♪♪
Narrator: Up next, after nearly two decades of marriage,
a divorcee is starting fresh.
She was dating a whole bunch of different guys.
She was doing some online dating.
Narrator: But dangerous secrets
lurk in cyberspace.
The whole Internet world is risky.
You just never know who's out there.
Narrator: Romance leads to horrific violence.
I'd never seen anything like this.
Narrator: And science exposes a killer
convinced he's outwitted both detectives
and forensic analysts.
♪♪
In the summer of 2011,
Chanin Starbuck,
a 42-year-old mother of five,
was ready to start a new chapter in her life.
Chanin was trying to get an education and a way to support
herself and the kids.
Narrator: Recently divorced,
Chanin got certified as a dental hygienist
and was finally out on her own.
Getting independent was a big accomplishment,
especially for a single mom with a brood of kids
ranging in age from 12 to 21.
Bourchier: Chanin got pregnant on her honeymoon,
and then the first son was born,
and he was a -- he was a whipper.
He was a cute little guy.
Chanin and the children's father, Clay Starbuck.
were married and divorced two times
in a love match that sometimes burned a little too hot.
Clay and Chanin did not have your normal relationship.
You know, you've heard of on-and-off.
This was more intense than that, really.
They just couldn't seem to keep it together.
Narrator: Still, the couple attempted
to raise their children together.
Clay moved out and ended up in a house,
I think just a little over a half a mile
from Chanin.
He stayed pretty close.
Narrator: All told, Chanin and Clay
had been together for most of her adult life.
In addition to supporting herself,
part of Chanin's new life involved dating other men.
Chanin was using a number of different websites.
To some degree, this can be risky.
Narrator: On the afternoon of December 1st, 2011,
Chanin didn't show up to drive her children home from school.
No one could get in touch with her, which was unusual.
It wasn't like her to not tell anyone where she went.
She wouldn't leave the area and not tell her kids.
Narrator: Clay Starbuck asked police to do a welfare check
at Chanin's house.
No one answered the door, but nothing appeared to be wrong.
There was no reason for police to enter the house.
Chanin's children spent the night with their father
and tried to find her.
And the next day, I got up and I started calling,
and I knew then that something was wrong.
Narrator: Family and friends kept calling the police.
So, the next night, they checked the house again.
Nothing seemed changed from the night before,
but this time, with a key from the landlord,
they went in.
The house was dark. It was dark inside.
There was no lights on.
Narrator: Moving through the house with flashlights,
officers didn't see anything unusual
until they got to the master bedroom.
There was a female laying on the bed with no clothes on.
I was startled.
I stepped back for a second.
I took a look,
a further look with my flashlight,
and I could see that it was Chanin.
Narrator: She was dead, in a scene of unusual violence.
This doesn't seem to be a "typical" killing.
I mean, there was some evil involved here.
Narrator: First responders thought she might have been strangled.
Even worse, the body had been staged in a humiliating,
sexually suggestive manner.
Dresback: I'd never seen anything like it.
I was 35 years old in law enforcement, and the last 20
were in homicide,
and that's the first actual posing
involving sexual devices and in a sexual way
that I'd ever seen.
Narrator: Her family was devastated by this murder
and shocked by the brutality.
I did lose part of me.
I definitely did.
She was my whole life.
Narrator: A few things appeared clear immediately.
This staging of the body would have taken time --
so much time that Chanin's killer
would likely be familiar with the house
and knew he wouldn't be disturbed.
Even more telling, there was no forced entry.
The evidence, at least at this stage,
indicated Chanin knew her killer.
♪♪
Narrator: Chanin Starbuck's murder shocked her family,
her friends, and her community.
She was my whole life.
I wanted a little girl,
and she was -- oh, my God,
she was perfect.
Starks: Chanin was tortured, and she was beaten so bad
that she couldn't have an open-casket funeral.
It was a horrific thing to think about your friend,
having to suffer and be tortured like she was.
Narrator: Investigators on the scene
theorized Chanin had been strangled
and that affected how they collected evidence.
We swabbed for DNA
prior to moving Chanin's body from the crime scene.
Narrator: But the most shocking part of this crime
was what Chanin's killer did after the murder.
Bryant: When cops come upon Chanin's body,
the first thing that strikes them
is how bizarre the positioning is.
Shover: I'd never seen anything like this.
I've never seen a dead body positioned and staged
the way this one was.
Narrator: This staging took time, and a lot of it.
So did the attempt to clean up the crime scene.
Johnston: All of the bedding has been removed,
and it is in the wash machine.
Whatever staining had been on the bedding
is most likely removed in the wash,
and so we're unable to match it up.
Narrator: Oddly, for a crime with clear sexual motivations,
Chanin had not been raped.
The autopsy revealed petechial hemorrhages in Chanin's eyes --
confirmation that strangulation was the cause of death.
