Murder in Newport Beach

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Newport Beach has it all.

It's got the surfing, it has the yachts.

It has beautiful homes, it's got the palm trees.

There's a lot of money in Newport.

You're talking multi-million dollar, beautiful waterfront properties.

Bill McLaughlin, was a multi-millionaire.

He had a boat, he had a private plane, he had a beautiful Bayside home.

He had two beautiful daughters and a handsome young son.

His family was everything to him, and his kids, especially all three of us.

After almost 25 years of marriage, things were getting a little rocky between Bill and his wife.

And my mom actually left the relationship, and that crushed my dad.

After his divorce, he eventually would meet somebody new.

Nanette Johnston.

She's my age.

Yuck.

Dad, you're dating this young chick?

It boosted his self-esteem to have this young girl around.

Working her magic and making him feel good.

December 15th, 1994, right before Christmas, Bill McLaughlin came home from Las Vegas.

went into the kitchen for some reason, and unbeknownst to him, he was about to die.

And at that point, the killer was coming through the pedestrian access gate.

He got inside the house.

He came around the corner, and there was Bill McLaughlin standing face to face with his murderer.

The killer shot him six times and then fled.

Nobody deserves to die the way my dad died.

Months went by and then two years went by.

And we kept waiting.

They said we just don't have enough information.

Finally, 15 years later, we were able to make an arrest.

The shooter was a former NFL linebacker.

It was such a shock to all of us.

My name is Eric Napovsky.

I might wear handcuffs and I might be locked up, but I'm no criminal.

There's a person out there who actually committed a crime.

And today, I'm going to tell the world who really did it, and I'm going to prove my innocence.

I'm Troy Roberts.

Tonight on 48 Hours:

Murder and the OC.

The murder of Bill McLaughlin rattled the quiet-gated quiet-gated community of Balboa Coves

and devastated Bill's daughters, Jenny and Kim.

My mom called me and told me.

It was too terrible to hear.

Somebody had come into our house and shot him in the chest.

What?

On December 15th, 1994,

Newport Beach detectives struggled to piece together the puzzle.

Tom Voth was the lead detective on the case.

To have a murder occur here was very uncommon.

There were no fingerprints.

DNA was very early in its stages.

There were no weapons found.

So it wasn't much to go on.

No, no, sir.

But just the night before his murder, Bill McLaughlin had called his brother Patrick.

I could tell right away something was wrong.

He was in Las Vegas calling me.

He was feeling as though his life was threatened.

That's just the way he talked to me.

It was like people were out to get him.

Detectives began pouring over every personal detail of McLaughlin's life.

His world of privilege in Newport Beach

was a far cry from his humble beginnings on the south side of Chicago.

He was always the self-made guy, really.

He was the first in his family to go to college.

He wanted to be the kind of a guy that would make a difference.

And he did.

Bill McLaughlin was the entrepreneur behind the development of a groundbreaking device that separates plasma from blood.

It was a huge advance in the healthcare field, and it made him a fortune.

How old was he when he made his first million?

Probably early 30s.

Bill's best friend, Don Kalal, says that was just the beginning.

By the time of his death, McLaughlin was worth an estimated $55 million.

You don't amass that kind of fortune without stepping on some toes.

There was nobody that I knew that had a vendetta against him.

But in the months before his murder, Bill had been embroiled in a bitter lawsuit with this man.

Hal Fischel, a former business partner who had invented the plasma device.

And this had been a long, difficult lawsuit.

Hal Fischel was the adversary in the lawsuits.

Fischl lost the suit.

and had to forfeit $9 million to Bill.

That sounded like a motive.

Did you consider Hal Fischel a main suspect in this case?

Yes.

But Fischel had an alibi, a good one.

Eyewitnesses say he was in Santa Barbara, nearly 150 miles north of Newport Beach, at the time of the murder.

He was quickly eliminated.

Fairly quickly, yes.

