'Til Death Do Us Part

Cocaine. Domestic brawls. Group sex. Brian Eftenoff concedes his wasn't the perfect marriage. But was his wife Judi murdered? Did Brian kill her? And can prosecutors prove anything? Part One of a New Times Investigation

A A A Comments By Paul Rubin Thursday, Nov 23 2000

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Brian says he doesn't recall making the gesture, but says if he did, it was his way of informing Lemmon that Judi was dead. Any talk that he and the nanny had devised some love-mad, twisted murder plot was ludicrous, Brian says.

During their first interview at the downtown Phoenix police station, Petrosino told Brian he'd just returned from the crime scene with a coroner.

Brian Eftenoff spoke to the media one day after his wife died.

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"He can't tell me anything at this point," the detective told him.

"Can they rule out foul play?"

"No."

"Am I ruled out? I mean, are you guys still comfortable that there was no foul play on my behalf, on my part?"

"I can't tell you anything because I don't even know if I have foul play. I don't know what killed your wife."

"Well, I just have to think the worst, expect the best. . . . It should have been me, not her. I don't know if she had a life insurance policy or not." (She didn't.)

"We are treating this as a death unknown," Petrosino continued.

Brian says he had an epiphany after his first go-round with the cop.

"I didn't know how my wife had died," he says, "only that I hadn't killed her. But I knew that this guy was very suspicious of me. . . . And I knew that my life had changed forever."

Part 2: the case against Brian Eftenoff. Update: Brian Eftenoff's going to prison. He shouldn't have called his dead wife a coke whore.