. >> has he ever verbalized to you at all how much he hated the woman. >> absolutely. >> what did he say? >> i'm not gonna stop until that [bleep] [bleep] is dead. numerous times. >> a moment? well maybe, not quite. >> did you ever think he was

serious? >> no, early on i thought, he's never gonna stop till she's dead. meaning he's going to go on his whole life. no, never in my life what i think he would kill her. ever. >> so it all seemed quite suspicious. in fact, most people in town seem to have made up their minds about dave hawk. but one of them was not the dea. >> they kept pushing, and pushing. and we kept sitting back. >> the cops have it wrong? dave hawks longtime pastor thought so. >> coming up! >> this person who is portrayed as such a monster, just simply is not. >> another side of an accused killer. when dateline continues! when dateline continues! i'm gonna pull over and stretch my legs. i think you were supposed to keep left there. hmm? what is this place? the other side of the rest stop. bundles as far as the eye can see. if you're looking for a first mate, i know a guy. me. i'm the guy. is this oak? [ sniffs ]

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with a look at what is happening. israel has started to withdraw troops from the militant stronghold in the west bank. 13 palestinians and one israeli soldier were killed in the today military operation in the

occupied territory. israeli officials claim that the operations aim was to destroy and confiscate weapons. and the weather cleared in time for the annual macy's fourth of july fire show in new york city. one of many dazzling displays to celebrate americas birthday. now back to the line! ck to the line >> welcome back to dateline. i'm craig melvin. even though investigators looking into the homicide of debbie hawk, had no physical evidence tying her husband dave to the crime. they did uncover some information about possible financial wrongdoing on his part. police considered it's strong enough to warrant an arrest. but could they get the prosecutor to agree? here with more of our story is keith morrison. >> they kept pushing, and pushing. and we kept sitting back. >> the prosecutor at the time, larry crouch, told his

investigators that he would not charge dave hawk with the murder of his ex-wife, debbie. even after it was obvious this popular single mother had been murdered, even after months of searching around hanford, california turned up no sign of her anywhere, and after police had convinced themselves that dave was responsible. prosecutor larry crouch would not budge. not yet anyway. >> we are going to wait until we find the body, or give the body more time to come up. >> instead, a year after debbie vanished, they've was charged with embezzling. stealing more than $300,000 from his own children's trust funds. he pleaded not guilty, was released on bail. and waited for the other shoe to drop. now, imagine this, the police, not to mention most of the town believe that their father killed their mother. leaving three children caught in the middle.

conrad had no doubt that his dad killed his mom. a death he began referring to as dave. >> i tried to cut all ties that i had with him as much as i could. he was nothing to be now. >> but chelsa, has been, and it, is her father's staunchest defender. >> why do you think that your siblings have chose the other path? >> i think that they are just very upset about what happened. and their relationship was not as close to my dad. they were either not home, or not awake, when i was awake. and they were not around him the next day like i was around him. >> chelsa says that dave was asked-ing perfectly normal. after whatever happened, it happened. no odd behavior. nothing to suggest that he was up all night committing a terrible crime. >> so the things that convinced me of his innocence, aren't there to convince them. i think that they are defending

my mom so much so that they're going to point to the most obvious suspect. >> but chelsa wasn't the only one in the small town who believed that dave hawk was innocent. >> i believe what he says, that he had nothing to do with her disappearance. and presume death. >> sandy brown is dave's longtime pastor and friend. >> this person who is portrayed as such a monster just simply is not. he is a man who has worked hard in the church. he is a good father. >> as their son prepared to face serious financial charges, dave's parents took over custody of chelsea and savannah. not the way that they expected to spend their 80s. anymore than they expected to have to defend their son. >> well, he has made some mistakes, but nothing of the scope that is generally expected in the community. >> stan establishments trust for his grandchildren. and says that they've had the

right to use the money how he saw fit to benefit the children. >> were you surprised to discover how it was used? >> yes. apparently his financial situation was worse than i knew. >> a year passed in this gossipy limbo. now it was may 2008. nearly two years after debbie's disappearance, her body still had not been found. and there was no new evidence tying dave to her murder. but prosecutor larry crouch heard disquieting reports from his investigators. >> dave starts surveilling our office the. police officers. eventually starts driving by, and investigators home. it was getting pretty concerning out there. >> time to move. on may 29th, 2008, dave hawk was arrested. and charged with first degree murder. and a special circumstance, murder for financial gain. he pleaded not guilty. when the trial finally began more than a year later.

