Bechler’s best man says he talked of killing
Deepa Bharath
SANTA ANA -- Accused murderer Eric Bechler discussed dumping his
wife’s body into the ocean three months before she disappeared, the best
man to his wedding testified Thursday.
Acting as a witness for the prosecution, Kobi Laker said Bechler had
told him he was thinking about “taking her out to sea and dumping her in
the ocean.”
Bechler, 33, has been charged with killing his 38-year-old wife,
Pegye, during their boating trip on July 6, 1997, an excursion Bechler
planned as a surprise for their fifth wedding anniversary.
Although prosecutors accuse him of murdering his wife to get $2.5
million in life insurance, the Newport Beach man has pleaded not guilty,
saying she was pushed into the ocean by a wave when she was driving a
speedboat and towing him on a bodyboard.
Laker, who was Eric Bechler’s best man when he married Pegye on the
sands of Newport Beach, choked as he recalled his friend’s words one
afternoon in March 1997 as they relaxed after their usual game of
volleyball.
“He just asked me point blank, ‘What do you think about the
possibility of killing my wife,”’ Laker said. “I was shocked and asked
him ‘Are you serious? Have things gotten that bad?”’
Laker said Bechler clearly discussed a plan, telling him that he was
thinking of stuffing Pegye in a barrel and dumping her in the ocean.
“I asked him ‘If this happens, you’re going to get a lot of heat, can
you take that?’ and he said ‘yes,”” Laker said. “I asked him, ‘Are you
going to be able to act like a distraught, bereaving husband,’ and he
said, ‘yes.”’
Laker told his friend he didn’t want to hear about the idea ever
again. They never spoke about it again.
Laker also said Bechler had been complaining about his wife as early
as a year before she disappeared, calling her “obsessed, selfish,
manipulative and controlling.”
“Eric told me ‘I can’t stand this any more,”’ Laker said. “He said ‘I
have to get out of this, get away from her.”’
On another occasion, Laker testified, Bechler had also mentioned his
plan to videotape his wife using cocaine to prove she was an unfit mother
to their three children. Bechler told him he was concerned about Pegye’s
threats to divorce him and take the children to live with her family in
New Mexico and that he would never be able to see them again.
Laker added that it was difficult for him, emotionally, to testify
against a person who was once his best friend.
But, he continued, he has been consumed by guilt ever since Pegye
disappeared.
“I feel like I could have done something to stop it,” he said.
Laker told Bechler’s defense attorney, John Barnett, that Bechler told
him after his wife’s disappearance that he was innocent. But he also said
that Bechler did not “continually say he was innocent.”
Earlier, Barnett concluded his cross-questioning of Bechler’s
ex-girlfriend Tina New, who told jurors earlier this week about Bechler
describing the gruesome details of killing his wife.
Police arrested Bechler the night of Oct. 29, 1999, after New wore a
recording device to tape her conversations with Bechler in a restaurant,
during which Bechler told her he murdered his wife.
Barnett continued to question New, aiming to establish his theory that
his client lied about killing his wife to impress his wild girlfriend,
who was attracted to “bad boys” -- men who lived dangerously. New told
Barnett on Thursday that she tried to get back with her ex-husband, who
abused her, and her former boyfriend, who she said has committed a murder
and stolen from Bechler.
New told Barnett she didn’t like “bad boys.”
“I like [my former boyfriend] because he was 6 feet 4 and 230 pounds
and beautiful,” she said. “I was attracted to him because of the way he
looked, not because he stole or hit somebody on the head with a bottle.”
The hearing is scheduled to continue Jan. 3.
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