00:00:00
I felt guilty. I couldn't live with that. I said, I know something and it's terrible.
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I'm the only other person that knows the truth. I had to do something. He swept her right off her feet.
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I was drawn to him right away. He was handsome. He was super athletic. A dreamy single dad. Wealthy, charming, smitten.
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I'd never been spoiled like that. I remember thinking I was like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.
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He'd been through so much. A mysterious accident at sea. He went under and when he came up, he said he no longer saw his wife.
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He was just hysterical. They were never able to find her. It was a heart-wrenching story.
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So why then were so many people so suspicious? No one knows exactly what happened on that boat.
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An accident? A disappearance? You thought what, she faked her death? Or maybe a murder?
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There's no way. Absolutely no way. I felt like the police were just trying to frame an innocent man.
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Now she would be the one to unravel it all. I thought I could do this. In a dangerous undercover operation.
00:01:16
Tell them everything. What? My heartbeat was going so fast. I said, you need to tell me the truth.
00:01:21
I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline. Here's Josh Mankiewicz with Troubled Waters.
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If you crave money or fame, or if you want to meet beautiful people, maybe even become one of them,
00:01:41
you will find your way to Southern California. It's where everything is possible, or seems to be.
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This is the story of two women drawn for different reasons to the sun, to the bright lights, to the blue water.
00:01:58
Both chased that promise of success. Both saw what can go wrong. It was a gorgeous summer day in Newport Beach, California, the last of Fourth of July weekend.
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Some lucky tourists aboard an eight-passenger boat called the Green Machine were marveling at a school of dolphins playing in the water
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when they came across the unexpected. We've got a loose boat out here, five miles out of Newport Beach.
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The captain radioed the Coast Guard that a small speedboat was circling, out of control, in the water nearby, was a man holding onto a bodyboard.
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The man in the water was frantic. His name was Eric Beckler. His wife was Peggy.
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But she was nowhere to be found. He's just kind of yelling out. Just laying on his boogie board and yelling out.
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Roger, and can you make out any words that he's yelling out over? No, he's kind of slurring his words.
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It will be any time now that a unit should be on soon. It was a stunning end to what began as a perfect day.
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This Newport Beach couple was celebrating their wedding anniversary, and Peggy just turning 38.
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It was her birthday, you know, so she was in good spirits. Glenda Slosser was one of the friends they'd invited to a big party a couple of days earlier.
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She's talking about how much she loves Eric, you know, how great life is. And maybe life was great.
00:03:46
No, no, be real gentle. Be real gentle. Because Peggy had it all. Her story begins in a small town, Dexter, New Mexico.
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This is where Peggy made her entrance. I have often said that she was born winking at the doctor and swinging on the chandelier.
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Peggy was June and Glenn Marshall's fourth child. And June says Peggy was going places from the very day she was born.
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She was never still. She danced, sang, played sports, and it seemed nothing could hold her back.
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She had scoliosis as a kid. Young Peggy had to wear a brace around the clock. That's a terrible burden for a young kid like that to bear.
00:04:31
But it also kind of ended up motivating her, didn't it? It really did. Peggy's doctor talked with her about a career in physical therapy.
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She volunteered and loved it. And she made up her mind right then that she wanted to be a physical therapist.
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And she wanted to move to California and be a beautiful blonde. So she did. A farmer's daughter with big dreams.
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So Peggy left the small town of Dexter for sunny California and settled in Newport Beach.
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That's where she met Glenda, who was also from New Mexico, and they immediately hit it off.
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Peggy was probably one of the most gregarious people that I've ever met. She was happy and she was always smiling.
00:05:14
And, says Glenda, Peggy was driven to establish herself as a successful physical therapist.
00:05:20
she had almost everything she wanted. She did want to find a guy. And the clock was ticking a little bit.
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It was. And then one day on the beach, you found somebody for her. We did. So one afternoon on a weekend, Peggy called me and said, what are you doing?
00:05:42
And I said, well, I'm going to go down and watch Dave play some volleyball on the beach.
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Dave was Glenda's husband. I asked Peggy if she wanted to come down with me and she said absolutely. She immediately
00:05:53
spotted Eric and said who that Eric Beckler then in his early 20s was a walking commercial for the California beach life I going to guess that when she notices a guy playing beach volleyball he good looking and in great shape
00:06:09
Indeed he was. And handsome. Very. He was all those things. And he was available. He was also eight years younger.
