and now, the prosecutor was ready. in may 2011, one year after the first jury deadlocked, burke strunsky went back to court armed with new evidence for a brand-new panel of hall s peers. jurors heard medical experts testify about the injuries to cristi s head and once again heard lindsay s 911 call. i saw him put her under water. cristi s co-workers testified for the prosecution. and jerry winkel travelled from idaho to tell jurors what he thought of chris hall. i was ashamed to admit that he was once a police officer. but if the prosecution had upped its game between the two years of trial, so had the defense. that s when well-known attorneys steve harmon and paul gretch entered the scene and they came out swinging. that story about cristi s affair, for example? there s a shadow hanging over all of this stuff. a very human sort of shadow, which is that she was having a little affair, right, had a boyfriend.
concrete edge. he s holding his wife of almost three decades under the water, showing absolutely no mercy, no remorse. an absolute desire to end her life at that point. and then the piece de resistance. he then gets out of the spa, walks into the house where his plan is to wake his 22-year-old daughter, who he can use as an alibi witness. one little quibble. why? in fact, as convinced as he was of hall s guilt, strunsky conceded the why was a problem. he didn t legally have to know, he said. but he just didn t. there it was. it s emotionally unsatisfying not to have that answer, not to know the entire narrative of what happened. but you would want to know why this guy, married to this woman for almost 30 years, apparently happily, would
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i think so. you ve got to know when to show up sometimes and when not to show up, just to keep what s left of the family as together as you can have it. thank you so much for coming. when it was over, hall convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life, some of cristi s relatives met with prosecutor strunsky and thanked him. thank you for putting him away because he is a murderer. and the hall daughters, having lost their beloved mother, fought to save a father they adored. it s a devastating reality, it really is. especially for a family that, you know, to say that we were close is an understatement, you know? to go from that to being not able to be there with each other. it s it s the biggest heartbreak that anyone can ever experience, i think. that s all for this
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.e.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. chris was a great, great con man. former los angeles police officer jerry winkel is a county commissioner up in idaho. 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.