Body of Crime | Murder in Modesto: The Murder of Laci Denise Peterson (Rocha) & Conner Peterson (Part 1)

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📖 A Deadly Game By: Catherin Crier
📖 For Laci By: Sharon Rocha
📖 Inside the Mind of Scott Peterson By: Keith Ablow
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Host

Crystal Garcia

Host

Jose Medina

What is Body of Crime?

Body of Crime is a true crime podcast for crime lovers. Join hosts, Crystal, Joe, and Alicia as they present cases and dissect each body of crime. Rather your love is to hear true crime stories, research, debate, and / or even attempt to solve some of the world’s most intriguing cases, we have you covered. Get ready to put your detective hats on and take some notes – you never know which mysteries will get messier with each case!

Welcome fellow True Crime Enthusiast to today's case File Murder in Modesto, the murder of Lacey and Connor Peterson. This is part one of a six part series that will take a deep dive into the murders of Lacey and her unborn child, Connor Peterson, and the murder trial of Scott Peterson.

On Christmas Eve in 2002, Lacey Peterson, the 26 year old Modesto wife of Scott Peterson disappeared. She was eight months into a pregnancy that the couple had planned and were excited about. According to most accounts, the morning that she was last seen began like most normal mornings for the Peterson family.

Lacey and her husband Scott began their day in their Modesto home with breakfast and some television. Scott leader headed out for fishing while Lacey decided to walk their dog. Surprisingly, their dog was later spotted by a neighbor wandering alone with his leash on. When Scott returned from his fishing trip, he found his dog in the backyard.

Lacey's car was in the driveway, but Lacey was nowhere to be found, thinking that her mother, who lived nearby may have come and picked up Lacey for some Christmas shopping. Scott took a shower, washed his clothes, and then called Lacey's mom to see if she was there. Lacey's parents had not seen or heard from Lacey throughout the day.

Scott went to look for Lacey at the park where she would normally take a dog, but found no evidence of her there. Lacey's father would report her missing to the Modesto police. When questioned by the police, God would claim that he had gone to his warehouse nearby before his fishing trip to check emails and collect his boat.

Then proceeded to the Berkeley Marina. He would provide timestamp emails and a marina receipt to corroborate his alibi. As he was initially a person of interest, according to Scott, after fishing for approximately 90 minutes, he went back to the warehouse to return his boat to storage, and upon returning home and finding it empty, he took a shower, washed his clothes, and then reached out to his mother-in-law.

Initially, Scott was very cooperative with the investigation, allowing detectives into his home and providing them all they needed to find his missing wife. This would change as the investigation developed.

Let's talk about this first initial part of the summary of this case. So for starters, there's not been any corroboration as far as anybody seeing nor hearing from Lacey Peterson on the day of the 24th, which would be the day that she was supposed to be walking her dog. And the reason that I bring that up is because that's really a very key part in how everything plays out and the arguments back and forth between the prosecution and the defense later and the trial.

So I think it's important for people to know that I think a, a big part of this trial was also the optics. Why did he go fishing on Christmas Eve? Why did he not grieve like he was expected to grieve? Why did he move certain kind of ways, the way that he moved, and why did it seem like he wasn't as concerned about finding his wife?

A lot of those optics played into the popular opinion that he was somehow kind of involved in this. Well, you had cases that people followed, like the Menendez Brothers trial and the OJ trial and the Yeah, the Scott Peterson trial, all of which were all in California. This one was. So I think one of the bigger cases, it was the bigger case of all of them.

Yeah. And I think really primarily because you have a pregnant woman involved. So not only is there a woman that's been murdered, but a pregnant woman at that, and she pretty much the baby was fully viable. So, and again, because I know that this is something that's been argued even to today, but she was technically at least eight months pregnant.

Yeah. And when you're pregnant and you go to the hospital, 'cause you believe that you're in labor, they keep you in the ER until you're 20 weeks, basically. Meaning that the baby's not expected to be viable before that gestation. So anytime after 20 weeks, it's considered to be a viable child. That means that that baby was viable.

And it's also why this case in particular is what sparked the signing of a bill by the president of the United States, counting a baby. That's a gestation as far along like Connor Peterson was as a child and in turn as it would be included as an additional murder. Right, right. I think another piece of this case that was kind of unique is that both Scott Peterson and Lacey Peterson weren't famous people.

No, they weren't in the spotlight. They weren't someone to be like, to be admired or, or anything like that. And it seems like for some reason their case really got propelled into like the national Limelight and everyone started talking about it and pretty much made them almost celebrities. Like Scott became a celebrity very quickly and like everyone was watching him, you know, one person say how they looked like they stepped out of a bridal magazine.

Yeah. So if you see one of their most iconic pictures in the media is their wedding photo. And, and they do. She's a very beautiful woman. He's a good looking guy. So you have two ugly people. They're probably, yeah. Yeah. We don't care about ugly people getting murdered. Just good looking people. No, that's not funny, but, um, that is funny.

No, but, but the reality is this, you know, there's, there's been a lot of research back in the day before we had TV where they talked about how when people would listen to people on the radio and they didn't get to see 'em, how their decision making was very different once they were able to see people on TV and they were able to see their physical appearance.

And so I think that that's one of the things that specifically played into this case is the fact that they're two good looking people. So, you know, even with social media, you look at the different people who have a lot of followers on social media and a lot of them, it has a lot to do with looks, you know?

Yeah. That's just the reality of it. It really is. Yeah, it is. And, and I, I get that now. Scott's. He goes fishing on Christmas Eve. Right. Which is, to me is a, is a red flag. Like I would never even think Christmas is such a busy time in general that I would never think that on Christmas Eve that I would go fishing.

I think his timing was a little off-putting, you know, when you're looking at the case and, and you're trying to make a, make assumptions of, of normal behavior. Right. Um, from an investigation perspective. And I'm like, well, why would he go fishing on Christmas Eve? Right. The other piece of it is he comes home and his dog is in the backyard with the leash on his wife's car's in the driveway, and instead of like immediately like trying to find out where his wife is, he takes a shower, he washes his clothes.

And then he calls the mom afterwards. What's your opinion on that sequence of events? You can go down many rabbit holes, honestly, in this case, really as a whole, but it seems like odd behavior, like if you're genuinely concerned and you get home and your spouse isn't there, which, you know, and everybody's different.

It depends on what, how your relationship is and, and those kind of things. What's normal for one another. There's a few different things that stood out to me specifically in this case, and one is if you arrive home and you've got your pregnant spouse who's ready to deliver, like literally she could have been delivering any day at that point because she could have delivered early.

When you come home and your spouse isn't there and your dog has a, a muddy leash and your wife's vehicle's there, my first thing is gonna be. If I were to have been him, where's she at? She's not at a neighbor's. The muddy leash alone to me is, is weird. If the last thing you knew was that your wife was taking your dog for a walk, especially in the morning, and now you're home in the afternoon, late in the afternoon, to me, that's not normal.

I would be searching around, I wouldn't be worried about eating. I wouldn't be taking my clothes off and getting in the shower. I would be looking for her. Yeah. I also think that, and this, I'm, I'm gonna use myself as a, as what I would consider to be the normal person, like the average person. And I would think that if I was going on a fishing trip and my wife was eight months pregnant, is that during the trip I would be checking on her.

Right. Worst case scenario when I got there, I'd probably say, Hey babe, I just got to the marina. I'm getting ready to be out in the water. Call me if there's an emergency. Or when I got back and I'm getting ready to, to take my boat out of the water or getting onto the road, I would call and say, Hey babe, I'm on my way back.

