I'll Take Care of You (19 page)

“Please, please, it's your house. Don't put that up because she will find a way to make you regret that. Your son has been duped.”

Ronnie sounded very sad as she thanked Sandy for calling. “I don't know what I'm going to do,” she said.

 

 

Once Nanette's bail was reduced to $250,000, she managed to cover the bond, and she was released on April 24, after spending nearly two weeks behind bars.

Nanette wasted no time before buying a new car, but she was not about to give up her luxury tastes even though her sugar daddy was gone. On May 2, she decided she needed a black 1988 BMW 750iL, with 65,000 miles on it, formerly owned by actor Dennis Quaid.

Her credit application for the car listed Eric Naposki as a reference and her sister, Stephanie King, in Scottsdale, Arizona, as the nearest relative.

Nanette claimed once again that she owned the Seashore house, listing it as her current address, with a market value of $1.2 million. She also cited two employers, saying she'd worked for Johnny's Burgers since March 1995 and for Krishel, Inc., since 1990, claiming she earned a monthly income of $11,000 as a “consultant to people starting up new businesses, writing business plans for companies.” (Krishel wasn't formed until October 1994, and Nanette told police that she was unemployed.)

Detective Voth got a tip about the BMW purchase from someone who saw Nanette driving it. Voth tracked down the car, and seeing
Cove Motoring
on the plate frame, he paid a visit to the dealership, where he learned that Nanette had come in with a big guy, six-foot-one, 250 to 270 pounds, with dark hair and a “bad hairpiece.”

“Did you fill out the application?” Voth asked the salesman, who identified Eric from a photo lineup.

“No, they did,” he said.

Chase Manhattan Bank and California Thrift and Loan had initially denied the loan application because Nanette had no proof that she owned the Seashore house. She left the dealership and came back with State Farm fire insurance paperwork that listed her and Bill McLaughlin as the policyholders.

She also attached 1993 and 1994 federal tax returns to the application, showing adjusted gross income of $197,089 and $222,271, respectively. California Thrift approved the loan, financing the entire $19,869 price of the BMW, which came to $20,398, and Nanette drove off in her new car.

CHAPTER 26

Slowly but surely, Nanette's relationship with Eric began to unravel as the clamp came down on her financial shenanigans, although it's unclear exactly when or why they finally broke up.

As Eric tells it, he had a stop-and-start relationship with Nanette in 1995—mostly off—because he didn't trust her once he realized she was involved in Bill's murder. He claimed he was mostly away playing football before he returned to Connecticut, where he'd started dating a new woman by October.

However, authorities say the couple was still communicating and spending time together for up to a year after Bill's murder, based on the following facts:

After Kim and Kevin ran into Eric at the Seashore house, the McLaughlins filed paperwork to evict him and Nanette—and anyone else associated with her—from the house in May.

In mid-May, the Canadian Football League's Baltimore Football Club signed twenty-eight-year-old Eric, who then headed off to training camp. A month later, he left for the Ottawa Rough Riders' practice fields, another CFL team. (Detective Tom Voth's notes say Eric was in Memphis on June 14.)

But on August 10, 1995, Newport Beach police took a photo of Eric's Pathfinder parked in the garage of Nanette's newly rented house on Foxhollow in Dove Canyon. Eric claimed he'd left town by then, and had only flown back into town for Nanette's preliminary hearing, which started August 7. At the close of the prelim, the judge bound Nanette over for trial on charges of theft and forgery.

During a search of her house, however, investigators found typed instructions on Nanette's computer to her attorney, dated August 1995, in which she stated that Eric should get $50,000 if she died.

Prosecutor Matt Murphy also pointed out that Eric, Nanette, and Kristofer posed for a photo with a soccer trophy at the end of the 1995 season—further evidence that Eric was still in contact with Nanette in December 1995, when the trophy ceremony was held, a year after the murder.

Despite Eric's claims that he didn't trust Nanette and wanted nothing to do with her, the police also found evidence that the two of them were conducting business deals together that summer.

One proposal involved a friend of Eric's from the nightclub scene, a movie producer named Juan Gonzales (pseudonym), with whom he entered into a limited liability corporation called Midnight Moon Productions (MMP).

