Page 23 - Eric Bechler News Today

Josh mankiewicz (voiceover): eric told the coast guard he tried to body board on the way out and said there was a pretty good swell in the ocean. eric said they stopped out here on the water to enjoy some margaritas pegye had made. and then later in the day, they decided to try the body board again, this time, on their way back to the harbor. pegye was driving. eric was being pulled on the board.

Detectives had put him in jail. but then two weeks after erics arrest came this headline in the local paper. "witness in murder case doubts suspects guilt." tina new, whod worn a wire and helped police nail eric, now said, maybe he didnt kill pegye. i knew that the kids had lost their mom, and now, theyre going to probably lose their dad for a very long time. and so i felt guilty. josh mankiewicz (voiceover): guilty that shed help jail a man she once thought shed marry. i remember he called me f...

To calm her down. josh mankiewicz (voiceover): in any event, the defense said, eric never said on tape that he hit pegye. the only person who heard him say that was tina, a drug user, a woman with a fraud conviction on her record. without that statement, they have a lot of circumstantial evidence and a lot of at-ifs, but they dont have anything that makes this a homicide. josh mankiewicz (voiceover): the defense offered another theory about pegye bechler. she was under a great deal of pressure a...

Josh mankiewicz (voiceover): but the deal was not sealed. the case was still open, and detectives had been keeping an eye on eric and tina all along. they knew the relationship was growing volatile. we were excited about it in a morbid kind of way, because we knew it was going to go sideways. because when relationships go sideways, sometimes, people start talking. thats right. josh mankiewicz (voiceover): and thats what happened two weeks after erics apparent confession. a neighbor called 911 af...

I kept thinking that she was, but how could she for that length of time? josh mankiewicz (voiceover): 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 just doesnt appear to be feasible to them given the sea conditions. josh mankiewicz (voiceover): thats when the coast guard called the orange county sheriffs office. detective sean murphy wa...

Now he had a different story. erics told me on several occasions that hes sick and tired of his wife. and hed tell me that he just couldnt take it anymore, he was tired of it. josh mankiewicz (voiceover): 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 i thought of the idea of him killing his wife. and i, um-- i was shocked. i didnt know what to say. he told me, subsequently, that he was t...

Josh mankiewicz (voiceover): 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. josh mankiewicz (voiceover): not just because pegye was a strong swimmer, everyone knew that. linda knew more, a secret about her daughter-in-law. and you thought ...

He basically had 3 and 1/2 million reasons to kill her, and thats about what he stood to gain if he had gotten away with it. josh mankiewicz (voiceover): 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 pegye and then sink her body. and what about the blood? a luminol test conducted on the boat indicated there might have been a lot of blood in the ...

You told me? and he just got really quiet. josh mankiewicz (voiceover): then, she says, eric bechler told her a new version of what happened when pegye fell off the boat. he thinks she hit a wake, and she fell off. and he said, and i didnt get to her. and i said, you didnt get to her, or you didnt want to get to her? and at first, he said, he told me that he didnt get to her. then later, he changed it and said, i could have helped her, but i didnt. now thats completely different from what he tol...

They continued to see each other, sleep together, and party together. about two weeks after eric changed his story, he and tina went to a club and took the drug ecstasy. we get home. we walk inside the house. and were just both laying on the bed staring straight up at the ceiling together. all of a sudden as we were talking it just came to me and i said to him, i said, oh my god, you hit her over the head. and he goes, how did you know that? josh mankiewicz (voiceover): the fact is she hadnt kno...