July 5, 2022 • 40 mins
Joining us is former public defender turned legal expert and author Kirk Nurmi. He rose to fame when he defended Jodi Arias during her high-profile murder trial. Since leaving the public defender’s office, Kirk has written eight books, which include Trapped with Ms. Arias. His books are available for purchase now.
After a painful divorce, a millionaire finds love with a much younger woman, but the torrid romance turns fatal. The complex investigation will have you guessing till the very end.
Connect with Kirk at kirknurmi.com
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Falling in love is the best feeling in the world.
You see stars, you feel giddy, But sometimes that makes
you do crazy things, and sometimes that means murder. Just
because the story starts out with once upon a Times
doesn't mean it ends happily ever after. Come to Crazy
and Love a production of Katie Studios and I Heart Radio.
(00:24):
Today's guests are True Crome producer Stephanie Laiedecker and Kirk Nermi.
Kirk is a former public defender, turn legal expert and author.
During his time in the courtroom, he defended hundreds of
individuals against sirius felony charges. He rose to fame when
he defended Jodi Arius during her high profile murder trial
from Since leaving the public defender's office, Kirk has written
(00:49):
eight books, including Trapped with Miss Arius. All his books
are available for purchase now. Kirk can be found online
at kirk Nurmi dot com. Episode thirty four, The Case
of the Millionaire, the Sugar Baby and their decade long investigation.
(01:13):
Bill McLoughlin always had big plans for his life growing up.
Is one of three children on the South Side of Chicago.
He joined the Marines at eighteen and moved to California.
Bill became the first in his family to go to
college and always wanted to make a difference, not just
for his loved ones, but for the entire world, and
(01:35):
a difference Bill made. In his early thirties. Bill developed
a groundbreaking device that separated plasma from blood. It changed
the medical field and made him a fortune to the
tune of fifty five million dollars. When Bill was twenty seven,
he married his girlfriend, Susan, and they had three children together.
(01:58):
With money being no conser, her and the family settled
down in Newport Beach, a wealthy enclave in Orange County, California.
Family was everything to build, especially his children. He bought
a plane so he could take his wife and kids
on vacation trips to the Grand Canyon. It's those moments
(02:20):
that Bill's children like to remember their fathers soaring in
the sky, but tragically, everything that came later is what
gets burned into their memories on paper. Bill and Susan
had a picture perfect marriage, but Susan did not feel satisfied,
(02:45):
and when their kids left for college, Susan decided to
leave Bill after twenty four years of marriage. This was
in Bill was devastated. He loved Susan and was not
ready to give her up. However, they were never able
to reconcile. A year later, at fifty five years old,
(03:07):
Bill was feeling especially vulnerable when he met a woman
named Nanette Johnston. Nanette also worked in healthcare and had
two young children from a previous relationship. She wasn't just
blond and beautiful, she was also smart and driven. She
was interested in Bill's business and wanted to help, something
(03:27):
Bill's ex wife never did. Despite his children being suspicious
of Nanette, Bill was adamant she had good intentions, and
the pair quickly became serious. Within just two months of dating,
Bill moved her and Nanette's two kids into his Newport home.
He gave her a generous allowance and opulent jewelry. The
(03:50):
couple traveled to Europe when on luxury vacations and skied
atop snow capped mountains. Soon Bill proposed to the stunning
Bombshell and she said yes. Then Nette was living a
life most women only dream of, but it would all
soon come crashing down. Here's Stephanie. Well, we actually wondered
(04:16):
how Bill and Nanette met, and it turns out it
wasn't in such a traditional way. They actually met through
an ad. Then. Nette had posted a personal ad in
the local newspaper and it was entitled wealthy Men Only.
The ad read that she was a single white female
age five ft five inches one hundred pounds, classy, well educated,
(04:38):
adventure is fun, and knows how to take care of
her man. So she was looking for an older man
thirty plus years who knows how to treat a woman
and if you take care of her quote, she will
take care of you. So again, this wasn't the most
traditional way of meeting somebody. But you know, this is
a young woman twenty five years old who's being very
(04:58):
forthcoming and honest about what her needs and goals are.
We do know though, soon after meeting, Bill took out
a million dollar life insurance policy and made her the beneficiary,
so you know he was playing all in and things.
Obviously we're escalating very quickly, Kirk, this is a very
divided question, and you know, again this is perspective, I suppose,
(05:20):
and adding a newspaper suggesting that you're looking for a
man who's very wealthy, an older man at that, is
that anything that sort of legally sounds like prostitution or
is that just totally legal and a woman asking directly
for something she's looking for these relationships, will we characterize
this is sugar baby or sugar daddy. They do have
(05:42):
that kind of element to it, But at the same time,
really prostitution, when we talk about crossing that line into illegal,
it really has to be a specific exchange. You can't
be this general kind of you take care of me,
I'll take care of you kind of relationships. So ultimately
that's what differentiates these sort of sugar baby sugar daddy
relationships from what we might call traditional prostitution. Also, Kirk
(06:06):
not only did Bill take out an insurance policy and
made in the net the beneficiary, he also changed his will.
How complicated and common is that with life insurance we
all have the ability to buy whatever kind of policy
we want if we can afford that policy, and equally
so we have the right to choose whoever the beneficiary is.
And I think also it's true that changing that policy
(06:27):
might not be as common as say, brushing our teeth.
It is, in fact something that could happen frequently enough
that it wouldn't draw suspicion and only becomes really suspicious
in hindsight, that's exactly right. It seems as that we
see that so often. But again, numbers wise, that's such
a common thing. Most people are doing that. I guess
it's less common to change your will and take out
(06:48):
a life insurance policy so quickly into a relationship if
we were gleaning from other stories. But I understand the point.
On the night of December, for Bill came home to
Newport from Las Vegas, where he spent every Monday through Thursday.
Nanette had left a note in the kitchen saying that
she'd gone to her son's soccer game and would be
(07:10):
home late. Bill sat at the kitchen table working when
an intruder came into the house and shot him six
times in the chest. Upstairs was Bill's adult son, Kevin,
who raced to his father when he heard the gunfire.
The shooter was gone, but Kevin found Bill lying on
the kitchen floor bleeding to death. Panicked. Bill's son called nine,
(07:36):
but by the time paramedics arrived, it was too late.
Fifty five year old Bill was dead. The Nette came
home around ten pm that night and discovered the horrific scene.
When police arrived, they found the front door, ajar a
key inside the lock. They were stunned at the brutality
(07:57):
of the crime. Generally, Newport Beach is a very safe place.
Here's Stephanie and we hear that a lot. Newport is
allegedly a very safe place. So this crime was very
rare and therefore took over the whole community. Detectives immediately
looked at Bill's inner circle. Kirk I would assume that's
(08:19):
very common. Immediate family is, you know, kind of up
for conversation, and his ex wife and two daughters. They
were looked at, and both had iron clad alibis and
really had no motive to kill Bill whatsoever. They all
had a really lovely relationship by all accounts. But what
about Kevin, that's the son that called one. Police apparently
(08:41):
tested his hands for a gunpowder and they were clean.
And then as far as Nannet goes, she had been
at a game that went into double overtime, and then
she apparently went shopping, and she did have receipts for this,
and it's not necessarily a minute to minute alibi, but
she did have receipts in proof of her being in
a certain area at a certain time. There was one
(09:03):
person that did come up that was an associate of
Bills through work. It was a business partner who helped
him develop a plasma device. That's the one that he
became very famous for. His name is how Official. So
how had sued Bill but lost and therefore had to
give Bill nine million dollars, which is a huge amount
(09:24):
of money. So there's certainly could have been bad blood there,
but that was just motive in a theory. Kirk, you
have probably been in the hot seat for this so
many times when it comes to starting a list of suspects.
How diligent are police out crossing people off the list?
