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there was a lot of animosity towards me. i understood why. reporter: all they saw was this hot young woman who had been brought in to replace their missing daughter. right. right. exactly three months to the day. i can t even imagine what they were thinking. reporter: pegye s family wasn t alone. detective sean murphy had also noticed the new woman in eric bechler s life. she was ostentatious. she was just a hot number as they say. she was cohabitating with him right after this horrible boating accident with his wife. reporter: so murphy arranged to bump into tina. said hey, if you have any information about this boating accident involving eric, your boyfriend, just give us a call. i gave her my card with my number on it. reporter: nothing came of it. tina didn t call. but someone else did. coming up, the best friend has second thoughts. kobe laker goes under cover.
that. i remember thinking i was like julia roberts in pretty woman. he had been through so much. a mysterious accident at sea. he went under and when he came up, he said he no longer saw his wife. he was just hysterical. they were never able to find her. it was a heart-wrenching story. so why then were so many people so suspicious? no one knows exactly what happened on that boat. an accident? a disappearance. you thought what, she faked her death? maybe murder. there s no way. absolutely no way. i felt like the police were just trying to frame an innocent man. now she would be the one to unravel it all. i thought i could do this. in a dangerous under cover operation. my heartbeat was going so fast. he said you need to tell me the truth. welcome to dateline extra.
difference? it doesn t matter what i did before or after i met him, you know, what i did with myself has nothing to do with what he did. after seven day, the verdict, guilty of first-degree murder. you re thrilled that the man who did it is behind bars, but nobody wins in this situation, nobody. the children now have no mother and no father. so this there is no winner. the jury did not believe eric killed pegye for the money. he was found not guilty of murder for financial gain. at his sending eric faced the judge again and denied once again killing pegye. the accident was a horrible tragedy for both of our families as much as the marshals are hurting, my family is also hurting because i did not commit this crime. the judge sentenced him to life without the possibility of parole. eric s mother, linda, thinks the verdict was wrong.
starting to set in and it was painful. at this point you didn t think she was alive anymore? i kept thinking that she was, but how could she, you know, that length of time. reporter: unless, of course, what appeared to be an accident was not. the coast guard conducted a re-enactment at sea to try to understand how pegye could have fallen off the boat and they couldn t do it. they said it doesn t appear to be feasible to them given the sea conditions. reporter: that s when the coast guard called the orange county sheriff s office. detective sean murphy was put on the case. they weren t able to duplicate even close to what was alleged by eric bechler that his wife was tossed off by a rogue wave. reporter: if pegye s disappearance was no accident, murphy s job was find out what did happen. detectives started by re-interviewing eric and asking him about his relationship with pegye. he said his marriage was