Page 19 - Eric Bechler News Today

Show "baywatch nights." but that turned out to be the peak of her career. soon tina found herself slipping into the darker side of showbiz. she started doing drugs and lost custody of her two young children because of it and fell for a succession of guys who did not treat her kindly. >> i mean, i had an ex-boyfriend put a gun to my head, play russian roulette between me and him. i was held over the balcony by my neck. >> reporter: tina, who was broke and near rock bottom, was desperate. >> i got...

Murphys job was to find out what did happen. detectives started by re-interviewing eric and asking him about his relationship with pegye. >> he said his marriage was good. there was no problems with it. >> you didnt take his word for it? >> no. in our game, we dont take anyones word for anything. we look into it. and thats what we did. >> reporter: they met with the improbably-named kobi laker, erics best friend. and kobi backed up eric. >> they had a terrific marriage. and there was no problems...

>> if you guys can still hear me, meet me at my house thats where im going to be. >> reporter: just like that, tina new drove away from her old life. >> in the end you got enough? >> oh, absolutely, yeah. >> you understand youre under arrest? >> reporter: eric was arrested and charged with pegyes murder. >> well, what was it like to get the call that eric had been arrested? >> well, i just trembled all over. i couldnt really-- couldnt really believe it. >> reporter: but two weeks after erics arr...

Death. >> do you think she died accidentally and her body still hasnt been found? >> thats right. >> the prosecutor argued peggys death was erics doing. >> he basically had 3.5 million reasons to kill her. thats about what he stood to gain if he had gotten away with it. >> and, said the prosecutor, the circumstantial evidence was compelling. eric had a weight tree back at home that appeared to be incomplete. investigators believed eric used the missing weights to kill peggy and then sink her bod...

Greene machine were marveling at a school of dolphins playing in the water when they came across the unexpected. >> weve got a loose boat out here about five miles out of newport beach. >> reporter: the captain radioed the coast guard that a small speedboat was circling, out of control. in the water nearby was a man holding on to a body board. >> i have a husband, apparently fell off the boat and the wife apparently fell off the boat. >> reporter: the man in the water was frantic. >> copy. and d...

S ♪ its said theres nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline. this was supposed to be something like that. a romantic outing, an anniversary and birthday gift eric bechler planned for his wife pegye, but it turned into something else. and now pegye was gone. >> and the wife apparently fell of the boat. >> reporter: the coast guard immediately launched a search. but by nightfall no sign of peyge, alive or otherwise. and so eric called pegyes mom, jun...

>> beach volleyball is played by kids. murder is not. detectives had put him in jail, but two weeks after erics arrest came this headline in the local paper. witness in murder case doubts suspects guilt. tina, who had worn a wire and helped police nail eric, now said maybe he didnt kill peggy. >> they knew the kids had lost their mom and now theyre going to probably lose their dad for a very long time. so i felt guilty. >> guilty that she helped jail a man she once thought she would marry. >> he...

>> yeah, i did. >> but she says she always believed he was guilty. eric bv echler went on trial. the star witness, tina knew, a witness who was, to be fair, compromised. not just about her waffling about erics guilt and her checkered past, but one detail she says eric told her, something defense attorney john barnett said is critical. >> you would expect if peggys head was caved in by 35 pound dumbbells, there would be blood. >> a lot of it. >> everywhere and there wasnt. >> on the stand, tina t...

>> uh-huh. >> --sometimes do pretty crazy things when they realize that might happen to them. elieve that, but not pegye. >> reporter: glenda did tell the detectives that pegye and eric were having some issues, like how pegye was busy with work and kids while eric seemed occupied on the volleyball court. >> she just confided in me that they were having some financial troubles because, you know, they had a pretty high lifestyle to keep up with. >> reporter: glenda said eric and pegye seemed deter...

>> reporter: about seven months before pegye vanished, kobi says he and eric had a conversation that kobi describes as haunting him ever since. >> eric asked me about what he thought -- what i thought of the idea of him killing his wife. and i was pretty shocked and i didnt know what to say. he told me subsequently that he was thinking of taking her out to the ocean and dumping her into a barrel. >> he said that when he saw that there was a boating accident and erics wife was missing, he knew ri...