the key was waiting for them under the mat, that evening in june, 2006, outside their mom s house. silence. no one home. where was she? she was always on time to pick them up from their dad s place. but tonight he had to drive them. this just wasn t like her. where was she? conrad, the eldest, put the key in the lock, opened the door, chelsa, in the middle, crossed the threshold, stopped. what was this? once we took a few more steps in we realized there was something wrong. this was the moment, the defining one. nothing the same after this. and there was a lot of blood everywhere. then the adrenaline kicked in, instinct took over. we dropped our stuff. and split throughout the house. panic rising now. conrad was 15 now, his little sisters chelsa 14 and savannah 10.
evidence dave even left his house the night debbie was abducted and presumably murdered. his daughter insisted he could not have left the house without her having heard him. it doesn t seem at all possible. even though investigators would tell the court the kids slept so soundly it was hard to wake them up when they went to see them one morning, the defense claims that the prosecution s theory of what happened just didn t add up. that is just beyond belief that somebody would take that kind of risk, he would sneak down the hallway, open the door, drive the 10 or 12 miles over to debbie hawk s house, subdue her, bludgeon her, load her into the van and drive to fresno and get back to his house without getting any blood on him, without being discovered. so what did happen to debbie hawk? the defense floated this theory.
he is a man who has worked hard in the church. he is a good father. as their son prepares to face serious financial charges, dave s parents took over the custody of chelsa and savannah. not the way they expected to spend their 80s. anymore more than they expected to have to defend their son. he made some mistakes, but nothing of the scope that is generally accepted in the community. stan established those trusts for his grandchildren and said dave had the right to use the money how he saw fit to benefit the children. were you surprised to discover how it was used? yes. apparently his financial situation was worse than i knew. a year passed in this gossipy limbo. now it was may, 2008, nearly two years after debbie s disappearance. her body still hadn t been found and there was no new evidence tying dave to her murder.
impetus for the acceleration, i guess you would say, of the relationship. though debbie s big sister wasn t sure what she saw in him. he seemed very quiet. very opposite of my sister. then before long conrad arrived and chelsa and savannah. i still remember christmass where my brother and i would run around and deliver gifts to everybody. everybody was getting along. those were some happy memories there. sadly, a lot of unhappy ones, too. pretty much from when i can remember, fighting and arguing were pretty routine. after nearly nine years this marriage, like so many others, fell apart. we might have been a little bit more different than we were willing to admit early on. even at that age i could definitely see, yeah, the water
i think they re just very upset about what happened and their relationship was not as close to my dad. they were not home or not awake when i was awake. and they were not around him the next day like i was around him. chelsa says dave was acting perfectly normal the day after whatever happened happened. no odd behavior, nothing whatever to suggest he had been up all night committing aer the crime. the things that convinced me about his innocence aren t there to convince them. i think they are defending my mom so much, though, that it is like they are going to point to the most obvious suspect. chelsa isn t the only one in this small town who believes dave hawk is innocent. i believe what he says, that he had nothing to do with her disappearance. and presumed death. sandy brown is dave s longtime pastor and friend. this person who is portrayed as such a monster just simply isn t.