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Nancy Grace
Woman Stands Trial for Murder Done by Boyfriend
Aired January 10, 2012 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
NANCY GRACE, HOST: Tonight, breaking news. A rich and lonely businessman divorces his wife of 24 years and looks for love, and he finds it when he answers an ad placed by a 25-year-old blond MBA grad. He sets her up in his beach home and the two play house, seemingly in love, until it all goes sideways. As 55-year-old William McLaughlin is standing there in his kitchen, wearing his bathrobe, making a sandwich, a male intruder enters the home and opens fire with a .9-millimeter Beretta.
Bombshell tonight. Who`s on trial? The 25-year-old girlfriend. Was it all a bizarre love triangle that spiraled out of control? Was the ad, the courtship, even the sex just a set-up for murder, murder for money? I`m talking millions.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nanette Johnston seemingly had it all.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The woman on trial accused of conspiring to murder her older and much richer boyfriend.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Looks, brains, and after meeting millionaire businessman Bill McLaughlin, money.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And this is a very twisted case.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Prosecutors say this beauty, Nanette Johnston, is a murderer.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Anette Johnston says that she lied to, cheated on and stole from the millionaire businessman she was living with, but she`s asking a jury to believe that she had nothing to do with his gruesome death.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Prosecutors opened their case with graphic images of the cold-blooded murder of William McLaughlin, a murder they say was committed by the woman he loved and the man she was seeing on the side.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A former NFL linebacker.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He shot him six times in the chest.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With a Beretta .9-millimeter gun.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every one of those was a lethal shot.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: After about a year of dating, McLaughlin proposed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And she told everyone she was his fiancee.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She had a whopper of a ring.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He even wrote her into his will.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He had a million-dollar life insurance policy, with her as the beneficiary.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us. Bombshell tonight. A divorced 55-year-old businessman gunned down in his own home. Who`s on trial? The 25-year-old girlfriend. Was it all a bizarre love triangle that spiraled out of control? Was it all -- I`m talking about the ad, the courtship, setting up house, even the sex -- just a set-up for murder, murder for money?
We are taking your calls. Straight out to Stella Sands, true crime writer. She`s writing a book about this case. Stella, what do you believe happened? Tell me, first of all, about the ad that this young girl, Nanette Johnston, then 25, placed. It was in what, a singles magazine?
STELLA SANDS, TRUE CRIME WRITER (via telephone): That`s correct, Nancy. It says, "Classy, well-educated, adventurous, fun gal, knows how to take care of her man, looking for an older man who knows how to treat a woman. You take care of me, and I`ll take care of you."
GRACE: OK, hold on. Let me just drink it all in, Stella. Read me that one more time, the exact ad. I want to hear exactly what she says.
SANDS: OK. Here it goes. "SWF, 25"...
GRACE: Single white female.
SANDS: ... "5 foot, 5inches, 100 pounds, classy, well-educated, adventurous, fun and knows how to take care of her man, looking for an older man, 30 plus, who knows how to treat a woman. You take care of me, and I`ll take care of you. Photo and letter." And then she gives her PO box.
GRACE: OK, to you, Alexis Tereszcuk, senior reporter, Radaronline.com. There`s a lot of buzzwords in there that are going to attract a 55-year-old man. And this wasn`t just any man. This guy is a millionaire. He owned a pharmaceutical sales company and was responsible for the invention of some type of device that screens blood plasma. And it was actually revolutionary at the time, when he was first responsible or first involved with it.
So how does a guy like him fall for that? I think it was the "You take care of me, and I`ll take care of you" part. Was that it, Alexis?
ALEXIS TERESZCUK, RADARONLINE.COM: It definitely was. You know, he had just gotten divorced. He had had -- he`d been married for 24 years. He had a very, very tough divorce. It was a bad ending. He was looking for somebody young and fun, and she fit it.
She used words like "classy," "well-educated," and he fell for this. He thought this might be the perfect woman for him. So he answered the ad. Little did she know that it was his money she was after. He`s a multi- millionaire over and over. He has lots of money.
And this woman immediately started scamming him. She, in fact, was arrested after his murder for stealing over $500,000 from him before and after his death.
GRACE: OK, Jean Casarez, here`s the kicker -- Jean Casarez joining us from "In Session." Jean, the male intruder that comes into the victim`s home, 55-year-old McLaughlin -- he didn`t have anybody with him. He comes into the home as McLaughlin is standing there in his robe, his housecoat, making a sandwich in the kitchen, and opens fire with a 9, a Beretta .9- millimeter, right?