I would say from a normal person that you would think that you would at least make some type of communication and check on your spouse and then, and if you didn't, Then as soon as you got home, you'd be like, babe, where are you? Like, I just got home and I don't see you. I see the cars here, and by the way, the dog has a leash on his level of a concern.

I, I believe should be a little higher and it's not. And so that's a red flag for me. And I think it's, there's an escalation there too, because it would've been different if say for instance, he would've talked to her just, you know, let's say 30 minutes even prior to that. Yeah. And then got home and saw what he saw and you know, that didn't see her in the house, none of that.

Then I could see that. But the fact that he hadn't spoken with her all day. Yeah. Like since apparently he hadn't spoken with her since early that morning. Right. Then yeah. It does seem strange that you've not spoken to her all day and then you arrive home and you're just kind of business as usual. Yeah.

Until after you shower and eat and basically get ready for bed, you know? Yeah, yeah. So, Hi, can I help you? Yes. Um, my son-in-law called, he went playing golf. Mm-hmm. Morning. Mm-hmm. Nine 30. My daughter's been missing friend this morning. She eight months pregnant. She took her dog for a walk from the park.

Mm-hmm. My dog came home with Disbel leave shot and the dog came back without your daughter, what is your name? My name is Ron. I'm her stepdad. Okay. Her husband's Scott Peterson. What's your stepdaughter's name? Lacey Peterson. Lacey. P t e r s o n. Right. P e t e r s o n. And she's white, black, Hispanic, Asian?

Um, she's Portuguese white. How old is she? She's 26. She's got short black hair. About five to one Around two. Five, one? Yes. Dark eyes, dark hair and eyes. Yes. What time did she leave the house and didn't come back? That we don't know. We just got a call from our son-in-law said he left this morning at nine 30 to play golf.

Mm-hmm. Got home. Mm-hmm. About a half hour ago. Mm-hmm. Nowhere around now when his father calls the police and the police show up and they question him. And he's very cooperative. It seems like He's very cooperative at first. He goes in, um, and we watched the interrogation footage. What was your take on his body language during the interrogation?

Just tell me about the morning. Uh, I don't know what time we got up. Probably, uh, Lacey got up and went and, um, assumed had that she had some chill for breakfast. She eat right, she wakes up, otherwise she gets sick because she's pregnant. I laid around in bed longer. I got up at, uh, eight o'clock probably or so, showers.

Um, we were watching her favorite show, Martha Stewart. When did you realize you were gonna go fishing? Oh, I, that was a morning decision. It was a morning. So play golf at the club or go fishing. Okay. Seemed too cold to go play golf at the club, so, um, yeah, just decided to, you know, buy it dirty or whatever, left.

Mm-hmm. Just told him what she was gonna do for the day. And anything stand out during the, the viewing of that footage? Yes. So if you go watch the footage, watch when he's initially being questioned. He, because it's on video, so it's, this isn't something that, that's that somebody's explaining to you. He's either sitting with his hands positioned in his lap in a way where you're kind of holding them stiff.

He was sitting back and had both hands in his pockets, and at one point that I think even made it even more strange is the fact that he. Was doing something with his phone, and when he put, went to put his phone in his pocket, you could tell he was kind of having an issue, getting it in the pocket. But part of the reason he was having that issue is because how he was positioned.

So he had his, the other hand, so stiff in his other pocket that when he went to put his, his hand in the other pocket, he didn't wanna pull that other hand out. So he's fiddling around trying to get it in, trying to get it in. Finally, he gets it in. But it's a very awkward movement and none of it looks, none of it looks normal.

It looks like, like you're not being genuine. People are different. You know, when people hear bad news, some people cry, some people freeze. Some people pass out. Some people, you know, like there's, there's all of those things that people do. But there are a few things that are extremely common amongst people, and especially when you have law enforcement who have been doing this for years and years and have had many murder cases that they've, you know, that they've processed over the years.

When you have somebody come in and it's, it's no surprise that they're always gonna start from the inside and move out. Especially when it's a husband or it's a wife. Yeah. So the spouse is always gonna be a person of of interest, or a person that they're gonna have to remove rule out from their list.

You have to rule 'em out. Yeah. So, and that's one of the first things that they wanna do, right? Right. So, hey, we wanna make sure it wasn't you, and then we'll start moving outward. And typically that's a easy process because basically what you're doing is you're saying, okay, what's your alibi? Let's confirm your alibi and get you outta the picture so we can stop looking at you.

Right. As a potential suspect. Right? Yeah. So that's very normal. But definitely if you get the opportunity to take a look at his interrogation, even if you wanna watch it without even listening to the words, just pay attention to his body movements. From my perspective, I would think from a normal person, what I would expect to see, someone who's concerned would be someone who's leaning forward.

Someone who's maybe put their, putting their head hands on their head, like their stress and their thinking. Like what could she be like, and someone who is emotionally charged, someone who's having some type of an emotion. The fact that he's kind of sitting back, he's kind of lounging, he's got an open body posture.

Both of his hands are away in his pockets, really makes me feel like he's confident. It's more of a confidence type of, of a posture. It's open. Yeah, it's very open. Like yeah, it, it would be, it's the posture that I would probably take if I was being questioned for a crime that I know I didn't commit. And then during that interrogation, they ask him about the lie detector test.

Would you be willing to take a polygraph, sir? So what you're telling Scott, is there. You have no idea where this is. That's the first time that the lie detector test is presented. It's a normal part of the process, and his initial response is, yes, I don't have a problem with it. I'll do it. I think it's important to know because initially, he is willing to take the lie detector test.

Scott Peterson swiftly emerged as the primary suspect in the disappearance of his wife from their initial interaction at the local park, the very place Lacey often strolled with their dog. The Modesto police immediately sensed something amiss rather than the typical worry ridden spouse. Scott's demeanor raised eyebrows.

His reticence to cooperate declining a polygraph, not just once, but repeatedly stood in stark contrast to the expected behavior of a frantic husband and father to be. As days turned into nights, Scott's puzzling indifference deepened. Detectives recounted his inability to recall mundane details such as the bait from the alleged fishing trip.

What's even more troubling was his fixation on the trivial concerns about a car door deemed a photograph of his boat, or a receipt for Lacey's belongings used for tracking with every interaction, every test, the police carefully orchestrated Scott Les, a grieving spouse, and more a man guarding secrets.

The very notion of a missing pregnant woman was enough to send shockwaves across the nation and before long. As the investigators began taking a harder look at Scott, the case began to garner worldwide news coverage and soon Scott's home was surrounded by news crews and reporters. Scott Peterson, with his charm and good looks quickly transitioned from a distraught husband to a tantalizing suspect.

The once local tale of a missing woman soon became the sinister of national headlines, ens, snaring, media heavyweights like Nancy Grace. As the public began turning their suspicions towards Scott Lacey's heartbroken family openly voiced their unwavering support for him going against the public's sentiment.

Photographers during a public vigil for Lacey and Connor caught Scott in moments that seemed off a grin here, a laugh there at a moment that demanded grief and anguish, but the labyrinth deepened when another revelation rocked The very core of this story. The public soon found that he was in fact, hiding secrets, A secret lover, Amber Fry.

Soon took center stage. Not only had Scott Romanced the single mom, but he also told her a chilling and prophetic lie. His wife Lacey, was now gone three weeks before Lacey's actual disappearance. This startling twist led to a game of subterfuge where Amber now recruited as a police informant. Secretly recorded her conversations with Scott, capturing over 29 hours of potentially incriminating dialogue.

