♪♪
-The day that I got the news
will always be etched in my brain.
"Your sister is dead."
I knew right then...
he had taken her life.
From that moment on, my life changed forever.
I feel closest to my sister when I see something beautiful,
like she's talking to me, like...
I'll see a beautiful sunrise, and I'm like, "Man."
Like, "I hear you."
-You both had talked back in your younger years
about going on "Survivor" together.
-Right.
♪♪
The waves were crashing in Fiji,
so I took a walk down the beach and...
and I thought, "Man...
she's all around me, so it's just time."
Coming into this game, my motivation was my sister.
She's the one that wanted to be here.
That's why I applied.
I wanted to be Joanna's voice.
That's been the mission.
That's all part of Joanna's voice,
is her speaking to everyone,
saying, "Don't let this happen to you, as well."
-She fell in love with a man
that seemed charming and charismatic,
and he was a pastor.
-And immediately, I was in the spirit...
-I know in my heart that Mark killed my sister.
And then, he staged it to look like she hung herself.
-So, Mark Lewis was never charged with any crime
related to Joanna's death.
What do you make of that?
-Appalling.
Total disregard for our daughter.
It appeared to us that it was just a dismissal.
-The Solano County Sheriff's Department
made a decision that Joanna died by suicide
within 28 minutes of arriving at the scene.
-That is a gigantic misconception.
The case was still being worked.
-So, do you stand by your office's original conclusion
that Joanna Hunter took her life?
-Yes, we do.
-In no way, shape, or form in any world, in any scenario,
was this a suicide.
This is not just a brother who's being emotional and irrational.
This is not a mother who's just being a victim
and saying untruths.
This is a family that just wants justice for Joanna.
I know I had one job as a brother,
so I need you to know that I'm sorry...
that I couldn't protect you from that monster.
♪♪
-Survivors ready?
-On a beach in Fiji... -Go!
-...competing on "Survivor," the reality show
that, like "48 Hours," airs on CBS...
-Now, Joe in the lead with five.
-...Joe Hunter's grief over the death of his sister, Joanna,
came out in full force.
-I miss you so much.
I just miss you so much.
-He was filled with remorse over their last conversation.
-I'm so sorry for the things I said.
And I never got the chance to say I love you.
So...
I love you.
-Joe is still grappling with how she died.
October 6th, 2011, 9:25 p.m.
Vacaville, California.
It was a terrible sight,
Mark Lewis's 36-year-old wife, Joanna,
hanging inside a bedroom closet.
14 minutes later, at 9:39 p.m.,
according to the Solano County Sheriff's report,
a deputy was on the scene.
-He cut her down, tried to find any signs of life.
-Captain Jackson Harris reviewed the case with us.
-There were not any signs of life
that were there, unfortunately.
-A bathrobe sash had been the noose.
The deputy's report said
he did not observe any signs of a struggle.
There was an open suitcase and a note.
-I believe the note said, "Take care of the dogs."
-Had Joanna taken her own life?
Mark Lewis, the 36-year-old pastor
of the Fellowship Baptist Church,
was handcuffed, placed in the back of a patrol car,
and briefly questioned.
-He provided a statement.
-He said his wife did not appear to be depressed,
has no history of mental illness,
and has never attempted suicide.
The husband is saying,
"My wife did this out of the blue."
-That was his statement that he provided.
People commit suicide for a variety of reasons.
Some people keep it to themselves,
some people tell the world.
-In the report,
Mark said he last saw his wife at 1:00 p.m.,
and the church member who called 911
said he and Mark had been outside the house
playing basketball and talking about their faith
starting at 3:00 p.m.,
until Mark went inside and found Joanna dead.
Joanna's mother, Patricia,
knew nothing of what was unfolding
at her daughter's house that night.
She wasn't called.
A day later, a deacon from the church went to see her.
-He said, "Joanna's dead."
What?
-At around the same time,
Joe, a Sacramento, California, firefighter,
was taken aside by the captain of his house.
-He said, "Your sister's gone."
-First, the gut punch.
