she was a beautiful woman smart woman, she didn t mean t travel those paths she was a mother of five, with a double life she loved her churc lifestyle, and our onlin dating lifestyle talking about casua encounters of people who aren using real identities. and then she was murdered i am appalled that she wa found that way somebody wanted to make a statement. what would her life revea about her death? she had had communication with at least two other men, he asked me to know who she was saying from the shadows of the internet, to the depths of the human heart. he was very controlling, an he was losing control. december 1st, 2011, one o those days that make teeth chatter, joyce creek, rod, damp dismal. by then 21 years old was there in the end of his glas insulation shop at washington. half a mile north of spoke can when s phone messaged. it was from logan logan, his younger sister a school i remember she said i m cold, come pick-me-up. b
speculative, too prejudicial and it was out. the jury wouldn t hear it. suddenly a the defense table, the air wen out. i think the court was thinking we don t want to make this a forum to run somebody who was murdered down. unfortunately, this isn something that s just bein made up. we didn t create this these allegations. reporter: clay starbuck s lawyers needed a plan b. s they went after the murder investigation itself. pointing out in court all the thing investigators failed to do on the right hand, they found on one of the nails what tested positive for blood. the don t test it. don t even look at it. in fact, you ll hea
reporter: it was, of course a victory for the detectives too, but it came at a terrible price. i didn t want it to be clay starbuck. i didn t want to tak those children s father from them reporter: chanin and clay s five children, still in shoc over their mother s death, now had another blow to absorb chanin s brother was especiall worried about the three youn children in the family that means they have no guardian then, so we all jus decided that it would be bes that we try to get custody o the kids and get them out of that situation reporter: but the starbuc children weren t going anywhere. austin, just 21, filed to be the guardian for his younger siblings so they could all stay together an fight together for their dad it s hard to grieve, yo know, over our mother when we re fighting for our dad s innocence. reporter: yes, they said,
they did see a car matchin that description parked by the side of the road i came up i go out early in the morning to smoke cigarette so i seen it parke up the street. reporter: austin told the court that the jury should not be suspicious about clay s phone being off that day why would he have it off? so he wouldn t be interrupted when he wa sleeping because he had back surgery and he needed hi sleep. reporter: yes, the back surgery. the reason clay was i deer park and not out workin on the pipeline at the time of chanin s murder. clay wa simply too weak, said his kids didn t have the physical strength to kill their mother. so my mom, she s 5 10 , 5 11 , 180 pounds. she s not a small lady. she s not big, but she s not small. reporter: debilitatin surgery? absolutely said clay doctor he would probably still b somewhat limited after surgery
starbuck, the two competin realities set for display coul not have stood in starke contrast we d been waiting over year for this moment i guess you could say i m o a mission. i want him put away reporter: the divided famil couldn t have been farther apart in the small spokane county courtroom when the tria began in may 2013. the prosecution set out to prove clay starbuck was a jealous, controlling and ultimately violent man who murdered his devout and long sufferin ex-wife. well, the defense prepared to argue that chani herself recklessly courted danger and, quite possibly died at the hands of one of th many strangers she met onlin for sex. to chanin starbucks friends and family who heard in advance what th defense had planned, it sounde like an old fashioned smea campaign that s all they had to go on. that s the only thing that