JEAN CASAREZ, "IN SESSION": That`s right, shooting him six times in the chest. And he just happens to be the boyfriend of the beautiful model, that she`s seeing him on the side. And by the way, Nanette Johnston got William McLaughlin, our victim, worth $55 million at his death, to make her the beneficiary of the life insurance policy in case he ever died, and he changed her will to include her. And lo and behold, he`s dead. Prosecutors say, You`re the mastermind.
GRACE: We are taking your calls. Out to Jason in Canada. Hi, Jason. What`s your question?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi, Nancy, how are you tonight?
GRACE: I`m good, dear.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I just had one quick question. Do they know what the motive was?
GRACE: Jason, money, money, money, and money is what the state claims the motive is. Now, she`s going to be claiming that he was worth more to her alive than dead because she was cashing in on him year after year after year. Also, in his will, she gets to live at his beachfront home in Newport for a year rent-free. She gets an Infiniti vehicle. She gets 150 grand. And Ellie, wasn`t there a million-dollar life insurance policy? But certainly, she didn`t get to cash in on that when someone is murdered.
ELLIE JOSTAD, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Right. Exactly. But Nancy, she did sue his family, his estate. She claimed that they had agreed that they would own all this stuff together. And she actually managed to settle with the family for $220,000. So she did get a little bit of the money there.
GRACE: So she gets a quarter million dollars there. But you know, Jean Casarez, there`s another quarter million floating around. Wasn`t it the day before McLaughlin is gunned down in his own kitchen -- can you imagine, you`re standing there making a sandwich in your housecoat, boom, you`re dead. The next minute, it`s over. One minute you`re opening up the peanut butter, and the next minute, you`re dead.
So at that time, like, the day before, hadn`t she forged a check for 250 grand, a quarter million dollars, and the bank actually cleared it? It cleared, like, the day -- like, Monday morning, it cleared the bank. That`s another quarter million.
CASAREZ: That`s another quarter million. Now, she was charged and convicted for grand theft because $500,000 is what prosecutors say that she got from him. So that`s one conviction that stands.
But now they are on to the second prosecution because they say that she`s the one that gave the key to the boyfriend, which made a brand-new key, and that`s our smoking gun in this case, Nancy, the key.
GRACE: So Jean, that`s another quarter million dollars. We`re up to a half a million dollars. But this woman, the 25-year-old MBA grad, Nanette Johnston, also Nanette Packard (ph) -- there`s several different names. I think she`s been married three different times. Long story short, didn`t she have young children that she was supporting, and they were living with her in the beachfront home?
CASAREZ: Two young children. And that`s part of her alibi because she said that she was at a soccer game the night that her boyfriend was murdered, with her two young children, and she couldn`t have been responsible.
GRACE: We are taking your calls. And let`s unleash the lawyers. With me now, Kirby Clements, defense attorney, Atlanta, Rebecca Nitkin, defense attorney, Washington, D.C. And special guest joining us, Angelo MacDonald. He is the attorney for Eric Naposki -- Naposki, the boyfriend.
First of all, to you, Kirby Clements. Let`s hear your side of this. Why is she not guilty?
KIRBY CLEMENTS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, I would suggest she`s not guilty for several reasons. Number one, she married this man, or they got together. But he knew -- she was advertising for a wealthy man, so he knew this was a money for...
GRACE: OK, first of all -- first of all, she didn`t marry him, number one.
CLEMENTS: Well, not marry him. I should say she got together with him. But he knew this was...
GRACE: Well, you said marry. She didn`t marry him.
CLEMENTS: Well, OK. I apologize. They were doing everything else but being married. But it was for -- it was a money for sexual relationship.
GRACE: That`s a mighty big "but" you got going on there...
CLEMENTS: I understand.
GRACE: ... Kirby. Everything but get married. Go ahead.
CLEMENTS: Well, in addition to the fact that...
GRACE: Well, what does that have to do with -- what does that have to do with the price of rice? Nothing.
CLEMENTS: Because -- because...
GRACE: They weren`t married. Why do I care?
CLEMENTS: Because it undercuts -- it undercuts the idea of a motive because he knew that he was paying money for her companionship. In addition to her boyfriend...
GRACE: She was in the will. So why are you saying money`s not the motive?
CLEMENTS: Well, because she was getting the money. Why kill the goose that`s laying the golden egg and taking care of you? She had that benefit. She was also dallying on the side with her boyfriend, but there`s no proof that she gave him the key. There`s no reason for her...
GRACE: What do you mean...
CLEMENTS: ... to get rid of this guy.
GRACE: ... "on the side"? They`re not married. She can, as you say, dally -- I haven`t heard that in a while -- dally all she wants to. They`re not married. That`s not against the law.
CLEMENTS: It`s the prosecution that`s alleging this whole concept. I`m just simply pointing out...
GRACE: No, I asked you what`s your argument that she`s not guilty. So far, you haven`t -- you have -- I`m a little underimpressed here. I`m underwhelmed.