What would have been your process? Yeah, I think the
typical process. And obviously different detectives are going to be
(09:46):
more or less diligent with their behavior. But they're gonna
look at three main sources. They're gonna look at motive,
they're gonna look at opportunity, and they're going to look
at the evidence of the scene. Of course, the evidence
of the scene really is an initial matter. You can
only absorb what can be observed with the naked eye.
Of course, later on science will reveal more of the
(10:07):
story in that regard, But motive and opportunity is a
great place to start. Who was in a circle, who
was in his inner world, and who had the opportunity
to commit this crime. And once you start looking at
those things, you start eliminating people. And maybe as a
crime scene develops and some of those things that only
science can see come to light, then you might add
(10:28):
more people to that list of suspects. If you lose
a loved one to a crime so hideous and you're
the immediate family, you want to speak up and speak
out as quickly as possible to frankly eliminate yourself as
a suspect so we can get on with it right
and find the person at large. And sometimes we see
in cases people lawyer up and it gets muddy really
(10:49):
quickly because people maybe are afraid. But in this case,
the family checked out very quickly and their relationship seemed
positive all things considered. He did have this bad dealing
with his in his partner, but by all accounts, love
and money is that usually the motive. Love and money
are are huge typical motives of murders like this, especially
(11:09):
when they're so brutal, they become a little more personal
than the average murder. You know, we use this word
a lot. Ironclad. What does that exactly mean from a
legal perspective, It's a matter of circumstance. But an ironclad
alibi is really one that is unassailable. It shows you,
you know, in a different place at the at the
time of the crime, something that cannot be challenged, something
(11:30):
that cannot be altered. I mean, in this case, for example,
we talk about the phone call. Well, that was an
alibi that seemed to be unassailable because there would be
records to prove it. But ultimately there were no records
to prove it. Therefore, the alibi could be contrived. Unassailable
cannot be contrived. It can be proven. And by that
(11:51):
you mean somebody could forge documents or makeup receipts and
things like that, as opposed to maybe in more modern times.
Today everybody has cameras and there's cameras everywhere. It's you know,
very possible to see a person's a steps, there be
steps and their se steps through some sort of a camera.
But in this case, these were This was a little
(12:11):
long ago, I suppose when we think back to not
everyone had a cell phone and the technology wasn't just
developed because today, so when we talked about alibis as well.
You know, there's cameras everywhere, certainly most of the places
we go. But now technology as such that whenever we
walk around with our cell phones, we are pinging off
(12:32):
towers that give us, give police, give anyone who's interested
a good idea of where we are at a particular
point in time. Police want to talk to Bill's former
business partner turned adversary. He was the lead suspect at
the time, but detectives learned he'd been in Santa Barbara,
the net of the murder, a hundred and fifty miles north.
(12:54):
There was no way he could be the killer. With
no murder weapon, DNA or fingerprints at the scene, detectives
were back to square one. They wanted to take a
second look at Bill's much younger girlfriend, Nanette, so they
started with where she was the night of the murder.
Nanette had in fact been at her son's soccer game,
like she said, but police discovered she was not alone.
(13:19):
Nanette stood on the sidelines with a man named Eric Naposki.
Eric was a hulking former NFL linebacker at six ft
two and two pounds. He had once played for the
New England Patriots and Indianapolis Colts. Growing in foot injuries
led Eric to retire from football following the season. He
(13:41):
moved to Orange County, where he rented a studio apartment.
While finalizing a divorce from his first wife. Eric found
work as a nightclip security guard and started with an
exercise program for kids. That is where he met Nanette.
What started out as a friendship turned into a romance
on New Year's even nine when Eric and Nnette slept
(14:02):
together for the first time. While his first love was football,
Eric also fell hard for Nanette. To Eric, she was
so much more than a pretty face. He liked that
she was a hard worker and so driven. Well, Eric
knew about Bill, Nanette had told him that he was
simply her boss. Yes, she did live with him in Newport,
(14:27):
but they slept in separate bedrooms. It was strictly platonic.
These were not the only lies being told. Nanette also
told Eric that she was the one who invented the
plasma device, Yes, the same one that Bill had actually
created years prior. She told Eric. Once she sold the idea,
she became independently wealthy. How much of the truth Eric
(14:51):
knew was unclear When the police brought him in for questioning,
he was evasive. Here's a portion of Eric's interrogation. Relationship.
He has a previous friend of a dating relationship with
a boyfriend girl friend. Yeah, I would say as a
(15:11):
solo total like I had girlfriends. You know, by all accounts,
this ended up being a very serious relationship. So we
know now that Eric was lying to the police covering
for Nanette, and their relationship was pretty serious at this point,
she had already met his family, and you know, this
was abutting something. But that's not all he liked about.
(15:34):
He initially told the police that he never had access
to a firearm, but then he later changed his story
and said that he did in fact own a nine
millimeter which was the murder weapon, and again wasn't so
forthcoming about that. Eric told police that he bought the
gun for Nanette because she was scared for her safety.
(15:55):
Here's a little exerpt of what he said to police
directly were issued A nobody, I have no idea, You
have no idea that's this, you know. Sounds as though
he's not being fully forthcoming and is obviously very nervous
and scared. So it sounds like in retrospect, we can
hear that in his voice. We're going to take a break.
(16:18):
We'll be back in just a moment. Both the guilty
and innocent have the opportunity to not respond to police questioning,
(16:39):
but not too many people take that opportunity, and particularly
so the guilty, because they are worried that they're more
suspicion is going to be drawn upon them, so they
resort to what they often do and have done in
life that has got him to this point in time
is lie. They feel like they can lie their way
out of it in an effort to avoid further suspicion
(16:59):
being used on them. Is that a human behavior thing?
Because you would imagine that you would just zip it,
or if this was something that you were planning, that
you would have planned that piece of it. I mean,
you obviously worked infamously with Jodi Arias, who has all
of that footage that we've all seen of you know,
her spinning stories real time and you know her brain
(17:20):
sort of talking to kind of seemingly make space for
her to get her story straight in her head. The
way they are saying something is that as significant as
what they are saying, and in this case for example,
as he's saying, frankly lies, it seems as though you
could hear it in his voice. You know, it can
be There can be verbal cues, there can be visible
(17:43):
body language cues that indicate lynes. Sometimes there can be
a repeated pattern that detect that. But a lot of
times early on an investigation particular, the police don't necessarily
know someone's lying, and they let them talk together information
and can go back later and discern whether that's a
lie or not. But they certainly take advantage of that instinct. Stiff.
(18:05):
This goes to your question. The first part of your
question is that there's this human nature of not wanting
to draw more suspicion on yourself, both the guilty or innocent, right,
Because the minute you decide you're going to not talk,
what happens while you think automatically they're going to be
more suspicious of you because of your choice not to talk.
And for the guilty, what's more frightening than having more
(18:26):
suspicion guest upon you. So that's why I think so
many people make that choice and think they can get
away with it. Also, speaking of being dishonest from the start,
what did Nette tell Eric when all of this happened.
According to him, she denied ever being an engaged to Bill.
In fact, he didn't even know this relationship with Bill
(18:47):
was a thing. When he saw the news and the
headlines about Bill's murder and that he had potentially been
murdered by his fiancee. She just said it was a misprint,
and he kind of wanted to believe that and went
along with it. I was it was interesting how police
allowed both of them to continue to interact, which seems
like typically if there are two suspects who know one another,
(19:08):
you would want to separate them so they don't have
time to commiserate. What do you make of that? Well,
you know, you have to think about it this way, Stephanie.
They are just suspects. They're not under arrest. They're free
to interact as you and I would, so there's really
no distinction. The other thing I would say, though, is
that in a situation like this, if police have the
inclination that the two have conspired together to commit this crime,
(19:31):
then having them together, probably having in them under surveillance,
see what kind of actions they do to assert their
innocence or cover their crime, if you will, is something
that can actually aid police in the investigation down the road,
depending on the behavior of the suspects when they're together.
