All language subtitles for The Truth About My Murder S01E08 1080p WEB DL H264 BTN_track3_[eng]

'When a murder's committed,
it's always a race against time'

to find the truth,
to separate fact from fiction,

to catch the killer and to make sure
that justice is served.

But what happens when the truth
vanishes with the victim?

I'm Dr Richard Shepherd,
a forensic pathologist,

'performing nearly 23,000 autopsies,

including on some of the most
high-profile cases of recent times.'

I've learnt that the dead don't
hide the truth and they never lie.

'Through me you'll be hearing
directly from the victim,

from a state-of-the-art laboratory
with ground-breaking technology

that uses digitally scanned
sample bodies.

I'll be investigating
a series of intriguing murders'

where from the victims' bodies,

'I'll be revealing to you the truth
behind those horrific crimes.'

(camera shutter clicking)

December 15th, 1994,

a man was shot dead in his kitchen
and the killer escaped.

To catch this murderer
the police had to piece together

dozens of tiny clues
from the victim's body

While America is no stranger
to gun violence,

this crime scene was surprising.

A million-dollar home

in one of California's most
wealthy and privileged communities,

Newport Beach.

(man) 'The quintessential
dream image

of California is Newport Beach.

There's a bay where people
can have $100 million yachts

docked at their house.

A lot of money there,

but it also has a really
kind of cool beach vibe.

'Surfers, beautiful women in bikinis
rollerblading.'

You have yachts, marinas,
fancy restaurants on the water,

you have beautiful mansions
on the water.

(Matt) 'Beverly Hills meets the sea,
that's what Newport Beach is.'

(Richard)
'But on December 15th, 1994,

this idyllic atmosphere
was shattered.'

(gunshots)

(matt) 'Kevin McLaughlin
was upstairs in his home'

where he lived with his father
and he hears gunshots.

'He suffered severe disabilities.

He had problems moving,
he walked with a severe limp.'

He gets downstairs
and he sees his father

face up on his back in the kitchen

and as he's watching his father die
on the kitchen floor he dials 911.'

(operator)
'911, what's your emergency?'

And it's this
heart-wrenching 911 call,

where he's trying to communicate
through his deeply affected speech

'that his father's been shot.'

(sirens waling)

Once the cops got there
they were able

to see exactly
what was inside the house,

which was Mr McLaughlin
on the kitchen floor

with bullet in his body.

(Richard)
'Paramedics couldn't save him.

He was declared dead at the scene.

All the police could do was gather
evidence about this terrible crime,

and that started with being sure
who the victim was.'

As a pathologist my first job

is to identify the body and I can
show you on this sample body.

Bodies never lie.

Often the simplest way
to identify a body

is to look at the teeth.

Teeth are fantastic things
because they're strong,

they're really resilient,
they resist decomposition

and all sorts of damage,

but also particularly by middle age
they'll all be unique.

There'll be fillings, there'll be
other evidence of repair,

there'll be teeth that have been
lost through accident

or through disease,
and so looking at the teeth

can be a fantastically useful way
of identifying someone,

when we compare it to the
dental records held by the dentist.

In this particular case,
we can see that there are gaps

in the left upper and lower molars.

We can see that there's a left
upper wisdom tooth still present.

There's also various
irregularities of the teeth

that are all going to be unique
for this individual.

But if uniqueness of teeth
isn't enough,

we can look at the uniqueness
of the fingerprint,

but they're much more susceptible

to damage by decomposition
and by trauma

and they too need
to be compared with a record

held usually by the police.

At the time of this case, the 1990s,
DNA was a research tool,

but identification by DNA
was not common practice,

but fortunately when the pathologist

came to look at this
particular body,

the dental records were excellent

and so they made a positive
identification of Bill McLaughlin,

'a 55-year-old male.

The police knew
that every clue they could find

might help bring Bill McLaughlin's
killer to justice.

For example,
he still had his watch on.

In fact, nothing was missing
from this wealthy home.'

We have no information
that anything was taken,

so therefore
it probably wasn't a robbery.

'If nothing's taken except for
the life, it's probably a murder.'

(Richard) 'Police found shell
casings from the murder weapon.'

(Larry) 'The casings
and the bullets from the body'

were determined that they were
from a nine-millimetre handgun.

The ammunition that was used
is what's called Federal Hydra-Shok,

a particular kind of bullet.

