Retired detective back on murder case
Fourteen years into his retirement, Newport Beach is looking to put police Det. Thomas Voth back on the clock at Tuesday’s City Council meeting.
As Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Matt Murphy prepares to put two former lovers on trial for the 1994 murder of local businessman Bill McLaughlin, city officials will approve a contract to pay the case’s lead detective, Voth, for trial preparation.
“Thus far, Mr. Voth has spent a large number of uncompensated hours assisting DDA Murphy on the pre-trial preparation for this case,†the staff report for Tuesday’s meeting reads. “As the trial draws near, he will be required to perform additional pre-trial preparation and be present during the entire trial.â€
Prosecutors declined to comment on what Voth will do leading up to the trial. Voth’s contract would pay him the same as a part-time police officer, $48.83 an hour, or $46,876.80 altogether.
Voth was the lead detective on McLaughlin’s murder back on Dec. 15, 1994. McLaughlin’s son, who was upstairs in his room, heard gunshots and found his father shot dead in their Newport Beach kitchen.
McLaughlin, a millionaire several times over when he was killed, had been dating and financially supporting Nanette Packard, 45, police said. Little did he know, Packard was also seeing former professional football player Eric Naposki on the side, prosecutors allege.
Packard is accused of giving Naposki a key to McLaughlin’s home and convincing him to kill him. Naposki worked just a few hundred yards away as a bouncer at a local bar when he allegedly killed McLaughlin. He was late for work the day McLaughlin was killed, authorities said.
In the preliminary hearing for the pair last year, Voth testified that they had been suspects the entire time. Not until prosecutors took another look at the case last year, however, did they believe they had enough evidence to prove their case.
The tipping point came through two anonymous phone calls after the killing, including one in 1998, two years after Voth had retired, authorities said. When the callers were contacted last year and agreed to testify, Packard and Naposki were arrested and charged with murder for profit. The lovers had been broken up for years. Naposki was living on the East Coast and Packard was raising a family with her husband in Ladera Ranch when they were arrested.
They’re expected to go on trial later this year or early next year. Each faces life without parole if convicted because of the sentencing enhancement of killing for money.