Maybe someone shannon met online wasnt what he seemed. Now you know that john wilson is not the person you see on the screen . Correct. A confounding case. Smart people have made some elementary mistakes the. That would lead from the wide word of the internet to the darkness of a single human heart. I jumped up and i screamed. I screamed. Im lester holt, and this is dateline. Tonight, a cold december morning. Heres keith morrison. Reporter december 1st, 2011, one of those days that make teeth chatter, joints creek, raw, damp, dismal. Austin starbuck, then 21 years old, was nearing the end of his shift at a glass installation shop in deer park, washington, half an hour north of spokane, when his cell phone chirped, text message. From logan. Reporter logan, his younger sister at school. I remember she said, im cold, come pick me up. Reporter but where was their mother . Wasnt she supposed to be there . Austin dutifully collected his sibling as the cold gray afternoon darkened. Nobody answer her phone. I had no way of getting in. I took her to my dads house where we had a key. Reporter evening came, the kids called the cell, not afraid. More like irritated. It had happened by then, of course. Though as the children bedded down at their fathers house, they never guessed it, wouldnt understand for days. That everything about life was different now, that nothing made any sense at all. Unbelief. Was unbelief. Reporter a friend named summer starks put the words to it, so impossible that she of all people. It was hard to wrap your mind around that it had occurred. Reporter but apparently it was possible. Shannon starbuck, mother of five, was dead, dead in a way that made skin crawl. She had been so many things, mother, artist, woman on the brink of something new. Shaning was funny, she was vivacious. She liked to joke around and have a good time. But classy. Always very, very classy. Reporter the two older sons austin and blake remember how she stood out, even if it embarrassed them a little sometimes. She would embroider our names and numbers on all the Baseball Team our Baseball Team, all our hats. The only team with our name and numbers on the back of our hats. Reporter shannon tried to stitch her deep mormon faith into their lives, too. How was she with the kids . I wouldnt hesitate saying she was a good mother. Reporter this is their dad, Clay Starbuck who was a boy on vacation from alaska when he laid eyes on her in florida 20 years earlier. Cold and hot worlds colliding. I told her that i lived in alaska. She probably thought she was lucky that she wouldnt see me again. I dont know how that. Reporter but she did. They married within months and settled in alaska where clay worked on the pipeline, started a family right away. And there were issues. Arent there always . Clay wasnt interested in church, not the way she was. She wanted you to be there. Yeah, i couldnt. I couldnt meet her there. It is a big issue. And im not sitting here saying i was right and it had to be my way or she was wrong. Thats not an issue at all. We were different. Reporter they divorced in 2000, hot and cold. Theyd lasted ten years that time. Yes, that time. Full of hope and good will, they tried again in 2006, they remarried, moved to washington state, set up a house in deer park. And from there clay commuted up to his job in alaska, which meant he had to be gone weeks at a time. So when he came home the kids and i were about playing catch, playing frisbee, playing basketball. Reporter having fun . Yeah. So it wasnt uncommon to i know shannon said it several times. Make reference to me being a disneyland dad. And her eyes that probably that probably was true because she was making dinners and taking care of the kids and trying to maintain the house. Reporter though it was up and down, good and bad. Shannon and i never fully recovered. Reporter it was 2010 when they filed for divorce the second time. They decided to live apart, but close to each other. He got a house near shannon. The two eldest boys, austin and blake, chose to live with him, the three youngest stayed with their mom. They saw their dad a lot, especially during the last months of 2011. Clay was on disability, a back injury, he was home. His income vastly reduced, but at least able to share parenting like swapping days for taking the kids to and from school. Id go over and pick up the kids and take them to school and sometimes shed pick them up and take them back. And we just, you know, it just worked out. Reporter or at least it did until that dismal afternoon, december 1st, 2011, the day shannon failed to show up after school. Mind you, they werent worried, said clay, they all knew shannon had started dating again, so maybe she went out, lost track of time. A mixup. So my thoughts werent that anything serious happened to her. Reporter you thought she was with a guy. I thought she was with a guy. I thought it just probably went late, theyre having a good dinner. Reporter but the next day, one of the kids texted grandmother shannons mother in florida, had she heard from their mother . She had not. And that was alarming. I text shannon. And i never got anything back. And i called, and her phone box was full. And i knew something was wrong. Reporter she felt the panic rise in her throat, called shannons sister amy and brother steven. She said it was very unlikely that shannon wouldnt return her calls. Because they spoke every day. They talked every single day. 9 00. They knew