-I dropped to my knee.
-And then, almost instantly, one thought, one name...
-What did he do to her?
-...Mark Lewis.
-I knew.
I knew he did it.
-And I fell to the ground screaming.
Crying.
-Half of me...
died right there.
-A few weeks later,
when Patricia and her late husband spoke to an officer,
he showed her the note.
-I actually laughed, and I said,
"That's not a suicide note.
She was leaving him, and that was her note to him,
'Take care of the dogs. I can't take them.'"
-Joanna had tried to leave Mark
many times before, says Patricia.
There was a history of abuse and a cycle that began
not long after the couple started seeing each other
in high school.
At 17, Patricia says,
Joanna came home with a black eye.
-And I begged her, I said, "Let's go to the hospital.
Let's go to the police."
And she said, "No, Mom, no."
-At 20...
-This is in Joanna's handwriting.
-...Joanna documented Mark choking her
and got a restraining order against him.
Even so, Joanna returned to him.
At 21, after she reported
that Mark "grabbed my neck and twisted it,"
Joanna got another restraining order.
In 1996, when she was 22,
Joanna was hospitalized with a sprained neck.
Mark was convicted on a domestic violence charge,
and according to court documents,
sentenced to 36 months in the Solano County Jail.
Again, she returned to the relationship.
-She told me that he had reached out to her from jail.
Would she come visit him?
She did.
She fell right back into it.
-Joanna was 25 when she married Mark
without telling anyone in her family.
-I had to tell my husband,
and we just held each other and sobbed
because we knew now it would be that much harder
to help her and get her out.
-Their worry continued over the next decade,
but Joanna wouldn't open up to them.
You said you feared for your daughter,
but did you ever think he would be capable of killing her?
-Absolutely.
-That is what Patricia believed.
Law enforcement at the scene came to the opposite conclusion.
-There is no evidence on her body
that another person used force to have killed her.
-No homicide investigators were called to the house.
The bedroom was not treated as a crime scene.
No fingerprints taken,
no DNA tested, and no phones collected.
After his statement, Mark Lewis was released.
Lewis was not asked about his history of abuse
or about his prior conviction.
That information was more than 15 years old, says Harris,
and not available to the deputy in the field.
The next day, an external autopsy
determined the ligature marks on Joanna's neck
were consistent with suicide.
A month later, when the toxicology report
came back clean...
-The case is closed.
-And so began the tug of war
between the family and the sheriff's department
that would go on for years to come.
-From this moment
when we couldn't get anyone to listen to us and act on it,
we are going to work to get justice for Joanna.
-Do you think she was ever suicidal?
-You know, I'm sure she got in many dark places,
but in no way, shape, or form was she capable of that mindset.
Because I know my sister, deep down, just wanted to leave.
-And in the year before she died,
Joanna almost saved herself, says Joe.
Almost.
-My mom called me and said, "Joanna's coming home."
I said, "Oh, really?"
"Yeah, she's done."
And I said, "She's really, really done this time?"
And I thought, man, like...
We got her back. We win.
-Within two weeks,
"Mama, I'm going back."
And I thought she meant to get more things.
She said, "No, Mom.
I have to go back to stay."
-My mom begged her not to go back.
On her knees, begging her.
And my mom said, "Okay, well, I'll drive you."
-How much do you think of that moment
and that drive taking her back?
-All the time.
On the way over, I was sobbing, and I said, "Honey,
I'm afraid if you go back, I'll never see you again."
-And...
we never saw her again.
♪♪
-It's 1993.
Thanksgiving at our house this year.
Very nice table.
You can see Mom in the kitchen.
My dad.
Hi, JJ.
[ Laughs ] Hi.
-Joanna was the perfect person.
She was the life of the party,
but she was also, at the same time...
-Oh, you give me a kiss!
-...probably the most compassionate,
warm person I've ever known.
-From the minute he was born,
Joanna relished being Joe's big sister.
-She thought Joseph was her gift.
Someone gave her this adorable little boy
and he belonged to her.
-I always tried to be in charge,
but she wouldn't let that happen.