Scott's facade began to crumble when his interview with Diane Sawyer. On Good Morning America turned disastrous missteps, blatant lies about his marital fidelity, and shockingly referring to Lacey in the past tense, painted a target on his back as he continued digging himself into a hole. As the shadows grew darker, the very people who stood by him started to distance themselves, including Lacey's grieving family.

But was it enough for an arrest?

And that's a good question. And as we look at this portion of the case and we look at the interrogation and quickly, we just talked about his immediate support of doing the the lie detector test, immediately the next day. He's got a different mindset about it. He does, and his dad talks about how they had had a conversation and he said that his dad called him while he was being interrogated and he said, dad, like they're really grilling me.

That would totally be normal. But his dad tells him, whatever you do, don't do a polygraph. Don't say anything. He basically instructed him, and I'm gonna be honest, if it were my kid, I'd tell my kids, if you're called in to be questioned, tell 'em you want an attorney. And the reason for that is because not everybody has good intentions.

So even if you're a good person doing the right thing, if you're sitting in an interrogation room and they're recording you, they're watching you, they're talking to you, whatever the case may be, you are not asking for an attorney. You're doing the right thing. You know that you didn't do anything wrong.

They can misread your body language. They can interpret what you're saying to mean something completely different. You could say something that you don't even have any idea. Raises a flag that may not even be a flag, but raises a flag to them and suddenly you find yourself being their number one suspect.

Right? So I understand that advice as a parent, and it's good advice. It is good advice. And I would say that, like you just said, it would be the same advice that I would give my child. If you're being questioned, you're being grilled like you're a suspect. Then you have to be very careful about what you say because anything that you say can and will be used against you in a court of law, right?

Mm-hmm. So you really wanna say, Hey, yes, let me get an attorney so that I answer this truthfully. Because sometimes what happens is in an interrogation when you're being interrogated, is you're being shotgun questions, and you're trying your best to remember all of these answers. But when you misstep and you missay, oh, I think it was on Saturday, I can't really remember now, there's suspicion that's growing.

Now you're being grilled more and more and more. And what happens is when you ask for a lawyer, the lawyer's gonna go and say, okay, gimme all the questions that you want to ask my client. Now give him the opportunity to, to really think through these questions and provide you honest, true answers so that he can give you the, the facts.

Not, I, I think I recall this, or I think I was wearing this jacket, or, and it's a a lot more clear, the other piece of the, the lie detector test. Also, it's not admissible in court, right? And if he takes it and he performs poorly on it, Whether he's lying or telling the truth, it's gonna give the police the flag that they need to dig deeper and not look where they need to look at for the missing wife.

Right. So I don't think that I would take a lie detector test either if I was guilty or if I was innocent. Yeah. A lie detector test can't be used in court, but commonly it's used by law enforcement in situations such as this to help in enrolling out the spouse because if the lie detector test is negative and they've asked you good questions, questions that have to do with the case that they would expect for you to lie about if you were involved, that lets them know that you're probably not one of their suspects.

So that moves you down on their list. And even though it can't be used in court at the same time, if you were to fail the lie detector test, well then that tells them that they need to have some concerns. Yeah. So in a case where the case is public, like here, That failure of the lie detector test would've been damning to the public.

It doesn't matter. The public's not court. Right? He failed the lie detector test, therefore he's guilty. Will you take one today? You're already in prison. Will you take one today? Inquiring. Might as wanna know. That's a good question. That's a really good question. I mean, what do you have to lose? Yeah. The other thing about the lie detector test is that it's been proven to be inaccurate.

Right? So you've had people who have taken it and not lied and failed it and like it's good science, it's directionally correct science, but it's not 100% accurate and that's why you can't use it in court. Right. So I wanted to point something out. So we had talked about body language earlier when watching Scott as he answers questions to the detectives, is that.

Something, uh, that happens in somebody's body when they're experiencing something. And like we said, everybody's, everybody's a little bit different. But I want you to picture something I want you to picture. If you were to do a hundred jumping jacks and then somebody were to ask you questions, imagine what your body's physical reaction is gonna be during that time.

Your heart rate's up, you're breathing hard, you've just, you know, physically exerted yourself. Those are the types of things that people experience when they're being questioned under different circumstances. So, you know, your spouse is missing, you're worried, you're thinking where could they be? What's happening with them?

Like, your mind's all over the place. So your heart rate isn't gonna be, you're not gonna be at a resting heart rate. And so the reason that when people observe suspects, When they're being interrogated, it's because they're looking for some of those physical signs that appear when somebody is in a distressed state and they're speaking, and you can be in a distressed state because you're worried that your spouse is missing.

You can also be in a distressed state if you know that you're guilty and you're trying to keep your story together. You know? So there's some, there's some similarities there too. So it's not black and white in that every single person who's guilty is gonna respond exactly like this. It's a bunch of things together.

It's not one thing alone. Right, right. The other thing is that police are allowed to lie to you. If that lie will get you to, if it will get a guilty person to confess, if it will get a guilty person to confess. So it's very possible that they can come and go, Hey, you failed the lie detector test. Tell us the truth.

Yeah. So that can be used as a, as a technique against you if you are in the hot seat, right? Like Scott was in the hot seat and his dad's advice to him is good advice. He should have got a lawyer. And any lawyer that you get will tell you don't take the lie detector test, right? I believe any, any lawyer would tell you that.

One of the red flags to me in this case, as far as Scott Peterson's behavior, is the fact that, and I want you to think for a moment if this were you, and especially if you have children or you have a spouse that you actually love, not everybody loves their spouses, but hopefully that you know you love your spouse and your spouse is pregnant, this is your first child.

I want you to remember what that was like. And I want you to think about the fact that you come home, your spouse isn't there. And of course we already know the what he went through, what he did, and so I. After he showered and ate is when he called Lacey's mom. And when he called Lacey's mom, his reasoning for that was that he wondered if her mom came and picked her up.

Something that I don't know, that we haven't been able to verify is if that was even something that Lacey's mom ever did. I'm a grown adult. I can't think of when my mom would come to my house and pick me up to take her to her house, she'd be like, Hey, drive over here. Right. You know? Yeah. So, I don't know.

But now it was Christmas and so they could have been gone shopping? They were, no, they were supposed to be going over there that night for dinner. Oh, okay. Okay. So, which, that's the the other thing. Well then that would make no sense. Came home and you ate, you, you came home and ate pizza. And drank milk.

Yeah. So what? So that seemed odd to me. So Scott, when he calls Lacey's mom, one of the things that Lacey's mom talks about, When she received the call and she said she remembered being irritated. And it was funny because I laughed when I heard her make this comment. And this was before she even had any type of inclination that like he had anything to do with her murder.

This is when she was still missing, you know, this is, this is in the very beginning, but when he calls her and he's asking, Hey, is Lacey there with you? He says she's missing. Yeah. And she says, I was agitated because. She's missing. Like, are you a, you know, and so I'm thinking to myself like, like I think about my kids and I'm like, yeah, if, if my child's boyfriend or girlfriend called me and was like, he or she's missing, like, are you a controlling person?

Like, right. What do you mean they're missing? Like, you need to know where they're at 24 7. Like, how about she wasn't here. He wasn't here when I got home. Right. So that was kind of a very minor flag, but like a little bit of a flag. Like weird, weird wording. Yeah. It's, it's very strange wording. And it seems like he often has diarrhea of the mouth.

He, he will often say things that he's thinking, but he shouldn't say out loud. Yeah. And he, he does this again a couple times. So it's really telling of who he is as a person. He's just letting things slip out. That alone doesn't really mean anything. Right. But when you start looking at these things altogether, it starts to paint a little bit of a crazy picture about him.