'It has a post on it
and it's a hollow-point round.'

(Larry) 'And those are bullets

specifically made
for killing somebody.

Too expensive
to use for target practice.

They're used for deadly force.

(gunshots)

(Richard) 'The shots
heard by Kevin and the neighbours

had a distinctive pattern.'

Three sequences of two shots,
with bam bam, bam bam, bam bam.

(Richard) 'The early evidence

was pointing towards
a targeted killing.'

(camera shutter clicks)

(Richard) 'On the table near Bill's
body were financial documents,

which may have been significant.'

Bill was entirely self-made.

Grown up on the south side
of Chicago from a modest background.

He invented a medical device

that was able
to separate plasma from blood.

(Matt) 'It was a huge advancement
in modern medical science.

It saved thousands of lives.
It's still in use today.

And he made a fortune with that.
He was well off.

He was a businessman and
had lots of deals to make money.

(Richard) 'He sold
the company he co-founded

for tens of millions of dollars.

20 years ago he bought
a luxury six-bedroom mansion

in this gated community.

Balboa Coves
in Newport Beach, California.'

Now this is a multi-million dollar
bay-side home with its own dock.

(Richard)
'Bill had a jet-set lifestyle.

Just hours before he was killed,

he'd flown back from Las Vegas
in his private aircraft.

But those financial papers
found at the crime scene

told a different story,
one of conflict and strife.

He was being sued
by a former partner

who didn't feel
that he was treated fairly,

and so there was about $12 million
in an Escrow fund

that was going to be determined who
was going to get that $12 million.

(Richard) 'Bill
and his former business partner

had been arguing in court
for four years

about how the proceeds of the sale

of their company
should be divided up.'

And it turned out
that just days before

Mr McLaughlin
discovered that he won that,

'and so all that money
was going to be going to him.'

They did not like each other,

so he was immediately suspected,
as something to do with it.

Anybody who loses $12 million
in a lawsuit might be angry.

(Richard)
'The police quickly established

that Bill's business partner
was over 100 miles away

at the time of the murder.'

This man lived in Santa Barbara.
He had an alibi. He did not do it.

(Richard) 'Other clues at the scene

suggested Bill was killed
by someone he trusted.'

There's a brand-new key freshly cut,
an Ace hardware key,

'stuck in the lock
of the deadbolt of the door,'

and there is
a pedestrian access gate key

'sitting on the on the mat.

There's a gate for pedestrians to go
across from the McLaughlin home.'

You can gain access to that part of
the community with that gate key.

Somebody came in and did this
with keys. That's a huge clue.

'They didn't have cameras then,
so anybody who entered'

could go to Mr McLaughlin's house
from that gate without being seen.

People were terrified because
nothing like this had happened

in a nice wealthy gated area
of Newport Beach.

People were afraid
there was a killer on the loose.

(Richard) 'The chilling conclusion
was that the killer

got keys to Bill's house
from a member of his family.

Who has access to keys
that could get into the complex.

Who has access to keys
to get into his house?

(Richard) 'Bill had been married
to Susan McLaughlin for 24 years.

The divorce, just four years
earlier, had been messy

and there was now a lot more money
to be inherited.

They get married very young,
they had three wonderful kids,

and the relationship
ran out of steam.

She'd moved to their beautiful home
in Hawaii where she still lives.

She was eliminated
because she was so far away.

(Richard) 'The couple's son, Kevin,
who had suffered brain damage

in an accident a few years earlier,

was in the house
at the time of the murder.'

They interviewed Kevin and they know
that this kid had nothing to do

with the murder of his father

and it's pretty obvious
and he is incredibly distraught.

(Richard) 'The couple
also had two daughters.'

(Matt) 'Bill McLaughlin's daughters
were Kim and Jenny.

Jenny was in San Diego.
Kim was in Japan teaching.'

When police talked to them,
they were appropriately emotional.

They were devastated.
They cooperated in every way.

'The police are very quickly able'

to eliminate the entire McLaughlin
family as being suspects.

(Richard)
'Who else had access to Bill's keys?

And who knew the truth
about his murder?'

One of the most sensational cases
in Orange County

and it's this bizarre love triangle
that ends in murder.

Bill McLaughlin,
a wealthy businessman,

was shot dead in his home
in Newport Beach, California.

'Police hoped that his body
would tell the truth

about what happened in his murder.'

