have seen it. and i think that s what they truly believe in their hearts. this weighs on my greatly. but my job is to get justice for cristi now it was up to a jury to decide, after six days of testimony, two days of deliberation, they couldn t. it was a deadlock. the judge declared a mistrial. chris hall walked out of court with his family free, but not quite in the clear. and nothing at all like a victory for the hall daughters. what was it like to get that hung jury? what did you think then? that was tragic. that was devastating to us. you expected a not guilty verdict? oh, yes. not a doubt. deputy d.a. burke strunsky was disappointed too. he was also determined to retry the case. but first he sent his investigator on a mission to explore the life and marriage of chris hall. and what do you know. in idaho, where hall had been a disgraced police chief, the investigator uncovered a startling accusation.
president today in the first up on a weeklong trip. blinken is trying to de-escalate conflict and tensions spike in the middle east with visits to israel, the occupied west bank, and for arab nations. meanwhile, iranian-backed hezbollah said a barrage of rockets into northern israel saturday. they categorized it as a preliminary response and assassination of a hamas senior leader. israel says it did respond to that attack. now back to dateline. welcome back. i m craig melvin. chris hall was charged in the drowning death of his wife cristi. hall s daughters stood by him, proclaiming his innocence. would anything change their minds about their dad? here again is keith morrison. this is a hard-charging man, ex-member in good standing of the san francisco d.a. s office, now senior deputy d.a. in
impossible to but when investigator dove talked to cristi s co-workers at the clinic where she was an x-ray technician, several said they noticed a sudden change in her usually vibrant personality. one co-worker offered them more. she told us that she was contemplating a divorce. if true, and it was only an if, it might well persuade a jury. prosecutor strunsky also needed to explain why lindsay patterson saw or didn t see. why didn t she see cristi s drowned body when she peeked over the wall a second time? we were not able to explain to the jury why she didn t see cristi at that point, and i think that allowed the defense to make the argument that cristi hall was the prosecution hired a water expert to do a recreation
after his wife s drowning death in a backyard spa, and find your voice. police asked chris hall to explain what happened that morning. what chris did not know was that his neighbor had also talked death in the backyard spa, police asked chris hall to explain what happened that morning. but chris did not know was that his neighbor had also talked to police and she told a very different story than the one that chris was telling. here again is crease murrison. chris and cristi hall s three daughters clung together in grief and shock, all through the dismal evening hours of that worst of all days, june 7, 2007. waiting for their father to return from the police station. and they wondered, why was it taking so long? then the phone rang. and they had their
course. but prosecutor strunsky poked around in chris hall s past as a and what did he find? this man had an uncanny ability to fabricate stories. seven years earlier, while hall was chief of police in cascade, idaho, he was charged with and convicted of misuse of public money, embezzled $19, 000, spent ten months in jail. a white collar crime, hardly murder. but what struck the prosecutor is that he says hall tried to cover it up. to plan a fraud, to lie about it, not just lie about it, but lie about it effectively. i think that was very telling about who we were dealing with. suddenly the prosecutor s prospects were looking better. at the trial, strunsky made lindsay patterson his star witness, of it was her story, after all, that got the whole thing started. but almost as important, he called the riverside county medical examiner who testified that those lacerations in cristi s