dave faced murder, and the earlier embezzlement charges together. prosecutor, hey larry crouch, offered the jury this theory. that dave snuck out of his house in the middle of the night. without waking his sleeping children. maybe even used a ladder to get out of the window. and got someone to give him a writer davies house. and entered her bedroom. >> i think he tried the stun gun on her and she screamed very loudly. then he struck her with something. more than months. and at that point, i'm assuming that he suffocated her. >> then, said the prosecutor, he must've dragged debbie to the garage, put her in her own van, disposed of her somewhere. then drove the van to -- and went back to the crimes son. how did he get back home? the detective says that the friend muscle picked him up, and drove him back to his farm. but really, there was nobody, no dna, no forensic evidence to

show that they've had been at the murder scene. everybody in town had a theory, apparently the prosecutor did to. but is that proof? >> so the state tried to build a bridge from dave's alleged financial crimes to the murder. painting him as an evil man, who decided to eliminate his ex-wife when he knew his misuse of the trust funds was about to be exposed. enough? well, we shall see. >> there is a number of other explanations for what could have happened, other than dave. dave was that convenient ex-husband. >> coming up! one of his children is convinced that he is not guilty. but could they've help convince a jury? >> i told him i wanted to help testify. >> when dateline continues! ne continues non-drowsy claritin-d. knocks out your worst allergy symptoms including nasal congestion. without knocking you out. feel the clarity and make today the most

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in this case was just stacked against us. stacked against dave hawk. >> at least in the harsh court of public opinion. it looked bad for dave hard, as his murder trial approach in hanford, california. dennis peterson, and mark coleman, where dave's attorneys. >> we have this guy, allegedly stealing from his kids, saying bad things about a sympathetic victim, and all these things being widely played in the press. >> if there ever was a case for

change of venue, this must be, at said the defendant. after all almost everyone seems to have heard the accusations about dave. and every time he had a court appearance, purple clad friends of debbie flooded into the gallery. in fact, during jury selection, said coleman, he actually heard some jurors tell the judge that they had already decided that dave hawk was guilty. >> the judge asked him, if i order you to set those opinions aside, can you do it. well, i guess so. >> still, the defense application for a change of venue was denied. as was the defense request to separate the financial charges from the murder charge. the defense had argued the embezzlement accusations were unfairly prejudicial. >> they wanted to make him look like a bad person, a person who would take money from his kids. would be likely to murder his ex-wife. >> in fact, the prosecution would say that dave sphere that debris was about to reveal in

open court his theft of the kids trust funds was a powerful motive for murder. >> but the fact of the matter was, that was already exposed. it had already been filed in open declarations in court. >> you mean, he would've gained nothing by getting rid of her at that stage. >> no. >> we also have that great old american saying, if it walks like a duck, and cracks like a duck, it's probably a dark. but you're saying it's a turkey. >> the burden is on them to prove it's a duck. in this case, they did not. >> no, the defense argued that the prosecution had absolutely no evidence that dave even left his house the night that debris was abducted. and presumably murdered. in fact, his daughter chelsa insisted that he could not have left the house without her having heard him. >> that just does not seem at all possible. >> and even though investigators were tell the court that the kids slept so soundly it was hard to wake them up when they went to see them one morning. that offense claims that the prosecution theory of what

happened just did not add up. >> that's just beyond belief that somebody would take that kind of a risk. that he would sneak down the hallway, open the door, drive the ten or 12 miles over to debbie hawks house, subdue her, bludgeoned her, load her into the van, drive it to fresno, and then get back to his house without getting any blood on him, but without being discovered. >> so what did happen to debbie hawk? the defense loaded this theory. debbie worked in pharmaceutical sales. perhaps a drug addict had gone after the sample that she kept in her van. >> all of the pharmaceuticals in her van were missing, somebody took them. >> but that was a ludicrous idea, countered the prosecution. debbie carried very few samples. and anyway, if drug theft was behind it, why did the thieves take any jewelry or electronics? no, it all seemed to come down to dave. his behavior, his character,

his own words. like the conversation with a friend that the police recorded. in which they've stuck elated on what might have happened to debbie. the defense played it in court as an unguarded indication that they've had no idea what happened. >> i tell you, if i was at all a bad day. i'd go throw somebody of a bridge. that's what i do, believe it or not, i toss them in and float them downstream. and that go away. >> he basically offered that, you, know i don't think she's ever going to be found. >> did it work? listen to prosecutor larry crouch. >> you're going, oh no, why did they put that in? i thought it was harmful. >> though what the jury thought, no one could say. then there was inevitably, a conversation about whether or not they would testify. >> i told them i wanted to testify. >> an idea that dave's attorneys did not like one bit. >> dave is a combative individual. he's very prideful, he's offended easily. >> he thinks he's smart, and he

hates for anybody to think that he is not smart. he would be perfect father for a trained prosecutor. >> so dave held his tongue in court, he saved his story for us. >> so you do not think that they had any useful evidence against do at all? >> can anybody name anything? >> coming up! dave hawk speaks out. and so does the jury. >> we, the jury, find the defendant, david martin hawk. >> when dateline continues! dateline continues new emergen-c crystals pop and fizz when you throw them back. and who doesn't love a good throwback? [sfx: video game sound] new emergen-c crystals. throw it back.

