Accident . Shes got a huge gash on her head. Something like that is not consistent with just falling down. A husband and father is suddenly under suspicion. He is crying. Were crying. He said, they think i hurt mom. Three daughters stand by their dad. One prosecutor stands firm. He is holding his wife of almost three decades under the water. My job is to get justice. Was it murder . Welcome to dateline. In this hour, a story that calls to mind the master of suspension, a plot out of an Alfred Hitchcock film. A young woman looks into her neighbors yard and seeing something for a few seconds. A man, a woman and a moment thats unsettling. Was it some kind of accident, a crime . Maybe even a murder. What she saw and what she did would set in motion a chain of events that would divide a family and a jury. Here is keith morris. Its unsatisfying not to have that answer. Reporter even if we have seen something or if we think we have. The question at the heart of the puzzle. Is this woman right
Undescribable. What had she seen . Was this drowning really an accident . Shes got a huge gash on her head. Its not consistent with falling down. A husband and father is suddenly under suspicion. Hes crying, were crying. He said, they think i hurt mom. Three daughters stand by their dad. And one prosecutor stands firm. Hes holding his wife of almost three decades under water. My job is to get justice for christy hall. Was it murder . Hello and welcome to dateline extra. Im craig melvin. In this hour, a story that calls to mind the master of suspense, a plot straight out of an Alfred Hitchcock film. A young woman peers into her neighbor apartments yard and sees something for a few sektds. A man, a woman and something that is unsettling. Was it some kind of accident, a crime . Maybe even a murder . What she saw and what she did would set in motion a chain of events that would divide a family and a jury. Heres keith morrison. We know the truth and we know everything that happened. How do
back to court armed with his new evidence for a brand-new panel of hall s peers. they heard expert testimony about the injuries to christy s head and heard lyndsay s 911 call. christy s coworkers testified for the prosecution and jerry winkle traveled from idaho to tell jurors what he thought of chris hall. i was ashamed to admit that he was once a police officer. but if the prosecution had upped its game in the year between the two trials, so had the defense. that s when well known attorney steve harmon and paul gretch enter the the scene and they came out swipging. that story about christy s affair, for example? there is a shadow hanging overall of this stuff, very human sort of shadow, which is that she was having a little affair, right? had a boyfriend. yes. if the husband knew about it, but the wife never, ever
but his daughter. she called 911. she helped him get the body out of the spa. she did chest compression. he had no interest in helping his wife. a matter of opinion, of course, but prosecutor poked around in chris hall s past as a police man, and what did he find? this man had an uncanny ability to fabricate stories. seven years earlier, while hall was chief of police in cascade, idaho, he was charged with and convicted of misuse of public money, embezzled $19,000, spent ten months in jail. a white collar crime hardly murder. but what struck the prosecutor is that he says hall tried to cover it up. to plan a fraud, to lie about it, not just lie about it, but lie about it effectively. i think be that was very telling about who we were dealing with. suddenly the prosecutor s prospects were looking better. at the trial, he made lyndsay patterson his star witness, of course. it was her story, after all,
mentions it and tells the husband, no one tells the husband. quite right, said the judge. and because there was no evidence chris knew about his wife s affair, he ruled it out of the trial. the story about hall shooting himself for retirement benefits? that was just absolutely a lie. that s wrong. there was never, never any evidence or indication or not even a moment s breath that he shot himself. anyway, the story was prejudicial, said the judge, so he threw that out, too. as for what lyndsay patterson said she saw, chris hall holding his wife s head under the water, the defense had prepared its own visual demonstration, had taken pictures from her angle at the wall, to show that it could look like two people were touching in the spa even if they weren t. this is what she described seeing in her testimony. but on the close-up, what do you notice? they re not touching, but they re in position where they