everything that was going on in each others lives. So mom continually tried to contact shannon, tried talking to the kids, finding out what was going on. Reporter clay called the cops, asked them to check shannons house. That was december 2nd in the evening. So its, you know, find her. Reporter sheriffs deputies went over there had a good look around outside and left. But shannons family in florida insisted something was wrong, had to be. And shannons friend summer said shed never not pick up her kids at school, then ignore their calls. I knew that she doted on her kids. She loved them. Reporter it was saturday morning before shannons mother got through to the Sheriffs Office, and a deputy met shannons landlord, got him to open up the house. Two deputies went inside and right away radioed for backup. They had found shannon. She was dead, her body on her bed and displayed in such a way that detectives knew her killer had more than just murder on his mind. A crime scene right out of a tv cop show, one that would raise more questions than it answered. As would a tip from someone close to shannon. He said look at her phone in her computer. It will tell you what you need to know. Oh my goodnewhat is a wetjet . Some kind of a mopping device. Theres a lot of dirt on here. 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[ mini ] yeehaw uhoguess what day it is is . . Huh. Anybody . Julie hey. Guess what day it is . . Ah come on, i know you can hear me. Mike Mike Mike Mike mike. What day is it mike . Ha ha ha ha ha ha leslie, guess what today is . Its hump day. Whoot whoot ronny, how happy are folks who save hundreds of dollars switching to geico . Id say happier than a camel on wednesday. Hump day yay get happy. Get geico. Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more. Flashing lights, squad cars violated the peaceful neighborhood in deer park, washington. Something big going down at Chanin Starbucks house. Tladz bunheres a bunch of c scene tape and detectives outside her house. Reporter when chanins son blake drove up to the street where his mother lived, he stopped cold. It was obvious something bad had happened because it was like the whole yard was blocked off. Reporter the awful news was beginning to spread beyond the nowcrowded street. When chanins friend summer starks heard, all she could think of was those kids. Do they know . Do they know whats happened . They dont know they just lost their mother, they just lost their mom. Reporter and thousands of miles away in florida, chanins brother steven heard it first from the local sheriff and phoned his younger sister. So i called amy and told amy, you need to meet me at moms. And she could tell something was wrong, and she started crying immediately. I knew. So i hightailed it to moms. We walked in together. And he broke the news. Looked at mom and told her she was gone. And i just backed up, and i screamed, no no. It cant be true. But she was, she was gone. Reporter the detectives did not provide the ugly details, didnt tell anybody about that at first. That chanin had been left mostly naked on her bed posed pornographically with a sex toy, and before she took her last breath sheriffs detective mike rickets knew she suffered. She was strangled. I believe she was tortured. And she was beat badly. Reporter inconceivable. Why would anyone do such a thing . And why her when she was just starting over in life . After she and clay called it quitses that second time in 2010, she went back to school to become a dental assistant. She presented herself in a very modest, a very conservative family woman sort of way. Reporter these are chanins classmates. They looked up to her as sort of a cross between a den mother and an extrafun older sister. Shes like the epitome of what you would expect of a dental assistant. Her big beautiful teeth and her mag nam muss laugh and just the smile. I can still hear her laugh. Still love it. Very approachable. Reporter busy as she was, said her school friend, she always seemed to have time for well, anyone who needed her. She was very strong, to be able to do that. Because thats a very hard program. Reporter sure. Especially with children. With a family to attend to, and she was top of the class, which did she graduate honors or something . Reporter yes, she did. An excellent student with finally some prospects of her own. Her ex, clay, said he was happy about that. We were looking forward to her achieving her independence. Our whole family was. Reporter including you . Absolutely. Reporter but here was the strange thing. It seemed to her friends that chanin was in some sort of crisis in the months before her death. She was upbeat one minute, distraught the next. Shes not public. She doesnt want her business known everywhere. Reporter there arent that many of those people left these days. But like we would come into school, come in for class in the morning and wed see her crying in her truck. Reporter was it her exhusband, her kids or maybe some new man . There were one or two new men, that is. And a couple times id ask her if she was dating. She showed me a picture of this one guy, her friend, that they would chat. Reporter met them online, said chanin. Her friend summer starks was the one that encouraged her to get out there again. I tried to set her up, but it didnt work out. I said why dont you go date . Just go out. Reporter nothing serious, though. Not yet. Maybe she was finally having some fun. I thought it would have been great if she could have just focused on a little portion of herself, you know, a little bit, yeah. She deserved that. Reporter of course she did. And her love life wouldnt have been anybody elses business if it hadnt been for what happened, but now detectives went digging into hidden places. People she saw in private, things she did she might not want the world to know. If there were secrets, and though there were, they were about to be exposed. Coming up one of those secrets was right here on the dead womans cell phone. There was a text message to chanin asking her to pose in a specific way. The pose . What investigators had seen before at the crime scene. 