Page 6 - Inside Nick News Today

I no longer had a son. >> he was the best friend i ever had. he was the best friend to anybody that he ever met. he was very easy going, very happy-go-lucky. just kind of a cool kind of kid. >> since there was no motor oil on nicks body, and oil was throughout the passenger compartment of his car, this was further proof that he wasnt inside when it crashed. at the autopsy, the pathologist found evidence that nick had been beaten. >> there were internal injuries, specifically bleeding inside the ...

>> you never know whats going to be important at a scene, so you collect everything. sometimes its the smallest thing that you didnt think would be involved is what breaks your case open. >> prosecutors believe ralph marcus was angry with nicks mother for the years of rejection going all the way back to high school. >> ralph marcus believed that he and patty should have been star-crossed lovers. she had turned him down from the outset. and toward the time when nick howard was killed, hed actuall...

Wasnt there. he had never not been in his room. it let us know right away something was very wrong. >> the howard family called police to report nick missing. the search began at the 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 n...

Photogrammetry helped convince the jury. >> 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 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...

Inside. we were pretty surprised when we did not. >> nicks broken glasses were on the floor of his car. and the side windows were open. >> i was still hoping that we would find him alive. i was hoping that he had swam out of the car and had been injured and didnt know who he was and that we were going to find him. >> the way the car went in, the fact that he got out, none of it made sense. >> inside nicks car, investigators found a greasy film on the dashboard and upholstery. >> it was kind of a...

>> the cause of death was essentially lack of oxygen. he may well have gone into the water unconscious. ultimately, though, it was drowning that caused the end. >> the manner of nicks death was ruled a homicide. investigators were now looking for a killer. thank you daddy. military families are uniquely thankful for many things, the legacy of usaa auto insurance can be one of them. if youre a current or former military member or their family, get an auto insurance quote and see why 92% of our me...

He was welcome to stay at home, but he had to work or go to school. he had to be doing something with his life. 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. >> late...

From the forensic evidence, 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...

Miles per hour. 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 gravi...

Insurance. >> it was clear the change of beneficiary forms were in nick howards handwriting and were not forgeries. it appeared that nick and ralph marcus planned to defraud the insurance company. >> they had hatched a plan to fake nicks death, collect the insurance proceeds, and take the money down to south america or some location to live off of it. >> but this was all speculation. investigators had no proof of the scam or that marcus killed nick howard and crashed his car into the river. >> i...