DEEPA BHARATH -- Reporter’s Notebook

-- DEEPA BHARATH covers crime and courts for the Daily Pilot.

There are some trials that drive us reporters crazy.

They are the ones that have us scurrying across large hallways and

racing up and down escalators in the courthouse.

Those are the sensational stories filled with mystery and intrigue,

that have us jury-watching for two weeks. They haunt us in our dreams, in

our nightmares.

They are the titillating trials that give us goose bumps and clammy

palms as the solitary light perched on the bailiff’s desk glows a bright

red, a signal that the jury has a verdict.

In that sense, the trial of Eric Bechler, which ended last week with

his life sentence, is a classic.

The dashing, young father of three from ritzy Newport Heights was

found guilty of bludgeoning his wife, Pegye, to death at sea during a

boating excursion he said he arranged to surprise her during their fifth

wedding anniversary.

That was three years ago. And ever since, Bechler stuck to his story

that he and his wife were in the middle of a heavenly cruise -- they

drank margaritas, made love twice.

He got on a bodyboard and she drove the speedboat, he said.

A giant wave hit him, Bechler said, and he went underwater. When he

came back up, there his wife was gone.

Her body was never found. Investigators found drops of blood on the

boat, an amount so minuscule they couldn’t even determine if it was human

blood.

What did him in? A former girlfriend, a pair of dumbbells and a bunch

of secretly recorded tapes.

Bechler was arrested after ex-girlfriend Tina New wore a recording

device for investigators and got him to confess on tape.

New, a bikini model and aspiring actress when she dated Bechler, also

testified in court that he told her after a night of partying that he

clubbed his wife on the head and dumped her in the Pacific Ocean, tied

down with 70 pounds of weights.

The media watched -- notebooks, laptops and cameras in tow -- and

waited on the cold corridors of the county courthouse for more than two

months as a sensational tale of mystery, greed, lust and betrayal

unfurled before their eyes.

From my perspective, covering a trial that several veteran court

reporters called a “once in a lifetime experience” was quite a thrill and

quite a challenge.

It was only my second trial and my first experience trying to get a

seat in a tiny courtroom, with a gallery of only 21 available chairs.

It was the first time I was part of what many condescendingly call

“the media circus,” rushing from the 10th floor to the 2nd floor so I

could get a spot near rows of cameras and flashing lights and eager

reporters who wouldn’t hesitate to give you that inadvertent push -- or a

shove.

And then there were the curious spectators, mostly court watchers and

boating enthusiasts from Newport Beach.

“I think he did it,” one of them whispered in my ear as Bechler took

the stand to testify in his defense.

“Look at the jurors,” said a Huntington Beach man. “He doesn’t stand a

chance.”

“How do they know?” argued another. “There’s no blood, and there’s no

body.”

Those questions may never go away. And the Bechlers’ determination to

appeal the verdict may drag them on for many years to come.

But when it comes to what happened on the high seas the afternoon of

July 6, 1997, only one man knows.

And his name is Eric Bechler.