- Police are saying
multimillionaire NFL player
- Ready!
- Love triangle,
m*rder for profit?
- Set!
- And he did it at the behest
of a woman who wanted money.
- Hut!
- She found this, you know,
hunky, muscular boy toy,
and they were
out there looking
at million dollar homes,
but neither of them
had a legitimate source
for that money.
- Meanwhile, his girlfriend
that he thinks
he's gonna marry
clearly doesn't know
she's engaged.
- The only way that she's
gonna get away with that
is if her fiancé is not alive.
- You will never,
ever find any reason to think
that I had any motive
to k*ll this girl.
- The OJ m*rder
was a crime of passion.
This was cold and calculated.
- The entirety
of the prosecution's case
was built
on circumstantial evidence.
How can anybody
say definitively
that he pulled the trigger?
- Police are saying, is that
why he was a good linebacker,
because he's a violent guy?
- No, I'm not a bad guy.
I just have
a slightly different
interpretation of the law.
- My name is Eric Naposki.
In 2011,
I was convicted of a crime
that occurred in 1994,
a crime that I did not commit,
as I enter a 14th year
of incarceration.
I'm in the process
of finding the truth,
clearing my name,
and going home to my family.
- My name is Michael Cohen,
and I'm a sports journalist.
I was working on a story
about Eric Naposki
for "Sports Illustrated."
Well, there were all
these interesting parallels
between Eric Naposki
and Aaron Hernandez.
They were both football
players in Connecticut
spending time there.
And then they both played
for the Patriots,
which was a huge tie in.
And then both of them ended up
getting convicted of m*rder.
So I reached out
to Eric and said,
"Hey, I'm from Connecticut.
"I know you have ties
to Connecticut.
"I'd like to write a story
that examines from your side
and from
the prosecution's side."
And he sent me
over a hundred written pages
of letters outlining his life.
There was
a fairy tale element to it,
a naivety to it,
where everything
was kind of viewed
through rose tinted glasses,
almost Disney-like.
- You know, growing up
in the Bronx at a young age,
I would go out,
and there would be
a few hundred kids
in the playground.
And I would be exposed
to older kids
running and tackling,
and we were roughhousing
from the day I was
in the park at six years old.
I was a roughhouser.
But as soon as I saw football,
I knew--
I'm like, I have to do that.
- Football introduced him
to some
of the strong male figures
that he didn't necessarily have
as a very young child.
- I'm Ron Santavicca.
I'm a high school
football coach.
I've coached football
for 47 years,
and I was Eric's high school
coach back in the '80s.
He was very nice.
He was a compassionate kid.
He was enthusiastic
about playing.
And to be a tackler,
you have to have
a little loose screw at some
place, like I know I did.
- Football is an ultimate test
of who you are
as an individual.
You can show what you're about
without getting in trouble.
Right?
You take a person
to the ground
or hit them hard
and get a pat on the back.
- It's an innate ability,
something inside
that wants you
to be aggressive,
to tackle your opponent,
to make a play.
That's
the relentlessness he had.
- As a football player,
as you go further in the game,
the speed, and the physicality,
and the violence of the game
starts to weed people out.
- So he practiced more
than most people did.
He ended up
being the strongest.
His gym discipline,
his workout discipline,
really had him stand out
for the NFL.
- Is he gonna be able
to take the next step
in his willingness to endure
the physical pain of going
against bigger, and stronger,
and tougher players?
- He had it in his head
that that was gonna happen,
and he made it happen.
- I got an agent.
And when I went to the trial
camp in New England,
they offered me a contract,
and I took it.
No questions asked.
In order to prove myself,
I had to do it
on special teams.
And special teams are
built for athletic people
who like to hit, who like
to make tackles, right?
It's an aggressive position.
- If you are a core
special teams guy,
the physical velocity
of the collisions
are just so violent.
- Oh, he gets blasted!
- Go get your Vespa
and put a helmet on.
Go to about 20,
25 miles an hour
directly into the wall
you're standing in front of.
And do it 80 times in a row.
- When you play
as long as I played,
there's certainly
gonna be some
incredibly violent collisions
that you were a part of.
