she kept reiterating how happy she 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 memory 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 then he went home to what was meant to be his retirement retreat 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 heard about the case, steve harmon and paul gretch. you ve
chris and cristi. they were never thought of as they were a unit. these are the three daughters. courtmy brianna and ashton. and all have heard scores of times the story of how their parents met. it was 1978, christie had gone to see a relative at the air force base in nearby san bernardino. by chance while she was there encountered a security guard who, to her, looked just like elvis. it was christopher hall. chris to her friends apparently she was a little flirty at the gate. in short order, chris and christi got married. she was 17, he 20. and as the girls grew up, they said they never doubted for a single moment the powerful bond of love their parents with them and them with each other.
notice? they re not touching but they re in position where they could be. but that s different than actually touching. again, the hall daughters were there every minute. their father s enduring champions. and this time, more family members came to court. two of cristi s own siblings testified for chris. and said the same thing. we have not a doubt in our minds that this was not a moment of violence. this was not a murder. the victim s own sister and own brother. that s an amazing thing to see. perhaps it was. but listen to this, the defense had one more very significant witness. a witness who oozed credibility. the sitting medical examiner for neighboring san bernardino county, who stuck his neck way out to disagree publicly, in a court of law, with the medical examiner from riverside. he found this to be an
no 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 a whole puzzle. is this woman right? i know what i saw, and i know the conclusion of my story. of course she does. of course she does. so why does this other women think this? she doesn t know for sure what she saw. a question, we say, on which all the rest will turn. why don t we begin here. calimesa, california, riverside county. historic missions. sprawling suburbs creeping out to the rim of mountains around the eastern flank of los angeles. here is where chris and cristi hall had come to live out their golden years, though they were far from old when it happened. just experienced, with life and each other. as far back as i can remember, it s always been
had called and it sounded bad. she said there was an accident and you need to come home right away. it was courtney who eventually broke the news to ashton and their mother, their father s wife of close to 30 years, was dead. but neither courtney nor chris waited at the house to tell the sisters what happened or to comfort them. nor did they linger ore the body at the hospital. they because father and daughter were escorted to separate squad cars and driven to the police station to talk about the accident. what was that ride like? quiet. i just remember crying the whole time. i couldn t comfort my father he couldn t comfort me. we got to the station and they said that my dad would be a few more minutes. chris, so frenzied at the scene, had calmed down by then. he was a cop among cops, after all, and he understaood, he said, what was necessary to sort out what happened.