forest, did not set the fire that trapped the roach family. they were caught in a smaller blaze known as the paradise fire. investigators believe that, too, was arson, but no one's ever been charged. today, san diego county does have an early warning system in place. i'm craig melvin. >> i'm natalie morales. >> and this is date line. >> she is lie to you, make love to you, and kill you all in the same week. >> she was dreaming that dream california lifestyle. >> she wrapped them around her finger like she wrapped so many men around her finger. >> she had it all.

millionaire homes, millionaire boyfriend. fancy cars. until -- >> the shots were in sets of two. he saw his attacker. >> her lover gunned down. who wanted him dead? >> that would not have, matt would not have done it because there was no financial gain for her in this. >> what about her secret friend? former nfl line backer. >> you lied to them for one thing. >> 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? >> this isn't just a motive. it's a motive on steroids. hello and welcome to "date line," a gated community, a glamorous setting where the wealthy residents could feel safe, but it was not safe for one multimillionaire murdered in the kitchen of his water front house. police had suspects, but the

evidence was only circum stan shall. the case grew cold. was the key, or two keys at the front door? here is keith morrison with deadly trust. >> there's a place, call it a pot of gold at the end of ambition, of the american dream, a place the few and the lucky build their mansions by the sea. new port beach, orange county, california. where the most unexpected event would be murder. >> things like this rarely happen in newport beach, let alone in an area that is as secure as this area. >> let alone involving people like this, attractive charismatic, living large, like nanette johnston packard mcneil.

>> she had a beautiful home. she drove an expensive car. and sort of living that 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 grand. >> what's your favorite part of the bike? >> i love the way it looks. >> there was eric naposki ex football player, personal trainer wannabe actor who starred in a never aired reality star called the new port 40. here is where the story really 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. and then two shots. >> the detectives arrived to find a millionaire entrepreneur dead on his own kitchen floor. his name was big mclaughlin, 55 years old, nice guy, deeply religious and a 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 something you would wind up murdered but here he was. >> you could tell that there was not a physical struggle. there weren't things that were knocked off counters or things like that. >> you could tell, bill mclaughlin saw it coming. saw his killer. >> one of his movements was to put his hand up, and try to

block a shot, and he got shot through the underside of a finger. so he saw his attacker. >> now they needed to figure out who was that last person bill mclaughlin saw? >> you're trying to take everything in and 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. >> what was important, what wasn't? it was hard to know. in this first few hours. as you can see, in this video, the police shot, the night of the murder, the house was as neat as a pin, except for a glass on the table, some papers askew from a lawsuit brought by an ex business partner and six but casings on the kitchen floor and one more thing a post it note from his girlfriend annette stuck to the side of the lamp. she would be home late, her home had a soccer game.

>> annette johns, had been bill's girlfriend for more than three years and seemed happy despite the almost 30 year age difference said his daughter kim. >> they seemed to be good companions. >> she was like your age. >> she was my age. >> nanette helped bill look after his disabled son kevin who suffered a severe head injury after being hit by a drunk driver and 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, and possibly a business partner. >> he had hopes for this? >> i think he did. >> they lived together in bill's house on the newport bay as did her two little ones part of the time. >> and 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 bill was killed, nanette was with her children at her son's soccer game.

the kids went to their dad's house afterwards and nanette headed to the mall to go christmas shopping. she arrived home to a crime scene. and to detective volz. >> anybody involved has a possibility of being the murderer. >> so volz questioned annette and bill's own grown kid, couldn't eliminate anybody yet. >> we looked at the girlfriend. we looked at the daughters. 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 upstairs. still debilitated by those car accident injuries. and he labored to make his way

down to the kitchen, where he found his father. >> my dad was -- >> i can't understand what you were saying. >> too disabled to explain that he needed help. >> somebody's 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 disabilities. >> but a suspect? they checked his hands for gunpowder residue. negative. >> you have to look at everybody, unfortunately. sometimes. it hurts feelings. but you have to get down to the facts on it, too. >> but facts can be tricky things. >> and in this case, far more elusive than anyone might have imagined. >> some clues were elusive, but some were right out in the front. like the two that dramatically narrowed down the circle of

suspects. >> coming up -- >> those are huge. it eliminates everybody down to only those people that have access to those two keys. >> when date line continues. >> . guess what day it is! huh...anybody? julie! hey...guess what day it is? ah come on, i know you can hear me. mike mike mike mike mike... what day is it mike? ha ha ha ha! leslie, guess what today is? it's hump day. whoot whoot! ronny, how happy are folks who save hundred of dollars switching to geico? i'd say happier than a camel on wednesday. hump day!!! get happy. get geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more. get happy. get geico. when you switch out you an old car part. but you do when you switch to jackson hewitt. at jackson hewitt we help lots of people like you. that's why you get $200 when you leave your old tax service for us. so switch to jackson hewitt today and get $200. with advil liqui-gels, what stiff joints?