- Sam Morris,
good penetration.
- It felt like my brain
had left my skull.
My teammate,
who I hit, he broke his neck,
and was in a halo
for two months after that hit.
And even being
knocked out cold,
I'm gonna find a way
to get back into the game.
- Eric romanticized
in his letters
how he would take pride
in injuring
an opponent's star player
with such a big hit
to knock a star player
out of the game.
- And I did a lot
of getting hurt.
- You good, bro?
- Eric expressed to me
that he suffered
between 10 and 20 concussions
on the football field
and continued to play.
- You know, I was
making my body do things
that it might not
have been born to do,
but that my heart
wanted it to do.
- And his time in the NFL,
he played in total five games
over the course of his career.
- NFL, you're not for long.
- Because of injuries,
you're only in there
for a short period of time.
- So in between
the third season
and what would have been
my fourth season,
the NFL began
the World League
of American Football.
- For the season premiere
of the World League
of American Football.
- World League Football
was like
a minor league feeding system
for the NFL.
But they
were also trying to get
the European market
to get interested
in American football,
and it was good football.
- And as it turned out,
I ended up having
probably the best season
of my career.
- As he makes his way--
fumble, drag, and fall
into the arms of Eric Naposki!
- And I'm doing sacks,
and I'm doing interceptions.
- He was finally playing
a starring role on defense,
not just special teams.
- Across the middle,
and it's caught.
Oh, and Naposki
just nailed him.
- He loved the environment.
He loved his coaches.
He loved his teammates.
So for him, it was an
extremely enjoyable time.
- But then I couldn't
capitalize on the season.
- Naposki,
one of their best ones,
out for the second year
in a row
for the playoffs
with injuries.
- Ultimately,
he decided that there wasn't
enough healing being done.
And that's
when he started to settle
into a, you know, quote,
unquote, "civilian life."
- For his personality,
the perception of California
was a very good fit for him.
The weather,
the chill lifestyle,
it's not
the New York rat race.
Everybody has a dog,
everybody is outside
most of the year,
that he thought that was gonna
be a very good fit for him.
- When me and Nanette met,
we met at a gym.
The relationship
really developed
over about a year and a half
period of time.
- She's super attractive.
She's charming.
She's friendly.
What I heard about her
was she was
a pretty low-level employee
at a medical device company.
Basically said, "Hey,
I have this idea for a device.
"It separates plasma
from blood.
I don't know what
to do with this."
She brought the idea
to the CEO
who became
her business partner.
And he said, "You know what?
"If anything comes of it,
"we'll treat it
like a lottery ticket.
We'll split it."
That ended up being a product
that was spun off
and sold for $50 million.
And he kept his word.
They split it 50/50
like a lottery ticket.
- Thought she was rich, right?
She owned
a $5 million beach house.
She had plenty of money.
She drove a Cadillac.
She wore Rolex watches.
So that part of my life
with her
was more of the exciting
going out,
planning vacations and trips.
I was enjoying myself.
I was really starting to live
the Southern California
lifestyle.
- He's in love.
They're picturing
a life together--
the kids, the future,
the American dream.
And they seemed like
a really good fit.
- In December 1994,
I was working in patrol.
We had a call come out
of a sh**ting
that had just taken place,
and the victim
was not home alone,
that he'd been home,
accompanied by his son, Kevin.
- Kevin had been in
an accident many years earlier
and had some brain trauma.
To this day, that 911 recording
still sticks out in my mind
as one of the most chilling.
- After entering the house,
I immediately came
upon the victim,
who was still laying
on the kitchen floor,
Bill McLaughlin.
The gentleman had been,
obviously, confronted
within his residence and shot
several times in the chest,
almost an overkill.
Later on, a female had arrived
at the crime scene.
She identified herself
as Nanette Johnston,
and that she resided
with Bill McLaughlin and that,
in fact, she was his fiancée.
- Whenever you've got a m*rder
that has taken place,
we want to look
at everybody potentially
that could be responsible
and did a walk through
at the crime scene.
And pieces of evidence
were standing out.
