Original subtitles

[tense music]

[soft music]

- Erie, pennsylvania, is a nice place to live.

A lot of fishing, a lot of boating,

Swimming on the lake.

- We have a number of commercial fishermen

That go out and collect fish and then sell them locally.

- We have some of the best beaches on the great lakes.

♪ ♪

But storms come out of nowhere.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

- We can have waves of up to 6 to 7 feet on the lake.

During the summertime, we run the highest

Concentration of search and rescue cases

In the entire coast guard.

- The united states coast guard

Received a 911 phone call.

A man was reporting that his wife had fallen overboard.

- The water is very cold, so we immediately launched

Resources to try to find her.

- She was on the water all the time.

And so how could she just fall off the back of a boat?

- Maybe she just left the marriage,

And he didn't want to tell his family that she had left him.

- But then a human leg washes up on the shore of lake erie.

I said, what happened to her?

There's only one person who has the answer,

And that's you.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

[soft music]

♪ ♪

- Lake erie is the fourth largest

Of north america's great lakes

And the world's 10th largest freshwater lake by area.

Rife with multiple species of fish

And hundreds of shipwrecks,

This massive body of water is a huge draw

For both fishermen and scuba divers.

It's there that one couple lived out their dream

Of starting their own fishing business.

But tragically, on June 11, 2017,

That dream was shattered.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

- At approximately 1:30 pm,

The united states coast guard here in erie

Received a 911 phone call

From a commercial fishing vessel, "doris-m."

That call was from a christopher leclair,

And he was reporting that his wife,

Karen, had fallen overboard.

♪ ♪

Chris leclair reported that he was approximately 3 miles

Off the shores of the peninsula that

Comes out from erie, pennsylvania.

I have a lot of experience on boating on lake erie,

And I know firsthand how easy it is to fall off of a boat.

♪ ♪

Boating itself is dangerous.

Due to waves, the boat's moving around.

And when we're talking about a commercial fishing vessel,

You're pulling fish out of the water.

And obviously, water's coming off that fish,

Making all your decks slippery.

Knowing this is early June here in erie, pennsylvania,

The waters are anywhere from 50 to 60 degrees.

Looking at some hypothermia charts,

We know within one to six hours,

Hypothermia is gonna set in.

The survivability after that

Becomes very slim.

♪ ♪

- Water temperature definitely increased

The urgency of this case.

We immediately launched resources

To go to the last known position that karen was seen.

♪ ♪

- Because lake erie is located on the international border

With canada to the north

And four u.S. States to the south, east, and west,

Multiple agencies have to collaborate

On this search and rescue mission.

- The coast guard and our partners launched

31 search and rescue patterns for this case.

At the time karen was reported missing,

The waves in lake erie were about 4 to 5 feet high.

♪ ♪

That means that it is much harder to see someone.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

- We met christopher leclair at his dock slip

To find out what happened to karen

And get information to assist our aviation

And maritime assets, anything that would help them

Find where she's at.

Christopher leclair was a commercial fisherman.

He told us that before this incident

That morning that he had fishing nets

That were in the water that he needed

To get the fish out of them.

- I was with sergeant huffman, and according to

Christopher leclair, karen was out there because

He needed her help in lifting the nets

And pulling in the fish.

- Chris and karen leclair arrive to where

His boat is slipped at about 11:45 in the morning.

Once they were out there, the water was pretty rough.

And his boat has diesel engines.

And chris says that karen was feeling ill

Due to diesel fumes, as well as motion sickness.

♪ ♪

- Chris said he was in the captain's quarter,

Which is towards the front,

And he's steering the boat.

- Karen goes to the aft portion of the boat on the port side

And sticks her head out in the wind

To kind of get some relief from those fumes

And from that seasickness.

Chris is in an enclosed pilot house,

So he cannot see the rear of the boat where she's sitting.

And diesel engines are so loud on the boat

That he can't hear anything.

He would stop about every 15 minutes to check

To see how she was doing.

♪ ♪

Chris said that he was passing that buoy

Off the shores of presque isle state park

To set more fishing nets.

And that was the last time he saw karen leclair.

He searched the entire vessel, thinking maybe

She went somewhere else on the boat,

But he couldn't find her anywhere.

