. >> she lied to you make love to you, kill you all in the same week, and now you can cry at the funeral. she wrapped him around her finger like she did so many. >> waterfront home, fancycars billionaire boyfriend. quite the life until -- >> the shots were in sets of two. he saw his attacker. >> her lover gunned down. who wanted him dead? >> there was no financial gain for her in this. >> but what about her secret friend, the former nfl linebacker? >> you lied? >> i did. >> the mystery was unsolved.

then came a prosecutor who took on big waves and cold cases. could he find the key to this one is this. >> this isn't just a moesh. it's a motive on steroids. >> keith morrison with "deadly trust." welcome to "dateline." i'm lester holt. a gated community and a glamorous setting where residents could feel safe, but it was not safe for one millionaire murdered in his waterfront house. police had suspects but the evidence was only circumstantial, and the case grew cold. turned out the key to the mystery, or rather two keys, were right there in the front door. here's keith morrison. >> there's a place. call it the pot of gold at the end of ambition of the american dream. a place where the few and the

lucky go to build their mansions by the sea. newport beach orange county california. where the most unexpected events would be murder. >> things like this rarely happen in newport beach, let alone an area that's as secure as this area. >> let alone as long as people like this, attractive, charismatic, living large like dannette swron stop packard-mcneil. >> she had a beautiful home. she had an expensive cash. she was living the dream california lifestyle. you talk about housewives of orange county. she could have been on the show. >> yes, in fact, she told friends she turned down an offer to be on that show about over the top excess in orange county. no, she did end up on a tv show called american thunder about motorcycles showing off her own excess, including a bike she bought for $50,000. >> what's your favorite part of

the bike? >> i love the way it looks. >> and then there was eric. >> we eat housewives for breakfast. >> ex-football player, wanna be actor, who started in "the newport 40 which never aired. here's where the show ends and the real begins. because of what happened in that house behind the gates, a long time ago it was december 15, 1994, 9:00 p.m. the shots were patterned in sets of two. two shots. two shots. a pause. hen two shots. >> detective tom arrived to find a millionaire entrepreneur dead on his own kitchen floor. his name was bill 55 years old, nice guy. deeply religious. the drew true believer in the

american dream, a man who had made his come true. >> kind of a self-made guy, right? >> absolutely, yes. >> bill said his daughter jenny was the first in his family to go to college. the first to found a company. the first to end up with millions. not someone you would think would wind up murdered, but here he was. >> you could tell there was not a physical struggle. there were things that were knocked off or things leak that. >> you could tell. he saw it coming. saw his killer. >> one of his movements was to put his hand up and try to block a shot. it shot through the underside of a finger. he saw his attacker. >> now folks needed figure out who was that last person bill mclaughlin saw? >> we were trying to take everything in. you're trying to remember as much as you can, write down what you feel is important, what's going to come up in the

investigation. sfwroo what was important? what wasn't? it was hard to know in this first few hours. >> as can you see in this before seen video the police shot the night of the murder. the house was as neat as a pin, except for a glass on a table, some papers askew from the lawsuit brought by an ex business partner, and there were six bullet casings on the floor and then a post-it note from his girlfriend stuck to the side of a lamp. she would be home late. her son had a soccer game. dannette johnston as she was known back then before reality shows and a couple more marriages, had been bill's girlfriend for more than three years, and they seemed happy despite the almost 30-year age difference said his daughter, kim. >> they seemed to be good companions and -- >> she was like your age? >> she was my age. uh-huh. >> dannette helped bill look after a disabled son, kevin, who suffered a severe head injury after being hit by a drunk

driver, and she helped with some business ventures. >> he found that interesting about her, that he could have, you know, possibly a romantic relationship, but also sort of a mentoring relationship, possibly a business partner. >> he had hopes for had. >> i think he did. >> she brought some children. >> correct. >> did he like that? >> yes, he thought that was important. he thought that it showed she was compassionate. >> on the night he was killed, dannette was with her children at the soccer game. the children went to their dad's house afterwards, and she went to the mall to go christmas shopping. she arrived home to a crime seen. and to detective bow. >> anybody involved has the possibility of being the murderer. >> so both questioned dannette and bill's own grown kids couldn't eliminate anybody yet. >> we looked at the girlfriend and we also looked at the