There were numerous
spent cartridges,
so it appeared
that the suspect had used
a semiautomatic weapon.
There was a key left
in the lock on the front door.
On the floor mat
was an additional key
dropped by somebody.
Investigation 101 is
you're gonna to look at who's
the closest to the victim--
loved ones, spouses--
in order to access those keys.
Nanette stated that she had
been attending a soccer game
that her son
was participating in
30 minutes north
of Newport Beach.
Once the game had ended,
she had taken her children
to South Coast Plaza.
She provided receipts
for purchases she made,
so we were able to get
somewhat of a timeline
of her whereabouts
at the time that we believe
the sh**ting had taken place.
At first blush,
you're looking at her
and saying, well, she appears
to be a caring mother.
And she even expressed
some type of fear
that she didn't want
to remain at the residence
that night due to the fact
that the k*ller was still out.
Mr. McLaughlin
owned another beach house
five or six blocks away.
When we escorted her
to the other residence,
she never once asked,
"Can I have security
sit on my house?
"Do we have any idea
who might have done this?"
Which really stuck out to me
because the parallel
to the OJ Simpson m*rder
was the same thing.
OJ never really once
was worried about this k*ller
that was out there
that had k*lled his wife.
Unbeknownst to her,
we maintained
a surveillance team on her.
It was a few days later
when I saw a Nissan Pathfinder
pull up to the residence.
The driver gets out.
It's a big guy.
I immediately exited my car,
walked out onto the beach,
and was able
to get a view inside.
I saw Nanette
and this gentleman
have a pretty intimate
embrace and kiss.
After her fiancé
had been brutally m*rder*d
with no concern
that this crazed k*ller
was still out there,
it stunk on ice.
I mean,
we needed to identify who
this guy was and
his relationship with Nanette.
When we ran that plate,
it came back
with the last name of Naposki.
- I think I was arrested
on a traffic violation.
- Police officers
did an inventory search
of the vehicle he drove in,
and they found a notebook pad
that had handwritten
license plate belonging
to our victim in his
possession in his vehicle.
So straws on a camel's back,
but they're starting to add up.
- And they bring him in.
He has no idea what's going on.
- And there I am,
in an interview room.
- We were trying to get an
accurate picture on who Eric
was and what his relationship
was with not only Nanette,
but with our victim.
- This is his 20-something
year old girlfriend
that he's in love with
and her older CEO
business partner.
And he was like, I don't
know what they're getting at,
but I'm not an idiot.
I'm not playing ball with this.
Man, I'm in the middle
of what the cops
believe is a love triangle.
Right?
I was believing her.
And they say, "Well, buddy,
you've been lied to.
They're together."
- Eric's only alibi
was that he had left his house
at Tustin at a specific time,
and that he got paged
by his work,
and that he had pulled
over to a restaurant
a short distance away
from his residence
to let them know that he was
running a little late.
- He worked at a nightclub
that was literally two blocks
from our victim's residence.
And Eric says that it was
physically impossible for him
to drive from an area in Tustin
after making a phone call,
which he thought was
documented, to Newport Beach,
complete a m*rder, and then
show up at his workplace.
- Meanwhile, the police
are putting articles
and stories
in our old hometown,
trying to get information on,
has this ever happened before,
does he have a history
of violence?
You know, big, strong,
tough football player,
a linebacker, you know,
a borderline violent position.
Is that why
he was a good linebacker,
because he's a violent guy?
- Well, there were
a couple of incidents
outside the various nightclubs
Eric worked at,
where colleagues saw him get
in fights with people,
or at one time, joking
that he needed to move back
to New York
because in New York,
you can actually get away
with m*rder.
And it scared certain people,
there's no question about it.
- We found out later
that Eric also had
a 9-millimeter registered
to him.
- So he completely shuts down,
which probably wasn't
the greatest idea.
So if you're the police,
you see that as odd behavior,
he's being defensive,
and not playing ball.
Maybe this is somebody
that we should look at.
- The layman would look
at this evidence
laying on a table,
they'd all say,
well, push Eric to the top
of our suspect list.
