well, as as anyone who s watched a tv show i can tell you unfortunately, the reality is really similar. you really are on pins and needles waiting for that verdict that you don t know what it is. yeah, and you have no control over it. uh-huh. strangers are gonna decide. uh-huh. who don t know your brother? uh-huh. reporter: this family of highly educated professionals knew the case for and against steve as intimately as any attorney. on the third day of deliberations, there was nothing for them to do but sit together. watch their phones. and then, as they prepared to leave a coffee shop in prescott news. the jury had reached a verdict. but it was four in the afternoon. apparently quitting time. and the judge decided they d all have to wait until morning to hear what the verdict was. katie and charlotte, comforted by steve s parents, his siblings. had another night to wait and wonder what did the jury decide? it was rough on everybody.
dad in prescott. nothing ahead now but the long, easy, days of summer. as she jogged the last few yards to her house, carol passed by the guest cottage she d rented out as a way to help her pay expenses. it s 50 feet away from the main house and it has all of its own kitchen and bath and shower and rooms. reporter: it was comforting, in a way, to have someone else with her on the property, out here at the edge of things. man s name was jim knapp. divorced father. bit of an odd duck, some people said. but easy to get along with. at least, that s what carol told her friends. the man didn t cause any trouble. jim knapp was just sort of this free-spirited surfer dude from hawaii who hang ten. but she took him in as a border? it was my understanding that he was, had been diagnosed with cancer.
reporter: carol kennedy was in, as they say, a good place in her life. this is her friend katherine morris. carol was the epitome of kindness and living a life from a perspective of having an open heart and being loving. reporter: before she became a close friend, katherine morris was carol s student at prescott carol s friend. she was very well-respected and admired, her classes were always full, very difficult to get into. what was she like? she was magnetic. and she was always sort of searching for the truth. and you just were gravitated to her. charisma that kinda pulled her students in, especially maybe you. uh-huh, uh-huh. reporter: carol and steve got married in his parent s backyard overlooking lake ontario, near rochester, new york. an outdoor wedding for a couple who loved adventure. steve was the one that kind of w started the adventuring side of things. so first there was hiking, and then skiing, and mountain climbing, and kayaking. reporter: they mov
right? what if the husband didn t? you don t find any dna fingerprints, blood, anything that he s in the house. could someone else be the real killer? i m wondering what was this man capable of? so much tragedy and so much heartbreak. it was very emotional for me. we just kept waiting for them to figure out they had it wrong. reporter: it was the second of july, 2008, early evening in a fine old town called prescott, arizona. sun going down, air cooling down to a fine evening warm. here at the town s historic rodeo grounds, refugees from the
did you ask him about those reporter: summer 2010. two years after carol kennedy s murder, american flags were once again draped up around the prescott town square in anticipation of the annual rodeo. and, on june 3rd, inside the square s historic court house, county attorney joe butner opened his case against steve democker by ticking off the reasons why, in his view, steve deserved to spend the rest of his natural life behind bars. by this time, pre-trial legal rulings had taken the death penalty off the table. though attorney butner told the jury the case was no less condemning. i will ask you to find the defendant guilty of the first degree pre-meditated murder. reporter: first, he said, steve had motives, and not just that 6 thousand a month in alimony. no. carol, said the prosecutor, was worth a lot of money. dead. the evidence will show that at the time of her death that steven democker was the owner and beneficiary of two life insurance policies.