Man Gets Life for Killing His Wife at Sea

Eric Bechler, the Newport Beach man convicted of killing his wife during a 1997 birthday boat cruise, received a life sentence Friday as he and his wife’s family squared off during the tense climax of the highly publicized case.

Relatives of Pegye Bechler, 38, the physical therapist and triathlete who vanished while celebrating her birthday in a speedboat off the Orange County coast, told a judge that the loss has shattered many lives--particularly those of the couple’s children.

“What kind of man would murder the mother of his babies?” asked the victim’s mother, June Marshall. “The children scream for their mommy, night after night after night. . . . You’re a coward and a disgrace, Eric Bechler.”

But Bechler, 33, proclaimed his innocence during a brief speech in a Santa Ana courtroom crowded with family members, reporters, Hollywood producers and other onlookers.

“The accident was a horrible tragedy that has befallen both of our families,” Bechler said. “As much as [her relatives] are hurting, my family’s also hurting, because I didn’t commit this crime. I love my wife terribly. And I miss her. And I . . . there’s nothing else I can say.”

After the remarks, Superior Court Judge Frank F. Fasel sentenced Bechler to life in prison without parole, the maximum sentence because prosecutors did not seek the death penalty.

During the trial, Bechler said his wife was driving the speedboat and towing him on a bodyboard when a wave knocked him under water. When he surfaced, he said, the boat was circling and she was gone.

Relatives of Pegye Bechler said they almost immediately suspected foul play, noting that she was a champion swimmer as a child in Dexter, N.M., and was unlikely to drown.

It was more than two years later that sheriff’s investigators arrested Bechler after obtaining his secretly recorded admission to a new girlfriend who had grown suspicious. He told the girlfriend, model and “Baywatch” actress Tina New, that he had bludgeoned his wife with a dumbbell, then dumped her weighted body into the ocean.

Soon after his wife’s disappearance, Bechler began an unsuccessful effort to cash in more than $2 million in life insurance. At the urging of suspicious sheriff’s detectives, the policy was never paid.

A jury deliberated seven days before convicting Bechler of first-degree murder in February. The panel said it struggled with a lack of physical evidence. No blood was found in the boat, and Pegye Bechler’s body has never been found.

Defense attorney John Barnett said he believes that the conviction will be overturned on appeal. He said the state court had no jurisdiction over the case because the woman vanished in the Pacific Ocean, outside California’s jurisdiction.

Eric Bechler’s relatives have established a Web site, https://freebechler.com, on which they are publicizing his appeal efforts and soliciting funds to pay his legal bills.

“My son is a victim of a miscarriage of justice,” Bechler’s mother, Linda, told reporters after the sentencing. “He loves his children. He loved his wife. . . . Eric will prevail on appeal. We all have faith.”

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Debora Lloyd said she is confident the case will withstand legal challenges. She called the life sentence fitting.

“The family waited a long time for this. It’s going to be nice knowing his plan worked a little differently than he expected,” Lloyd said.

Pegye Bechler’s relatives are raising her children, ages 7, 6 and 4.

Relatives fear that losing their mother at their father’s hands may forever haunt them. The oldest has converted her dollhouse into a jail, Pegye’s mother said. The middle child, haunted by his father’s story that a shark ate his mother, is afraid of boats.