Murder With My Husband - 138. Nick Howard - The Long Game

Episode Date: November 14, 2022

On this episode of MWMH, Payton and Garrett discuss the curious murder of young adult, Nick Howard. LIVE ONLINE SHOW TICKETS HERE! https://www.moment.co/murderwithmyhusband MWMH Free World Sign up: https://murderwithmyhusband.world.co/?page=home Links: https://linktr.ee/murderwithmyhusband Case Sources: Forensic Files, “Oily in the Morning,” broadcast October 5, 2005 on TLC The New Detectives, “Betrayed,” broadcast December 13, 2002 on The Discovery Channel Forensicfilesnow.com Wikipedia.org, Humphrey the Whale Sacramentofuneralandcremation.com, John Findleton obituary Ancestry.com, 1977 Sacramento City Directory (1977, R.L. Polk & Company Publishers) Ancestry.com, 1978 Sacramento City Directory (1978, R.L. Polk & Company Publishers) Saccounty.gov: Sacramento County, Archived Index of Recorded Documents Anylaw.com SFGate.com/San Francisco Examiner, Still Singing That Whale Song, by Jane Kay Newspapers.com sources: The Sacramento Bee, "Man loses control of truck, drowns," 15 March 1996, archived (https://www.newspapers.com/image/627244911: accessed 29 October 2022); citing print edition, p.B2 Gary Voet, The Sacramento Bee, "Volunteers plan major search for body of drowning victim," 26 February 1997, archived (https://www.newspapers.com/image/627678806: accessed 28 October 2022); citing print edition, p.B2 The Sacramento Bee, "Body in marina missing teen," 27 February 1997, archived (https://www.newspapers.com/image/627680800: accessed 29 October 2022); citing print edition, p.B2 Yvonne Chiu, The Sacramento Bee, "Guilty verdict in teen's murder," 8 December 1999, archived (https://www.newspapers.com/image/628446627: accessed 30 October 2022); citing print edition, p.B1 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This summer, PXU Energy is back with Ultimate Summer Pat, starting 50% off energy charges all summer. Everybody's on for automatic energy savings! Plus free energy on the hottest day. Don't you see it? Free days are now the coolest days. In this summer's hottest blood flow start guaranteeing to keep you cool. The savings for coming from inside the house! Ultimate Summer Pat, energy has been developed so cool.

Yes, you energy, energy for everything. Cast the banner now to learn more. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to our podcast. It's murder with my husband. I'm Peyton Moore. And I'm Garmoreland. And he's the husband.

I'm the husband. Important announcement, everyone. We are doing another virtual live show on Sunday, December 11th. We have done two of these previous, they have been so fun, so grab your ticket now at the link in our episode notes, grab your popcorn and sit down to watch murder with my husband live on Sunday December 11th. It is a Christmas episode, but I'm not gonna tell you

what it is. I'm really excited, so go and check the tickets out. It's gonna be really fun. We love doing these live shows. All right, Gary, go, go go go with your 10 seconds. Well, it's getting cold. I don't like the cold. I like used to snowboard, but then I don't.

And Peyton doesn't. Snowboarder's getting. And it's just a good excuse for me to say I hate the cold. And we don't snowboarder ski together. But Peyton did try snowboarding. And if you are a new listener, Peyton last year tried snowboarding for the first time. It was going pretty good.

She was doing all right. Long story short, we were going down the bunny slope and Peyton was trying to figure things out and she had fallen on her butt a couple of times and she wasn't really happy and she was kind of pissed off. It was like her fifth time going down. I was tired, I was cold. Yeah, so it was like, come on baby, doing great.

You got this. Also, and she's going boom, she just faced plants. Fifth time going down. I was tired. I was cold. Yeah, I was like, come on baby doing great. You got this Also, and she's going boom. She just face plants She walked her head in the ice she got up and said get me the f home. I'm she would say that but she said I'm done Ball in my eyes out It was it was pretty sad. But it was pretty funny at the same time He had this a snowboard over to me and he had to push me down the hill because I said I'm not standing anymore. Yeah, I hate this. So we have not snowboarded since with Payton and hopefully we can get back out of this one or do it again. And on that note, let's jump into the episode.

Our case sources are forensic files, the Discovery Channel, Wikipedia, Sacramento, funeral and cremation.com, ancestry.com, sackcounty.gov, anylaw.com, sfgate.com, the Sacramento B, and newspapers.com. Why do humans intentionally kill other humans? I mean, outside of self-defense and controversial contexts like war, capital punishment, and assisted suicide, intentionally killing another human being is murder, no doubt. But how many possible motives are there to explain why people kill? The most common ones are anger, jealousy, financial gain, and revenge.