Besides, Investigators were becoming more convinced the killer was part of McLaughlin's inner circle.

The clues kept leading them closer to home, in fact, directly to his front doorstep.

When we arrived at the homicide scene in 1994, there were two keys located.

Found a key in this door.

In addition, they also found a key laying on the ground here.

And the key that fits this lock right here at that time also fit the front door of the residence.

What does that say?

In all of our minds, that narrows the field of suspects down to those that have access to keys.

The police took a closer look at McLaughlin's family, beginning with McLaughlin's son, who was upstairs in the house when he says he heard the shots that killed his father, Orange County Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy.

They put paper bags over Kevin's hands, and they did a forensic analysis of his hands, showing that Kevin did not fire a firearm that night.

That left McLaughlin's two daughters and his ex-wife, all who had airtight alibis and no motive.

And then there was Nanette,

Bill McLaughlin's much younger fiancé, who he met through a magazine ad she placed looking for a wealthy, older man.

I know how to take care of a man if he can take care of me.

That's what she said.

He was at a vulnerable time, and so here she comes along and, you know, made everything a little better.

In return, McLaughlin provided Nanette with a generous allowance and a lavish lifestyle.

She immediately stepped into a lifestyle that most people would only dream of.

She lived in a beautiful home.

They went to Europe, they went on cruises, they went on exotic ski vacations, jewelry, everything.

Within months, Nanette brought her two young children to live with Bill.

His daughters, Kim and Jenny, became increasingly worried.

I said, Dad, I don't really like her.

I think she's with you for your money.

She knew how much she was worth.

Yes,

definitely.

In spite of the warnings, after about a year of dating, McLaughlin proposed.

He even wrote her into his will.

He wanted to make sure that if anything happened, her and her kids would be taken care of.

He had a million-dollar life insurance policy with her as the beneficiary.

On December 15th, 1994, Bill McLaughlin came home and found a note from Nanette.

She had gone to her son's soccer game and would be home late.

When she pulled up to the house around 10 p.m., her fiancé was dead.

What was Nanette's alibi?

That she was at the soccer game.

And directly after that, she went shopping.

She couldn't possibly have been involved in the murder because she had these receipts.

Did her alibi check out?

No, not completely.

Nanette had been at the soccer game, but with another man, someone McLaughlin's family knew nothing about.

They said, do you know who New York Eric Napotsky is?

And we said, absolutely not.

Who's that?

They said, this is Nanette's boyfriend.

And we were like, really?

We thought our dad was Nanette's boyfriend.

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Bill McLaughlin's fiancé, Nanette Johnston, had a secret, a big one.

Eric Naposky with the sack.

Six foot two and weighing more than 250 pounds.

Eric Naposky, professional football player for the NFL, there was the blitz, Eric Naposky, linebacker for the New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts, among others, was certain in December of 1994 that Nanette was his girlfriend.

You wanted to marry Nanette?

I did.

Do you think she really loved you?

She appeared to back then.

She seemed madly in love with him.

Eric's sister, Angela.

I liked her.

She had two small children that were wonderful children.

We fell in love with them instantly.

We really thought she was the one for Eric because she was strong and she was intelligent and we thought it was a good match.

He was excited.

Dave Matthews couldn't believe his high school buddy was smitten.

Eric back then, he's a good-looking, charming, funny guy with great energy.

He's a tough one to fall in love because he dates a lot.

But with Nanette, things were different.

This wasn't just a regular girl.

She was a bombshell and she was very attractive.

It was hard to miss her.

Eric's former roommates, Rob Freas and Leonard Jomsky.

She's beautiful.

I mean, without a doubt, she was a really, really pretty girl.

But to Eric, there was much more to Nanette than her beauty.

She graduated college early.

She's got her MBA.

She was a real hard-working person.

She wrote business plans for a living.

Being in medical sales.

She had this like prototype design for a device.

It separates plasma from blood.

It's really cool.

Nanette told them she took her invention to her boss, Bill McLaughlin.