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with no physical evidence tying david hogg to the crime scene. his defense attorneys tried to poke holes in what they saw as a purely circumstantial case. would this be enough to sway the jury? here with the conclusion of our story, is keith morrison. >> dave hawk, on trial for the murder of his ex-wife, debbie, did not testify. did not tell the members of the jury what he was thinking, but he had a sinking feeling that he knew what they were thinking. >> blame the ex-husband first. >> it was an awesome problem, as he saw, having been for the day that his ex-wife debbie had disappeared in a trail of her own blood. the number one suspect was him, that's what the police had been saying all along, and that's

what apparently what a great number of people thought in california. even as he sat here as a defendant in a murder case. even though,. >> i did not have the motive, or the capacity. >> you know how it could be, said dave, once you get it in your head that you did something, they will misinterpret everything to make you look guilty. >> i was home with my children. in another town, all night. but i am being accused of being in another place, committing a terrible crimes based on financial shenanigans that did not exist in the first place. >> shenanigans, like for example, that trust funds for his kids. the father made the terms very, broadside dave, so he could spend the money that he saw fit, in any way that would benefit the children. >> the money is to be used for theâfor the health, education, support, and maintenance of the children. and that's exactly

what it was used for. and i acted legally in that respect. >> and then, since they didn't have any evidence against him, said dave, prosecutors made a case based on misinterpreting things he said. like the time he said to a friend, if i was a bad guy, i would throw somebody off of the bridge. >> my point was that they have not looked for her. if somebody had thrown her of a bridge, it would have floated downstream. they did not look anywhere. >> so did you throw her off the bridge? >> [laughter] no i did not throw anybody off of a bridge. >> they also made a huge deal about something he supposedly said to his girlfriend about debbie. >> dave said, you know we won't be rid of that [bleep] until she's dead. >> i might have, but i do not remember that. and that certainly does not mean that i'm going to go kill somebody. >> and then there was his own son conrad, who, after all,

believed he was guilty, and told police he saw dave and girlfriend mary share a celebratory toast after debbie's disappearance. conrad, said dave, just didn't get it. >> whenever we open a bottle of wine, we always raised our glasses and say chairs. it is just a tradition. we were not toasting anybody anything. >> why have you never been able to persuade conrad of your innocence? >> i do not know, he knows that i was at home the whole time, never left, didn't have any involvement in anything illegal. but he's perhaps angry and needs to fill in the blanks with something. >> well, maybe he's angry at his dad because his dad killed his mom. >> his dad didn't kill his mom. >> he thinks so, though. >> he could be wrong.

>> so who did kill debbie? dave has an opinion about that, too. who else wanted her dead? >> maybe the boyfriend that wa stalking her. >> stalking her? >> this is somebody who was reported to the police and the police swept it under the rug, apparently. was an ex boyfriendâ >> of course, investigators say that they did look into that, and other leads to. but they all came back to dave. and one primary motive. so, some cross-examination. the prosecutor said you killed your ex-wife because she is going to expose your embezzlement of the kids trust funds. >> they say a lot of things. >> when she, for example, upgrade your father was going to find out what you were doing with that money from the trust fund? the father who lovingly put the money into the trust fund before you kind of siphoned it out? >> i really don't like the way you're characterizing these things. i really don't like the way the prosecutor has accused

may of -- >> whether you like it or not. those are the accusations. >> yeah, and they're not right. they are wrong, they are false. which part did you not understand? >> what part did i not understand? what i understand is that you bought a 27,000 dollar car using trust fund money. you took a trip to hawaii with your girlfriend. you paid off your divorce attorneys fees, and money you took from the first set of trust by taking $60,000 of the kids second trust fund. >> money was used for the children. >> which child drove the lexus? >> all three people were driven in the lexus. >> which child winter hawaiian big john. >> perhaps that money was my own money. prosecutor never bothered to figure out what dollar went where, did they? >> well you made it kind of hard for them. because you're mixing up the trust fund money, and your

money all the time. and frankly, that's what scott artist to. >> i am not a scam artists. >> why did you go get it? >> i had a job. >> i'm talking a job that actually paid enough to support your family, which is what it dead does. >> you're reading from a script that the prosecutor has given you apparently. because none of these things are true. >> a guilty man? or not? the jury did not take very long to decide. >> we the jury find defendant david martin hawk guilty of the murder of debbie hawk. >> guilty of murder and nine financial crimes. dave hawk was sentenced to spend the rest of his life behind bars. but, was that the end of this story? not in the least. his defence attorney appealed the case as high as he could, even trying to the supreme court. which decline review. then, in march 2016, ten years after debbie hawk disappeared,

a farmhand found her remains in a field in a neighboring town where they've grew up. debbie's father, bud triadis had a dying wish, that she be found befor ehe passed away. he left this earth just a week after that discovery. and the children who held opposing views about their father's innocence-- >> it's complicated. yep. >> has this created a rift between the two of you? >> yes. >> surely not easy going, the children of dave and debbie hawk-- >> well we did the best we can. >> that's all for this edition of dateline, thank you for watching. ou for watching >> hello, i'm andrea canning, and this is dateline. a doctor's wife dies after a minor fender bender. so why do her brothers believed this was no accident? >> so i pulled my brother out