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to crystal clear hd video monitoring from anywhere. gig-fueled apps that exceed expectations. comcast business. beyond fast. bill mclaughlin's murder, his children wandered, overwhelmed, through the essential events that follow a sudden death. >> the funeral must have been, i don't know -- >> the funeral was horrible.

because we were in shock. and we had to hold up. i don't remember much. but i do remember nanette sitting in the front, with each child on either end, and they were both bawling at the top of their lungs and i remember my brother speaking, too, at the funeral and telling everybody what an amazing man he was and what a great dad he was for him. >> bill's girlfriend nanette moved out of the house where bill was killed to another house 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's shoulders and did a lot of counseling and therapy and grieving. >> what made it worse was they didn't know who did it. or why. anymore than did the new port beach police. >> when a thing like this happens, i mean it's really an execution style killing. this was obviously somebody who

intended to kill your dad. you must immediately have, you know, wondered who? >> right, well, you wonder if it is a completely random act, some stranger, and it was a mistake, or an accident, or you develop a list of people that might have a reason to have shot him. >> 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 detective, a clue in bill mclaughlin's closet. >> we did a search of the house and we were told there were weapons in a closet and when you come across a lot of weapons like that, it's surprising. >> in the few years before his death, bill had become an avid gun collector, he kept dozens of them in his new port beach house, not just antique, pistols and revolvers and semi automatic

including seven modified m-16 assault rifles. dangerous stuff in the wrong handles. >> we don't know if someone was upset about a sale or something. >> 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 that was frustrated with him was his business partner who he was in the lawsuit with. >> all of them, bill' kids and nanette, told detective volt about that business partner. >> because he and mr. mclaughlin were in a heated multi-year lawsuit 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 is 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. >> hal fishle left him and it was after he left the company that the money came rolling in, fishle believed his contribution deserved more than he got so he sued his former friend and partner bill mclaughlin. and here is the thing. it was two weeks before the murder that the courts decided for bill. any day, he was to get the $9 million he and fishle had been fighting over for years. so was it a revenge killing? sounded at least plausible. except there was something the killer left behind. something fishle didn't have access to. no it wasn't dna. s no not fingerprints. something more mundane than that. >> when we got here, the door on the right was open and there was

a key stuck in the lock right here. in addition to that, there was a key on a matt lying right next to the door here. >> two keys. two clues. one was a brand new copy of the front door key. the other was a key to the community pedestrian gate. not a copy. >> 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 nine mill meet ner the summer. a beretta 92 f. >> you lied to them for one thing. >> i did. >> when "dateline" continues. th. >> i did >> when "dateline" continues let's talk about haribo goldbears.

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two keys that demanded attention. one of them was stuck in the front door the night bill mclaughlin 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.

>> your involvement or relationship? >> nanette is a pretty good friend of mine. >> and that's how they found eric naposki, who they learned was living in a studio apartment in one of those southern california melrose place sort of complexes, just not quite as nice. naposski had played football but his promising career as a linebacker had fizzled too. many injuries. too many hours on the bench. by the early '90s 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. >> it would be kind of nirvana for a guy like you. >> it was. >> big 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. a little stuck up. she had the sunglasses on.

the expensive watch. and she was a little snobby. >> well, at least she was at first. but -- >> so what made you friends? >> proximity. she was a fun girl. we worked out together. i would say we probably worked out together more than we did anything else together. >> he was impressed by her intention, about what she told him about herself, that she had a business degree, for example. >> she graduated early from high school and she graduated early from college. >> in 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 lust for money. as she talked about things, and as she drove her new cars and as she footed the bill for everything we did together. >> so what did eric know about bill? and bill's relationship with nanette? the cops asked.

