eerily quiet. he shone a flashlight through a window, saw a bookcase toppled over, and blood. everywhere. that s when investigator mike sechez was pulled into the strangest case of his career. the kind of thing he had moved to prescott to avoid. it s a quaint little community nestled in the pines and not a whole lot of crime, especially from what i was used to. reporter: sechez put in 27 years in the phoenix police. this job with the yavapai county attorney s office was supposed to be an escape from big city crime. and here he was, middle of a july night, looking at one very brutal homicide. what did it look like? it was certainly a gruesome scene. not only a large of amount of blood on carol s body but also on the furniture that was nearby, blood spatter that had
reporter: but is he innocent? investigator mike sechez. i believe in my heart and soul that steve democker killed carol kennedy. reporter: he thinks often, he said, about the daughters about the impact on them. while my heart goes out to them, you know, you have to recognize that this is all because of one man s actions. reporter: carol s friend, katherine. i never wanted to believe that steve was capable of doing this. and the jury has made their decision. i accept their decision. i agree with their decision. i m so glad it s over. i m so relieved. because so many of us have been dragged through it for the last five and a half years. reporter: katie and charlotte were back in court at their father s sentencing. and in spite of everything, the state s case against steve, how steve used charlotte to create that phony e-mail evidence and then paid for his defense with life insurance money carol intended for her daughters. in spite of all that, at their
he shone a flashlight through a window, saw a bookcase toppled over, and blood. everywhere. that s when investigator mike sechez was pulled into the strangest case of his career. the kind of thing he had moved to prescott to avoid. it s a quaint little community nestled in the pines and not a whole lot of crime, especially from what i was used to. reporter: sechez put in 27 years in the phoenix police. this job with the yavapai county attorney s office was supposed to be an escape from big city crime. and here he was, middle of a july night, looking at one very brutal homicide. what did it look like? it was certainly a gruesome scene. not only a large of amount of blood on carol s body but also on the furniture that was nearby, blood spatter that had
mm-hm. but he s also a very narcissistic personality. you put those together and you can make it difficult to solve a crime. narcissistic? that s what it seemed like to the detective. also seemed to him like steve s girlfriend, renee girard, was protecting him. knew more than she was telling. then renee broke it off with steve. and sechez interviewed her one more time. and remember the anonymous e-mail that claimed carol s murder was linked to an illegal drug ring? oh boy. she told me that mr. democker had informed them during one of their in-person visits at the jail to bring some pencil and paper. there was a glass between them. mr. democker had brought a document with him that he placed on the glass, so that they could view it. reporter: according to renee, steve himself wrote that document. then asked his daughter charlotte, just 17 at
steve. we exhausted so many man hours and looked at any and all alternatives. reporter: and then it was during the long months of waiting for a new trial to begin, the prosecution had an idea. what if that 603 sample was a simple mistake. what if something just got mixed up in the lab? so investigator mike sechez looked up the autopsy done just before carol s. and submitted a sample from that for re-testing. and? nearly three years after carol s murder, a call from the crime lab. the sample dna that we sent had matched the dna under carol kennedy s fingernails. we finally were able to discover and verify who mr. 603 is. reporter: mr. 603, it turned out, was another dead soul, the man lying on the autopsy table before carol got there.