Yeah. It's me.
Anybody that called the house,
they had to go through Joanna first.
"And you want to talk to my brother why?"
She protected me a lot.
We were the perfect team.
-Mark Lewis, the son of a local preacher,
was Joanna's first boyfriend.
At the start, Joe didn't think he had anything to worry about.
-The first maybe 6 to 8 months, she seemed really happy.
-But after the abuse began,
Joe confronted Mark more than once.
-After physically going after him,
him then taking it out on her,
I had to back off a little bit from my sister.
I had been screaming at her for so long.
Two years straight.
"I hate this guy. Leave this guy. Please stop."
I thought, "I'm gonna lose her for good.
So, I'm just gonna listen."
And then, I really got the deep, deep, deep, dark secrets
that she wasn't even telling my parents.
-And Joanna showed him her wounds.
-She finally showed me
the massive indentations
from him strangling her.
You could just see clearly each outline of each finger.
-Mark had grown more powerful and influential
at the Fellowship Baptist Church.
He was on his way to becoming pastor.
-I'm just getting you ready for heaven.
-After they married,
Patricia says she went to Mark with her fears.
-And I said to him, "How do I know in this moment
that you will never lay a hand on her again?"
And I'll never forget,
he kind of sneered, half smile,
and he looked at me, and he said...
"When she's a better woman and a better Christian,
you won't have to worry about that."
-My sister started saying comments
that he would make to her like, "Hey..."
We can help save you.
Because you're half black,
we can help fix that through religion.
Because of your hair and the way you look,
we can fix that with religion."
And you just think, how dare you?
-Pastor Lewis, to hear former church members tell it,
was a commanding and a demanding presence.
-I know what this Bible says.
-With fiery sermons...
-Fall down and worship!
-...and an insistence on loyalty.
-All Satan has to do is give you a question.
-Very energetic. Get up there and screaming and sweating.
-Amen. -That was his style.
-Jacob Cantrell became a deacon there.
-I looked up to him.
He was a mentor.
Only to find out that I was a pawn.
-In hindsight, Jacob says,
Pastor Lewis had too much control over him.
-I couldn't go to my mom and dad's house
without asking Mark permission.
I was brainwashed.
He manipulated me for many years and it...
it twisted my brain up.
-There's no accidents with God.
-He can talk his way out of anything,
including Miss Joanna's death.
-Now, you feel that way.
-Now, I feel that way.
-I came to the conclusion
that it was probably the closest thing to a cult
that I had ever experienced.
-And he was the leader. -The leader.
-Darryl Snedaker was a deputy
in the Solano County Sheriff's Department
and a member of the church at the time of Joanna's death.
He wasn't involved in the investigation back then.
At the church, he says, it didn't take long
for him to lose all faith in the place and the pastor.
Was there a fear then
amongst the people who attended the church?
Did they fear Mark Lewis?
-I think the people that were his puppets,
I think they acted out of fear a lot.
-You did whatever he asked then.
-Unfortunately.
You don't question him.
-It's important that you listen up!
-You don't question him.
-What would you do if you caused your pastor to quit
because you wouldn't obey?
What would you do if you caused your Sunday school teacher
to quit because you wouldn't obey?
-It's disheartening. It's shocking.
-Joe already knew Mark Lewis all too well,
and the years after Joanna's death
were filled with anguish and frustration.
-No one was listening to us. No one was believing this.
-There were still so many questions
about what happened that night.
Why didn't Mark cut Joanna down or try to administer CPR?
And Joe found it particularly hard to believe
Lewis was actually playing basketball
for six straight hours.
-You never went inside to use the restroom?
Get a glass of water?
Playing basketball for this obscene amount of time
is absurd to me.
-But all their attempts to get the sheriff's office
to take another look at Mark Lewis
were getting no results...
until Patricia got a knock on the door.
-It was a reporter
asking if we had heard about what had happened with him.
I had no idea what he was talking about.
-It was 2014.
Joanna had been dead a little more than two years.
Pastor Mark Lewis had been arrested,
accused of violence against another woman.