daughters because anyone that stands to gain money in this situation is a potential suspect. >> bill's ex-wife was way off in hawaii. they had been divorced for years. still, the detectives talked to her, and it was kevin, bill's disabled son. the only other person in the house at the time of the murder. >> newport beach emergency. >> it was shortly after 9:00 p.m. when kevin heard the gunfire. he was wrup stairs still debilitated by the car accident injuries. he labored to make his way down to the kitchen where he found his father. >> i can't understand what are you saying. >> too disabled to explain that he needed help. >> is somebody dying? >> someone was dead. >> kevin was a suspect that we needed to find out the validity of his statements, whether he had gunshot residue on his

hands, whether he was even able to shoot a gun given his physical disability. >> they chem his hands for gun powder residue. negative. >> you have to look at everybody, unfortunately. sometimes it hurts feelings, but have you to get down to the background too. >> but facts can be tricky things. and in this case far more elusive than anyone might have imaged. when we come back, some clues were elusive, but some were right out in the front like the two that dramatically narrowed down the circle of suspects. >> they were huge to eliminate everybody down to only those people that have access to those two keys. >> when "deadly trust" continues.

>> in the days that will followed bill mclaughlin's murder, his children wandered in the event that is follow a sudden death. >> sheryl must have been i don't know -- >> it was horrible because we were in shock, and we had to hold up. i don't remember, but i do remember nanette sitting in the front with each child on either end, and they were both bawling at the top of they are lungs. then i remember my brother

speaking too at the funeral telling everybody what an amazing man he was and what a great dad he was. >> bill's girlfriend, nanette, moved out of the house where bill was killed to another house he owned right on the beach. kim and her sister moved back into the family home with their brother. they clung to each other for dear life. >> we cried on each other's shoulders and did a lot of counts ling and tlarp and grieving. >> what made it worse was they didn't whon did it or why any more than did the newport beach police. >> when a thing like this happens, i mean, it's completely an execution-style killing. this is obviously somebody who intended to do that and must immediately have, you know wondered who? >> right. well, you wonder if it's a completely random act of some stranger, and it was a mistake or an accident or you develop a list of people that might have a

reason. >> to police it didn't look random. nothing was taken. the killer struck with precision accuracy and got clean away. but there was something that intrigued the detectives both that night. it was a clue they found in bill mclaughlin's closet. sflo we searched the house with the permission of kevin and nanette. we were told in a closet upstairs sfshgs when you come across a lot of weapons like that it's surprising. >> in the new years before his death bill had become an avid gun collector. he kept dozens of them in his newport beach house. not just antiques. there were pistols and revolvers and semiautomatic weapons, including seven modified m-16 assault rifles. dangerous stuff in the wrong hands. >> we didn't know if maybe somebody was upset. >> nanette was worried about that too. >> nanette told us that bill was dealing with a lot of shady people. gun dealers. >> that was one theory but there was something else too or, rather, someone else.

>> the only person that we knew was frustrated with him was his business partner who he was in a lawsuit with. >> all of them bill's kids and nanette, told them about the bess partner. >> he had multi-year losses over the invention of the device. >> the device? bill had made his millions from a revolutionary medical invention. a machine that separates plasma from blood. it's still in use today worldwide. just the sort of thing bill wanted. to do something useful, helpful and make lots of money too. >> he enjoyed learning new things, discovering new things and especially if it helped people benefitted people, you know, he could make money off of an idea -- >> he had worked with bill on an early phase of the machine. it was after ficial left the company that the money rolled

