Page 3 - Inside Nick News Today

Investigators now knew that nick howard was not in his car when it crashed into the sacramento river. and nick had been strangled and dumped in the river at another time. in a search for suspects, investigators first questioned who would benefit from nicks death and learned that nick had several large life insurance policies. >> we found a life insurance policy that had an accidental death benefit rider on there, making the life insurance policy worth $850,000. now, a 18-year-old kid having an $...

He was starting to get a little bit lackadaisical about that. >> nick was a night person and often stayed out late with friends. on a february night in 1997, nick stopped by a local restaurant to pick up his drivers license he had left there earlier. but the restaurant was closed so he left a note for the owner. >> it was in his handwriting. we knew that he had gone down there. >> later, he called his parents answering machine and left a message. >> im on my way home. i had a little bit of car t...

Restaurant where nick had stopped the night before. it was on a treacherous road that ran parallel to the sacramento river. >> you make a mistake and drift off of the roadway, youre liable to go to the bottom of the levee. on one side, its a river. on the other side, its a 30-foot drop. >> asleep or intoxicated or not paying attention, theres a good chance you could end up in the water. >> and thats where they found nicks car two days later, submerged in 18 feet of water. >> you could tell that ...

Steering wheel in the car. >> this proved the glasses had been planted. and if nick hadnt been in the car during the crash, then there was still the possibility he was alive. >> we were a little emotional. well, very emotional but, you know, kind of on pins and needles. >> of course you pray for the best. but i think theres that part of you that knows it could go the other way. >> three weeks later, a search crew found nicks body in the sacramento river about a quarter mile downstream from the c...

Had it not been for accident reconstruction, forensic testing and a bottle of motor oil, he might have gotten away with it. >> he was motivated to kill nicholas howard to prevent any other witnesses, prevent having to share the insurance proceeds, and because he had a long vendetta against the mother as a scorned lover. >> i dont know if nick planned a scam with ralph. it makes absolutely no sense to me, because you cant get insurance money if youre alive. and because i know how nick loved me an...

Nicks glasses were found in the car. and investigators wanted to know if nick had been wearing them when the crash occurred. so they created a styrofoam facsimile of nicks head. >> i weighted the styrofoam head so that it was approximately the same weight as nicks head would have been in that same situation. >> they put an identical pair of glasses on the model to simulate the force of impact. it was attached to a pendulum. >> based on a potential energy formula, mass times gravity times height,...

Befriended nick to, first of all, stay close and to find out things about me. but i think even early on, he had a plan to hurt nick. >> they went to lake tahoe. they went to reno. ralph fancied himself the great baccarat player. he got fancy hotel rooms. he had women come by. >> when questioned, ralph marcus said he knew nothing about nick howards murder and claimed he had an alibi for the night of the crash. >> and he had his dying mother state that he was at home with her during that evening. ...

On the night of the murder, prosecutors believe marcus and nick met on the dock to plan the car crash. either nick tried to back out or marcus had planned to kill him all along. at some point, marcus strangled him until he was unconscious, then threw him into the river where he drowned. he kept nicks glasses, bent them in half, and threw them on the floor of nicks car to make it appear nick was in the car when it crashed. marcus opened the windows, used the cap from his motor oil bottle, placed ...

>> photogrammetry was the key element and it was used to solve the case. without photogrammetry this case would have gone unsolved. a car runs off the highway into a river. yet the driver is nowhere to be found. for answers, investigators recreated the crash and the evidence revealed a plan almost 20 years in the making. the result of a deadly obsession that ended in tragedy. nick howard was just 18 years old, fresh out of high school and working in his fathers car repair business. he was tr...

>> had the driver fallen asleep at the wheel, i would have expected an ever increasing vigorous correction effort on the part of the driver. in other words, the driver would have predictably steered harder and braked more that would have resulted in a well-defined path of travel down the rocks toward the roadway. none of that was visible. >> but where was nicks body? volunteers searched the river and surrounding areas for possible clues. nick howards car was found is computing to empower cance...