Body of Crime | Murder in Modesto: The Investigation (Part 4)

👉🏽 Connect with Body of Crime on Social Media – Facebook | Instagram | Pinterest | TikTok

👉🏽 Check out the Body of Crime Website – www.bodyofcrimepodcast.com

👉🏽 Check out the Body of Crime – Link Tree

📚 Books 📚
📖 A Deadly Game By: Catherin Crier
📖 For Laci By: Sharon Rocha
📖 Inside the Mind of Scott Peterson By: Keith Ablow
📖 Blood Brother By: Anne Bird
📖 Witness By: Amber Frey
📖 Presumed Guilty By: Matt Dalton (though we did read this book, it was biased)

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Creators & Guests

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 enthusiasts to today's case file murder in Modesto the Scott Peterson investigation This is part four of a six part series that will take a deep dive into the murders of Lacey Peterson and her unborn child Connor Peterson

Welcome to body of crime, your go to true crime podcast, where we plunge headfirst into the gripping world of criminal mysteries. Join your hosts, Jose Medina, Crystal Garcia, and Alicia Anaya. As we deliver the full stories, immersing you in the heart of each case. With spine chilling cases, in depth analysis, captivating interviews, and a comprehensive examination of the evidence, embark on a thrilling journey with us as we explore bone chilling cases from around the globe.

Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or a fresh face in the genre, we guarantee to keep you on the edge of your seat. So put on your detective hat, grab your notepad, and get ready to dive into the thrilling world of Body of Crime.

Scott Peterson was apprehended on April 18th, 2003, days after the body of his infant son, Connor Peterson, and the torso of his missing wife, Lacey Peterson, washed up in the San Francisco Bay, only a few miles away from where he had gone fishing the day that Lacey disappeared. The detectives investigating Lacey's disappearance worried that Scott might try to find her.

Heath Lee South into Mexico. Especially since he had relocated to the border town of San Diego where his parents Lee and Jackie Peterson lived. By the time that Scott was finally in police custody and transferred north from San Diego back to Modesto to be arraigned for the murder of Lacey Peterson A team of detectives would have been investigating Lacey's disappearance for over 4 months.

The detectives would prove to be skilled and thorough starting their investigation on Day 1. During the investigation, Scott Peterson would develop an adversarial relationship with the detectives almost immediately and hire a defense attorney within weeks of Lacey's disappearance. He would be caught in multiple lies.

Photos of an adulterous affair would come out. His girlfriend would collaborate with detectives to record his lies. He would avoid the media who took that to mean he was hiding something and he would eventually destroy the trust and support from friends and family. Whenever detectives investigate a crime such as the disappearance of a death of a loved one, they always began looking at those immediately surrounding the victims.

Nine times out of ten, it's those in the victim's inner circle who are guilty or are involved. Very rarely is it a complete stranger, but there is always a chance that the perpetrator could be someone not known to the victim. This is why detectives always try to rule out the closest family members to the crime.

This is done by verifying alibis and administering polygraphs. A bad polygraph doesn't make a person immediately guilty. But it does let the police know to dig deeper. Basic psychology provides detectives with a framework of normal responses to stressors. Although it is possible that people often respond to certain situations differently, in almost all cases, the physiology of the human body makes it difficult to control certain bodily functions.

As such, we cry when we are sad, we shout when we are angry, and we lie when we are afraid. These are all normal functions. This is what allows polygraphs to work so well. Scott's behavior became a concern almost immediately. To not only detectives, but also to Lacey's family. Scott's friends and neighbors, and potentially to his own parents.

But, let's begin looking at the investigation from day one, the day that Lacey disappeared.

The day that Lacey disappeared, a couple things immediately come off as being strange. The very first thing that comes off as strange is the fact that when Scott gets home and he realizes that his wife is not there. He calls his, his mother in law and he says, Hey, Lacey's missing.

And that's very odd because it's just a strange word to use. Typically when you come home, if someone's not there, you go, Hey, my wife's not here. Is she there? You don't say, Hey, my wife is missing. Right. That's one of the words that kind of stuck with, with Sharon Rocha. Lacey's mom in the back of her mind, it was a red flag, but she just kind of ignored it because she was like, it couldn't be my son in law who did something to his wife because they were in such a loving relationship.

Right. Once they got there and they started searching for Lacey. One of the things that came out is that Scott Peterson himself didn't call 9 1 1. And that's strange. A lot of times when a perpetrator has perpetrated a crime, they depend on someone else to call 9 1 1. They don't want to be the ones giving the information, so they have someone else do it.

