48 Hours Podcast

00:04 Love is blind. 00:06 I think I was blinder than most. 00:09 Kathy Spires fell hard for Steve Markham. 00:12 Hi, Steve. I fell in love with a man that was so giving and fun. 00:17 She was also intrigued by his past, including his stories about working for the CIA. He's charmed everybody he's ever met. But then his stories began to unravel. 00:29 You had no idea this guy had ever been married before. 00:31 revealing a lifetime of lies. I said, your parents aren't dead. 00:37 And you have a sister? 00:38 Kathy was convinced there was something more sinister. 00:42 He gave me fuel to be very angry and motivated. 00:46 Susan Spencer investigates. What else could he be hiding? The body was found caught up in the gate right here. Is it murder? I didn't stop. I couldn't. The woman who had loved him now was out to get him. Kathy was definitely in danger. 01:02 A 48 hours mystery. Sporned women are very, very good witnesses and very, very good snitches for us. The secret life of Eric Wright. 01:19 Steve's caught a fish. Now you gotta hold it up, Steve. 01:24 He is absolutely amazing. Hi, Steve. Hi, Al. Where are we? We're in Avalanche Creek. 01:30 He's charmed everybody he's ever met. 01:33 Hi, Stevie. Hi, you're welcome. Everybody liked him. He made me feel like I was the most beautiful. I was the most best friend of his he's ever had. 01:45 Kathy Spires met Steve Markham back in 1980 at the Denver restaurant where she worked. She was 30. He was two years older. 01:54 He was applying for a best boy position, and he got the job, and he'd be working with us. He followed me around a lot after meeting him. 02:05 And love soon followed, too. Both were smitten, as Steve Markham remembers today. 02:11 Cute, funny, just full of life. God love her. 02:18 In no time, they were a couple, went everywhere together. Waved to the camera. But Kathy did notice a few strange things. Though only a busboy, Markham always had a lot of money. He even bought Kathy a Porsche, telling her he'd come into a big inheritance when his father died. 02:37 I fell in love with a man that was so giving and fun and spontaneous. 02:43 Another odd thing, he said part of the inheritance was some gold, unrefined bars like this one, kept in, of all places, the toilet tank. Can we just stop a minute? Sure. 02:56 Why would you put gold bars in the toilet? The one thing that's left when a house burns down is that nice porcelain toilet that doesn't burn. So if the house burns down, I know where my gold will be. 03:07 And that wasn't Steve Markham's only little quirk. He tended to boast a lot, and he liked to hint at a dark and mysterious past. A past that included, believe it or not, time spent as a hitman for the CIA. 03:23 But he said his days of espionage and aliases were over now. Now he claimed he actually was hiding from the CIA. As if all of this weren't confusing and bizarre enough, he also told Kathy that before coming to Denver, he had been in a California prison. 03:46 I was in prison for murder. Why were you there? Well, I got in a barroom fight and killed someone. 03:50 It was an accident, he said. He was defending a woman who had been attacked by someone at the bar. 03:56 Total fabrication. 03:58 And what else did you tell her about your background? 04:01 Parents were deceased. Not true. No. It was all fabrication. They're really good stories. 04:07 Cindy and Alan Ferry were Steve and Kathy's best friends. 04:12 They say they never believed any of it. 04:15 He wasn't telling her these stories because he wanted to spend the next 20 years of his life with her. He wanted to get laid. 04:21 I would have never dated him. Somebody told me they were in the CIA and a hit man. I'm sorry, they wouldn't have gotten the time of day. 04:31 But for other friends, and especially for Kathy, it was no laughing matter. 04:36 He said because of his life, he'd never been married, he'd never had children. He had obtained tons of different IDs and aliases because of the work that he had done. 04:47 Did you find all these stories sort of exotic and, you know, romantic, if you will? 04:53 Well, yes, but so did everybody that heard them. 04:57 So in 1981, bizarre stories and all, Kathy and Steve tied the knot. 05:05 Love is blind. 05:07 I think I was blinder than most, although I didn't want to believe it at the time. 05:10 This is Steve and Kathy's house, honeymoon resort. At first, all went well. But as the months wore on, Steve's stories got more complicated and contradictory. 