Were there every minute. their father s enduring champions. and this time, more family members came to court. two of cristi s own siblings testified for chris. and said the same thing. we have not a doubt in our minds that this was not a moment of violence. this was not a murder. the victim s own sister and own that s an amazing thing to see. perhaps it was. but listen to the defense had one more very significant witness. a witness who oozed credibility. the sitting medical examiner for neighboring san bernardino county, who stuck his neck way out to disagree publicly, in a court of law, with the medical examiner from he found this to be an accidental death, not a homicide. this was not some ordinary hired gun. this was a public official who said straight out that cristi s head injuries could and perhaps should be explained by an accidental fall. he didn t rule out homicide? he didn t rule out homicide. but he said the preponderance of the evidence was towards an accidental d
Riverside. that takes skill, persuasive he would need them in the murder case against the former police chief and family man, chris hall. mr. hall on the surface looks like a loving family man. he looks like a good father. he is somebody that had the support of his so he did. but he wasn t buying the loving father and family man no. when he heard about chris hall s very obvious grief, the wailing that went on after the so-called accident, the phrase that crossed his mind was it s an i think it was a wonderful performance by the defendant of acting like a bereaved husband, but when you look at his actions, how little he did to help his who tried harder to save cristi? not chris, said the prosecutor, but his daughter. she called 911. she helped him get the body out of the spa. he had no interest in truly helping his wife. a matter of opinion, of
More than one nasty blow to the head. so the police had to choose. which version, chris hall s or lindsay patterson s, was more likely the true story of what happened? tom dove is a senior investigator for the riverside d.a. i think they felt this was enough to say this was not an accidental drowning. it was purely much more suspicious than that. and so before the night was over, chris hall was arrested and charged with the murder of his the girls could stop waiting. he wasn t coming home. it was obviously a tragedy, losing our mother that day. but this is a tragedy on top of a tragedy now. because knowing our parents, it s the farthest thing from and one that felt infected by some kind of madness, said the cristi was the love of their father s life. the center of everything for him. how could he, someone so happy in
They decided to wake up early, put on their bathing suits and rinse off in the outdoor spa before the contractor arrived at 6:45 a.m. it was june 7th, 2007. chris got up first, turned on the spa to warm it up, then called brianna at her college dorm in san diego. here s your wake-up call, babe. get out and go on that run. back at the house, courtney dozed through her first wake-up. while chris and cristi made their way outside to the spa. just after 6:30, chris looked in on courtney again, second call. then headed back to the spa. life s last normal moments. 6:37 a.m. i got up out of bed. i was putting on my robe. i heard this panicked, panicked scream from my dad yelling for me. i ran down the hallway to the back porch and i saw him just trying to pull out my mom out of the spa. emergency.
Steve mundy urged on the prosecutor half the family was convinced he was innocent and half was convinced he wasn t. that s hard to do when you have a big family and you all have to be together once in a while. when it involves a member as loved as cristi was. exactly. does that explain why this kind of group of people in the family decided to just let justice take its course? we talked about it quite a bit. i think so. you ve got to know when to show up sometimes and when not to show up, just to keep what s left together of the family as together as you can have it. thank you so much for coming. when it was over, hall convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life, some of cristi s relatives met with prosecutor strunsky and thanked him. thank you for putting him away because he is a murderer.