They thought he'd been murdered
by someone close.

'And then just hours
after his murder,

Bill's girlfriend Nanette Johnston
arrived at the crime scene.

Nanette and Bill
first met four years earlier.'

Nanette Johnston was a
beautiful vivacious, mother of two,

and everybody describes her
as very beautiful,

but also really smart and savvy.

(Larry) 'Nanette was slender.

She worked out a lot at the gym.
Very fit, very tanned.'

Was that type of girl.

(Matt)
'Nanette put an ad in a newspaper.

A magazine prior to internet dating
that said, "Wealthy men only.

I know how to take care of my man
if he knows to take care of me."'

It appears that that was the ad
that Bill had answered

and got to know her
because of that ad.

(Richard) 'Some time in early 1991
Bill and Nanette started dating.

She was just 25 years old,
while he was in his early-50s.

But the romance seemed real.

Quite soon Nanette moved in with
Bill

and they started living together
in his Newport Beach mansion.

She had two young children
who lived with her ex-husband.

Bill welcomed them into his life
and showed them real affection.'

(Larry) 'She would take them to
Bill's house once every other week.'

They got to go flying in his plane,'

and got to go be in Bill's boat.

'So they enjoyed,
like, a vacation house.

They were treated very well by Bill
and he liked them a lot.'

(Richard) 'They had been living
together for four years.

The couple had made
business plans together

and Nanette handled
all of the couple's joint finances.'

(Larry) 'She had cheque books,
had used his cards to buy things,'

and she had access to the accounts
and everything he was working on.

(Richard) 'On December 15th, 1994,

only an hour after the murder,
Nanette arrived at her home.'

(Larry) 'They were able to interview
her in one of the police cars.'

From what she said, sounded
that she was very upset about this.

(Richard) 'Nanette told the police
she spent the afternoon and evening

watching her son at a soccer game
in a town 30 miles away.

After that she went shopping.'

(Larry) 'She was
at a pretty large shopping mall.

Maybe a 20-minute drive from there.'

During the time of the crime,
she was buying Christmas presents.

Here's the receipt which puts her
about five or six miles away.

'She couldn't possibly
have committed the murder.'

(Richard)
'So Nanette had a strong alibi.

The police had to look for a
different suspect for this murder.'

My job as a pathologist

is to examine the body
as carefully as I can

to find information
that may be of use

to the police in their
investigation.

In this case, the pathologist found

that there were six injuries
to the front of Bill's chest.

Six small injuries
that were absolutely typical

of gunshot entry wounds.

When they looked at his back,
though,

they found
there were only three wounds

that were much larger, more
irregular

and contained muscle and bone

that were absolutely typical
of gunshot exit wounds.

So three bullets
had gone right through,

but three bullets
remained in the chest.

Looking at the injuries
to the front of Bill's chest,

it shows the killer must have
been standing in front of him,

looking at him at the time the shots
were fired in very quick succession.

And it shows that
whoever killed Bill

clearly deliberately
intended to do so.

'After such a shocking murder,

it's no wonder Nanette
said she was frightened.

She told the police
that she was worried the killer

might come back to shoot her.'

(Larry) 'Nanette in the interview
said that she was scared.

She said,
"I could have been the target.

I was supposed to be here and
I've pissed off people in my life."'

That was
a very important thing for me,

because, if true,

then she must be afraid
of whoever did this.

She said, "I don't want to be here,
to stay here."

She said,
"I'm going to go somewhere else."'

(Richard) 'She took Kevin
and drove them to Bill's beach house

just a mile away on Seashore Drive.

But while this was
a perfectly sensible precaution,

something about Nanette's behaviour
didn't seem right to the police.'

(Matt) 'What's curious, one of
the things is she had a car phone.'

She sat in the car
and she didn't call anybody.

Bill McLaughlin had an ex-wife,
he had two adoring daughters

and you've got Kevin.

He's got relatives,
friends in the community,

and she never called anybody,
which was curious, kind of off.

(Richard) 'Nanette also seemed
strangely unemotional,

almost detached,
even at Bill's funeral.'

According to every witness, they get
into the church for Bill's funeral

and everybody is crying,
including her two kids,

'except for one person,
and that was Nanette.'

No emotion the night of the murder
and now no emotion at the funeral.

She goes back to the beach house,
she changes.

