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Josh mankiewicz (voiceover): eric told the coast guard he tried to body board on the way out and said there was a pretty good swell in the ocean. eric said they stopped out here on the water to enjoy some margaritas pegye had made. and then later in the day, they decided to try the body board again, this time, on their way back to the harbor. pegye was driving. eric was being pulled on the board.
Detectives had put him in jail. but then two weeks after eric's arrest came this headline in the local paper. "witness in murder case doubts suspect's guilt." tina new, who'd worn a wire and helped police nail eric, now said, maybe he didn't kill pegye. i knew that the kids had lost their mom, and now, they're going to probably lose their dad for a very long time. and so i felt guilty. josh mankiewicz (voiceover): guilty that she'd help jail a man she once thought she'd marry. i remember he called me from the jail, and he told me that he had tried to hang himself with his sheets. it was eric's...
To calm her down. josh mankiewicz (voiceover): in any event, the defense said, eric never said on tape that he hit pegye. the only person who heard him say that was tina, a drug user, a woman with a fraud conviction on her record. without that statement, they have a lot of circumstantial evidence and a lot of at-ifs, but they don't have anything that makes this a homicide. josh mankiewicz (voiceover): the defense offered another theory about pegye bechler. she was under a great deal of pressure and could easily be distracted, and in combination with alcohol, which she rarely drank, but she did...
Josh mankiewicz (voiceover): but the deal was not sealed. the case was still open, and detectives had been keeping an eye on eric and tina all along. they knew the relationship was growing volatile. we were excited about it in a morbid kind of way, because we knew it was going to go sideways. because when relationships go sideways, sometimes, people start talking. that's right. josh mankiewicz (voiceover): and that's what happened two weeks after eric's apparent confession. a neighbor called 911 after hearing yelling coming from tina's apartment. when police arrived, eric was gone, but tina wa...
I kept thinking that she was, but how could she for that length of time? josh mankiewicz (voiceover): 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 couldn't do it. they said it just doesn't appear to be feasible to them given the sea conditions. josh mankiewicz (voiceover): that's when the coast guard called the orange county sheriff's office. detective sean murphy was put on the case. they weren't able to duplicate even close to what was alleged by eric bechler...