They end up selling it and making tens of millions.

Not only did she take credit for Bill McLaughlin's work, but she claimed his money was her own.

From the very beginning, she told me exactly what she was doing with Bill McLaughlin as far as a mentor and as far as a business relationship.

And it sounded really good.

You never suspected that she and Bill McLaughlin shared an intimate relationship.

I never once suspected.

Bill was an investor and Nanette also took part in his investments.

She would tell everyone the same stories.

Nanette told him she and her business partner were investors in high-end real estate.

She owned a $5 million beach house in Newport.

He says Nanette told him she also shared another million-dollar home with her colleague Bill where they had separate bedrooms.

To Eric, she was clearly a self-made success story, something he desperately wanted to be.

But his football career was in jeopardy.

In Giant Stadium, I'm making a sack, and my foot twisted and I popped the arch in my foot.

Years of playing professional football was taking a toll.

In the early 90s, Eric Naposky was trying to figure out what to do next.

Started programs at the gym, working with kids, started a security company.

And then just two weeks before Bill McLaughlin's murder, Eric got another job, running security at the Thunderbird nightclub, less than 200 yards from Bill McLaughlin's home where he was killed.

How did you learn that Bill McLaughlin was murdered?

Nineteen told me.

And she was shaken up.

She was absolutely shaken up.

But within a week, Eric says, he learned he was a suspect.

I noticed there's a car following me.

It was the police.

And then they brought me to an interview room and started throwing questions at me.

Like what?

Like, what's your relationship with Nanette?

What is your involvement in a relationship?

Nanette's a pretty good friend of mine.

Okay.

He was very evasive.

Detective Voth remembers Eric wouldn't give them a straight answer.

What would you describe as a dating relationship, a boyfriend, girlfriend?

Yeah, I wouldn't say a solo total, like I have girlfriends, you know.

You danced around the truth.

If you're an innocent man, why would you do that?

I'm an innocent man now.

Why?

Because there's no manual or there's no handbook when you're being looked at as a suspect in a murder case.

Eric was not forthcoming about Nanette and evasive about other things.

It took him a while to admit he had once had a 9mm gun.

What were you thinking when you heard he had owned the nine millimeter?

I knew that a nine millimeter was used in the crime.

But he refused to tell investigators where the gun was.

Where is your nine millimeter?

I have no idea.

You have no idea.

That's my statement.

Why weren't you truthful about the nine millimeter with police?

I think I was just scared because I didn't buy that nine millimeter for myself.

That was Nanette's nine millimeter Beretta.

I was scared to start throwing around, that's Nanette's gun.

You know, go look at Nanette.

You know, that would have been really like just pointing a finger.

Eric says Nanette likes shooting at the range and months earlier asked him to get her a nine millimeter.

But he didn't tell police that.

Because at the time, Eric says, he didn't know what to believe about his girlfriend and Bill McLaughlin.

They're telling me, well, there's this relationship going on that you don't know about.

And then she's telling me there's no relationship that you don't know about.

So I'm getting hit from both sides.

Eric called home.

He was hysterical crying.

and he said, they think I killed this guy.

They think I killed him.

I guarantee you, looking straight in the face, Troy, Eric Naposky did not murder Bill McLaughlin any way you slice it.

Eric Naposky had an alibi, and he was sure back in 1995 that after authorities heard everything, he'd be exonerated.

I couldn't have done it.

The alibi allows me no time to commit any crime.

Eric's evening began with Nanette at her son's soccer game.

It was a good game, it was a championship game, and it ended pretty late.

Nanette, he says, then drove him to the town of Tustin where he lived.

She drops me at my truck.

I say good night.

She says she's going to go do some shopping.

Eric says he got into his truck and headed to his job at the Thunderbird nightclub in Newport Beach.

But before he could get very far, his beeper went off.

My page is from my boss, one of the managers at the Thunderbird.