A fifteen-page business plan for MMP, also found on Nanette's computer, stated:
[The corporation] was established for the purpose of producing projects for film, video cable and television, acquiring rights to marketable film and television properties.
Eric was the producer in charge of television production, and Gonzales was the executive producer in charge of film, television and commercial production. Gonzales listed credits including feature films starring Clint Eastwood and Quentin Tarantino.

Gonzales's phone number, which had an 818 prefix and was noted on the business plan, was found on Nanette's car phone records on December 8, 13, and 14, 1994. Although police obtained those records with a warrant in early March, there is no documentation that detectives explored that particular connection at the time.

Eric and Nanette were also working on launching a professional women's basketball league with Art and Dominic Menaldi. The four of them were to be equal partners, each holding 25 percent of the shares.

 

 

On a parallel track, Nanette was launching some nefarious schemes. She sent out letters from the Dove Canyon house, asking people for guaranteed loans. She said she was awaiting life insurance payouts totaling more than $10 million from one company alone, but she needed money right away.

To Whom It May Concern,
she wrote,
I am making this offer as an investment opportunity due to my need for immediate cash to fund my current business venture.

As her “current business interests,” she cited annual income of “just under $200,000” for the past two years working for Krishel, Inc., half the rights to a patent for a filtration device through Gelman Sciences (this was Bill's device, and why she mentioned a connection to Gelman, a legitimate company, is unclear), and a 10 percent ownership share of a $21 million Mexican village under development in Rancho Mirage, scheduled for completion in early 1997 (Bill's desert project).

 

 

At her arraignment in October 1995, Nanette pleaded not guilty to the charges of forgery and theft. Then, on December 12, she had the audacity to file a palimony lawsuit against the estate of Bill McLaughlin and its executrix, Kim McLaughlin.

Nanette alleged that she'd had an oral agreement with Bill, dating back to August 1991, that she would get half his assets if he died. She said this was based on the fact that she'd been living with him as his fiancée, and had quit her regional sales manager job at Racine Industries, Inc., because he'd asked her to spend time with him instead. Jenny had to admit that Bill had confirmed the last claim with her.

But Nanette went even further. She claimed that Bill had created a living trust in November 1991 “to shelter certain assets from creditors because of a then-pending lawsuit,” assets that included the Seashore house, which “was bought by decedent for plaintiff,” and two pieces of Las Vegas real property purchased “by plaintiff and decedent together,” among other properties. As his fiancée, she also claimed she was owed half the $9 million in forthcoming Plasmacell-C royalties, $1 million from a nonmarital support agreement, a $5,000 monthly stipend retroactive to the day of his death (presumably for serving as a trustee), half his properties and shares of stock, and more than $1 million in damages for breach of contract.

The battle grew more complicated as the life insurance company, parties to the McLaughlin estate, and the McLaughlin family engaged in all kinds of legal maneuvering, arguing that Nanette had violated the intent of Bill's living will.

The McLaughlins filed a countersuit in the name of the Seashore Drive house's official owner, W.F.M. Newport, against Nanette Johnston et al, in an attempt to evict her and Eric from the house.

It worked. Under the final judgment, Nanette and anyone connected to her were ordered to vacate the premises.

Ultimately, Bill's friend Don Kalal got possession of the Infiniti, and he continued to drive it for many years in Bill's honor.

 

 

Nanette was arrested again, on March 7, 1996—this time, on suspicion of filing false financial statements to obtain the BMW and the loan she'd taken out to rent the $575,000 five-bedroom home in Dove Canyon in July 1995.

Held on $100,000 bail, she was accused of lying on a credit application, using two fake Social Security numbers (her father's and an ex-boyfriend's, because her credit history showed debts and a repossession), inflating her income, and lying about her tax returns. She was released from jail a week later after family members posted her bail, and was now looking at eight years' prison time for the two criminal cases combined.

“I should write a book when this is all over,” she told the
Daily Pilot,
saying that she wouldn't talk about the case until then.

Later that month, Nanette and the McLaughlins entered into a settlement to resolve their legal battle, which incorporated the civil and criminal cases against her. It appears that all the attorneys hammered out a resolution together, because the plea bargain she signed on March 22 stated that restitution for her crime was also part of the civil settlement agreement, which was attached to the plea.