Do you feel lucky to be alive?
-Oh, yeah.
♪♪
-On that crisp fall day in 2011,
when pastor Mark Lewis said he found his wife dead,
he never called Joanna's family.
He didcall Sarah Nottingham.
-He had asked if I heard what happened.
He sounded upset. He was crying.
-At the time, Sarah says, she believed in her pastor.
Joanna had died by suicide.
Sarah says she and Lewis became friends,
then began dating about a year after Joanna's death.
-At first, it was somewhat exciting,
thinking that I'm seeing a side of this person
that no one else is seeing.
-Eventually, Sarah says,
another side of Mark Lewis began to emerge.
-A lot of extreme manipulation,
a lot of gaslighting, and...
a lot of verbal abuse.
Um, some physical.
A push or a shove.
And it was just more and more.
-And then, she says she discovered
that Mark Lewis had been sending inappropriate text messages
to an underage girl.
-You know, I'm just like, "I've had enough."
Like, I'm done.
And he said, "I'm not ready for it to be over."
I would just keep telling him, you know,
"This is...it's over. We're done."
-Mark grabbed her, she says,
and tightly wrapped his arms around her.
-It was meant to be threatening.
He squeezed me tight and told me,
"You've created a monster."
-Sarah and her two young children
were living with her parents in Vacaville
as the pastor's threats, she says,
became more frequent and frightening.
-The first time that my car was vandalized,
it was actually parked here.
He had either himself or had somebody
smash my windshield in on my car.
-Sarah was granted an order of protection against Mark Lewis,
but it did not stop what happened next,
in the early morning hours of January 9th, 2014.
-It was 3-something in the morning,
and I woke up to...
our fire alarm going off
and there was smoke filling the hallway,
and I checked on my kids.
-A Molotov cocktail
had crashed through her parents' bedroom window.
-We were able to put the fire out ourselves.
I'd never seen my dad run so fast out the door, um...
trying to see if he could see anybody.
-Vacaville police pulled over a U-Haul van within minutes,
arresting the driver and two passengers.
The trio quickly confessed,
telling police they were hired
to firebomb Sara Nottingham's house.
Hired by the pastor, Mark Lewis.
He was questioned by local reporters.
-I never -- I never gave them any money...to do anything bad.
-Pastor Lewis was arrested,
charged with arson, conspiracy, and stalking.
-A lot of people are gonna throw accusations out there, but...
until the facts come out, why don't we just wait,
and see how that goes, and let the court decide?
-I'm living in a nightmare.
My kids are so scared.
My...my son knows that this is a pastor,
his previous pastor,
that is threatening his mommy and his family.
-What do you think you and your family
survived at that time?
-Ultimately, death.
When the police came into the house,
one of them said, "This is attempted murder."
And that's exactly what it was, nothing less.
-Surviving the attack, Sarah says,
helped answer a lingering question about Joanna.
-How do you see her death?
-By him.
There's just not a doubt in my mind.
-The point is this -- if you saw Jesus,
number one, you would fall to your face!
-By January 2015,
pastor Mark Lewis's thundering sermons
that echoed in the Fellowship Baptist Church
were a distant memory
as Lewis sat silently in a Solano County courtroom.
His trial had begun for stalking Sarah Nottingham
and hiring people to firebomb her parents' home.
-I hear about the arson charge, I hear about the stalking,
but I also feel that he needs to be convicted
for what he did to my sister.
-On day three of Mark Lewis's arson and stalking trial,
he changed his plea from not guilty to no contest,
meaning he would not dispute the charges against him,
but also would not acknowledge guilt.
Lewis was sentenced to 8 years in prison.
How important was that development then,
in allowing you to then go back to the sheriff's office
and demand that they reopen the case?
-It was huge because there was...
It isn't often that you read about a pastor...
hiring people to firebomb someone's house.
Because of media pressure,
we felt that now is the time where we can go back and say,
"Look at Joanna's case.
Reopen it."
-The Solano County Sheriff's Office
did reopen the case in 2014.