So I continue over the 55 freeway and I pull into the Denny's.

I walk to one of the two phone booths in the back and I use my calling card to call the Thunderbird.

Eric says, according to his calling card bill, it was 8.52.

Phone records put me in Tustin, which is 20 minutes outside Newport Beach, minutes before the 911 call.

I hate to burst your bubble, fellas, but I wasn't in Newport at 9 o'clock.

It's impossible, he told police for him to have had a phone conversation at 8 52

then drive about 12 miles to newport beach

sneak into bill's house shoot him and then flee before bill's son discovers his father's body shortly after 9 p.m

you can't make it troy that's why they didn't arrest me back then if you could make that drive they would have arrested me in 95.

I could have not committed this murder.

Period and end.

But it wasn't the end.

About a month after the murder, Kim McLaughlin was looking over her father's financial records and got the surprise of her life.

When December bank statements came in, I noticed a very big amount of money missing and

$250,000.

$250,000.

Someone had written a check for a quarter of a million dollars, and it was dated December 14th.

just one day before the murder.

And I thought, this is strange.

We alerted the banks that we needed to get copies of the check.

On the check, their father's signature was forged.

Nanette Johnston, it turned out, had cashed it.

I was in

shock.

And then I continued to look further.

Altogether, how much money did she embezzle from your father?

Gosh.

Probably close to half a million dollars.

Half a million dollars.

Money is a really strong motive for her.

It was clear to Kim and Jenny that Nanette had to end their father's life before he found out that she was stealing from him.

Stealing for a future with Eric Naposky.

They called the police.

We felt very strongly that both Eric Naposky and Nanette Johnson were responsible for Mr.

McLaughlin's murder.

Retired Detective Dave Byington remembers being frustrated when the district attorney refused to charge Eric and Nanette with murder.

The decision was made.

There wasn't enough evidence to file, but our guts told us that they were good for it.

The DA would only charge Nanette with forgery and theft.

They've accused her of stealing money.

Of course, she has a pretty good excuse for all of it, being signers on accounts and co-business partners.

Eric says he wanted to believe Nanette, that the money was hers.

But then newspaper articles were referring to her as Bill McLaughlin's fiancée.

So I look at her and I go, what the hell is this?

Fiancé stuff.

She blamed it on a

misquote.

Well, they don't know what they're talking about.

I'm not engaged to Bill.

I've never been engaged to him.

That's ridiculous.

How did she explain her deceit?

She never did.

And you didn't demand answers?

I demanded him and asked, which led to our breakup.

But that was six months later, right?

With a lot of in-betweens.

Eric finally left Southern California.

And in March of 1996, Nanette pled guilty to forgery and theft and served 180 days.

After Nanette was released from jail, she quickly began dating again.

Nanette did what she always does.

She went looking for a new sugar daddy, someone else to support her.

Nanette married the very wealthy businessman, John Packard, and had another child.

She was a manhunter and she used that sexuality as her main tool to grab these guys.

That marriage ended in divorce, but Nanette quickly moved on, marrying entrepreneur Bill McNeill and having yet another child.

She was so aggressive that it wouldn't surprise her if she had a trapeze set up in her bedroom.

You needed a playbook to keep track of the marriages.

Back on the East Coast, Eric Naposky had moved on with his life.

He fathered two children.

Eric's my 11-year-old, and Susanna is my eight-year-old.

There you go.

Go, Eric, go.

Eric's a miniature me.

Plays football, basketball, soccer.

He's a great kid.

And my daughter is the light of my life.

just always smiling always happy

eric picked up work as a personal trainer and promoted workout products

and he even tried his hand at acting going back to orange county to film a pitch reel for a potential tv series called newport 40

kind of a male version of the real housewives of Orange County.

By 2009, Eric Naposky was finally settling down in quiet Greenwich, Connecticut.

But one spring morning, his world turned upside down.

It was four vehicles.

Machine guns pointed at me.