05:23 There was an anonymous call to the house for someone named Eric Wright. Finally, Kathy demanded answers. You basically threatened to leave him unless he produced some proof of who he was. Yes, I did. I did. He agreed to show her. They got in the car and headed for Fresno, California, where he claimed he was born. 05:44 And all of a sudden, he says, pull off here. 05:47 Here was the town of Exeter in the Central Valley, his real hometown. 05:53 I pull off an Exeter and I just about dropped him off right there, but he's begging me not to leave him. 05:59 They drove to Exeter's cemetery to visit his mother's grave. 06:05 But, Kathy says, he couldn't find the grave. 06:09 I'm on the ground looking for headstones. He's on the ground sobbing hysterically. He's yelling, those bastards, those bastards. They took her. They took everything. And now they're going to take you too. Now I'm getting really scared. 06:23 He basically, I guess, must have convinced you to some extent that this was real. He did absolutely. He became the victim then. 06:32 So I've told these outrageous lies that frankly amazes me that anyone ever believed. 06:36 It is astonishing anybody ever believed you. 06:39 Yeah, absolutely. Kathy did. But Kathy likes drama. Keep in mind, Kathy loved the drama, the whole thing. 06:43 Steve could lie better than most people could tell the truth. Who can cry like that on cue? 06:49 In fact, Kathy says Steve's performance at the cemetery was so convincing that, incredibly, she now believed that his stories about the CIA, his dead family, his hitman days, all were true. She even felt guilty about not having believed him before. 07:06 And I felt sorry for him. I felt sorry for ever doubting him. 07:12 But that leaves open all the questions. Why did he tell these elaborate lies? Is he hiding something from his past? And who, in fact, really is Steve Markham? 07:23 Kathy was definitely in danger. 07:26 I was quite concerned for her safety. 07:39 For Steve and Kathy Markham, the 80s seemed to speed by. 07:43 I thought it was a very happy marriage. I think Kathy would agree, and certainly I think anyone who knew us during those years would agree. 07:49 It looks like a couple in love, doesn't it? 07:51 He was very attentive. 07:54 Very much my friend. 07:56 She'd learned to live with his idiosyncrasies. For example, she discovered, to her shock a few years earlier, that Steve Markham wasn't even her husband's real name. She'd stumbled across that unsettling fact in their visit to his hometown in California. 08:13 When I went to the high school, I went into the office and got the yearbook out and opened it up. There were several other pictures of him in there. 08:21 Pictures of Steve, and underneath them, the name Eric Wright. 08:27 And the reason he didn't tell me his name was Eric Wright, it was too dangerous for me to know. 08:34 Dangerous, he said, because he, Eric Wright, was a man on the run from the CIA. 08:40 I knew there was more. 08:42 And I wouldn't allow myself to believe my own intuition. 08:45 So she ignored the contradictions and the growing problems in their marriage. Until the early 90s, Kathy says, when Steve's behavior changed. He became unpredictable, erratic, sometimes even physically abusive. 09:01 He became very combative with me. Combative? He gets so mad at me that he picked me up underneath my arms, off my feet, and I'm dangling there, and he threw me into a wall and threatened to kill me. That's the first time I saw Eric Wright. 09:20 I did not ever threaten Kathy, and she's made numerous allegations of threats, and I have never threatened her. 09:26 But Kathy says she was frightened and desperate to understand what had happened to the man she loved, and who after all was he? That looks like something from a high school yearbook. It was, it is. She began to dig, starting with that old yearbook. Many people might have reacted by simply running, not by trying to piece together who he was. 09:47 It wasn't that I wasn't gonna walk away, I had literally nowhere to go. Right. Nowhere to go. 09:53 She located Chuck Knox, a teacher who'd gone to school with Steve, or rather, with Eric. 09:59 He was pretty well-liked among all the students, very active in school activities. He did it all. He was the golden boy of Exeter High School. 