They were young at this point in time. They're in their twenties. Yeah. Yeah. And when he talks to Lacey's mom, Like she kind of had to, to push him. I feel like in instructing him, what would be the right thing to do. So she told him, Hey listen, we'll call the police. You go to the park. Like if that's the last place that you're thinking she was supposed to be, you go check the park, we'll call the police.

And so that's what happened. Yeah. So he met the police at the park. So what happened is Lacey's stepdad contacted the police department, gave him the same story that he had, gave Lacey's mom and said, we're gonna meet you guys at the park. So after they hung up the phone, they proceeded to the park as well.

And of course Scott was already supposed to be at the park. And that's where the police initially met with Scott Peterson was at the park. Now let me ask you, when he got to the park, what was Scott's like? What was his demeanor? Was he looking for Lacey there? Was he was anything said about him at the park?

Well, they all were walking around and like calling her name out. Like her mom recalls like, you know, Calling her name out. Trying to see like just, her mom even mentioned this made me really sad, but her mom said, you know, like you never realize what it's like to go through something like that. Like you think how horrible it is for somebody when you see them going through that.

But she said like, I was opening up trash cans. Looking in the trash cans for my daughter. And that is sad. Yeah. And the police, I think early on, on that first day, I know that, um, there's been talk that the, you know, the officers were communicating back and forth and kind of suspecting him thinking behavior was weird, that he wasn't responding in ways that they had had previously seen.

In other cases, yes, he was walking around and he was looking for her at the park, but he also was just, it was kind of like a very disinterested, right, like, you know, not asking a lot of questions, not saying, you know, most people are like, Hey, what are you gonna do? Like, what's your first thing? How are you guys gonna focus?

What can I do to help? You know? And he just was very nonchalant, like kind of being, being guided by everybody who was around. So if her mom said, do this, he did it, or if the police said, we wanna do this, then he went with them. Like, it was more of him being guided than him having any type of like direct emotion as far as what was happening at that point in time.

One of the things that they talked about as well is, you know, how the police were like, Hey, let's go over to the house. Well, yeah, that's, you know, that's normal behavior. That's not that. They're like, Hey, you're the guy. It's normal behavior. Because if you're saying that the last time you saw your wife was at your house, they're gonna wanna go to your house.

Yeah. Because they're still looking. It's like when you're looking for your keys and you're like, Hey, well where's the last place you took your keys? Go, go look over there. That's exactly what the police do. So that's not abnormal that that's not, you know, deciding that you're guilty. Right. At that point in time, they're following the answers that you're giving and they're following what they know based on experience and research that's come out before.

Yeah, no, that makes, that makes a lot of sense. Lacey's family is extremely supportive of Scott. Obviously they loved him. He was their, their son-in-law, they loved him. And so at this point, while they're looking, they don't think that Scott's involved in any kind of way at the vigil. Scott gets caught in some pictures where he's either smiling or he's laughing or he's not looking like the grieving spouse and, and the media has a tendency to take pictures.

They're just snapshots in time. So he could have 100% been grieving. He could have been crying right before the photo. Nah, they all snapshots in time. They're, they're trying to get that picture. Whatever that picture is that funny picture? That sad picture, like Yeah. Whatever that picture is. Um, I, I say that because there's some, some pictures of him during the vigil where he doesn't look like the grieving husband.

What's your opinion on that? I wouldn't say that that's really solid. And the reason that I say that is because, and obviously I know all the other details of the case, but you know, just today we got some bad news just today and there's moments of you being sad, but there's also moments where you're laughing 'cause you're remembering something or you're smiling because you see somebody talking about your spouse or your loved one saying, oh, I remember when this happened.

And so it makes you smile and you smile. But he also didn't look sad. That's the one thing that, you know, like he's not, not that he's supposed to be full on crying or not that he's supposed to be any of that, but he's, and the vigil was before they, they found Lacey and Connor. Right? So this is when she's still missing.

But you're expecting for him to be distraught, you know, he's, his spouse is missing, his child is missing. You know, your family, your entire family, your immediate family are missing. Right, and you're laughing and smiling and it just doesn't seem to many other people who place themselves in that situation to be normal.

And so that, you know, some of that's understanding, but I do ask that you remember the fact that there are moments where you're gonna smile and be sad and be mad and all of those things. Yeah. I guess if there would've been more moments that were memorable when you're a photographer, and I'm just thinking from a to, from a photographer's perspective, you want to capture that image of that grieving person when he's crying, when he's at his worst.

When there, you know, you don't want to catch him in the wrong emotion at an event. Right. It makes me think, were they trying to paint the picture? This is the guy, and look at him over there smiling and let me catch a picture of him smiling. And then the news media, putting that out there and presenting that image to everyone of a callous husband or a callous, soon to be father who doesn't really care, who's not concerned and who's having a good time at the vigil.

You also have to look at those optics because we, we said earlier, part of what doomed Scott was the optics of how he went through this trial, how he went through this whole, uh, scenario. So it's, it's important to understand that. Now, the next thing that popped up was this secret lover. Right. What do we know about Amber Fry?

Okay, first of all, I met Scott Peterson, November 20th, 2002. I was introduced to him. I was told he was unmarried. Scott told me he was not married. We did have a romantic relationship. When I discovered he was involved in the disappearance or the Lucy Peterson disappearance case, I immediately contacted the Modesto Police Department.

Although I could have sold or sold the photos of Scott and I to Tablos, I knew this was not the right thing to do for fear of jeopardizing the case or the police investigation. I will not comment further. I am very sorry for Lacey's family and the co, the pain that this has caused them, and I. I pray for her safe return as well.

I would appreciate to my friends and acquaintances to refrain from talking about me to the media for, uh, profit or recognization. Um,

I am a single mother of a 23 month old child and uh, I asked to respect my privacy. Thank you. So at the time Amber Fry was young, single mom. I. Looking for love, looking for the one I'm sure had some relationships leading up that weren't very pleasant and at the time she met Scott through somebody else who said, Hey, like, I really think he'd be a good guy for you.

Somebody who also thought he was single at the time. So this person didn't say, Hey, I think he'd be a good guy for you. And knew that he was married. So she had, she had met him in November and they, you know, hit it off. They started dating and they had actually spent the night together at a hotel in November, I wanna say it was November 20th.

So they have this, you know, in the beginning your relationship is super spicy in the beginning, and they're having all these conversations and, and all of that. And something that really kind of stuck out to her was that on December 9th, she had a Christmas party and she really wanted him to go, she wanted him to be her date.

And so these are pictures that would later surface of them together at this party while. Also during that same timeframe, he didn't go to a party that typically him and Lacey would go to annually, that some close friends of theirs, like their best friends had both, were both stood in their wedding, they did an annual Christmas party and Lacey had told them that Scott's manager was going to be in town and that he had some important meeting and so he wouldn't be able to go.

So Lacey goes to that party alone. And so there's, that's also another picture that the media shows. It's the one of her in red, um, sitting alone and she's at this Christmas party by herself. So you have Scott over here with this person that he's having an affair with while his wife is pregnant with their first child, you know, almost ready to, to deliver.

And his wife sitting alone pregnant with their child at a Christmas party that he was also supposed to attend with her. Right. So not a good image, you know, like no matter how you spin that, not a good image. And you know, for. Amber Fry. One of the things that I really thought was pretty amazing about her is that you could tell how very genuine she was.

