Closing arguments expected in Bechler trial

Deepa Bharath

SANTA ANA -- Closing arguments are expected to begin today in the

trial of Eric Bechler, the Newport Beach man accused of murdering his

wife during a boating trip in 1997.

Bechler concluded his own testimony Monday by drawing, at the request

of Deputy Dist. Atty. Debora Lloyd, on a photograph of a boat how he says

his wife, Pegye, was sitting sidesaddle on the seat before she fell out.

Prosecutors allege Bechler hit his 38-year-old wife on the head, tied

her body down with weights and dumped her in the ocean. Bechler has

pleaded not guilty, saying his wife fell off the boat when she was hit by

a wave as she was driving and towing him on a bodyboard.

Much of Lloyd’s cross-examination focused on how Bechler’s wife was

positioned while she was driving the rented speedboat. In particular,

Lloyd tried to establish through her questioning of Bechler that his wife

could not have hit her head if she fell from the position that Bechler

described and drew.

On another crucial item in the case, Bechler also said during the

cross-examination that he moved a stand with dumbbells from his solarium

to his garage in preparation for a party July 3, 1997, three days before

his wife’s alleged murder.

Prosecutors allege he used some of those dumbbells to weigh down his

wife’s body.

Bechler’s former girlfriend, Tina New, testified last month that

Bechler told her about hitting his wife on the head with a dumbbell and

dumping her in the ocean with 70 pounds of weights. The prosecution has

provided testimony that two 35-pound weights were missing from a tripod

bearing dumbbells that was once seen full by Pegye Bechlers family

members.

After the defense rested its case, Lloyd brought in more witnesses in

an attempt to prove that Bechler was not telling the truth about the

weights.

Craig Corn, the window cleaner who washed the outside panes of the

solarium days before the July 3 party, testified that he had never seen

the dumbbells or the stand in the solarium.

“It was pretty much an empty room,” he said. “I remember because it

was a tough room to clean. . . . There was nothing except a children’s

table, a children’s car and a table.”

Pegye Bechler’s best friend, Glenda Mason, also testified she had

never seen the weights in the solarium. And Pegye’s cousin, Wayne

Marshall, said he remembered seeing a similar stand with all of the

dumbbells intact in a storage unit in Costa Mesa before Pegye’s

disappearance.