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 nick's 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 $850,000 life insurance policy is a little bit unusual. >> nick's family believed they were the beneficiaries. but soon learned that wasn't the case. >> when i went in the room and pulled the policy out, there was this loose piece of -- it was an application for change of beneficiary. it was an ncr copy. you could see where it had been crumpled and it had been folded at one time.