He said that he marked on his gps

Where he thought she went overboard.

♪ ♪

- During that conversation with the investigators,

Chris said that karen was an expert scuba diver

And she was able to tread water for a long time.

♪ ♪

- That day, I got a call from another family member,

And he told me that she was missing.

And I said, what do you mean, she's missing?

She was a very good swimmer.

We were all just anxiously waiting by our phones,

Hoping that they would find her perhaps treading water

And still alive.

♪ ♪

- At this point, karen has not been in the water that long.

But according to chris leclair,

They're approximately 3 to 4 miles off of shore.

So even though she was a certified scuba diver,

It's a pretty far distance to be able to make it

Back to shore in those waters.

♪ ♪

Also, chris told us that

Karen, she had cancer.

♪ ♪

- Chris said it was ovarian cancer,

And karen was terminally ill.

Somebody who may not have been 100% healthy

Could be much less likely to survive in the waters

For a long period of time.

♪ ♪

- Family and friends were also out searching for karen.

But you feel helpless that you can't do anything.

♪ ♪

- It was really hard for me to wait

While they were searching for karen,

Because lake erie's big.

But I was hoping they could find her.

- While the surface area of lake erie is quite large

At 9,900 square miles,

It's the shallowest and the warmest

Of the great lakes,

With a maximum depth of 210 feet.

Both of these factors give hope to the search team

That they'll be able to find karen alive

Before daylight fades

And the temperature drops even lower.

- Someone can rapidly drift away from the area

Where they were last seen.

So we shifted to a broader search over a wide area.

We are looking at wind, waves, air temperature

In order to find karen.

But as night falls in our search,

It became much more difficult to spot anything in the water.

- With every ticking minute and hour,

The chance of survivability for karen leclair

Becomes less and less.

[dramatic music]

- When the news came out, two individuals came forward.

- He says the only reason he's seeing her

Is for sexual relations.

- When we saw the video surveillance,

We knew this is a whole different ballgame.

♪ ♪

[tense music]

♪ ♪

- After an exhaustive overnight search

Spanning over 1,300 square miles,

Authorities have come up empty-handed.

There's no sign of karen leclair.

♪ ♪

- The longer a search like this goes on,

The odds of finding her go down.

♪ ♪

- We're almost 24 hours since

Karen leclair has fallen overboard.

♪ ♪

- There was always that hope that

She was still alive,

That maybe she just decided

To go away for a little while.

So many things just go through your mind.

♪ ♪

- The coast guard does not take the decision

To suspend a search lightly.

But on June 12th, we had reached a point

Where further searching

Would not have impacted the probability

Of finding karen alive.

♪ ♪

- At this point, it's more of a recovery,

And we're gonna have to begin to look

For the body of karen leclair.

[somber music]

♪ ♪

- I was sitting at home.

I got a call from my brother.

He just said the police thought karen was dead.

She's a scuba diver.

She knows how to swim.

She grew up in the lake.

I just didn't believe it.

♪ ♪

- Karen was my favorite aunt.

She was always happy.

She was always looking to take care of people.

She would always volunteer at church.

- Our family was a blended family.

Karen and I were the youngest of the 14 kids.

Karen and I loved the outdoors.

We were always around the water.

We went swimming all the time.

♪ ♪

She was just so bubbly and sweet, caring.

♪ ♪

[soft music]

♪ ♪

We always talked about the men we were gonna marry,

What our dreams were.

She just wanted a nice guy.

Eventually, she met chris.

- Chris was very outgoing.

He was a good-looking guy.

And he was very nice, very easy to get along with.

♪ ♪

Karen and chris got very involved in scuba diving,

And she got her certification,

And they would go on trips all the time and--

And do scuba diving.

♪ ♪

- Chris was always looking for ways to impress her,

And he swept karen off of her feet.

One of the reasons, I think, that karen

Fell in love with chris was because he was strong.

She wanted security.

And he loved her, and she loved him.

- Karen and chris dated through the '80s,

And in the '90s, they got married.

They had a bait and tackle store,

And then they decided to go into commercial fishing

Because it seemed like it was more money.

