Page 9 - Eric Bechler News Today

Re-interviewing eric and asking him about his relationship with pegye. >> he said his marriage was good, there was no problems with it. >> reporter: you didnt take his word for it? >> no. in our game we dont take anyones word for anything. we look into it. thats what we did. >> reporter: they met with the improbably named kobe laker. erics best friend. and kobe backed up eric. >> they had a terrific marriage and there was no problems whatsoever. >> reporter: but if the marriage seemed solid, the...

Of 2000, eric bechler went on 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 lo...

>> 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? >> coming up -- >> i absolutely thought they would find her. >> reporter: maybe alive? >> i did. she was a fabulous swimmer. >> where was pegye? and what had gone wrong on that boat? >> he had been crying and his face was ...

But that turned out to be the peak of her career. soon, tina found herself slipping into the darker side of show biz. 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 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 down on my knees literally b...

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...

>> i just thought he was really handsome. >> reporter: there was some serious chemistry from the beginning? >> yes. we went out that night, actually. he asked me out that night. i moved in the next day. really fast. >> reporter: you dont wait, do you? >> no. not then. >> reporter: 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. >> i had never been spoiled like that. i remember thinking i was like julia roberts in...

Prosecutors believed eric bechler was trying to be successful at both. detectives had put him in jail. but then two weeks after erics arrest came this head line 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 her. >> i knew she kids had lost their mom and now going to probably lose their dad for a very long time. so i felt guilty. >> guilty that she had helped jail man she once thought shed marry...

Purse and on her body. and tina arranged a meeting. she told eric that after the domestic violence call, sheriffs homicide detectives came in to ask questions about eric. this dinner date, tina told eric, was to get their stories straight in case the cops questioned her again. tina, wired up, picked up eric from his home and drove to a restaurant called el torito. were you worried about this? >> not really. i was more worried that i wasnt going to get him to confess again. i have two stories in ...

>> 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 guard called the orange county sheriffs o...

>> eric asked me about what he thought -- what i thought of the idea of him killing his wife. and i was pretty much shocked. i didnt know what to say. he told me that he was thinking of taking her out to the ocean and dumping her in a barrel. >> he said when he saw there was a boating accident and erics wife was missing, he knew right then and there, he saw it on tv, he knew that he had killed his wife. and he lied to us. he said because he panicked and was afraid and he didnt know what to do. >...