She drives to Champion Yamaha,
which sells dirt bikes, motorcycles.

'She goes and buys three motorcycles
right after the funeral.'

(Richard) 'Nanette was not
the kind to ride motorbikes

and Kevin couldn't ride one,
so who could they have been for?

The clue came from something strange

that Nanette's son
said at the funeral.'

Her son said, "My mom's boyfriend
plays in the NFL,"

and people at the funeral were like,

"Your mum's boyfriend
is in that coffin up there."

And that's the first
anybody in the McLaughlin family

learned about the existence
of another guy.

(Richard)
'To find out who this other man was,

the police put Nanette
under surveillance.'

(Larry) 'They were going
to stake out the seashore house

where she was staying.

So they had the place surrounded.'

(Matt) 'They have
an undercover narcotics officer.'

The report is very two dimensional.

We were on the beach,
we could see Nanette Johnston

inside with her two children,
decorating a Christmas tree.

The curtains are open,
the windows are open.

Anybody can look in and see
this is not the actions of a woman

who appears scared for her safety.

Why is she in the house in a place
where anybody could see her?

There is a man with a gun
in the sand outside her house.

'It's a police officer,
but he's got a gun

and he could shoot her,
if he wanted to, right there.'

So how fearful is she of this man
who she thought might be after her?

(Richard) 'The surveillance officers
saw something extraordinary.'

(Matt) 'They see this guy
in a black Nissan Pathfinder.'

A big guy, strong guy, formidable.

I mean, he's somebody
to be reckoned with.

He walks into the beach house
like Santa.

Got a big bag
full of Christmas presents.

His head is not on a swivel.
He's not looking around.

He goes into the beach house
where he was living.

So very soon after this murder

police realise Nanette Johnston
has moved in with another man.

Police want to know who he is.

(Richard) 'When challenged
by investigators,

Nanette identified him
as Eric Naposki.

Eric was a professional sportsman,
a football line-backer.

He played for both the New England
Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts,

but he never hit the big time.

(Larry) 'Eric did not make
a lot of money in football.'

He went playing
in the Canadian Football League

and for an NFL Europe team,
the Barcelona Dragons.

When you're on practice squads
and you're not in with the big boys,

league minimum is not much money.

They get all the fries
they can eat in training.

(Richard) 'By the time
Nanette met Eric Naposki,

he was working in security.

He still had hits looks and
physique, but not much else.'

(Matt) 'A bouncer in a nightclub.'

(Larry) 'He was making poor money.
Wasn't making a lot.'

He was hanging around
with rich people in Newport Beach,

'but he was living in
a single studio apartment in Tustin

and barely could make rent.'

(Matt) 'He's broke.'

(Richard) 'Nanette said she met Eric
at a gym in the early-90s.

At first she insisted
that they were just friends,

but soon she admitted
they started dating early in 1994

when she had already been living
with Bill for three years.

The police urgently
needed to speak to Eric.'

The police did some checking on him

and discovered
he had a minor traffic warrant.

(Matt) 'Got a traffic ticket
and he never showed up for court.

The judge issued a warrant for
his arrest. The police arrest him.'

They do an impound search
of his car.

'He's got a notebook

and as they're flipping
through these pages on the notebook,

there's a bunch
of letters and numbers

that strike
one of these observant detectives

and they run it
as a licence plate'

and lo and behold it comes back
to Bill McLaughlin's Mercedes.

'We try to figure out the dates
of these notes'

and looked like it's probably
about a month before the murder.

And that really
started the ball rolling

in regards to looking at Eric
as a possible suspect.

(Richard) 'Eric Naposki
was now in the police's sights.

They didn't know where he was
on the night of the murder,

until they were tipped off
that Eric and Nanette

were watching
her son's soccer game that day.'

The Newport Police got
a very interesting phone call

from Kevin Ross Johnston,
Nanette's ex husband,

saying, "She was not alone
at that game.

'My ex-wife was there
with her boyfriend Eric.'

She contacted me and said,
"Don't tell the police

I was there with Eric."

So he calls and says,
"My crazy ex-wife

wants me to specifically lie to you
about who she was with.

She was with this big dude, Eric."

It made them very suspicious

that Eric and her
may have done something.

He may be involved and they started
to focus on that relationship.

(Richard) 'Police were sure Bill

was at the heart
of a dangerous love triangle,

but they couldn't prove
that this led to Bill's killing,

unless they could tie one of
the suspects to the murder weapon.'

