Nowsch lawyers want no part of taped confession
After reading a partial transcript of Erich Nowsch Jr.'s taped confession, it's no wonder why his lawyers want it thrown out.
The defense in the Tammy Meyers murder case wants the videotaped confession of accused killer Erich Nowsch Jr. thrown out, and it’s easy to see why.
Nowsch, a 19-year-old street flea with gangster rap delusions, admitted firing the weapon that fatally wounded Meyers on the night of Feb. 12. The 44-year-old mother of four died two days later.
To police, Nowsch called it a case of mistaken identity even though he knew Meyers and had eaten dinner at the family’s home. He was interviewed by Metro Homicide detectives and had every opportunity to implicate the deceased mother and her family in some shadowy criminal plot, but he didn’t.
Instead, as the Review-Journal has reported, he gradually came clean during the lengthy interview.
"My intentions were to take someone bad out, not a loving, caring mom," Nowsch said. "My intention was to take someone who was going to hurt my family out, not someone's mom, not Tammy."
In the police interview, according to a partial transcript I’ve reviewed, Nowsch proudly chatted up the officers about his tattoos, blamed the ink for his lack of steady work, and filled them in on his troubled and heavily medicated childhood, his rap aspirations, and his prolific marijuana smoking. He also admitted that the steady fog doesn’t impair his judgment, which severely undercuts the thin defense argument that Nowsch was in no shape to talk when he agreed to speak with detectives.
“Yeah, I mean, it doesn’t affect me or nothing,” Nowsch told the interviewing detective. “It’s just something that’s in my body and my blood flow, I guess is so used to, it’s like an uncommon, um, feeling when I’m not on it. That’s why I smoke all the time. It mellows me down, it calms me down.”
It’s when he straightens out, Nowsch said, that anxiety rattles him.
An evidentiary hearing on the admissibility of the police confession — Nowsch also confessed to friends — is set for Aug. 21 in District Judge Michael Villani’s courtroom. An October trial date has been set.
The acceptance of his central role in the killing of a mother of four emerges over the nearly three-hour tape.
On Tuesday morning, Bob Meyers once again found himself defending the reputation of his late wife.
Of the recorded revelations, he said: “It was no news flash to me. I knew these things already. We get back to the gentleman’s attorneys. They twisted this thing one way to favor them, and they’ve seen the video, too. They know the hard facts. That’s why they don’t want the video to be played in open court. They have a different agenda. My wife wasn’t only murdered. She’s getting murdered again every time those guys open their mouths, and the bad thing about it is, there’s some of the general public that believes what these guys are saying. There’s some in the media out there that believe it.
“He never mentioned that she was buying drugs. He never mentioned that she was having an affair with him, never mentioned she ever did wrong: Only that she was a good mother, and she was always good to him. So where do you go with that, except that an innocent woman died for no reason at all?”
The saving grace of having the taped confession in the public is that it should put to rest all the speculation that Tammy Meyers somehow had it coming on the night she was shot.
Troubled Erich Nowsch should go to prison for a long time.
Because, like he said, he did do it.
John L. Smith’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. Contact him at 702 383-0295, or jsmith@reviewjournal.com. On Twitter: @jlnevadasmith