Like in a reality show, you just sort of let
people kind of get comfortable and do their thing. And
(19:53):
in this case, if you know that thinks she's in
the clear, or you know, they're trying to go about
their business assuming that police aren't watching, I would assume
that's when people get really sloppy. That's exactly right. I mean,
that's when text messages can be exchanged and different things
can be had. Maybe back then phones could be tapped,
what have you, where further evidence can be gathered to
(20:13):
make someone move from suspect to defend. It. Shocking how
people can go about their lives after In general, I
always find this fascinating, and you've lived it so many times,
I'm sure firsthand. Seeing this from a distance, is how
people kind of just go about their lives in the
days after such a traumatic event, guilty not guilty, and
keep it together. So this all seemed really bad for Eric,
(20:35):
but he did have an alibi. According to him, the
night of the murder, Nanette drove him home to Tustin,
which is about eleven miles away. After the soccer game,
he changed and then headed back to Newport, where he
worked as a security guard at a local bar. On
the way, he got a page from his boss, so
he pulled over to the Denny's to use a pay phone.
(20:57):
And this is a very significant piece here, but with
sgnificant here is that he called him from a pay
phone using one of those calling cards that we all
used to do back in the day. According to his
calling card bill, that wasn't about eight two pm. At
nine pm is when the nine when one call came
through touched into Newport, is about twenty minutes of a drive.
(21:18):
That seemed like based on that timeline, that eight minutes
between the time he made this phone call and at
the time of the murder wasn't enough time to accomplish this.
So in a way that gave him an alibi. This
seems like one of those issues where Eric wouldn't have
had the opportunity to commit this crime. But the big
caveat with that is, if true, where were the records
(21:42):
to support this claim And is it really physically impossible
for him to travel the distance in in a lesser
point in time? So if Eric's alibi was true, there
would be a phone card bill, but also there would
be probably some sort of bill related to the pay
ager that dictated exactly when the page that he's talking
(22:04):
about that he supposedly responded to came in. Also to
that point, since this was back in and again cell
phones were not as readily available. If you had a
pager that wasn't pinning anybody as to your location, correct,
it still would have had to hit off a tower
I would assume now. I wasn't practicing law back then,
(22:24):
but I'm sure it would have had to hit off
a tower. Now they would there probably was less of
them than there are with cell phone, but it could
have given some sort of signal at some point in time,
and a time of transmission I think would would ultimately
be there. Interesting point and also the fact that he
used a calling card at a pay phone also that
(22:45):
could be argued that anybody could have used that calling
card at that pay phone and still have gotten the
same alibi. But who knows. There are passer bys you
know today that would probably be on camera, so people
wouldn't get away with faulty alibis. While detectives were suspicious
of Eric and Nanette, they did not have enough to
(23:06):
arrest him, and so the case remained stagnant. About a
month after the murder, Bill's daughters were looking into their
father's finances. They discovered that someone had forged a check
for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars one day before
the murder. It turned out Nanette had been the one
to cash that fraudulent check. As the daughters kept digging,
(23:29):
they discovered Nanette had embezzled over half a million dollars
from Bill. She was charged with theft and forging a check.
Six months after the murder, Eric broke up with Nanette
and she was found guilty on the theft charges. The
stunning blonde served a hundred and eighty days in jail.
(23:51):
Here's Stephanie, this really goes to show that family fights,
and in this case, you know, Bill's daughters were not
going to stand for it, and this new revelation about
the money must have been extraordinarily painful. Now, when Annette
got out of jail a hundred and eighty days later,
she didn't really waste too much time getting back into
the dating scene. She married a very wealthy businessman soon
(24:14):
thereafter and got pregnant right away. Unfortunately, they divorced, but
don't feel too sad about it because she met somebody else,
also a very successful entrepreneur, and then had another baby. Meanwhile,
Eric moved to Connecticut and went on to have two
children of his own. More than ten years later, in
two thousand and nine, the police had reopened the investigation.
(24:38):
This time, the new DA thought there was enough to
charge both Nanette and Eric with murder. To the relief
of Bill's family, both of them were finally arrested. What
change they asked. Eric's former neighbor told police that Eric
used to confide to her about his relationship with Nanette.
According to this neighbor, Eric told her that Bill was
(25:02):
assaulting Nanette and Eric wanted to blow up his plane
after the murder. When Eric's old neighbor asked him if
he killed Bill, he smirked and said he might have. Finally,
Eric told his neighbor he was a suspect because he
owned the same type of gun that was used to
kill Bill. The only problem with this was the only
(25:25):
people who knew what type of gun was used that
night with the police and the killer. Here's Kirk. It
kind of goes to Stephanie's point about getting sloppy with
the passage of time, right, And I think one thing
we can say about this conversation is that at this
point in time, Eric has spoken to the police, he's
(25:47):
gone through the investigation. He believes he has an ironclad alibi.
So he's getting sloppy, if you will. He's having casual
conversations that aren't under the scrutiny of the police. So
he's a little guarded in his conversations and so assists
things that are incriminating. Questioning when these things come forward,
when these witnesses come forward, is always something that even
(26:11):
the police are gonna do. They're gonna look out with
scrutiny because why is this person coming forward? If a
case is highly publicized, people may want to be a
part of it just to become famous or or be
a part of it in some way, shape or form, Right,
So this is something that the police are going to
take a great look at too. Why what is this
person's motive for coming forward, and why didn't they come
(26:32):
forward earlier? Those are going to be questions is going
to be asked because obviously that goes to the truthfulness
of what this neighbor is saying. That's an interesting point
in a case like this where a witness comes forward
many years later, is that suspicious in and of itself
because maybe they want to step into the limelight. Have
you seen that over your career? You know, I never
(26:52):
really saw it over my career, but I think we
talked about famous cases like, for instance, John F. Kenney.
I wonder how many people have confessed to killing John F.
Kennedy just to get the attention associated with that. How
many people confess to crimes that are later found out
that they couldn't have done At these infamous crimes, Green
River Killer, things of those nature, people come forward to
(27:13):
confess just to get the attention. It's so complicated. Specific
to this case, the police did in fact really look
into the neighbors testimony and therefore allowed him to appear
in court. They found it to be notable and credible.
So Eric's trial happened. First, he hit this very big
roadblock because he wanted to use his phone records to
(27:36):
prove that he was at the Denny's at that specific
time the night of the murders. However, he had thrown
away the phone bill, and at that time, the phone
company didn't store the bills. So this now was not
provable in trial, which is major I would assume, is
that so Kirk. Yeah. Ultimately, any kind of objective evidence,
(27:56):
evidence it's not coming from someone's mouth that has particular
outcome desired, is something that is impactful to a jury.
But you go forward and just say you made this
call without any support, Obviously you have a motive to lie.
Obviously the alibi, whether it really ever existed or not,
could be viewed with suspicion, could be viewed as contrived.
(28:18):
So not having documents has supported his alibi making this
phone calls made it harder for Eric to demonstrate his
innocence to the jury. You can see both sides here.
Imagine you're innocent and now years later you're forced to
find a receipt that is missing, and you assume the
phone company has records or that that was already pulled
by authorities, and now you find out that's missing. If
(28:40):
you're innocent, this is the scariest moment of your life.
And if you're guilty, then prosecution would suggest that the
phone call from the pay phone never actually happened. They
actually did their own driving test and proved even if
he had made that phone call, he probably still had
enough time to be able to make the drive and
(29:02):
commit the murder. I always find these types of tests
that are done by attorneys on either side fascinating, specifically
the driving test, and you know, frankly we've done some
of that on our own as armchair detectives. Is that
one of the first things an attorney would look at is, Okay,
here's the stage, here's the crime, as detectives are laying out,
(29:23):
and then you sort of go through the motions yourself
to make sure it all checks out. Yeah, and there's
a defense attorney, you're going to want to do as
much of the investigation as you can on your own,
to look at it with different eyes, to make sure
the police weren't using confirmation bias or something of that nature.
So under these circumstances, you know, checking out Eric's alibi
(29:44):
and reinforcing that with your own tests, which is obviously
not actually scientifically valid, as if you will, there's no
way to you know, replicate the exact conditions of that day.
