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reporter: july 2nd, 2008, about 11:00 p.m. steve democker, his daughter charlotte, and charlotte s boyfriend jake were eating a very late dinner. reporter: that s when steve told them about a strange phone call he received from carol s brother. who told him that apparently carol s home phone suddenly cut out when she was talking to her mother ruth, and nobody could reach her. how did charlotte react to that? she was worried. reporter: charlotte said she texted her mom earlier that evening. everything seemed fine, then. but now? she called her mother. voice-mail. hey mom. its char. i heard from grandmother that something happened while you guys were on the phone and she was kind of worried about you. so, i wanted to text you to see if everything was okay. now i m kind of getting worried about you. so if you want to text me back or call me or something just let me know that you re okay and that everything s okay. ....
The bicycle tire, that s the tire that s on 80% of all the mountain bikes in the u.s. it s the most common tire. so there s nothing very distinctive about that. they wanted to be able to tell the jury that it was a match. they were not allowed to do that because as the experts said, we have no idea if it s a match or not. something that has more or less. reporter: the defense called its own forensic pathologist to ask if the medical examiner was correct in his conclusion that the murder weapon was a golf club. with regards to saying, ah, specifically this weapon, i can t. i think the golf club is a, as alfred hitchcock used to say, it s the mcguffin, okay? it s the magic device to tie it to steve democker, the golfer, the elitist. sure. the rich guy who is pissed off about. fine. but isn t there scientific evidence to say that s a golf club head that hit it? no. i don t agree with any of that. and nobody, not a single person ....
reporter: sharon democker is steve s sister. carol was really easy to love. she was kind of a natural fit in the family. she was just immediately a sister to all of us. reporter: all of us being the democker family. high achievers, all of them. sharon is a doctor. it s an accomplished bunch. one of my friends said, there s not a weak link in this group. reporter: carol and steve got married in his parent s backyard overlooking lake ontario, near rochester, new york. an outdoor wedding for a couple who loved adventure. steve was the one that kind of w started the adventuring side of things. so first there was hiking, and then skiing, and mountain climbing, and kayaking. reporter: they moved around a bit, as people do, and wound up eventually prescott. which proved to be the perfect place to raise their two bright, attractive, daughters, katie and charlotte. they re amazing. i think that it s really a testimony to the kinda parents that steve and carol were. the gir ....
reporter: before she became a close friend, katherine morris was carol s student at prescott carol s friend. she was very well-respected and admired, her classes were always full, very difficult to get into. what was she like? she was magnetic. and she was always sort of searching for the truth. and you just were gravitated to her. charisma that kinda pulled her students in, especially maybe you. uh-huh, uh-huh. she was soft and inviting. i m carol kennedy. i live in prescott, arizona. reporter: you get a sense of her personality in this 2006 interview, in which she was asked about her passion for teaching. it s such a gift to feel like you get to give seeds to this first row here and then they turn around and give it to rows behind them. reporter: and in fact she shared those passions with the man who was her husband for 25 years. love of her life, really, steve democker. they were crazy for each other. ....
E-mail that claimed carol s murder was linked to an illegal drug ring? oh boy. she told me that mr. democker had informed them during one of their in-person visits at the jail to bring some pencil and paper. there was a glass between them. mr. democker had brought a document with him that he placed on the glass, so that they could view it. reporter: according to renee, steve himself wrote that document. then asked his daughter charlotte, just 17 at the time, to copy it down. mr. democker then asked them to send that document which became known as the anonymous e-mail to mr. sears and to the prosecutor s office. reporter: mr. sears was john sears. one of steve s defense attorneys. steve s reasoning, according to steve s sister sharon, he d heard that story from an inmate in that air-vent conversation and desperately wanted to get ....