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course. but prosecutor strunsky poked around in chris hall's past as a and what did he find? >> this man had an uncanny ability to fabricate stories. >> seven years earlier, while hall was chief of police in cascade, idaho, he was charged with and convicted of misuse of public money, embezzled $19, 000, spent ten months in jail. a white collar crime, hardly murder. but what struck the prosecutor is that he says hall tried to cover it up. to plan a fraud, to lie about it, not just lie about it, but lie about it effectively. >> i think that was very telling about who we were dealing with. >> suddenly the prosecutor's prospects were looking better. at the trial, strunsky made lindsay patterson his star witness, of it was her story, after all, that got the whole thing started. but almost as important, he called the riverside county medical examiner who testified that those lacerations in cristi's

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their marriage and life, be accused of harming her? she was happy too, they said, as happy as she had ever been, they said, based on matt mother/daughter talk they had not long before she died. >> she kept reiterating how happy it was. >> it was kind of odd. me and brie will always cherish that. >> didn't think much of it at that, but that being the last time we actually saw her -- >> kind of burned into your >> yeah. >> but right or wrong, the legal trigger had been pulled. chris hall spent almost two months in jail, until his daughters received the payout from cristi's life insurance policy and used the money to meet his million-dollar bail. then he went home to what was meant to be his retirement retreat to prepare with the help of his daughters to prepare for a murder trial. >> it's very surprising to have a client in a murder case out on but he was a special man. and this was a special situation. >> these are attorneys who would eventually defend him, although at first they only

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heard about the steve harmon and paul gretch. you've said two things. special man, special situation. >> i think both of us can say this is a man that we like and we know. we don't feel he could have done anything like this. >> chris hall and his daughters prepared for a trial which they hoped would make clear to everybody, the police, the neighbor, the world, that chris would not, could not, did not harm the love of his life. >> there was never, in 30 years of marriage, never one moment of there was no motive for this man to kill his wife. >> they had a look at neighbor lindsay patterson's eyewitness account and suggested it was not conclusive at all. it was tragically incomplete. >> she saw three snapshots. what is missed by everyone is the wife getting into the jacuzzi, slipping, falling into the jacuzzi, hitting her head, going unconscious, and drowning.

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before her first and second looks. and this time, she said, she only saw the man in the spa. >> he's leaning back, just relaxed in the hot tub. but i do not see her. he has his elbows back, and he's kind of looking around like nothing. >> where did the women go? lindsay told her mom something seems strange. >> she tells me lindsay, stopping nosy. do not worry about it. but it just did not seem right. it wasn't enough time for her to have gotten out, and got inside the house. >> so, said nancy. she went to the wall again. her third and final look. >> at that point he was getting out of the jacuzzi. and, he was in a very big rush. she is still nowhere to be seen. the look on his face? was almost an describable. it was almost as if he had just gone into another world it. was scary. >> it was instinct that told her something was wrong, said

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for cristi hall. >> was it murder? hello and welcome to "dateline a young woman peers into her neighbor's yard and sees something for a few mysterious seconds, a man a woman and the moment it's unsettling. what she saw and what she did would set in motion a chain of events that would divide a family and a jury. here is keith morrison. >> we know the truth. and we know everything that happened. >> how do we know what we know? >> emotionally unsatisfying not to have that answer. >> so it is. even if we've seen something or we think we have. and that's the question at the heart of the whole puzzle. is this woman right? >> i know what i saw. and i

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have seen it. >> and i think that's what they truly believe in their hearts. this weighs on my greatly. but my job is to get justice for cristi >> now it was up to a jury to decide, after six days of testimony, two days of deliberation, they couldn't. it was a deadlock. the judge declared a mistrial. chris hall walked out of court with his family free, but not quite in the clear. and nothing at all like a victory for the hall daughters. what was it like to get that hung jury? what did you think then? >> that was tragic. >> that was devastating to us. >> you expected a not guilty verdict? >> oh, yes. not a doubt. >> deputy d.a. burke strunsky was disappointed too. he was also determined to retry the case. but first he sent his investigator on a mission to explore the life and marriage of chris hall. and what do you know. in idaho, where hall had been a disgraced police chief, the investigator uncovered a startling accusation.

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bathroom, that faced away from the whole house and all on to the street. when she heard a noise. >> it was a horrible scream. just, something was wrong kind of scream. >> a woman? she thought. she went outside to tell her mom. >> and i said, did you hear that scream? and she said yeah, but i think it is just kids playing in the poll. >> kids? at six something in the morning? lindsay walked over to the six foot brick wall between their yard, and the halls. she slept on the pattern, she said, and looked over the wall. >> at that point i saw a man with his hand, one hand on top of the woman's head. and then one hand on her back. and she was faced out in the water. >> like something was going on? >> yeah, that's what i assumed. >> that is, she thought she was looking at a sex act in progress. >> i do not know why it did not seem right, but something made me want to look again. >> perhaps 90 seconds she said,

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>> chris was a great, great con >> former los angeles police officer jerry winkel is a county commissioner up in idaho now. but once upon a time he was chris hall's friend, that is, before a night of poker and booze when he said paul made a disturbing revelation, that he had shot himself in the leg when he was a cop in order to get medical retirement benefits. >> chris had been drinking beer. he came out and told me that he had shot himself. >> but there was more. d.a. investigator tom dove had discovered a secret, not in chris'past, but in cristi's. >> there had been infidelity in the marriage in the past, six years prior. while chris hall was in custody in idaho. >> her affair was relatively brief, years earlier. but she had been in phone contact with the man just days before she died. had chris found out?

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president today in the first up on a weeklong trip. blinken is trying to de-escalate conflict and tensions spike in the middle east with visits to israel, the occupied west bank, and for arab nations. meanwhile, iranian-backed hezbollah said a barrage of rockets into northern israel saturday. they categorized it as a preliminary response and assassination of a hamas senior leader. israel says it did respond to that attack. now back to dateline. ♪ ♪ ♪ welcome back. i'm craig melvin. chris hall was charged in the drowning death of his wife cristi. hall's daughters stood by him, proclaiming his innocence. would anything change their minds about their dad? here again is keith morrison. >> this is a hard-charging man, ex-member in good standing of the san francisco d.a.'s office, now senior deputy d.a. in

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holding her, and then just not having enough time for her to have gone inside. >> it's like you've got three different snapshots. >> right. >> of something going on there. >> right. >> and had to kind of work out what this was. >> yeah. i wasn't thinking at that point, oh, this man just murdered his wife. >> but now, based largely on that account, chris hall would go on trial for murder. and it was a trial for his daughters, too. >> he loved her. they were each other's best friends. and this is just -- this is not fair to him because he truly loved her more than -- more than anyone. >> and yet the prosecutor was going to try to prove that this family man and former cop murdered his wife. could it be done? >> "dateline" returns after the break. th break.

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