But you go forward and you have someone go do
this test for you and offer that to the jury
saying no, this is impossible, and then the jury makes
their their determination based on those in this case time
(30:08):
measurements in terms of the miles covered in the amount
of time would take to cover those miles, because the
crime itself in this situation was one that probably did
not take but a minute or two for this actual
killing to take place. Let's stop here for another break.
(30:40):
The prosecution also looked at a major clue from the
crime scene, the key in the lock, and apparently they
knew this key was a freshly cut key from Ace hardware,
and there was in fact an Ace hardware very close
to Eric's apartment at the time, and believe it or not,
the owner actually remembered Eric and said he used to
(31:00):
make keys for him all the time. Is that circumstantial
or is that incredibly significant in your opinion, Kirk, I
think it's pretty significant because it ties Eric to something
that was used to help facilitate the crime. I mean,
it might seem innocuous, he might be something he does
regular basis, but when you have something like that, that's
(31:21):
a pretty powerful piece of evidence to show that this
was something that he did and this is how the
entry was gained. You can bind that. And of course
no piece of evidence exists in a vacuum. But you
combine this with this statement about having a nine millimeter
gun and only a few people knowing what that is,
then the spotlight of suspicion is really strong on Eric
(31:42):
at this point in time, and perhaps now in hindsight,
police can also look at the fact that he initially
lied about his relationship with Nanette in the first place,
and then also lied straight to police about the gun. Now,
these individual moments are really turning into a bit of
a pile. Yeah, Ultimately, lies don't age well, and this
is an instance of us seeing lies not aging well
(32:05):
because the truth starts to impede the lies and display
them as such. Yeah, as they always say, what happens
in the dark comes out in the light. Then there
was this other astonishing detail that police found a notebook
in Eric's car that had Bill's license plate number written
in it, which is kind of a pretty big tell.
(32:25):
Eric told detectives that he had had a private investigator
follow Bill because he was growing suspicious that the net
was cheating on him. At the time. Remember, from Eric's perspective,
he didn't really know that Bill was a relationship. He
only thought that was her boss, and I suppose was
feeling a little worried about that hires a private investigator,
and that is his defense. The prosecution, of course doubted
(32:49):
this and says that he was actually following Bill and
tracking him and doing so with the intent of murder.
Either way, while this story is plausible either, lunch is
shows evidence that Eric is tracking Bill, whether he did
it himself or employed someone to do it, he is
certainly interested in tracking Bill, knowing his whereabout. He's beginning
(33:11):
to view Bill as a romantic rival. And this goes
back to earlier when we talk about motive and opportunity
with the crime scene shows, we see these three pieces
coming together. The literal key that's part of the crime scene,
the opportunity because his alibi regarding the phone Bill is
falling apart, and the motive this romantic rival. And of
(33:33):
course we didn't hear from this private investigator at trial,
leading us to believe that this is yet another one
of Eric's lives that hasn't aged. Well, that was my
big burning question. Where is this private investigator? And even
if that private investigator was findable, would their testimony be credible?
Do private investigators come into play a lot in trial? Well,
(33:55):
certainly a defendant could call anyone they wanted to in
their behalf in their defense, and a private investigator who
was working to do a particular job could certainly be called.
Now it would be ultimately up to the jury to
decide whether that person is credible or not. But if
there is objective evidence of you know, being hired a retainer,
(34:17):
a log of what the investigator did, that would certainly
substantiate the claims. And I really think if Eric had
such a person involved, it would have behooved him to
call this person a trial, which tells me that he
probably did not. And if you were a private investigator
hired by a potential murderer, you would likely speak up
(34:37):
because this case was so wildly publicized at the time
as well, so that could have been an eyewitness or
somebody who was very relevant who maybe would have gone
to the police if they existed. But again hearsay, ultimately,
you know, Eric being the person in this scenario that
would have hired the private investigator, would would be the
person who would ask him to come forward. Six months
(35:02):
after Eric's trial, Nanette sat in the courtroom. The defense
admitted that she was not a good person, but that
did not make her a killer. Take a listen to
the defense attorney speaking at the trial, hater as much
as you want for being a thief, the liar, chief
(35:22):
slought what everyone to call her. But you can't vote
guilty based on that, Kirk, what is your reaction to
that tactic? Well, ultimately, you know, when you're a defense attorney,
you cannot choose the cards that are handed to you.
You have to play the cards you're dealt. Nanette could
not be cast as as some sort of person of
great virtue. She was, in essence a sugar baby who
(35:43):
was engaging in repeated behavior. So they had to acknowledge
that behavior and had to say that is distinct from
finding someone else to be a killer, because it is true.
One of the things juries are always instructed on is
a bad character isn't necessarily evident to the crime. It's
so difficult, and that's the position I always try to
(36:04):
put myself in. Even in your case, you know, so
many people overlook the fact that as a defense attorney,
a court appointed defense attorney, as opposed to a defense
attorney retained for money by somebody who's fighting a trial,
as in your case with Jodi Arius. You know, you're
appointed to the court, you get the files, you get
the case, you get the subject, and then you have
(36:25):
to do your job to the best of your ability
and bias aside, right, So I would imagine as some
of this stuff comes out in trials now years later,
it must be maddening. But regardless. One of the prosecution's
witnesses was a former software founder who said the Neett
offered to invest in his business back in a month
(36:47):
before the murder. So she allegedly told him that she
really wanted to invest in his company, and that in
just a few months, in January to be exact, she
was going to come into a lot of money, enough
money making her able to invest. Now, if you remember,
Bill was killed in December, and then net is claiming
(37:10):
she would be coming into money a month or so
later to somebody else. So the prosecution also had to
witness come forward who said, Nanette and Eric, we're also
looking at very big, lavish mansions together. How would she
have the money to do that? How could she possibly
afford such a big house without bills money. The prosecution
(37:31):
also argued they knew that they were going to kill
Bill in hopes of getting a very big insurance policy,
and that they would be able to live happily ever
after in these very fancy mansions and live the lavish
lifestyle they had become accustomed to. Ultimately, this evidence is
demonstrative of two important things, the first of all being premeditation.
(37:52):
If you know that you're going to come into this money,
it is because you're planning to kill your husband and
to fit financially from that. So it shows that premeditated
intent that's required her first degree murder. The other thing
it shows is that there was a clear motive. Money
was the clear motive for this, that the Nanette was
(38:13):
really this mastermind, as she was exactly she was cast
at trial, that was this cold blooded human who would
manipulate people like chess pieces on a chessboard to suit
her ends that we're always almost always financial gain. Also
worth noting is something that always took out to us
about this case too. At some point she was telling
(38:35):
other people that she created this invention, that Bill made
all of his money doing, that she was the adventure
of the plasma device, and that the money was actually hers.
That's what she was saying to Eric. So in Eric's mind,
she had this very substantial lifestyle that was self made,
when in reality, of course, she would only have that
(38:56):
if she actually murdered her fiance. What a great man
for her, because then instead of being a sugar baby,
she becomes a sugar mama, if you will, or she
is someone who is not in need of financial support.
So rather than an NFL player or former NFL player
being suspicious of her motives, he accepts her at face
(39:19):
value as being someone who is not after his money,
when in fact she really was. So it was the
perfect disguised if you will. In this case, Nanette is
sort of set out on a path to cash in
despite who gets in her way. Yeah, the net is
completely driven by financial desires period. Despite pleading their innocence,
(39:42):
both Nanette and Eric were found guilty at their sentencing hearing.
Bill's daughter made a statement to the judge, Eric refused
to leave his jail cell to hear it. Both Nanette
and Eric was sentenced to life in prison without the
chance of parole. Shameless plug. If you're enjoying Crazy and Love,
(40:04):
leave us a review and listen to season three of
our hit series The Piked and Massacre. New episodes there
every Wednesday. Wherever you get your podcasts and don't forget
to follow us on Instagram at Katie Underscore Studios. Crazy
in Love is produced by Stephanie Lydecker, Jeff Shane, Chris
(40:24):
Graeves and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound designed by
Jeff Twa. Crazy in Love is a production of I
Heart Radio and Katie Studios. For more podcasts from I
Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Stay safe, lovers,
Falling in love is the best feeling in the world.
