Page 22 - Eric Bechler News Today

That people can think anything else. >> you never said hey, look, man, i dont know what the [ bleep ] you guys are talking about. im innocent. you never said anything about anything. >> i have so. do i have to say it every week? >> reporter: kobe tried again. >> i protected you. i basically made you look like a saint in the interview i had with the detectives. >> reporter: a dead end. but detectives were now convinced that eric killed his wife. >> even though it didnt lead to anything, that conv...

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 re-enactment at sea to try to understand how pegye could have fallen off the boat and they couldnt do it. >> they said it doesnt appear to be feasible to them given the sea conditions. >> reporter: thats when the coast gu...

A neighbor called 911 after hearing yelling coming from tinas apartment. when police arrived, eric was gone but tina was angry and she still had the business card detective murphy had given her almost two years earlier. >> i grabbed my partner, we went out there in the middle of the night and we met up with tina. >> reporter: she told detective murphy and his partner, gary jones, what eric had said. a big break, yes, but not nearly enough for an arrest. remember, tina was pretty far from an idea...

Trial. the star witness, tina, a witness was, to be fair, compromised, not just by her waffling by erics guilt and her own checkered past but the one detail and story tina says eric told her something the defense attorney says is critical. >> youd expect, if pegyes head was caved in by 35 pound dumb bells, thered be blood. >> quite a lot of it. >> everywhere. and there wasnt. >> on the stand, tina tried to defend herself. >> im a horrible witness when it comes to looking at me on paper? do you t...

And i said what do you mean, you cant find her? where is she? 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 ...

Exactly did he know and how far would he go to get proof? here again is josh mankiewicz with "troubled waters." >> reporter: to detective sean murphy it sounded more than suspicious. eric bechler taking up with a gorgeous redhead just three months after his wife was lost at sea. but murphy didnt have much more than a gnawing in his gut until his phone rang. >> we got a call from kobes lawyer, said he wanted to arrange an interview again with kobe. >> reporter: kobe laker, erics best friend and v...

Whether it was human blood. it could have come from a fish. not enough evidence to arrest eric for murder or even prove that a murder occurred. pegyes close friend glenda didnt believe eric was a killer. >> theres no way that eric would have done that. theres just absolutely no way. it was unfathomable to me. >> reporter: tina new felt the same way. >> i felt like the police were just trying to frame an innocent man. i thought theres no way. the way he treats me, theres no way he could have hurt...

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? >> where was pegye? and what had gone wrong on that boat? >> reporter: you thought what? pegye faked her death? with one a day mens. ♪ a complete multivitamin with key nutrient...

Glenda tried to stay optimistic. >> i absolutely thought they would find her. >> reporter: maybe alive? >> 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. he had been crying and his face was red and you know, all of those things. he looked upset. as he should be. one would expect. >> shes the best person. >> reporter: this video from local news shows a devastated eric. it was now day two of the se...

He asked me out that night, and then i moved in the next day, really fast. you dont wait, do you? no. not then. josh mankiewicz (voiceover): eric lived in a giant house and drove a porsche, and he was a gentleman in her life after a long string of men who were not gentle. id never been spoiled like that. i remember thinking i was like julia roberts in "pretty woman." josh mankiewicz (voiceover): tina was moved by erics story. he said to me that his wife died in a tragic boat accident and that th...