Over a loudspeaker, they were telling me to get out of the vehicle.

They put me on the ground.

I said, am I under arrest?

And they said, yes, for murder.

There is no way I wasn't, I couldn't even believe it.

And almost 3,000 miles away in Orange County, California, a real-life Orange County housewife and mother of four is behind bars tonight.

Nanette Johnston Packard McNeil

was also under arrest for murder.

Anything to say, Nanette?

We're innocent.

All of a sudden, 15 years later, out of the blue, to have a phone call from the detectives we just made two arrests.

Nanette and Eric are in jail.

We were overjoyed.

It's hard to get a fair trial 15 years later.

Am I innocent?

Absolutely, 100%.

Can I prove it?

I hope so.

Can they prove I'm guilty?

I don't think that's possible because I didn't do it.

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15 years after Bill McLaughlin was gunned down in his Balboa Coves home,

Eric Napovsky is facing trial for a murder he says he did not commit.

I've never been in that house.

Never, ever.

I don't see any DNA.

I don't see any fingerprints.

I don't see any big footprints from a size 14 boot.

I don't see anything from that night.

And if I was never in the house ever, how did I commit a crime?

There's no doubt in any of our minds that Eric Napoffsky pulled the trigger and murdered Bill McLaughlin.

Prosecutor Matt Murphy is confident he can do what prosecutors before him didn't.

Prove that Eric was the shooter and Annette Johnston got him to pull the trigger.

Her gift is the manipulation of men.

She told Eric Naposky in the months beforehand that Bill McLaughlin was sexually assaulting her.

There's no reason for her to tell him that lie unless her plan is to manipulate him into actually committing the murder.

Murphy's case revolves around the star witness, Suzanne Coger.

In 1994, she lived next door to Eric Naposky and says he confided in her.

Eric Naposky came to her and said, Bill McLaughlin keeps coming into Nanette's room at night.

And he was furious about it.

And she said that he was really, really upset.

So upset that he said he wanted to blow up Bill McLaughlin's plane.

Eric says he was just letting off steam.

I did tell her that I wanted to blow up his plane.

I didn't say I wanted to kill Bill or that I wanted to shoot Bill or

I want Bill blown away.

His plane didn't blow up, did it?

But there was a second conversation with Coger just three weeks after the murder where Murphy says Eric implicates himself even further.

And she goes, oh my god, Eric, I don't even want to know if you had anything to do with it.

And he smiled and he said, maybe I did, maybe I didn't.

He said, maybe I had somebody do it.

I said I didn't first.

And then when she kept badgering me about it, it was more of a laughing conversation at that point.

But to me, it's just an off-the-cuff comment.

But there's more to what Eric told Coger.

He said, the killer used the same kind of gun that I used to have, so the police think I did it.

The only people on the planet Earth that knew a 9mm was used in the murder were about a half-dozen detectives at Newport Beach Police Department and the killer.

And I believe him when he tells me he's not the shooter.

Defense attorney John Poparlardo grew up with Eric Napovsky in Westchester, New York.

I met him through Little League Baseball.

He teams his most experienced attorney from New York, Angela McDonald, with well-respected Orange County Defense Attorney Gary Poulson.

Matt Murphy, as you know, has never lost a murder case.

Does it worry you?

It worries me, but he doesn't get to make up the evidence.

But just before Eric's scheduled trial, new forensic tests tie the shell casings from the gun that killed McLaughlin to the exact make-in model of the gun Eric once owned,

a 9-millimeter Beretta.

If convicted, Eric and Nanette face life behind bars.

Eric will stand trial first.

Mr.

Naposky lied about his relationship with Nanette.

Murphy immediately hones in on Eric's history of lying to the police.

And, of course, we know he lied about his 9mm.

You just don't do that if you're innocent.

And the defense will show.

In order to find him not guilty, the jury must believe Eric's story.

But at 8.52 p.m., just minutes before Bill McLaughlin's murder, Eric was about 12 miles away on a payphone at the Denny's restaurant.