in. he thought his contribution to the invention deserved more than he got so he sued his former partner and friend bill mclaughlin. here's the thing, it was just two weeks before the murder that the courts decided for bill. any day he was to get the $9 million they had been fighting over for years. so was it a revenge killing? sounded at least plausible. except for something the killer left behind. something he didn't have access to. it wasn't dna, want fingerprints. something more mundane than that. >> when we got here, the door on the right was opened and there was a key in the lock right here. in addition to that, there was a key on a mat laying right next to the door here. >> two keys two clues. one was a brand new copy of the front door key, and then the

next was a key to a community gate. >> those are huge because it eliminates everybody in the world from being a suspect down to only those people that have access to those two keys. >> the circle of suspects was getting smaller. >> coming up police focus on one particular suspect who did have access to those keys and to something else. >> he bought a .9 millimeter baretta 92-f. >> you lied? olivia.

super hungry? get my chipotle chicken club combo. it's got the chipotle sauce you love and spicy crispy chicken. you get it with fries and a drink for just $4.99. that's a ton of food. let's do this. ring ring! progresso! i can't believe i'm eating bacon and rich creamy cheese before my sister's wedding well it's only 100 calories, so you'll be ready for that dress uh-huh... you don't love the dress? i love my sister... 40 flavors. 100 calories or less. ♪ ho ho ho ♪ [ female announcer ] at 100 calories, not all food choices add up. some are giant. some not so giant when managing your weight, bigger is always better. ♪ ho ho ho ♪ ♪ green giant ♪

>> the demanded attention. one of the keys was stuck in the front door the night he was murdered. the other was dropped on a mat outside. the person who killed bill had obtained those keys somehow which meant whoever it was was in his inner circle or had access to it. now police began looking very closely for relationships like maybe secret ones. >> that's how they found eric who was living in a studio apartment in one of those melrose place kind of -- he had played football, but his

promising career as a linebacker had fizzled. too many injuries. too many hours on the bench. by the early 1990s he was trying to figure out what to do next. >> i was in seattle with the seahawks when i retired, when i left, and i drove down the coast, and it was a great place to land. >> nir vaughna for a guy like you. >> it was. >> good-looking ex-football player like him it was easy to get work, and women in southern california. like nanette. he met her while working one day at this gym. >> what did you think when you saw her? >> i thought she was a snob when i first saw her. yeah. a little stuck up. she had the sunglasses on. you know, the expensive watch. she was a little snobby. >> well, at least she was at first, but -- >> what made you friends? >> proximity. she was a fun girl. we work out together. i would say we probably worked out together more than we did

anything else together. >> he was impressed by her intelligence by what she told him about herself. that she had a business degree, for example. s. >> she graduated early from high school and college. >> february, 1994 ten months before bill mclaughlin was killed nanette's affair with eric was in full bloom, which given that eric was not exactly flush turned out to be just fine because she had no want for money. >> what did eric know about bill and bill's relationship with nanette? the cops asked. >> i never met -- i never met bill. >> know who he is? >> i knew of him. i knew of him and his, you know partnership with nanette as far as business goes and stuff like that. >> he told us man et said she

invented things, blood separators. sound familiar? bill, she told eric, guided her through the process. >> that was her mentor. that was her business partner, and she could make her own schedule. she could work out all morning grab lunch, do whatever she has to do go pick up the kids and take them to practice and be the team mom. >> pretty nice job. eric and nanette spent time at what she said was her house right on the beach. >> what did you think? >> it was beautiful. beautiful house. right on the beach. right on newport. upstairs. downstairs. fully furnished. she hey picture of herself in the upstairs bedroom blown up. >> a fwlamor picture. >> kind of a glamour shot, yeah. sfroo it never occurred to him that nanette and bill did more than just business together. >> it was a business relationship, and if you looked at nanette and took into account her age and you looked at bill and took into account his age, you know, why would you think --

>> orange county california, hello. >> i guess i'm a rookie when it comes to orange county. >> sometimes two is country, three is a motive. if eric found out that bill was much more than just nanette's mentor was it a motive for murder? so in their interview investigators got right to the point. what was he doing that night? >> i was with nanette at the soccer game. she dropped me off and took off and i got dressed and went to work later on. around 9:30. >> curious thing about eric's job. he was a bouncer at a nightclub about a football field and a half away from the mclaughlin house. not that far for a linebacker. so the cops asked a few more questions. >> did you -- >> no but that didn't mean he didn't own any guns. just took him a while to tell the detective that.

