SANTA ANA — Former NFL linebacker Eric Andrew Naposki had the motive and opportunity to kill his lover's boyfriend in the victim's Newport Beach home in 1994, a prosecutor told jurors Monday in opening statements in his trial.
Naposki and Nanette Ann Packard are accused of killing 55-year-old retiree Bill McLaughlin, who was shot to death by an intruder in his home in a gated community Dec. 15, 1994, to steal the $1.5 million he had in his savings and cash in on a $1-million life insurance policy.
Packard, 45, of Ladera Ranch, will go on trial later for special circumstances murder for financial gain.
Naposki, 44, of Greenwich, Conn., is charged with special circumstances murder for financial gain with a sentencing enhancement for using a gun. He faces life in prison without parole.
"At the end of this case you are going to want to hold this guy accountable, I guarantee it," Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy said.
Naposki's attorney Gary Pohlson deferred his opening statement until he starts presenting evidence in the case. However, it is expected that Pohlson and co-counsel Angelo MacDonald will challenge prosecutors' time line of events the day of McLaughlin's murder to make the case that Naposki couldn't have pulled it off.
Naposki played three games with the New England Patriots in 1988 and one each with the Patriots and Indianapolis Colts in 1989. By 1994 he had fallen on hard times, having gotten fired from a job as a trainer at an athletic club and losing an account for his security company, Murphy said.
Naposki owed his ex-wife thousands of dollars and was driving his father's sport utility vehicle, Murphy said.
However, Naposki's affair with Packard was "progressing nicely" with increasing shows of public displays of affection and trips to meet each other's families, Murphy said. The two were also looking for a $1 million home even though they didn't have any money and Packard had no other source of income other than McLaughlin, Murphy said.
Packard met McLaughlin in 1991 through a classified ad for dating.
"At first it seemed like a good arrangement... Bill was kind of lonely," after his divorce, and McLaughlin was able to pay off $35,000 of Packard's debt, Murphy said.
McLaughlin had built up a comfortable nest egg after selling a company that made a filter for blood and plasma, his daughter Kim Bayless testified.
By 1994 Packard was sporting "a big rock" on her hand, but Bayless testified she couldn't recall the two ever getting engaged.
Key evidence in the trial will be a key to the home and a copy of it made at a hardware store as well as a 9 mm gun authorities say Naposki owned and was traced to the shooting through a special hollow-point bullet that explodes on impact, causing a great deal more damage than a conventional bullet.
Although Naposki was a key suspect following the murder and Packard was prosecuted and pleaded guilty to stealing about $500,000 from McLaughlin before and after his slaying, the case went cold until 2009 when the two were arrested following a revival of the investigation.
Naposki and Packard went to her son's soccer game in Walnut on the evening of the murder with the two of them leaving about 8:20 p.m., Murphy said. Packard went to do Christmas shopping and Naposki was headed to work as a bouncer at the Thunderbird nightclub, near McLaughlin's home.
Meanwhile, McLaughlin was having dinner with his son, Kevin, who was disabled after being hit by a drunken driver. About 9 p.m., the intruder shot McLaughlin six times, with three bullets remaining in the body, Murphy said.
McLaughlin's son, who heard the gunshots and whose speech was permanently slurred by the accident, struggled to tell a 911 dispatcher what happened, Murphy said.
Packard was siphoning off about $4,000 every six weeks from McLaughlin's account in the run up to the murder, Murphy said. But the stealing escalates in the days before and after the shooting, the prosecutor added.
The day before McLaughlin was killed she forged a $250,000 check to herself from his account, and deposited another $75,000 forged check a couple of days after the murder, Murphy said.
Naposki also made conflicting statements about the gun and his relationship with Packard to police during questioning following McLaughlin's death, Murphy said.
Murphy said he will also focus on a notebook Naposki kept that had the license plate of McLaughlin's Mercedes Benz in it.
One of Naposki's former neighbors, Susan Cogar, is also expected to testify that the defendant made threatening comments about McLaughlin.
"The last thing she remembers is him walking away from her smiling saying 'Maybe I did it, maybe I didn't,"' Murphy said.
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