The community
was very, very concerned

'that there was a killer
on the loose.'

Police in California
were on the hunt

for the killer of Bill McLaughlin.

'At autopsy the body had revealed
the truth of what had happened.

The killer was standing
very close to Bill

and this was
a deliberate assassination.

The police had a suspect,
Eric Naposki,

a former football player
turned nightclub bouncer.'

He was no stranger
to physical force,

but did he fire the fatal shots?

To prove that the police
had to find the killer's gun.

'The police thoroughly searched
the area around the murder scene,

but they came up empty-handed.'

We had divers in the channel,
the water behind the house.

'The Navy sent divers
trying to find the gun.'

They checked storm drains.
We never found it.

Gun could be anywhere.

(Richard) 'All the police could do
was question Naposki about his guns,

which wasn't easy.'

Mr Naposki is
a very strong-willed individual.

He likes to control, he's a big man

and he does not like
to be controlled.

I listen to a tape and it was Eric
Naposki yelling at the police.

That's how he conducted
these interviews.

He is aggressive, "You guys
lied to me. That's my statement."

(Eric) 'Because obviously
that's a lie.

'Someone's lying,
because I know I'm not lying.'

(officer)
'You're using a strong word lying.'

"I tried to mislead you.
What's the big deal? Arrest me."

We're playing this mind F game.
It's just unbelievable.

They ask him,
"Do you have any firearms?"

Then it's like,
"I did have this 380."

A Jennings 38, a Saturday night
special type semi-automatic handgun.

"I gave that to my dad
after he got mugged."

(Eric) 'Yeah, he has a Jennings 380.
Same model and everything.'

As they're wrapping it up,
they're like, "Just so we clear,

just the one gun and no other guns?"

He's like, "I did have
a Beretta nine-millimetre."

(Richard) 'A Beretta
nine-millimetre.

The bullets that killed Bill
were nine millimetre,

but Naposki claimed that gun
had disappeared.'

I gave it to my buddy,
Joe David Jimenez.

Doing a security job for me.
He got it stolen out of his car.

'They hit up his friend,
Joe David Jimenez,

who was in fact was cooperative.'

He said, "I did work
a security job for Eric.

He gave me a gun just like he said,
but not a Beretta 92F.

He gave me a Jennings 380.

'I told him that the gun got stolen,
but I sold it to my friend.

I can get that gun for you."

So he gets the gun from his friend,

turns it into Newport Beach
Police Department

and it was loaded
with Federal Hydra-Shok ammunition.

(Richard) 'So a gun Naposki
admitted he once owned

turned up loaded
with the same ammunition

used to kill Bill McLaughlin,

which means the police now knew
he owned Hydra-Shok bullets.'

At the autopsy
it was important to find

just how much damage
had been caused by these bullets.

It was found that one of the bullets
had gone right through the heart

causing extensive injuries

that was on its own fatal
for this particular case.

But the pathologist
said that all six bullets

could have killed Bill on their own,
and why was that?

The reason is there were
so many crucial parts to the chest.

There's the heart, the lungs,
the major blood vessels of the aorta

and the superior and inferior
vena cava, the spine.

So many areas
that were critical to life,

which had been damaged
by the passage of these six bullets.

The type of bullets used
were Hydra-Shok.

These had been designed for the FBI

specially to spread
when they hit the human body,

and this is designed,
so that maximum damage is caused,

and the chances of the bullet
going right through are minimised.

So Bill had been hit
by six of these bullets.

He clearly didn't stand a chance,

and the only possible reason
for using bullets of this sort

is to make sure
that you kill someone.

'But the gun the police suspected
was used to kill Bill McLaughlin,

a Beretta 92F, which Eric
had admitted to once owning,

had disappeared.

So the police couldn't connect Eric
to the murder weapon.

They made more progress
tracking his movements

on the night of the murder,

starting from Nanette's son's
soccer game.'

(Matt) 'The games
went into triple overtime.

They hustle back to the car.'

(Richard) 'Nanette and Eric
left the soccer field at 8.20pm.

They were in such a hurry,

they didn't even wait to see
Nanette's son receive his trophy.

Naposki claimed he was in a rush
to get back to work.

He had no time to commit murder,

When the police drove the same
route, they had time to spare.'