And so, that was also another flag that the police realized when they were like, Okay, it wasn't Scott who called 9 1 1, it was the father in law. Why didn't the guy who realized she was missing call? When looking at Sharon's timeline of how everything happened. So she, he called her first to determine that she wasn't there.

And when she said, no, she's not here. And she said, call her friends and see if any of her friends have seen her. So he called some of the friends. He also ran across the street and knocked on some neighbors doors as well. And that's where you get the story where one of the neighbors says, Oh, he came over here and he says, have you seen Lacey?

I just got back from golfing. This is the neighbor that will testify to say that he came and said he was golfing. He forgot he wasn't golfing. No, I don't think he, I don't think he forgot. I think his alibi was in the middle of changing. He hadn't committed to changing his alibi yet. It was all coming to play.

His alibi was beginning to unravel a little bit. And so what I find odd is that he did not call the hospital where she was supposed to be delivering. My wife's not here. She's eight months pregnant. Did she go into labor? She's not home. Nobody can find her. Let me call OB GYN. Well, but he had called her and she didn't answer.

Right? Supposedly during the day. And so, if he's called her and she's not answering, then why would you think she's at the hospital and she wouldn't have called you and like, even just left a message on the way there to say, hey, like, I'm going to the hospital, I think I'm gonna leave her. That's a great point.

And that's one of the things that Sharon Rocha brings up during one of her discussions is that Lacey was an over communicator. Yeah, she was the kind of person that would have called or left a note or wrote something on a dry erase board or wrote something on the fridge. She would have left something as an indicator of what was going on with her.

It's highly improbable that Scott would just get home. There'd be nobody there. And he would think that that would be normal. Sharon tells Scott to meet her at the park. As soon as she gets there, Sharon starts to have doubts that Lacey ever went there because it's super cold for California. It's below 50 degrees.

Lacey was experiencing dizzy spells and things like that with the advancement of her pregnancy. She had been advised by her doctor not to walk anymore. Right. Twice she had gotten sick walking to the park. So that's why she started the yoga. The, um, what they call that maternity yoga. Yeah. So when Sharon gets out there and she sees how treacherous the entry into the park is because it's a downslope with ice and mud, you know, ruts from the, from the weather.

He starts to think, there's no way she would have went this way. There's no way she would have came this way as advanced as she was in her pregnancy. But, Scott said she went there, so she continues to look and she spends time looking there. She looks through the whole entire park before Scott gets there.

And when she sees Scott, Scott is walking along the water and he's looking out over the water. He's not like looking behind bushes, he's not looking in trash cans. He's looking over the water as he's walking with his dog, Mackenzie. And she's calling him Scott, Scott, Scott. And she's like 50 feet away. And he's not turning around when they finally get his attention.

And he does finally turn around. He does. He's unable to make eye contact with Sharon. She goes in for a hug to console him and he turns away from her. And that's the beginning of building a separation between him. And Lacey's family, that moment, he began to separate himself from being friendly, not being

the normal person that he was all the way up to that day. And logically, do you think that there's any reason for that? It could be due to stressors from Lacey being missing. It could be stressed or he could be worried or concerned. One of the things that everybody says about Scott is that he doesn't get stressed out.

He doesn't lose his temper. He doesn't blow up. Like he's very. Cool calm and collected all the time throughout the investigation. He's the same way There's very few times where he actually, you know, loses control or loses his temper or gets upset even when he gets mad It's very controlled. It's controlled mad and people find this to be odd about him because he's not showing any true emotions here Sharon is crumbling falling apart.

She can't stop from crying everywhere. She goes and Scott's completely unfazed As soon as the police walk through the house with Scott, the first time they're asking them questions as they're going through the house, because they're looking for evidence of a kidnapping, somebody broke into the house, stole her jewelry, whatever.

They're looking for some evidence that someone who was in the house and did something to Lacey. And as they're going through the house, they're asking them questions about his alibi, about being at the marina and fishing. Simple questions like, what were you fishing for? What kind of fish were you trying to catch?

What kind of bait were you using? Very simple things like that. He's having a hard time providing answers to the police. And so it's enough of a red flag that they immediately call in a homicide detective. Now, this is not normal. And this is one of the reasons why they believe that they rushed to judgment because on day one, they called in a homicide detective, which is not normal.

And when he gets there, he does a second walk through. With Scott Peterson. And this time, this walkthrough, he's calling out certain things that he's seen in the house, and he's asking very pertinent questions that you would typically, you would think that if one of your family members was missing, one of the first things that you would notice is, did they take their purse?