Ladies and gentlemen, the defense will prove that he possesses a solid, simple, logical, reasonable, and compelling alibi.

He simply could not have done it.

It will be hard to convince the jury, though, without evidence of Eric's phone call.

Eric says he no longer has copies of his bill, and the phone company no longer has the records.

If we had the phone record, it might be open to shut case, right?

Murphy doubts the call even happened.

But if it did, he says, it's hardly an alibi.

As opposed to being an alibi, the timing of that actually fits perfectly.

He sent his investigator Larry Montgomery to time the drive from the Denny's to Bill McLaughlin's home.

I did at least 15 time trials.

All of our tests show that he should have been able to arrive at the location in order to do the killing.

But Eric's defense lawyers have timed the drive too.

I do not believe it's physically possible he could have made it in the required time.

How critical is a matter of minutes to your defense?

Seconds could be, could be, could decide this case.

Not unexpectedly.

Angela McDonald suggests to the jury a more likely killer.

Nanette Johnson is an accomplished liar, cheat, thief, manipulator, con woman, and selfish, promiscuous gold digger.

There's more evidence here that Nanette Johnson did this murder than Eric Naposky.

So you know what?

Let's us play prosecutor.

Let's put her on trial.

Let's show the jury that she could have done this.

She had the motive, she had the means, and you know what?

She's got the cold blood at heart, the sociopathic personality to do it.

Now, Murphy has no problem letting the defense prosecute Nanette.

I could not agree more.

If diabolical behavior was an Olympic sport, she'd be a gold medalist every year.

She is a manipulator and an evil manipulator.

But says Eric was a willing participant.

He and Nanette were thick as thieves.

Several months before the murder, they're shopping for million-dollar homes.

Eric Napovsky was in debt and Nanette had no money.

The only way that they could ever afford that house that they were looking at is if Bill McLaughlin died.

I've heard that the reason that Mr.

McLaughlin was murdered is so I can buy a house.

It's ridiculous.

But maybe the hardest thing for the defense to explain is that Eric had Bill McLaughlin's license plate number written down on a notebook found in his car right after the murder.

And that that was a clue that he forgot to get rid of.

That license plate number cannot be explained.

That license plate number has nothing to do with the murder at all.

Eric told 48 Hours that he wrote down that license plate number months before the murder, after he caught Nanette in a series of lies.

So I called a buddy of mine.

I wanted her followed.

to see what she was doing.

Eric says his friend Todd Colder went by Nanette's house, told told Eric there was a car there, and gave him the plate number.

Turns out the car belonged to McLaughlin, but Murphy says the story just isn't true.

We interviewed Todd Calder and he said, I have no idea what you're talking about.

He never asked me to do that.

I absolutely never did that.

Whatever happened, Eric's attorneys say, with no DNA or fingerprints, there's nothing to tie Eric to the murder scene.

Please, as much as I've ever wanted anything in my life, I want you to find him not guilty because this man is not guilty.

This is an innocent man.

But the plea falls on deaf ears.

After a month-long trial, it takes only seven hours.

We, the jury, in the above-entitled action, find the defendant, Eric Andrew Naposky, guilty of the crime of felony to wit.

The jury finds Eric Naposky guilty.

of Bill McLaughlin's murder.

Murder as charged in count one of the information.

Six months later, a very different looking Nanette Johnston, after spending a year and a half in jail, waiting for trial, is about to have her day in court.

She is a killer.

That woman is responsible for the murder of Bill McLaughlin.

Murphy argues at trial that Nanette killed Bill so he wouldn't discover her infidelity or her rampant stealing.

She steals $48,200 in the month of October alone, $20,000 in November, $68,200 in seven weeks.

Now, how is she going to get away with that if Bill McLaughlin lives?

She's not a nice person.

Then that's attorney Mick Hill

doesn't sugarcoat it.

