Had five years to put steve democker at the scene of the crime, but they cannot. reporter: anybody paying attention to the bizarre murder case playing out in fits and starts here in prescott was apt to be a little suspicious of steve democker s behavior after the killing. getaway bag? fake e-mail? defense attorneys craig williams and greg parzych could see that as well as anyone. but was he guilty of murder? no, they said. rather, he was the victim of some detective s tunnel vision, beginning with a sloppy investigation. there was kind of cavalcade of people roaming through this scene that they didn t lock down, tromping through footprints and tromping through the house. and they didn t seal it off correctly. to me, when somebody shows up on the scene and immediately points the finger at the ex-husband, and then that s all they ever did. it s always boom, right on him? it was always on him.
Murder, american flags were draped in ancipation of the annual rodeo. and june 3, the county attorney opened his case against steve. by ticking off the reasons why in his view steve deserved to spend the rest of his natural life behind bars. by this time pretrial legal rulings had taken the death penalty off the table though the attorney told the jury the case was no less condemning. i will ask you to find the defendant guilty of first degree premeditated murder. first he said steve had motives and not just that $6,000 a month in alimony. no, carol, said the prosecutor, was worth a lot of money dead. the evidence will show that at the time of her death, that steven democker was the owner
Then, former boyfriend jacob about the weird business of the golf club cover. the golf sock that appeared in a photo in steve s garage, night of the murder, but was gone when detectives returned with another search warrant. the implication, of course, was that the cover fit the club, never found, that killed carol. jacob said that after the detectives left he talked to steve. what was that conversation? the golf head sock cover was found after they had left. he said, he had found it? yes. did he say what he was going to do with it? he didn t know whether or not to turn it into the police or give it to his lawyer. reporter: implying, said the prosecution, that steve knew the golf sock could incriminate him, and didn t know what to do with it. but just as the case seemed to be building momentum, two weeks into the trial, judge thomas lindberg left the bench at lunch break and suddenly collapsed.
That is his in the house. how can you convict him of murder? reporter: but in july 2013, by this time a full five years after carol s death, steve was still in jail, and the case finally went to trial again. new defense attorneys. a new prosecution team. who, it soon became clear, had, during the long delays, spent some quality time honing their argument against steve. carol kennedy had no enemies. this was not a burglary or a robbery, no valuables are missing. the overwhelming evidence in this case points to the defendant and at the close of that evidence we will ask you to return verdicts of guilty on all charges and especially first-degree murder. reporter: and now the prosecution had more evidence. like steve s google searches during the month before carol s death. damaging, to say the least. there was some information for the term how to kill and make it look like suicide, and there was some information on the term how to make a homicide
The story out, and investigated. the death penalty was still on the table. so, steve was terrified. we were terrified. i can certainly appreciate when you re terrified, maybe you do some stupid things. well, it s when you start making mistakes, and that was a doozy of a mistake. uh-huh. reporter: and uncovering that fraud led investigators to what they thought was another, even bigger one. remember carol s life insurance money? $750,000 worth. steve s defense attorney talked about it during his opening statement. he disclaimed, he signed over any interest to the girls and the money was paid out to the girls. that s what happened in this case. reporter: that statement caught investigator mike sechez by surprise. we had made contact with the life insurance company several times throughout the investigation and we had been informed that the life insurance had not been paid out to anyone. reporter: so, had the insurance paid out or hadn t it?