♪ ♪

- Lake erie's fish populations

Are the most abundant of the five great lakes,

Which is why it's home to some

Of the world's largest commercial fisheries

And the perfect place for the leclairs to set up shop.

♪ ♪

Chris owned and operated the "doris-m,"

A fishing tug built in erie in 1947.

The vessel was made to house thousands of fish

That would be sold commercially.

- Karen worked at a car dealership

In the accountant's office.

But on Saturday and Sunday,

She worked with chris on the fishing boat.

♪ ♪

Karen enjoyed working with chris.

♪ ♪

- I just couldn't understand what could have happened.

[dramatic music]

- When we're doing any investigation,

We like to get background.

And at this point, we know the last person

To see karen leclair was chris.

♪ ♪

- So we contacted the husband, chris leclair,

And we had him come in for an interview.

♪ ♪

- We go into the rest of the details

Throughout his entire weekend.

And chris informs me that him and karen went out

On the 10th to clean out these nets.

The day before, he said that she fell over

And karen got sick.

So they went home for the evening.

And that's why they were coming back

On Sunday, June 11th, was to finish that job.

♪ ♪

We kind of get into some personal questions with chris

About his relationship with karen leclair.

♪ ♪

He informs us that they'd been together

For over 30 years.

We kind of get into, hey, how is that marriage going?

Is there any fighting going on?

- Chris said that they had a great relationship.

They never fought, and they got along really well.

- But there's some nonverbal cues

That chris is giving off

That chris is not being

As open and truthful as I would like him to be.

So we asked chris about any infidelity

In his marriage, to which he exclaims that

He does have a mistress, tracy butler.

♪ ♪

He's been seeing her for about two years.

♪ ♪

- This is obviously a red flag.

♪ ♪

- When chris tells us that he has a mistress,

A lot of things go through your mind.

Chris says the only reason he's seeing her

Is for sexual relations because karen had cancer.

So sexual relations in their marriage had stopped.

♪ ♪

Chris claimed that karen was aware of his affair.

So maybe karen had just left the marriage

And chris didn't want to tell his family

That she had left him.

- Maybe christopher cared more for his mistress

Than he did with continuing his marriage,

So he decided to get rid of his wife.

Or is there a possibility that the mistress

Wanted more or expected more from this relationship?

- So it's imperative that we interview tracy butler.

♪ ♪

Chris allows me to copy the cell phone number,

But then I was contacted

In reference to a body part that had washed up on shore

In fairview, pennsylvania.

♪ ♪

It was a leg found by someone that was walking the beach.

[siren wailing]

We immediately respond to the scene.

[police radio chatter]

We're thinking this is a big breakthrough

In the case.

- This leg was taken from the water.

It was then transported

To the erie county coroner's office.

Right away, our mind goes to,

Is this a remnant of karen leclair's body?

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

- After a human leg

Washes up on the shores of lake erie,

Investigators wait to learn if it's indeed

The remains of missing boater karen leclair.

♪ ♪

- I received word from the coroner's office

That due to the amount of decomposition that occurred

To that leg, it appeared that it had been in the lake

Much longer than karen had been in the lake at that point.

- Erie county coroner's office determined

That it was the leg of a victim of a plane crash

That occurred off the shore in cleveland, ohio.

♪ ♪

- It's a disappointment because it takes away

A lead that maybe we would have had.

♪ ♪

During that time, we attempt to contact chris's mistress,

See if maybe she was involved,

Or maybe she has more information

That will lead us to karen leclair.

♪ ♪

She agrees to come to the state police barracks

For an interview.

- Tracy butler, christopher's mistress,

Was a single mom of two who lived in the city of erie.

- She tells us that this affair has been going on

For approximately five years,

Several times a week.

But chris had told us that he has been seeing her

For about two years.

So which one is the truth?

- Tracy says when she would ask about his wife, karen,

He told her that karen was down in florida.

♪ ♪

- Chris was telling her that they were separated

And that she had cancer

And that she was going to die at any moment.

♪ ♪

Another thing the mistress had told us,

She actually saw a newscast about a missing woman

On lake erie that had fallen off of a vessel.

♪ ♪

On Sunday, June 11, 2017,

She called chris on his cell phone.

