tv Dateline MSNBC September 15, 2024 12:00am-1:00am PDT
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still, says summer starks, it seemed almost like a joke ou before chanin starbuck wa murdered, she told her friends and family that her ex-husband clay had been controlling. still, says sommer, it seemed like a joke the first time chanin wondered out loud if clay may try to hurt her. >> i told her, quick being dramatic. she was kind of being a drama queen. that's ridiculous. i said that only happens in the movies or on dateline. said you are so full of it. >> but, according to sommer, 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 and didn't give the kids a key. telling friends, she was afraid clay would find a way to steal a copy. >> she was vocal about her fear that he would kill her. >> hardly surprising that with
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but a sinister spin and everything police observed about clay. starting with the first police and direction the day chanin's body was discovered. the detective that something was off. the moment clay arrived at the station, and he told clay the news. >> he goes, what happened to my wife? i said, she's dead. his knees buckled and everything became histrionic, crying and wailing. that was okay for a while, but it became ridiculous. >> ridiculous? >> it became ridiculous. >> even more ridiculous and suspicious so the detective is when clay told he was free to go, didn't. >> then i couldn't get rid of him. >> he kept wanting to talk? >> he kept telling me the same thing over and over again. look on her phone. look on her computer. that will tell you everything. >> it's suspicious to you but it's not really evidence? >> it is circumstantial but
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suspicious to me. >> which meant on day one, clay needed to be checked out but good. they began with this alibi for that december morning. remember, 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 1 walking between his home and the spot the car broke down. about one mile away. >> he told me he had to go back and forth to his residence four times a day to work on his car and get tools. to eat and take a nap. >> but the detectives could find any long along that route who remembered seeing him. another odd thing. his cell phone was off for several hours. no pings to trace but in the area he 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
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pointed in the direction they remembered clay telling them he walked. no sign up clay as far as they could tell. >> there is no indication he passed by there that day. >> what did you think when you saw that? >> i thought he was lying. >> one statement that looked like a lie. a complete of overdue child support entails of alleged threatening behaviors which 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 24, 2012, when i obtained the initial dna report. >> they submitted several samples from chanin's body for dna testing. they thought the most important thing would be from her neck were she was strangled and her fingernails as she fought of her attacker. some of the samples came back
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labeled unknown. it didn't match any of the known suspects. some other of the dna material could be narrowed down to a very small pool of candidates. starbuck, male. >> clay starbuck, austin starbuck, or blake starbuck. >> dna didn't lie, after all. detectives were now convinced a starbuck male killed chanin. but which one? was a possible one of chanin's own sons killed her? not a chance so the detective. >> we obtained records that indicated they were at work and at school. we eliminated them as suspects. >> only one man left standing for now. but not for long. two months after they found the body of chanin starbuck, they arrested clay and charged him with murder. it was the moment chanin's
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siblings and mother had been waiting for. >> one clay was arrested it was a big relief. >> we felt as though clay should've been arrested right off the bat. >> i knew he was the one that murdered her. >> it was a victory for the detectives too. came at a terrible price. >> i didn't want to be clay starbuck. i didn't want to take those children's father from the. >> their five children still in shock over their mother's death now had another blow to absorbed. shana's brother was especially worried about the three youngest in the family. >> that means a have no guardian. we all decided it would be best that we tried to get custody of the kids and get them out of that situation. >> 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.
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or, their dad. >> it is hard to grieve over our mother when we are fighting for 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 of different lifestyles. her church lifestyle, online dating lifestyle. >> the things we could find and confirm were not normal dating relationships. most of those can be confirmed they were only sexual in nature. now potential suspects, when "dateline" continues. ♪♪ stay ahead of your moderate-to-severe eczema. and show off clearer skin and less itch with dupixent, the #1 prescribed biologic by dermatologists and allergists,
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non-drowsy relief. (psst psst) flonase. all good. starbuck-- keith morrison: at first the arrest of clay starbuck for the murder of his ex-wife chanin seemed to be playing out with all the predictability at first, the arrested clay starbuck for the murder of a six chanin, seem to be playing out with the predictability of a well-worn movie plot. in hindsight, it seems so obvious that chanin's close friends and family. >> we knew clay killed her because he had been stalking her and causing her so much grief. we knew what he did to her. >> you might be surprised to hear the starbuck children were not buying any of it.