You see stars, you feel giddy, But sometimes that makes
you do crazy things, and sometimes that means murder. Just
because the story starts out with once upon a Times
doesn't mean it ends happily ever after. Come to Crazy
and Love a production of Katie Studios and I Heart Radio.
(00:24):
Today's guests are True Crome producer Stephanie Laiedecker and Kirk Nermi.
Kirk is a former public defender, turn legal expert and author.
During his time in the courtroom, he defended hundreds of
individuals against sirius felony charges. He rose to fame when
he defended Jodi Arius during her high profile murder trial
from Since leaving the public defender's office, Kirk has written
(00:49):
eight books, including Trapped with Miss Arius. All his books
are available for purchase now. Kirk can be found online
at kirk Nurmi dot com. Episode thirty four, The Case
of the Millionaire, the Sugar Baby and their decade long investigation.
(01:13):
Bill McLoughlin always had big plans for his life growing up.
Is one of three children on the South Side of Chicago.
He joined the Marines at eighteen and moved to California.
Bill became the first in his family to go to
college and always wanted to make a difference, not just
for his loved ones, but for the entire world, and
(01:35):
a difference Bill made. In his early thirties. Bill developed
a groundbreaking device that separated plasma from blood. It changed
the medical field and made him a fortune to the
tune of fifty five million dollars. When Bill was twenty seven,
he married his girlfriend, Susan, and they had three children together.
(01:58):
With money being no conser, her and the family settled
down in Newport Beach, a wealthy enclave in Orange County, California.
Family was everything to build, especially his children. He bought
a plane so he could take his wife and kids
on vacation trips to the Grand Canyon. It's those moments
(02:20):
that Bill's children like to remember their fathers soaring in
the sky, but tragically, everything that came later is what
gets burned into their memories on paper. Bill and Susan
had a picture perfect marriage, but Susan did not feel satisfied,
(02:45):
and when their kids left for college, Susan decided to
leave Bill after twenty four years of marriage. This was
in Bill was devastated. He loved Susan and was not
ready to give her up. However, they were never able
to reconcile. A year later, at fifty five years old,
(03:07):
Bill was feeling especially vulnerable when he met a woman
named Nanette Johnston. Nanette also worked in healthcare and had
two young children from a previous relationship. She wasn't just
blond and beautiful, she was also smart and driven. She
was interested in Bill's business and wanted to help, something
(03:27):
Bill's ex wife never did. Despite his children being suspicious
of Nanette, Bill was adamant she had good intentions, and
the pair quickly became serious. Within just two months of dating,
Bill moved her and Nanette's two kids into his Newport home.
He gave her a generous allowance and opulent jewelry. The
(03:50):
couple traveled to Europe when on luxury vacations and skied
atop snow capped mountains. Soon Bill proposed to the stunning
Bombshell and she said yes. Then Nette was living a
life most women only dream of, but it would all
soon come crashing down. Here's Stephanie. Well, we actually wondered
(04:16):
how Bill and Nanette met, and it turns out it
wasn't in such a traditional way. They actually met through
an ad. Then. Nette had posted a personal ad in
the local newspaper and it was entitled wealthy Men Only.
The ad read that she was a single white female
age five ft five inches one hundred pounds, classy, well educated,
(04:38):
adventure is fun, and knows how to take care of
her man. So she was looking for an older man
thirty plus years who knows how to treat a woman
and if you take care of her quote, she will
take care of you. So again, this wasn't the most
traditional way of meeting somebody. But you know, this is
a young woman twenty five years old who's being very
(04:58):
forthcoming and honest about what her needs and goals are.
We do know though, soon after meeting, Bill took out
a million dollar life insurance policy and made her the beneficiary,
so you know he was playing all in and things.
Obviously we're escalating very quickly, Kirk, this is a very
divided question, and you know, again this is perspective, I suppose,
(05:20):
and adding a newspaper suggesting that you're looking for a
man who's very wealthy, an older man at that, is
that anything that sort of legally sounds like prostitution or
is that just totally legal and a woman asking directly
for something she's looking for these relationships, will we characterize
this is sugar baby or sugar daddy. They do have
(05:42):
that kind of element to it, But at the same time,
really prostitution, when we talk about crossing that line into illegal,
it really has to be a specific exchange. You can't
be this general kind of you take care of me,
I'll take care of you kind of relationships. So ultimately
that's what differentiates these sort of sugar baby sugar daddy
relationships from what we might call traditional prostitution. Also, Kirk
(06:06):
not only did Bill take out an insurance policy and
made in the net the beneficiary, he also changed his will.
How complicated and common is that with life insurance we
all have the ability to buy whatever kind of policy
we want if we can afford that policy, and equally
so we have the right to choose whoever the beneficiary is.
And I think also it's true that changing that policy
(06:27):
might not be as common as say, brushing our teeth.
It is, in fact something that could happen frequently enough
that it wouldn't draw suspicion and only becomes really suspicious
in hindsight, that's exactly right. It seems as that we
see that so often. But again, numbers wise, that's such
a common thing. Most people are doing that. I guess
it's less common to change your will and take out
(06:48):
a life insurance policy so quickly into a relationship if
we were gleaning from other stories. But I understand the point.
On the night of December, for Bill came home to
Newport from Las Vegas, where he spent every Monday through Thursday.
Nanette had left a note in the kitchen saying that
she'd gone to her son's soccer game and would be
(07:10):
home late. Bill sat at the kitchen table working when
an intruder came into the house and shot him six
times in the chest. Upstairs was Bill's adult son, Kevin,
who raced to his father when he heard the gunfire.
The shooter was gone, but Kevin found Bill lying on
the kitchen floor bleeding to death. Panicked. Bill's son called nine,
(07:36):
but by the time paramedics arrived, it was too late.
Fifty five year old Bill was dead. The Nette came
home around ten pm that night and discovered the horrific scene.
When police arrived, they found the front door, ajar a
key inside the lock. They were stunned at the brutality
(07:57):
of the crime. Generally, Newport Beach is a very safe place.
Here's Stephanie and we hear that a lot. Newport is
allegedly a very safe place. So this crime was very
rare and therefore took over the whole community. Detectives immediately
looked at Bill's inner circle. Kirk I would assume that's
(08:19):
very common. Immediate family is, you know, kind of up
for conversation, and his ex wife and two daughters. They
were looked at, and both had iron clad alibis and
really had no motive to kill Bill whatsoever. They all
had a really lovely relationship by all accounts. But what
about Kevin, that's the son that called one. Police apparently
(08:41):
tested his hands for a gunpowder and they were clean.
And then as far as Nannet goes, she had been
at a game that went into double overtime, and then
she apparently went shopping, and she did have receipts for this,
and it's not necessarily a minute to minute alibi, but
she did have receipts in proof of her being in
a certain area at a certain time. There was one
(09:03):
person that did come up that was an associate of
Bills through work. It was a business partner who helped
him develop a plasma device. That's the one that he
became very famous for. His name is how Official. So
how had sued Bill but lost and therefore had to
give Bill nine million dollars, which is a huge amount
(09:24):
of money. So there's certainly could have been bad blood there,
but that was just motive in a theory. Kirk, you
have probably been in the hot seat for this so
many times when it comes to starting a list of suspects.
How diligent are police out crossing people off the list?
What would have been your process? Yeah, I think the
typical process. And obviously different detectives are going to be
(09:46):
more or less diligent with their behavior. But they're gonna
look at three main sources. They're gonna look at motive,
they're gonna look at opportunity, and they're going to look
at the evidence of the scene. Of course, the evidence
of the scene really is an initial matter. You can
only absorb what can be observed with the naked eye.