She asked him, hey, do you know anything

About the missing woman out there?

♪ ♪

He claimed he did not know anything about it.

♪ ♪

Tracy was actually horrified when she found out from us

That it was karen that was missing.

At that point, she said she had felt that

Chris had been lying to her for some time.

♪ ♪

Tracy does not appear to be trying to deceive us.

She's telling us things that she probably wouldn't

Want to tell other people.

So we didn't believe that she was involved

In karen's disappearance.

♪ ♪

To hear what she's saying is a total contradiction

Of what chris has just told us

In the hours before her interview.

It just adds doubt to his story.

♪ ♪

- So because of that, the troopers were also

Continuing to get as much information

About christopher and karen leclair's life as they could.

- When we interviewed karen's coworkers

At the auto dealership, they described her

As loyal and dedicated and said she was

Very personable with the other coworkers.

- But they said that karen changed

Whenever chris was around.

She was not the happy, bubbly person

That she normally was.

We found out that chris had told her employer

That karen did, in fact, have cancer

And it was terminal.

- But her coworkers said they approached her,

And she told them, I'm not sick.

And there was no further discussion about that.

♪ ♪

It was shocking that chris was making up these lies.

♪ ♪

- We don't know the exact reason why

Chris would tell these people that,

Whether it was to justify an affair

Or if it was to justify

A disappearance of karen one day.

- At this point in the investigation,

All we have is a missing person because we do not have a body.

But based on the inconsistencies

In chris's statements and the fact that

Chris had a mistress,

We had to begin to look into the possibility

That karen falling overboard

Was not an accident that occurred.

It was a deliberate act by her husband.

♪ ♪

We then contacted the border patrol

To determine the path that christopher leclair's boat

Took on June 10th and June 11th.

♪ ♪

- Because lake erie is situated

On an international boundary,

The u.S. Border patrol keeps track of all vessels

Via highly accurate radar technology.

This radar gives the precise latitude

And longitude of any vessel's movement on the water.

♪ ♪

- We were able to determine that there were some areas

That we saw chris's boat

Spend some time at, more than others.

So we wanted to dive on those locations.

- It's important to find karen's body

To try to determine what actually happened on the boat,

If it was an accident or if she was killed.

- In a no-body case, filing criminal homicide charges

Is very difficult.

You have to have a strong circumstantial evidence case

In order to be able to prove that that person is deceased.

♪ ♪

The new york state police used side-scan sonar

To look for anomalies on the bottom of the lake

In those locations.

They searched 12 hours on the lake,

And they dove on many anomalies.

But unfortunately, it was old fishing traps, old tires,

Just anomalies that were on the lake floor

That weren't helpful in our investigation.

♪ ♪

- We're now focusing our investigative efforts

Towards finding any video footage

That can either confirm or deny where actually

Christopher reports them as being together last.

And that area was the east marina

Down off of dobbins landing,

Where he docked his boat Sunday, June 11.

There were cameras that covered his slip

Where his boat was docked.

♪ ♪

We then contact the erie port authority.

We go ask them, could they pull the footage

On that weekend of June 10th and June 11th?

♪ ♪

- After that, we review the surveillance footage

Of the erie port authority.

- We want to confirm chris's account of their activities

On the water on that weekend of June 10th and June 11th.

- June 10, 2017, was the day before karen went missing.

[tense music]

We see chris and karen leclair arrive.

♪ ♪

We watched them walk down the walkway

Alongside the marina, enter the secured gate,

And walk down to their slip

And board the "doris-m" together,

Exactly what chris told us happened on June 10th.

- The boat leaves the marina at around 12:30

In the afternoon on that day.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

And then at 4:39 pm,

We see the "doris-m" returning into the marina.

- It doesn't go back to its designated slip,

The one that's assigned to chris leclair.

It actually parks in a different location,

An unusual parking spot,

As there's no other boats parked over there.

Why park your boat there?

♪ ♪

- Then we see christopher on the pathway walking

On June 10th, and he's by himself.

Keep in mind that he does not report

Karen missing overboard

Until the following day, June 11th.

And there were only two people on that boat, you and her.

She's not here.

Where's your wife,

And what happened to her?