00:06:19
Was that a problem for either one of them? It was not a problem for either one of them.
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Peggy, you know, when she sets her side on something, she's going to make it happen.
00:06:28
And it developed really quickly, really, really quickly. Within a year, they were married.
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Within four years, they had three beautiful kids. Peggy and Eric went into business together.
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She opened up her own physical therapy business, and Eric, a computer whiz, managed the technical side of their venture, which quickly became very profitable.
00:06:50
Her business was doing good and she was happily married. And the happy couple was also happily spending a lot of money on a German sports car, Italian
00:07:01
clothing and a spectacular bluff side home in Newport Beach. They were the little dream story.
00:07:09
Beautiful girl, good looking guy, drive nice cars, beautiful children. Until that summer day in 1997, when the unimaginable happened.
00:07:21
Male, kind of distraught, said that his wife fell overboard. It was a boating accident, said Eric, and the Coast Guard agreed, something they see
00:07:30
all too often. But soon, secrets emerged that would make some people wonder, what really happened to
00:07:38
Peggy Beckler? When we come back... I absolutely thought they'd find her. Maybe alive.
00:07:45
I did, because she was a fabulous swimmer. Where was Peggy, and what had gone wrong on that boat?
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You know, he'd been crying, and his face is red, and he looks upset. There would be a sea of questions to come.
00:07:59
You thought, what, Peggy faked her death? It's said there's nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing
00:08:22
the shoreline. This was supposed to be something like that. A romantic outing. An anniversary and birthday gift Eric Beckler planned for his wife Peggy, but it turned
00:08:35
into something else. And now Peggy was gone. And the wife apparently fell off the boat.
00:08:41
The Coast Guard immediately launched a search, but by nightfall, no sign of Peggy, alive or otherwise.
00:08:50
And so Eric called Peggy's mom, June. He says, we can't find Peggy. And I said, what do you mean you can't find her? Where is she? What are you trying to tell me?
00:09:04
Eric told June that Peggy was driving the boat, towing him on a body board, when all
00:09:10
of a sudden a wave wiped him out. When he came up from under the water, he said, he could no longer see Peggy inside the boat.
00:09:19
We thought they should be finding her because we really just thought she would swim out
00:09:25
of it. You see, Peggy was quite at home in the water. Growing up, it was the only time she didn't have to wear that back brace.
00:09:35
And she became a very accomplished swimmer. She wouldn't panic. She would swim because she loved the water.
00:09:43
The next morning, June and Glenn Marshall were on the first flight out to California.
00:09:48
Peggy had been missing almost 24 hours. Of course, that ocean is just bigger, bigger, bigger than you think about if you're in New Mexico.
00:09:56
Peggy's friend Glenda tried to stay optimistic. I absolutely thought they'd find her.
00:10:05
Maybe alive. I did, because she was a fabulous swimmer. Glenda went to the Beckler house to see Eric.
00:10:13
How'd he look? Hysterical, a little bit. He'd been crying, and his face is red, and all of those things.
00:10:23
He looked upset, as he should be, one would expect. She is the best. She's the best person.
00:10:35
This video from local news shows a devastated Eric. It was now day two of the search for Peggy.
00:10:44
Still nothing. The next day, the Coast Guard interviewed Eric. I'm going to do the inquiry into the voting section.
00:10:50
Eric Beckler could barely speak. What did you take with you? We had a couple bags and a cooler.
00:11:02
We wanted to see if we could see Catalina, but it was so hazy. I told Peggy that it was too hazy, you shouldn't go too far out.
00:11:11
Eric told the Coast Guard he tried to bodyboard on the way out and said there was a pretty good swell in the ocean.
00:11:18
It was as high as the other side of the road, probably. It was, you know, big enough to notice.
00:11:25
Eric said they stopped out here on the water to enjoy some margaritas Peggy had made.
00:11:30
And then later in the day, they decided to try the bodyboard again, this time on their
00:11:34
way back to the harbor. Peggy was driving. Eric was being pulled on the board. I mean, there's a way to get real big, and all of a sudden, they just jerked out my car.