Of course, later on science will reveal more of the
(10:07):
story in that regard, But motive and opportunity is a
great place to start. Who was in a circle, who
was in his inner world, and who had the opportunity
to commit this crime. And once you start looking at
those things, you start eliminating people. And maybe as a
crime scene develops and some of those things that only
science can see come to light, then you might add
(10:28):
more people to that list of suspects. If you lose
a loved one to a crime so hideous and you're
the immediate family, you want to speak up and speak
out as quickly as possible to frankly eliminate yourself as
a suspect so we can get on with it right
and find the person at large. And sometimes we see
in cases people lawyer up and it gets muddy really
(10:49):
quickly because people maybe are afraid. But in this case,
the family checked out very quickly and their relationship seemed
positive all things considered. He did have this bad dealing
with his in his partner, but by all accounts, love
and money is that usually the motive. Love and money
are are huge typical motives of murders like this, especially
(11:09):
when they're so brutal, they become a little more personal
than the average murder. You know, we use this word
a lot. Ironclad. What does that exactly mean from a
legal perspective, It's a matter of circumstance. But an ironclad
alibi is really one that is unassailable. It shows you,
you know, in a different place at the at the
time of the crime, something that cannot be challenged, something
(11:30):
that cannot be altered. I mean, in this case, for example,
we talk about the phone call. Well, that was an
alibi that seemed to be unassailable because there would be
records to prove it. But ultimately there were no records
to prove it. Therefore, the alibi could be contrived. Unassailable
cannot be contrived. It can be proven. And by that
(11:51):
you mean somebody could forge documents or makeup receipts and
things like that, as opposed to maybe in more modern times.
Today everybody has cameras and there's cameras everywhere. It's you know,
very possible to see a person's a steps, there be
steps and their se steps through some sort of a camera.
But in this case, these were This was a little
(12:11):
long ago, I suppose when we think back to not
everyone had a cell phone and the technology wasn't just
developed because today, so when we talked about alibis as well.
You know, there's cameras everywhere, certainly most of the places
we go. But now technology as such that whenever we
walk around with our cell phones, we are pinging off
(12:32):
towers that give us, give police, give anyone who's interested
a good idea of where we are at a particular
point in time. Police want to talk to Bill's former
business partner turned adversary. He was the lead suspect at
the time, but detectives learned he'd been in Santa Barbara,
the net of the murder, a hundred and fifty miles north.
(12:54):
There was no way he could be the killer. With
no murder weapon, DNA or fingerprints at the scene, detectives
were back to square one. They wanted to take a
second look at Bill's much younger girlfriend, Nanette, so they
started with where she was the night of the murder.
Nanette had in fact been at her son's soccer game,
like she said, but police discovered she was not alone.
(13:19):
Nanette stood on the sidelines with a man named Eric Naposki.
Eric was a hulking former NFL linebacker at six ft
two and two pounds. He had once played for the
New England Patriots and Indianapolis Colts. Growing in foot injuries
led Eric to retire from football following the season. He
(13:41):
moved to Orange County, where he rented a studio apartment.
While finalizing a divorce from his first wife. Eric found
work as a nightclip security guard and started with an
exercise program for kids. That is where he met Nanette.
What started out as a friendship turned into a romance
on New Year's even nine when Eric and Nnette slept
(14:02):
together for the first time. While his first love was football,
Eric also fell hard for Nanette. To Eric, she was
so much more than a pretty face. He liked that
she was a hard worker and so driven. Well, Eric
knew about Bill, Nanette had told him that he was
simply her boss. Yes, she did live with him in Newport,
(14:27):
but they slept in separate bedrooms. It was strictly platonic.
These were not the only lies being told. Nanette also
told Eric that she was the one who invented the
plasma device, Yes, the same one that Bill had actually
created years prior. She told Eric. Once she sold the idea,
she became independently wealthy. How much of the truth Eric
(14:51):
knew was unclear When the police brought him in for questioning,
he was evasive. Here's a portion of Eric's interrogation. Relationship.
He has a previous friend of a dating relationship with
a boyfriend girl friend. Yeah, I would say as a
(15:11):
solo total like I had girlfriends. You know, by all accounts,
this ended up being a very serious relationship. So we
know now that Eric was lying to the police covering
for Nanette, and their relationship was pretty serious at this point,
she had already met his family, and you know, this
was abutting something. But that's not all he liked about.
(15:34):
He initially told the police that he never had access
to a firearm, but then he later changed his story
and said that he did in fact own a nine
millimeter which was the murder weapon, and again wasn't so
forthcoming about that. Eric told police that he bought the
gun for Nanette because she was scared for her safety.
(15:55):
Here's a little exerpt of what he said to police
directly were issued A nobody, I have no idea, You
have no idea that's this, you know. Sounds as though
he's not being fully forthcoming and is obviously very nervous
and scared. So it sounds like in retrospect, we can
hear that in his voice. We're going to take a break.
(16:18):
We'll be back in just a moment. Both the guilty
and innocent have the opportunity to not respond to police questioning,
(16:39):
but not too many people take that opportunity, and particularly
so the guilty, because they are worried that they're more
suspicion is going to be drawn upon them, so they
resort to what they often do and have done in
life that has got him to this point in time
is lie. They feel like they can lie their way
out of it in an effort to avoid further suspicion
(16:59):
being used on them. Is that a human behavior thing?
Because you would imagine that you would just zip it,
or if this was something that you were planning, that
you would have planned that piece of it. I mean,
you obviously worked infamously with Jodi Arias, who has all
of that footage that we've all seen of you know,
her spinning stories real time and you know her brain
(17:20):
sort of talking to kind of seemingly make space for
her to get her story straight in her head. The
way they are saying something is that as significant as
what they are saying, and in this case for example,
as he's saying, frankly lies, it seems as though you
could hear it in his voice. You know, it can
be There can be verbal cues, there can be visible
(17:43):
body language cues that indicate lynes. Sometimes there can be
a repeated pattern that detect that. But a lot of
times early on an investigation particular, the police don't necessarily
know someone's lying, and they let them talk together information
and can go back later and discern whether that's a
lie or not. But they certainly take advantage of that instinct. Stiff.
(18:05):
This goes to your question. The first part of your
question is that there's this human nature of not wanting
to draw more suspicion on yourself, both the guilty or innocent, right,
Because the minute you decide you're going to not talk,
what happens while you think automatically they're going to be
more suspicious of you because of your choice not to talk.
And for the guilty, what's more frightening than having more
(18:26):
suspicion guest upon you. So that's why I think so
many people make that choice and think they can get
away with it. Also, speaking of being dishonest from the start,
what did Nette tell Eric when all of this happened.
According to him, she denied ever being an engaged to Bill.
In fact, he didn't even know this relationship with Bill
(18:47):
was a thing. When he saw the news and the
headlines about Bill's murder and that he had potentially been
murdered by his fiancee. She just said it was a misprint,
and he kind of wanted to believe that and went
along with it. I was it was interesting how police
allowed both of them to continue to interact, which seems
like typically if there are two suspects who know one another,
(19:08):
you would want to separate them so they don't have
time to commiserate. What do you make of that? Well,
you know, you have to think about it this way, Stephanie.
They are just suspects. They're not under arrest. They're free
to interact as you and I would, so there's really
no distinction. The other thing I would say, though, is
that in a situation like this, if police have the
inclination that the two have conspired together to commit this crime,
(19:31):
then having them together, probably having in them under surveillance,
see what kind of actions they do to assert their
innocence or cover their crime, if you will, is something
that can actually aid police in the investigation down the road,
depending on the behavior of the suspects when they're together.