Did they take their cell phone? Did they take their shoes? What jewelry were they wearing? Did they wear a jacket when they left? Those are all things that you would think about looking to see, like to see, you know, what condition that person left in. And when they asked him these questions, his answer is, I don't know, I don't know.

Come to find out, her cell phone was in her car, her purse was hanging in her closet, there was no evidence of her leaving with a jacket on, they couldn't find her shoes, her white shoes that she used to go walking. The other day when we met at the movies, and when I was checking in, I told the guy, hey, my husband's gonna come in behind me, this is his name, and he says, okay, he says, what is he wearing?

And I said, I don't know. We were meeting there and I hadn't seen you that morning. So I didn't see what you had worn. And so he made a comment to me and I didn't take the time to explain to him that I hadn't seen you that morning, but he was like, man, girl, pay attention to what the man's wearing. Yeah.

But I'm gonna tell you, if, if you left the house. And someone was to say, Hey, what things did Crystal take? I would look for your cell phone. That'd be one indicator that you are not home. I would look for your wallet. I would look for the shoes you normally wear, your black shoes that you normally wear. Um, just certain things that you normally have on, I would look for those things.

And that would be an indicator of what you had on when you left. You know, not that you would probably know what color my pants were or anything like that, but he did see her before he left that morning. And he would later say that she was wearing a white blouse with long sleeves and black pants. That would be the description that he gave the police, and that is not what they found her in.

He didn't want to say she was wearing the same thing she was wearing the day before. Well, you know, I don't know why he would have changed her, her wardrobe, because if he saw her that morning in black pants and white top, and she was found in the white, black pants and white top, that would make a lot of sense.

Right. But the fact that she was found in tan pants, that shortens the timeline even further, because then she would have to change clothes. After the detectives looked through the house, the detectives determined that they want to take some of the items from the house as evidence. One of those items is the rags that were on the, um, washing machine.

They want to take some other items from the house that they found. They want to take that with them as well. Um, they take some photos. They want to go to the warehouse. When they go to the warehouse, Scott tells them there's no electricity in the warehouse. What we find out later is that there was electricity in the warehouse, but the overhead lights weren't working.

So he didn't say the overhead lights aren't working. He just said, there's no power. And so the next morning that's eating away at the detective. So how did he use the computer? That was part of his alibi. That's exactly what, that's exactly what the detective was thinking to himself overnight. He wasn't queuing in on Scott that they wanted to go and see the boat to confirm his alibi.

Right. So here's the reality of it. If you're a decent detective, You're trying to eliminate the easiest things to eliminate first so that you can really deep dive. To find this person alive, hopefully, and that's exactly what they're doing. So they're trying to eliminate him because as the closest person to her at this point, he's the most logical person to rule out first.

And he's not the only one they're ruling out. They're ruling out the mom, the stepfather, the friends, the close friends that are around. They're ruling all those people out. And so that means that they're looking into all of their alibis. They're also giving them polygraphs. You were at where you were doing what you were.

Okay, you're good. You're out. We don't need to look at you anymore Right that way they can focus their resources on Whatever red flags they find right? The problem is that Scott Peterson is giving them flags and so that's causing them to continue to look at him and it bothers them because Everyone in the family is saying it could never be Scott, right?

And they want to believe that after the warehouse they go over to the jail for the recorded interview that we saw When did you realize you were going to go fishing? Oh, that was a morning decision. It was either go play golf at the club or go fishing. Okay. So, what you're telling me, Scott, is there's no...

You'd have no idea where Lacey is. Never once did he say, Oh my God, where is Lacey? Where could she be? I hope she's okay. I hope, you know, she's not harmed. Never ever, ever. You were feeling that panic, even as you talk about it, you can see a little bit of it left. Yes. He did not seem to have that sense. He did not have it.

Now you've seen the interview. What's your take on the interview? My take on the interview is that he comes off as being almost too relaxed. So when you bring up how a lot of people say he seemed kind of pretty much emotionless, kind of like a serial killer. That is how he came off. He came off very nonchalant about all the questions he was being asked.

He didn't seem in the bit, like, he didn't have any, any raised level of anxiety, where, you know, like, somebody who you really care about is missing. And not just one person, like, I consider it to be two people, your, your wife and your, and your child. So, he doesn't seem concerned. He's not like, Hey, why are you guys questioning me?

Like, go... Go find her, you know, he's not doing any of those things and not to say that everybody does that, you know, some people are in their heads thinking, what am I forgetting? What can I tell them? What can I, but he doesn't exhibit that either. So he's positioned kind of He's sitting back. He's making sure his hands are either completely still or in his pockets.

