Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent: Was there reasonable doubt in this case?

Bob Harrison, defense attorney: There was so much reasonable doubt you you could climb on it.  You could walk on it.  You could throw it.  If this case didn’t contain reasonable doubt the concept does not exist.

Defense attorney Bob Harrison painted a very different picture of what happened that night on the boat deck - Mark loved Flo and had no reason to kill her. Her death was simply a tragic accident.

As for the prosecution’s theme that Flo was afraid of the dark - nonsense.

Bob Harrison: Did you have any knowledge or awareness that Florence Unger had a fear of the dark?

Lyle Wolberg: I was not aware of any...

Lori Silverstein: I do not know...

This cousin of Mark’s testified that if Flo was afraid of the dark, she didn’t show it at Watervale.

Harrison: To your knowledge, was Florence Unger ever on that boathouse deck at night when it was dark?

Marcy Zussman: Yes, she was. 

According to the defense, Mark simply left Flo for a few minutes to put the boys to bed.  During that time, she somehow tumbled off the deck and into the water.   When Mark came back and didn’t see her, he assumed she was at the neighbors and went to bed.

Harrison: At the very beginning of this investigation, a very, very sad thing happened.

Mark did not take the stand. Harrison told jurors police botched the investigation, starting when resort owner Maggie Duncan called 911. She mentioned suicide. The dispatcher passed it along to the officer sent to the scene.

Harrison said the officers got caught up looking into suicide and missed the real evidence pointing to an accident.

The defense dismissed the notion that there was anything sinister about Mark running to the spot Flo lay dead. Of course Mark ran right there, said Harrison, the boat deck was the last place he had seen her and he had just watched Linn Duncan walk up from that exact spot.

Harrison: And so after you spoke with Mark, he ran back exactly the way you had come, down to the front of the boathouse.

Linn Duncan, witness: Yes, exactly.

Harrison: Exact path practically that you had just traveled.

Duncan: Yes.

The defense argued that Mark’s mood swings while on the phone and packing the car to go home could all be explained as a natural reaction to shock and grief, and his overwhelming concern for his two young sons. 

Harrison: Didn’t he say, “I just want to take my boys.  I want to take my boys and take them home.  I just want to go home.”

Deputy Troy Packard, police officer: Yes.  He did say that.

In his cross examination of Flo’s illicit lover, Glenn Stark...

Harrison: Did you have sex in the Unger home?            

Glenn Stark: No.

Harrison seemed to be reminding the jury that Flo herself was not perfect.

Harrison: Did you go somewhere and have sex?             

Stark:   Yes.

Harrison: Do you know where Mark was at the time that you took his wife to have sex with her?    

Stark:  I do not.

Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent: Glenn Stark...how do you describe him?

Mark Unger: My best friend was f**king my wife.  How else do you describe him?  That’s how I describe him.  The man who was bedding my wife.

Hansen: Did you—

Unger: The guy who was patting me on the back saying, “You can get through this.  You can do this.”  And he was sleeping with my wife.

Hansen: Did you know this before ...

Unger: Oh, I had no idea.  No idea.  Her best friends didn’t know about the affair, you know, so what, she’s going to all of a sudden tell me. No - Flo would have never done that.

Mark Unger insists he didn’t learn about the affair until months after Flo’s death, during pre-trial hearings.  It could not have been a motive for killing his wife, he says, if he didn’t know about it.  But the defense still had to deal with the prosecutions’ medical case, and the one piece of evidence that wasn’t circumstantial - the bloodstain on the cement.

Defense Attorney Tom McGuire scored a big point for Mark'steam when he got the doctor who did Flo’s autopsy to admit the medical evidence didn’t necessarily point to murder.

Defense Attorney Tom McGuire:  You don’t know whether this women’s death was accidental or intentional?                                

Dr. Stephen Cohle: I don’t know for sure, that’s correct.

McGuire attacked the credibility of the controversial neuropathologist who’s adamant testimony, that Flo was pulled into the water where she drowned, was so crucial to the prosecution.  

McGuire: Would it be fair to say that you like cases that generate a lot of publicity?                             

Dr. LJ Dragovic: No.                                            

McGuire: You gravitate toward cases that where you can get your name in the newspaper?                              

Dr. LJ Dragovic:  No. I, uh...

McGuire: Get your face before the cameras? Is that a fair statement, sir?              

DR. LJ Dragovic: No, sir.                                     

Several months earlier, in this hearing, the neuropathologist testified Flo was on the cement apron for only a few minutes.  But at the trial, he testified she lay there, unconscious for more than one and a half hours. 

Tom McGuire: Now, which is true, doctor?  The evidence that you gave in January, or the evidence that you gave from that witness stand, both of them were under oath, which statements are true? 

Dr. LJ Dragovic: Both of them are true.    

Tom McGuire: Both of them are true?        

Dr. LJ Dragovic: Because—of course.     

Tom McGuire: Of course? Are you just making this up as you go Dr. Dragovic? 

DR. LJ Dragovic: No, sir.     

McGuire: There is a man on trial for murder here, do you understand that, sir?

DR. LJ Dragovic: I perfectly understand that, sir.      

And the defense team had its own dramatic exhibits to unveil, including a mock up of the boat deck brought to court to show that what happened at Watervale was linked directly to the condition of the deck itself.

McGuire:  We do have a mock-up of the deck to show the jury...

Experts testified the railing was almost a foot too short to meet Michigan building code and Flo could have lost her balance.  Even the owners of Watervale admitted the deck was in bad shape.

Harrison, defense attorney (in court): In fact, in your words, the deck had gotten pretty ratty?

Linn Duncan:  (long pause) Yes.

Ratty, and, according to engineers, rotting.

David Ruby, engineer: And in the condition that the timber was it was an accident waiting to happen.

The defense team’s final witness, Dr. Igor Paul, was a mechanical engineer from MIT, produced several animations which he said explain how easily Flo could have toppled over and ended up in the water. 

FREE VIDEO Defense scenario 1 Dr. Igor Paul, a mechanical engineer from MIT, produced several animations for the defense team explaining how Flo could have topped over and ended up in the water. Dateline NBC

Dr. Paul narrates his video: When she bounces with her head and her shoulder, her pelvis is still above her.  So that when she bounces, she actually gets propelled up in this frame. And then she continues rolling because she still has rolling energy. 

As for the blood stain on the cement...

Dr. Paul narrates his video: When she hits right now, she will be hitting with her right side of her head above her ear essentially and the blood squirts out of her nose.

A weak railing, too low to meet code, a woman who tumbled - hitting her head on concrete before rolling into the lake. An accident?

The jury was about to decide.

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