>> i never met bill. >> do you know who he is? >> i just knew, i knew of him. i knew of him and his, you know, his partnership with nanette, as far as business goes and stuff like that. >> eric told us nanette said she invented things, medical equipment, blood separators. sound familiar? and 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 in newport. upstairs, downstairs. fully furnished. she had a picture of herself in the upstairs bedroom. a blownup, it looked like --

>> kind of a glamour picture. >> kind of a glamour shot, yeah. >> 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 to orange county. >> but when it comes to murder and relationships, sometimes two's company, three's 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 at the soccer game, she dropped me off and took off, and i got dressed and went to work later on, probably 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 do any arms -- >> no. >> that didn't mean he didn't own any guns. it took him a while to tell the detective that. >> okay, you said due own any firearms at all? >> no, i bought one, i haven't seen it in so long. i bought one in dallas that i gave my dad. >> we first asked him if he has, owns any weapons. he says he doesn't own any. and then he says oh, that's 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 bit longer, and he said oh, i bought another 380. >> did you have to register or anything else? >> i basically just signed the 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 says that he bought a nine millimeter earlier in the year, in the summer, a beretta 92-f. >> now that was interesting. a nine mill meet ser what killed bill mclaughlin, and no one knew that at the time but the cops and the killer. there were many nine millimeters around but why did eric seem so dodgy about hers? >> i have no idea. >> you have no idea? >> that's my statement. >> if he thought he was helping himself. he wasn't. >> why didn't you ask for a lawyer? >> i didn't think i needed one. innocent people don't need lawyers, do we? >> you said some things that didn't help you out? >> absolutely. >> you lied to them for one thing. >> of course, lying doesn't make you a killer. but jealousy, maybe. did naposki know he was in a

love triangle, did he want bill out of the way? and if so, did nanette quite literally hold the key? >> at the center of this case, the younger girlfriend with the shady past, she was trying to hide. >> coming up, in the big bold trend, it was basically looking for wealthy men, i'll take care of you, if you take care of me. >> when "dateline" continues. with uncontrolled moderate-to-severe eczema, or atopic dermatitis,

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welcome back to "dateline." i'm natalie morales. who shot millionaire inventor bill mclaughlin? investigators were talking to his girlfriend nanette who was cheating on bill with another man. and when they interviewed him, he was deceptive about whether he owned a gun. meanwhile, bill's daughters were trying to get their father's affairs in order but they were about to find that things weren't adding up. who else had access to bill's accounts? here's keith morrison with more of "deadly trust." >> in the afternoon of the day he was murdered, bill mclaughlin drove from a house he kept in las vegas to mccarron 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 all their efforts, investigators could find not one bit of evidence in those final movements of his, nothing that would link him to the man who was fast becoming their prime suspect, eric naposki. back at the house, bill's daughters took it upon themselves to sort through all their dad's financials. maybe there would be a clue there. >> you had to figure that all out yourself? >> uh-huh. >> very complicated? >> it was very complicated and we did not trust many people at that point. >> understandably. >> so bill's daughters poured through it all. the little stuff. and the big stuff. there had been the 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 who handled bill's day to day money matters. in fact, she was the trustee of the trust that held most of bill's money. but everybody grieves in his or her own way, and nanette was very hard to reach. >> she just disappeared. >> yes, we contacted her over something missing and sometimes she would return our calls and sometimes she wouldn't. >> she wasn't far away you, mind you, just at the house in the beach. in his will, bill left nanette quite a consolation prize. a 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 accustomed. >> didn't he pay for everything for her? a couple of cars.

even plastic surgery. >> he treated her very well. he provided very posh lifestyle for she and her children. >> which made bill's daughters move nanette down the list of suspects. >> i said in front of her, i believe, 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 14, one day before bill was murdered, was made out to nanette johnston trust. >> you saw the signature? >> yes. >> did it look like your father's signature? >> no. and i showed that to the police. >> detective volt didn't like the looks of it either.