And then of course, there's people who kill for the thrill of it, those who kill because they get off on it or people who kill because they're delusional. The motive behind the murder in today's case is a hybrid, actually. It's a cocktail of financial gain, jealousy, and revenge that was stirring for decades, revealing the frightening degree to how a criminal never forgets and never let's go. Our episode begins with a family known as the Howards and the Howards were in South Sacramento, California and they were a very tight-knit family. When some people grow up, they move as far away from their parents as humanly possible. But Dan Howard, the eventual father of our case, did not. After

he married Patty Widener in 1976 and had a daughter with her that year, Dan's parents sold the newly wed couple a house right across the street from their own. So Dan maintained a close connection with his parents and a business relationship too. In the late 1970s, Dan, who worked as a mechanic, left his job at J Street Auto and went to work for his father, who ran Howard and son's automotive. Eventually, Dan would take over the business himself. In March 1978, Dan and his wife, Patti, welcomed their second child, a son they named Nicholas. And when Nick himself became an adult and graduated from high school,

his parents agreed to allow him to continue living at home, but under one condition. Nick had to either continue his education and go to college or get a job. And young Nick still had no idea what he wanted to do with his life, so while he figured that stuff out, he opted to just get a job. The second option his parents gave him. He ended up working for the family's auto repair business much like his dad years before. Seems like the Howard's kind of had this pattern. They would grow up, they would work for the family business, get married, have kids, and the process would repeat.

But as we know, not every child wants to immediately follow in their parents' footsteps, especially a young man like Nick, who was just enjoying his newly graduated life at the moment. Sometimes keeping a routine was a bit of a challenge for Nick because like many guys his age He was a night owl and he loved staying out late with friends I mean, I remember being this age right graduated all you want to do is party and hang out now I can't say at past 10 without just giving my next day ruined literally on the evening of February 1st 1997 Nick met up with a friend and went to eat at Tony's Place, which was a restaurant that Nick was a regular at.

Tony's Place was actually a steakhouse located in Walnut Grove on the far south end of the county in Sacramento, California. It had been, and still is, in fact, a neighborhood favorite for decades, and even appeared as a location in the 1985 film The Sure Think. And it was a literal stone's throw away from the Sacramento River, which provided the restaurant with its supply of catfish and other freshwater seafood. So that night, Nick had dinner with his friend Jason, who was a youth pastor who had kind

of grown a strange from Nick because of Nick's partying and drug use, you know, back then when they were both very interreligion. They were really good friends, but his Nick kind of strayed their relationship strained. But Nick told Jason over dinner that he was trying to get his life straight again and wanted to reconnect with his faith, which is why he was even sitting down to eat with him. Which Jason was surprised and very pleased to hear. Sometime after leaving the restaurant, Nick apparently realized he'd left his driver's license behind. So a few days later, on February 4th, as the family was closing up the auto shop, Nick told

his mother he was going out to have dinner with a friend, and afterward he'd swing by Tonys to pick up his ID that he left. But Nick arrived at Tonys too late that night, finding that it had already closed for the night and no one seemed to be inside. So he wrote a message to the owner, Tonys, and taped it to the front door. And then a little after midnight, Nick called his sister, Jamie's cell phone. But it went to voicemail. So he left a message explaining that he'd had some car trouble, but was on his way home and should be back within half an hour.

After calling his sister, Nick then called his friend Sam, saying he was trying to locate Jamie. Nick mentioned during the conversation that he was driving along River Road was quote, hell attired because he'd been awake for 32 hours. Hell attired. And then he said that his car's distributor cap had just gotten wet because He'll be out, he'll be out, he'll be out. He'll be out, he'll be out. He'll be out, he'll be out. He'll be out, he'll be out. He'll be out, he'll be out. He'll be out, he'll be out. He'll be out, he'll be out.

He'll be out, he'll be out. He'll be out, he'll be out. He'll be out. He'll be out. He'll be out. He'll be out. He'll be out. Okay, don't ask me what that is because I have no idea. I'm gonna pretend I do even though I don't sorry everybody But okay, so now he's told his friend Sam and then left a message for his sister Jamie Basically saying that he's had car trouble and he told his friend Sam he was looking for Jamie

Jamie Nick's sister eventually got home that night and listened to the message from Nick only about 10 minutes after he'd left it She decided to page him, but he didn't get back to her, so she just went to bed. And then, the next morning, Patty Howard, his mom woke up to find that her son had never returned home. When she talked to Jamie, Jamie told her about the voicemail