10:06 Here is Eric as most dependable senior. 10:09 Most dependable? Most dependable. 10:11 Oh, you must have gotten a laugh out of that. 10:12 I did. 10:14 But her first phone call to Chuck Knox was anything but amusing. 10:19 Well, I'm explaining that I'm looking for a yearbook for my husband because his family were gone and they were dead. 10:24 His house burnt down. I said, I don't believe his parents are dead. And I drove by his house two days ago and it's still standing. Huh? 10:31 I know. That's what I said. 10:33 You ought to talk to his sister, Joanne. I think she can clear all this up with you. And the phone kind of went dead for a moment. She said, I don't ever remember him telling me he had a sister, Joanne. And they'd been married for about 12 years. 10:47 You couldn't have just accepted this immediately. 10:49 Now I'm getting really angry. 10:52 I'm getting angry, and I am in shock. She confronted Steve. I said, your parents aren't dead. 11:00 And you have a sister? 11:03 And he looked like I'd shot him. And he said, what have you done? 11:10 You have just got us killed. 11:14 Because of his old CIA ties, he said, revealing any detail of his past could cost them their lives. By now, Kathy had heard just about enough of this, and pretty soon their already troubled 13-year marriage fell apart. The divorce was protracted and ugly, and the more it revealed about Steve Markham, or rather about Eric Wright, the more determined Kathy became to uncover the truth. 11:43 He gave me fuel to be very angry and motivated. 11:47 Of course, she could have just walked away. But Kathy continued to investigate Wright, visiting records offices, libraries, court document rooms. I didn't stop. I couldn't. 12:01 Did you get obsessed with this? 12:03 I was determined. Was I obsessed? 12:06 Yes. 12:08 Let's put it this way. 12:10 I couldn't eat and I couldn't sleep. Oh my lord, these are all your notes? These are all my notes. 12:16 And it goes on and on. 12:18 All along I wanted to know what happened to my best friend. And what I found out is that my best friend really never existed. 12:24 Her best friend, it turned out, wasn't even legally her husband. Kathy discovered he had three children with two different women. And before he met her in Colorado, he'd been not a prison inmate, but a businessman, living with his last wife and child in California. Kathy had married a bigamist. 12:45 She had no idea I was married. 12:47 I did commit bigamy, no doubt about it. 12:49 You're lying to somebody who cared about you. A great deal. 12:53 At what time do you stop telling the lie? 12:55 You had no idea this guy had ever been married before. 12:58 That must have been a huge shock. 13:00 My world just stopped as I knew it. I was pissed at him and I was pissed at me for not listening to my gut, for not listening to my instincts, for not listening to the red flags. 13:12 Kathy also began wondering if there might not be a grain of truth in some of Eric's lies. What was it that made you think that this was anything more than somebody who had just lied about his past? 13:24 He was so detailed about killing people, murdering people. 13:31 She was genuinely afraid. And she had good reason to be, says Bruce Bolton, then a detective with the Littleton Police Department in suburban Denver. 13:40 I was quite concerned for her safety. 13:43 He'd gotten to know Eric Wright, alias Steve Markham, when Kathy filed a criminal complaint against him during the couple's messy divorce. 13:52 I believed him to be a sociopathic personality. I felt that she was in grave danger and she needed to take precautions. 14:01 In fact, Kathy says, she took extraordinary precautions. She went into hiding for nine long years, frequently on the move, all the while still investigating Eric Wright. 14:15 I had to distance myself from my friends, my family. 14:19 I had lost everything, my mother, my father, my family, my friends, my business, my home. It was too overwhelming, the pain and the loss. 14:30 She says she often traveled under assumed names and lived off a small amount of money that she had saved. 14:37 Kathy has had a good time with this. 14:40 A good time with this? 14:41 As far as this investigation of hers goes, yes. 14:44 She says it's practically bankrupted her. 14:46 I'm sorry she's destroyed her life over this, but that's her choice. An obsessed and rather pathetic ex-wife. Why has she pursued this for 10 years? 