Like in a reality show, you just sort of let
people kind of get comfortable and do their thing. And
(19:53):
in this case, if you know that thinks she's in
the clear, or you know, they're trying to go about
their business assuming that police aren't watching, I would assume
that's when people get really sloppy. That's exactly right. I mean,
that's when text messages can be exchanged and different things
can be had. Maybe back then phones could be tapped,
what have you, where further evidence can be gathered to
(20:13):
make someone move from suspect to defend. It. Shocking how
people can go about their lives after In general, I
always find this fascinating, and you've lived it so many times,
I'm sure firsthand. Seeing this from a distance, is how
people kind of just go about their lives in the
days after such a traumatic event, guilty not guilty, and
keep it together. So this all seemed really bad for Eric,
(20:35):
but he did have an alibi. According to him, the
night of the murder, Nanette drove him home to Tustin,
which is about eleven miles away. After the soccer game,
he changed and then headed back to Newport, where he
worked as a security guard at a local bar. On
the way, he got a page from his boss, so
he pulled over to the Denny's to use a pay phone.
(20:57):
And this is a very significant piece here, but with
sgnificant here is that he called him from a pay
phone using one of those calling cards that we all
used to do back in the day. According to his
calling card bill, that wasn't about eight two pm. At
nine pm is when the nine when one call came
through touched into Newport, is about twenty minutes of a drive.
(21:18):
That seemed like based on that timeline, that eight minutes
between the time he made this phone call and at
the time of the murder wasn't enough time to accomplish this.
So in a way that gave him an alibi. This
seems like one of those issues where Eric wouldn't have
had the opportunity to commit this crime. But the big
caveat with that is, if true, where were the records
(21:42):
to support this claim And is it really physically impossible
for him to travel the distance in in a lesser
point in time? So if Eric's alibi was true, there
would be a phone card bill, but also there would
be probably some sort of bill related to the pay
ager that dictated exactly when the page that he's talking
(22:04):
about that he supposedly responded to came in. Also to
that point, since this was back in and again cell
phones were not as readily available. If you had a
pager that wasn't pinning anybody as to your location, correct,
it still would have had to hit off a tower
I would assume now. I wasn't practicing law back then,
(22:24):
but I'm sure it would have had to hit off
a tower. Now they would there probably was less of
them than there are with cell phone, but it could
have given some sort of signal at some point in time,
and a time of transmission I think would would ultimately
be there. Interesting point and also the fact that he
used a calling card at a pay phone also that
(22:45):
could be argued that anybody could have used that calling
card at that pay phone and still have gotten the
same alibi. But who knows. There are passer bys you
know today that would probably be on camera, so people
wouldn't get away with faulty alibis. While detectives were suspicious
of Eric and Nanette, they did not have enough to
(23:06):
arrest him, and so the case remained stagnant. About a
month after the murder, Bill's daughters were looking into their
father's finances. They discovered that someone had forged a check
for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars one day before
the murder. It turned out Nanette had been the one
to cash that fraudulent check. As the daughters kept digging,
(23:29):
they discovered Nanette had embezzled over half a million dollars
from Bill. She was charged with theft and forging a check.
Six months after the murder, Eric broke up with Nanette
and she was found guilty on the theft charges. The
stunning blonde served a hundred and eighty days in jail.
(23:51):
Here's Stephanie, this really goes to show that family fights,
and in this case, you know, Bill's daughters were not
going to stand for it, and this new revelation about
the money must have been extraordinarily painful. Now, when Annette
got out of jail a hundred and eighty days later,
she didn't really waste too much time getting back into
the dating scene. She married a very wealthy businessman soon
(24:14):
thereafter and got pregnant right away. Unfortunately, they divorced, but
don't feel too sad about it because she met somebody else,
also a very successful entrepreneur, and then had another baby. Meanwhile,
Eric moved to Connecticut and went on to have two
children of his own. More than ten years later, in
two thousand and nine, the police had reopened the investigation.
(24:38):
This time, the new DA thought there was enough to
charge both Nanette and Eric with murder. To the relief
of Bill's family, both of them were finally arrested. What
change they asked. Eric's former neighbor told police that Eric
used to confide to her about his relationship with Nanette.
According to this neighbor, Eric told her that Bill was
(25:02):
assaulting Nanette and Eric wanted to blow up his plane
after the murder. When Eric's old neighbor asked him if
he killed Bill, he smirked and said he might have. Finally,
Eric told his neighbor he was a suspect because he
owned the same type of gun that was used to
kill Bill. The only problem with this was the only
(25:25):
people who knew what type of gun was used that
night with the police and the killer. Here's Kirk. It
kind of goes to Stephanie's point about getting sloppy with
the passage of time, right, And I think one thing
we can say about this conversation is that at this
point in time, Eric has spoken to the police, he's
(25:47):
gone through the investigation. He believes he has an ironclad alibi.
So he's getting sloppy, if you will. He's having casual
conversations that aren't under the scrutiny of the police. So
he's a little guarded in his conversations and so assists
things that are incriminating. Questioning when these things come forward,
when these witnesses come forward, is always something that even
(26:11):
the police are gonna do. They're gonna look out with
scrutiny because why is this person coming forward? If a
case is highly publicized, people may want to be a
part of it just to become famous or or be
a part of it in some way, shape or form, Right,
So this is something that the police are going to
take a great look at too. Why what is this
person's motive for coming forward, and why didn't they come
(26:32):
forward earlier? Those are going to be questions is going
to be asked because obviously that goes to the truthfulness
of what this neighbor is saying. That's an interesting point
in a case like this where a witness comes forward
many years later, is that suspicious in and of itself
because maybe they want to step into the limelight. Have
you seen that over your career? You know, I never
(26:52):
really saw it over my career, but I think we
talked about famous cases like, for instance, John F. Kenney.
I wonder how many people have confessed to killing John F.
Kennedy just to get the attention associated with that. How
many people confess to crimes that are later found out
that they couldn't have done At these infamous crimes, Green
River Killer, things of those nature, people come forward to
(27:13):
confess just to get the attention. It's so complicated. Specific
to this case, the police did in fact really look
into the neighbors testimony and therefore allowed him to appear
in court. They found it to be notable and credible.
So Eric's trial happened. First, he hit this very big
roadblock because he wanted to use his phone records to
(27:36):
prove that he was at the Denny's at that specific
time the night of the murders. However, he had thrown
away the phone bill, and at that time, the phone
company didn't store the bills. So this now was not
provable in trial, which is major I would assume, is
that so Kirk. Yeah. Ultimately, any kind of objective evidence,
(27:56):
evidence it's not coming from someone's mouth that has particular
outcome desired, is something that is impactful to a jury.
But you go forward and just say you made this
call without any support, Obviously you have a motive to lie.
Obviously the alibi, whether it really ever existed or not,
could be viewed with suspicion, could be viewed as contrived.
(28:18):
So not having documents has supported his alibi making this
phone calls made it harder for Eric to demonstrate his
innocence to the jury. You can see both sides here.
Imagine you're innocent and now years later you're forced to
find a receipt that is missing, and you assume the
phone company has records or that that was already pulled
by authorities, and now you find out that's missing. If
(28:40):
you're innocent, this is the scariest moment of your life.
And if you're guilty, then prosecution would suggest that the
phone call from the pay phone never actually happened. They
actually did their own driving test and proved even if
he had made that phone call, he probably still had
enough time to be able to make the drive and
(29:02):
commit the murder. I always find these types of tests
that are done by attorneys on either side fascinating, specifically
the driving test, and you know, frankly we've done some
of that on our own as armchair detectives. Is that
one of the first things an attorney would look at is, Okay,
here's the stage, here's the crime, as detectives are laying out,
(29:23):
and then you sort of go through the motions yourself
to make sure it all checks out. Yeah, and there's
a defense attorney, you're going to want to do as
much of the investigation as you can on your own,
to look at it with different eyes, to make sure
the police weren't using confirmation bias or something of that nature.
So under these circumstances, you know, checking out Eric's alibi
(29:44):
and reinforcing that with your own tests, which is obviously
not actually scientifically valid, as if you will, there's no
way to you know, replicate the exact conditions of that day.
But you go forward and you have someone go do
this test for you and offer that to the jury
saying no, this is impossible, and then the jury makes
their their determination based on those in this case time
(30:08):
measurements in terms of the miles covered in the amount
of time would take to cover those miles, because the
crime itself in this situation was one that probably did
not take but a minute or two for this actual
killing to take place. Let's stop here for another break.