Nick had left her the night before. Now, Patty was really worried, as it just wasn't like Nick to stay out all night and not return home without a word. In fact, Nick had never failed to return home and not been in his bed when patty woke up. And River Road, which is the road that led to and from Tony's place where he had been to pick up his ID that he never got, was winding and narrow and dark at night, so as a

mom, she's just sitting there really worried about her son. This road actually ran parallel to the Sacramento Levy and Sacramento River. So there's no guard rails and there's a steep 30 foot drop into the water. So it's a very dangerous road. Everyone knows about it. And now this was the road her son was last heard from

and now he's not home. So only the previous march a man had actually drowned after his van lost control and ran off River Road and plunged into the water. So fearing the worst, Patty Howard phoned the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department to make a missing persons report. And Dan Howard, the father, got into his car and drove down to Tony's place, circling around the area up and down River Road, looking around for any signs of his son or his son's car. Police began an investigation while the family kept searching, but the hours trudged on without any sign of Nick they couldn't find his car, they couldn't find him. Meanwhile, a longtime family friend named Ralph Marcus learned of the situation from Patty

and enlisted the help of his neighbor Steve Rodi to go down to the river and help look for Nick. They're thinking, well, maybe his car did drive off. So maybe he's somewhere along the river. So he was at Tony's. He left a message on a friend because he was having car troubles. And then from there, we have no idea where he is. Correct? No. So he calls Jamie. He says, hey, I'm having car trouble but I'm hitting home right now. After he calls Jamie, he calls his friend Sam

and says, have you seen Jamie? I've having some car trouble but I fixed it and I'm heading home now. Yes. You never will come home. And that was because Tony's was close so he had to go back home. Yes, because he was looking for his loss

or his ID. He left it Tony's, it's closed. So while searching the river, Rodi brought a flashlight and a spotlight and two days into the search. He finally spotted tire tracks on the other side of the river. Across the county line, leading from the roadway down the levee to the riverbank. So they just basically find these tire tracks. The next day Ralph Marcus, who's the family friend, phoned Jason, the youth pastor who was friends with Nick

and had gone to dinner with him earlier in our story, he phones him and brings him down to the river where the tire tracks were to look around and see if they could find anything. Now Ralph Marcus, this family friend, had been in the Howard's life for decades and had no Nick since he was a baby. Ralph and the Howard's had actually had a falling out a few years earlier, like previous to

this, but Ralph was 42 and remained good friends with 18 year old Nick, which was how he even knew Jason. The Howard's were very grateful for his help while their son was missing just because they'd had the falling out didn't mean he couldn't come help search. So Jason and Ralph went out and looked down the levee where again they saw the tracks that Ralph was talking about. Ralph then said he remembered a spot nearby at a pier on the river where Nick used to like to hang out with his friends. He's like maybe we should go check over there. And was that something you could drive to? Walk. Okay. Walk to. So it's still weird that there's tracks then, correct? So well there are tracks

where you can drive, but now where they're searching there's no tracks and they're just walking. Okay. So Jason and Ralph decides to head to the pier and Jason climbs to the second level and looks over the edge. And that's when he sees a black leather glove sitting on the ledge. Okay. There's a glove right there. Jason said to Ralph and Ralph climbed further over to look. And as Jason walked away to keep looking in other places, Ralph suddenly emerged from the ledge with bad news. He claimed while looking, he'd accidentally kicked the glove off the ledge and into the river. So, Jason's kind of like, okay, well that's the only thing we found.

And this might not be a big deal because who knows if this glove even has anything to do? I mean, it's fine, but how do you accidentally do that? Especially when it's like you're just searching for anything in this case. Oh, sorry, ding! The glove fell on the river. I think considering though the tire tracks and the last known whereabouts of Nick, this is also a place that Nick was known to hang out.

This probably was not a mistake they should have made. Like they probably should have just told police, hey, we found this glove. But now it's gone. Now it's in the river. So Ralph got in touch with Patty, Nick's mom, to tell her about the tire tracks and about the glove and Patty then passes information along to the police handling the missing persons report. The California Highway Patrol and deputies from neighboring Yolo County arrived at the scene with divers who began searching the

river near where the tire tracks were seen and the glove was. And that afternoon the divers made their first discovery. There 16 feet below the surface at the bottom of the Sacramento River they found Nick Howard's Mazda 626, his car, with its windows down and nobody inside. What the heck, that's crazy, the windows are down. And it's like in the river. Authorities arranged the recovery effort and had the vehicle pulled from the river. Inside of the car, the only trace of Nick was his eyeglasses, which were found on the

floor of the vehicle, completely bent in half. In such a way that the frames were almost touching, so his glasses are completely bent. Another strange find that had Nick's family even more confused, his wallet was inside of the car, containing the driver's license. He supposedly left behind at Tony's and had failed to retrieve that night. No, wait, okay. So his family's like, wait, he told everyone he couldn't get the ID because Tony's was closed,

but now the ID is clearly in his wallet. That's now inside of his car in the river. Yeah, obviously something's not adding up. No, but despite the fact that they found his car, Nick's body is nowhere to be seen. So at this point they're thinking, well, he drove, clearly he drove off the road, down into the river, and drowned, but they can't find his body. There was also a thick, greasy substance that was found smeared all over the front seats and the dash of the car, and this was later determined to be motor oil.