14:54 She's a little miffed. 14:55 She's a little miffed, but to what purpose? 14:58 Well, because she was deceived for more than a decade. She also thinks that you murdered a man. 15:03 She has no reason to think that I murdered a man. 15:06 Is that right? 15:07 But that is Kathy Spires' firm belief. 15:11 And questions her dogged investigation raised have landed Eric Wright where he is today, shackled and handcuffed in a California jail. facing the distinct possibility of life in prison. 15:25 I did lie, I did tell crazy stories, I did say I had murdered people, and all of that has added up to having me here. 15:31 Luckily for me, he underestimated me, because that's why I'm still alive. He certainly did seem to underestimate you. He did. 15:47 The vast California aqueduct, which moves water from the northern part of the state to the parched south. Not uncommon to find bodies in it. 15:56 Not uncommon. 15:57 John Huber, a lieutenant in the San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office, knows the waterway well. 16:02 Water's a dumping place for homicide victims. 16:07 As it was 24 years ago, when in the sweltering August heat, fishermen spotted a body here, badly decomposed, floating face up. 16:18 The body was found caught up in the gate right here. 16:24 It was chained. It had a plastic bag on it. What do you mean chained? 16:29 It had a large, heavy-linked chain tied with cable ties to the hands, the feet, wrapped around the body. 16:38 Fingerprints revealed the victim was Lester Marks, described by police as a small-time crook who specialized in fencing stolen jewelry. He worked in this high-crime area in San Francisco. 16:51 He'd serve time? He may have done a little bit of time there, but nothing significant. 16:55 The case went unsolved. The evidence file was locked away. 17:02 Fast forward to 1993. I truly believe in my heart He cannot stop what he is. Kathy by now is convinced that all the lies Eric Wright told her were made up to conceal some terrible truth, probably a crime. 17:21 I had no idea of what I was going to find. 17:25 I was going to find the truth, no matter what it was. 17:29 I had to for my own peace of mind so I could move on. 17:33 Her investigation led her to Lieutenant Huber, who took her seriously enough to search his old case file to see if there were any unsolved crimes from around 1980, the time the couple first met. And Kathy had mentioned those mysterious gold bars Eric had. And the gold, he said, came from? 17:54 His father's dead father's estate. If his dad is alive and his mom is alive, where did the gold come from? 18:01 Good question. You asked. 18:02 He wouldn't answer me. 18:05 But the gold rang a bell with Lieutenant Huber, because murder victim Lester Marks was known to have had bars of unrefined gold. Seven of them, in fact, made, he thinks, from melted down jewelry. 18:18 They were two and a half pounds a piece. They're discolored. They had dark and light spots. 18:24 Back in 1980, gold sold for more than $600 an ounce. And Hubert thinks Marx's gold could have been worth as much as a quarter of a million bucks. After his murder, no gold ever was found. 18:38 After talking to Kathy, I gave her quite a bit of credence. You know, scorned women are very, very good witnesses and very, very good snitches for us when we have cases that have gone unsolved for a long time. 18:52 Eric Wright, he learned, also had been in the precious metals business, working for a company that operated out of this building in San Francisco. 18:59 He was living from paycheck to paycheck, borrowing money to make the house payment. 19:06 So Eric Wright may have needed money. 19:09 Intrigued, Huber launched his own investigation, on and off for 10 years, whenever he found time. He looked for anything linking Eric Wright to Lester Marks' murder. 19:21 Some of the witnesses had died. It was difficult tracking people down. 19:27 In 1997, he took what evidence he had to a grand jury. It found the case too weak to act on, but too suspicious to forget about altogether. 19:38 I didn't want to let it go, so if I didn't do my best job there, maybe I could clean it up and do a better job down the line. 19:46 And you had been urged by the grand jury to pursue it? 19:48 Yes. 19:49 Wright had ignored a request from the grand jury to appear. 