>> so you say you don't open any firearms at all? >> no. i -- i bought one, um -- i haven't seen it in so long. i, um bought one in dallas that i gave my dad. >> we first asked him if he has -- owns any weapons, he doesn't own any, and then he says oh, well heat right, i did buy one in texas. a little 380, but i sent it to my dad in new york and then we talk a little wit longer, and he says oh he bought another 380. >> do you have a register on these? >> um, i basically just signed -- signed registration. >> the light must have gone off in his head that we were going to find out by checking registration because a few minutes after that he said that he bought a .9 millimeter earlier in the year in the summer. a baretta 92f. >> now, that was interesting. a .9 millimeter was what killed

bill mclaughlin, and no one knew that at the time except the cops and the killers. there are lots of those guns around, but why did eric seem so dodgy about his? >> where is your 900? >> i have no idea. >> you have no idea? >> that's my statement. >> if you thought he was helping himself, he wasn't. >> why didn't you ask for a lawyer? >> i thint i needed one. innocent people don't need lawyers, do we? >> you said some things that didn't help you out that's for sure. >> absolutely. >> you lied to them for one thing? >> i did. >> of course, lying doesn't make you a killer, but jealousy, maybe. did he know he was in a lover triangle. did he want bill out of the way? if so did nanette quite literally hold the key? >> when we come back, the young girlfriend on the make with a shady past she was trying to hide. >> in the big bold print it was

basically looking for wealthy men. i'll take care of you if you take care of me. >> when "deadly trust" continues.

>> the afternoon of the day he was murdered bill mclaughlin drove from a house he kept in

las vegas to mckaren airport. he climbed into the little airplane he owned and flew it up above all his trouble. this is where he was free and happy. pure joy up here. just around sunset he landed at john wayne airport in orange county. called nanette to tell her he was back and drove home to newport to the place he was about to die. but for ail their efforts, investigators could find not one bit of evidence in those final movements of his, nothing to link him to the man who was fast becoming their prime suspect, eric naposki. back at the house his daughters took it upon themselves to search through all their dad's financials. >> you had to figure it all out yourself? >> uh-huh. >> very complicated. >> very complicated, and we did not trust any people at that point. >> understandably. bill's daughter searched through it all. the little stuff and the big

stuff. there had been a failed real estate deal in the desert. two houses to deal with in nevada. soon money would be coming in but when he died, millionaire bill mclaughlin was low on funds. and things were missing. bills and bank statements check registers, that kind of thing. the sisters turned to nanette for help because she was the person that handled bill's day to day money matters. in fact, she was the trustee of the trust that held most of bill's money. everybody grieves in his or her own way, and nanette was very hard to reach. >> she just disappeared. >> keld contact her over one thing missing and sometimes she would return our calls, and sometimes she wouldn't. >> she wasn't far away. just at the house at the beach. bill left nanette quite a consolation prize. $1 million in life insurance. $150,000 in cash and the use of the beach house for a year, but

it was hardly enough, frankly, to fund the lifestyle to which she had become accustom. >> didn't he pay for everything for her? a couple of cars and, you know, plastic surgery? >> he treated her very well. he provided very plush lifestyle for she and her children. >> which made bill's daughters move nab et down the list of suspects. >> i said in front of her, i believe, well, of course, you know nanette would not have done it because there was no financial gain for her in this. >> after all, had bill survived, nanette and her two children might have lived very well indeed, and then bill's daughters noticed something odd about his books. >> i noticed in one of his business accounts a $250,000 check that was written. >> that's a lot of money. >> a heck of a lot of money. >> the check dated december 14th one day before bill was murdered, was made out to nanette johnston trust.