CLEMENTS: Well, don`t be underwhelmed by the fact that she has no motive. She`s a boyfriend who`s...
GRACE: How about she didn`t pull the trigger! Do I have to beat you over the head with that one, Kirby Clements? OK, Nitkin, let`s hear you.
REBECCA NITKIN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, I -- I think that by the advertisement that you were looking at in the beginning, she`s guilty of a lot of things. One of the things is she can`t tell the truth. Another thing...
GRACE: Well, OK. If that were true, we`d all be in jail right now, including me. (INAUDIBLE) I`d be in lock-up for lying. Go ahead.
NITKIN: That`s true, but she also is not having the golden goose. She was set up. She could have a million dollars. So that`s motive right there. She could have the $150,000 that`s in the will.
GRACE: Well, I`m asking you why -- put her up! Rebecca Nitkin, you`re the defense lawyer.
NITKIN: Right.
GRACE: You`re laying out the state`s prosecution for me. I asked you what`s your argument that she`s not guilty?
NITKIN: She`s not guilty -- it looks to me like the evidence that was against Mr. Naposki -- there`s absolutely no DNA. There`s no statements between the two of them that were made to the police officers. And what`s the most surprising to me, there were no confessions. Usually in these cases, they would make a confession, and Mr. Naposki, to be getting out of trouble, would be saying, You`re right to get out of it...
GRACE: OK, Kirby Clements, can you hear her? Those are reasons for not guilty, all right? That`s what Nitkin -- although I did have to pull a couple of teeth to get it out of her. I did get it out of her.
Here, guys, I`m going to let somebody take you two to school. With me right now, Angelo MacDonald. He`s Naposki`s attorney, Naposki`s defense attorney. Naposki is the former NFL boyfriend that was also dating the 25- year-old grad student.
Angelo MacDonald, thank you for being with us. Give it to me in a nutshell. Why is your guy not guilty?
ANGELO MACDONALD, ATTORNEY FOR ERIC NAPOSKI (VIA TELEPHONE): Yes. Hi, Nancy, thanks for having me on. It`s always a pleasure to be with you and CNN.
GRACE: Thank you.
MACDONALD: In a nutshell, though, our position was he did not do the shooting. And the prosecution from the very get-go publicly announced he was the shooter. The whole theory of the prosecution case was that he was the shooter. And our defense was he had an alibi. He could not have...
GRACE: What was his alibi?
MACDONALD: ... logically, reasonably, physically done the shooting.
GRACE: Well, isn`t it true that he was only 13 miles away at a soccer game?
MACDONALD: I think it was actually more than 13 miles. But look, Nancy, you`re in New York. I`m in New York. You know, one mile could take you a half hour to go just in Manhattan alone. But in this particular case, he was a long distance away with Nanette Johnston. And he was on his way in to work, which coincidentally was very close (INAUDIBLE) the crime. Yes, that`s all true.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Prosecutors say this beauty, Nanette Johnston, is a murderer, multi-millionaire Bill McLaughlin found dead in the kitchen of his own Newport Beach home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He took her on exotic vacations. They went on ski trips to great ski places. She had some cosmetic surgery done that he paid for.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The defendant in this case, Nanette Johnston.
GRACE: She was the mastermind.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And says that she lied to, cheated on and stole from the millionaire businessman she was living with.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Johnston says while she may have cheated on her millionaire lover, she`s not a killer.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bill McLaughlin around 9:00 o`clock at night was in his kitchen when Eric Naposki...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Her man on the side, a former NFL linebacker.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They believe he was the shooter.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He entered the residence, shot him six times with a .9-millimeter handgun.
GRACE: This is not all about jealousy. This is all about money.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why would Johnston want her wealthy boyfriend dead? Prosecutors say she stood to inherit a fortune.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A real life Orange County housewife and mother of four is behind bars tonight.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nanette Johnston Packard McNeil (ph) was also under arrest for murder.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Anything to say, Nanette?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: We are taking your calls. A wealthy and lonely businessman ends a 24-year marriage and goes looking for love. Well, he certainly got it when he answered an ad. A 25-year-old MBA graduate answers his desire for love, and they set up house. Long story short, three years later, he`s dead.
Who`s on trial for the murder? The girlfriend, although by all accounts, a male intruder entered the home and unleashed a Beretta .9- millimeter on the victim as he stood there in his housecoat making a sandwich.
We`re taking your calls. Back to Angelo MacDonald, the attorney for this woman`s boyfriend, the boyfriend on the side, Eric Naposki. You know, you said that your guy absolutely could not do the shooting because he was 13 miles away from the crime scene at the time, at a soccer game. But isn`t it true that police say that they`ve driven the route repeatedly, and every time, they made it in time for the murder to have been committed by your client? And isn`t it true that your client owned a Beretta .9- millimeter, the same as the murder weapon?