Yeah. And I know how hard it had to be for her. Like she still tried to be as normal as possible. When she had her conversations with Scott and, and actually the day of the day that you're talking about them catching him smiling, he had a phone call with her and was actually late to Lacey's vigil. He was at the vigil on the phone with Amber Fry telling her that he was in another country watching fireworks.

Yeah. He said it was in France, right at the Eiffel Tower. So, so here he is, liar, liar, Pence on fire. Right. And she knew at this point, right? She knew. So it trying to act normal during that, you know, she's hurting, she's 'cause in her eyes, she's losing somebody that she cares about. And she's having to have these conversations with him hoping that, you know, this will, this will bring justice to Lacey and Connor.

And so, One of the things throughout all of this that I really appreciated about her was that when she came forward and she did the press conference, you can see her shaking. She's extremely emotional. She's thinking to herself, I'm sure, you know, if it were me, even not knowing that he's married, but like, I hope this isn't all 'cause of me.

Right? So she's standing up there apologizing to Lacey's family, like, Hey, like, you know, my heart breaks for you guys, basically. Yeah. And I think it's a, it's horrible. So, and she's a single mom, so she knows Right. There's a child involved here, so this is gonna touch her. Like especially, you know. Yeah. On December 9th is when Scott tells Amber Fry, he tells her that it will be the first holiday that he will spend without his wife.

Yeah. He uses the word she's gone and he didn't elaborate on how she was gone. And he kind of uses that as a loophole to be like, well, I didn't say she was dead, I just said she was gone. There's a lot of different ways she could be gone. Right. But yes, to your point, yes. He says that on December 9th, and then on December 24th, she's really gone.

So a coincidence, I don't know. I want people to understand people who aren't from this area to understand the distance between Modesto and where Amber Fry lived, which is in Fresno. That's important because it's at least an hour drive away. Fresno is at least an hour away. She's in Fresno, he's in Modesto.

So him going over there is not like he's gonna run into his friends or he's gonna run into his wife somewhere, like he's going out of town to see this girl. I think that's really important. It's also part of why there's so many phone calls and, and he did not think that Amber Fry was gonna catch wind of what was happening.

He thought all this was gonna be on the dl, on the down low. It was gonna happen. She was never gonna know about it. Eventually she would find out that his wife was gone. 'cause he had told her she was gone. Right. And he didn't think that it was gonna make the, the national news. How do you know what he was thinking?

Because he's still lying, even though he's doing a vigil. And even though people are questioning him and, and he's trying to stay out, he's trying to stay outta the news. He doesn't wanna be photographed, he doesn't want be recorded. He's trying to stay out of, out of the limelight. But this case is growing beyond his ability to control it.

And at some point he's gotta come out and go, Hey Amber, I hate to tell you this, but I wasn't never in Paris. Right. He does that. Right. I was never, now he's gotta do damage control. Yeah. Now he's gotta do damage control. And you go, Hey, I lied. And she's like, Hey, but, but you told me on December 9th that she was gone and now she's gone.

What's the deal? Yeah. Was she gone on the ninth? How do you explain that? Yeah. How do you explain it? So how did you know on December 9th that this was gonna be your first holiday without your wife? How did you know now on Good Morning America, when he sat down with Diane Sawyer, he made some mistakes. And this is where again, we get back to the diarrhea of the mouth.

Why were you doing it? I, I can't answer. I don't know. Were you in love with her? No. I'd have to say that I respect her. And as I imagine everyone does, after seeing her come out and do the press conference, an amazing character she has. Was this the first time? Are there others out there? No. There's no one else who can come forward.

No. In our romantic relationship. And that is a, it, it's inappropriate. It, it was inappropriate. And I owe a tremendous, uh, apology to, to everyone obviously, including Amber and her family and her friends and, and our families. Uh, it should have been, it should have been brought forth by me. Immediately the, the romantic relationship.

Had you told anyone? Did you tell police told the police immediately when that was? Uh, the first night we were together, uh, the police, I spent, um, with the police. You told them about her? Yeah. From December 24th on. Did your wife find out about it? I told my wife. When in, um, early December, did it cause a rupture in the marriage?

It was not, um, a positive, obviously it's a, you know, inappropriate, um, but. It was not something that we weren't, um, dealing with a lot of arguing. No, no. Um, I, I, you know, I can't say that, that even, you know, she was okay with the idea, but, uh, it wasn't anything that would break us apart. There wasn't a lot of anger.

No. Do you really expect people to believe that an eight and a half month pregnant woman learns her husband has had an affair and distinctly and casual about it, accommodating makes a peace with it? Well, I, yeah. I, you don't know. No one knows our relationship with us, and that's at peace with it. Not happy about it.

Why did you tell her? It was the right thing. There's no other reason than that. What kind of marriage was it? God, I mean, the first word that comes to mind is, you know, glorious. I mean, we took care of each other. She was amazing. It is amazing. Oh, she was a good, you know, a good person or whatever. Whatever he said about her was past tense.

And it's another one of those Freudian slip. And this again, by itself wouldn't have been a big deal. But then when you start putting all the pieces, like, then it starts to paint an ugly picture of Scott Peterson. And you know, there's something that somebody told me a long time ago when I was in the military that stuck with me to today because it makes, it's just, to me, it's such a profound like accurate statement.

But he told me, don't ever tell a lie because you have to remember it for forever. Yeah. And. The takeaway in that is that, and, and just think about this, you know, when you're telling the truth, you don't have to think about it. You don't have to stop and be like, uh, well, yeah, you're not gonna remember like, like word for word things that are said, you're not gonna remember.

You know, if it's been enough time, sometimes I don't remember what I did three days ago, so you may not remember things like that. But when you're telling the truth and you're recalling things, it's not a tough recall. It's consistent, you know? Right. It's consistent because you're telling the truth. Right.

But when you lie, Sometimes you tell one person something different than you tell another person and then you can't remember if you told it this way or that way. 'cause it's not the truth 'cause you made it up. Right. Right. So it's harder for you to keep your, your ducks in a row because you're not being honest.

Right. And one of the things that he lies to Diane Sawyer about that really, really stood out and could be verified is when he told Diane Sawyer that he told the police about Amber Fry from the very beginning we watched the interrogation. Right. He never mentioned Amber Fry. Oh, never. And they even asked him in that interview if they had any marital problems.

Right. Any like, they tried to act, they tried to get that out of him. But if you had planned to tell the police that and didn't and forgot well, Yeah, there you go. Yeah. That's why you don't lie. Yeah. 'cause the, you gotta remember it. Right? So he could have honestly forgot he was trying to keep up with what he had said, and, you know, he might've forgot that that wasn't something that he shared.

Yeah, absolutely.

After Lacey's, mysterious vanishing, the waters of the Berkeley marina where Scott went fishing were combed meticulously. But January's search yielded no clues. It wasn't until April a harrowing discovery rocked Modesto. Two bodies, a woman and an infant were found washed as shore just days apart. The community's worst fear were confirmed when D n A tests identified the remains as Lacey and Connor.

Meanwhile, Scott had decided to leave town citing an oppressive media presence that was disrupting his daily life. He saw refuge on the border town of San Diego to escape the media's relentless attention. Authorities concerned that Scott might decide to cross into Mexico. Upon confirmation of the d n A results on the bodies recovered in the Berkeley marina nabbed him at a golf course on April 18, his possessions painted a damning picture, thousands in cash, multiple cell phones, camping gear, and a disguise that included blonde hair and a blonde dyed beard.

Was he on the brink of fleeing? As the legal machine roared to life, a nation watched in anticipation. The law weighed in heavily when Scott was arraigned for the double murder, and even the White House took a stance as President Bush signed the Lacey and Connor's law. Amid the whirlwind Lacey's family, the Rochas consumed with grief and anger advocated behe for the death penalty.