00:11:45
Oh, okay. Yeah, I just didn't hold on it. I came out of my baby right there. I was just going in circles but I couldn see her You just see the pain standing there on the wheel I mean the boat kept going farther and farther away
00:12:05
And I couldn't see any other boat. I was screaming. I didn't look around. It was my fault.
00:12:13
It was my fault. It was my fault. It was my fault. And so Peggy Beckler was simply gone.
00:12:22
Maybe even within sight of the same beach. that had spawned her marriage. Eric seemed devastated,
00:12:30
fearing his wife and business partner was dead. But Eric's mother, Linda, saw things quite differently.
00:12:38
I was sure that they would find her, that it would all turn out well. Not just because Peggy was a strong swimmer.
00:12:46
Everyone knew that. Linda knew more, a secret, about her daughter-in-law. And you thought, what, Peggy faked her death?
00:12:55
or disappeared deliberately coming up Peggy's secret what was it stopped me on the stairway said I have to talk to you and enter the bikini model she was
00:13:09
just a hot number as they say how would she figure into all of this when Dateline continues
00:13:25
A brilliant Pacific Ocean sunset closed out day three of the search for Peggy Beckler.
00:13:37
And even though Peggy's family and friends tried to remain hopeful, reality was slowly starting to set in.
00:13:45
And it was painful. At this point, you didn't think she was alive anymore. I kept thinking that she was.
00:13:52
But how could she, you know, that length of time? Unless, of course, what appeared to be an accident was not.
00:14:01
The Coast Guard conducted a reenactment at sea to try to understand how Peggy could have fallen off the boat.
00:14:08
And they couldn't do it. They said it just doesn't appear to be feasible to them, given the sea conditions.
00:14:16
That's when the Coast Guard called the Orange County Sheriff's Office. Detective Sean Murphy was put on the case.
00:14:23
They weren't able to duplicate even close to what was alleged by Eric Beckler that his wife was tossed off by a rogue wave.
00:14:31
If Peggy's disappearance was no accident, Murphy's job was to find out what did happen.
00:14:37
Detectives started by re-interviewing Eric and asking him about his relationship with Peggy.
00:14:43
He said his marriage was good. There was no problems with it. You didn't take his word for it?
00:14:47
No, in our game, we don't take anyone's word for anything. We look into it, and that's what we did.
00:14:53
They met with the improbably named Kobe Laker, Eric's best friend. And Kobe backed up Eric.
00:15:01
They had a terrific marriage, and there was no problems whatsoever. But if the marriage seemed solid, there were questions about Peggy,
00:15:09
at least according to Linda Beckler, Eric's mother. Linda says Peggy told her something in confidence.
00:15:15
just before she disappeared. Stopped me on the stairway as I was leaving and said,
00:15:22
came on up and said, I have to talk to you. She said, I'm afraid I'm going to jail.
00:15:27
According to court documents, about a year before Peggy disappeared, the couple sold their physical therapy business to another company,
00:15:35
but they stayed on as employees. Then, just four months before Peggy vanished, the Becklers were fired.
00:15:41
amid allegations they had overbilled Medicare for more than a million dollars. So, when Linda heard Peggy had vanished...
00:15:51
I started thinking about how disturbed she was about going to jail. And she wondered if Peggy had somehow staged her own disappearance.
00:16:02
Peggy's friend Glenda said, no way. Was Peggy Beckler capable of committing white-collar crime, Medicare overbilling?
00:16:11
In my opinion, no. But if you're wrong about that, then maybe the idea that she faked her death to escape possible prosecution for that, maybe that's a little bit more plausible.
00:16:25
But white-collar crime and faking your death and leaving your children and your family are two really separate issues.
00:16:33
Glenda said Peggy adored her children and would never abandon them. I will say that people who have never been in the inside of a courtroom or the inside of a jail cell
00:16:45
sometimes do pretty crazy things when they realize that might happen to them. I believe that, but not Peggy.
00:16:54
Glenda did tell the detectives that Peggy and Eric were having some issues, like how Peggy was busy with work and kids, while Eric seemed occupied on the volleyball court.
00:17:05
She just confided in me that they were having some financial troubles because, you know, they had a pretty high lifestyle to keep up with.