And I find that odd. So at one point in the video, when he's talking to the police, he's messing with his phone and he's trying to put his phone in his pocket and he does it really awkwardly because he doesn't want to take his left hand out of his left pocket. So he's grabbing the phone with his right hand, trying to put it in his pocket and he's having a hard time just because of how he's positioned, but he doesn't want to pull that left hand out.

So during the interview, More so seeing it, like I think if you heard it, it doesn't come off as being as bad as when you actually see the video. Yeah. Because just hearing it, you can kind of gather that he's trying to answer the questions honestly. But even in the sound of it, he sounds very relaxed. Yeah, he does.

He does sound very relaxed. The other thing is, he had some cuts on his hands. Eventually, they're going to find blood inside of his vehicle that are tied to those cuts on his hands. Actually, he made a comment while they were still outside of his house, while they were still looking for Lacey that when they were looking inside the vehicle, he says, they're probably going to find blood in there because I cut my hands all the time.

So he kind of was already preempting an excuse. The other thing that was a little bit preemptive of him as well is when they said, where were you today? And he says, Oh, I was at the Marina. He immediately produced the ticket. And gave it to the police officer, which means he already had evidence of where he was almost as if he was prepared to have an alibi.

So these are all little things that, and that stood out to the, to the cops. And even, well, and I'm going to tell you why, because even in that instance, if you're questioning me and you're saying, Hey, where were you at? And I'm telling you like, Oh, I was here and I was here. I wouldn't immediately pull that out unless you asked so if you were like well Hey, did anybody see you or do you have I'd be like, oh I have a ticket from right You know from the Marine to let me pull it out for you I think it's a my you know, my wallet or in my pocket Right during the interview he's asked to do the gunshot residue and he does it on the spot They asked him about doing the polygraph and he says yes, I'll do the polygraph.

He asked the question. Is it accurate? Yes, I'll do it. In that same interview, they ask him, are you having any problems in your marriage? And he says, no, anytime that somebody is being tested for gunshot residue, they only consider it to be good for about six to no more than eight hours, generally six for it being good results.

And the reason for that is because gunshot residue can easily come off your hands, be washed off your hands. If you're moving around a lot, then hours of when the incident occurred where you fired a firearm, if Lacey had been killed with a gun, which we don't know that if Lacey had been killed with a gun He wouldn't have had gunshot residue on his hands if it hadn't been within that time frame So I just wanted to throw that out there.

Plus he had showered and everything too, right? Yeah The other thing about the interview is at the very end of the interview Scott asked for counseling services Which came off as strange to the detective and the reason why is because typically at that point Most people aren't thinking about counseling at that moment.

They're still thinking on finding their family member. You're not really thinking about counseling until you get to the grieving period. And so, it was out of sync with what the detective was used to, and that also raised a flag. Why would you be asking for counseling services at the very beginning of, we still don't know where your wife is.

We may find her today or tomorrow. She may come home, you know, with some type of excuse at some point. You wouldn't be thinking about counseling services yet. And he's already thinking about counseling services. So it was very odd. After he was done with the interview, they finished the interview about 1 32 o'clock in the morning and the detective drove him home.

Now, what hasn't been talked about a lot is that before the detective took him to go do the interview, Sharon Rocha asked him to come to her house. When he got done, she was like, come to the house. We're not sleeping tonight. We're going to be waiting up for Lacey. Come to the house. He doesn't go to the house.

He goes home and they try to call him because they want to know how everything went and how everything's going and they're thinking he's distraught and they don't want to leave him alone. They want to care for him as well and everyone's being together. Everyone's at Sharon's house when they call him at four o'clock in the morning because they've been calling him all night trying to see how he's doing.

Brent goes by the house, he sees his car's there and so Sharon's like, Hey, call him again. So he calls him, wakes him up, he's asleep, right? Which is odd because if you're distraught, you're worried about your wife, Sharon can't sleep for days. Scott is sleeping peacefully. And so in the morning when the detectives show up at his house, But they needed counseling.

Yeah. Yeah. When the, when the detectives show up the next morning at his house. He answers the door in a towel and his hair's wet. He just got out of the shower and he's like, Hey, what's going on guys? Like, you know, I'm still getting dressed. They're ready to go start searching for his wife. This guy's just getting his day together.

It's all very odd behavior to them. They just can't understand what he's doing because it's not normal to them. You know, one thing that I want to bring up about when he met with the police at the police station was that. He had explained that he had loaded up some umbrellas from the backyard. Mind you, this is December.