19:55 Instead, he'd pulled up stakes for Mexico. 20:00 For Huber, that alone was a strong sign of guilt. 20:05 He probably felt that we were actually on to him. 20:08 Absolutely not. I did not flee. I'd been planning that trip for months. 20:12 But Huber was able to get an arrest warrant. And finally, in 2002, more than two decades after Lester Marks' death, and nine and a half years after Kathy Spires began her investigation, Mexican police took Eric Wright into custody. Eventually, he wound up here, in this California jail. 20:33 Absent you, he never would have been charged with this murder, right? Right. You're convinced that he did this? I know he did it. 20:41 Now, a judge will hold a hearing to decide if Huber's evidence is enough to bring Eric Wright to trial. 20:49 I'm confident we have the right person in this case. He'll be held to answer. 20:54 But Wright insists he can explain it all. Did you, in fact, kill Lester Marks? 20:59 I did not kill Lester Marks. I definitely did not. 21:07 Life can feel overwhelming, but you don't have to go through it alone. On my podcast, From the Heart with Rachel Brathen, I share openly and vulnerably about everything life brings us and what we can learn by living with our hearts a little bit more open. Every Friday, a new episode brings you a new story with topics on self-care, motherhood, healing, and more. You are enough, just the way you are. This podcast is a reminder of that. Follow and listen to From the Heart with Rachel Brathen wherever you get your podcasts. 21:42 Back in 1980, gold prices were soaring, and Eric Wright wanted in on the action. 21:48 I had met an individual I was going to be buying some gold from, hopefully. Very attractive deal. 21:54 In mid-September, Wright says he went to a motel in Richmond, California, north of Berkeley, to meet up with his contact. 22:02 And who did you buy this gold from? I don't know the individual's name other than Tony. 22:06 This was about six weeks after fishermen at the California Aqueduct had made their grisly discovery. 22:13 The body of Lester Marks, a small-time jewelry fence. 22:18 I was totally unaware of his death at the time. It was of no consequence to me at all. 22:25 As Wright's story goes, two gunmen attacked him in the motel parking lot. 22:31 What exactly do you recall about this crime? 22:33 I recall shots being fired. 22:35 During or after this transaction where you buy gold from Tony? 22:38 During this transaction. 22:39 During the transaction in which you buy gold from Tony, shots are fired? 22:42 Shots are fired. 22:43 He claims that after that, well, he says he has no idea what happened after that, except that he suffered serious memory loss. 22:52 The last thing I remember in California was unlocking the door of my car. 22:57 When Wright had not come home by the next day, his distraught family reported him missing. His wallet was found on a commuter train, and police discovered his car in a parking lot near the station. 23:10 Investigators at first assumed he'd been the victim of foul play. Wright's wife at the time, Christine, made a public plea for help. 23:19 Just call somebody and tell us something. 23:25 I want him home. 23:27 But instead of home, several weeks later, Wright ended up here in Colorado. 23:31 And not knowing who I was. 23:33 So you're saying that from the time you put the key in the lock until you woke up in Colorado, you remember nothing. 23:39 I have no recall. 23:41 He blames his amnesia on post-traumatic stress disorder, fallout from his days as a hard-charging Marine in Vietnam. 23:50 There was a lot of difficult memories that I'd repressed. I certainly don't like being labeled mentally ill. 23:55 He dishonors veterans. 23:57 You just don't buy this post-traumatic stress. 23:59 There's no way in my gut that I can believe it. 24:03 Wright also says he has problems blacking out, losing track of time, and that this all first was triggered by that shootout in the motel parking lot. But amnesia or not, some traces of his past life did go with him to Colorado. You wake up, you have two gold bars and two silver bars, you said. How fortunate that you remembered to take them with you. 24:26 Being mentally ill does not mean being stupid. 24:30 It may not mean that you can't plan either. 24:33 You can look at it that way if you choose. 