somebody s dying? reporter: someone was dead. kevin was a suspect that we needed to find out the validity of his statements, whether he had gunshot residue on his hands, whether he was even able to shoot a gun, given his physical disabilities. reporter: but a suspect? they checked his hands for gun powder residue. negative. you have to look at everybody, unfortunately. sometimes hurt feelings, but you have to get down to the facts, too. reporter: but facts can be tricky things. and in this case far more elusive than anyone might have imagined. some klueh clues were elusive but some were right out in the front like the two that dramatically narrowed down the circle of suspects. those are huge. you eliminate everyone down to
possibility of being the murderer. so he questioned annette and bill s own grown kids couldn t eliminate anybody yet. we looked at the girlfriend and we looked at the daughters because anyone that stands to gain money in this situation is a potential suspect. bill s ex-wife was way off in hawaii. they d been divorced for years. still, the detectives talked to her and there was kevin, bill s disabled son, the only other person in the house at the time of the murder. new port beach emergency. it was shortly after 9:00 p.m. when kevin heard the gun fire. he was upstairs still debilitated by those car accident injuries and he labored to make his way down to the kitchen where he found his father. too disabled to explain that he needed help.
someone was dead. kevin was a suspect that we needed to find out the validity of his statements whether he had gunshot residue on his hands, whether he was even able to shoot a gun given his physical disabilities. but a suspect? they checked his hands for gunpowder residue, negative. you have to look at everybody unfortunately. sometimes it hurts feelings but you have to get down to the facts on it too. but facts can be tricky things and in this case, far more elusive than anyone might have imagined. some clues were elusive but some were right out in the front like the two that dramatically narrowed down the circle of suspects. coming up those are huge. it eliminates everybody down to only those people that have access to those two keys. when dateline continues. n
tell them i m a nice guy. she said oh, my god, i don t want to know if he had anything to do with this or not. and he smiled and said maybe i did maybe i didn t. how those words are ever going to come out of your mouth. incriminating but hardly one of those tangible facts that gets someone sent away for life. this is one where every little piece of evidence had to be considered in light of all the other pieces of evidence. in fact, just the type of challenge matt murphy was after. so on may 20th, 2009, more than 14 years after bill was shot dead in his kitchen, annette was plucked from her life and charged with murder. annette proclaimed her innocence and her orange county friends stood by her. i m just going to tell you that she s my friend. she s a good person. she s been generous and kind and a wonderful mother and a
know, wondered who. right. well, you wonder if it s a completely random act, some stranger and it was a mistake or a accident or you you develop a list of people that might have have a reason to have shot him. to police, it didn t look random. nothing was taken, the killer struck with precision accuracy and got clean away, but there was something that intrigued the detective that night. it was a clue they found in bill mclaughlin s closet. we do a search of the house with the permission of kevin and annette. we re told there were weapons in a closet upstairs and when you come across a lot of weapons like that it s surprising. bill had become an avid gun collector. he kept dozens of them but not just antiques. there were pistols and revolvers and semiautomatics and assault rivals, dangerous stuff in the