MACDONALD: I`ll answer the second question first. Yes, he did own a Beretta .9-millimeter that was similar to the firearm used in the crime, but there`s millions of those Berettas out there, number one.
GRACE: Where`s his Beretta?
MACDONALD: His Beretta is gone. It`s missing. He claims it was stolen.
GRACE: I thought he said he gave it to somebody or loaned it to somebody?
MACDONALD: No, he had some other -- he had another firearm, at least one other firearm that was also missing and stolen, which was not a Beretta.
GRACE: Did he file a police report when the Beretta was stolen?
MACDONALD: I don`t believe he filed a police report. But I think he contacted the person that he purchased it from...
GRACE: Whoops. Whoops. Wait a minute. Angelo MacDonald, the defense attorney for Naposki, who`s the boyfriend in this alleged triangle. So wait. Somebody steals his Beretta .9-millimeter and another weapon, and he didn`t file a police report?
MACDONALD: The simple answer is, no, he did not file a police report. No.
GRACE: Where was it stolen from, his home? Was there a break-in, his car, what?
MACDONALD: My recollection is it was from his vehicle. He was in the security business and he had people working for him. So the gun was available for workers, and it ended up missing.
GRACE: OK. So wait, wait, wait. So somebody breaks in his car and steals two guns?
MACDONALD: No, I don`t know that it was necessarily broken in. He had loaned the car out to one of the employees. The gun was used at various security locations. And by the time he realized that the guns weren`t still in his possession, he did not call the police, no. That is true.
GRACE: OK, so even -- you`re the lawyer, MacDonald, and with you, the story is changing. First his gun was stolen. Now maybe it wasn`t stolen. Maybe somebody borrowed it and it got lost. How does a .9-millimeter Beretta handgun get lost?
MACDONALD: It did. It`s as simple as that. It got lost.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She had a $1 million life insurance policy on Bill McLaughlin which, of course, because it`s a life insurance policy, is payable only upon his death.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would not have done this to her kids, OK? This murder takes place less than two weeks before Christmas. You`re motivated by money, you`re not going to kill the golden goose.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Prosecutors say this beauty, Nanette Johnston, is a murderer.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The woman on trial, accused of conspiring to murder her older and much richer boyfriend.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shot six times in the chest.
GRACE: She was the mastermind.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And says that she lied to, cheated on and stole from the millionaire businessman she was living with years ago.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The key to her boyfriend`s beachfront mansion, so he could easily murder him.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Inherit a fortune.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because it`s a life insurance policy payable only upon his death.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is a very twisted case.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: We are taking your calls. A wealthy and lonely businessman answers an ad while he`s looking for love, and he found it, all right. But three years later, he`s dead. A male intruder breaks into his home as he`s standing there making a sandwich in the kitchen, wearing his housecoat. Who`s on trial for murder? The 25-year-old girlfriend.
Out to the lines. Paul in Florida. Hi, Paul. What`s your question?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi, there, Nancy. You`ve taught us not to believe in coincidences in these kind of cases, right?
GRACE: Right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are no coincidences. And you know, it`s so far-fetched. All of a sudden, a weapon that likely did the murder is missing. I mean, you know, that`s a coincidence, right? Not.
GRACE: That is a coincidence.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But it`s a bad coincidence, isn`t it, because it doesn`t hold much water, you know?
GRACE: True.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And the other question -- or a question I have is, did she offer to take a polygraph?
GRACE: Did the boyfriend or did she offer to take a polygraph, Paul?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She. Did she.
GRACE: She. She. Good question. To Stella Sands, true crime writer who is literally writing the book on this case. Stella, did she ever take a poly or offer to take a poly?
NITKIN: Yes, she did. And she canceled the first time and she did sit for one the second time. I believe she got up in the middle of it and wouldn`t go on. Her answers were not looking very good.
But Nancy, I must say one thing. She did not get an MBA. Even though she had written it on her resume, it was found later that not only did she not have an MBA, but she had not graduated from Arizona State, as she said she had, nor did some of the other facts on the resume. They were not true, as well.
GRACE: Well, Stella Sands, you`ve totally busted me.
NITKIN: I`m sorry!
GRACE: No, no, no, no. I`d rather know the truth.
NITKIN: Yes.
GRACE: Because everywhere, every interview, everything is all about her being an MBA, and she`s so smart.
NITKIN: I know.
GRACE: Well, you know what? She outsmarted me, Stella.
NITKIN: Oh, dear! No, no! I don`t think I can do that. But she absolutely did not get an MBA.
GRACE: She even lied about her education?
NITKIN: Absolutely, 100 percent, yes.