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you believe that your dad is in the sent? >> yes. >> there's no way he could have done this? the only witnesses with ringside seats to their long- running drama where their five kids. those kids, every single one including the three youngest rally to their father's defense. >> he is a nice, caring, loving person. why would you kill your ex-wife? that you still love and leave all your five children parentless. >> yes, so often what a family looks like depends on who is doing the looking. the kids? other lives they said it was their father who was the long- suffering one and not their mother. they said their mother chanin
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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 of this he would say he loved her. i remember through this last divorce, he would say no matter what he could forgive her and take her back. >> the older boy said it was obvious to them that the case against their dad was a frame up from start to finish. >> there's no physical evidence. >> there were a couple of times i laughed out loud reading what they had said and how ridiculous the story is they put together of what he did and how he did it. >> none of it, they said, beginning with the dna evidence they found incriminating that the male starbuck dna? they said it likely came from
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one of them. it couldn't have come from the youngest. he learned in the process that he was not clay's biological son. was conceived during a relationship chanin had after their first divorce. murder exposes all kinds of secrets. >> the evidence they have is trace dna. it's like i touch you on the hand. it is that small. >> there is starbuck dna. >> that's in the house. >> we all live there and my dad lived there months before this happened. there is hair everywhere and sweat. >> the kids coming back and forth from our house to her house. >> according to the children, their father was essentially a victim of a marital profiling. a suspect simply because husbands and ex-husbands of murder victims are always
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suspects. if not for the bias they said, the investigators would've found the real murderer. >> the evidence is shoddy. >> and there's other possible suspects, they said. take blake's theory. not after the arrest, there were reports of a man named israel keys. arrested for murdering a coffee barista in alaska and later admitted he killed many more people and some in washington state. a serial killer. his family hailed from a town just a few miles from chanin's house. why would you think it was him? >> because he is killed over 10 women. he admitted to four in washington. he was arrested a month after my dad who he wouldn't have been on the radar then. >> a serial killer? maybe. this is the biggest reason they don't believe their father was
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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 eight. >> she lived a couple different lifestyles, church lifestyle, home lifestyle and online dating lifestyle. >> to hear the kids tell it, their mom known as a prim and proper homemaker, a risky and risky personal life. a secret from even her closest friends and family. impossible to hide from them, the kids. >> it wasn't normal online dating. it wasn't like she met a guy and would be with him for three or five months to a year at a time. she was with them for a short visit. onto the next one. >> was a true? sitting in jail, clay told his public defenders the same thing he said to the sheriff's detectives.
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look at her phone. look at her computer. >> the things we were able to find and confirm on the laptop or not normal dating relationships. it was sexual relationships and most of those relationships can be confirmed they were only sexual in nature. >> explicitly so. >> yes. >> evidence of trips to meet, but did not know in person until she made herself vulnerable to them. these strangers. >> several men. i don't think we can even give a number of the amount, at least email addresses. >> two, three, 10, 15? >> 10 would be a minimum, i would say. >> we tried to keep it as close to the incident as possible. in november, 2011, we can verify
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at least 10 men she was communicating with electronically. most of which she had met one- on-one. we can verify that. >> every one of them a possible suspect. at least, that is what claimant ski public defenders thought. investigators had run down leads from chanin's phone, the lawyer said. that crack team of detectives didn't follow up on any of the potential leads from her laptop. >> it was there. >> they swapped it. think, at some point, somebody suspected something. i'm not quite sure what they didn't follow up. >> isn't this a smokescreen because the evidence is pretty clear that clay starbuck's alibi doesn't hold up. the alibis of others do. >> the alibis of the ones they looked into. >> armed with the evidence
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found on the computer alone, the defense attorneys were confident they would instill any jury, at the least, starbuc were giddy with anticipation that soon dad would be coming home to stay. >> i know he didn't do it. we need to fight for his innocence and 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 here's a prediction once made about chanin. >> he said, i wouldn't be surprised if we found her dead with her throat slit open. oat .