24:35 After several months, Wright says he did realize who he was. He remembered his wife and family. So why didn't he contact them? 24:44 Once I did have recall of my past, I assumed that everyone thought I was dead. Don't you think they would have forgiven you? I don't know. At what point? 24:52 People who go through things like this usually turn to their families and their loved ones for support. That's what they're there for. 24:59 I was in a state of panic. I was frightened. I could not bring myself to do it. You're asking me to give rational explanations for irrational behavior. I can't do that. 25:08 But you want the irrational behavior to explain everything, all these little problems away. 25:13 I don't think it's going to explain anything away. I'm not asking for anyone's forgiveness. I am asking for some understanding. 25:19 He was never confused, baffled, or dazed. 25:22 Kathy, who met and married Eric after he came to Colorado with the gold, says she never saw any evidence that would support his claims. 25:31 He didn't have nightmares before. He didn't have lapses of memories. He always came home. He always remembered who he was. In fact, it was just the opposite. I'd never met anybody more focused. 25:43 But in 1997, shortly before Wright was invited to testify before that grand jury in the Marks case, the Veterans Administration did put him on full mental disability for post-traumatic stress. 25:57 As we look at my life, we either say, gee, this guy's criminal, terrible criminal person, or perhaps he's got some mental health issues. 26:04 One doesn't necessarily rule out the other. 26:06 Exactly, no, but I mean, we have variations on the theme. We can look at it one side of the coin or the other. I'm trying to simplify it for argument's sake. 26:12 His use of the mental illness seems to be convenient for when he has something he doesn't want to remember or wishes not to talk about it. 26:21 Judge Byers says he believes... Something John Huber says, like where he got those gold bars. According to police records, Wright's story about a gold deal gone bad in Richmond just doesn't check out. 26:34 Nothing that he has told me about the time that he disappeared I've been able to verify on any of his stories. The shootout in Richmond... There was no shootout in Richmond. There was no shootout. 26:47 No evidence of a shootout and no evidence of a gold deal. But investigators did turn up a lot of evidence that Eric Wright planned his own disappearance. A copy of this book was found in his office. It explains in elaborate detail how to create a new identity. And in the weeks before he disappeared, Eric Wright followed its step-by-step instructions to a T. That's how he became Steve Markham. 27:14 Steve Markham was a name that I found by searching a newspaper and looking for someone who had died as an infant. 27:21 And this was somebody who had been born roughly close to when you were? 27:24 Roughly the same age, yeah. 27:26 He claims he needed fake IDs in his precious metals business to use when dealing with shady characters, but he insists the timing was coincidence, that creating Steve Markham had nothing at all to do with disappearing. It is sort of convenient that you already had a new identity all figured out, and then this terrible thing happens that erases your memory, And you wake up and, well, there's the identity and there's the goal. 27:52 It's time to start over. We can say, you know, it's awful convenient. But at the same token, the other aspect to look at that, Susan, is how stupid would it be for me very publicly go out and get these names, disappear, and then use them? 28:05 Maybe you're just not a very smart criminal. 28:07 I'm not a criminal, but I beg to differ with you. Susan, I've never denied the fact that I disappeared, but I'll tell you what, it has absolutely nothing to do with the murder of Lester Marks, and that's the crime that I'm charged with, and that's the reason that I'm here. 28:25 What makes Eric Wright dangerous is because he is so believable. It would be really easy to have a number of jurors believing this fellow since conning is what he does and he does well. 28:41 Wright's uncanny power of persuasion isn't the only problem facing prosecutors. They also lack hard evidence. 28:50 How do we know that Lester Marks just didn't sell these bars? How do you know that these bars are even missing? 