Hate her as much as you want for being a thief, a liar, a cheat,

a slut, whatever you want to call her.

I knew the jury weren't going to like her, but that doesn't mean she's a murderer either.

When you're motivated by money,

when you're living with the golden goose, you are not going to get rid of him.

In the end, Hill says, Nanette never would have left Bill McLaughlin for someone poor like Eric Naposky.

Remember, Bill had just won a $9 million settlement from his ex-business partner, Hal Fischel, and he was about to get millions of dollars richer.

Eric, Hill says, acted alone.

Someone who is fully capable of getting jealous.

Someone who's fully capable of being violent.

Someone who's fully capable of killing his girlfriend's lover.

We, the the jury, and the above and the city.

But it took the jury just three hours

to find Nanette guilty of Bill McLaughlin's murder.

We really miss him, and we're so glad that justice has been served on his behalf.

For Bill's daughters, Kim and Jenny, this painful journey would finally be over, except that now, Eric Naposky says he'll reveal a secret he's kept for almost 20 years.

The identity identity of the man who really killed their father.

You know there are people who believe that this is a desperate ploy to gain release.

What else are they going to say?

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Eric Naposky says he's always known who really murdered Bill McLaughlin.

Only he didn't tell police.

He didn't think they would believe him.

I think some people watching this will say to themselves, if I was in his shoes, I would be screaming to the mountaintops that I know who the true killer is.

And you sat on that information.

There was no real benefit for me to come forward with no proof.

Eight months after his conviction for murder, Eric Naposky's legal team contacted 48 Hours asking us to come back to prison to speak with Eric.

He wanted to reveal the name of McLaughlin's killer, and he said he now had evidence to prove what he says he's known for nearly 20 years.

Three months before the murder, when Nanette told him McLaughlin sexually assaulted her, a furious Eric confided in a business acquaintance.

He said to me, I have people to take care of things like this.

You know, I have people who don't like rapists.

But Eric says he didn't take the acquaintance seriously.

You know, a lot of people talk about a lot of stuff in this town, what connections they have and this and that.

And you kind of take it with a grain of salt.

Eric was more interested, he says, in the connections his friend said he had in Hollywood.

They got me an extra part in a movie.

They were talking about starting a film production company, and Eric thought Nanette could write up a business plan.

That was her spiel.

That's what she did.

She put together business plans.

She got funding, things like that.

So he set up another meeting to introduce Nanette.

And that's when Eric says the acquaintance turned to Nanette and repeated his offer to help her get revenge on Bill McLaughlin.

It almost looked like a sales pitch.

I know what's going on.

I can help you.

This is what I can do for you.

Nanette Naposky says, liked the idea.

She was definitely more interested in what he was talking about than I would figure she would be.

Naposky says he calmed her down, but then later he saw the acquaintance again.

What did he say to you?

I've started the ball rolling or something like that on what Nanette wants to do.

And what did you take that to mean?

That he was going to form some kind of retaliation for her.

And that's when I said, well, wait a second.

You know, stay out of it.

It's not your business.

He said he thought that she wanted him to go forward.

And I said, I don't think that was the case.

So did you confront Nanette?

Yeah, I told Nanette that it wasn't going to happen.

She's upset with me.

But Eric believed Nanette wasn't going to do anything.

It was squashed.

It was over.

The discussion was had.

Nothing happens in September.

Nothing happens in October.

Nothing happens in November.

But by early December, Naposky says he knew the nine-millimeter Beretta he usually kept in his car was missing.

It's her gun.

I asked her, I said, did you take it from the car?

Within days, Bill McLaughlin was shot to death.

Did you ask Nanette the question directly?

Did you have Bill McLaughlin killed?

Yes.

And she answered.

Absolutely.

She has no remorse about killing Bill McLaughlin.

Eric then went to confront the Hollywood producer.

And what did he tell you?

He told me that

it was what it was.

You know, he did what she wanted him to do.

And that there's nothing I could do or say about it.

