him. the other man dancing with the mountain stars i go back to the day that i asked steph if i should shoot that wedding or not and i didn t go to that event with her. i wasn t going to be dancing with her on a big, important night for her. it was a curiously old-fashioned affair, apparently. stephanie told her friends her feelings were not so much physical as much as pure and emotional. she made it clear to dale that even though she still loved him, she had no choice but to follow these powerful feelings and make a life with that new man. i said if this is what you want, this is what you want. they would share the children, of course. dale at the family house. stephanie, in a rented condo. the weekend before she disappeared, he helped her move out. why in heaven s name did you do that? she asked me to help out. isn t that what you do? i didn t fall out of love with her. i still loved her. then middle of the night, her very first night away, dale says
husband dale. he fumed in silence about the allegations against him. the lies are really tough to take. you just can t believe it. waiting for trial, he continued to live here, all alone now in the family house by the blue river, working with his attorney in the effort to clear his name. robert burnhart is the attorney, a man not at all impressed, he told us, with the police investigation. their position was, i think dale is the easy guy, you know, the worst pieces of investigating i ve ever seen in my career. dale and his attorney told us despite a show of interviewing other suspects, the police quite clearly had made up their minds the very day she disappeared. police came to my house. i don t know the exact thing he said but he goes, did you kill your wife? i was stunned. the police didn t seem to want to believe what he told them about how happy he was that last evening, discussing new possibilities, a fresh start.
it also seemed suspicious, said the detective, that dale changed his story a bit. first time he called the police, he said they had an argument before she left to go out walking. later he said there was no argument. was there an argument of any kind? no, we never had an argument. there was no argument. it was just the facts were on the table. what were you talking about that she needed to clear her head? we were just talking about us. within a few weeks of stephanie s murder, the state ramped up the pressure on dale. social services sent the bruner children to live with stephanie s brother in california. i m in a fight with mike tyson with no gloves. and they re taking my kids away, too. dale wasn t completely alone, mind you. some family stayed around, reported back to her sister, ramona, dale was truly grieving. we kept asking, what is he acting like? what is he saying? unless he s some kind of actor that deserves some kind of oscar performance, this guy seems distr
she could say what happened with specifics. reporter: she told the jury her parents were arguing, not cuddling. afterward he went to cleshe wen clear her head. his wife went for a walk and he doesn t call anybody until eight or nine years later? that doesn t make any sense. that doesn t mean by itself that dale was guilty. these are where the secrets spill out. the troubling marriage. did she express fear to you at the time. yes, she did. she said, he just sees red. he gets so mad that he goes into a red zone and he doesn t even know what he does.
that was a wednesday morning. stephanie was furious about the spanking and stormed off to work and that very day was laid off from her county job. and then still upset with dale, stephanie went to see a judge and filed a restraining order against him, sought advice from her friend, bill. honestly, i was a little bit surprised. i had never detected any major problems in their relationship. and this was distinctly odd. she asked the court to delay implementing the order until the following monday. then she went home and, said dale, suggested that family holiday. we had a wonderful weekend at the hotel colorado, hot springs, swimming with the kids. but then back in town is when stephanie revealed, one, that she was in love with another man and, two, her restraining order was about to be served. she told me that the sheriff s department was going to come to the house and i m going to have to leave.