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every trial for murder has this simple question at its core, whose version of the truth will the jury believe? every trial for murder has this simple question at its core. whose version of the truth will the jury be lead? and in the case of chanin starbuck, the two competing realities could not have stood in stark contrast. >> we've been waiting over a year for this moment. >> i guess you could say i am on a mission. i want him put away. >> the divided family couldn't have been farther apart in the small 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-
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suffering ex-wife. the defense? prepared to argue that chanin herself recklessly corded 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 was the only thing they could turn chanin into was this awful person. >> she was not a sexual deviant. she wasn't running around sleeping with everybody in deer park and spokane. >> the state argued in court by the deputy prosecutor and he began not with sex but with the other less titillating root of all evil. money. the jury heard from summer that chanin didn't have any. >> with respect to her
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financial situation, how would you define that? >> to your. >> do you know whether she had been receiving child support for spousal maintenance to mr. starbuck during that time? >> she told me she did not. >> play owed more than $9000 in back child support. eliminate the ex and his financial die with her. sometimes produces jealousy. the other age-old motive for murder. >> now a single woman, dating other men much to the chagrin and dismay of the defendant, clay starbuck. >> her newfound freedom and rage clay said the prosecution. one of the couple's friends testified that clay seemed
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unnaturally obsessed with his ex-wife's personal life. >> he gave me a litany of things about chanin, about what she was doing and how she was seeing a lot of other men. >> one of the kids teachers testified she heard clay predict something that sounded to her quite chilling. >> he said, i wouldn't be surprised if we found her dead. open. >> then the detectives who testified how it seemed to them clay was a little too eager to direct suspicion away from himself. and toward some anonymous, online lover. >> i often don't have people pushing at me so much that it pushes everything else, the other information, out. constantly pushing at me. >> jealous, resentful, and to morning of december 1, luring
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her out of the house with a funny story but a broken down car. remember, clay texted chanin, asked her to take the kids to school, then shut off his cell to avoid detection or so said the prosecutor. a killer laying the track. >> getting the children out of the house. staking out the house, entering the house. waiting for miss starbuck to return. >> they played the snippet of a 911 call. the prosecution said it confirmed the time of the attack. an expert told the jury about the dna they found on chanin's neck. >> is this match that you describe exact match to clay starbuck and the male bloodline of his family? >> yes. >> the dna had to be clay's. he had the week alibi and detectives had cleared his sons. the prosecutors called them as
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witnesses anyway. >> what time would you normally go to school? >> just after 9:00. >> on december 1, did you work that day? it would've been thursday. >> someone else investigators say was cleared by his alibi. john kenlein, the married teacher was forced to appear. admit he had been unfaithful. >> we engaged in an sexual relationship. >> he wasn't here to be shamed but testify curious messages he received from chanin's phone. messages after the 911 call. >> again, could you read that? >> did you stop by 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 believe she was dead. >> right. based on the 911 call, we
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believe she is deceased and someone is using her cell phone to communicate. >> to prove it must've been clay who sent those messages, they entered into evidence the seemingly innocuous text message around 3:00 p.m. in the afternoon. >> chanin starbuck phone to -- send a note, dad will be there in 10 minutes. >> sent marsh a no? who besides a mother with no the nickname marsh. the youngest suspect 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? >> yes, it had been an angry ex- husband killing the mother of his children, then staging the scene as a humiliating sex
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crime. premeditated murder, said the state. as evidence of his twisted state of mind, the prosecution offered this final piece to the puzzle. the detective said they found chanin's death certificate on a wall and clay's house pinned up like a trophy. >> is a reminder. she's no longer in my life. she will no longer cause me misery or pain. >> 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 submit a motive, greed, anger, obsession, and jealousy. >> and through it all, clay and his waited to tell a different story about a risky life and unsolved murder. coming up.
