Nanette Packard: The Affair, Murder, Trial, and Sentence

Nanette Packard is a California woman serving life in prison without the possibility of parole for orchestrating the 1994 murder of her wealthy boyfriend, medical device entrepreneur William “Bill” McLaughlin. Prosecutors proved she conspired with her secret lover, former NFL linebacker Eric Naposki, to kill McLaughlin so she could collect on his life insurance and estate and cover up nearly half a million dollars she had stolen from him. The case went unsolved for fifteen years before both were arrested in 2009, tried separately in Orange County, and convicted.

Who Nanette Packard Is

Then known as Nanette Johnston, Packard was a divorced single mother when she met McLaughlin through a personal ad he placed in the Pennysaver around 1991.¹²³

Packard moved into McLaughlin’s bay-front home in the Balboa Coves gated community of Newport Beach and had use of a separate beachfront property he owned. McLaughlin named her the beneficiary of a $1 million life insurance policy and made her the trustee of a trust holding the bulk of his assets. His will also left her $150,000 and the right to live rent-free in the beach house for one year after his death.⁴⁵

The Theft and the Secret Affair

While living with McLaughlin, Packard was stealing from him. Prosecutors established that she forged his signature on checks and siphoned money from his accounts, taking close to $500,000 in total.⁶ The day before the murder, she forged a $250,000 check drawn on one of his accounts and deposited it into her own.⁷

She was also having an affair with Eric Naposki, a former linebacker for the New England Patriots, Indianapolis Colts, and Barcelona Dragons who by the early 1990s was working as a bouncer and bodyguard in Newport Beach. The two met at a gym. Packard told Naposki that she and McLaughlin were merely “business partners,” hiding the fact that she lived with him.¹ Prosecutors argued Packard feared McLaughlin was about to discover both the affair and the theft, and that she convinced Naposki to kill him so she could collect the insurance money and the estate.⁸ She gave Naposki a key to McLaughlin’s home and details of his daily schedule.⁵

The Murder

On the evening of December 15, 1994, McLaughlin was in the kitchen of his Balboa Coves home in a bathrobe and slippers. At about 9:05 p.m., Naposki let himself in with the key Packard had provided and shot McLaughlin six times in the chest with a 9 mm handgun. There were no signs of forced entry or a struggle.⁹

McLaughlin’s 26-year-old son Kevin, who had a brain injury from a 1991 skateboarding accident, was upstairs. He heard the gunshots, came down, found his father dead, and dialed 911 at 9:11 p.m. Speech impairments from his injury and his distress were severe enough that a second dispatcher had to be brought on to interpret the call.¹⁰

Naposki fled to the Thunderbird Nightclub, about 450 feet from a pedestrian gate to Balboa Coves, where he worked as a bouncer and arrived late for his shift.⁵ Packard told police she had been Christmas shopping at South Coast Plaza, roughly a ten-minute drive from the house.⁹

Fifteen Years Without a Murder Charge

Both were suspected early, but prosecutors reviewed the case at least twice and each time concluded the evidence would not support a murder conviction. The case went cold for fifteen years.⁴

Packard did face charges for the theft. In March 1995, she pleaded guilty to forgery and grand theft, admitting she had stolen $350,000 from McLaughlin, including the forged $250,000 check dated the day before he was killed. She served about a year in jail under a plea deal that required her to repay stolen funds from the life insurance proceeds. She kept the $150,000 inheritance and later sued the McLaughlin family for more, settling for $220,000.⁹²

After her release, she married a man described as very wealthy, John Packard, had a child with him, and divorced. She then married businessman William Wayne McNeal, taking the name Nanette Packard McNeal, had a son with him, and lived in Ladera Ranch. McNeal later testified that she had lied to him about her background and finances throughout the marriage and never told him she was a suspect in a murder investigation. He filed for divorce in March 2010, after her arrest.¹¹ Retired Newport Beach Detective Dave Byington later said of her pattern with men, “You needed a playbook to keep track of the marriages.”⁷