GRACE: Oh, well, that seals it, then, Stella. She`s totally guilty!
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Multi-millionaire Bill McLaughlin found dead in the kitchen of his own Newport Beach home.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Says she lied to, cheated on and stole from the millionaire businessman she was living with years ago.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Johnston says while she may have cheated on her millionaire lover, she`s not a killer.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Nanette Johnston seemingly had it all, looks, brains and, after meeting millionaire businessman Bill McLaughlin, money.
GRACE: They all wanted a sugar daddy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know how to take care of a man if he can take care of me. That`s what she said.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Authorities say Johnston also had a man on the side. A former NFL linebacker.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Johnston gave the ex-football player a key to the millionaire`s home to murder him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Eric Naposki entered the residence and shot him six times with a .9 millimeter handgun.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: He is now facing life in prison without the possibility of parole.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Authorities say Nanette Johnston stood to gain $1 million life insurance policy.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Why would Johnston want her wealthy boyfriend dead?
GRACE: So she sits on a pile of money. Not him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He cannot communicate to the 911 operator because of his brain disability.
UNIDENTIFIED 911 OPERATOR: I don`t understand you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He`s literally watching his father die at his feet. It`s heart wrenching.
UNIDENTIFIED 911 OPERATOR: Did you say your father or your dog?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Father.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: You`re seeing video from CBS "48 Hours Mystery" and what you were hearing was the desperate 911 call placed by McLaughlin`s adult son. His son, now an adult, had been hit while riding a skateboard by a vehicle and had a lot of problems and had moved in with his father, and he was actually upstairs at the home when this unknown male intruder enters the home as his father, 55-year-old McLaughlin, is making a sandwich there in the kitchen and guns McLaughlin down six times, six bullets in the chest.
I`d like to point out that those bullets were hollow point bullets that mushroom open inside of you, typically used by police. We know the boyfriend of his 25-year-old girlfriend was in security at a local night spot. I think it was called Thunderbirds.
We are taking your calls, and I`ve just been busted.
Stella Sands, true crime writer, who`s literally writing the book on this case. A 55-year-old businessman, wealthy, a smart, well-educated, coming off of a 24-year marriage that ended in a bad divorce. And he`s looking for love, and he finds it in an ad placed by a 25-year-old apparently MBA grad.
Here`s her ad. I`m classy, well-educated, adventurous, fun, knows how to take care of her man. It goes on and on. Well, whatever. She hooked him, all right. Three years later he`s dead.
So, Stella Sands, you`re telling me she was no MBA at all. As a matter of fact, myself and my staff have been going crazy trying to find out what was her alma mater. I wanted to find out who to give the credit to for graduating this young lady, and we couldn`t find it, and I thought for sure we were doing something wrong.
STELLA SANDS, TRUE CRIME WRITER, INTERVIEWED MILLIONAIRE`S MURDERER IN PRISON: On her resume she said she graduated at Arizona State, but when that was researched, no, she hadn`t graduated with Arizona State. In fact there`s no record that she had ever been to Arizona State so it might have been just high school. She got married when she was I think 17 to her first husband, so, yes.
GRACE: To Pat Brown, criminal profiler, author of "The Profiler." You know, Pat, what part of that ad hooked in McLaughlin, a 55-year-old businessman, extremely wealthy, very savvy. You`d think he would know better. What happened?
PAT BROWN, CRIMINAL PROFILER, AUTHOR OF "THE PROFILER": Well, I think we`re talking about many men in this situation who are perfectly willing to go with much, much younger women who have very little to offer except they are cute and sexy and it makes them feel good, makes them feel strong and virile again.
And this woman was a very typical, in my opinion, black widow type. She put out the perfect advertisement which says I`m wonderful and gorgeous. You don`t have to be anything but dull rich and take care of me and then I`m going to do all these things for you, and immediately this guy just hooks down. She moves in on him. She uses him until she`s fed up with him, and I think that defense argument is ludicrous.
Why would she kill him when she`s getting so much for him? She was with him for three years and three years with a guy you do not love, and have to sleep with and deal with his adult son who is in the house and all his other issues gets tiring, and if you can get rid of him and keep his money or enough of it, well, why not.
GRACE: To Angelo MacDonald, he is the attorney for the so-called boyfriend, the third wheel in this alleged love triangle between the 25- year-old woman, the 55-year-old businessman, then the boyfriend. Let`s -- see, I think he played for -- who did he play for, the Colts, the Patriots and then somehow he ended up with the Barcelona Dragons?
How did that happen? How did he go to the Barcelona Dragons, Angelo?
ANGELO MACDONALD, ATTORNEY FOR ERIC NAPOSKI, CONVICTED OF MURDERING MILLIONAIRE: Yes, he played for a number of teams here in the NFL including the Patriots, the Redskins, and he ended up getting injured.