It was also concluded that the engine had been running when the car hit the water. So at first glance, it seemed like Nick had fallen asleep at the wheel, gone off road, and drove right into the river. Though one thing the investigators found odd was that the tire tracks didn't show any skid marks or evidence of swarving or an attempt to correct. Because generally, when people fall asleep at the will, they're jolted awake once their vehicle begins to lose control. I also think the strangest thing to me is the fact that the windows are down and he's

not in there. Right. How is what's going on? Well, and police also think certainly the weedy, rocky incline of the Sacramento levy would have jared Nick awake if that's how the accident had gone down. 100%. If Nick had fallen asleep at the will, he would have woke up before he hit the water. But it appeared that the car just drove straight over the levy and into the river without breaking at all. And then additional tests they did found the car had been going only 25 miles per hour when it left the road. And no more than 14 miles per hour when it hit the water.

But the car never used its brakes, so it just drove 14 miles per hour right into the river. I can't believe that they can do all this research and inspect the car and figure all this out. I know. I was actually thinking that. That's pretty impressive. While I was researching, I was like, how do they know all of this? Yeah, it's impressive.

Okay, you guys, we are getting into an ad. I know you guys have both heard the story about how Garrett and I were both paying separately for peacock. And then we used rocket money and realized how dumb we are and are so happy rocket money helped us stop doing that. Rocket money is a personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps you lower your bills all in one place. And like Payton said, I'm always on it, checking things out, seeing what's going on, seeing how many Amazon packages Payton are buying. Is that how you find out about my Amazon packages? No, I just get emails. My email is on your account. Over 3 million people have already used rocket money saving the average person of the 720

dollars a year. Imagine what you could do with that extra cash and your pocket. Stop throwing your money away. Cancel on one of the subscriptions and manage your expenses the easy way by going to rockupmoney.com slash husband. That's rockupmoney.com slash husband. Rockupmoney.com slash husband. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

Have you ever found yourself at a crossroads unsure of which direction to take in life? We all face those moments of uncertainty where the right path seems elusive. But guess what? There's a solution that can help you find clarity and confidence. And that's therapy. As you guys know, I talk about therapy all the time. I go to therapy weekly. I definitely am a big supporter of it.

It's helped me manage my stress and anxiety and really helped me work through difficult times. Therapy is not just for major traumas. It's for anyone who wants to learn positive coping skills, set healthy boundaries and become the best version of themselves. It's about staying connected to what truly matters as you navigate life's challenges. Here's how it works. Simply fill out a brief questionnaire and better help will match you with a licensed therapist who meets your specific needs.

And if you ever feel they need to switch therapist, you can do so at no additional charge. That therapy be your map to a better life. Is it better help.com slash husband today and get 10% off your first month. That's better help.com slash husband today and get 10% off your first month. That's better help help.com slash husband. So this was all looking very fishy to police. No pun intended because we are in a river at this point. But investigators decided to reconstruct the accident using a crash test dummy. The same height and weight as Nick Howard. They're like, okay, we're going to get to the bottom of this.

What what could have happened to his body? So they recreate the whole accident. They're also deciding to do this because accident investigators were thinking that the speeds and the impact wouldn't have been enough to break Nick's glasses, bend them in half. So like, if this was only going 14 miles per hour, how did his glasses turn up like that? Yeah, like a perfect bench. Right. So they put eyeglasses, the same kind that Nick had been wearing on the test dummy, the same glasses that were found bent and broken inside of the vehicle. And when they conduct the test, the dummy's head hits the steering wheel during the accident recreation, and the glasses do not break and they do not bend.

And the body doesn't leave the car despite the windows being down. So for the investigators, this pointed to the broken eyeglasses having been staged and planted or having happened before the crash. Either these happened before he went in the water or someone did this to the glasses. Another curious thing they found was an empty bottle of valvillene motor oil in the trunk,

which probably had been the source of the motor oil found all over the dash and front seats of the vehicle. But again, that means someone took the oil and spread it all over the car and put it back in the trunk. So obviously they assumed it was spread on the car before it. Yeah, they actually hit the water. They, of course. Yeah, they determined for sure it was spread in the car actually hit the water. They, which, of course, yeah, they determined for sure it was

spread in the car before hitting the water. Okay. And more significantly, they found the cap of this motor oil bottle wedged into the throttle. This was a manual transmission car, by the way, and the cap of this bottle is wedged in between the throttle. Additional tests, they conducted found that the bottle cap being wedged into the throttle in this way would have caused the vehicle to move on its own, independent of any activity in the driver's seat. And the car, when it was discovered, had its gears in neutral. So none of this is adding up.