00:17:14
Glenda said Eric and Peggy seemed determined to work everything out. But now Peggy was gone, and Eric was a single dad with three kids under the age of four.
00:17:26
And a new player was about to enter the story. You were drawn to Eric right away?
00:17:31
Yes. Like countless young women before her, Tina New had drop-dead looks and Hollywood dreams.
00:17:39
She'd done some bikini modeling and had a small part on the TV show Baywatch Nights.
00:17:46
But that turned out to be the peak of her career. Soon Tina found herself slipping into the darker side of showbiz.
00:17:53
She started doing drugs and lost custody of her two young children because of it and fell for a succession of guys who did not treat her kindly I mean I had an ex put a gun to my head
00:18:05
I'm going to play Russian roulette between me and him. I was held over the balcony by my neck.
00:18:10
Tina, who was broke and near rock bottom, was desperate. I got down on my knees,
00:18:16
literally begging. And I said, I'll do whatever you want. Lord, just help me. I can't do this
00:18:20
anymore. I need you to show me a sign. And the universe sent you Eric Beckler. The next day, I meet him, and all my problems are gone.
00:18:28
She had taken a modeling gig, eye candy, at a trade show. Eric was there promoting his new business.
00:18:35
It was three months to the day since Peggy had disappeared. I just thought he was really handsome.
00:18:40
So there was some serious chemistry from the beginning. Yes. We went out that night, actually.
00:18:46
He asked me out that night. And then I moved in the next day, really fast. You don't wait, do you?
00:18:51
No. Not then. Eric lived in a giant house and drove a Porsche. And he was a gentleman in her life, after a long string of men who were not gentle.
00:19:03
I'd never been spoiled like that. I remember thinking I was like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.
00:19:09
Tina was moved by Eric's story. He said to me that his wife died in a tragic boat accident and that they were never able to find her.
00:19:18
She couldn't help noticing how great he was with his kids. He would sit on the floor and play with them, and I actually thought he was a great dad.
00:19:25
And she was eager to help, taking care of the kids while Eric went, as usual, to the beach to play volleyball.
00:19:32
I thought they'd lost their mom, they need someone to step in and not be their mom, but do things their mom would do for them.
00:19:38
But when they took the kids to visit Peggy's parents... There was a lot of animosity towards me, and I understood why.
00:19:45
But all they saw was this hot young woman who'd been brought in to replace their missing daughter.
00:19:49
Right, right, in exactly three months to the day. I can't even imagine what they were thinking.
00:19:55
Peggy's family wasn't alone. Detective Sean Murphy had also noticed the new woman in Eric Beckler's life.
00:20:02
Just ostentatious. I mean, she was just a hot number, as they say. And she was cohabitating with him right after this horrible boating accident with his wife.
00:20:14
So Murphy arranged to bump into Tina. And said, hey, if you have any information about this boating accident involving Eric, your boyfriend, just give us a call.
00:20:25
And I gave her my card with my number on it. Nothing came of it. Tina didn't call.
00:20:31
But someone else did. Coming up, the best friend has second thoughts. Colby Laker goes undercover.
00:20:40
I protected you. I basically made you look like a saint. And the new girlfriend is about to see this case in a whole new light.
00:20:50
I put the videotape in and I said, oh my gosh, what is this? To Detective Sean Murphy, it sounded more than suspicious.
00:21:10
Eric Beckler taking up with a gorgeous redhead just three months after his wife was lost at sea.
00:21:17
But Murphy didn't have much more than a gnawing in his gut until his phone rang.
00:21:21
We got a call from Kobe's lawyer. Said he wanted to arrange an interview again with Kobe.
00:21:28
Kobe Laker, Eric's best friend and volleyball buddy. He told sheriff's detectives the Beckler marriage was great.
00:21:37
Now he had a different story. Eric's told me on several occasions that he's sick and tired of his wife.
00:21:43
And he would tell me that he just couldn't take it anymore. He was tired of it. About seven months before Peggy vanished,
00:21:52
Kobe says he and Eric had a conversation that Kobe describes as haunting him ever since.
00:22:00
Eric asked me about what he thought, what I thought of the idea of him killing his wife.