GRACE: Didn`t he get cut?
MACDONALD: Ultimately he went over to the Barcelona Dragons, and he was their MVP in one winning season. He`s in their Hall of Fame.
GRACE: The Barcelona Dragons, do they even exist anymore?
MACDONALD: No. It was the World Football League then.
GRACE: So he -- now wasn`t he on a lot of practice squads?
MACDONALD: Well, I mean, it depends on how you characterize that.
GRACE: Well, practice squads. Let`s characterize it like that.
MACDONALD: No, but he played in games, and -- but for injuries he may not have been able to play.
GRACE: You know, Angelo MacDonald, note to self. When charged with murder, hire Angelo MacDonald because you can spin better than Rumpelstiltskin because you are really, really spinning a tale for me tonight. You know I almost bought into it, so you know, but his football career is neither here nor there.
I want to get back to this -- this gun, this Beretta .9 millimeter. So he`s got a Beretta .9 and we know that hollow point bullets were used in the murder.
Out to Brent Brown, former police officer, CEO of Chesley Brown Company.
Hey, Brent, hollow point bullets, explain.
BRENT BROWN, FORMER ATLANTA POLICE OFFICER, CEO, CHESLEY BROWN COMPANIES, INC.: Well, hollow point bullets are a very deadly part of a weapon, and in effect whenever it hits the body, it circles the body and goes out in a huge mushroom effect. It may go in very small but it takes a lot of damage with it, and they are almost always fatal.
GRACE: Take a look at before and after on a hollow point bullet.
Now, Brent, I have never in all my years in law enforcement don`t remember a whole lot of civilians going to the ammo shop and ordering up a lot of hollow point bullets. Why is that?
B. BROWN: Well, they are -- even though they are available to the public, they are generally reserved for law enforcement. Law enforcement likes the hollow point because we want the stopping power. We don`t want to just knock something down, we want to stop it dead in its tracks. That`s what a hollow point does.
There`s also a version of -- I think the one that you`re showing right now is a version of a hollow point that has a hydroshock that actually makes it that much worse, and again these are generally reserved for law enforcement, but they are available to the public to purchase.
GRACE: Right. To Dr. Berry Friedberg, physician and author of "Getting Over Going Under."
Doctor, thanks for being with us. What does the human body endure when shot by a hollow point bullet usually found with cops and security. And we know that the third wheel in this love triangle was a former NFLer turned security guard bouncer. So what does the human body endure when shot by a hollow point?
DR. BARRY FRIEDBERG, M.D., PHYSICIAN, AUTHOR OF "GETTING OVER GOING UNDER": A great deal of pain and tissue damage.
GRACE: Why?
FRIEDBERG: Well, as you saw from the picture, the bullet opens and generates a great -- a larger, much larger area of tissue damage as it goes through the body. That`s the whole point.
GRACE: To Dr. Ramani Durvasula, clinical psychologist joining us out of L.A.
Doctor, thanks again for being with us. You know the defense in this case is she, the 25-year-old girlfriend, would never have done it because she would never leave a wealthy millionaire for basically a deadbeat -- a bum, according to some people. He was a bouncer at a night spot, former NFLer. What`s your take on that?
RAMANI DURVASULA, PH.D., CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: Come on, love is one of those eternal mysteries, Nancy. And she went in -- she was an opportunist to start with. She went in for the money, and then you start to believe your own hype and it becomes a slippery slope. You feel like you have a right to the money. You have a right to the house. You have a right to the guy.
You have a right to another guy, and then all of a sudden you start acting in ways that are consistent with that, and in -- and in a small subset of cases like this one you go in for the kill, and that appears to be what happens. This was human nature gone very, very awry with a top note of sociopathy.
GRACE: So, Dr. Ramani, what do you make of the defense that he was worth more to her alive than dead?
DURVASULA: You know what, logically, yes, but from her seat where she was already getting away with so much, I think that, you know, the woman who was a profiler made a good point. At one point it gets tiresome and the amount of money she would have walked out with was enough of an incentive but at some level you believe you can get away with it and she wanted something new.
GRACE: And the money was escalating, where before he was just keeping her and her children in his beach front house, suddenly she was writing checks for 250 grand.
DURVASULA: Yes. Exactly.
GRACE: She didn`t want to wait another 30 years to get a payout.
DURVASULA: No.
GRACE: Everybody, a quick break. Our "Family Album" is back showcasing your photos from iReport, and here are our Florida friends, Ann and Patrick Thomas with their dog Jack. Patrick, a para-rescue man, just returned from Afghanistan. Ann, graduated with a bachelors in psychology. They spend spare time hiking and scuba diving.
