Bob Meyers copes with loss, defends wife’s reputation
May 24, 2015 - 6:33 am
Bob Meyers lost his wife, Tammy, to gun violence in February.
The mother of four was a great person and partner, he said. The couple had been together nearly 26 years, he said.
“We knew each other two weeks and married the week after that,” Meyers said. “That’s the kind of woman she was. She stopped me dead in my tracks, and it was over after that. In all that time together, we never had a hiccup. You watch movies about that.
“And then it was the nightmare movie to end it all.”
He admits he normally wouldn’t feel inclined to speak to a stranger from the newspaper, but these are anything but normal times for Meyers and his children. The family not only is dealing with the loss of Tammy, but it’s also dogged by conspiracy theories — some of which have made their way into the media — about possible motives behind the killing.
Some of it might be written off to the usual smokescreen and red herring defense tactics that often arise after a murder that makes front-page headlines. Some of the Internet speculation has been particularly mean-spirited, and at least a couple of the TV news reports have been flat-out wrong.
Meyers has remained mostly silent through it all. But these days, in addition to surviving the loss, raising his family and keeping together the souvenir business the couple had been building, he also finds himself defending his deceased wife’s reputation.
“I’ll be honest with you,” he said Thursday in the presence of family attorney Sam Schwartz. “I don’t function well. I don’t function well without my wife. She was much more than just a wife and a mother. She was a business owner with me, and helped me run the business. I’m a mess without her. I’m just doing what I can do to not fall apart.
“I’m keeping myself and my kids occupied by working and fighting for my wife’s honor and name every day. I’ll never stop doing that.”
From the standpoint of the Metro Homicide investigation, there’s little mystery to the identity of the shooter. Erich Nowsch, 19, has been arrested and charged with the Meyers murder. He’s accused of firing 24 rounds from a semi-automatic pistol in what has been called a case of road rage and a case of mistaken identity.
What’s harder to mistake, according to grand jury testimony, is the fact Nowsch twice confessed to the shooting. Not once. Twice.
And that doesn’t include whatever cooperation the prosecution might yet receive from Derrick Andrews, who, police said, drove the car from which Nowsch fired round after round, eventually striking Meyers in the head. She died two days later in a local hospital. (Andrews late last week sought a new defense attorney.) The shooting took place outside the Meyers home.
Following a recent television news report that Schwartz called incendiary but also highly inaccurate and misleading, Schwartz said Meyers felt compelled to again speak out on behalf of his late spouse.
“Why aren’t people focusing on the fact Erich Nowsch confessed to murder twice, once to a friend and once to the police?” Schwartz says. “Who confesses to murder if they didn’t do it?”
The attorney also might have added that Nowsch is additionally charged with a felony in a separate case stemming from a Feb. 15 incident — three days after the Meyers shooting — in which he’s accused of threatening to slice the throat of a legally blind local boy. Nowsch hasn’t been convicted of anything, but by now it’s becoming pretty clear he’s an extremely troubled young man.
And, Meyers reminds critics and cynics, it was Nowsch who threatened the life of his wife and daughter. It is Nowsch who is charged with murder.
“I do not have any second thoughts about what my wife did that night,” Meyers said. “I can only go by my wife’s character after knowing her for 25½ years. She was a rational, good person, a good wife, and a good human being.”
With Nowsch and Andrews scheduled to return to District Court for an evidence suppression hearing June 26, Meyers and his attorney have produced a YouTube video celebrating the life of Tammy Meyers. It’s obvious they’ve gone to great lengths to counter what they call the smearing of a good woman.
“As far as the trial, I’ll be there every day until it’s done,” Bob Meyers said. “We won’t miss a heartbeat.”
The husband’s defense of his late wife will never rest.
John L. Smith’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Email him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call 702-383-0295. Find him on Twitter: @jlnevadasmith
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