Bechler Ends Testimony by Again Denying Confession

Wrapping up two days on the stand, a Newport Beach man again insisted Monday he wanted to impress his actress girlfriend when he told her he had killed his wife.

Eric Bechler, 33, on trial for the murder of his wife, Pegye Bechler, insisted she drowned accidentally, falling out of a speeding boat while towing him on a bodyboard. Bechler said he fell off the board, and when he resurfaced, his wife was gone and the boat was running in circles.

The defense rested its case Monday after Bechler’s testimony. Closing arguments in the six-week trial are scheduled to begin this morning.

Bechler was arrested after his girlfriend, Tina New, told authorities that he had confessed to her that he killed his wife with a 35-pound exercise weight and then tossed her body in the ocean tied to two of the weights. New was fitted with a hidden recorder and arranged to meet Bechler at an El Torito restaurant, where he made further statements admitting guilt.

But Monday, Bechler said it was all a lie to impress New.

“I was obsessed with her. I was excited; she was exotic,” Bechler testified.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Debora Lloyd, on cross-examination, hammered away at the narrow window of opportunity in which Pegye Bechler could have fallen overboard.

Bechler acknowledged to Lloyd that there were no sudden waves he was aware of, and that his wife was on the boat, straddling the seat, while he was bodyboarding.

“So she disappeared in that 5 to 10 seconds that you were under the water?” Lloyd asked.

“I don’t know how long I was under,” he said. But he acknowledged it was a brief period.

Lloyd and Bechler sparred slightly in front of the jury, with the prosecutor using the term “disappearance” and Bechler interjecting each time “the accident.”

At one point, when Lloyd asked Superior Court Judge Frank F. Fasel to find one of Bechler’s answers unresponsive, Bechler shot back, “It was responsive!” bringing an admonishment from the judge.

Jurors are likely to begin deliberations Thursday.