28:55 How do I know? I don't know. 29:03 But if they don't know that, can they even make a case against Eric Wright? 29:08 As charged, the maximum possible consequence is life without possibility of parole. 29:14 Wright's day in court is next. 29:17 Are you seated? 29:26 This is a matter of people versus Eric Lawrence Wright. 29:29 Charged with murder in a 23-year-old case, Eric Wright must appear at a preliminary hearing. 29:35 I believe we could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt this man is a murderer. 29:40 For his ex-wife, Kathy Spires, who has spent the past nine years investigating his lies, even getting this far is sweet satisfaction. 29:50 We've seen some pictures. 29:52 Although Wright's defense attorney, Keith Arthur, insists the state hasn't got all that much. 29:58 Well, it's not even really a circumstantial evidence case. It's not that good. You know, I actually have a tangible shot of getting it dismissed. I think there's no evidence. 30:07 He explains away the charges as simply the result of his client's apparent compulsion to lie about almost everything. 30:16 He made up a bunch of fairy tales and they've come back to bite him in the ass. That's what this case is all about. 30:22 Well, maybe, but the defense attorney will have to convince a judge of that. After hearing all the evidence, a judge will then decide if Eric Wright will face criminal charges. And it won't take all that much to send this case to trial, just a strong suspicion that Wright committed murder. Have you ever had one moment of doubt about his guilt? 30:44 No, he's never given me anything that would, you know, plant that seed either. 30:48 No question, there's a good case that Eric Wright planned his own disappearance. But that doesn't mean he killed Lester Marks. 30:56 This case has strengths. It has weaknesses. 30:59 Dr. Lawrence, please. 31:01 Weaknesses like the testimony of Dr. Robert Lawrence, who performed the autopsy on Lester Marks. 31:08 I was unable to determine with certainty 31:14 The prosecution has not determined how the victim was killed, when the victim was killed, where the victim was killed, and they sure as hell haven't shown that I've killed him. 31:24 And Wright says that to get back at him, his ex-wife simply has found a crime to fit the story. 31:30 Being vindictive has nothing to do with it. It really doesn't. 31:34 But what is the truth? Take those mysterious gold bars. The police theory is that Wright killed Lester Marks to get that gold. And Huber says Wright's own explanation of how he got it just doesn't check out. 31:48 We can find no plausible evidence from anybody out here that anybody else was doing a gold deal with him. 31:54 One thing is sure, Lester Marks had gold about a month before his body was found. Investigators confiscated it in a raid, then returned it to him. It never was seen again. 32:06 Did you ever see any gold? 32:08 Prosecutors have testimony from two of Eric's former Colorado roommates that Lester Marks' gold bars, seen only in this newspaper photo, looked kind of like the ones Wright kept in his toilet tank. Similar? 32:22 Yes. 32:22 Not necessarily the same? 32:23 No, no. 32:24 Identifying bars from a photograph, a black and white photograph, what, 13 years later? That seems like a pretty thin reed, and this is one of the most important pieces of evidence you have. 32:36 I don't know if it's a thin reed. It's just another, I guess, straw on the camel's back. 32:42 The most important straw may be what was found next to the phone in Lester Marks' apartment. A scribbled note. On it, Eric Wright's name and office phone number. 32:54 But is that evidence that the two men really knew each other? 32:57 Lester Marks may very well have called my company and asked for advice on getting that gold asset, but I have no recall of that. 33:04 So that in your mind is not something that in any way incriminates you? 33:07 Not in the least. Not in the least. 33:09 But there is one person who says he can testify that Wright and Marks did have dealings. The victim's son, Ronnie. The problem is, Ronnie Marks is not the most credible witness to call. In fact, he has a lengthy criminal record himself. Police say mostly for theft and drugs. 