(Larry) 'They could easily drive
all the way to Balboa Cove

and let Naposki out,'

and she can easily drive to the mall
and start shopping.

He can easily
open the door, shoot him

and then actually
it's only a few hundred yards

'to where he worked,

and go under a bridge and be at work

within literally minutes
after shooting Bill.'

And so it all fit very nicely.

(Matt) 'They ask him again,
"You don't have an alibi."'

And he goes,
"Oh, well, she dropped me off

and then I went up
to my friend's house up in Tustin

'to see if they're there,
and then I got a page,

so I went over to Denny's."

It's a different story
than the original one that he told.

'So they re-traced the route
and guess what? He had enough time.'

We did it numerous times
and that's what it was.

(Richard)
'The police proved that Naposki

could have been at the murder scene,

but couldn't prove
that he was at the murder scene.

(camera shutter clicking)

They could show that Eric and
Nanette were very intimate

and even took holidays together.'

(Larry) 'They went to Eric's house
where his family lived

and the kids met his family
along with Nanette.

They went to New York with the kids
and had a full tour of New York.'

And then they went to a wedding
for Nannette's sister.

'Bill thought that she had
gone back east with her kids.'

Had no idea that Eric Naposki
went with her.

(Richard) 'The police could prove
that Eric and Nanette

had been making big plans for
their future, just the two of them.'

(Matt) 'Here's a woman
who has no skills,'

and you're talking about a guy
who was broke working as a bouncer.

Those two people were looking
at multi-million-dollar homes

'and talking about
being able to pay for it

after the first of year.'

Nanette believes
she is coming into money.

The only way Nanette
would come into money

is if Bill was dead.

(Richard) 'Bill McLaughlin had
a $1 million life-insurance policy

and Nanette was the sole
beneficiary.

That wasn't the only way
she'd profit from Bill's death.'

(Matt) 'She has a provision
in the will for $150,000.

She's got the right to live
in the beach house rent-free

and she's got title
to the convertible Lexus,

and in addition to all that
she finagled herself

into becoming the trustee
of Bill's estate,

after he has won this big lawsuit
against his partner.

There's about $12 million
in that account.

(Richard) 'But Nanette had been
helping herself to Bill's money

even before he died.'

About a month after the murder,

Kim and Jenny McLaughlin contact
the Newport Beach Police Department,

so these are Bill's daughters.

There should be millions of dollars
in his bank accounts.

When they get into the bank accounts
and they get access,

there's virtually no money left.

They were able to determine that
Nanette started probably in January,

so a good 12 months earlier,
pilfering money from his accounts.

(Matt) 'Bill had
a series of bank accounts.

Nanette did not have access
to those accounts,

but she did have
a joint chequing account

that belonged to both of them,
with the same bank.

So she would simply fake cheques

and then do transfers
from one account to the other.

They got more and more
as the months went by.

She started out with $7,000
that she did this with,

and pretty soon it
ten, then 15, then 20.

The most disturbing one is the day
before Bill McLaughlin's murder

'they found a cheque for $250,000,
quarter-million-dollar cheque,

a day before
Bill McLaughlin's murder.'

When they started looking
for taxes and everything,

she was going be found out.

If he's dead,
she's free and clear.

She can say, "This was normal.
He wanted me to do that."

So that was a big red flag.

(Richard) 'In total Nanette
stole nearly half-a-million dollars

from Bill's bank accounts.

In March, 1995,

Nanette Johnston was prosecuted
for forgery and grand theft.

She pleaded guilty and was sentenced
to a year in jail.'

The police believe there's enough
to charge her with murder

and also Eric Naposki with murder,
but the DA disagreed.

They're like, "She's stealing, she's
cheating," and it got refused again.

'DNA is in its infancy
at that point.

We've got no eye witnesses, there's
no fingerprints, no confession.'

So for the DAs that are looking
at that at the time,

they didn't there's enough evidence
to proceed.

(Richard) 'When Nanette was released
from jail six months later,

she and Eric separated.'

(Matt) 'She gets married to Packard,
he goes back east,'

gets married and then divorced,

and has at least one child
on the east coast,

and they go on with their lives.

(Richard) 'The case went cold,

the murderer seemed
to have got away with it,

but lurking in the files

was the evidence
that would one day convict them.'

This was one of the most diabolical
and heart-breaking cases

I ever tried as a prosecutor.