In the plea agreement, Nanette stated under penalty of perjury:
In O.C. between 1-1-94 and 1-30-95 I willfully and unlawfully embezzled more than $150,000, the property of William McLaughlin. On 12-14-94 in O.C. I forged another's name on a $250,000 check with the intent to pass and defraud.

The life insurance company said it was legally required to pay her the $1 million claim because she hadn't been convicted of murder, so the McLaughlins subtracted the amount accountant Brian Ringler had identified that she'd stolen from the estate ($341,272), then added the taxes the estate would have to pay on the $1 million life insurance payout she was getting. In the end, the family had to suck it up and pay her a final negotiated amount of $220,000.

On April 3, Nanette signed another agreement pleading guilty to criminal charges of grand theft and forgery, admitting:
In O.C. between 10-95 and 3-96 I did willfully and unlawfully make a false statement in writing respecting [
sic
] my financial condition for the purpose of obtaining credit. This occurred while I was on bail.

On May 13, 1996, she was sentenced to a year in jail, with five years' probation, and was sent to the James A. Musick Facility, a low-security camp in Irvine known as “the farm.”

Nanette's ex-husband, K. Ross Johnston, accepted her collect calls from the camp so she could talk to Kristofer and Lishele, who were staying with him and Julia. He also took the kids to visit her every week.

After serving a little more than half her time, Nanette was released on December 23, 1996, just in time for Christmas.

CHAPTER 27

Eric Naposki rejoined the Barcelona Dragons in the World League during the spring seasons of 1996 and 1997, leading the team in his last year with 165 tackles and 16.5 sacks.

The Dragons coach, Jack Bicknell, told the
Hartford Courant
that Eric was one of his favorite players, describing him as “a guy who basically was in the right places at the right times, but just couldn't stay healthy.”

Fox analyst Matt Millen also expressed admiration for Eric, saying, “With his size and the way he plays, he could have played in any league. This guy is scary and will hit you.”

Although Millen was referring to Eric's on-field performance, court records show that his ex-wife Kathy filed a petition for a restraining order against him in Milford, Connecticut, in 1996. The records have since been destroyed, along with whatever allegations Kathy made against Eric, and the reasons for dismissal. A court clerk said a judge may dismiss a petition simply because no one shows up at the hearing.

The state of Connecticut was still attempting to garnishee Eric's wages in 1997, when it notified the WLAF that Eric owed a whopping $76,300 in support payments to Kathy. But that year's season with the Barcelona Dragons was Eric's last. He retired his #91 jersey midseason after suffering more injuries.

“Well, I'm not coming back here,” Eric told a
Courant
reporter in June from Barcelona. “I'm going to step aside and let some of the younger guys get a chance. If something happens where I can get into an NFL camp, sure I'll give it a try, but if not, it's all over for me.”

The Dragons hosted—and won—the World Bowl that year, but Eric, a team captain, missed that opportunity as well.

“I never got the chance to prove what I could do at the next level,” he told the
Courant.

 

 

By September 1997, the momentum had been lost on the McLaughlin murder investigation, and Eric's relationship with Nanette appeared to be over for good.

Suspect Naposki left the United States shortly after Johnston was incarcerated, and according to our investigation, either ended or seriously curtailed his relationship with Johnston,
Detective Tom Voth wrote in his final report, dated September 18, 1997.
A $100,000 reward was offered by the victim's family for information leading to the conviction of the perpetrator(s). No information was ever received in response to that reward. I have maintained contact with the victim's family and other involved subjects but no workable leads have been developed at this time. Pending further information this case will be held in abeyance.

At the time, Voth said, he felt pretty frustrated to have to shelve the case.

“You never want to take a homicide case and put it in that type of criteria, because that basically means unless something comes to you or you stumble on something, that case will just sit there and not get any work done on it.... You really can't get angry at it. It's nobody's fault that it's not getting prosecuted.”

He said K. Ross Johnston continued to call him for quite some time, but much of the information he provided seemed “vindictive” and unusable.

Memories markedly differ about the reasons why murder charges were never filed in the 1990s. It's evidently a sensitive subject, involving reputations, high emotions, and strong personalities—not to mention recollections that are imperfect after the passage of nearly two decades.