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>> unsolve the defense would argue because investigators blew it from the start of the crime scene. when "dateline" continues. rsv can severely affect the lungs and lower airways. but i'm protected with arexvy. arexvy is a vaccine used to prevent lower respiratory disease from rsv in people 60 years and older. rsv can be serious for those over 60, including those with asthma, diabetes, copd and certain other conditions. but i'm protected. arexvy is proven to be over 82% effective in preventing lower respiratory disease from rsv and over 94% effective in those with these health conditions. (♪♪) arexvy does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients. those with weakened immune systems may have a lower response to the vaccine.
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that strikes a blow for company facing major financial losses and reputational challenges. the first wave of polio vaccinations wrapped up in gaza with half 1 million children inoculated. concerns escalated when a 10- month-old baby was diagnosed with polio, marking the first case there in decades. >> and now back to dateline.
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had something big in his corner, bel clay starbuck on trial 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 casual encounters with people who aren't using -- >> chanin sohn children were convinced one of those men must've been her killer. >> make no mistake, there were many 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 reviewed in the laptop computer, the evidence pointing to other men chanin
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knew intimately. it was too speculative said the judge. and it was out. the jury would not hear it. the defense table, the air went out. >> i think the court was thinking we don't want to make this, to run somebody who was murdered down. unfortunately, it isn't something made up. we didn't create this. these allegations. >> clay starbucks 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. they don't even look at it. you will hear from the crime lab they intentionally swapped around the blood. >> it was a recurring theme for
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the defense. they did not test it. evidence collected not tested. under cross-examination, the detective was pilloried for making the decision. >> did you direct anyone to collect evidence from the master bathroom that would be consistent? >> no. >> have you or did you direct anyone to have -- and if there was any potential trace evidence or evidence on that, we don't know? >> we don't. >> the crime lab didn't tested. >> right. >> there was evidence that was tested. the cell phone, the one the prosecution went to great lengths to say clay used after killing chanin? >> they swap the face of the cell phone? they got dna. they got the dna and it's not his. and identified male.
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the phone doesn't have mr. starbucks dna. >> more on identified dna found on chanin's neck, where she was strangled. >> is it fair to say going back to the match that there was another contributor on the sample referenced her neck, male contributor that is not and identified? >> whose dna was that the defense asked? the presence of male mail starbuck at the crime scene was no mystery at all. not only had clay lived in that house, but the dna could have been transferred by children back and forth between parents is and marshall explains. again, only his audio could be recorded. >> do you share clothes with austin now? >> if my shirts are dirty or something i will borrow one of his shirts. i use some of blake's old sweatshirts. >> the alibi, neighbors were clay starbuck cleaned his car
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broke down testified that they did see a car matching the description parked by the side of the road. >> i seen it parked on the street. >> austin told the court that the jury should not be suspicious about clay's phone being off. >> why would he have it off? >> so he wouldn't be interrupted while he was sleeping. he had back surgery and he was asleep. >> the back surgery and the reason clay was in deer park and not working on the pipeline at the time a chanin's murder. clay was too weak said the kids. did not the physical strength to kill their mother. >> i am mom is 5'10", 180 pounds, she is not big but she's not small. >> debilitating surgery? absolutely sickly's doctor. >> he would probably be somewhat limited after surgery.