Remember the churchgoer who called 911
the night Joanna died?
His name is Andrew Alvarado.
Back then, he told authorities he had played basketball
with pastor Mark Lewis for about six hours.
Detectives decided to re-interview him
and recorded the call.
This time, investigators learned a new detail.
He had actually left the church grounds
during those six hours
to drive the teenagers home, he says,
and wasn't sure what the pastor was doing while he was gone.
We repeatedly reached out to Alvarado,
but never heard back.
So, there were gaps of time when he was not with Mark Lewis.
-Right. That still does not change the fact
that a lack of evidence on her body
does not show a second person involved in her death.
-Mark Lewis was not questioned during the re-investigation.
-He exercised his constitutional right
to have his attorney, who did not allow him to speak to us.
-The sheriff's office had another forensic pathologist
look at Joanna's case.
Doctor Scott Luzi agreed with the original coroner -- suicide.
The case was closed again.
And then, in 2015,
the county district attorney's office
announced its own investigation,
which included DNA testing on Joanna's bathrobe sash.
The results --
Her DNA was found on the sash,
along with an unknown male,
not Mark Lewis.
Was anything done to investigate that further?
Could it have been anybody else associated with Mark Lewis?
-That DNA that was collected from there,
my understanding is that it was entered into the DNA...
I believe it's called CODIS, the database.
-CODIS is the FBI's criminal DNA database.
-It did not come up with a hit.
-Captain Harris says the anonymous male DNA
has never been identified.
-They should find out whose DNA is on that damn...
on that robe.
-Darryl Snedaker, former church member
and retired Solano County deputy sheriff,
says things were missed.
-Based on what I know today,
the totality of the circumstances,
I think they did fail that family.
And I think if they didn't follow up
and find out whose male DNA is on that night robe,
that's a catastrophic failure right there.
-And a team of experts was about to come forward
for the Hunter family, offering help and hope.
d-This is a homicide, there is no question.
♪♪
[ Door lock beeps ]
-This is Doctor Bill Smock.
He is sure that Johanna was murdered
and says he can prove it.
-Every injury will tell you a story
ifyou take the time to analyze it.
-In 2023, Smock was hired
by the Solano County Sheriff's Department
to look at the case.
He is a medical doctor who, by his count,
has reviewed thousands of autopsies
and examined forensic evidence
for police departments across the country.
-The state will call Dr. William Smock.
-Smock also has been an expert witness in high-profile cases,
including testifying against Derek Chauvin
in the 2021 George Floyd murder trial.
-What I've spent 40 years doing is analyzing injuries,
reconstructing how injuries occur.
-And where the Solano County Sheriff's Department
saw a bathrobe sash, a note, and a suicide,
Smock saw something else, something new.
-There was a braided nylon marine rope
three feet from Joanna.
The murder weapon was there in the room with Joanna.
When you look at the photos of the mark
that was created on her neck,
the only thing in that closet that could have created that
was the marine rope.
-But because he was required
to sign a non-disclosure agreement,
no one outside the sheriff's office
saw Smock's report.
-I could not talk to the family.
I could only talk to the lieutenant at Solano County
regarding my findings.
-Here was everything the Hunters had been looking for.
But they did not even know the rope existed
or how Smock made his determination.
Smock was eventually released from the NDA
and was able to show us using mannequins and red paint.
Smock says Joanna's neck had two different ligature marks.
One is from the sash and one is from the marine rope.
-We're going to apply the rope
and see what type of imprint it creates.
You'll notice along the edge
that there is a distinct fabric imprint,
which is the type of fabric imprint we saw on Joanna's neck.
-Here is the autopsy photo,
which we are showing you with the family's permission.
-She was dead... -When the bathrobe...
-...when the bathrobe sash was applied to her neck.
Joanna's scene was staged.
She was killed with the rope,
and then, to make it look like a suicide,
she was hung up by the bathrobe sash
after she was already dead.
-Domestic violence homicides
are the number one staged murders in America.
-Casey Gwinn was sure Joanna's case
was what he calls a hidden homicide.