Well, it is adding up. It was just adding up to something other than an accidental crash. Investigators were beginning to feel that the crash had been staged. Now, in the early investigation, while talking to Nick's friends, police learned that a week before he disappeared, he was telling people that he could disappear in a way that no one would ever be able to find him. Why would you ever say that? I've never said that to anyone. I feel like you don't say stuff like that

unless you're planning on doing something. I, or do you disagree? I kind of disagree only because I've definitely had like how to get away with murder conversations, which then I think if I was two months later, the suspect in a murder, people would be like, well, she was talking on a way with murder. It's like, no, it was innocent talk like I was

just saying of all the research I've done and the evidence that comes up in the cases this is how I would think the best way right well the podcast stops we all know why I'm just saying it could have been innocent talk for and other people mentioned a police that Nick was telling them that he was going to be a million air before the age of 30. This behavior seems strange all on its own, but given the fact that he would then disappear in what looked like a staged car crash and an ID story for the night that was actually a lie, this does not look good.

Police are instantly suspicious, but they decide to keep their suspicions of Nick conducting his own death to themselves at this time. We think Nick has done this disappearance on his own. We're not going to tell anyone. Meanwhile, Nick's mother was holding out hope during all of this that Nick had actually gotten in a crash that he had sustained memory loss and was maybe in a hospital somewhere as a John Doe unable to recall where he was or who he was.

That's how bleak the outlook was for the parents in this case. This had become the best case scenario. He did crash, he did survive, and now he just doesn't remember who he is. Man, I don't know what I think. As the recovery efforts continued, Nick's body continued to elude searchers. They could not find him. The search was covered on the local news and it caught the ears and eyes of a Sacramento local named Jack Findleton. Now Jack was a Vietnam vet and a fishing guide known around Sacramento as Captain Jack. Not Captain Jack Sparrow, just Captain Jack. And I need to say he was a character for sure after doing research on him.

In 1985, Jack had commanded the water operations for a previous rescue mission. The much publicized rescue of Humphrey the Whale. Now Humphrey was a 40-foot-long humpback whale that had entered the San Francisco Bay and ended up somehow swimming upstream to the Sacramento River into fresh water habitat. I never knew about this. This is not good for a whale, they don't survive here. So this obviously caught the attention of the media and conservationists who nicknamed

him Humphrey while they kept an eye on his movements. Now Humphrey stayed in the Sacramento River, dragged on for weeks and his condition had by then taken a worrisome downturn. In Captain Jack's attempts to drive the whale out of the river, his boat actually ended up on the whale's back. Like this is something out of a movie. He's going to turn into a modern day Jonah. The guy who got you in my belly.

Okay well not really but actually this is so off topic, but I saw this video on Twitter the other day of this girl who got swallowed by a whale and then the whale regurgitated her back up and she had her camera on the whole time and she survived. She survived, she got swallowed by a whale and she survived. So I mean maybe Jonah was real if he's the one who got eaten by a whale. So Humphrey eventually was led successfully back out to the ocean by scientists and by Captain Jack. And he eventually co-authored a book about the experience about his boat going up

onto the whales back and it's called the Great Whale Rescue. Captain Jack, man. I know, but not not not Jack Sparrow. I kept getting confused every single time. So back to our case, Captain Jack is seeing the TV coverage of the search for Nick's body. And he felt like he had experience, the knowledge, the electronics, and the boats to help ramp

up the search. He said, I found a whale in here and I let it back out. I can definitely find Nick. He'd even once taught a class on body recovery. So Captain Jack showed up at the site where Nick's car had gone into the water and he called out to the people gathered around there to ask if any members of the Howard family were present. That's when Dan, Nick's dad stepped forward to introduce himself. The very next day, Captain Jack was on the water in a jet boat he'd converted to accommodate

sonar equipment just for the occasion. Where is he going to get all this money to do all this? This is just what he does. Just what he does? Yeah, it was a difficult one-man operation and Jack struggled to steer the boat, run the sonar and pull the grapple hook all at the same time. So Ralph Marcus, the Howard's family friend, offered to help out. He's like, hey, I've already been here doing these searches. I'll jump on and help you. Ralph and Captain Jack went

out to the water multiple times over the next few weeks, but all they found across their voyage was a single tennis shoe which turned out to not even be nicks. Now Ralph and Captain Jack weren't the only volunteers helping in the search. A pilot named Alan Stewart donated four days of flying time, while sunrise air donated a helicopter and some pilots to help look. And of course Dan Howard, Nick's father, was on the river every day. But the search teams kept coming up empty-handed, and hope was dwindling. Late in the month, all the involved parties collaborated to begin organizing a major coordinated

search for Saturday, March 1st. This search would combine planes, helicopters, and boats. In the weeks since the accident and since the recent flooding, the water levels had finally gone down and the river had receded 8 feet, so this is a good time for them to be searching. In advance of the organized search, Ralph Marcus, the Howard's friend, told the media that the search would be a last ditch effort. Quote, some of us have put a lot of time into this. Ralph told the Sacramento Bee, we have to get back to Earth, back to our jobs, but I don't want to quit now, thinking he may be floating somewhere under debris. All of us close to Nick feels certain he is dead. We just want some closure to this. However, that coordinated search that had been planned for March 1st never took place.

