each other. reporter: shawn said he then dropped brooke off at her car in the parking lot where she d left it. did he say he didn t know where she went after that? he was at home. he said he didn t know where she went. reporter: so had brooke met her killer there in the parking lot, or sometime later? perhaps she left to meet up with that other guy she d been texting, daniel hawkins. but as far as investigators knew, shawn smoot was the last person to have seen brooke alive. and as investigators checked out his story, something wasn t adding up. so is this one of the first now where this guy s not being straight with us? it wasn t one of the first. it was one of the many.
she had just told me that shawn was getting violent. he broke into her apartment one night, came in through the bathroom window, threw her head up against the tile floor. reporter: brooke s family didn t know about any of this. the relationship, the alleged violence. it wasn t until after her death that her family finally learned brooke s secret. did that just give you chills when you found that yeah, it was manila envelope? it was horrible. reporter: it was brittany who discovered it, as she went about the grim task of cleaning out brooke s apartment. and we were kinda getting stuff in order to pack away and send. and so i went in her kitchen. and on top of the refrigerator was a manila folder. reporter: brittany opened the folder. it was an order of protection brooke had taken out about a year before her murder against her former boss shawn smoot. and it was page after page of just crazy stuff that he did to
shawn had a temper and kaitlyn witnessed it first hand one night after a dinner. shawn was drunk kaitlyn says, so she didnt want brooke to drive home with him. he did not like that. he began to get very angry. and we drove just down the street, pulled into the parking lot. and i pulled up right beside her car and and she opened the door. and shawn was, like, right there. //grabbed her by the arm. i told her, brooke, just get back in the car. and so she did. she got back in the car. and we drove off. reporter: friends say similar incidents followed, brooke felt shawn was stalking her. showing up unannounced and uninvited when she was out with friends. even after she stopped working for him. she definitely knew that something was wrong, you know, after he was obsessive with her, calling her multiple times, and texting her, and then stalking her. you know, she knew that, you know, it this man has got some issues. i ve got to try to
allow you to be creative. you can take a set of facts and and weave a story together for your theory of prosecution. reporter: shawn smoot insisted he was innocent. he cycled through five different defense attorneys and the trial was delayed again and again. it was surreal, really. you know cause it had been reset 22 times, 22 times. reporter: that s torture. it is. it is torture. reporter: the trial finally started in july 2016, nearly five years after brooke died. robert jolley, smoot s fifth attorney, believed the state s case was weak for one simple reason. i don t think that they did very thorough investigations of anyone other than mr. smoot. and even his investigation wasn t very thorough. reporter: jolley told the jury just how little that investigation had uncovered.
after just a few months. but it was clear, to investigators, at least, that brooke and shawn were still in touch. her phone showed calls between them on the day of the football game. and they d been texting back and forth. did you call him? our attempts to call him were unsuccessful. another one who s not around? that s correct. reporter: detectives decided not to wait for shawn to pick up his phone. they went to his house in the early morning hours after brooke s murder. you go over there. is he home? he is. reporter: shawn told investigators he had seen brooke the day before. she d called him from downtown knoxville asking for help. remember brooke s tailgating plans had gone awry and she d wanted to go home and change her clothes. she needed a ride to her car which had been left at a restaurant the night before. shawn said he agreed to give her a lift, but said they went to a bar to watch the game first. he had picked her up and they d went to, i think, wild wings