The killers of Bill McLaughlin
had gone unpunished

for more than seven years.

'His body revealed the truth
about the bullets used

and the deliberate nature
of the killing,

but the case had gone cold.

The suspects were getting on
with their lives,

while Bill's family
were still grieving.'

But a new team of investigators
were determined to crack this case.

'In 2002 Deputy District Attorney
Matt Murphy

had just started a new job
with the homicide unit

of the Orange County
District Attorney's Office.'

(Matt) 'My predecessor Debbie Lloyd
looked at it.

Look at the McLaughlin case.'

I think you're going to solve it.

'I got assigned an investigator
to work with me,

as my partner in the Homicide unit,
named Larry Montgomery.

'Larry's a legend in law enforcement
so this case that had sat idle,'

we started working it up again.

(Richard) 'Larry Montgomery started
reading all the old case notes

and listening to all the tapes
of the police interviews.'

(Larry)
'There's such a volume of work

and virtually nobody has time
to look at that volume of work.

So I made a point
of listening to every single tape

'and taking
every single bit of notes.

There's times where there's
something that's important,

but nobody knew it at the time.'

(Richard) 'One of the 62 tapes
Larry listened to

was the recording with Nanette

in the police car
on the night of the murder.'

(Larry) 'She said, "Well, I'm going
to go to the other house,

and I thought interesting,
if she knows,

and the police told her,

that the killer
had keys to this mansion,

'why is she willing
to go to another house,'

belonging to Bill,
and her and stay at that house?

Who says the killer doesn't have
keys to the house? Struck me as odd.

(Richard) 'Over the next few years,

Larry was able to uncover
new incriminating evidence

from the witness statements.'

(Matt) 'There is a woman
who was a neighbour of Eric Naposki'

who said he talked about
Bill McLaughlin, how he hated him.

She had been talking to Eric. He had
mentioned Bill on several occasions.

He told her he hated Bill,
he wanted to blow up his plane.

And then after the murder, he said,

"That Bill McLaughlin guy,
you know he got killed?"

She said,
"Tell me you didn't do it."

He said, "Maybe I did,
maybe I didn't."

An autopsy is not just
to establish the cause of death.

It's also there
to seek out any possible clues

that might help an investigation.

For instance,
did the deceased fight back?

Are there any bruises or injuries
to the knuckles or the hand

that will show
that he's punched someone?

That might enable the defendant
to claim self-defence in the future.

In fact. there aren't
any such injuries.

What there was, though,
was an injury to his left eyebrow.

'And that small mark on the body
is telling us so much.

It's an injury that is typical
of the type of wound

that's caused when someone collapses
after they've been killed.

And I'm sure
that's what happened in this case.

So there were no signs of a
struggle, no sign of a fight.

The pattern of injuries
grouped together as they were

suggests that the killer
saw Bill was in front of him,

shot him very quickly,
Bill fell to the ground dead

and the killer made his escape,
all within seconds.

'It would seem this killing
was planned weeks

or maybe even months in advance,

made obvious by the keys
found at the murder scene,

one newly cut
from an Ace Hardware blank.'

Ace hardware blanks
can only be sold at Ace Hardware.

'Nobody else carries them.
Ace Keys are made at Ace.'

So they go
to the local Ace Hardware store

closest to Eric Naposki's house.

'The guy goes, "I know that guy.
I made keys for him,

right about the time of this."'

He looked at the key and goes,

"This looks like
it was cut on my machine."

Turns out there's
several different key machines

that will make the keys
and this was a high-end key machine.

There were few in the area.

'It kind of made sense
that he had those keys made.'

(Richard) 'The police could tie
the newly cut house key to Naposki

and when they checked
Nanette's keyring,

they found her original
pedestrian gate key was missing,

exactly like the key
found on the mat.

And new techniques
could extract more evidence

from the six empty shell casings
found at the crime scene.'

There's a whole science on expended
shell casings left at crime scenes.

'It's a form of firearm DNA'

because the little microscopic
lands and grooves

that go into expanding
a shell casing

are unique to every firearm,
so they are able to figure out...

If they find a brass casing,
they can link it to a gun.

If you don't have the gun
to compare it to,

you can look at the firing pin
used in the ammunition.

(Richard) 'The make of gun used in
the murder could now be identified.'

(Larry) 'Originally
the murder weapon

was known to be a nine-millimetre,'

and the possibility of about 27
or 28 guns, different types of guns,

could have shot
that particular bullet.