I think I'm kind of in the same boat that I don't think he ran away. I don't think he'd just try to make himself disappear. I could be wrong, but I guess we'll see where it's going. On Wednesday, February 25th, 1997, a man clearing logs from his private dock on the Sacramento River just across the county line beat the search teams. He observed the body of a young man in the water about a quarter of a mile downstream from the site of the crash. The body was identified that same day as that of missing Nick Howard.

Now this discovery was startling to investigators as they had been suspicious that Nick had staged his own disappearance. Maybe he really had crashed that night. Nick's body was taken to the medical examiner's office for an autopsy and that's when another discovery was made. Nick's body, which was found wearing a single black leather glove, showed signs of having been beaten and strangled before he entered the water, likely unconscious at that point and drowned. And it also didn't seem possible that Nick had actually been in the car when the car entered the water, because his body had no motor oil on it, and remember all of the motor oil that had been found in the front

seat. So Nick Howard's death was now being investigated as a homicide. The police were right, the crash had been staged, but not by Nick, probably by his murderer. And what homicide detective soon found out was that several large life insurance policies had been recently taken out on Nick. By who? One was worth a whopping $850,000. But Nick was the one who opened these policies taken out by him. Well, the so then who is the beneficiary? Well, investigators found it suspicious that someone

as young as Nick would even take out these life insurance policies, especially of this size. Yeah. And what was even more unusual was that Nick had been spending a quarter of his monthly income on these premiums. So he was putting a lot of money to this. Well, the world's something is going on. When police bring it up to Nick's parents, they have knowledge of these. And of course, they're like, we're the beneficiaries. He took those out. We're the beneficiaries. However, this was not the case.

Nick's parents were not the beneficiaries unbeknownst to them. They had been the beneficiaries, but then there was a change of beneficiary executed on all of the policies. And who was the new beneficiary? His best friend, ex best friend? Jason? Yes. No.

Okay. It was the Howard's family friend, Ralph Marcus, who had gone on the boat searching, who had been searching the whole time, who had knocked the glove off, the guy who had been instrumental in helping in the search for Nick's remains. Maybe that's why the search had been unsuccessful. So a few months before his death, Nick told his sister Jamie that he was worth more dead than alive, because he had a million dollars in life insurance. He told Jamie he was thinking of changing the beneficiary from their parents. To Ralph Marcus, she guessed, what's wrong with that, Nick replied, explaining that Ralph

quote, knew what to do with the money and could turn $850,000 into $4 million. But all Ralph Marcus really knew how to do with scam insurance companies. Ralph Marcus was this 42-year-old dude without a job, without a career. A loser. He couldn't hold down a job. He lived rent free with his elderly, terminally ill mother, and he had a criminal record. But he lived a pretty flashy lifestyle in spite of all of this. He claimed he made a living off of gambling and tried to pass himself off as a professional gambler, but his main jam was just insurance fraud.

This is where he was actually getting his money. And this was dating back decades. He had allegedly burned down one of his homes in the 1970s in order to collect an insurance payout. And in separate schemes in the 80s and 90s, he made fraudulent insurance claims alleging burglaries that never took place. He also arranged the theft of his car and his boat also to collect the payout. Ralph even worked as a drug runner for some time, had planned a bank robbery, dabbled in credit card fraud,

and he once escaped from prison and avoided capture for years by using his cousin's ID and using an assumed name taken from a friend's dead brother. Oh my gosh, yeah. So why does Nick have his license? Why did he lie about it? I want to assume it's not a setup because he was strangled and beaten. But like, what's going on? What's going on? So the thing is, these types of criminals, like Ralph,

who on the outside present this, I'm an alpha, I make money gambling, but are actually scam artists. They can be very charming, especially to those who are vulnerable and naive. And young Nick fit that bill. Nick bought Ralph's facade and believed Ralph was this successful professional gambler that he portrayed himself to be.

And Nick started to look up to him. Jumping into an ad and it is native. I use their body wash, I use their shampoo, we use their sunscreen, everything. Or deodorant. We are big native fans over here. And the funny thing is, is I caught myself wanting to buy native products at stores and then I was like,

why am I doing that? Murder with my husband, literally has a code. You can use promo code husband and get money off your native purchases, so go do it. Native sunscreen offers a quickly absorbing ultra-shear and lightweight formula that hydrates your skin while providing broad spectrum SPF 30 protection from harmful UVA and UVB rays.

And Native sunscreen offers three delightful scents, coconut and pineapple, rosé, and sweet peach in nectar. They're also for your face and body, I use them every day. But if you prefer unscented, they've got you covered too. Give your skin the protection it deserves with Native's mineral sunscreens. Go to nativedo.com slash husband or use promo code husband at checkout to get 20% off your first order.

