Joe Hunter

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.

Joanna was 25 when she married Mark without telling anyone in her family.

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.

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.

And in the year before she died, Joanna almost saved herself, says Joe.

Almost.

How much do you think of that moment and that drive taking her back?

All the time.