SPOKANE, Wash. – The murder of Chanin Starbuck captivated our community when she was found deceased in December of 2011 inside her Deer Park home. The case even got national attention when NBC’s Dateline did an episode titled, ‘A Cold December Morning.’
The mother of five was strangled and left posed in a demeaning manner. Two months after the crime, her ex-husband Clay Starbuck was arrested. By 2013, he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
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The trial lasted several weeks laying out their case against Clay. Prosecutors say Clay Starbuck snuck into this wife’s home, strangled her and later posed as Chanin to communicate with men she had been dating. They pointed to owed child support and jealousy as likely motives. They say his alibi also didn’t check out and his cell phone was turned on during the time they believe Chanin was killed.
Through it all, the couple’s five children have backed their father, adamant he had nothing to do with their mother’s murder.
“Things were twisted,” said their son Blake Starbuck. “We were there. We lived with my mom, we lived with my dad. We knew what kind of people they were.”
Blake said his parents were co-parenting fine at the time of the homicide. He was a senior in high school when he lost his mother, and essentially his dad too.
“And I was (treated) like a suspect,” he said.
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But the laser focus for prosecutors was Clay. Blake believes they got it all wrong.
“It’s a long road,” he said. “The last nine years could have been avoided. A lot of the evidence wasn’t even tested.”
But now, it could be. Friday, in the same four walls that Blake Starbuck saw his world fall apart, he got hope. A Spokane County judge granted a motion for post-conviction DNA testing.
“It was a big win,” he said. “This is going to be a big turning point.”
With help from the Washington Innocence Project, Blake says evidence including hair and towels from Chanin’s home are now on track to be tested for the first time.
“The judge also wanted to amend the motion to include items that had already been tested…(including) the swab from her neck,” he said. “It sounds like the state will not appeal.”
If they don’t, a motion set for late June will initiate the process for testing.
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“There’s a lot of unidentified DNA that was found, three separate males just on the things that were tested,” he said.
There was a partial DNA match near Chanin’s throat that could have come from Clay or the couple’s eldest children. Blake said it proves nothing other than they all had been in that home. He also believes it could have come from his father who slept in the bed where Chanin was found for years before they split up.
Blake and his four other siblings have never wavered in their support for their dad, while still missing their mom so much it hurts.
“Our life has been put on hold,” he said. “I haven’t had a chance to grieve anything really.”
Because instead, for nearly a decade, he’s been consumed with getting what he believes is justice for both his parents.
“I get a call from my dad every day from prison…knowing he’s innocent,” he said. “I can’t go see him when I want to. And, we lost our mom.”
Testimony in the trial was given from at least two love interests of Chanin Starbuck that she had plans to meet just before her death. One of the men even testified to going to Chanin’s home multiple times around the time she was murdered, saying he never went inside.
There is another court hearing on the post-conviction DNA testing on the 25th. If it moves forward, items associated with the case could start being tested for the first time as early as mid-July. That’s also when Blake’s girlfriend is due with their first child. He hopes to introduce his dad to his son outside of prison walls. Clay Starbuck is currently serving his sentence in Airway Heights but due to the pandemic, his children haven’t been able to visit him in more than a year.
Source: https://t-tees.com
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