And this gave investigators a possible break.
There was something Chanin's killer
apparently didn't realize.
Chanin may have just taken a shower.
Her hair looked like it was air-dried.
Narrator: That meant her body might provide a good,
freshly cleaned template for the killer's DNA.
If there's any kind of suspicions
that someone may have been manually strangled,
typically, the medical examiner will take swabs of the neck.
Narrator: While those swabs were being taken,
detectives continued processing the scene.
Soon, Chanin's ex-husband, Clay,
who lived about a mile away,
arrived.
I told him that Chanin was found and that she was dead.
And upon that news, he almost collapsed on the ground.
Shover: He was very upset.
Of course, he wanted to go in there.
He wanted to see her.
I told him he couldn't.
It was a crime scene,
and we were gonna secure the residence immediately.
Narrator: Clay told police that Chanin
had been out of contact for about two days,
which was out of character,
and a big problem for detectives.
Johnston: At that particular time,
we're not certain when Chanin was murdered.
Narrator: And Chanin's autopsy didn't provide much help
in narrowing that time frame.
She was cold when found,
so body temperature couldn't be used
to nail down a time of death.
This meant establishing alibis for potential suspects
would be nearly impossible.
For now, though, Clay Starbuck
had a theory about who killed his ex-wife.
Dresback: When I said, "Who do you think did it?"
he said, "Just look on her computer
and look on her phones."
Maybe it had been an Internet date that had gone wrong.
Narrator: A search of Chanin's cellphone
provided vital information about her final days and hours.
At 8:06 on the day she was last seen,
she got a text from a man named Tom Walker.
The two texted "Good morning" to each other.
At 8:29, Tom made a request.
Tom had sent a text to Chanin
requesting that she pose herself
in this kind of provocative way
and send him that picture.
Narrator: Alarmingly, this mirrored almost exactly
the position in which Chanin had been posed
after her murder.
♪♪
Narrator: In the two days that Chanin Starbuck went missing
before her body was discovered,
she exchanged a series of text messages
with family and friends.
Chanin's last apparent communication --
asking her ex-husband Clay to pick up the kids from school --
was at 3:17 P.M. on December 1st,
two days before her body was found.
We're using that as kind of the last known time
we believe she's alive.
Narrator: That timeline looked to clear Clay
as a suspect in Chanin's murder.
They know that Clay was with the kids from about 3:30 on.
That creates a pretty tight window that would excuse Clay.
Narrator: But it didn't do much for the chief suspect in this case --
Tom Walker.
He and Chanin had met online,
and he asked her to photograph herself
in the exact same sexual pose
in which her body was ultimately found.
To detectives, this seemed like more than a coincidence.
Tom admitted that he had made the request for the photograph.
Narrator: Chanin didn't respond to this request.
As for Tom Walker, he had no history of violence.
But since analysts couldn't pin down
Chanin's exact time of death,
he was still a solid suspect.
It's very common to have the time-of-death problem
because the body doesn't necessarily tell you.
Best you can get from a body is range.
Narrator: Meanwhile, other searches of Chanin's communications
uncovered a new potential suspect.
His name was John Wilson.
It didn't take very long to figure out
that the John Wilson listed on Facebook
was a fake profile
and this person did not want to be found.
Narrator: Using the e-mail address John Wilson gave to Chanin,
detectives contacted him,
and he refused to divulge his real identity.
So, detectives did what's called a reverse directory
on one of the numbers John Wilson used to call Chanin.
It was traced to a pay phone outside a library
at Washington State University.
I mean, who uses pay phones anymore?
Narrator: The answer, at least in this case,
was someone who wanted to hide his identity
and even his location.
The problem for John Wilson
was that there was a surveillance camera
near this pay phone,
and it recorded this image of someone walking to that phone
at almost exactly the time
records showed Chanin took the call.
Investigators who were still contacting him by e-mail
gave him a choice.
He could voluntarily identify himself,
or they could put his picture on TV
and ask the public to identify him.
With that, John Wilson came clean.
His real name -- John Kenlein.
And he had a good reason for trying to hide his identity.
He's cheating on his wife.
Narrator: Kenlein admitted contacting Chanin,
and even said he went to her house
during the period she dropped out of contact.
Kenlein remained a solid suspect
for the same reason Tom Walker did.
Detectives still weren't sure exactly when Chanin was killed,
so they couldn't alibi any of their suspects.
Bryant: Chanin was seen when she dropped the kids off,
and then her body not found for almost three days later.
Narrator: But then, to the surprise of everyone,
a new piece of evidence emerged.
Johnston: I find a 911 call,
which was something that we were never aware of in the past.
Operator: 911. What are you reporting?
