on top of the refrigerator was a manila folder. did that just give you chills? it was horrible. why didn t she tell us? did a secret lead to murder? it s got to be unimaginable. welcome to dateline. when the body of brooke morris was discovered by the side of the road, her family started looking for answers. they were surprised to discover that she may have been involved in an allegedly violent relationship. could that revelation be the key to solving her murder? here with nightfall is andrea canning. i d ask that you all close your eyes for a few minutes this morning. i d like for you to envision rom county in the middle of october. the leaves are changing. there s a little bit of a nip in
county at the time of the murder. he was eventually cleared by authorities. but could they verify shawn smoot s story? he told investigators he and brooke grabbed a drink after he picked her up. sure enough, here s video of them at one of the restuarants he said they went to. here they are taking their drinks out to the patio. another camera captured the couple leaving at about 6:30 p.m. brooke is walking several steps ahead of shawn, something chief phillips thought was telling. normally if people are happy and all that stuff, you think they would walk out together. and if there was something going on, maybe she was like, you know, i want to just get away from him or whatever, i ll be glad when he drops me off at my car. reporter: this is the parking lot where shawn smoot said he dropped brooke off at her car. none of the security cameras around here had the car in view, but it was still sitting here the next day after brooke died. which made investigators wonder was shawn smoot t
reporter: but investigators had to start somewhere. although only 23 years old, brooke already had an ex-husband clayton morris. she met him soon after high school. he was kind of country, you know? they just hit it off. they just had fun together and started dating. and then the surprise popped up. she comes home with some news, some big news. mm-hmm. she was totally excited. of course. i was not so much excited. reporter: brooke, then 20 years old, was pregnant. i thought brooke was too young, for one thing. and you know, it s just it s not what i had hoped for her at that time. reporter: brooke and clayton were determined to make a go of it as a family. so before they became three, they got married. then they had this sweet baby that just stole my heart.
but he just seemed like, what in the world s going on? reporter: and despite the tension during the marriage and divorce, those who knew brooke best didn t think her ex-husband was a killer. i just never entertained that thought. clayton was a good person. so i didn t think that, you know, he would be capable of doing something like that to brooke. reporter: more importantly, clayton s alibi checked out. investigators cleared him. if not the ex-husband, then who? who had brooke come in contact with that weekend? investigators retraced brooke s steps, starting not with the game on saturday, but with the night before, friday. friends told investigators they had tickets to a concert. she was super excited about going to that. so she was just like, okay, i ve got to go i ve got to go find something to wear. i m going to go to dinner. reporter: after dinner, brooke left her car in a shopping center parking lot near
7:00 p.m. brooke s body was found just after 8:00 p.m. so if daniel was telling the truth, investigators had to figure out if he had enough time to get through the crush of vols fans, meet up with brooke and make the 40-mile drive here to roane county to commit the murder, all within about an hour. as investigators looked at daniel s timeline, they saw he was still texting brooke long after the game ended. the last text was just a little past midnight. it read, where are u darlin? by then brooke had been dead for more than four hours. until we clear him and rule him out, we do consider people like daniel hawkins a person of interest. reporter: but daniel hawkins wasn t the only person texting with brooke. who else had brooke been texting with? shawn smoot. what did you learn about shawn smoot? we found out that he ran an allstate office there in west knoxville. married, children? married, was no longer married at that particular time.