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>> austin address the so-called trophy the prosecution brought up. the death certificate supposedly hanging on clay's wall. it was actually his set austin. is the executor of her estate, he need copies of the death certificate and he wanted to keep one save where wouldn't be lost. >> where did you put that? >> and the master bedroom. the closet to use for a gun safe that was behind a locked door. >> the star defense witness? clay starbuck himself. >> mr. starbuck, you were married to miss starbuck at one time? >> yes. >> speaking and calm and deliver tones, he told the court that his back surgery had forced him out of work which is how he came to be more than $9000 behind in child support and alimony. >> i couldn't do anything about it until i went back to work. >> money was no motive said the
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defense and is for jealousy? not him. his talk of her online dating had been misconstrued. >> why did you tell people about that information? >> concerned and see if we could help her. >> some of the witnesses testified you had told them the same activity after the death of miss starbuck. >> yes, and they were interested in anything that could help in the investigation. that is why. >> clay starbuck patiently followed his lawyers lead. no slipups. >> did you kill chanin starbuck? >> no, i did not. >> when it was over, clay and his defense team felt so confident they encouraged him to talk with us about the case and something that did not come
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out in court. >> coming up. and that exclusive interview, clay says why he believes he is about to go free. >> there have been many statements that have not been true from law enforcement. >> the case was botched. ♪ ♪ have you always had trouble losing weight and keeping it off? same. discover the power of wegovy®. ♪ ♪ with wegovy®, i lost 35 pounds. and some lost over 46 pounds. ♪ ♪ and i'm keeping the weight off. wegovy® helps you lose weight and keep it off. i'm reducing my risk. wegovy® is the only fda-approved weight-management medicine that's proven to reduce risk of major cardiovascular events in adults with known heart disease and with either obesity or overweight. wegovy® shouldn't be used with semaglutide or glp-1 medicines. don't take wegovy®
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i think it's a great product. it's going to help a lot of patients. dude? dog food in the fridge? it's not dog food. it's freshpet. real meat. real veggies. real weird. he was bad luck anyway. rsv can severely affect the lungs and lower airways. but i'm protected with arexvy. arexvy is a vaccine used to prevent lower respiratory disease from rsv in people 60 years and older. rsv can be serious for those over 60, including those with asthma, diabetes, copd and certain other conditions. but i'm protected. arexvy is proven to be over 82% effective in preventing lower respiratory disease from rsv and over 94% effective in those with these health conditions. (♪♪) arexvy does not protect everyone and is not for those with
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severe allergic reactions to its ingredients. those with weakened immune systems may have a lower response to the vaccine. the most common side effects are injection site pain, fatigue, muscle pain, headache, and joint pain. arexvy is number one in rsv vaccine shots. rsv? make it arexvy. on the stand, clay starbuck was one cool customer. taciturn and stoic, practically on the stand, clay starbuck was one cool customer. taciturn and stoic and practically vulcan when pressed by the prosecutor on cross-
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examination. >> are you a jealous person? >> not at all. >> do you ever get angry? >> not at all. >> miss starbuck was granted 50% of your pension. did that make you angry? >> no. >> did it bother you? >> no. >> do you think chanin starbucks killer was trying to send a message? >> i don't know. >> clay starbuck has plenty to say about his ex-wife chanin, 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 the prosecution. >> for starters the case against him is based largely on a faulting understanding of the dna evidence.
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>> it was not considered a match of dna. it was not 100% match. >> the dna found is a partial strand that can occur in nearly one and 3000 in the u.s. according to the 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? is botched a big word or is it okay? >> i would concur. i would say botched is fair game. there is smart people that meet elementary mistakes. >> even if it was his dna at the scene says clay it proves nothing. not only had he slept in that
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bed for years, he had been there since his breakup with chanin. >> i left june 2010, and was that the last time we were intimate? no. not even close. >> really? >> absolutely. >> hopes of reconciliation perhaps? 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. a long distance relationship. >> you were otherwise engaged. and he disputed the nasty stories chanin supposedly told her friends about them and wondered why detectives would listen to what he considered gossip. she was terrified of you. and she told her friends this. when she winds up dead and humiliated that way, who also the going to look at but the person she was terrified of? >> chanin's friends that you mention is made those comments
