Page 16 - Dave Hawk News Today

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 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 ride to debbies house and entered her bedroom. >> i t...

Mary. >> he never discussed it with mary, he never discussed it with the children at all. they did not know it existed. >> they couldnt find anything to connect the stun gun to the crime but it was odd. they also took his computers, of course. and since dave did volunteer work at a local church they seized the church computer, too. even cuffed him outside his house in full view of local television cameras which were now buzzing around endlessly asking, did you do it? >> for the last time, no. im...

That accomplice, said the prosecutor, must have picked him up and driven him the 40 miles back to his farm. but really, there was no body, no dna, no forensic evidence to show dave had even been at the murder scene. everybody in town seemed to have a theory, apparently the prosecutor did, too. but proof? so the state tried to build a bridge from daves alleged financial crimes to a murder, painting him as an evil man who decided to eliminate his ex-wife when he knew the misuse of the trust funds ...

Same way they didnt expect to defend their son. >> he made some mistakes, but nothing of the scope that is generally accepted in the community. >> stan established those trusts for his grandchildren and said dave 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 debbies disappear...

Not like one bit. >> dave is a combative individual, he is prideful, he is up ended easily. >> he thinks he is smart and hates for anyone to think he is not smart. he would be perfect fodder for a trained prosecutor. >> and so dave held his tongue in court. he saved his story for us. so you dont think they had any useful evidence against you 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 -- >>...

$1,500 he owed to his kids from the first set of trusts. but here believed the detectives was the heart of the motive for murder. debbie, if she hadnt disappeared was about to expose all that in court. >> you steal $300,000 and you are about to be exposed by it -- >> by a woman you despise? >> pretty good motive. >> certainly another piece of the puzzle. >> there is another strange piece to the puzzle. remember the mess around debbies desk, documents scattered everywhere were the records from th...

Behavior, nothing to suggest he had been up all night committing a terrible crime. >> so the things that convinced me about his innocence arent there to convince them. i think they are defending my mom so much so that its like theyre going to point to the most obvious suspect. >> chelsa isnt the only one in this small town who believes dave hawk is innocent. >> i believe what he says, that he had nothing to do with her disappearance. and presumed death. >> sandy brown is daves longtime pastor an...

>> this guy allegedly stealing from his kids, saying bad things about this 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 it, said the defense. after all, almost everybody seeped to have heard the accusations about dave and every time he had a court appearance purple clad friends of debbie crowded into the public gallery. in fact, during jury selection said attorney coleman he heard jurors tell the judge the...

Well, this was actually the second set of trusts established for the children. several years before a judge caught daves hand in the cookie jar of the first trust which listed both dave and debbie as trustees. dave was removed of trustee of those funds. during the divorce daves 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 was supposed to be several hundred thousand doll...

>> absolutely. >> what did he say? >> its not going to -- >> an aha moment? well, maybe, not quite. >> early on i thought he is never going to stop until shes dead. it is going to go on his whole life. i never in my life thought he would kill her. never. >> it seemed quite suspicious. most people in town seemed to have made up their minds about dave hawk, but one of them was not the d.a. >> we kept pushing and pushing and we kept sitting back. >> did the cops have it wrong? dave hawks longtime p...