>> did it look like your father's signature? >> no. i showed it to the police. >> the detective didn't like the looks of it either. >> this is jenny. >> hi. >> the detectives told the daughters to give nanette a call and record it. >> well, first of all, a lot of checks -- thereof a lot of times that i signed for him on many things. >> uh-huh. >> with his permission. >> he gave you permission to sign his name? >> oh, yeah. i signed his name on many things. >> he never let us do that. >> although nanette told jimmy, she was sure bill had signed that particular check. then the detectives got involved, and they found more money missing from bill's accounts. nearly half a million dollars. and also discovered that nanette wasn't exactly the person she is had portrayed herself to be. detective had grown up in phoenix. s you can wearily recognize her from her high school year book picture, and despite what she

told eric, she never studied bess or got a college agree. she doesn't let -- married at 18, two kids by 22 divorced at 23, and determined to leave dusty arizona behind for the coast of california. in particular newport beach. >> this is the place she wanted to move into, and she said let's go -- i love you. >> wasn't even finished being built. >> turns out before bill, before eric naposki, there was tom. he met nanette at a nightclub, and six weeks later he found himself moving them both into a townhouse in the heart of newport beach. she had found the place before she even met him. >> what was the timetable? >> smart, intelligent. definitely very determined. forging ahead on her own two feet. wanting to make things happen. >> oh, and she did.

she just happened to like -- tom discovered when he found something nanette had been hiding. an ad. >> in the big bold print it was basically looking for wealthy men. i'll take care of you if you take care of me. >> did you confront her after you found this? >> absolutely. >> nanette denied it was her. but soon enough she had moved out and up and in with bill mclaughlin. it was clear to detective that flan et johnston was greedy and would stop at nothing for money. it was clear to him that she had been cheating on bill who also clear to him he had been cheating on bill with eric. he even knew that her key to the community pedestrian gate was messing. remember there was one found. could have been it on the mat at the murder scene. did all that make her a killer? >> do you remember what you thought at the time? >> i thought the police would be

able to have a closed case. >> wishful thinking, as it turned out. >> probably naive. >> in fact. looked like someone who two someones murder. >> coming up if that's what they thought, they reckoned without this man. >> you are always nervous when you try to work a case. >> and this jewelry from a new witness -- >> i don't even know if you have anything to do with this, and he said maybe i did and maybe

engineers build, farmers grow, artists create, but teachers they do it all. they build minds, they help children grow and they create leaders. make an impact on a child's life. get into teaching. the more you know.

the detective thought he had a case. there was the keys, the lies the other lover, the stolen money. circumstantial, yes, but he thought both eric and nanette committed murder together. >> i thought we had it solved as far as who the responsible parties were. it was just a matter of the d.a.'s office didn't feel comfortable with filing the case. >> two times newport beach police brought the case to the d.a.'s office, and two times the d.a.'s office said the detective had not made his case. nanette was arrested in the spring of 1995 but not for murder. they got her for fraud and forgery. though eric waited for her, by

the time she got out she was ready to move on. she married a real estate mogul. much richer than bill mclaughlin ever was. a baby girl. once again, nanette was driving a fancy car and living where rich people live and spending lots and lots of money on clothes and lunches hair-dos. then she met someone else, another bill. she divorced the real estate mogul and agreed to receive $17,000 a month in child support. was it her idea all along? the new bill did not have millions and when he married nanette he signed a prenup agreeing to let her keep for herself all the money she got from husband number two. or was that number three? anyway the real estate mogul. eric went back east, got married, had kids, got divorced. made that reality show that never got going. he was to play a big, scary bad

guy. >> i just have a slightly different interpretation. >> and what of bill's kids? they've tried to live how their father would have wanted hem to. sort of the opposite of nanette. >> he really wanted us to help make the world a better place, so he encouraged us to do things in the community. the three of us kids would go to nursing homes and put on a little talent show for the elderly. you need to understand where my dad came from. a low mcfamily, as we would say today. he always appreciated what he had, and he worked very hard for it. >> bill's children worked hard too. supported libraries in the third world, orphanages in africa, gave wheel chairs to the poor in latin america. rewarding work. as time passed they began to think the fairy tail had it all wrong. see, to them like it was the evil stepmother who got to live happily ever after. certainly not then.