00:22:06
and I was really shocked. I didn't know what to say. He told me subsequently that he was thinking of taking her out to the ocean
00:22:17
and dumping her in a barrel. He said that when he saw that there was a boating accident
00:22:23
and Eric's wife was missing, he knew right then and there, he saw it on TV, he knew that he'd killed his wife.
00:22:29
And he lied to us, he said, because he panicked and he was afraid and he didn't know what to do.
00:22:35
Detectives convinced Kobe to wear a wire and to meet Eric at a restaurant in Orange County.
00:22:41
Eric had no idea that police were listening in. Even so, he stuck to his story that Peggy's death was a terrible accident.
00:22:49
I was there. I know what happened. It's so hard for me to understand. You know, there could be no other people to think anything else.
00:22:59
You never said, hey, look, man, I don't know what the f*** you guys are talking about, but I'm innocent.
00:23:05
You've never said anything about anything. I have so. Do I have to say it every week?
00:23:09
Kobe tried again. I protected you. I basically made you look like a saint in the interview I had with the detectives.
00:23:19
A dead end. But detectives were now convinced that Eric killed his wife. Even though it didn't lead to anything, that conversation with Kobe, that got you from suspicion.
00:23:29
to knowing. Yeah, it moved it all the way over, so we knew we had a homicide. But knowing it and proving it were two very different things.
00:23:38
You didn't get to process that boat as a crime scene for like almost a week. Right, right. So that
00:23:43
wasn't good. That hindered the investigation. The boat, said Detective Murphy, was pretty clean.
00:23:51
Crime scene did find blood, just one drop, under one of the cushions, but not enough to determine whether it was human.
00:24:00
But it could have come from a fish. Not enough evidence to arrest Eric for murder or even prove that a murder occurred.
00:24:08
Peggy's close friend Glenda didn't believe Eric was a killer. There's no way that Eric would have done that.
00:24:15
You know, I mean, there's just absolutely no way. It was unfathomable to me. Tina knew, felt the same way.
00:24:21
I felt like the police were just trying to frame an innocent man. I thought there's no way.
00:24:25
The way he treats me, there's no way he could have hurt his wife. Tina also noticed that Eric kept photos of Peggy in every room of the house.
00:24:33
She could not imagine that a man who had killed his wife would want to see her face everywhere.
00:24:39
Eric was really the answer to all your problems for a while, wasn't he? Yeah, he was.
00:24:43
So you weren't too anxious to question him? No, I believed him. And after about six months...
00:24:50
He says, will you marry me? Yes. And you say? I said yes. You don't say no a lot.
00:24:55
Yeah, I mean, he treated me so good. She also admits she knew Eric was due to collect more than $2 million in insurance money
00:25:04
once he was cleared in his wife's disappearance. And everything would work out. Everything would work out, yep.
00:25:11
Well, you were wrong. I was definitely wrong. They'd been a couple for two years, still not married, but living together off and on.
00:25:20
One night, Tina was showing Eric some of her old modeling shots and TV appearances.
00:25:25
We were looking at my pictures, but then I put the videotape in, and yeah, I'm fast-forwarding
00:25:30
it and it just stops. Purely by chance, Tina accidentally recorded a news report about Peggy's disappearance.
00:25:38
The whole screen was just a picture of her face, and I said, oh my gosh, what is this?
00:25:43
Then, she turned to Eric. And I looked at him, his face turned white. Like he literally lost the color in his face.
00:25:50
And he said to me, how did you get that? And I said, I don't know. His reaction troubled her, but she hit play and it just got worse.
00:26:00
The news report did not match the story Erica told her about Peggy's disappearance.
00:26:06
And he told me there was three to four foot waves. It was really choppy out there.
00:26:10
But on the report, they said, on the day Peggy went missing, there were only two-foot waves.
00:26:16
And the weather was described as ideal. He lied. He lied all this time to me. And he was just really quiet.
00:26:25
He's sitting right next to you. He's sitting right next to me. How does Eric look at that point?
00:26:29
Flushed and stressed. I yelled at him and said, why is this different than what you told me?
00:26:35
And he just got really quiet. Then, she says, Eric Beckler told her a new version of what happened when Peyton fell off the boat.
00:26:44
He thinks she hid awake and she fell off. And he said, and I didn't get to her. And I said, you didn't get to her or you didn't want to get to her?