Voth recalled that at least a year before he wrote that last report in 1997, he and Detective Bill Hartford “hand carried the case to [prosecutor] Debbie Lloyd in her office. We were told that absent the murder weapon, a corroborated confession, or some other strong evidence against Eric or Nanette, she could not file the case.”

Voth said he felt so strongly about the case that he subsequently approached a second prosecutor, Laurie Hungerford, but she passed too.

“I thought I had a better chance when I took it to her because we'd just finished a big case [together],” Voth said.

A former NBPD official, who didn't want to be named, backed this recollection. “I think the police department had more than enough to go to trial then. The DA elected not to,” he said, adding that the prosecutor passed because “it wasn't a slam dunk, tie-it-up-with-the-bow [case]. We ended up settling with the ugly sister,” referring to the charges of theft and fraud, which were easier to prove in court.

That said, the official acknowledged that the detectives' overall effort “could have been more aggressive.” Given that this was Voth's first murder case, he said, “someone should have taken Voth by the hand, and they didn't.”

At that time, the forensic tests of the bullet casings were not as sophisticated as they are today. They showed that the Beretta was a possible murder weapon, but so were twenty-seven other types of guns. (Neither the Taurus nor the Astra, owned by Bill McLaughlin, however, were on that list.)

Debbie Lloyd, who retired in 2009 after being promoted to assistant district attorney, has a dramatically different recollection of the case history. As she told prosecutor Matt Murphy and DA investigator Larry Montgomery, she always believed that this case was “solvable.” But the message she got from the NBPD, she said recently, was that “Newport just didn't want to be told what to do, and they would handle it without me.” When she offered suggestions on how to move the investigation forward, she said, “they laughed at me.”

Frustrated as the months and years passed with no action, she repeatedly asked around her office if she could resurrect the case and get it “worked up.” If the detectives had ever gathered strong enough evidence to prosecute, she said, they never shared it with her.

“It was never, ever presented for filing to me. Ever,” she said. “This is the irony. For twenty years, that case bothered me.”

Was this simply a matter of semantics, that certain forms weren't filed to make this an official “presentation” of the case? Lloyd insisted she never saw any such document, and Voth said his case notes don't cover that period. But he said he was never offered any help from or approached by a DA investigator until Larry Montgomery came along many years later.

It's possible that Voth believed Lloyd had ultimately “rejected” the case for prosecution when she was simply telling him he needed to investigate further and to come back with better or more detailed evidence so she could file charges and win the case. Whatever the reasons, it's clear that communication broke down between the NBPD and the DA's office, and the case went cold.

Lloyd, who was honored as California's “Prosecutor of the Year” in 2001, had a reputation for having a strong personality and knowing what she needed to win a case beyond a reasonable doubt, but she said she was never known for being too scared to try a tough case. As she pointed out, she prosecuted three murder cases in which the victims' bodies were never found, and even one case in which a bloodhound was her primary witness.

“Before DNA,
all
our cases were circumstantial,” she said.

Investigator Larry Montgomery confirmed that as he was transferring from the DA's Homicide Unit to its TracKRS Unit (Taskforce Review Aimed at Catching Killers, Rapists, and Sexual Offenders), Lloyd personally pulled him aside and urged him to take a look at the McLaughlin case. She'd known Montgomery since his days at the Irvine Police Department, when they'd worked the bloodhound case together.

“I just think if you have the time, you can solve this thing,” she told him.

The bottom line is that she and the detectives all felt this case was winnable—with the right evidence.

Back in the 1990s, Voth acknowledged that the evidence “wasn't all there and maybe wasn't presented properly. . . . Maybe I didn't have the proper experience to convince the DA to do it. But I think they both wanted smoking-gun kind of cases.”

“I put some blame on myself as not being as experienced as, say, Larry [Montgomery], but what do you do? You do what you can,” he said recently. “Without Suzanne Cogar, I don't know how the case would have gone.”

Ultimately the case did move forward, but the planets needed to align and the timing had to be right for Matt Murphy, a master prosecutor of complex circumstantial cases, to have Montgomery review the cold case and get it ready for trial.