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So they can run the office. Even when theyre not in the office. Where do you want to take your business . Call us. We can show you how at t solutions can help you do what you do. Even better. If there is such a thing as a fate worse than death, then certainly someone seemed to intend that Chanin Starbuck met one. Lee detective mike rickets. Chanin starbuck was there posed on her bed in a manner to bring disrespect to her. Reporter though Chanin Starbuck was blessedly beyond embarrassment, her family and friend, as you can well imagine, were not. She had so much going for her for it to all end like that and way it ended. She did not deserve that at all. She did not deserve that, whatsoever. Im appalled that she was found that way, you know . Awful, and its embarrassing for her. Im embarrassed for her. It makes me mad. Reporter who could be so cruel . Well, of course, its the homicide detectives job to figure that out. It could mean many things, it could mean somebody very close to her that was very upset and angry with her, or it could mean somebody else. Reporter the investigation began the very day chanins body was found. As luck would have it, among those just beyond the Yellow Police tape that night was a man that police surely would have looked up sooner or later, didnt have to. Chanins exhusband clay was clearly looking for them. What was going on, he wanted to know. His exwife was missing. Was she okay. He was asking to talk to the lead detective, he wanted some answers. Reporter First Responders at the scene wouldnt tell them anything about what was found inside the house, not even that chanin was dead. An exhusband after all is no longer next of kin. So clay went down to the sheriffs station where he met detective jim dressback. Come in, we need to have a chat. His response was, well, your jacket says major crimes. Whats going on . Nobody will tell me anything. Reporter the detective broke the news, chanin was gone. Waited for clay to collect himself. And then i start by asking him very simple things. Give me a little bit about chanins history. Is she on medication, does she have any enemies . You know . And what i ask everybody in that wags is what do you think happened. He asked me do you know anybody who wants to harm her, do you know when she was seen, do you know when were you over there . When did you see her last . Do you have any idea of these things . Reporter clay recalled telling the detective he knew his wife had been dating again. In fact, he was pretty sure that chanin had a profile on a website that caters to mormon singles. I say, well, last i knew she was there was lds planet website, and i dont know. I dont have any idea who shes seeing. Youd need to look or talk to somebody else. Reporter they would talk to plenty of others. That was just day one in the investigation. As a logical step in a case like this, the ex himself would have to be checked out thoroughly. But right then the detective had no more for Clay Starbuck. I said well talk to you again later. Why dont you go talk to your kid. Reporter even as he left the station, the detectives recalled, Clay Starbuck seemed eager to help. He told jim dressback look at her phone and her computer. It will tell you what you need to know. Reporter no detective worth his salt needed to be told that. Chanin starbucks cell phone was right there in the bedroom. Couldnt miss it, said detective Lyle Johnston. The phone was sitting on a table right next to her bed just a couple of feet from her body. Reporter like shed just been using it or something. Correct. I wanted to look at the cell phone right away because it would tell us who she may have been in contact with last. Reporter there was a text message from clay from thursday morning telling chanin he had car trouble, asking her to take the kids to school. Then later some exchanges about who would pick them up. Not terribly interesting stuff except that wasnt all they found on Chanin Starbucks phone and the what else that was there was very interesting. She had had communications with at least two other men. It appeared that she was planning on meeting with one or two of them. Reporter now, that got the detectives attention. Then it fairly jumped at them, a particular text, a request, very specific, is very plexplicit on there was a text message to chanin asking her to pose a specific way. Reporter the hair rose on rick ets neck. That was almost exactly the way the killer posed chanins body. A coincidence . The detective had to think it was anything but. Coming up investigators look hard at two men chanin 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 persons website, a doctor who lived in new york city. Who was this mystery man . 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