>> hello, this is yenni. >> the detective told the daughters to give nanette a call, and record it. >> well, first of all, a lot of checks, there are a lot of times that i signed for him on many things. with his permission. >> he gave your permission to sign his name? >> excuse me? >> he gave you permission to sign his name. >> oh, yeah i signed his name on many things. >> although nanette told jenny she was sure bill had signed that particular check. but then, the detectives got involved and they found more money missing from bill's accounts. nearly half a million. and also discovered that nanette wasn't exactly the person she had portrayed herself to be. detective volt learned she had grown up in phoenix. you can barely recognize her from her high school yearbook picture, she had so transformed herself and despite what she told eric, she never studied business, never even got a college degree, she never invented anything but her own back story. 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. >> so this is the place she wanted to move into, and said let's move in together, i love you it 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 brands new townhouse in the heart of newport beach. she had actually found the place before she even met him. >> what was attractive to you about her? >> smart. intelligent. definitely very determined. forging ahead on her own two feet. and wanting to make things happen. >> oh, and she did. she just happened to like shortcuts. which 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 stuff? >> 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 volt that nanette johnston was greedy and would stop at nothing for money. it was clear to him that she had been cheating on bill, it was also clear to him he had been cheating on bill with eric. he even knew that her key to the community pedestrian gate was missing. and remember, there was one found, could have been it, on the mat, at the murder scene. but did all that make her a killer? she and her lover, eric? >> 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, it looked like someone, or two someones, might

just get away with murder. >> coming up, if that's what they thought they wreckened without this man -- >> you're always nervous when you try a cold case. >> and without this story from a new witness. >> she said i don't even want to know if he had anything to do with this and he said maybe i did, maybe i didn't. >> when "dateline" continues. d,. >> when "dateline" continues allergies with sinus congestion and pressure? you won't find relief here. go to the pharmacy counter for powerful claritin-d. while the leading allergy spray only relieves 6 symptoms, claritin-d relieves 8, including sinus congestion and pressure. claritin-d relieves more.

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detective volt thought he had a case. there was the key, the lie, the lover, the stolen money. circumstantial, yes, but he thought both eric naposki and nanette johnston committed murder together. >> i thought we had it solved as far as who the responsible parties were, it was just 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. very got her for fraud and forgery. she pleaded guilty, spent a year in jail, and 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, they had a baby girl. and 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 and hair. and then she met someone else, another bill. so she divorced the real estate mogul, and agreed to receive $17,000 a month in child support. had that been her idea all along? the new bill did not have millions. and when he married nanette, he signed a prenup agrees to let her keep for herself all of the money she got from number two, or was it number three, anyway, the real estate mogul. eric naposki went back east, got married, had kids got divorced, made the reality show that never got going, he was to play a big scary bad guy and how about bill's kids, they sort of lived the way their father wanted

them. sort of the opposite of nanette. >> he wanted us to make the world a better place. and we did things in the community. the three of us kids would go to nursing homes and put on a talent show for the elderly. you have to understand where my dad came from. a very low income family so he always appreciated what he had and worked very hard for it. >> bill's children worked hard, too, supported libraries, in the third world, often nags in africa, gave wheelchairs to the poor in latin america. rewarding work. but as time passed, they began to think the fairy tale had it all wrong. it treated them like the evil step mother who got to live happily ever after. certainly not them. five years after the murder in 1999, 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. so both men of the family were gone. and hope for justice, faded away. >> we thought those two will be

arrested next week for killing my dad. and when it didn't happen, 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 matt murphy. surfer and prosecutor with just possibly an excess of 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. a lot of evidence had been lost. degrades over time. were you a little nervous about that? >> you're 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. and they found a neighbor of eric's from that melrose type building, a woman who had been too afraid to come forward, at the time of the murder, named suzanne kogar. >> suzanne kogar was very, very important because suzanne kogar gave the best comprehensive understanding of the way nanette manipulated naposki into committing the murder. suzanne told them how she and eric would chat by the pool. how 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're engaged to be married. she had been living at the house

for boyfriend/girlfriend for over three years but naposki apparently didn't know any of that. >> and he was in a rage about it. >> he was in a rage about it. >> after the murder, eric sought her out, and if the police come around, tell them i'm a nice guy. >> she said oh, my god, eric, i don't want to know if he had anything to do about this or not and he smiled and he said maybe i did, maybe i didn't. and if you think about it had - f-if you're accused of a murder you didn't commit, how are those words going to get away with it. >> hardly enough to be sent away for life. >> this had to be considered in the light of all of the other pieces of evidence. >> just the type of challenge matt murphy was after. so on may 20, 2009, more than 14 years after bill mclaughlin was shot dead in his kitchen, nanette was plucked from her well-shod life and charged with murder. nanette proclaimed her innocence and her orange county friend

stood by her. >> i'm just going to tell you that she's my friend, she's a good person. she's been generous and kind and a wonderful mother and a 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 naposki who shot bill mclaugh lin. this is a fact. and matt murphy is wrong. i will tell you right now, on my children, he is straight wrong. >> did eric kill bill mclaughlin. did he con entire nanette? or was matt murphy in over his head? up to a jury, soon. >> coming up, first they had to face trial, where nanette's lawyer had an unusual defense. >> in court, you called the client a [ bleep ]. >> i'm sure they did, just because you treated people