This is another piece of the puzzle that is damning in his case, because had those bodies been found anywhere other than the marina where he went fishing, that would've been a critical missing piece of trying to put this on Scott. The fact that those bodies turned up where he said he was is hard to refute, right.

And there's some people, I think this is funny, but there's some people that say that, you know, well, somebody could have done something to her and you know, they released his alibi so early in the media that then somebody could have, you know, dumped her body there specifically to try to point blame at Scott Peterson if anybody took Lacey Peterson from Modesto.

I lived in Modesto for a while, and I'm gonna tell you that that drive from Modesto to that San Francisco area, to that Berkeley area where he was at is not a serene drive. It's always packed with traffic and not the smartest thing to carry a body 90 miles away to go dump a body. So whoever murdered Lacey Peterson, I cannot imagine hanging onto a body and saying, oh, Well, he says he was at Berkeley Marina, let's drive an hour and a half away and go drop a body around the location where he was.

Not that the possibility's zero, not that the possibility's zero, but I just want you to think, you know, you say in on, you know, on one hand some people will say, oh, well it made it to where it would be easy for somebody else to use that, you know, to their advantage. Yeah. But also it makes sense to give yourself an alibi where if there's a likelihood that they find any type of D n a or, or any evidence of that nature, or somebody says, Hey, I, I saw his vehicle there, then that explains why you were in that area.

Right? So it goes both ways. So that hypothesis for either scenario, you can pick away at it. So the bodies show up and then the bodies are both confirmed to be. Lacey and, and this is odd, and they're about, they were found about a mile apart from each other, Lacey and Connor. And the stage of decomposition between the two bodies was something that caused a lot of conversation as well.

And that's because Lacey's body was badly decomposing. She had been in the water for a significant amount of time. So you're talking, she went missing. December 23rd was the last time that her family or anybody else spoke with her or saw her. December 24th was the last time that Scott Peterson alleges that he saw her alive.

Nobody else had seen her alive or spoken to her on that day, so they find the bodies in April. So you're talking months. So the possibility of her having been in the water four, four and a half, five months, right, for months, she's in there for months. And generally water would make your body decompose quicker as well.

So then the baby Connor's body was more, they said it kind of looked a little bit translucent, but he still had his skin and, and organs and all of those things. And so it made people wonder if Lacey had been alive and had birthed Connor explaining how there would be the difference in her maybe being dead before he was dead, that he had been born and then she was killed.

Well, what they have found to be the case is that. If you're pregnant and you're, and you're killed and you're put in water, the human body protects that baby just like it would when you're alive and kept the baby from decomposing. And so the baby wasn't delivered from her body until her body had decomposed enough to release the baby from her body.

Right. And so, which is based on the timing and they've had different medical experts look at it, ones who testified in court, ones who have looked at it separately, independently, and they pretty much have come to a consensus that she was in the water and once she de decomposed enough, the baby was expelled from her body.

Right. One of the things that I found kind of curious is that the police say there's a lot of bodies that get dumped in that, in that water. Right. Right. That's one of the things that they said, and the fact that her body and Connor's body are the ones that turned up is extremely ironic. Right. Extremely ironic.

If the bodies would've never turned up, it's very likely they would've never had a body to pursue charges against Scott. Right. So the fact that the body's turned up and the fact that the body's turned up there all kind of point to, you know, the eventual situation of what happens to, to Scott as, as we go through this case now, what is your opinion on Scott's little rendezvous to San Diego?

I can see where if you're being pressured by the media, you could want to leave, but I think that this situation in particular is very different. So if my spouse or loved one was missing, I would wanna be there. I would wouldn't be there in case I found somebody who had 'em. I would wanna be there in case the media wanted to talk to me and put something else out.

I would wanna be there to put things out to the media because my spouse or my, my loved one is missing. I wouldn't run away from the media. I want the media to tell my story over and over and over again until my loved one is found. Yeah. So I can't imagine why you would run away from the media unless there was a reason you were running away from the media.

Right, right. And that makes a lot of sense. What you just said makes a lot of sense because going to San Diego, his wife is missing in Modesto. Yeah. Going to San Diego, you can't even say you're looking for her anymore. Can't so, well, not personally looking, not now. Authorities may be looking, but he's, he's 100% not looking.

And you know, some of the things as well that, that put Scott Peterson in a bad light during this time before they found the bodies, was that. They had created like a call center where they were taking tips and every day people would go in, they'd hang up pictures of themselves with Lacey and different pictures that they had had.

And one of the things that her friend had talked about, a close friend of Lacey's that was in there every day was that when Scott would come in, she said every day he would go to where they had all the pictures hanging and he would take all the pictures down that had him in it. He did not want pictures up with them in it.

Any pictures they gave to the media, he did not want to be in any of the pictures that they gave to the media. Why? You know, it's, why. So not that that points to any guilt that that doesn't point to any guilt, but there's obviously something psychological going on there. That needs to be understood on a psychological level.

Well, and early on he was wanting for Amber Fry to not learn that this was his wife, I'm sure. But now she knows so well later. Yeah, at this point, yeah, she does. At this point she knows. But back in the beginning she didn't know. Right. So back in the point, like when he started doing that, taking the pictures down, nobody knew about her at that point in time.

Right. The police knew about her, but he didn't know. She knew and he was trying to play. Right. The single guy. The right, yeah. You mentioned earlier about the White House Initiative on the, the Lacey and Connor Law. Can you kind of rehash what that law is? So the Lacey and Connor's law was inspired through this case, and that's because previously under federal law, when an individual would commit a federal crime of violence against a pregnant woman, they would receive no additional criminal charges or punishment for the killing or injuring of the woman's unborn child.

And so after this case made a national intention, actually international attention, this is one of the things that they advocated for, was that if you kill somebody who's pregnant, you should be charged for, for either injuring or killing them as well. And so that's where this came from. And does the child have to be a certain, a certain gestation level in order to, for that to be AP applicable or is it just being pregnant?

So there isn't a gestation for the law? Basically, if you're aware that the person's pregnant or it's obvious that they're pregnant, then you would be liable for the injuring or death of that unborn child. Gotcha. That's good to know.

The trial of Scott Peterson in the summer of 2004 as the Iraqi war was stabilizing remains one of the most closely followed in debated trials in recent American history. Partly due to the tragic circumstances surrounding the disappearance of Lacey Peterson on Christmas Eve, subsequent media storm.

There was some highs and lows during trial, and for the highs really, I would say the most damning because it provides a motive. Right. Was Amber Fry's testimony. Ah, yeah. And what's interesting is there is a interview where they talked to his defense attorney at the time, Scott Peterson's defense attorney, and he's talking about whenever they found out about the recorded tapes with Amber Fry.

Yeah. And he said that when he read the transcripts, That he was thinking, all right, we, we can work with this saying Too bad. Yeah, not too bad. Yeah. But once he heard the tapes, he was like, oh, yeah. Kind of like looking at a text message and then actually having a conversation with somebody very different.

And so he's like, yeah, this, this isn't gonna be good. Because you can hear his emotion, how happy he is to be talking to her, or how he talked to her sexually. And so the reason that Amber Fry's testimony is so damning is that she not only accounts for these things and talks about the different things that Scott had told her, like at the December 9th party, but they were able to hear these tapes.

Yeah. And so when they heard the tapes, there's no refuting what is said. Right. And how it's said and how it, you know, how it's expressed. Like you hear it, you hear that raw emotion. And so that's why that was. One of the, the high points in the trial. Yeah. It provides context, right? Yeah. And it makes it really hard to go back and go, oh, I didn't say this, or I didn't mean it this way.