Will you share your family photos with us through our iReport Family Album. Just go to hlnTV.com/Nancygrace and click on "Nancy`s Family Album."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Prosecutors say this beauty, Nanette Johnston, is a murderer. Multi-millionaire Bill McLaughlin found dead in the kitchen of his own Newport Beach home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He took her on exotic vacations. They went on ski trips to great ski places. She had some cosmetic surgery done that he paid for.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Johnston stood to gain a $1 million life insurance policy, wads of cash and even an Infiniti sports car.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She had a $1 million life insurance policy on Bill McLaughlin which, of course, because it`s a life insurance policy is payable only upon his death.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Johnston says while she may have cheated on her millionaire lover, she`s not a killer.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Bill McLaughlin`s much younger fiance who he met through a magazine ad she placed looking for a wealthy older man.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know how to take care of a man if he can take care of me. That`s what she said.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He was at a vulnerable time, and so here she comes along and you know, made it everything a little better.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: In return, McLaughlin provided Nanette with a generous allowance and a lavish lifestyle.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: But apparently that wasn`t enough. According to cops she gunned down her much older lover, had him gunned down in exchange for money.
You`re seeing video from CBS`s "48 Hours Mystery."
We`re taking your calls. Out to Kathy in New York. Hi, Kathy, what`s your question?
KATHY, CALLER FROM NEW YORK: Hi, Nancy. I would like to know if there`s no physical evidence, how could they possibly link these two to the crime scene?
GRACE: OK. Jean Casarez, legal correspondent, "In Session," what do you make of it?
JEAN CASAREZ, LEGAL CORRESPONDENT, "IN SESSION": Well, people start to talk, and here is a big key to this case, a brand spanking new key was in the lock to the home when William McLaughlin was found dead, and the local hardware store said that they saw several weeks before somebody making brand new keys to that home.
GRACE: And the key, the new key, was still in the lock?
CASAREZ: One was in the lock, one was on the ground, but that`s how the intruder gained entrance.
GRACE: And could the locksmith recall who had had the key made?
CASAREZ: The key was made, they say, by the former NFL boyfriend of Nanette`s, but the question is how did he get the key to make a brand new key, and that`s where she comes in.
GRACE: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So Angelo MacDonald, you`re the attorney for the third wheel in this love -- so-called love triangle. You`ve got the 25-year-old girl. You`ve got the 55-year-old man, and you`ve got your client, the former NFLer turned bouncer. So where did he get a key to make a copy?
MACDONALD: He made keys at the local key shop because he was in the security business so there were instances of making keys, but the testimony wasn`t exactly that he made that particular key. As a matter of fact of the two keys we determined that one key came from a completely different key shop, you know, 20 miles away. The other key may have been made at a key shop near where Mr. Naposki lived.
GRACE: Unleash the lawyers, Kirby Clemens, Rebecca Nitkin.
OK, Rebecca. Here`s your second swing at the ball. Give me your best closing argument for her innocence.
REBECCA NITKIN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Her innocence, absolutely nothing tying them together. No physical evidence. She is what she is.
GRACE: Whoa, whoa, whoa, what do you mean by that, she is what she is?
NITKIN: It`s clear she likes older men and she puts it right out --
GRACE: What`s clear about it?
NITKIN: She says --
GRACE: According to the prosecution she hated older men.
(CROSSTALK)
NITKIN: No, that`s the prosecution. She puts it out in black and white. She says, I like older men, and she puts out there, hey, you know, I`m classy, I`m well-educated, yes, we know that`s a lie. She says that I know how to take care of a man. That`s basically pretty much saying that she`s basically a prostitute. She`s not hiding that. She moves in with a guy who is 50 years old. She`s not hiding that.
We all know what she`s doing in there. She has a -- a love swing on the side. Whatever she`s doing she`s doing. That doesn`t mean that she`s trying to kill him, and there isn`t everything tying them together.
GRACE: OK. So from what I`m getting you`re basically saying because she was a big tramp she`s not guilty of murder. All right.
NITKIN: Absolutely.
GRACE: That`s a new one on me. OK.
NITKIN: That`s not new. That`s as old as it comes.
GRACE: Yes, it`s not working. Kirby.
NITKIN: Well --
(LAUGHTER)
KIRBY CLEMENS, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, I would echo what she says, but I`d also go a step further and say that --
GRACE: So you`re basically saying yes, what she said. All right.
CLEMENS: Well, no, but almost a laughing it`s the boyfriend. I would have pointed the finger and I would maintain that the boyfriend could have made the key. He could have killed -- killed that older man because he wanted her for himself, but as far as she is concerned, she had the best of both worlds. She`s got her young former hot former athlete boyfriend and she got her rich playboy so she`s enjoying --
GRACE: So is this then. Everybody is pointing at each other.