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good afternoon. >> 17 years after bill mclaughlin's life was brought to such a violent early end, erik naposki went on trial here in the orange county courthouse. >> what i want to do at this point, i want to take you folks

through an overview of the evidence. >> the prosecutor saideric volunteered to be the deadly trigger man. he's been copying keys in november. doing target practice. >> on august 2nd, mr. naposki purchased a very expensive baretta. >> then a few months later it was nanette's turn. murphy told the second jury that nanette's greed was insatiable. she wrongly thought she cold the money and her stealing escalated as the murder date got closer. >> she steals $48,200 in the month of october alone. so in the month of october alone she has beaten the previous nine months combined with her thefts. >> and so the prosecutor argued she asked erik to "kill bill" before he caught on. erratic's attorney told the jury

two things. one erik couldn't have done it. 18 minutes before the murder he was on a pay phone at this denny's which isn't even at new incorporate beach. true the phone bill which had been lost but the point was he couldn't make it to newport beach in time to commit the murder. and 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. erik naposki was merely the patsy. >> at nanette's trial thoern said she was innocent and it was erik who committed the murder. >> over the course of this trial, the evidence is going to show that he murdered mr. mclaughlin. authentic of jealously and greed. >> mutual finger pointing. >> he had to agree his client

wasn't a sane. >> hate her for as much as you want for being a liar, a cheat, a thief, a [ bleep ] >> you called your client in court -- >> just because you treated people poorly in life done make you a murderer. >> a million dollars is a lot of money. >> a million dollars to her that's pittance. he was worth 55 million when he died. her long term plan is not to be with a loser. >> that's harsh. >> the truth. >> which is the question we put to the prosecutor. >> she was getting lots of money from him. probably stealing and cheated at the same time. why would she kill him? >> the problem is he lives she finds out she's cheating or stealing. she ends up on the street with

nothing. she goes to jail for embezzlement. this is a motive on steroids. >> in the end murphy got his verdict. >> guilty. guilty of the crime of felony to wit. >> then after the conviction the oddest thing happened. eric called up pat murphy from jail and said he was finally ready to tell the truth. of course he told us too. >> 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 in 17 years. >> erik had a new story. >> if nanette wanted bill mclaughlin dead then bill mclaughlin was as good as dead whether it was me to do it or somebody else. >> erik's story is nanette asked him to "kill bill" mclaughlin

but he refused and he put her in touch with someone who did. he gave the baretta as a gift and she supplied it to the hit man. >> so what did matt murphy think of erik's new story >> it doesn't make any sense. here's the problem with erik naposki. the first story we had nothing to do with it. then we arrest him and he says i'm innocent, nanette is innocent. then we get to trial, i'm innocent but nanette is not innocent. then it changes radically. >> michael hill didn't buy it either. >> have you ever heard of hiring a hit man, i don't have a gun, can you loan me yours? >> so erik sits in jail. >> nanette johnson is the worst type of person. she can lie to you, make love to

you, kill you, all in the same week. and not even cry at the funeral. and she was my girlfriend. and that's what i have to -- that's the price i'm paying. >> as for bill's family they say they are grateful believing nanette and erik are finally where they belong. >> how do you make sense of all this stuff? >> there is no sense of it. they are just very sick, demented, selfish people. when we actually started learning how nanette's mind worked it was really hard comprehend. and a very dark place to unravel. >> 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. >> when it comes down to it our dad taught you that's our goodness forward.

make this world a better place and give unto others who are less fortunate. so we do that. my sister and i both do that today. that's part of our mission in life. we go about with my dad, our dad is an angel on one shoulder and our brother as an angel on another shoulder. that's all for this edition of "dateline". i'm natalie morales. thanks for watching. good morning. i'm philip mena at msnbc world headquarters in new york. it is 6:00 in the east, 3:00 out west. here's what's happening. court battle loom being after the president declared a national emergency over his border wall. new today landowners, activist groups and the state of california all lining up to sue. a firsthand look at the truth, two new looks at what's happening on the border both in texas and mexico.