The Secret Life of Eric Wright

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**Kathi Spiars** (0:10)
Love is blind. I think I was blinder than most.

**Erin Moriarty** (0:15)
Kathi Spiars fell hard for Steve Marcum.

**SPEAKER_4** (0:18)
Hi, Steve!

**Kathi Spiars** (0:19)
I fell in love with a man that was so giving and fun.

**Erin Moriarty** (0:23)
She was also intrigued by his past, including his stories about working for the CIA.

**Keith Arthur** (0:29)
He has charmed everybody he's ever met.

**Erin Moriarty** (0:32)
But then, his stories began to unravel.

**Susan Spencer** (0:35)
You had no idea this guy had ever been married before.

**Erin Moriarty** (0:38)
Revealing a lifetime of lies.

**Kathi Spiars** (0:40)
I said, your parents aren't dead and you have a sister.

**Erin Moriarty** (0:45)
Kathi was convinced there was something more sinister.

**Kathi Spiars** (0:48)
He gave me fuel to be very angry and motivated.

**Erin Moriarty** (0:52)
Susan Spencer investigates. What else could he be hiding?

**John Huber** (0:56)
The body was found caught up in the gate right here.

**Erin Moriarty** (0:59)
Is it murder?

**Kathi Spiars** (1:00)
I didn't stop. I couldn't.

**Erin Moriarty** (1:02)
The woman who had loved him now was out to get him.

**Bruce Bolton** (1:06)
Kathi was definitely in danger.

**Erin Moriarty** (1:08)
A 48 Hours mystery.

**John Huber** (1:10)
Sporned women are very, very good witnesses and very, very good snitches for us.

**Erin Moriarty** (1:15)
The Secret Life of Eric Wright.

**Eric Wright** (1:26)
Steve's caught a fish.

**SPEAKER_10** (1:28)
Now you got to hold it up, Steve.

**Chuck Knox** (1:30)
He is absolutely amazing.

**SPEAKER_4** (1:32)
Hi, Steve.

**Christine** (1:34)
Where are we? We're in Avalanche Creek.

**Keith Arthur** (1:37)
He's charmed everybody he's ever met.

**SPEAKER_4** (1:39)
Hi, Stevie.

**Kathi Spiars** (1:42)
Everybody liked him. He made me feel like I was the most beautiful.
I was the most best friend of his these ever had.

**Susan Spencer** (1:51)
Kathi Spiars met Steve Marcum back in 1980 at the Denver restaurant where she worked. She was 30 He was two years older.

**Kathi Spiars** (2:00)
He was applying for a bus boy position, and he got the job and he'd be working with us. He followed me around a lot after meeting him.

**Susan Spencer** (2:12)
And love soon followed too. Both were smitten, as Steve Marcum remembers today.

**Eric Wright** (2:18)
Cute, funny, just a full of life. God love her.

**Susan Spencer** (2:24)
In no time, they were a couple, went everywhere together.

**SPEAKER_4** (2:28)
Wave to the camera.

**Susan Spencer** (2:29)
But Kathi did notice a few strange things. Though only a bus boy, Marcum always had a lot of money. He even bought Kathi a Porsche, telling her he'd come into a big inheritance when his father died.

**Kathi Spiars** (2:43)
I fell in love with a man that was so giving and fun and spontaneous.

**Susan Spencer** (2:50)
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. Why would you put gold bars in the toilet?

**Eric Wright** (3:05)
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.

**Susan Spencer** (3:14)
And that wasn't Steve Marcum'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 hit man for the CIA.
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 Kathi that before coming to Denver, he had been in a California prison.

**Eric Wright** (3:52)
I was in prison for murder. Why were you there? Well, I got in a bar room fight and killed someone.

**Susan Spencer** (3:56)
It was an accident, he said. He was defending a woman who had been attacked by someone at the bar.

**Eric Wright** (4:03)
Total fabrication.

**Susan Spencer** (4:04)
And what else did you tell her about your background?

**Eric Wright** (4:07)
Parents were deceased.

**Susan Spencer** (4:08)
Not true.

**Eric Wright** (4:09)
No, it was all fabrication.

**SPEAKER_4** (4:10)
They were really good stories.

**Susan Spencer** (4:13)
Cindy and Alan Ferry were Steve and Kathi's best friends. They say they never believed any of it.

**SPEAKER_4** (4:21)
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.