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With "troubled waters." >> reporter: to detective sean murphy it sounded more than suspicious. eric bechler taking up with a gorgeous redhead just three months after his wife was lost at sea. but murphy didn't have much more than a gnawing in his gut until his phone rang. >> we got a call from kobe's lawyer, said he wanted to arrange an interview again with kobe. >> reporter: kobe laker, eric's
Modeling gig, eye candy at a trade show. eric was there promoting his new business. it was three months to the day since pegye had disappeared. >> i just thought he was really handsome. >> reporter: there was some serious chemistry from the beginning? >> yes. we went out that night, actually.
Best friend and volleyball buddy. he told sheriff's detectives that the bechler marriage was great. now he had a different story. >> eric's told me on several occasions that he's sick and tired of his wife. he would tell me that he just couldn't take it anymore. he was tired of it. >> reporter: about seven months before pegye vanished, kobe says he and eric had a conversation that kobe describes as haunting him ever since. >> eric asked me about what he thought -- what i thought of the idea of him killing his wife.
>> but she says she always felt he was guilty and in the winter of 2000, eric bechler went on trial. the star witness, tina, a witness was, to be fair, compromised, not just by her waffling by eric's guilt and her own checkered past but the one detail and story tina says eric told her something the defense attorney says is critical. >> you'd expect, if pegye's head was caved in by 35 pound dumb bells, there'd be blood. >> quite a lot of it. >> everywhere. and there wasn't. >> on the stand, tina tried to defend herself. >> i'm a horrible witness when it comes to looking at me on paper? do you t...
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 wasn't going to get him to confess again. i have two stories in my head. i don't want to screw up at all. >> there's no story to tell. you weren't there. it was an accident. >> reporter: once inside the restaurant, tina tried to get eric to repeat the details of pegye's death. eric wouldn't go there. >> details aren't important. >> ...