But as far as a smoking
g*n or the actual weapon
that was used to k*ll him,
those things were not present.
So he never reached
certain criteria
to get a filing
with the district attorney
for a m*rder charge
against Eric.
Within a year or two
of this m*rder,
the case went
into the cold case files.
- Because I didn't
commit the m*rder.
Because I wouldn't
commit the m*rder.
Nanette never told me
they were ever engaged.
I was believing her.
I was in love with her.
But everything she had told me
over the last couple of years
was nothing but a lie.
And my devotion to her is
what really got me in trouble.
Well, I actually bought
that g*n for Nanette.
- So Eric started
to realize that he wanted
to get away from Nanette.
It wasn't prudent for him
to be geographically
near her anymore.
Then he goes
back over to Spain
to Barcelona Dragons again.
- And inside the 30 yard line.
- And he's playing
almost just as well
as he did when he was much
younger in the early '90s.
- Next thing you know,
he's the captain of the team.
He's one of three main stars
in the entire league.
- 91, Eric Naposki,
is gonna come in
from the side on this one
and fill this hole up.
Picture perfect tackle.
- He told me he had a fan club.
I was like,
no way.
- Around the time
Eric moved on,
there were still lots
of unanswered questions
from the investigation.
- Look, the K*llers
in this case
thought they got away with it.
One of the things that's great
about the Newport Beach
Police Department
is they never gave up
on a homicide.
- How much each was involved,
we still didn't know,
but we knew we had
the right suspects.
If you want a built-in motive
for m*rder, that would be,
obviously, finding all
we can on the background
on Nanette Johnston.
We discovered Nanette met
Mr. McLaughlin through one
of these singles newspapers,
and not mixing any bones,
saying she's looking
for a wealthy, older man
to take care of her,
and she'd take care of him,
and here's my phone number.
Bill McLaughlin's daughters
were concerned.
- I said, Dad,
I don't really like her.
I think she's with you
for your money.
- She was a man hunter.
She would create
a relationship,
have that person fall in love,
make babies,
and every one of 'em
so happened to be millionaires.
Within a year, Nanette
claimed that she was engaged
to be married
to Mr. McLaughlin.
- And she told everyone
she was his fiancée.
- She had a whopper of a ring.
- Pretty soon, she's
the trustee of his estate,
she's got a provision
in his will.
- The investigators were
looking into that end of it
to finding a motive
for a homicide.
But when she found Eric,
she found this,
you know, hunky,
muscular boy toy,
and they were
out there looking
at million dollar homes,
claiming that they were
gonna come into funds,
to money, quite a bit of money,
to actually go out there
and purchase these homes
with Eric and live,
you know,
the happily ever after.
But neither of them
had a legitimate source
for that money.
The only way
that she's gonna get away
with that is if
Mr. McLaughlin's not alive.
- She needed somebody
to k*ll Bill McLaughlin,
and she found a willing dupe
in Eric Naposki.
As soon as he has
fulfilled his purpose,
Nanette Johnston goes
from rich guy to rich guy.
She's got no room
in her life for him.
- In front of a screaming
crowd of 30,000,
Eric winds up making
the World Bowl.
- And their goal coming
out of training camp was
to host the World Bowl game,
get off to a fast start.
- And he rose to the occasion,
helping make
some decisive plays.
- Eric Naposki started it.
Hugh Hunter finished the job
for Barcelona.
- And investigators
received a call
from Mr. McLaughlin's
daughters.
They had been doing
their own forensic examination
of his accounts and found that
Nanette was writing herself
checks for hundreds
of thousands of dollars
leading up to the day
that Mr. McLaughlin was k*lled.
- She pled guilty
to being a thief
of hundreds of thousands
of dollars and did jail time.
- Essentially,
Bill McLaughlin needed to die
before he discovered that
Nanette was stealing from him.
- We all knew
that was the motive.
Her admitting guilt to that
gave us a step closer
to maybe, hopefully, one day,
getting a m*rder filing.
- While Nanette was
in trouble for fraud,
Eric reaches the height
of his career
with a passionate performance
in the World Bowl.