five years after the murder the sisters lost their brother, kevin, in a drowning accident. he never did recover from the damage the drunk driver did or the trauma of finding his murdered father, though so both men of the family were gone. hope for justice faded away. >> we thought those two will be arrested next week for killing my dad, and it happened month after month after month, and then year after year we had to actually just release the pain and the anger we felt from it. >> and conscious of the fact that you had to work on that. >> very conscious of the fact. >> and that might have been the end of our story. but for him. >> this is mac murphy. surfer and prosecutor with just possibly an excessive confidence in his ability to prosecute the murder of bill mclaughlin all those years ago. >> what you had was an old old

case. pretty circumstantial stuff. >> you are always nervous when you try an old case. >> but not a forgotten one. cold case investigators kept digging. they found a real estate agent who showed nanette and eric expensive houses after the pair said they were about to come into some money. they found a businessman who heard from nanette before the murder that she was about to have lots of money to invest. they found a neighbor of eric's from that melrose place type building. a woman who had been too afraid to come forward at the time of the murder. named susan cogar. >> susan cogar was very, very important because susan cogar gave the best comprehensive understanding of the way nanette manipulated eric into committing the murder. >> she said how she and eric

would chat by the pool. one day in the fall of 1994 eric was angry that his girlfriend's boss, meaning bill mclaughlin had tried to rape her. >> totally untrue. they were engaged to be married. she was living at the house as boyfriend-girlfriend for over three years. aircraft apparently didn't know that. >> he was enraged about it. >> he was enraged about it. >> after the murder, eric sought her out and said if the police came around tell them i'm a nice guy. she said, on oh my god, eric, wropt to know whether you had something to do with this. he said maybe i did and maybe i didn't. you're accused of a murder you didn't commit. how those words are ever going to come out of your mouth. >> incriminate, but hardly one of those tangible facts that gets someone sent away for life. >> this is one where every little piece of evidence had to be considered in light of all the other pieces of evidence. so on may 20th 2009 more

than 14 yoerz after bill mclaughlin was shot dead in his kitchen, nanette was plucked from her well shawed life and charged with murder. nanette proclaimed her innocence and her orange county friends stood by her. >> i just can tell thaw she's my friend. she's a good person. she's been ren russ and kind and a wonderful mother and wonderful neighbor. >> across the country in connecticut police picked up eric naposki and accused him of murder too. eric was also defiant. >> it wasn't eric who shot bill mclaughlin. this is a fact. matt murphy is wrong. he is just straight wrong. >> did eric kill bill mclaughlin? did he conspire with nanette or was matt murphy in over his head. ? it's up to a jury soon.

coming up first had he had to face trial where nanette's lawyer had an unusual defense. >> in court you called your client a slut. >> i sure did. >> is that because -- that does not make you a murderer. >> would a jury agree? >> when "deadly trust" continues.

♪ at kaiser permanente everything you need is under one roof. another way care and coverage together makes life easier. okay, a little easier. become a member of kaiser permanente. because together, we thrive. ♪

>> good afternoon. >> good afternoon. >> 17 years after bill mclaughlin's life was brought to such a violent early end, eric

went on trial here in the orange county courthouse. >> what i want to do at this point, i want to take you through an overview of the evidence. >> prosecutor matt murphy told the jury eric volunteered to be nanette johnston's deadly triggerman. that he had been copying keys in november, doing target practice and -- >> on august 2nd eric purchased a very expensive baretta .9 millimeter model 9. >> then a few months later it was nanette's turn. murphy told the second jury that nanette's greed was insashable that she wrongly thought as trustee of bill's trust she controlled the money and that her stealing escalated as the murder date got closer. >> she is still $48,200 in the month of october alone. in the month of october alone she has beaten the previous nine months combined. sfwroo and so the prosecutor

