Chapter 1: How did Joe Hunter's life change after his sister's death?
The day that I got the news will always be edged in my brain. Your sister's 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 I thought, man, she's all around me, so it's just time. Let's go do this. 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.
Chapter 2: What motivated Joe Hunter to compete on Survivor?
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?
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Chapter 3: What evidence suggests Joanna Hunter's death was not a suicide?
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.
MADELINE MORALES REPORTS JOE HUNTER'S MISSION
Survivor's 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.
Chapter 4: What were the police's initial conclusions about Joanna's death?
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.
I think someone's dead.
October 6, 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.
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Chapter 5: How did Joanna's family react to the investigation's findings?
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 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 p.m.
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Chapter 6: What led to the reopening of Joanna Hunter's case?
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.
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Chapter 7: What new evidence emerged in Joanna's case after years?
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.
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Chapter 8: How has Joanna's Law impacted domestic violence investigations?
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. 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.
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