you had no direct evidence of mr. bruner assaulting his wife? correct, no direct evidence of mr. bruner murdering her. of course, had dale taken the stand, he would have had to have answered to some stubbornly uncomfortable facts and this question that hung over the defense table like a cloud. you loved your wife. you loved her a lot. but in that moment of extreme rage when she was leaving you, you killed her. strangled her and then threw her body in the river. so not true. the theme of the prosecution was that you were an abuser and that it was it s beyond so not true. it s just not true. they painted quite a picture, though. oh, yes. they certainly did. with the help of a woman whose message, in a way, came back from the grave. you ll ask.
when everybody found out stephanie was missing, did any police officers come and visit you at work or at your home that day? no, they did not. and didn t ron s wife, cindy, have a motive? and i said something like, i don t know where she is, but i hope she rots in hell. and i m very sorry i said that. of course, dale and his attorney knew the prosecution would make a big deal about the restraining order stephanie took out after dale spanked her son. that sprang from the chaos in her life. i believe she built a fake little world where i was the bad guy. was stephanie ever worried dale might get violent? hardly said the defense. why else would she ask the judge to delay the order until after their little family holiday? the judge said he had never seen someone have a restraining order but then have someone say
how about a smile? and life for the bruner family was it was fantastic. we traveled. we vacationed. but it was in her spare moments and hours that stephanie was truly transformed, a ball room dancer. dancing was probably to her what photography is to me. my guest star, bill. it was her passion, said her old friend, bill. he knows flamenco. stephanie loved to dance. dancing was her life. she was alive when she danced. hardly surprising stephanie and jennifer were close, too. we started a ball room dancing at my studio. she had me doing back flips with but it was dance that led off the whole cascade of trouble. in the fall of 2010, an annual fund-raiser here in silverthorne called dancing with the mountain stars, local worthies paired with ballroom pros. did you go?
don t enact it yet, not until next week. why would she go away on a yoga retreat and decline this friend s offer to babysit? can i take care of the kids? she said no, they re fine with dale. that s because she knew that dale wasn t a threat to her. he wasn t a threat to those children. remember how the detective found the house unusually spotless two weeks after the murder? it was, turned out, family and friends who cleaned up. apparently because dale was paralyzed by grief. dale walks into his walk-in closet and half of the stuff is stephanie s. he comes out and he s just crying. he s like, i ve got to get this stuff out of here. clearly a rush to judgment, sloppy investigation, said the defense. by detectives who bought the holthouse s alibi too easily, who failed to consider that the murder might have been committed by whoever robbed the nearby bank just before stephanie disappeared. attorney burnhart confronted agent sadar.
herself might have run off into despair and maybe hurt herself. stephanie s friends and family poured over those last few weeks, so full of change, secrecy, turmoil. were there clues? some knew about stephanie s relationship with her new man and how upset she was about losing her job. still, she seemed to be holding the trouble at bay. six weeks before she disappeared, as dale recalled, she suggested a little family holiday. she said let s go to glennwood springs for the weekend, all classic, wonderful place. it was almost romantic, said dale, just like the old days. but when they got back, she gave him the news. she goes, i want a divorce. i said, you don t love me anymore? she said i met this other person. she even said it s not that i don t love you, but i think i love i think i met my soulmate again. just like that, dale s world