I'll Take Care of You (38 page)

“Didn't come together,” the attorney said. Back in 1994, “[Gonzales] was a young guy with a lot of contacts.”

Downstairs during a quick news conference, Murphy made a few comments to address the media's questions about Eric's story. The prosecutor dismissed it once again as “lie after lie after lie after lie,” which had no truth, no corroboration, and no relevance.

“We investigated it,” he said. “I have absolutely no doubt that it's complete crap.”

Even if the story were true, Murphy said, Eric's own admissions made him guilty of murder: Eric had said that Gonzales used Eric's gun in the murder, that Eric introduced Gonzales to Nanette, and that Eric and Gonzales were across the street from Bill's house the week before the murder.

Clearly, Murphy said, “Naposki hasn't researched conspiracy law,” because given these self-proclaimed facts, Eric would still be guilty of murder. It would only “take ten years off his LWOP sentence. He would still be a murderer for financial gain.”

 

 

On September 5, 2012, Eric Naposki was transferred to a state prison in Wasco, a reception center where corrections officials would decide which institution was best suited for his life term. They also would likely take into account that he was a somewhat high-profile prisoner due to his multiple TV appearances and his brief time in the NFL.

As inmate #AM2598, the forty-five-year-old prisoner was finally placed at the High Desert State Prison in Susanville in December—presumably just as muscular, if not more so, in anticipation of protecting himself from other convicted killers.

In January 2013, Investigation Discovery host Aphrodite Jones aired a show on the case in which she said she received a jailhouse letter from Nanette and also spoke on the phone with her. After all these years of silence and claims that she didn't think Eric had anything to do with the murder, Nanette finally had decided to change her story too.

She said she'd never told Eric that Bill had raped her. Yet, somehow he'd found out about her engagement to Bill, planned the murder on his own, and killed Bill “in a fit of jealous rage.”

“I'm a victim of Eric's jealousy,” Nanette told Jones.

It just wasn't Nanette's style to let an ex-boyfriend get away with blaming her or having the last word. That's how she took care of her men.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to thank the following people for helping me put this book together. I couldn't have done it without you: Dave Byington; Tom Voth; Joe Cartwright and Scott Smith, of the NBPD; Matt Murphy, Larry Montgomery, Susan Frazier, and Dena Basham, from the Orange County DA's office; Laura Hoyle; Eric Naposki's attorneys Gary Pohlson and Angelo MacDonald and friend John Pappalardo; Nanette Packard's attorney, Mick Hill; Debbie Lloyd; Jeff Stempien, of the Greenwich Police Department; Brian Ringler; Sandy Baumgardner; Kim McLaughlin Bayless; Patrick and Jenny McLaughlin; Barbara LaSpesa; Billy McNeal; Tom Reynolds; Suzanne Cogar; Adrianne Reynolds; Patricia “Tricia” Stearns; Rebecca Allen, Frank Mickadeit, and Michele Cardon, of the
Orange County Register
; Don Kalal; Donna Hakala; Chris Fiore; Angie Naposki; Terry Thornton; Michael Signora; Carole Levitzky; Susan Ludwig; Mike Matteson; Susan Leibowitz and Allen Larson.

I also want to thank Michaela Hamilton at Kensington, along with my agent, Peter Rubie, for helping me keep the dream alive.

Special thanks to my readers, and also to those who have graciously supported and helped keep me sane while I wrote this book: Carole Scott, Susan Gembrowski, Géza Keller, Samuel Autman, Rachel Ingersol, Carlos Beha, Bob Koven, Myra Chan, and the crew at Einstein Bros Bagels #3048.