The good folks at Dateline NBC have announced plans to air their “mystery” Friday night about the ex-National Football League (NFL) player convicted last year for the cold-case ambush murder of an ultra-wealthy businessman in Newport Beach.
I covered the trials of Eric Naposki–the big mouth, former New England Patriot and Indianapolis Colts' linebacker, and his slutty, two-timing girlfriend at the time of the killing, Nanette Packard, and expect Dateline to expertly weave together a fascinating visual tale of a sensational crime that rocked the ritzy, oceanfront community in December 1994.
Go HERE and HERE to read some of my past coverage of the case. And read on for more…
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The CBS 48 Hours' version that aired last October was a
disappointment because their plot line inexplicably omitted several key
incriminating facts developed by homicide prosecutor Matt Murphy and in the process left viewers with the absurd notion that Naposki might be innocent of the murder of William McLaughlin.
The Dateline version will be told by Keith Morrison, arguably the best on-air story teller on national television nowadays.
From his cell inside the Orange County Jail, Naposki–who is scheduled to be sentenced May 18 with his accomplice–has been claiming he's–one guess–innocent and knows the identity of the real killer.
(Most criminal defendants facing life in prison try to divert attention away from themselves before they get convicted. Naposki chose a puzzling route. He decided to talk after a jury officially labeled him a murderer.)
According to sources, Packard declined to appear on the show, but her chatty public defender, Michael Hill, gave an interview.
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CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.