- There's Eric Naposki.
He's waited so long for this.
He missed out in '91.
He's gonna get it now.
- Eventually, Eric
and the Barcelona Dragons
end up outclassing their
opponents to win the game.
- And the Barcelona Dragons
are champions
of the World League.
- This is a case
I'd heard about
my first day in the unit.
My predecessor told me
about the McLaughlin case
and said that she thought that
if we put some time into it
that it might be solvable.
So we bring out these boxes,
and we dust them off,
and you open 'em up,
and they're almost
like time capsules.
And you're looking for details,
and you're putting
the pieces together.
And then there's
that aha moment.
- Eric told me everything.
He told me
that he wanted to k*ll Bill.
- Back in 1994, they
opened up calls to the public.
Jenny and Kim McLaughlin,
the two surviving daughters,
they had set aside
reward money for somebody
that was willing
to step forward
and help solve the m*rder.
And there were all
these tapes that came in.
So the picture of the scene.
My assigned investigator,
Detective Larry Montgomery,
is sitting there,
and he's listening to the call
of some well-meaning person
that wanted to help
that had nothing of value.
He let it run,
and the tape is still playing,
and there's another call that
comes through that was missed.
- And now, all of a sudden,
we've got Suzanne Cogar.
- I'm Suzanne Cogar,
and I knew Eric Naposki
back in the '90s.
He was my neighbor
at our apartment complex.
When I first met Eric,
it was at the pool.
And it was just really easy
to become friends with him
because he was also
a very friendly person.
One evening, Eric knocked
on my door unexpectedly.
He just started
unloading on me,
telling me
about his feelings for Nanette
and how they were
in this relationship
and he cared
for her very deeply.
And then he told me
that she was living
with Bill McLaughlin.
He was her business partner.
He was upset about it.
I think he was jealous.
He was just--he had a lot
of emotions going on,
I could tell.
And he said that
Nanette had told him
that Bill McLaughlin was
making unwanted sexual advances
on Nanette.
And I could see the intensity
in his eyes
and in his demeanor.
Then it switched
to his feelings
toward Bill McLaughlin.
- Fast forward,
Suzanne Cogar sees Eric Naposki
then after the m*rder.
And he said, hey, remember
that Bill McLaughlin guy?
Did you hear he was m*rder*d?
- Wait--the guy that you
told me a few weeks ago
that you wanted to have k*lled?
- She goes, "Oh, my God,
Eric, I don't want to--
I don't even want to know."
- He said, "Oh, I didn't do it,
but I might have had
someone do it."
And he just smirked
when he said it.
- He basically pronounces
his motive--
that he hates Bill McLaughlin
and wishes that he was dead.
- I think that Eric
was manipulated by Nanette.
He was doing this
because she wanted him to,
and he's doing this
out of love.
- And ready, ready, break!
- What really sheds light
on his personality
is he can't help
but brag about it.
It's not like
the anger building up
to it that's important.
It's the pride
that he took in it.
There's just no way
we were gonna let him
get away with this m*rder.
- About 6:30 in the morning,
I got in my car,
and there was a police officer
opposite my driveway.
I made a left
out of my driveway,
and then I turn back
in my rearview mirror,
and that's where I saw
the Greenwich SWAT team.
And then they said
to get out of the vehicle,
lay down on the ground.
- They got him,
they arrested him,
extradited him
back to California.
He was gone.
He was gone.
He got picked out
of his reality
and put into a completely
different reality.
And there is
no one to call or--
except an attorney, of course.
- We always believed
Nanette was
the mastermind of this thing.
There was never a doubt
that she was
the one that stood
to gain the most.
You know,
we always saw it that way.
We wanted to give him
an opportunity
to call Nanette and see if he
would cooperate, at long last,
and help bring justice
for the McLaughlin family.
- He rolled the dice.
He didn't believe
that there was enough evidence
to convict him and/or Nanette,
and he made a decision
at that point.
That was our green light
to go arrest Nanette.
- Prosecutors say
Naposki plotted
to k*ll William McLaughlin
nearly 17 years ago for money.