But as time went on,
technology advanced,

and eventually we were able

to narrow that down
to one specific firearm

and that's a Beretta 92F.

So the only gun that could
have done it was a Beretta 92F.

Eric Naposki owned a Beretta 92F

and Eric Naposki
lied about that Beretta 92F.

(Richard) 'Not only had Naposki

owned the same gun
as the murder weapon,

the police also discovered
he had been training with it.'

That boom-boom,
boom-boom, boom-boom,

Eric Naposki had gone
through a firearms training course,

'where he was trained
to shoot twice,'

re-aim, shoot twice,
re-aim, shoot twice.

And it's called
the double-tap technique.

Basically, it's a technique to kill.

(Richard) 'The investigators
were also very sceptical

about how recently Naposki
had started his job

at the Thunderbird night club.'

There were nightclubs throughout
Los Angeles and Orange County.

Hundreds of them.

Of all of the nightclubs
Eric could get a job as a bouncer,

on December 1st, two weeks
before Bill McLaughlin's murder,

he gets one 136 yards
away from our murder scene.

'An easy way to run over a bridge
and be there in about a minute.'

So that's not a coincidence.
It's just not.

(Richard)
'Larry even found crucial evidence

in Nanette's Christmas shopping.'

The night Bill died she said
she's at the stores at the mall.

We have the receipts
for what she bought

The items she bought were for family
and friends. Nothing for Bill.

If she knew he was going to be dead,
no reason to buy presents for him.

'Nanette even bought Eric a size 12
pair of $795 shoes that day,'

with Bill's credit card.

(Richard) 'Matt and Larry had pulled
together complicated details,

but at its heart they believed
this case was simple.

Nanette had two huge motives
for wanting Bill dead.

One financial, one emotional.'

(Matt) 'She's embezzling money
from his bank account,

hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Got this lifestyle
where she doesn't have to work.

Bill is financing plastic surgeries,
exotic vacations.

She gets to drive in a convertible
Lexus. She's living the life.

She's cheating on him
and stealing from him

and whichever one of those Bill
McLaughlin finds out about first,

she's out with nothing.

She has to kill Bill McLaughlin
to get away with this.

(Richard) 'It took several years
of hard reinvestigating

to gather all the new evidence

and in 2009, 15 years
after Bill McLaughlin's murder,

Nanette Johnston and Eric Naposki

were finally arrested
and charged with murder.'

I got one of these awesome moments
where I got to call Kim McLaughlin

and I said, "We filed charges
in the death of your father."

There's this pause
and she said, "Against who?"

'I said,
"Well, against Eric and Nanette."

She started to cry.
She said, "For what?"

I said, "For the murder
of your dad." She cried.'

(Richard)
'Two years later Eric Naposki

was tried at the Orange County
Superior Court.

28 witnesses were called and
there were more than 240 exhibits.'

I was absolutely utterly convinced

that Nanette Johnston and Eric
Naposki murdered Bill McLaughlin,

'but you never know
how it will be perceived

and if your witnesses
are going to come off well,'

so you always go in
with your heart in your throat.

(Richard) 'After three weeks
the jury was sent out

to consider verdicts.

They deliberated for seven hours.'

The jury convicted Eric Naposki of
first-degree murder with a firearm

'and a special circumstance
of murder for financial gain.'

Doing this
to help Nanette get money.

The sentence was life
without possibility of parole

in California State Prison.

(Richard) 'Nanette Johnston
was tried a year later.

The prosecution argued that while
Nanette didn't pull the trigger,

she had planned the crime
and aided in its execution,

and so she should also
be prosecuted for murder.'

The jury convicted her of murder
for financial gain.

'Nanette was also sentenced to life
without possibility of parole

in a California State Prison.'

(Richard) 'After 17 and a half years

Bill's family finally received
the justice they deserved.'

(Larry) 'After the investigation
and the trial were done,

I did meet his ex-wife.

I was also close to his daughters
and they're very nice people.'

It was nice
to get some closure for them.

Bill McLaughlin's family never
stopped their search for justice.

In the end it was the tenacity
of the investigating teams

that trapped these killers,
but bodies never lie.

'Bill's body showed
that there had been no struggle.

He was shot in cold blood
by someone who intended to kill him.

Eventually justice was served.'

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