Ralph Marcus News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Stranger to insurance fraud. >> it was said that ralph marcus decided pretty early on in his life that only fools worked for a living, and rather than get a job, he supported himself gambling and insurance scams. supposedly, he had burned down his own house to receive the insurance proceeds. and then another time had arranged for the theft of a car and a boat to make money off that as well. >> with no forensic evidence linking marcus to the crash, investigators had one last idea. they noticed a lot number on the oil bottle found in the trunk of nick's car. armed with a warrant, investigators s...

>> it was clear the change of beneficiary forms were in nick howard's 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 nick's 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. >> it was a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle, and we had 999 pieces. >> all they needed was that one final piece. do ...

And to, in fact, ask her to be his wife. >> but patty said no. married someone else. had two children and tried to distance herself from marcus. but marcus continued to pursue her. >> ralph came to me and wanted to buy my ovum for $50,000. he wanted to hire a surrogate to carry the child. just before the end of the meeting, he put his hand on me and said, "i'd really rather that you carried the child but i know that that's not possible." >> that was the last straw. >> i saw how much it hurt my husband. and i just completely decided that there would be no friendship with ralph marcus at this po...

Befriended nick to, first of all, stay close and to find out things about me. but i think even early on, he had a plan to hurt nick. >> they went to lake tahoe. they went to reno. ralph fancied himself the great baccarat player. he got fancy hotel rooms. he had women come by. >> when questioned, ralph marcus said he knew nothing about nick howard's murder and claimed he had an alibi for the night of the crash. >> and he had his dying mother state that he was at home with her during that evening. >> but in marcus' home, investigators found evidence that marcus was somehow involved. >> when i wa...

>> you never know what's going to be important at a scene, so you collect everything. sometimes it's the smallest thing that you didn't think would be involved is what breaks your case open. >> prosecutors believe ralph marcus was angry with nick's 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, he'd actually gotten to threatening her by saying things like, you should know what it's like to lose a chi...