Page 20 - Eric Bechler News Today

Suspicion to knowing? >> yeah, it moved it all the way over. so we knew we had a homicide. >> reporter: but knowing it and proving it were two very different things. >> you didnt get to process that boat as a crime scene for, like, almost a week. >> right. right. so that -- that wasnt good. that hindered the investigation. >> reporter: the boat, said detective murphy, was pretty clean. crime scene did find blood, just one drop, under one of the cushions. but not enough to determine whether it wa...

Starting to set in. and it was painful. >> at this point, you didnt think she was alive anymore? >> i kept thinking that she was. but how could she, you know, that length of time? >> reporter: unless, of course, what appeared to be an accident was not. the coast guard conducted a reenactment at sea to try to understand how pegye could have fallen off the boat. and they couldnt do it. >> they said it just -- it doesnt appear to be feasible to them, given the sea conditions. >> reporter: thats whe...

And it just got worse. the news report did not match the story eric had told her about pegyes disappearnce. >> and he told me there was three to four foot waves. it was really choppy out there. >> reporter: but on the report they said on the day pegye went missing, there were only two foot waves and the weather was described as ideal. >> he lied. he lied all this time to me. you know, and he was just really quiet. >> hes sitting right next to you. >> sitting right next to me. >> how does eric lo...

And the boat kept going farther and farther away. and i couldnt see any other boat. i was screaming and looking around. it was my fault. if only i could see her right now. >> reporter: and so pegye bechler was simply gone. maybe even within sight of the same beach that had spawned her marriage. eric seemed devastated fearing his wife and business partner was dead,but erics mother, linda, saw things quite differently. >> i was sure that they would find her, that it would all turn out well. >> rep...

And he lied to us, he said, because he panicked. and he was afraid. and he didnt know what to do. >> reporter: detectives convinced kobi to wear a wire and to meet eric at a restaurant in orange county. eric had no idea that police were listening in. even so, he stuck to his story that pegyes death was a terrible accident. >> i was there i know what happened, and i -- its so hard for me to understand you know that there could be another -- people could think anything else. >> you never said, "he...

Children. >> reporter: until that summer day in 1997, when the unimaginable happened. >> male, kind of distraught, said that his wife fell overboard. >> reporter: it was a boating accident, said eric, and the coast guard agreed. something they see all too often. but soon, secrets emerged that would make some people wonder what really happened to pegye bechler? >> reporter: when we come back -- >> i absolutely thought theyd find her. >> reporter: where was pegye and what had gone wrong on that bo...

>> there was a lot of animosity towards me. and i understood why. >> all they saw was this hot young woman whod been brought in to replace their missing daughter. >> right. right. and exactly three months to the day. i cant even imagine what they were thinking. >> reporter: pegyes family wasnt alone. detective sean murphy had also noticed the new woman in eric bechlers life. >> she was just ostentatious. i mean, she was just a hot number, as they say. and she was cohabitating with him right afte...

Find her. >> maybe alive. >> uh-huh. i did because she was a fabulous swimmer. >> reporter: glenda went to the bechler house to see eric. >> how did he look? >> hysterical, a little bit. you know, hed been crying and, you know, his face is red and, you know, all of those things. he looked upset, as you should be, one would expect. >> the best. the best person. >> reporter: this video from local news shows a devastated eric. it was now day two of the search for pegye. still nothing. the next day,...

You cant find her? where is she? what -- what are you trying to tell me?" >> reporter: eric told june that pegye was driving the boat. towing him on a body board when all of a sudden a wave wiped him out. when he came up from under the water, he said, he could no longer see pegye inside the boat. >> we thought they should be finding her because we really just thought she would swim out of it. >> reporter: you see, pegye was quite at home in the water. growing up, it was the only time she didnt h...

He goes how did you know that? >> reporter: the fact is, she hadnt known. call it intuition or the effects of the drug or a random guess. but it was an opening and tina barreled through. >> i said you need to tell me the truth. hes calmly talking to me and he says im going to tell you the truth. he goes we had this huge party so everybody could see how happy we were together. >> reporter: all their friends were there, witnesses to the happy marriage. then a couple of days later, she says, eric t...