What's more, the acquaintance confirmed the gun used to murder Bill was Eric's.

He was now forever tied to the murder of Bill McLaughlin.

It's kept me quiet for 17 years.

But no longer.

Eric Naposky called for a meeting with you.

Right.

Right.

He changed his story substantially.

Eric Napovsky says he spent every day of his incarceration reading through the documents and evidence police collected on the murder.

and on Nanette, including bank statements and phone bills.

The first time I saw all her phone calls was after the trial.

So there was a lot of things I didn't have access to that I should have had access to, but I didn't know existed.

Eric showed CBS News what he had presented to the police and prosecutors in the spring of 2012.

The acquaintance's telephone number on Nanette's cell phone bill just days leading up to the murder.

Why is this number eight times called in one week, never called beforehand?

But Murphy says the man's number on the net cell phone bill isn't enough, because Eric could just as easily use Nanette's phone.

The problem there is that we know that Eric Naposky had access to that phone.

So as far as being able to say Nanette made that phone call versus Eric Naposky, we just can't do that.

We just don't know.

And Murphy says police have now thoroughly investigated the man Eric accuses of setting up the murder.

And he's an unlikely suspect.

What I can tell you is he was completely cooperative in every way.

He's never been arrested before.

He's legitimate in every way as as far as his business dealings go.

When police spoke to him, he denied even knowing Nanette.

Eric provided CVS with bank statements, cash withdrawals Nanette made right before and right after the murder, a total of $50,000.

Naposky is certain the money went to pay for the hit.

One of the cash withdrawals Nanette made actually happens the very same day the man's number appears on her phone bill.

You're telling me that a businessman with no criminal history carried out this murder for what $50,000?

I could only assume that that's the amount of money that's missing from her

from her cash withdrawals.

It's kind of hard to digest, Eric.

Troy.

50 grand?

Is it easier to digest that I did it for nothing?

But Murphy's so certain the businessman had nothing to do with the murder.

CBS News has decided not to broadcast his identity.

Everything that comes out of Eric Napovsky's mouth is a lie.

Virtually every single thing from the first time the police contacted him all the way to the point that we've interviewed him recently.

Eric Napovsky went into that kitchen that night and he murdered Bill McLaughlin and we have proven it.

And everything that he does since then is about pointing fingers someplace else.

Both Eric and Nanette were supposed to be sentenced for Bill McLaughlin's murder in May of 2012.

But only Nanette came into the courtroom.

Bill's daughter confronted her.

Your trial revealed what an abomination you and your life have been.

We are appalled and repulsed.

The judge then sentenced Nanette to life without the possibility of parole.

Meanwhile, Naposky's attorneys continue to fight to have his conviction dismissed, arguing that in the 16 years since the murder, too much evidence had been lost to get a fair trial.

They also tried to make a case for a new trial based on Naposky's claim that he can identify the real killer.

But the judge was not swayed.

In August, Naposky was back in court.

The circumstantial evidence is overwhelming, and I don't believe there is any juror who would not find that Mr.

Naposky killed Mr.

McLaughlin.

So I'm going to deny the motion for a new trial.

But Naposky continued to protest his innocence.

I'm innocent, and that will never change.

No matter what the 12 people did, I said they made a mistake.

They made a mistake.

Bill's daughter couldn't get through her victim impact statement without Naposky interrupting.

Yes, you say that you've never set foot in Balboa Coves

or in our house.

That's a lie, Eric.

It's not a lie.

Your father knows.

You are full of lies.

That's not a lie.

Somehow, during your lifetime, you have learned

that you can get away with these lies

and these lies could get you where you want.

Well,

look where it's gotten you now.

Defendant has been convicted of violating Penal Code Section 10.

At last, the judge read his sentence.

His only sentence option is life without possibility of parole.

In this case, life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Eric Naposky remained defiant to the end.

You blew it.

You blew it.

Bye-bye.

Yep.

See you again.

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