CLEMENS: No, the boyfriend --
GRACE: Why don`t you say it was a suicide, people?
CLEMENS: I`m sorry -- no.
GRACE: That`s the only person left. Blame him for it.
CLEMENS: No, I just maintain that she had no reason to kill this man. She`s living well.
GRACE: Yes. All right. OK, Alexis Tereszcuk. weigh in.
ALEXIS TERESZCUK, REPORTER, RADAROLINE.COM: I think that the evidence is pretty overwhelming. You know, she -- Nanette said that the keys were stolen. The keys were not stolen. The prosecution has absolutely said no way. She wanted his money. She was with him for three years. They were not married. Once you get married you get a lot of money. This wasn`t the path they were going on. They had been engaged, so she said, but nobody believed that.
She wasn`t going to get too much money from him. This was the only way she could get any money, was getting this million-dollar life insurance and she talked her boyfriend into it. She was cheating on the man with a guy. She absolutely had him enthralled with her life and she convinced him that this was the only way that they were going to have money together.
GRACE: To Ellie Jostad. Ellie, it`s been a very complicated, complicated proposition for the investigators in this case because there was no gun to compare the bullets to.
ELLIE JOSTAD, NANCY GRACE CHIEF EDITORIAL PRODUCER: Right.
GRACE: As Angelo MacDonald pointed out, the gun owned by the boyfriend was never proven to be the gun that committed the crime. They got very, very little physical evidence, so what do they claim they`ve got?
JOSTAD: Well, Nancy, there`s the gun which we know -- prosecutors say that, yes, there are a lot of .9 millimeters out there, but the only type of gun that could have fired the bullets found in the victim`s body is a Beretta, a Beretta like Naposki owned.
Also, Nancy, we`ve got lies told by Naposki. He initially told police that he and the girlfriend were just friends. He later said well, I was helping her out, I was baby-sitting for a kid. Then he says, well, OK, yes, we were dating.
So prosecutors say that why lie unless he was guilty and he was involved in this scheme to kill the victim.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bill McLaughlin around 9:00 at night was in his kitchen when Eric Naposki entered the residence and shot him six times with a 9 millimeter hand gun.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Prosecutors open their case with graphic images of the cold blooded murder of William McLaughlin, a murder they say was committed by the woman he loved.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: This beauty, Nanette Johnston --
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Nanette Johnston --
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Seemingly had it all.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Looks, brains. And after meeting millionaire businessman Bill McLaughlin --
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Money.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He took her on exotic vacations, she had some cosmetic surgery done that he paid for.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Prosecutors say Johnston gave the ex-football player a key to the millionaire`s home to murder him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is going to be a more difficult case than it was prosecuting him. Why? Because you have direct evidence of the gun being linked back to him.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Johnston says she`s not a killer.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Orange County housewife and mother of four is behind bars tonight.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Nanette Johnston Packard McNeal was also under arrest for murder.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Anything to say, Nanette?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am innocent.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: You are seeing video from CBS "48 Hours Mystery." We are taking your calls. Back to Stella Sands, true crime writer, she`s actually writing a book on this case.
How disgusted were McLaughlin, 55 years old, he`s sitting on millions of dollars, but she, you know, earned. How disgusted were they to see this young girl come in after placing this ad, for wealthy man, looking for love. There were -- you know, she`s battling them for the money.
SANDS: Are you talking about his two daughters?
GRACE: Yes.
SANDS: Yes, OK. They`re very wonderful, generous people, and they wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. So whenever he was with her and they were all together, everybody was cordial, they all talked about this and that, but never got really close. After the murder they still were cordial, saying, you know, take your time, take the things out of the house when you need to, you know, we understand you`re going through a hard time, too, but then when they found out three months later that she had been systematically stealing huge amounts of money from him, that`s when the red flag went up and they decided well, they have to investigate this further.
GRACE: I would love -- I would love to have seen Nanette Johnston at the funeral. How did that go, Stella?
SANDS: She did not cry at all. Her two children were supposedly crying and screaming and so bereft. Kevin, the son was also inconsolable. Nanette was poised and did not shed a tear.
GRACE: Let`s stop and remember Army Captain Joshua Steel, 26, North (INAUDIBLE), Illinois, killed Afghanistan. Two Bronze Stars, Purple Heart, National Defense Service Medal. Afghanistan Campaign Medal. Loved reading. 4-H, training a wild mustang he adopted. Leaves behind parents Phillip and Paula, brother Steven, sisters Juna and Lucinda.
Joshua Steele, American hero.
Thanks to our guests but especially to you for being with us. And happy birthday to New York friend Vincenza. What a beauty inside and out.
Everyone, I`ll see you tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern. And until then, good night, friend.
END