The murder case reopened in 2008, when Orange County District Attorney’s investigator Laurence Montgomery re-examined Packard’s 1994 phone records against old reverse phone directories and identified a 1995 tipster, software company owner Robert Cottrill, whose name investigators had never learned. Cottrill told them he had seen Packard and Naposki together at a gym in November 1994 and described them as “very close” and “obviously together,” placing the two in a romantic relationship weeks before the murder.⁹ Packard and Naposki were arrested on May 20, 2009.¹

Trial and Conviction

The two were tried separately in Orange County Superior Court in Santa Ana. Naposki was convicted first, on July 14, 2011, of first-degree murder with special-circumstance findings for financial gain and personal discharge of a firearm.¹² Central to the case against him was his ownership of a 9 mm Beretta 92F, the same type of handgun used in the killing, which he had lied to police about owning and claimed had been stolen from his car. Former prosecutor Matt Murphy called that lie “the single most important piece of evidence” against him.¹

Packard’s trial began in January 2012. She was charged with a single felony count of special-circumstances murder for financial gain.⁵ Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy argued she had masterminded the killing, supplying Naposki with the key and schedule to protect herself from being exposed as a thief and to collect the insurance. Her own attorney conceded she had a history of lying, cheating, and stealing but argued she was not directly involved in the killing.¹¹ The jury deliberated about three hours before finding her guilty on January 23, 2012.⁷

Sentence and Appeal

Judge William R. Froeberg sentenced both defendants on May 18, 2012. Packard received life in prison without the possibility of parole.¹³ At the hearing, McLaughlin’s daughters delivered victim impact statements directly to her. Kim McLaughlin called Packard’s life “an abomination” and told her, “The fact that you destroyed so many lives along with my dad’s is vile.” A letter from McLaughlin’s brother Patrick, read in court, called Packard “a true black widow.” Packard sat motionless and did not apologize.¹⁴

Packard appealed on the ground that the fifteen-year gap between the murder and the filing of charges violated her due process rights by making alibi evidence unavailable. On January 30, 2014, the California Court of Appeal, Fourth Appellate District, Division Three, affirmed her conviction in an unpublished opinion. Justice William Rylaarsdam ruled the gap was “investigative delay” rather than bad faith, pointing to the two prior reviews that had found the evidence insufficient, and called her claims of prejudice from lost evidence “speculative.”⁴

Where She Is Now

Packard is incarcerated at the Central California Women’s Facility, where she has participated in a service dog training program called “Little Angels.” She has no prospect of release under her sentence.¹

She continues to maintain her innocence of the murder itself. In an ABC 20/20 interview, Packard said of the killing, “I don’t know for sure” who did it, and argued she only stood to benefit financially while McLaughlin was alive. She did express guilt about the affair, saying, “Had I not been having an affair, Bill would be alive still.”¹⁵ After his own conviction, Naposki told prosecutors that Packard had arranged a murder-for-hire and that a third party had used his gun. Prosecutor Murphy noted the account effectively made Naposki a self-admitted co-conspirator.¹

1
ABC News. Convicted Killers in Millionaire’s Love Triangle Murder Case Maintain Innocence
2
CBS News. Did Ex-NFL Player, Girlfriend Kill Millionaire
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Los Angeles Times. Slaying of Entrepreneur Remains Unsolved
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Metropolitan News-Enterprise. People v. Packard, G046934
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Orange County District Attorney. Former Girlfriend Sentenced to Life in Prison Without Parole
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NBC Los Angeles. OC Black Widow Sentenced to Life in Prison for Killing Millionaire Boyfriend
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CBS News. A Real OC Housewife Convicted of Murder
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People. Inside the Murder of a California Millionaire
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Orange Coast Magazine. 3 Hours 44 Minutes
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Orange County Register. Son’s 911 Plea Rocks NFL Linebacker Trial
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Orange County Register. Third Husband Testifies He Was Shocked by His Wife’s Murder Arrest
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Casemine. People v. Naposki, G047282
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CBS News. Nanette Ann Packard Gets Life in California Millionaire’s Murder
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Los Angeles Times. Naposki, Packard Sentenced in McLaughlin Murder
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ABC 7 Chicago. The Millionaire’s Mistake