(30:40):
The prosecution also looked at a major clue from the
crime scene, the key in the lock, and apparently they
knew this key was a freshly cut key from Ace hardware,
and there was in fact an Ace hardware very close
to Eric's apartment at the time, and believe it or not,
the owner actually remembered Eric and said he used to
(31:00):
make keys for him all the time. Is that circumstantial
or is that incredibly significant in your opinion, Kirk, I
think it's pretty significant because it ties Eric to something
that was used to help facilitate the crime. I mean,
it might seem innocuous, he might be something he does
regular basis, but when you have something like that, that's
(31:21):
a pretty powerful piece of evidence to show that this
was something that he did and this is how the
entry was gained. You can bind that. And of course
no piece of evidence exists in a vacuum. But you
combine this with this statement about having a nine millimeter
gun and only a few people knowing what that is,
then the spotlight of suspicion is really strong on Eric
(31:42):
at this point in time, and perhaps now in hindsight,
police can also look at the fact that he initially
lied about his relationship with Nanette in the first place,
and then also lied straight to police about the gun. Now,
these individual moments are really turning into a bit of
a pile. Yeah, Ultimately, lies don't age well, and this
is an instance of us seeing lies not aging well
(32:05):
because the truth starts to impede the lies and display
them as such. Yeah, as they always say, what happens
in the dark comes out in the light. Then there
was this other astonishing detail that police found a notebook
in Eric's car that had Bill's license plate number written
in it, which is kind of a pretty big tell.
(32:25):
Eric told detectives that he had had a private investigator
follow Bill because he was growing suspicious that the net
was cheating on him. At the time. Remember, from Eric's perspective,
he didn't really know that Bill was a relationship. He
only thought that was her boss, and I suppose was
feeling a little worried about that hires a private investigator,
and that is his defense. The prosecution, of course doubted
(32:49):
this and says that he was actually following Bill and
tracking him and doing so with the intent of murder.
Either way, while this story is plausible either, lunch is
shows evidence that Eric is tracking Bill, whether he did
it himself or employed someone to do it, he is
certainly interested in tracking Bill, knowing his whereabout. He's beginning
(33:11):
to view Bill as a romantic rival. And this goes
back to earlier when we talk about motive and opportunity
with the crime scene shows, we see these three pieces
coming together. The literal key that's part of the crime scene,
the opportunity because his alibi regarding the phone Bill is
falling apart, and the motive this romantic rival. And of
(33:33):
course we didn't hear from this private investigator at trial,
leading us to believe that this is yet another one
of Eric's lives that hasn't aged. Well, that was my
big burning question. Where is this private investigator? And even
if that private investigator was findable, would their testimony be credible?
Do private investigators come into play a lot in trial? Well,
(33:55):
certainly a defendant could call anyone they wanted to in
their behalf in their defense, and a private investigator who
was working to do a particular job could certainly be called.
Now it would be ultimately up to the jury to
decide whether that person is credible or not. But if
there is objective evidence of you know, being hired a retainer,
(34:17):
a log of what the investigator did, that would certainly
substantiate the claims. And I really think if Eric had
such a person involved, it would have behooved him to
call this person a trial, which tells me that he
probably did not. And if you were a private investigator
hired by a potential murderer, you would likely speak up
(34:37):
because this case was so wildly publicized at the time
as well, so that could have been an eyewitness or
somebody who was very relevant who maybe would have gone
to the police if they existed. But again hearsay, ultimately,
you know, Eric being the person in this scenario that
would have hired the private investigator, would would be the
person who would ask him to come forward. Six months
(35:02):
after Eric's trial, Nanette sat in the courtroom. The defense
admitted that she was not a good person, but that
did not make her a killer. Take a listen to
the defense attorney speaking at the trial, hater as much
as you want for being a thief, the liar, chief
(35:22):
slought what everyone to call her. But you can't vote
guilty based on that, Kirk, what is your reaction to
that tactic? Well, ultimately, you know, when you're a defense attorney,
you cannot choose the cards that are handed to you.
You have to play the cards you're dealt. Nanette could
not be cast as as some sort of person of
great virtue. She was, in essence a sugar baby who
(35:43):
was engaging in repeated behavior. So they had to acknowledge
that behavior and had to say that is distinct from
finding someone else to be a killer, because it is true.
One of the things juries are always instructed on is
a bad character isn't necessarily evident to the crime. It's
so difficult, and that's the position I always try to
(36:04):
put myself in. Even in your case, you know, so
many people overlook the fact that as a defense attorney,
a court appointed defense attorney, as opposed to a defense
attorney retained for money by somebody who's fighting a trial,
as in your case with Jodi Arius. You know, you're
appointed to the court, you get the files, you get
the case, you get the subject, and then you have
(36:25):
to do your job to the best of your ability
and bias aside, right, So I would imagine as some
of this stuff comes out in trials now years later,
it must be maddening. But regardless. One of the prosecution's
witnesses was a former software founder who said the Neett
offered to invest in his business back in a month
(36:47):
before the murder. So she allegedly told him that she
really wanted to invest in his company, and that in
just a few months, in January to be exact, she
was going to come into a lot of money, enough
money making her able to invest. Now, if you remember,
Bill was killed in December, and then net is claiming
(37:10):
she would be coming into money a month or so
later to somebody else. So the prosecution also had to
witness come forward who said, Nanette and Eric, we're also
looking at very big, lavish mansions together. How would she
have the money to do that? How could she possibly
afford such a big house without bills money. The prosecution
(37:31):
also argued they knew that they were going to kill
Bill in hopes of getting a very big insurance policy,
and that they would be able to live happily ever
after in these very fancy mansions and live the lavish
lifestyle they had become accustomed to. Ultimately, this evidence is
demonstrative of two important things, the first of all being premeditation.
(37:52):
If you know that you're going to come into this money,
it is because you're planning to kill your husband and
to fit financially from that. So it shows that premeditated
intent that's required her first degree murder. The other thing
it shows is that there was a clear motive. Money
was the clear motive for this, that the Nanette was
(38:13):
really this mastermind, as she was exactly she was cast
at trial, that was this cold blooded human who would
manipulate people like chess pieces on a chessboard to suit
her ends that we're always almost always financial gain. Also
worth noting is something that always took out to us
about this case too. At some point she was telling
(38:35):
other people that she created this invention, that Bill made
all of his money doing, that she was the adventure
of the plasma device, and that the money was actually hers.
That's what she was saying to Eric. So in Eric's mind,
she had this very substantial lifestyle that was self made,
when in reality, of course, she would only have that
(38:56):
if she actually murdered her fiance. What a great man
for her, because then instead of being a sugar baby,
she becomes a sugar mama, if you will, or she
is someone who is not in need of financial support.
So rather than an NFL player or former NFL player
being suspicious of her motives, he accepts her at face
(39:19):
value as being someone who is not after his money,
when in fact she really was. So it was the
perfect disguised if you will. In this case, Nanette is
sort of set out on a path to cash in
despite who gets in her way. Yeah, the net is
completely driven by financial desires period. Despite pleading their innocence,
(39:42):
both Nanette and Eric were found guilty at their sentencing hearing.
Bill's daughter made a statement to the judge, Eric refused
to leave his jail cell to hear it. Both Nanette
and Eric was sentenced to life in prison without the
chance of parole. Shameless plug. If you're enjoying Crazy and Love,
(40:04):
leave us a review and listen to season three of
our hit series The Piked and Massacre. New episodes there
every Wednesday. Wherever you get your podcasts and don't forget
to follow us on Instagram at Katie Underscore Studios. Crazy
in Love is produced by Stephanie Lydecker, Jeff Shane, Chris
(40:24):
Graeves and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound designed by
Jeff Twa. Crazy in Love is a production of I
Heart Radio and Katie Studios. For more podcasts from I
Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Stay safe, lovers,
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