That's nativedeo.com slash husband or use promo code husband at checkout to get 20% off your first order. That's native deo.com slash husband or use promo code husband at checkout native deo.com slash husband and use promo code husband. Ralph actually introduced Nick to gambling and he took the teenager on trips to Lake Tahoe and Reno, spoiling him with fancy hotel rooms and women, but Nick's family after knowing Ralph for many years, thought him to be a creepy person, but this didn't matter. Nick still hung out with him. And later in life, he had become an unwelcome presence in their lives who just wouldn't go away. A guy the Howard's barely tolerated. Patty had actually first met Ralph in 1973 when Ralph was 17 and Patty was just

14 years old. Ralph was a few years older than her, and he was visiting her home with some friends at this time. He'd been in her home for only five or ten minutes when he offered to demonstrate some wrestling holds on her. He then pinned her to the floor and tried to kiss her. This is a girl he's just barely met. Ralph became infatuated with Patty at this point and wouldn't back off. Though she rejected his advances, he continued pursuing her and even proposed marriage, which

Patty of course declined. Patty kept a steady stream of boyfriends as she grew up, just to shield herself from Ralph Marcus. He was like this creepy dude and her life. Patty eventually graduated from high school and married Dan Howard that same year giving birth to their first child Jamie. And then she gave birth to Nicholas in 1978. And over the years, Patty continually tried to distance herself from Ralph Marcus, but he

just kept popping up. Often dropping in on the family when her husband wasn't around, Ralph was clearly obsessed with Patty. And he maintained a friendship with her sister Kimberly just to remain in Patty's orbit. on the family when her husband wasn't around, Ralph was clearly obsessed with Patti. And he maintained a friendship with her sister Kimberly just to remain in Patti's orbit. So here's the issue. Patti's like I don't really like this guy, but he's friends with everyone I'm around. He hangs out with my sister Kimberly like she just can't seem to get rid of him. In a letter he wrote to Patti's sister in 1986, Ralph wrote about the emptiness he felt

without Patti. And he described it as being like if your children were taken away forever. sister in 1986 Ralph wrote about the emptiness he felt without patty and he described it as being like if your children were taken away forever. What is wrong with this guy? Keep in mind she's married and has kids. Ralph often made creepy overtures and comments to patty like when he told her he hoped she got fat so he could prove he loved her by continuing to pursue her even as her beauty faded. Which being fat isn't a reason for someone to prove they love you. Or a way for you to prove your worth.

This just shows you how gross of a person Ralph is. When Jamie Howard, Patty's daughter was 12 years old, she asked Ralph why he himself wasn't married, and he responded to her daughter, because Patty married Danny. So he tells this little girl, well, I'm not married because the love of my life, your mom married your dad. Married her dad. Around this time, he was telling friends that he had a relationship with patty and that he suspected that Nick was his biological son. And when patty briefly separated from her husband, Ralph swooped in and called up pat Patty, hoping to seize the opportunity. But Patty again rebuffed him and asked him to leave her alone.

I feel like this should have been the first suspect when everything happened. Well, he was so helpful. And I think even Patty was... He kicked the glove into the water. Oh no, where'd the glove go? I know, but here's the thing. I think Patty was like, he's just a weird family friend.

He likes our family. He's always involved in our family. I feel like right then and the thing. I think Patty was like, he's just a weird family friend. Like, he just, he likes our family. He's always involved in our family. Like, I feel like right then and there, if I'm with him and also in the glove, just somehow goes in the water, like, dude, you did it. I mean, I know, obviously, go. Well, you don't think that at the beginning of the story. I was a little, I was a little suspicious,

but I think now looking back, it's like, oh, man man that was so obvious right that's horrible well remember how I said of the story that Ralph and the Howard family had finally eventually had a falling out yes that was because in 1993 Ralph finally crossed a line one evening he insisted that Patty meet him for dinner and while they dined he presented Patty with an unexpected business proposition. Ralph would give Patty $50,000 to buy her ovum, which is basically her eggs.

He wanted to have a child with her and he would even find a surrogate to carry it. She's married. Patty was deeply uncomfortable with this. He was a stalker. But she didn't give Ralph any indication of how she was feeling because she was alone with him and she didn't feel safe. And then, on the way out of the restaurant, Ralph put his hand on Patty's stomach and told her, quote, I'd really rather have you carry the child, but I know that's not possible. When Patty later told her husband about what happened, he was upset.

That's when Patty wrote to Ralph and told him he'd stepped over a line and she wanna know for the contact with him. She tried over these years to just have a normal relationship but that was it, he's cut off. And although Patty had cut ties with Ralph Marcus, her son, Nick did not. A couple years later, when Nick was 16,

Ralph began hiring Nick for landscaping work. He actually ended up firing Nick, but remained his buddy and they started hanging out. Nick was impressed by Ralph's extravagance spending. But in reality, again, Ralph had been living rent-free four years with his mother and stepfather. His stepfather was now dead and his mother was dying and the bank was set to foreclose on the house after she passed due to a reverse mortgage she had taken out. Now reverse mortgage is required that once the owner dies the loan be repaid, otherwise the lender takes over ownership.