Naposki was having an affair
with the victim's girlfriend,
Nanette Packard.
She's also charged
with the m*rder.
- I said, Nanette,
I'm Sergeant Byington
with the Newport Beach
Police Department.
I have a warrant
for your arrest for m*rder.
And she immediately said,
"Whose m*rder?"
This is
Bill McLaughlin's m*rder.
And she made a statement of,
"Why would
I want Bill McLaughlin dead?
He was worth more
to me alive than dead."
- They're looking
for a scapegoat.
She clearly had something
to do with it,
but they can't pin her
for the m*rder.
So who could have done it?
How about the 285-pound bald,
tattooed, former linebacker?
Linebackers are violent,
aren't they?
- One of the things Eric
talked about was that he
thinks some of the hits
that he's taken could
have contributed to some
of his anger issues
or his moments of rage.
It's something that
he's noticed over time.
- In the end, football is
an inherently violent game.
When I got my concussions
in the NFL,
I typically got very,
very emotional.
I threatened the team doctor
that if he did not give me
my helmet,
I was gonna come to his house
and do awful things to him.
I don't say things like that.
That's not who I am.
But when your brain is impaired
and your emotions
are out of control,
that's the kind
of things that can happen.
And some guys have a difficult
time finding that line
between where football ends
and the rest
of regular life begins.
- You get, essentially,
one shot at m*rder.
And if somebody is acquitted,
that's it.
Under the laws
of the United States,
double jeopardy kicks in.
You can't be retried.
So I don't want
to blow this in the clutch.
And I've got a defendant
that I think
is gonna take the stand.
So question at that point is,
who's gonna win out
in front of the jury.
You look at Nanette's theft
from Bill McLaughlin,
and you compare it
to her relationship
with Naposki.
Bill McLaughlin
is only gonna find out
that she's cheating on him,
that she's stealing from him,
and she's going to be out
of that house, out of his life,
and out of money,
unless he dies.
- About 80% of the trial
was actually about Nanette,
how she had no money,
how she never
invented a product.
And I kept thinking, what does
this have to do with her?
So they were proving
their case about Nanette.
They didn't have anything
to talk about with Eric.
The DA created a narrative
of him being
an anti-society character.
- No, I'm not a bad guy.
- Naposki! Whoo!
- I just have
a slightly different
interpretation of the law.
- So in the summer
and fall of 1994,
Eric Naposki
and Nanette Johnston
are meeting
with real estate agents,
looking
at expensive properties.
They say
that they're gonna be able
to buy the house
in early 1995.
Bill McLaughlin is
m*rder*d on December 15.
- So the DA's narrative is,
why would two people who don't
have any money shop
for a house
that's almost $1 million?
And the jury was like,
oh, that makes perfect sense.
Except Eric thought
Nanette invented a product
and sold it
with her business partner
and they made $25 million each.
- Eric Naposki,
two weeks before the m*rder,
got a job
at the Thunderbird nightclub.
And, again,
going back to "Casablanca,"
"of all the gin joints,"
of every bar that that guy
could get a job as a bouncer,
he gets a job
131 yards away
from our m*rder scene.
When the police first arrive
at the scene,
they find two keys.
And, sure enough,
Eric Naposki went
into an Ace Hardware store
where he had keys made.
- And the k*ller then walked
into his house
and shot Bill six times.
- And on the mat,
there's been dropped
a pedestrian access gate key.
That key is huge.
That would allow him access
to a gate that's right across
from the house where
Bill McLaughlin was m*rder*d.
And, again, it's one
of these tiny little details.
When they looked
at Nanette's keys,
her pedestrian
access key was missing.
- Why would I even leave keys
at the m*rder scene?
I mean, it doesn't
make any sense to me,
especially, so I got
to get out of there, right?
Because I just committed
a m*rder
and I'm 6'2", 270 pounds.
I'm gonna run
across a busy street
with a 9-millimeter
in my hand.
- Meanwhile,
it's his girlfriend
that he thinks
he's gonna marry--
clearly doesn't know
she's engaged.
If someone said to me,
hey, could you--
are you gonna be in town today?