00:26:53
And he said, at first he said, he told me that he didn't get to her. Then later he changed it and said, I could have helped her, but I didn't.
00:27:00
Now that's completely different from what he told police. Right. Chilling as that sounded, Tina feared it still wasn't the whole story.
00:27:11
She was determined to get the rest. But like a career in showbiz, you have to be careful what you wish for.
00:27:20
Coming up. I don't trust you. I'm afraid of you. Nobody knows anything but you. From model and actress to undercover agent.
00:27:29
A secret operation to learn the truth. This is where it gets really scary. When Dateline continues.
00:27:48
Tina New thought she'd found happiness with Eric Beckler until he changed his story about what happened the day his wife disappeared in the ocean.
00:27:59
You didn't think about going to police? No, not yet. I just felt like it wasn't telling the truth all the way.
00:28:06
And I was really afraid because he was always with me. Afraid, yet they continued to see each other, sleep together, and party together.
00:28:17
About two weeks after Eric changed his story, he and Tina went to a club and took the drug ecstasy.
00:28:24
We get home we walk inside the house and we just both laying on the bed staring straight up at the ceiling together All of a sudden as we were talking it just came to me and I said to him I said Oh my God you hit her over the head And he goes How did you know that
00:28:38
The fact is, she hadn't known. Call it intuition, or the effects of the drug, or a random guess.
00:28:46
But it was an opening, and Tina barreled through. I said, You need to tell me the truth.
00:28:52
He's calmly talking to me, and he says, I'm going to tell you the truth. He goes, we had this huge party, so everybody could see how happy we were together.
00:29:02
All their friends were there, witnesses to the happy marriage. Then a couple of days later, she says, Eric told her he took Peggy out to sea on that rented boat,
00:29:13
and although Peggy didn't know it, he took along some weights. And he goes, then I walked up behind her and he goes, Tina, I hit her so hard she didn't feel a thing.
00:29:21
And I'm just like, what do you mean you hit her so hard? He goes, I hit her over the head with a weight.
00:29:26
She said he told her there was blood everywhere. Then, Tina says, Eric Beckler told her how he got rid of his wife.
00:29:35
He did some knot that he knows, and he did her wrists and her ankles together so she was completely bent in half.
00:29:42
He said he took the two trash bags that he had and put her body in it, and then he said he put the weights and tied it down to the robe and threw her in.
00:29:50
Two years after Peggy vanished, a stunning confession. And then do you go to sleep next to a man that you believe is a killer?
00:29:58
No, actually, then we have sex. And I felt like I had to do it because I think that made him feel like I was going to be quiet.
00:30:07
And, you know, that he was, I don't know, sealing the deal with me or something.
00:30:11
But the deal was not sealed. Not with anyone. The case was still open and detectives had been keeping an eye on Eric and Tina all along.
00:30:20
They knew the relationship was growing volatile. We were excited about it in a morbid kind of way because we knew it was going to go sideways.
00:30:29
Because when relationships go sideways, sometimes people start talking. That's right.
00:30:34
And that's what happened two weeks after Eric's apparent confession. A neighbor called 911 after hearing yelling coming from Tina's apartment.
00:30:43
When police arrived, Eric was gone. But Tina was angry. And she still had the business card Detective Murphy had given her almost two years earlier.
00:30:54
I grabbed my partner and we went out there in the middle of the night and we met up with Tina.
00:30:59
She told Detective Murphy and his partner Gary Jones what Eric had said. A big break, yes, but not nearly enough for an arrest.
00:31:08
Remember, Tina was pretty far from an ideal witness. Detectives knew they'd need more than her word against Eric's.
00:31:15
So they asked Tina, Will you be willing to wear a wire? And I said, yes, that's the only way you're going to get him.
00:31:21
Why would you turn in a guy who had basically taken you from a terrible life and given you a great life?
00:31:28
Because I couldn't live with myself. I mean, no way. Police planted microphones in her car, in her purse, and on her body.
00:31:37
And Tina arranged a meeting. She told Eric that after the domestic violence call,
00:31:43
sheriff's homicide detectives came in to ask questions about Eric. This dinner day, Tina told Eric, was to get their stories straight
00:31:51
in case the cops questioned her again. Tina, wired up, picked up Eric from his home
00:31:57
and drove to a restaurant called El Torito. Were you worried about this? Not really. I was more worried that I wasn't going to get him to confess it again.