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

- Police watch security video from June 10th,

The day before chris leclair

Reported his wife, karen, had fallen overboard.

While the couple did board their boat together

For a day on the water,

When it docked back at the marina,

Chris walked away alone.

♪ ♪

- We continue to watch that footage

Through the entire night from June 10th into June 11th.

And on June 11, 2017,

We see chris at 12:06 pm

Pull up in that same suv,

Park in the same location he did the day before,

And he enters the "doris-m" fishing vessel himself.

He pilots that vessel out of the east basin

And out into presque isle bay before he goes

Out of view from the camera.

I speculate that on June 10th, chris parked his boat

At that different location, thinking no one would see

Who got on and off of that boat at that location.

♪ ♪

- Now, if he actually killed karen,

That shows premeditation.

♪ ♪

- I interviewed a commercial fisherman

Who was out in the waters on June 12th,

The day after christopher reported

Karen falling overboard.

And he ran across christopher leclair,

Who asked him if he had gone and checked the nets

Near a certain area off the lighthouse.

The fisherman says, why did you ask me that?

And christopher had said something to the effect of,

Well, I had lost something.

The guy asked him, naturally, what did you lose?

He goes, well, I'm sure you heard my wife fell off my boat.

And he found it odd that chris referred to

"I lost something" as his wife.

♪ ♪

- After reviewing the surveillance footage

And interviewing other fishermen,

A top priority is to re-interview the mistress,

Tracy butler, to get a better understanding of a timeline

Of when she spoke to chris and what he told her

He was doing during those times.

♪ ♪

So tracy was called back in for an interview.

She tells us that she had plans with chris

On June 10, 2017, at 2:00 pm.

She tried to call him and text him several times

And was not getting a response back from him.

And at 4:00, around that time,

She finally did get a message from chris.

It was actually a photograph of him on his fishing vessel.

And he explained to her through text message

That he was out there cleaning nets.

She said around 7:30 pm that night,

They had dinner together and that he spent the night

At her house, which she said was weird,

Because he's never spent the night before.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

They awake the next morning.

About 10:30, 11:00, he says that he has to go

To finish cleaning out his fishing nets.

♪ ♪

This is in direct contradiction

To chris telling us that he spent the night of the 10th

Into the morning of the 11th at home with karen.

♪ ♪

- I was part of this case from the very beginning

Because it just seemed something was up.

And tracy confirming that chris was

With her on Saturday, June 10th, all night

Was a huge break in the case.

♪ ♪

- And then tracy told us that on June 9, 2017,

She gave chris the ultimatum that he had until that weekend

To decide if he was gonna choose her or his wife.

- We now believe that between the hours of 1:00 and 4:00

On June 10th, karen leclair met her demise

At the hands of christopher leclair

In the waters of lake erie.

- This is no longer a missing person investigation.

♪ ♪

This is a homicide investigation.

♪ ♪

- With the manipulation with the coworkers

And the lies that karen had cancer,

The video surveillance in the marina,

And now an ultimatum around this time frame,

We felt confident that we had enough to do the arrest.

[dramatic music]

- At this point, I file the criminal homicide charges

And get an arrest warrant for chris leclair,

And I also obtain a search warrant

For his residence in albion, pennsylvania.

It's important that we find chris right away

Due to the fact that he has all this freedom

To go out and destroy any evidence

While he's not in custody.

♪ ♪

- But we didn't know if he was in the residence

Or if he wasn't in the residence.

We always approach the situation

As if the person may be armed.

So we utilized tactical teams, and we surrounded the house.

♪ ♪

We approached the house from all directions.

- Chris liked to be in control of the situation,

But not today.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

[police radio chatter]

- Police are surrounding the home of chris leclair,

Where they plan to arrest him for killing his wife

And search for physical evidence

That may strengthen their case.

♪ ♪

- When we entered,

Christopher leclair was not in the residence.

♪ ♪

- Some of the things we're looking for in the residence

Is we're looking for any dna evidence,

Any blood evidence.

♪ ♪

There was a built-in gun cabinet

Into a wall of the living room

With several guns displayed in the cabinet.

♪ ♪

We couldn't tell if there was any guns missing

At that point, and we didn't know how karen had died.