Like, you can hear it and you can see how it's intended. There's one thing also that he told him, uh, Amber Fry, that was in a recording that I heard that really stood out to me, and even now it still stands out to me, is when he reached out to her after she went public with the news and he said, Hey, did you do that or did they make you do that?

Remember he, he's like, did you reach out to them or did they reach out to you? And she was like, they're camping out at my job or whatever. He goes, when I heard you on the news, I had to pull over and throw up. To me, that's not a normal reaction unless you have some type of a. Of a physical reaction to the fact that your lie is now falling apart.

I really, really was proud of you. That doesn't come off as being genuine. Yeah. You know, the throwing up in the, in the, I'm proud of you, doesn't go together to me. You know, I'm so proud of you. I threw up. Yeah. I pulled over and threw up. Like you, you threw up. Because now the world knows you're full of crap.

Not, not that you killed your wife, but the world now knows that you're not this person who you pretend to be. Yeah. The other thing was, um, one of the highs as well was the forensic evidence, you know? Oh, yeah. And, you know, people say that there wasn't concrete evidence, but you have to understand how evidence works.

And so there's, um, there's a difference in the types of evidence that's used and one type over the other type isn't any more damning. And I say that because both can be used in the same regards, but the difference is that one of 'em is a little bit easier to kind of try to pick out or, or create reasonable doubt.

Yeah. And it's why, it's why when you're trying to prosecute somebody, or when you're trying to fight a defense, when you have a defense strategy, you are hoping that it's, you know, circumstantial evidence, right? Because then you're able to argue it a little bit better when it's not circumstantial evidence.

Like it's black and white, basically. Yeah. So there's really no arguing it. And so for the evidence, you know, the fact that Lacey's body. Was found just within miles from where, you know, Scott's saying that he's out there fishing. It's interesting. Yeah. So if there would've been another motive, if someone else would've had motive, like for example, if Amber Fry had motive to kill Lacey, right?

If she knew about it and she was wanted to keep Scott to herself and, and she had motive, right? That would create reasonable doubt. 'cause then now there's another motive that they've gotta disprove and not being able to disprove that would've created some type of reasonable doubt. They couldn't find anyone that had motive to kill Lacey.

Right? At eight months pregnant. No one except for Scott. Right? And so there's no one else to point the, the finger at and go, oh, you need to look at this, or, you know. Now they did talk a little bit about the guys that were burglarizing the house across the street from where Lacey and, and Scott lived. And they thought maybe that was motive.

But what, what did we find with that? It was actually committed on a different day. Ah, so yeah. Gotcha. So then that's not motive again, there's no reason. Right? Yeah. Gotcha. I. Yeah. Okay. Then of course, the last thing, um, one of the highs in the trial was the media attention, you know? Right. The, the trial coincided with, you know, the rise of 24 7 news.

It was this young couple wife who's pregnant and how we in the US think of women and children. This really became a, a huge thing, and, you know, the legal analyst, Nancy Grace, she really, this was something that she really, for anybody who's seen Nancy Grace, like I like her, I think that she's a very raw, very, like you can tell that one of her top character strengths is justice, you know, which is why she speaks the way that she does, and she really dissected every single detail, and she has a legal background.

You know, she's, she's been a prosecutor, so she has a legal background and she also had something personal happen in her life where somebody that she was with him was supposed to marry, was murdered, and so, Going through this case and analyzing this case and reporting on this case, this became something that was, um, very like close to her heart.

Personal, yeah. Personal, you know? Yeah. It became very personal. And so that was also one of the highs of, you know, the trial as well. Yeah. And, and speaking from the perspective of, of a podcaster, we've learned that a case can very easily disappear and no one ever pay attention to it again, except for the victims, um, and the people that were hurt by, by the tragedy.

Right. And one of our things that we try to do is we try to continue to speak about the case in order to keep it alive. And even when we're unraveling different strings, when we're pulling these strings that may lead nowhere, they may lead nowhere, but we still pull them to cause people to think.

Hopefully bring something forth that will, that will tie that string to something else. We're looking for those connections so that we can continue to, to follow this case, to try to find the truth. And I know that part of the media attention, and sometimes we can go, well, the media was trying to push an agenda, right?

But really, was the media pushing an agenda or were they just continuing to pull these strings? Like for example, when they found the, the murdered student at the university in Luis, uh, San Luis Obispo, where they were like, oh, that's where, that's where Scott went to school. Did he murder this other girl?

Those are just strings that they're pulling to try to understand like, okay, in his past where he's, wherever he's lived, is there similar type of situations going on? Did he have this type of a history? Um, and, and sometimes you pull those strings and you realize they go nowhere. Right. You know? And that can happen.

Yeah. But you're finding a lead. I. You're following that lead and then when it doesn't go anywhere, you're dismissing it and going, okay, well this is nothing. Right. It, you know, and also I was just, I was as, as we were talking about this, I was thinking about the fact of how we talked about him not wanting to have his face in the media and him pulling the pictures down, you know, when they were taking calls and stuff for tips while she was still missing.

Yeah. You know, another thing is that the more people who see you can identify you where you were at. Yeah. When you were there. That's true. You know, the other thing as well is as far as keeping things in the media is that people like seeing people like them, hearing people like them, people like being able to relate.

And so if you, you're constantly seeing this woman on TV who's by herself and you're not seeing that she's married and you're not seeing that she has a loving family and you're not seeing that, it becomes less and less interesting. Yeah. So that also can play into, you know, that psychological aspect of people seeing somebody who's like them or people.

People humanizing her as well. Yeah. And seeing, you know, hey, she was a young married woman. She, you know, she had a very loving husband. You know, so there's multiple things in there as to being seen out there as the spouse or being seen together as a couple in pictures. Yeah, no, that's very true. I think that's also what plays into the fact when, whenever you have somebody who's murdered that has a shady or a, a checkered past where they're like, it's less likely for them to really dig into it because they're like, oh, well she's, you know, she was shady.

She was on drugs. She was, she was a criminal. Like, so then you're, you're no longer relating to that person. You're no longer interested in the case because. Uh, they were probably doing something they shouldn't have been doing, like, but in, in Lacey's case, she was, she was a, a straight laced, soon to be mom who was doing absolutely nothing that she wasn't supposed to be doing, and she ends up just disappearing off the face of the earth.

What are some of the lows I. So one of those was the prosecution faced some significant challenges as they didn't have any direct evidence. Um, they didn't have fingerprints on something of Lacey's that was at the scene itself, things of that nature. They couldn't find a crime scene, so they didn't know exactly where she was murdered.

There wasn't any, when they went through the house, they weren't finding huge amounts of blood that had been cleaned up, you know, things of that nature. There wasn't a murder weapon and they couldn't find an eyewitness. So, you know, this lack of, that evidence that we're used to seeing in a slam dunk case, you're not seeing in his case.

So that, that was a low. Um, also the defense strategy, you know, Scott's defense attorney. So he's gone through quite a lot. So keeping up with names would be very difficult. But his first attorney was Mark Regos. And Mark Regos was an attorney for people like, um, Michael Jackson, Wynonna Wright. He was a celebrity attorney, a very, very good attorney, right?

So if anybody was gonna get you off of a murder case, he would've been your guy. He knew strategy, he knew how to use the law to his advantage. He knew how to use gaps to his advantage. He was a great attorney to bring in and he was paid. And, um, initially when, you know, Scott first got arrested, he filled out a, typically it's called a popper's affidavit, but where you basically say that you don't have money to pay for an attorney for your legal defense, and they provide one for you.