00:32:07
I have two stories in my head. I don't want to screw up at all. Okay, there's no story to tell. You weren't there. It was an accident.
00:32:14
What's that in my writing? Once inside the restaurant, Tina tried to get Eric to repeat the details of Peggy's death.
00:32:22
Eric wouldn't go there. Don't you worry about details? Details are not important.
00:32:27
So Tina tried to get him to say why he did it. You could have just had a divorce. Why did you go to that degree?
00:32:34
I mean, what else if you don't get so mad at me? I've been way more mad at you than ever.
00:32:40
I know, so how did you do that? I don't know. It's no confession, but it's not a denial either.
00:32:46
Are you thinking to yourself at that point, that's it, I got him. I honestly thought that was good, but I still thought that wasn't enough.
00:32:53
Peggy, you do know. There was a reason. Was it for the money or it was for the money?
00:32:56
No. Remember Peggy had a life insurance policy worth more than million Peggy we only probably about the kids Again she tried to get him to give her a reason
00:33:15
And Eric reassured Tina. She was good. She was really good. But the drama wasn't over.
00:33:26
Tina left the restaurant with Eric, still wired up. This is where it gets really scary.
00:33:32
So we're walking out to the car and he says to me, let me drive. That was not part of the plan.
00:33:39
We lose sight of him. Now, you know, in a movie, this is where you hear the sound of gunshots.
00:33:44
That would not have been good. In the car, with Eric now behind the wheel, Tina cranked up her acting skills
00:33:52
and the tension. I can't live in the car! Just tell him God, I haven't talked about it
00:33:57
for over a year and a half and you don't remember the details. You're making me lie and it's not easy for me.
00:34:01
I'm not making you do anything. Erica, turn me in if you want to. Turn me in for what?
00:34:05
Turn me in. I don't care at this point. Turn you in for what? Tell him everything.
00:34:09
What? Whatever you want. Don't you talk to me that way. Now Tina tried to get Eric out of the car.
00:34:17
Pull my car over now. I don't trust you. I'm afraid of you now. I'm just, I'm asking.
00:34:26
You don't have to. nobody knows anything but you you don't have to tell anybody anything Eric pulled
00:34:31
over and got out and Tina hopped in the driver's seat and just like that Tina new drove away from her old life in the end you got enough oh absolutely yeah
00:34:47
you understand you're under arrest Eric was arrested and charged with Peggy's murder what was it like to get the call that Eric had been arrested well I just
00:34:56
It just trembled all over. I couldn't really believe it. But two weeks after Eric's arrest made headlines,
00:35:04
Tina made some headlines of her own that put the whole case in jeopardy. Coming up...
00:35:13
I did not commit this crime. Eric Beckler on trial. And Tina's credibility? That's on trial, too.
00:35:20
Do you think anybody would believe you? No. Without that statement, they don't have anything that makes this a homicide.
00:35:40
Beach volleyball is a kids game played by grown-ups. Murder for profit is played only by adults.
00:35:49
And it's for keeps. Prosecutors believed Eric Beckler was trying to be successful at both.
00:35:57
Detectives had put him in jail. But then, two weeks after Eric's arrest, came this headline in the local paper.
00:36:04
Witness in murder case doubts suspects guilt. Tina New, who'd worn a wire and helped police nail Eric,
00:36:13
now said maybe he didn't kill Peggy. They knew that the kids had lost their mom,
00:36:19
and now they're going to probably lose their debt for a very long time. And so I felt guilty.
00:36:23
Guilty that she'd helped jail a man she once thought she'd marry. I remember he called me from the jail and he told me that he had tried to hang himself with his sheets.
00:36:33
It was Eric's frantic behavior from the lockup. That was enough to make you think twice.
00:36:39
I didn't want him to die. You felt guilty. I felt guilty. And you tried to roll the whole thing back.
00:36:44
Yeah, I did. But she says she always believed he was guilty. And in the winter of 2000, Eric Beckler went on trial.