We didn't know if it was a gunshot,

Strangulation, drowning.

♪ ♪

Another thing that we're looking for

Is items that we can get karen's dna off of.

♪ ♪

For example, we took hairbrushes, toothbrushes.

In case a body's ever found,

We would be able to use that dna

To identify if that body is karen or not.

♪ ♪

While we're serving the search warrant at chris's residence,

Patrol troopers are posted out front,

And they actually see chris drive by in his suv.

♪ ♪

[police radio chatter]

They do a traffic stop.

- I approached christopher leclair

And asked him if he would present himself

For another interview regarding his wife's death.

He declined the interview and had requested counsel.

♪ ♪

- So he's arrested in front of the residence.

♪ ♪

- Christopher leclair was charged

With one general count of homicide,

Because at the time that karen went missing,

We did not know the cause of her death.

♪ ♪

[phone ringing]

- When I heard that chris was arrested,

I couldn't believe it.

♪ ♪

I don't know anybody that could do something like that,

Unless they're evil.

♪ ♪

- Seeing chris on the news after he was arrested,

In his mugshot, he didn't look like

The same chris that I remember.

He just looked evil.

I never really saw, like, any red flags

That there were relationship issues.

I just couldn't believe everything that happened.

♪ ♪

- After the arrest and when the news came out,

Two individuals come forward as soon as they hear

That it's karen is the victim of this incident.

One of the individuals that called had been at a party

With chris and karen.

She and her husband were just having

A conversation with chris.

Karen was not part of this conversation at all.

But they were talking about a joke about

An ex-girlfriend being buried in raspberry bushes.

And she says, I realize it's kind of dark humor,

But it's been a long-running joke.

And chris said, well, that's not what I'm going to do.

I'm going to put her on a boat.

I'm going to drive out into the middle of the lake

To the deepest part of the lake.

She's going to fall off the boat,

And no one will ever find her body.

And she took him rather seriously at that point.

It was very uncomfortable with that statement that he made.

This was from 2004 that she remembered that conversation.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

There was a second person that came forward,

And he did not really know chris,

But he had an interaction with him down at an auction.

♪ ♪

And they were talking about a news show

That came on about a wife dying.

And chris made a comment that he would take his wife

On the lake, wrap her up in fishing rope,

And then they would never find her.

This was in 2011, a complete stranger

That he's saying this to.

So for him to come forward when he heard this happen,

To me, spoke pretty highly about how much

He was disturbed by that comment.

♪ ♪

But we don't know.

How did he kill her?

Hearing from these two individuals

Helps us give the jury as much as we could

To point to the fact that christopher had killed karen.

But there's always a challenge when you don't have the body.

♪ ♪

- Gases that build up during decomposition

Can eventually force a body to the surface.

How long that takes all depends

On the temperature of the water.

It could be a day or even weeks.

However, if karen's body is weighted down,

It might never be found at all.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

- It was July 4th weekend, so lake erie is very busy.

I myself was out enjoying the waters on my own boat

That weekend when I received a call

From chautauqua county sheriff's office.

They received a 911 call from a family out fishing.

- The family saw something floating.

They initially thought it was a blow-up doll

Until they got closer, and then they realized

It was the remains of a human being

4 miles off of dunkirk, new york,

Which is a 45-minute drive.

Not knowing that there were any other bodies in the waters

That we were familiar with,

I had a fairly good idea it was karen.

♪ ♪

I drove there.

The sheriffs brought the body back

From the waters of lake erie.

The body was bloated because of the decomposition.

What I observed was a two-tone blue rope

Tied around the ankles of the body.

- It's not a typical rope you would see on a fishing vessel.

- And then there was what I would refer to

As a typical nautical type of white rope

Tied around its upper body, just underneath the armpits,

And that had an anchor attached to it.

♪ ♪

- This body was a female.

If this is karen, it's going to answer

So many questions that we've had for the last 25 days.

- We needed the body to know

Exactly what the cause of death was

And to point to the fact

That chris was the cause of her death,

Because we want to give the jury

An idea of what happened.

- The body is transferred to the erie county

Medical examiner's office.

♪ ♪

Our major case team was able to secure karen's dental records.

