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On the night of the murder, prosecutors believe marcus and nick met on the dock to plan the car crash. either nick tried to back out or marcus had planned to kill him all along. at some point, marcus strangled him until he was unconscious, then threw him into the river where he drowned. he kept nick's glasses, bent them in half, and threw them on the floor of nick's car to make it appear nick was in the car when it crashed. marcus opened the windows, used the cap from his motor oil bottle, placed it in the carburetor, threw the bottle in the trunk, and started the car. and with that, the car p...

To make romantic advances to her 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 he said, "i would rather you carry the child, but i know 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 r...

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. it had ralph marcus' name on it. and i was a little shocked. >> 37-year-old ralph marcus was an unemployed laborer who had a strained relationship with the howard family. he also had a police record. >> well, we did a little checking on mr. ralph marcus. in addition to his gambling and his flashy lifestyle, he never really had the ability to hold a job for very long. >> he was kind of creepy. he just never went away. he wasn't ...

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 se...

Paperwork for nick howard spread out over the desk. as if he was working on the life insurance. >> 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 thous...