He and Gael Strack are the co-founders
of Alliance for Hope International,
an advocacy group for survivors of domestic violence
and their families.
d-If you kill a total stranger, nobody knows who you are.
But if you kill your wife or you kill your girlfriend,
everybody's going to be looking at you as a suspect.
You have to make it look like something else.
-When they took up the Hunters' cause,
they believed that Joanna's history of neck injuries
told them they were looking at a strangulation.
-The fact is that if you strangle a woman
one time in an intimate relationship,
she's 750% more likely to be killed by you.
-Smock, who works for Alliance for Hope,
confirmed their suspicion.
But when the sheriff's office agreed to hire Dr. Smock,
it also commissioned another review,
this one by Doctor Brian Peterson,
a pathologist and former president
of the National Association of Medical Examiners.
He disputed Smock's findings.
"I see neither injuries nor toxicology findings
that would support the physical involvement of another person,"
the report said.
And after hiring Smock...
-Especially in hindsight,
I completely disagree with qualifications.
-The sheriff's office took issue with the fact
that Dr. Smock is not a forensic pathologist.
Harris also took issue with Smock's methods.
-This is not someone who has their body weight hanging.
This is simply draped over a mannequin.
That is not how she was killed.
-Smock sent us his contract with the sheriff's office,
which requested his opinion
as to the cause and manner of her death.
He also told us the sheriff's position was disingenuous
because "I didn't agree with what they wanted me to say."
So, Bill Smock's report,
are you completely discounting
everything that he reports in it?
-I'm disputing his conclusion that it was a homicide.
-And so, what Dr. Smock called the murder weapon
was never examined.
Well, where is the rope?
-I don't have the rope, I don't know.
-It wasn't tested. -We also don't have every electrical cord that was there.
We didn't go through the garage
to look for absolutely everything.
-What was missed?
What about the history of domestic abuse?
Was that missed?
-I don't think it was missed.
-Because three different forensic pathologists
and three separate reviews,
starting with the original coroner's report in 2011,
the 2014 re-investigation,
and Dr. Peterson in 2024,
all found suicide,
Captain Harris maintains that,
even if they hadinitially taken
the domestic violence into account,
nothing would have changed.
-And other than creating a hypothetical situation
that Mark murdered her,
there is no evidence to support that.
The prior incidents of domestic violence,
those were -- I'm...
those were not considered at the time of the death, you're right.
But that doesn't mean that they were the cause of death.
-Knowing all that you know now, though,
you said you would have called Mark Lewis's past into question,
and you would have investigated it differently.
-If I could rewind knowing what I know now about Mark Lewis,
yes, this would be a totally different investigation,
knowing now.
-But there is no rewinding, says Harris.
So, is this still an open case now?
-No, i's closed.
-Gael and Casey's experience with Joanna's case
led them to create a checklist of 10 factors
to be considered by law enforcement.
They had begun drafting a new law,
a law that included the red flags
that could signal a homicide.
Among them...
-The first one is someone dies prematurely.
Well, Joanna was 36 years old.
The second one, the scene looked like a suicide or an accident.
Prior history of domestic violence,
prior history of strangulation.
The partner is the last person to see the victim alive.
-We've never had a case with all 10 that wasn't a homicide.
Joanna Hunter had all 10 factors.
-Mark Lewis has not been charged with any crime
relating to the death of Joanna.
After serving 5 years
for the firebombing of Sarah Nottingham's house,
he was released on parole.
He currently lives in Arizona,
works for a plumbing and drain cleaning company,
and has married again.
"48 Hours" tried to reach Lewis repeatedly
and received no response.
The microphone is here, powering on.
So, after suiting up with hidden cameras,
we decided to go in person.
-It is our earnest intention that, one day,
pastor Mark Lewis will be charged with first-degree murder
in the death of Joanna Hunter.
-Okay, we're going out.
With hidden cameras rolling,
there was Mark Lewis.
[ Dog barking ] Mark Lewis? Hi.
I'm Natalie Morales with "48 Hours."