♪♪
Narrator: About three weeks into
Chanin Starbuck's murder investigation,
detectives came upon a surprise piece of evidence --
a 911 call traced back to Chanin's cellphone.
You really hear just what seems to be a female voice
and sort of a gurgle or a gasp or some sort of struggle.
Narrator: And then the call ended.
Why did police only learn about
this vital piece of evidence now?
Because of a common safety feature on Chanin's phone.
Certain cellphones at that time wouldn't record 911 calls
so that if someone were kidnapped
or needed to make a 911 call without a third party knowing,
it wouldn't reflect in their records.
Narrator: But a later search of Chanin's physical phone records
showed she had made this call.
During that call, the 911 operator followed protocol
to the letter.
The 911 operator attempted to call the number back,
but it just goes to voicemail.
Narrator: One minute later, Chanin's phone lost contact
with the cell tower,
suggesting it had been powered off.
There was nothing the 911 operator could do.
Bryant: Because it's on a cellphone,
they don't have the specifics to tell them exactly
where that call originated.
And therefore, no cars were dispatched to check the area.
Narrator: This call was made at 9:18
on the morning Chanin dropped out of contact.
It narrows the window.
It narrows the time of death.
Narrator: But while this potentially answered a lot of questions,
it raised a lot more.
If Chanin had been killed around 9:18,
why were there messages from her phone
later on that same day?
One of two things was going on.
Either she didn't die at or about that time,
or she didn't send those texts --
either, very important for detectives.
Narrator: And also important for the two chief suspects,
Tom Walker and John Kenlein.
They both had solid alibis for 9:18 on the morning in question
and were ultimately cleared of any involvement.
But one possible suspect did not have an alibi
for that timeframe.
And that was Chanin's ex-husband, Clay Starbuck.
It is definitely making Clay Starbuck
look like a stronger suspect than ever.
Narrator: But how to prove it?
For that, detectives turn to one of the few lucky breaks they had
in a very difficult case.
Chanin had just gotten out of the shower before this happened.
Narrator: And if Chanin was strangled after she showered,
this would be fresh DNA
almost certainly deposited on her neck
at the time of her murder.
Because DNA technology over the years
has gotten more sensitive,
we can now develop DNA profiles
from just a few skin cells.
So, six or seven cells,
we can get a DNA profile.
Narrator: Using a process called Y-STR DNA,
which targets the Y chromosome confined to males,
analysts lifted a DNA profile from Chanin's neck and face.
The profile matched the "Y" profile for Clay Starbuck
and any of his male children.
Narrator: Two of the Starbucks' children
were adult males,
and both had solid alibis for the time of the murder.
That left only one person --
Clay Starbuck.
The DNA profile that we got left little doubt in our mind
that it was Clay Starbuck.
Narrator: But Clay had an explanation for his DNA.
He used to live in the house.
Of course his DNA would Be there.
Analysts disagreed.
Where his DNA was found, on a body that was freshly washed,
didn't appear to be a casual transfer.
This is highly unlikely,
especially for that DNA to be found
in so many important locations.
Narrator: Chanin's family says Clay couldn't tolerate
her seeing other men.
That was the last straw for Clay.
He was losing any ability to control her.
Narrator: The evidence appears to indicate
that Clay snuck into the house
while Chanin drove the kids to school,
something he had done many times before.
He's just not even human.
He stalked her.
And that was horrifying.
Narrator: But this time, he planned to kill her.
He hid himself and waited for her to return home.
She took a shower.
As she came out, he put her in a choke hold
and strangled her to death,
not realizing his arm left touch DNA,
his genetic signature, on her neck.
He checked her cellphone, saw the sexually explicit request,
and realized that posing her in this way was an ideal way
to throw off police.
Afterward, he cleaned the scene,
going so far as to wash the bedding
and wipe down the washing machine.
Later that day, he used Chanin's phone
to send a series of text messages.
This made it seem she was still alive.
It broadened estimates for her time of death,
and it gave him an alibi.
Clay really is diabolical in using this cellphone.
Narrator: But what ultimately broke the case wide open
was Chanin attempting, however unsuccessfully,
to call 911.
Operator: 911. What are you reporting?
Narrator: Clay Starbuck and his children say he's innocent.
But in June of 2013, he was convicted of first-degree murder
and sentenced to life without parole.
Even detectives admit that as brazen as this crime was,
Clay came very close to getting away with murder.
In all of my years of investigating crime scenes,
I've never seen someone take so much time in a crime scene
to pose the person, to dispose of evidence.
Sparks: The forensic evidence definitely helped this case
because the DNA that they were able to gather
helped seal it that it was a male that had killed her
and it was a Starbuck male that had killed her.
If she had not made that 911 call, as brief as it was,
the authorities never would have narrowed the time frame.
They never would have been able to eliminate suspects
other than Clay.
She truly helped them solve this crime.