Could you make a copy of this
key at the hardware store?
Yeah, I would go do it
and make a copy of the key.
- And his first interview is,
"Yeah, we left the game,
"and Nanette dropped me off
at my apartment,
and I drove to work."
OK, and then they come in
for another interview,
and he says, "I got an alibi.
"Well, let's see.
"She dropped me off,
then I went up
"to my friend Jomsky's house.
"And then I got a page
from my manager,
so I went to Denny's."
So, before the trial, we went
back to interview the manager.
And the manager says,
"I didn't page Eric Naposki.
"The place doesn't start
getting busy until 10:00.
"Nobody cares if he's
there at 9:00 or not.
He's the head of security."
- At the time, the person
who paged me gave a statement
that I called back,
that I was the one, in fact,
that returned his page,
that the phone that I used
was located at Denny's,
that the phone call was made
at 8:52, that the drive
between the phone booth
and the m*rder scene
took 22 minutes,
which proved there was no way
for me to commit the crime.
- We drove that route over,
and over, and over again.
We did it on the calendar
anniversary of the m*rder.
We did it on the day
of the week
anniversary of the m*rder.
No matter how you
slice it or dice it,
you get there in time
to commit the m*rder.
- I can't say,
whoa, wait a second,
here's the phone records.
Here's the guy that paged me.
Here's the distance between
the phone booth and the m*rder.
Now figure it out.
But I couldn't do that.
- There was no record
of a phone call
ever being made
on a calling card.
Eric's claim was that it was
misplaced by his legal team,
by the police department,
by him, by everybody.
It's everybody else's fault,
so...
- Now you overlap the advances
in forensic science concerning
expended shell casings.
And what was one
of 17 potential types
of g*ns back in 1994
is now one kind of g*n,
a Beretta 92F expended
the shell casings
in Bill McLaughlin's kitchen,
and that's the exact same g*n
that Naposki owned
and then lied about.
- Doesn't mean it was
the one that I purchased.
Doesn't mean that at all.
There was a million
9 millimeter Berettas
in the '90s purchased.
Could have been anyone.
Could have been
someone setting me up
to take the fall for a m*rder,
right?
- Guilty of first-degree
m*rder--
a former football player
has been convicted
of k*lling his lover's
boyfriend
in his Newport Beach home.
Eric Naposki shook
his head in disbelief
as the verdict was read
in a Santa Ana courtroom
late this afternoon.
- He's a physically
intimidating, imposing guy,
and number one, that he's
got a temper and, number two,
that he's capable
of something like this.
He turns around and to me
calling my name and saying,
"You F-ing blew it.
You blew it, Murphy.
You blew it."
- No, I don't think Eric
did it even slightly,
or was even involved.
I do know that,
at one point, of his g*ns
mysteriously went missing.
Not that many people would
have access to his g*ns,
and Nanette certainly did.
- We have more breaking news
now on a story
we brought you earlier.
That woman convicted
in the 1994 m*rder
of her wealthy live-in
boyfriend
just sentenced
to life in prison
without the possibility
of parole.
- And we're so glad
that justice
has been served on his behalf.
- It's a lot of closure for us
and for many of us today.
She got what she deserved.
- Nanette is the quintessential
black Widow who manipulated
one man into murdering
Bill McLaughlin
so she could take his money.
You know,
and it's an old story.
It's a plot line that movies
have been made about
for years and years.
And, in this case, it was real.
But, of course, during
that time between the verdict
and sentencing,
that's when we got a call
that he wanted to talk again.
- I am exposing myself,
I'm exposing my family,
I am exposing
my children to harm.
There's a m*rder*r
walking on the street.
- Over the course of time,
he's told many
different versions
of what happened.
But then, after his conviction,
that's when he starts
with the hit man theory.
- And Eric sent word
that he wanted to talk.
So we sat down
with detectives,
and he comes up with
a completely brand-new story.
And what he describes
in that was,
Nanette asked me
to introduce her
to a hit man,
and they used my g*n,
but I had nothing
to do with it.
