Page 6 - Eric Bechler News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Find her. >> maybe alive. >> uh-huh. i did because she was a fabulous swimmer. >> glenda went to the bechler house to see eric. >> how did he look? >> hysterical, a little bit. you know, he'd been crying and, you know, his face is red and, you know, all of those things. he looked upset, as you should be, one would expect. >> the best. the best person. >> this video from local news shows a devastated eric. it was now day two of the search for pegye. still nothing. the next day, the coast guard interviewed eric. >> we're just going to do an inquiry into the boating accident. ok? >> ok. >> eric b...

I could just see that pegye wasn't standing there on the wheel. and the boat kept going farther and farther away. and i couldn't see any other boat. i was screaming and looking around. it was my fault. if only i could see her right now. >> and so pegye bechler was simply gone. maybe even within sight of the same beach that had spawned her marriage. eric seemed devastated fearing his wife and business partner was dead, but eric's mother, linda, saw things quite differently. >> i was sure that they would find her, that it would all turn out well. >> not just because pegye was a strong swimmer. e...

At el torito. eric's own words. the jury heard all of them. >> nobody knows anything but you! >> barnett offered his own explanation. >> i argued that the reason he said it is to shut her up, to calm her down. 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 what ifs, but they don't have anything that makes this a homicide. >> the defense offered another theory about pegye bech...

Crime scene did find blood, just one drop, under one of the cushions. but not enough to determine whether it was human blood. it could have come from a fish. not enough evidence to arrest eric for murder or even prove that a murder occurred. pegye's close friend glenda didn't believe eric was a killer. >> there's no way that eric would have done that. you know, i mean there's just absolutely no way. it was unfathomable to me. >> tina new felt the same way. >> i felt like the police were just trying to -- to frame an innocent man. i thought there's no way. the way he treats me there's no way he...

Accidentally -- >> that's -- >> -- and her body still hasn't been found? >> that's right. >> prosecutor debbie lloyd argued pegye's death was eric's doing. >> he basically had 3.5 million reasons to kill her. and that's about what he stood to gain if he had gotten away with it. >> and, said the prosecutor, the circumstantial evidence was compelling. eric had a weight tree back at home that appeared to be incomplete. investigators believed eric used the missing weights to kill pegye and then sink her body. and what about the blood? a luminol test conducted on the boat indicated there might have...