We've been trying to reach you. -Oh, no, it's all good.
-We've sent you a couple of letters and correspondence.
It's okay, puppy. Hi!
-Come on, let's go, let's go.
-Would you be willing to speak with us
on camera, sir? -No.
-Did you have anything to do
with your late wife, Joanna Hunter's death?
Mark Lewis? -Hey, Mark.
-Mark, please. If you would just give us --
Otherwi-- We want your side of the story, Mark.
People would really like to hear your side of the story.
We've tried to reach you many ways.
Hello, sir.
With Lewis inside the house,
we approached his father-in-law in the garage.
I'm just wondering if you have any concerns
about your daughter's own safety,
given his past history with domestic violence.
His late wife was found hanging to death.
Yes.
Did you know his late wife, Joanna Hunter?
Did you go to the church?
You did.
I know this is a difficult...
this is a difficult situation,
but we just -- we want to make...
I appreciate that, but I hope you understand
there are a lot of questions still
that the Hunter family would like to have answers to,
and so I'm here simply doing my job,
giving your son-in-law a chance to answer some questions.
Mark Lewis was moving on with his new family,
while his previous one was aching for answers.
-For years, I was just trying to get to the next hour,
to the next minute,
because the pain was unbearable at times.
It's finally happening.
-Yeah.
-The Hunters, so accustomed to grief,
were thrilled when Senate Bill 989, Joanna's Law,
became California state law on January 1st, 2025,
passing unanimously.
-Joanna's law gave us a sense of...
we've done something wonderful for Joanna.
-Joanna's Law requires investigators
responding to reported suicides,
drug overdoses, or fatal accidents
to check for a history of domestic violence.
-And if there is a documented history of domestic violence,
to assume that this is a suspicious death.
-And that they treat that scene like a homicide.
-Casey Gwinn and Gael Strack, who helped write Joanna's Law,
are using her case to spotlight the connection
between suspicious deaths and domestic violence.
-We have people from all over the country here in this room.
-At this conference in Denver,
they're guiding law enforcement officers
on how to identify those 10 red flags...
-Look for evidence.
-...that could reveal hidden homicides.
-How many of you believe
that this case should have a complete,
independent homicide investigation?
Raise your hand.
-"48 Hours" has learned the California Department of Justice
has agreed to review the Solano County DA's decision
not to bring criminal charges related to Joanna's death.
The Hunters hope that will move the case forward.
-I look at it this way.
Nothing can be kept in the dark forever.
-Joe's wife, Kayte,
is a sideline reporter for the Sacramento Kings
and a former player in the WNBA.
She experienced domestic violence herself
in a teenage relationship.
-Have you talked to your daughter about domestic abuse?
-In the most basic form, she's 6 right now.
-Wait, Dad. That's just what I need.
-But we talk to her about how you treat others
and how you should be treated.
And that will evolve over time.
-Say hi to everybody, Jojo.
-This is Joseph. -Hi!
-But it's also conversations
that we have with Jojo, with our son.
Because...
it is our responsibility to also teach him
what is acceptable behavior and treatment of women, period.
-I'm sorry...
that I couldn't protect you from that monster.
-Joe's tribute to Joanna on "Survivor" season 48...
-I'm sorry.
-...moved millions.
This spring, he'll compete again in a landmark season 50
to celebrate the game,
which will also keep attention on his sister's case.
-In advocating for his sister,
he's advocating for other victims, other women.
-Enter the shop.
-And our daughter's gonna be so proud of it, our son.
-And she gives us so much love.
Every day, I feel it.
I'm here to be her voice.
-For as long as she's able,
Patricia will tell Joanna's story,
often at the Sacramento Family Justice Center,
a resource for survivors of domestic violence.
-Joanna was light. She was joy.
-So, when we talk about her,
I just try to light the room up with her.
-They hope Joanna's Law --
and Joanna's light --
will help save lives
and shine the way forward for survivors of domestic violence.
-She fought from the beginning to her last breath.
So, no matter how hard it gets,
never give up.
That's her legacy.
I love you, sis.
♪♪