Page 18 - David Saacks News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

This little smirky look on her face. she's very cocky, like she knew she was going to get off. no remorse. she didn't feel she had done anything. >> they had only been engaged for two months. >> reporter: assistant d.a. david saacks, an experienced, savvy prosecutor, would now square off against a younger court-appointed defense attorney named scott holmes. >> it's important, i think, to try to see the world, try to see the world from the eyes of shannon on the days that led up to and the day that this happened. >> the whole trial was basically us saying that shannon crawley committed this mur...

>> we heard that was the first time shannon realized that they were engaged. >> reporter: shannon's family says the d.a. and the detective heard wrong. >> the day that -- that you're referring to, the church, shannon wasn't there. we were there. >> reporter: less than two weeks later, denita smith would still be wearing that engagement ring, as she lay dead at the bottom of her apartment steps. now, just as assistant district attorney david saacks thought he had wrapped up his investigation and was preparing to prosecute shannon crawley for denita's murder, he got word from her attorney. shann...

A series of phone recordings that shannon crawley and her family insisted were jermeir stroud copping to the crime and trying to cover it up. >> i got away with it once. i'll get away with it again. just keep your [ bleep ] mouth shut. >> this is wrong. i didn't do anything. >> you know i'll find you. >> reporter: police were not present when shannon recorded the calls, but they were able to trace where they originated from, a payphone, so there was no way to confirm jermeir had made them. assistant d.a. david saacks listened carefully to the tapes and soon came to his own conclusion. is there...

Shannon as the driver. then they showed him a picture of shannon's burgundy ford explorer. >> he was very positive about the vehicle. he said, "yep, that's the vehicle that i saw." >> reporter: and that wasn't the only thing the witness noticed, says assistant d.a. david saacks. >> he remembers a patch or some kind of something, you know, on the shirt. >> reporter: a patch like on the uniform shannon wore as a 911 dispatcher. and there was more. investigators discovered shannon clocked in at about 10:00 a.m., some two hours after denita smith had been murdered. more than enough time for the 55...

>> cops will protect other cops regardless of what department they're in. there are always that few, not many. >> reporter: to the contrary, assistant district attorney david saacks, who was assigned to prosecute, says he was extra careful in building his case against shannon precisely because jermeir was a police officer. >> i needed to make sure that everything was done by the book and we vetted everything as well as we could, and delved into everything as deep as we could because he was a cop. >> because if you clear him, you know you're going to get that criticism. >> absolutely. we ended ...