33:29 We caught up with Ronnie minutes after he was released from one of his latest stays in prison. He claims first-hand knowledge of Eric Wright's involvement with his dad. 33:40 I talked to him on the phone, and he confirmed to me he's going to buy my father's gold. 33:46 Potentially strong testimony, but Wright claims Marx is lying. 33:51 Did I mention that he was known to have threatened his father? 33:54 And Eric's attorney charges that Ronnie himself may have killed his father. He was a suspect in the case for several years. 34:02 Ronnie had recently been written a savage letter from his father disassociating himself with any concern for Ronnie's welfare. At that time, his son was in jail. He was not going to bail him out. 34:15 A likely scenario is Ronnie Marks confronted his father. His father was an elderly man with heart problems. Perhaps he died of natural causes. And Ronnie Marks simply panicked, took the gold, dumped the body, and looked for a suspect. 34:26 He's a liar, he's a murderer, and he's a cheat. 34:29 He's a killer. 34:31 So Ronnie Marks is lying. Your ex-wife is lying. John Huber is lying. You have a whole lifetime of lying. 34:38 I've had a whole lifetime of lying. So who's telling the truth here? Who's telling the truth? We'll go to court and find out, won't we, Susan? 34:43 With the bar so low for proceeding to trial, remember the judge needs only a strong suspicion of murder, not proof beyond a reasonable doubt. 34:53 Morning, folks. Good morning. 34:55 The decision comes quickly. 34:57 The court finds reasonable probable cause to believe the defendant guilty thereof and holds him to answer for trial two weeks from today. 35:06 23 years after the fact, Eric Wright will stand trial for murder. 35:11 I'm disappointed. Obviously, I'm going to be here for some months, I would imagine. 35:18 But in the bizarre saga that is Eric Wright, there's about to be another unpleasant surprise, this time for Kathy. 35:27 I refuse to be in fear of this man ever again. 35:36 Hello? 35:39 Hi, John. Looking forward to Eric Wright's murder trial, Kathy Spires receives some unwelcome news. 35:47 I don't like the sounds of that, though. 35:49 Even though authorities won the preliminary fight to try him, the weakness of their case has them so worried that they offer him a deal, a deal he quickly accepts, pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter and avoiding a murder trial altogether. 36:05 Oh, that's pretty scary. 36:07 Scary, she says, because it means Wright won't be spending much time in prison. 36:12 A lot of people are going to be very vulnerable, including me. 36:17 Prosecutors fly Kathy to California for right sentencing. Scheduled, it happens, on the very day that would have been their 22nd wedding anniversary. 36:28 For a man who had boasted about looking forward to trial, Wright has his own spin on why he's taking this offer. 36:35 I accepted the plea to avoid what could have resulted in life in prison. I am an innocent man. I have been wrongly accused, wrongly convicted. 36:45 But like it or not, he now is a convicted felon, a point the judge makes in passing sentence. 36:51 even though you may keep your fingers crossed when you enter that plea of guilty the court convicts you based on what you say and as far as the law is concerned you committed the intentional killing of a human being deserves punishment and the court does select the upper term of six years six years the maximum sentence the judge could impose 37:16 But with good behavior, Wright could be out next year. 37:22 Has it been worth it? It's totally worth it. He destroyed people's lives. I know in my heart I've done everything I can. 37:29 So the man Kathy Spires first came to know and fall in love with as Steve Markham the man she later came to hate and fear as Eric Wright, the man who she admits became an obsession, driving her into hiding as she investigated his lies, the man who she vowed would pay in the end, is at last behind prison bars, albeit not for long. 37:56 Can you put Eric Wright behind you? Absolutely. He's taken enough of my time. He's taken enough of my energy. I'm through. 38:06 Eric Wright was released from prison in 2006. He died in 2008. 38:14 a new Paramount Plus docu-series. 38:17 We're about to go kill Osama bin Laden. 38:19 It did look like a one-way ticket. Experience life on the front lines of infamous US Special Op Forces missions. We are expecting 80% casualties. 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