So Ralph was essentially set to become homeless because he's not going to pay off the debts. And now he's in the situation where I've been living this facade and now it's like actually coming to fruition I'm going to not have a home and that's where we are back to murder Nick's life insurance policies And here is the answer for you as to why Nick had lied about the idea what had actually gone on here police have a theory Because the signature on the applications to change the beneficiary were nicks and confirmed to be nicks handwriting. Police believe that Nick and Ralph had conspired to stage an accident, fake Nick's death,

and collect the insurance payouts. Remember Nick was hanging out with Ralph a lot at this point. This was supported by the statements Nick had made about Ralph Marcus being some kind of financial wizard who can turn $850,000 into several million. Ralph Marcus denied knowing anything about Nick's apparent murder and claimed he knew nothing about the life insurance policies though. And he said he had an alibi for the night Nick went missing. He claimed he was home with his mother and she backed him up.

But police weren't buying it. They believed Ralph's dying mother was lying to cover for him. So they went to a judge and they got a search warrant. In Ralph's bedroom, police found Nick's life insurance policies laid out on his desk. Oh my gosh. He just said he didn't know anything about. Along with a claim, he'd begun already for the $850,000. And in Ralph Marcus' garage, they found a bottle of Valveline motor oil, much like the one they found in the trunk of Nick Howard's Sunkin Mazda. When they compared the lot numbers, they confirmed that both bottles, the one from Nick's car and the one from Ralph's garage, were bought from the same lot.

This was all they needed to arrest Ralph Marcus and charge him with the murder of Nick Howard. In piecing together the crime, investigators believed that Ralph Marcus turned Nick Howard onto the world of insurance scams, and enticed him to take part in one. And Ralph and Nick had hatched a plan to fake Nick's death, collect the insurance payout, and then move to another country and live off of the proceeds. But Ralph's real intention was always to kill Nick and get back at Patty for the decades of rejection as well as solve his current situation with his mother almost dying and him being homeless. It makes no sense to me that someone can logically think if I kill someone they won't look

at who the beneficiary is on the insurance policies. And I'll just get the money. Every single time. Easy peasy. Patty believed Marcus be friend and Nick to stay close to her, but also to hurt him. And prosecutors believed Ralph pulled Nick to meet him on the dock to go over their plan when he surprised Nick with a blitz attack, which would then explain why Nick was lying about where he was that night and used the ideas his fake alibi because he was actually meeting up with Ralph to go

over their insurance scam. Police believe Ralph then beats Nick senseless, strangling him until he became unconscious and then rolled him over into the water to drown. The evidence really did tell the story. Ralph then bent Nick's glasses and planted them in the car, wedged the cap of the motor oil bottle into the throttle, poured the motor oil inside the car to create this impression of a violent crash, tossed the bottle into the trunk and started the car, which then moved forward slowly into the river. While awaiting trial, Ralph told another

inmate in the Yolo County Gell that he'd been charged with strangling his, quote, adopted son and that the family and the insurance company were ganging up on him. He also told the inmate that because no one saw him strangled Nick and throw him into the water, he was confident he'd be acquitted and would be spending Y2K New Year's Eve in Las Vegas. When the inmate asked Ralph if he was guilty, Ralph smiled and nodded before saying, quote, that's for a jury to decide. That inmate later testified against Ralph Marcus at his trial. During the testimony, Ralph Marcus in court looked the inmate in the eye and mowed the words

your dead. At the trial, the defense argued that there had been no crime and the accident happened exactly as it first appeared. Nick fell asleep, the car went off-road and into the river and Nick drowned. And although Ralph Marcus extensively testified on his own behalf, the jury was unimpressed by him. In fact, according to Oneger, his testimony did more harm to his defense than good. The jury found him guilty of first-degree murder in December 1999, and Ralph Marcus spent

why 2K New Year's Eve not in Las Vegas, but awaiting sentencing. On January 14, 2000, Marcus was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He filed several appeals blaming his weak defense team for his conviction, but all of them were denied and exhausted. Why didn't Eagle this guy has? Patty Howard told The Press that although she was happy Marcus was convicted, it wouldn't bring back her son.

Quote, he was gentle, compassionate, and he loved people. She told The Sacramento Bee, I will always miss him. And that is the story of the murder of Nick Howard. So sad that Nick just died. Taking advantage of groomed from a young age. I was gonna say he'd been groomed since he was like 16, got hired, 18, still being groomed, just following along, looking at him as a mentor and just being taken advantage of. Just murdered.

Yeah. This guy had provided him women, money, trips. Like, that is the definition of grooming. This guy has been a scam artist, a thief to a criminal's entire life. And he had what came to him. Yep. All right, you guys, that is our episode for today. And we will see you guys next week with a bonus episode

and a normal episode. I love it. And I hate it. Goodbye.