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Ex-NFL Player And His Lover Deny 1994 Slaying Of Her Millionaire Fiancé
Nanette Packard and Eric Naposki, who were both found guilty in the murder of wealthy medical supply salesman Bill McLaughlin, say they’re innocent almost 30 years after the man’s killing.
A pair of former lovers convicted in the 1994 slaying and embezzlement of a millionaire salesman are maintaining their innocence from behind bars in an interview this week.
Nanette Packard and Eric Naposki, who were both found guilty in the murder of wealthy medical supply salesman Bill McLaughlin, say they’re innocent almost 30 years after the man’s killing.
“I don't know for sure [who killed McLaughlin],” Packard told ABC News. “I never said that Eric did it because I couldn't say that Eric did it for sure. I don't know that. He never said that to me.”
On Dec. 15, 1994, McLaughlin was found lying in a pool of blood at his residence in Newport Beach, California. He’d been shot six times in his torso.
Authorities discovered Packard was the beneficiary of her late fiancé's $1 million life insurance policy and stood to gain $150,000, according to CBS News. Packard had also forged a trio of checks for $350,000 within a day of McLaughlin's killing.
Detectives later learned about Packard’s affair with Naposki, who she’d met at a gym, according to ABC News. In 1990, Prosecutors ultimately accused Naposki of killing McLaughlin at Packard's behest so they could cash in on the hefty policy.
Naposki was convicted of McLaughlin’s murder in 2011. A year later, Packard was also found guilty.
McLaughlin’s family had also previously painted Packard as a gold-digger.
“But we didn't think she was evil enough to kill someone," Kimberly McLaughlin, Bill McLaughlin’s daughter, the Orange County Register reported.
Packard, however, is adamant she played no role whatsoever in McLaughlin’s death.
“Had I not been having an affair...Bill would be alive still,” Packard added in her interview with ABC News. “I feel that way.”
Packard claimed, however, her fiancé was totally unaware of the extramarital affair with Naposki.
“Eric knew about Bill and Bill knew that Eric was my friend,” Packard stated. [Bill] didn't know we were having an affair.”
Naposki previously played as a linebacker with Indianapolis Colts and the New England Patriots. Following his pro career, he worked security at a California bars in the vicinity of Packard’s home.
McLaughlin was born in California in 1939 and studied biological engineering. Packard had met the millionaire through a personal ad.
“Maybe it wasn't the most intense [relationship] romantically but I did love him,” Packard said. “He was a good man and he was good to my children, and I would never have killed him and probably would still be with him today if he were alive, because I had no reason.”
