body when she peeked over the wall a second time? we were not able to explain to the jury why she didn t see cristi at that point. and i think that allowed the defense to make the argument that cristi hall was inside. the prosecution ordered a water expert. andrea is assisting law enforcement nationwide with drowning investigations for 20 years and got in the spa and videotaping from the spot ind si was watching. center of the pool and towards where lindsey was standing, you could not be seen. once i sank and hit that bottom, you could not see me at all from lindsey s viewpoint. now the prosecutor was ready. in may 2011, one year after the first jury deadlocked, burke went back to court armed with the new evidence for a brand new panel of peers.
lindsey patterson on leave from her i.t. job in the navy visiting her mom living just over the backyard wall from the hall house. lindsey was inside in the bathroom facing aout on to the street and heard a noise. it was a horrible scream. it was just something was wrong kind of scream. a woman s? she thought. she went outside to tell her mom. and i said, did you hear that scream? and she said, yeah, but i think it s just kids playing in the pool. kids? at 6:00 something in the morning? lindsey walked over to the 6-foot brick wall between their yard and the halls. she stepped on the planter, she said, and looked over the wall. at that point i saw a man with his hand one hand on top of a woman s head and then one hand on her back. and she was face down in the water. like something was going on? yeah. that s what i assumed.
that is she thought she was looking at a sex act in progress. i don t know why it didn t seem right but something made me want to look again. 90 seconds between the first and second looks and this time she said she only saw the man in the spa. he s leaning back, just relaxed in the hot tub but i don t see her. he s got his el backs back and just looking around like nothing. where did the woman go? lindsey told her mom something seems strange. she said, lindsey, stop being nosy. don t worry about it. but it just didn t seem right. it wasn t enough time for her to have gotten out and gone inside the house. so, said lindsey, she went to the wall again. her third and final look. at that point he was getting out of the jacuzzi and he was in a very big rush. she is still nowhere to be seen. the look on his face was almost
head could not in his opinion the result of a single accidental fall and the m.e. regarded the type of bruising on the face and body was a hallmark of homicide. totality of injuries not consistent with somebody slipping and falling and a rescue attempt. and there was a clump of hair in the bottom of the spa still entwined with a broken plastic hair clip. that, said the prosecutor, only could have come from a violent struggle. losing that amount of hair, not explained by any kind of fall. there were some minor hiccups in the case. lindsey patterson, for example, was a little inconsistent about how long she locked over the backyard wall that first time she saw something going on. was it just a few seconds or as long as a minute? but either way, said the prosecutor, lindsey was sure she saw physical contact. that was the important thing. he was given the opportunity
taking so long? and then the phone rang. and they had their answer. you know, broken up words and he s crying and we re crying and that was when he said, they think i hurt mom. i mean, he was very upset. but he didn t sound surprised when he said he was crying. he was crying. he was upset. very upset. but by the time police investigators were questioning chris, remember, they d heard from lindsey patterson and at the station chris s version of events in the spa differed in one crucial detail of what lindsey described seeing the first time she peered over the wall into the hall s backyard. that specifically me holding her down in there, there s nothing that took place in that jacuzzi to explain that. there was no sex. there was no i don t think we had any contact while we were in the jacuzzi other than when i was getting her out. but investigators were getting a good look at cristi s