Well, his family ended up getting him this attorney, so he had a great attorney. You know, they brought up things like suggesting that maybe the burglars across the street could have been responsible for. Lacey's murder the baby being found separately from her. Maybe that could have had something to do with the Satanic cult.

You know? And there's so many other theories that kind of came out that made the case very, you know, when you don't have that, that very direct evidence that it makes it harder. So now you're having to tell a story to where it's a story still with evidence, but not that direct evidence, but still with evidence to where the defense can't pick it apart.

Right. And so that's more of what the story is that they told. Now I believe that based off of the defense's strategy, if they wouldn't have had the tapes from Amber Frye, if they wouldn't have had the affair with Amber Fry, if they wouldn't have found the bodies where Scott went fishing. If, if they wouldn't have had the lack of, of emotion.

From Scott Peterson at the vigil after the vigil. If they wouldn't have had Scott in San Diego with dyed hair in a pocket full of cash and some fake IDs, I believe that one of those theories may have caught on. Right? One of those theories may have been a little bit more, more believable, but when you have all those things weighing against your theories, it's really hard to ignore those things, right?

So, Right. Yeah. And Scott's demeanor was definitely one of the lows as well. Yeah. You know, his, even his own behavior during the trial, you know, there was a lot of, lots of members of the jury that talked about his demeanor during the trial, but there was also people who said, well, based on where the jurors were and where he was sitting, they couldn't really see him directly, you know, so they were only able to see certain things.

So there's even been arguments, everything that one side could say. The other side had a way to, you know, try to dissuade you from believing one side or the other side. But, you know, there's things that you see even when you can't see somebody's face. You can see when somebody sloes down in a chair or gets sick or leans forward or leans back.

Like, those are things that you, that you can see in somebody's behavior when they're responding to something that's happening. Anybody, I don't care who you are. Even if you're not perfect at reading emotional intelligence or body language, I'm pretty sure that if you have somebody who's real close to you, typically you're gonna be, you know, even if you're not very good at those things, you're better at those things with people who are close to you.

You can think about things where like your kid had a bad day, and when you pick 'em up from school, you can tell, you can tell based on how they're shrugging their shoulders or the face that they're making. They don't have to come out and say, Hey mom, or, Hey dad, I'm upset. Like you can tell. So those are things that as this trial's taking place that the jurors are seeing and it was not going in his favor.

And early on, you know, with the media coverage, and this is with a lot of cases, especially high profile cases, but you have people on both sides who are advocating and showing up and people who don't even know who they are, like people who will show up and you know, they're like your number one fan that are really trying to push, you know, what they believe is true in your case.

They have that on both sides. On both sides, yeah. Yeah. So after a linked plea trial on November 12th, 2004, the jury found Scott Peterson guilty of first degree murder for the death of Lacey and second degree murder for the death of their unborn child, child, Connor. A month later, the jury recommended the death penalty, uh, recommendation upheld by the judge.

In March, 2005, Scott Peterson was sent to San Quentin Prison and placed on death row where he would remain until later in August of 2020, the California Supreme Court overturned Scott Peterson's death penalty sentence, citing significant errors in jury selection during his 2004 trial. However, his conviction for the murders of his wife, Lacey, and his unborn son, Connor, remained intact.

The state's highest court ruled that he could be resentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, or if prosecutors wished they could retry the penalty phase of the trial. In October of 2020, the California Supreme Court ordered a review of Scott Peterson's conviction after it was determined that one of the jurors in his trial who helped decide his guilt might've been biased.

The juror did not disclose that she had once obtained a restraining order against her boyfriend's ex-girlfriend whom she feared would harm her unborn child. The juror's omission opened a new avenue for Peterson to potentially challenge his conviction. In December of 2021, Scott Peterson was re-sentenced to life in prison without parole, and then in October of 2022, Scott is moved from San Quentin after being released from death row to Mule Creek State Prison.

In December of 2022, Scott's right of habeas corpus is denied. Be. Before we go into closing, I just wanna say in the summary of this trial, it really shows there's a lot going on in in this trial. This is not an episode that can be covered. In one hour, one, two hours. This is gonna take several episodes to really deep dive and dissect all the nuances within this case and, and to really pull out what we learned about it.

And, and, you know, what was factual, what wasn't factual, what was persuaded by the media for people to believe all that stuff is gonna take some vetting and, and some, and, and so we, we are going to deep dive this case. And, and we are really gonna look at, into a lot of different aspects of this case from different perspectives, right?

And we've reached out to people on both sides, from advocates to family members and whatnot. And, you know, the, just like the media, the sides, you know, you have the prosecution and the defense. You have the people who are for, you know, Scott Peterson being guilty, and people who, who are against it. There's.

Different stories on both sides, but the one thing that we want to ensure that everybody has in front of them is the facts. And so aside from all of the theories, which we'll share the theories too, but aside from all the theories we want for you guys to see what was actually presented, what was actually debunked as opposed to what this person is saying should have occurred, or how it was read as opposed to how it was really read or how it was really received.

Like we want for you guys to have the open, transparent, honest view. We want you to see some of the court documents where his own defense lays out things of what occurred and how he was able to have his death sentence overturned, and why they were looking into his. Conviction as a whole. He's had many attorneys, he's paid millions of dollars, his family has paid millions of dollars for these attorneys.

Like he's had some very, very good attorneys touch his case and they are pulling out everything to try to overturn his case or to try to have something take place in his case in favor for Scott Peterson. So we want for everybody to be able to see that full picture more than what you're seeing when you watch some of these documentaries.

And you know, when you listen to some of these things, you're kind of just getting what's on the surface. We really want you guys to see all those details so that you're pre presented with all that as if you're sitting, you know, in a jury trial. And except you get access to everything, even the stuff that wasn't allowed in.

That's what we wanna share with you, right? So if you enjoyed the summary of the Scott Peterson case like and subscribe to the Body of Crime podcast, follow us on our social media platforms so that you can be alerted on the upcoming episodes. As we deep dive this case, we will get to know the intimate details of both Scott and Lacey and their circle of family and friends in part two of this series, starting from their childhood and culminating in the unfortunate events that have made this case into one of the most critically studied cases in true crime circles.

In part three, we will explore the details leading up to and including the disappearance of Lacey and Connor Peterson. This will include details surrounding witnesses and critical evidence and dissect Scott's shaky alibi. Part four, we'll analyze the investigation by Modesto Police and investigators to include media and what role they played in the case.

Part five will study the trial taking us from jury selection to sentencing, and we'll include details on Scott's multiple appeal attempts and his continued plight of innocence and what that means for the future of this case. And finally, part six, we will go over the holistic timeline from start to finish in a marathon episode that will bring new details, exciting insights, and potential theories on the case.

You're not going to want to miss this. Absolutely. And I wanna thank our super fan. Anna Moody, uh, because this was a recommendation from her, from her to, for us to deep dive this case. And we initially, we thought maybe this case had already been looked at by so many other people before, like, could we really bring anything new to this discussion?

And guess what? We have found some things that have never been released. So, absolutely. So, so stay tuned. Um, you're gonna enjoy this, this ride into the, into the Scott Peterson, Lacey Peterson, Connor Peterson case. And it's going to really shed some new light into some of the things that we've found, and it's gonna be an exciting ride.

And that's a wrap on today's investigation, fellow detectives. If you found this episode both enlightening and captivating, then please subscribe to our podcast show and our Patreon. Be a review and hit that like button. Share our podcast with others and engage with us on our website and social media platforms.

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