argued she asked eric to kill bill before he caught on. eric's attorneys told the jury two things. one eric couldn't have done it. 18 minutes before the murder was on a payphone at this denny's which isn't even newport beach. true, the phone bill had been lost, but the point was, said his lawyers, he couldn't have made it all the way to newport beach in time to commit the murder. anyway, they said, nanette did it. >> that the evidence in this case and at this trial shows that nanette johnson is the person most likely to have committed this murder. >> eric was merely the patsey. >> but at nanette's trial the attorney said she was inside and it was aircraft who mitted the murder. >> over the course of this trial, the evidence is going to show that he murdered him out of

jealousy and greed. >> mutual finger-pointing. >> nanette's attorney, michael hill had to agree. his client wasn't exactly a saint. >> hate her as much as you want for being a thief, a liar, a cheat, a slut. whatever you want to call her. >> it seems to me in court you called your client a slut. >> i'm sure i did. >> i can't just ignore it. just because you have treated people poorly in your life does not make you a murderer. >> she thought she was getting $1 million of the life insurance policy. that's a lot of money. >> it's a massive amount of money to people like me. >> but $2 million for her, that is a pitance. what, $55 million when they died. long-term plan is not to be with dead light loser wannabe nfl players. that's harsh. >> that's true. >> it's a way we put the question to the prosecutor. he was getting lots of money from him. probably stealing a little along the way, and she could cheat at the same time. come on. why would she kill him?

>> the problem is if he lives, the odds he finds out she's xheegt or that she's stealing, winds up best case scenario for her is she winds up with nothing. this isn't just a motive. it is a motive on stroitsdz. >> in the end murphy got his verdict. >> guilty. guilty. >> after conviction an epilogue, if you like. eric called up matt murphy from jail and said he was final ready to tell the truth. of course, he told us too. stwloo the first thing i wanted to do was clear up with matt that i didn't do the crime, but i also wanted to share some other information with him that i hadn't shared with anybody except -- >> eric has a new story. >> if nanette wanted bill mclaughlin dead, then bill mclaughlin was as good as dead. whether it was to get me to do it, whether it's to pay someone

else to do it. >> eric's story now said nanette asked him to kill bill mclaughlin and he could choz choose. >> they used the baretta which, says eric wasn't his after all. he had given it to nanette as a gift, he says. she supplied it to the hitman. >> what did matt murphy think of eric's new story? >> it doesn't make any sense. here's the problem with eric. the first story was i had nothing to do with it. then we arrest him, and he says nanette has told me i'm innocent. then we get to trial, and i had nothing to do with it that i didn't know anything. we review him afterwards, and it changes something very radically different. >> michael hill didn't buy it either. >> have you ever heard of hiring hitman. >> yeah, i'll take the job. you know what i don't have a gun. could you loan me yours? >> so eric sits in jail and

contemplated nanette. >> nanette johnston is the worst type of person. she can lie to you make love to you, kill you all in the same week. not even crew at the funeral. she was my girlfriend. that's the price i'm paying. >> as for bill's family they say that they're grateful believing nanette and eric are finally where they belong. >> how do you make sebs of all of this is it sn. >> there's no sense of it. they are just very thick, dimmented selfish people. when we actually started learning how nanette's mind worked. it was really hard to comprehend. snoo so she does what her father taught her. she lives for others as well as herself.

she flies like he did, and she looks for the light. >> it comes down to what our dad taught us. make the world a better place and give unto others that are less fortunate, so we do that. my sister and i both do that today. it's part of our mission in life. we go about it with my dad, our dad as an angel on one shoulder, and our brother as an angel on another shoulder. >> that's all for now. i'm lester holt. thanks for joining us. -- captions by vitac --

good evening and thanks for joining us. >> new at 11:00 tonight, distasteful, and disturbing, but was it a targeted message? a lot of question questions after two grisly sightings in berkeley. a scant