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and 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 they wouldn't chase someone down every comment made off-the- cuff. >> those were secondhand stories about clay that the jury never heard any way. is for his alibi that morning and the surveillance video that appeared to destroy it? proves nothing. the camera didn't show them on that street he said. he never told the cops that were he walked and they never asked. they didn't ask where you went? >> no. >> because they said you told them. are using their memories are bad? they are lying? >> there have been many statements that have not been true from law enforcement standpoint. >> speaking of alibis, clay said he didn't believe the time of the 911 call means anything at all. >> it was so short. >> it's a call to 911 and she
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ends up dead. the time of death makes most sense around the time. >> i don't see how any of the evidence that's been provided and statements by witnesses that anybody can make that assumption that a 911 call at a quarter after nine and her death were exactly related. >> for more than two hours a talk to us, clay starbuck remained unflappable. quite determined. i can see why he would be hard to argue with. >> actually i'm easy to argue with because i don't argue. >> that is the problem. makes you crazy. >> it doesn't make me crazy. i just don't care. >> the other person crazy. >> then i suggest you get counseling. >> never angry. never jealous. the only emotion he pleads
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guilty to is disappointment. he was disappointed he said when his youngest daughter told him about explicit images she had seen on her mother's computer. it was upsetting for you? >> it was 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 man to be with. >> 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. i haven't done anything to her and i would not kill her. >> he faltered ones. the question was about his children. what did you want to say to them all these months? >> you are going to make me get emotional so leave it as i'm very proud of them. >> it's a tough thing for kids
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to handle. >> it is. not only did they lose their mother but they lost their dad for a period of time. >> maybe forever. >> it's not going to be forever. >> clay starbuck he was confident. he was sure acquittal was days away. all he needed he said was to hear the jury say those words, not guilty. >> coming up. >> i was sick to my stomach. i was nervous. >> the verdict and the emotional fallout. nal fallout. moving in a positive direction. we all want our lives to do that. why is progress also in our name? we've always believed insurance should do more. that's why we've gifted over a thousand vehicles to veterans , funded housing programs for families in need and why we're working to make roads safer...
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without talking to your doctor. for more than two weeks here in spokane, washington discussions about the clay starbuck murder case sounded a little like political debates these days, polarized. for more than two weeks in spokane, discussion of the clay starbuck murder case sounded like little -- political debates these days. polarized. as the judge sent the jury up to deliberate. >> you will be escorted back to the deliberation room. >> the two families, mother and siblings who believed clay poison the children on one side. >> i hope they learn the truth. >> and those very children on the other. wanting nothing more than to have their father come home.
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>> i hope i 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, i know clay did this. it just takes one person not to believe that we have to start over again. >> not easy for any of them. austin, had a 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. until this moment, he had been -- >> see you soon.
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[ crying ] >> then they were all in court. there wishes on full display. the jury was back. >> has the jury reached a verdict? >> here was their decision. >> washington versus clay starbuck, the verdict form, count one reads with the jury found the defendant, mr. starbuck, guilty of the crime of premeditated murder in the 1st degree. >> guilty. his face looked like stone. something is going on inside said his lawyers. how was he when the verdict happened? >> shocked. >> he thought he was going to be acquitted? >> absolutely. >> but chanin's siblings and
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mother were vindicated. all along they believed it was him and now a jury agreed. >> as soon as the first guilty verdict was read, it was like a ton of bricks were lifted off of us. >> clay starbuck was sentenced to life in prison. weeks later, he filed an appeal. all five kids said they still believed their dad was innocent. led by austin, head of the household. way to the world on his shoulders. >> it's not over yet. he was convicted in there is appeals. there are other things we can do. >> that may be so. two years later in 2015, clay starbuck lost his appeal. >> i was relieved he was found guilty but it didn't bring me the peace i thought it would. >> justice, sometimes it feels like justice to some and not others.
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in december 2021, the starbuck family suffered another blow when 25-year-old loghan went missing. weeks later, her lifeless body was found in the spokane river. her death was ruled a suicide. and so, the wave of sorrow that began with the loss of chanin starbuck , a lovely woman, continues to ripple through though she loved best. the children. >> they were her world and no matter what happened, what was said, what has been done she loved them. she wants them to be successful and have good lives. >> she did not deserve the way her life ended on a cold december morning. mber morning. this is "dateline". i am here in pain and so hurt and so
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