00:36:52
The star witness, Tina New, a witness who was, to be fair, compromised. Not just by her waffling about Eric's guilt and her own checkered past,
00:37:02
but also by one detail in the story Tina says Eric told her, something defense attorney John Barnett says is critical.
00:37:10
You'd expect if Peggy's head was caved in by 35-pound dumbbells, there'd be blood.
00:37:20
Quite a lot of it. Everywhere. And there wasn't. On the stand, Tina tried to defend herself.
00:37:26
I'm a horrible witness when it comes to looking at me on paper. Do you think anybody would believe you?
00:37:32
No I knew that I told exactly what he had said to me and I knew that I was doing the right thing And I honestly didn care what anybody thought
00:37:42
Then there was the conversation she had recorded at El Torito, Eric's own words.
00:37:47
The jury heard all of them. Nobody knows anything but you. Barnett offered his own explanation.
00:37:54
I argued that the reason he said it is to shut her up, to calm her down. In any event, the defense said, Eric never said on tape that he hit Peggy.
00:38:05
The only person who heard him say that was Tina, a drug user, a woman with a fraud conviction on her record.
00:38:13
Without that statement, they have a lot of circumstantial evidence and a lot of what-ifs, but they don't have anything that makes this a homicide.
00:38:22
The defense offered another theory about Peggy Beckler. She was under a great deal of pressure and could easily be distracted.
00:38:30
And in combination with alcohol, which she rarely drank, but she did on that day,
00:38:36
could contribute to a lack of care in driving the boat. You don't think Peggy Beckler faked her death? You think she's dead?
00:38:44
I don't think she faked her death. No, I do not think that. You think she died accidentally and her body still hasn't been found?
00:38:50
That's right. Prosecutor Debbie Lloyd argued Peggy's death was Eric's doing. He basically had three and a half million reasons to kill her.
00:38:59
And that's about what he stood to gain if he had gotten away with it. And said the prosecutor the circumstantial evidence was compelling.
00:39:06
Eric had a weight tree back at home that appeared to be incomplete. Investigators believed Eric used the missing weights to kill Peggy and then sink her body.
00:39:17
And what about the blood? A luminol test conducted on the boat indicated there might have been a lot of blood in the boat,
00:39:25
but that it was cleaned up, matching Tina's testimony about blood everywhere. And of course, there was Tina herself.
00:39:34
Despite her past and her criminal record and her drug use, she rang true to you.
00:39:39
Yes, absolutely. Who would the jury believe? And would Tina's past make a difference?
00:39:45
It doesn't matter what I did before or after I met him. you know, what I did with myself has nothing to do with what he did.
00:39:52
After seven days, the verdict. Guilty of first-degree murder. You're thrilled that the man who did it is behind bars,
00:40:00
but nobody wins in this situation. Nobody. The children now have no mother and no father, so there is no winner.
00:40:09
But the jury did not believe Eric killed Peggy for the money. He was found not guilty of murder for financial gain.
00:40:17
At his sentencing, Eric Beckler addressed the judge, once again denying he killed Peggy.
00:40:23
The accident was a horrible tragedy that has been fallen to both of our families.
00:40:29
And as much as the marshals are hurting, my family is also hurting because I did not commit this crime.
00:40:35
The judge sentenced him to life without the possibility of parole. Eric's mother, Linda, thinks the verdict was wrong.
00:40:43
Is it possible you don't know your son as well as you think you do? Oh, baloney. I know that kid like the back of my hand.
00:40:50
Look, I can understand a mother not wanting to believe her son committed a crime.
00:40:57
Listen, if my kid was a druggie, doper, never do well, thief, rapist. Murderer? Well, yeah, but he isn't. He isn't.
00:41:10
Peggy Beckler's body has never been found. You want to know what happened, but you still don't want to hear murder.
00:41:18
But at least now you know. That's still pretty hard to take. And even with all this information, we don't have a body.
00:41:28
You all right? Yeah. You discover you were stronger than you thought you were? Oh, yeah.
00:41:34
Peggy's mother and sister ended up raising her kids. and one more person who was stronger than she thought, Tina New.
00:41:42
You're leading a different life these days. Completely different life. She gave up drugs, married a nice guy, and is a working mom with five kids.
00:41:52
A Hollywood happy ending? No, sometimes real life is better. That's all for now.
00:42:01
I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us. you