Ex-Linebacker Was Miles Away When Newport Millionaire Was Shot to Death, Defense Says

A former NFL linebacker couldn't have killed his lover’s millionaire boyfriend—because Eric Andrew Naposki was miles away from Newport Beach when Bill McLaughlin was shot six times in the chest while standing in the kitchen of his Balboa Coves home, Naposki’s defense attorney told a jury Thursday.  

Instead, defense attorney Angelo MacDonald said, Nanette Ann Packard—McLaughlin’s girlfriend and Naposki’s lover, who could “charm the pants off any man”—is the more likely killer.

Naposki and Packard are accused of killing McLaughlin, a 55-year-old, divorced retiree, on Dec. 15, 1994, to steal the $1.5 million he had in his savings and to cash in on a $1-million life insurance policy.  

Naposki, 44, of Greenwich, CT, is charged with special-circumstances murder for financial gain with a sentencing enhancement for using a gun. If convicted, he could face life in prison without parole. Packard, 45, of Ladera Ranch will go on trial later on a charge of special-circumstances murder for financial gain.

, Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy said Naposki had the motive—money and jealousy—and opportunity to kill McLaughlin. Murphy said Packard gave Naposki keys he would need to enter McLaughlin’s gated community and house and tipped him off regarding when McLaughlin would be at home.

“At the end of this case, you are going to want to hold this guy accountable—I guarantee it,” Murphy said.

A central issue in the trial has been the timeline leading up to McLaughlin’s slaying. McLaughlin's son, Kevin, called 911 at 9:11 p.m., MacDonald said.
 
Naposki—who played three games with the New England Patriots in 1988 and one each with the Patriots and Indianapolis Colts in 1989—was with Packard at her son's soccer game in Walnut—roughly 33 miles away—the night of the killing, according to Murphy, who said the two left about 8:20 p.m.
 
Packard made calls at 8:24 p.m. and 8:25 p.m. from her car phone to retrieve phone messages, MacDonald said.
 
The couple were in Tustin about 26 minutes later, when Packard dropped Naposki off at his apartment, MacDonald said. Naposki changed clothes before heading to work as a bouncer at the Thunderbird nightclub, near McLaughlin's Newport home, MacDonald said.
 
The defense's main alibi is a call that Naposki's attorneys say he made at 8:52 p.m. from a Denny's restaurant just off the 55 Freeway in Tustin. A private investigator who worked for Naposki while he was under suspicion for the slaying in the mid-1990s is expected to testify that he saw a record of the phone call and went to the Denny's to confirm it was from a pay phone there, MacDonald said.
 
Naposki's attorneys say that even if he had “superhuman powers,” there was no way he could have gotten from the Denny's to McLaughlin's home in time to kill him.
 
“For Eric Naposki to do this crime he would have had to turn back time,” MacDonald said.
 
He said Naposki would have been fighting traffic because it was the first night of the annual Christmas Boat Parade in Newport Beach. Evidence will show, he added, that Packard was the most likely killer.

“Nanette Johnson,” MacDonald said, referring to her name from her first marriage, “is an accomplished liar, cheater, manipulator, con woman, who is a selfish promiscuous gold digger.”

Packard began dating McLaughlin in 1991, Murphy said previously. The two met through a personal ad. McLaughlin took care of $35,000 in debt for Packard and put her up in a beach house in Newport.

“Bill was kind of lonely,” Murphy said.

On the night of the slaying, McLaughlin was having dinner with his son.
 
McLaughlin's son, who was in another room at the time, heard the gunshots and struggled to get to his father and had trouble telling a 911 dispatcher what happened, Murphy said. Kevin McLaughlin was disabled after a drunken driver hit him while he was riding a skateboard home from a local bar.
 
MacDonald showed jurors a picture of the crime scene and said, "It's what you don't see that's key to this case,'' noting that the chair McLaughlin was in wasn't turned over and that the items on a table were undisturbed.
 
This indicates that McLaughlin knew the killer and casts Packard as a likely suspect because McLaughlin did not know Naposki, MacDonald said.
  
In a “classic try to make an alibi,” Packard went to two stores at South Coast Plaza to quickly buy gifts, MacDonald said.
  
It was easier for Packard to get to Costa Mesa in time to make purchases at 9:29 p.m. and 9:45 p.m. because she was going against the traffic, MacDonald said.
 
Naposki was a prime suspect during the investigation of the McLaughlin slaying, but the case went cold until 2009, when the evidence was reviewed again by Newport Beach police and a district attorney’s office task force.

Following the slaying, Packard pleaded guilty to stealing nearly $500,000 from McLaughlin by writing checks from his account before and after his death. She was sentenced to a year in jail in 1996.

Murphy said important evidence in the case includes a key to the home and a copy of it made at a hardware store, as well as a 9mm gun authorities say Naposki owned and was traced to the shooting through a special hollow-point bullet that explodes on impact.

—City News Service