- Nanette Packard
hired someone to k*ll him,
so she could benefit
financially from the m*rder.
I didn't benefit.
My whole life got
turned upside down.
- But still, you have
to take that information
and try to chase it down.
I released the hounds again,
and we go,
and we chase down
every lead we can.
And we were unable to verify
anything that Eric said,
nothing.
- You know,
you start to wonder,
is he changing aspects
of the story
because he's finally
telling you the truth
after the first couple
of versions were inaccurate,
or was it really just lapses
in memory, given the life
that he led and for how
many years he played
the violent sport that he did.
- A recent NFL survey shows
retired football players
are 19 times more likely to
suffer memory related problems
or Alzheimer's disease.
- CTE is basically a process
where your brain,
upon repeated impacts,
releases a chemical called tau.
And this tau kind of eats away
at your brain.
There's certainly the memory
loss that is associated
with CTE, the uneven behavior.
- According to reports,
teams will be required
to seek advice from independent
neurologists,
not just team doctors,
to decide when a player
can return after a head injury.
- "My initial reaction
to the Hernandez CTE diagnosis
"was certainly no surprise.
"Even though he was only 27,
he probably played football
since he was a kid, like most
of the NFL's guys have."
- The players
who admit they have
gotten a concussion--and let's
remember, most of them don't.
But when they do,
they will probably
be treated by someone
who has a better understanding
of their both short-term
and long-term risks
of going back onto the field.
- "Unlike Aaron, I never lost
my cool and k*lled anybody.
"That is why she was forced
to use someone else
"to commit this m*rder.
"My choice not to tell
in '95 probably stemmed
"from residual anger
about Bill's assaults
"against Nanette.
"If CTE plays any major role
in my history,
I think it deals mostly
with decision-making."
- Yeah. It's nonsense.
It's never he's taken
ownership of anything,
so now it's
the concussion protocol,
that he had so many vicious
hits in the NFL.
I think he's just a sociopath.
I think, you know,
it's everybody's--
to the point that he admits
that he's involved
in the conspiracy to k*ll
this guy, even later on,
to come back, but it's
someone else's fault, not me.
- So I can sit here
across from you
and say I couldn't
have done this crime,
but I'm doing life in prison,
right?
- I do believe that they
didn't have very many options.
And they had so much
on Nanette,
it was clear she's involved.
But they didn't have
a trigger person.
- I think it's very probable
that Eric had something to do
with Bill McLaughlin's death.
There was a point
in time when Eric was
a legitimate love interest.
But then once she figured out
what type of buttons Eric had
and how they could be
pushed and manipulated,
then I think she viewed Eric
as more of a tool,
more of an instrument,
to commit the m*rder,
or at least be involved in
the m*rder of Bill McLaughlin.
- I have to prove
that I didn't do this crime
because someone else
did this crime.
Right?
You have to not only prove
you didn't do it.
You have to prove
someone did it.
- If this wasn't so brutal
and so violent,
you could almost feel sorry
for this guy because he was--
he got rolled by this woman.
- No idea.
- All because I wasn't there.
Not because I was
an immaculate m*rder*r
or an assassin,
or I wore a body suit
or gloves.
It was because I wasn't there,
which I didn't do it.
- During the sentencing
of Eric Naposki,
Judge Froeberg even said,
this case may
be circumstantial,
but it is overwhelmingly
convincing circumstantial.
- Eric still felt
that if there was nothing
that actually put him
in Bill McLaughlin's
house that night,
then how can anybody
say definitively
that he was involved,
or that he played any role,
or that he pulled the trigger?
It does create
an element of doubt
for certain people
that just captivates
people's imaginations.
And it's easy to see why
going down the rabbit hole,
and it's a case that people
will continue to talk
about forever, I imagine.
- And you could
either believe me,
or you could believe Murphy.
It's an opinion.
We say there's no way
I could have done it.
He says, afraid not.
- He does not believe
that you can stay
in jail when you didn't do it.
He lives every day completely
convinced he's getting out.
He's more optimistic than me.
I mean, I try to be.
Part of it feels like
I'm talking
to a child about Santa Claus.
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