♪ ♪

Based off those dental records,

The medical examiner was able to determine that

This body is karen leclair.

♪ ♪

But the biggest shock during the autopsy

Was karen's cause and manner of death.

♪ ♪

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

- On July 4, 2017,

Three weeks after karen leclair went missing,

Her body is pulled from lake erie,

Bound by ropes and weighed down with an anchor.

♪ ♪

But the autopsy reveals new evidence

That authorities hope will ensure

Chris leclair's murder conviction.

- It was not a drowning.

She died as a result of a gunshot wound to the head.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

My mind automatically goes back to all those guns

That we saw in chris and karen's house

That were displayed in the living room.

♪ ♪

The medical examiner was able to retrieve

Some fragments of the bullet from karen's head.

But unfortunately, there was not enough

Of the bullet fragments to be able to match them

To any particular firearm.

[soft music]

♪ ♪

- When I learned that karen had been shot, I was like, why?

Why didn't you just divorce her instead of killing her?

♪ ♪

I just can't believe how horrible he was.

But at least finding her was a relief.

♪ ♪

- On July 5th, a search warrant is prepared for the boat,

"doris-m."

Now that her body was found,

We need physical evidence

To tie christopher leclair to killing karen leclair.

We were looking for the ropes and the anchors

Consistent with what we found on karen's body.

♪ ♪

- We had already searched the entire vessel

After the arrest for the sole purpose

Of looking for any crime scene,

And we weren't able to find any blood evidence.

♪ ♪

But then we found something that was

A huge break in the case.

- The two-tone blue rope,

Which was located around her ankles,

Matched a hammock that was located on the boat.

A section had been cut out of that hammock.

♪ ♪

- Also, there's a foot locker, and it has several anchors.

It has a small one, a medium one, a large one.

And the one that was on karen's body

Is a very large one.

So if you looked at them in succession,

It would look like there was four of them originally,

And now one is missing.

♪ ♪

- In preparing for trial, we had really good evidence

To point to not only the fact that

Christopher had killed karen,

But the motive, the preparation,

The specific intent to kill her.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

The defense claimed it was suicide,

That karen killed herself because of the affair,

Because chris was leaving her.

♪ ♪

- Chris claimed he heard a loud bang.

[gunshot]

When he stepped out of the pilot house,

He saw her laying on the deck of the boat

With the revolver laying by her side.

- The defense was, he didn't want anyone

To think poorly of her.

So that's why he tied an anchor to her

And put her into the lake.

♪ ♪

It was just so ridiculous.

♪ ♪

- If I was to describe what occurred,

I would have to say that on June 9th,

Christopher's mistress, tracy,

Had provided christopher an ultimatum.

So as a result of that,

On the afternoon of June 10th,

Christopher leclair took karen out into the lake.

He shot her one time in the head.

He utilized what he had available on the boat

To tie her up and anchor her down,

Threw her overboard,

And he decided it was in his best interest

To call in a 911 call on the day after

He actually killed her, hoping to throw off

Law enforcement by giving him another

24 hours to cover his tracks.

♪ ♪

- The jury took less than two hours

To come back with their verdict.

- Chris was ultimately found guilty of first-degree murder

And sentenced to life in prison

Without the possibility of parole.

♪ ♪

- There is a huge sigh of relief in the room.

And I think at that point,

We all just turned around and hugged each other.

- Chris will never leave that jail cell.

And every day, he has to face what he did.

[somber music]

- After shooting his wife, karen,

And throwing her body into lake erie,

Chris leclair seemed to think

He'd gotten rid of her for good.

♪ ♪

But savvy investigators saw what chris didn't--

Surveillance cameras at the marina

That caught him in a lie.

Now chris leclair will spend the rest of his life

Behind bars and far from the waters

Where he once enjoyed his days as a free man.

♪ ♪

- I want people to know that karen just wanted to be loved

And be in a loving marriage.

She would never hurt anybody.

- Karen was very caring.

She did nothing but adored and looked out for

The best interest of everybody she knew.

♪ ♪

- She was such a good person,

Bubbly and always friendly.

Karen and I did a lot of things together.

I really miss that.

♪ ♪