And that he was going to go store them at the warehouse from by the pool. And that's what he was loading in the tarp that you hear everybody referencing. When he met with the police, he still had... The umbrellas in his truck. So he didn't leave them at the warehouse. Like he said, was what he was doing.

Right. And when he got back home, instead of pulling in front ways, like he normally did, he backed in almost as a way to conceal the umbrellas. Or it could also been to have it closer to unloading so that he could put him back in his backyard. The detective asked the neighbor, does he normally park that way?

They were like, no, he never parks that way. Unless he's unloading something. On the 25th of December, they released a press release. Right before they did a press release, that's when Scott Peterson made an announcement. He actually asked all law enforcement to leave the room and he made an announcement.

And he announced to the family members that were there that he would not be taking a polygraph test. He said, based off the advice of my father and my attorney, I'm not going to be taking a polygraph test. I'm just letting you guys know. So it's not a surprise. And that was upsetting because the detectives had prepared at that point to give them the polygraph.

So it was not a good moment for the detectives. They found that as a red flag as well. Right. And you know, honestly, I want to explain that because we talk all the time about how we recommend that if you're in a situation and you're being asked to take a polygraph. Even being asked to talk to the police, not even being asked to take a polygraph, but to get an attorney and to do everything that the attorney tells you.

We tell everybody that all the time. Now, what makes this situation unique and why it makes it a red flag is because there were other red flags. So this wasn't just one thing in the whole shebang. This is, this is one more thing on top of all the other red flags. If he would have took a polygraph. And it would, it came up that he was being dishonest in his responses that wouldn't have been enough to arrest him, but it would have been enough for detectives to dig deeper into his alibi, dig deeper into what he said he was doing so he could still be eliminated.

Even with the bad polygraph, he could still be eliminated. And the test could have also been inconclusive as well. They'll look at how he did on the polygraph based on the specific questions that are asked. So whichever areas it is that he's showing that physiological response to is going to be the areas where they're going to dig.

Right. So. Yeah. So, the next day, December 26th, the detectives secured a search warrant for Peterson's home. And the reason why is because now they're going to go in there and they're going to dissect it. Now it's a crime scene. They're under the impression that this could possibly be the last place that Legacy Peterson was seen.

Not saying that Scott Peterson was a suspect at that moment. He was still a person of interest and they were still trying to rule him out, but they needed more information from the house. They needed to take blood samples. They needed to, you know, they saw spots of areas that might've been blood. In order to remove anything from the house, you need a search warrant to legally remove it from the home.

The things that had voluntarily been moved from the home on the first day had been done so without a search warrant. So at this point they were coming in with a search warrant. And as a result, The Peterson's had to move out of the house. Scott had to move out and they had them go stay in a hotel. Now, during this process of these days, from the 24th to the 26th, we get the incident with the robbers, the burglars that broke into the house across the street, police were alerted to the burglary on December 26th at about 10 PM at night, when the Medina's came home and found they had been burglarized.

Obviously across the street where all the cops, they just ran outside and they're like, Hey, Hey, Hey. Our house got broken into, right? And so we know that the burglary happened between the 26th. A witness would come forward that would say she saw a van with some people standing outside of it. Some dark complexion people that were not African Americans that were standing outside of the vehicle on December 24th.

She would claim that when the individuals who broke into the house were caught. Somebody snitched on them and they got caught with the stuff that they had stolen. They were asked about their alibi. You know, when did you do this? The first response was, we did it on the 27th. And that's impossible because the Medinas were already home by the 27th.

So then they went back and go, oh no, it was the 26th. The story was that one particular guy went in and burglarized the home And he got a safe all the way to the front door with a dolly. It was like an 800 pound safe He couldn't get the safe from the door into his car. So he had to go get help and came back with a friend And between him and his friend, they were able to get the safe into the truck.

There was never a van. They never used the van. It was a truck. They actually put the safe in the front seat of the truck and they got the safe back to the house and they cracked the safe at the house. I say that because there was never a van. These individuals had an alibi on the 24th and the 25th. So they had an alibi that cleared them on those two days.

A lot of people will keep going back to the burglars as potential suspects, but the police ruled them out very early on. As soon as they captured them, they ruled them out. Those guys ended up going to prison for the burglary. And they were captured, but they definitely were not there on the 24th or the 25th.

One of the things that they try to do is they try to do it on some type of detective hypnosis on the lady who says she saw the van to get better understanding of what it is she saw. And it's really important to understand that your visual testimony is the weakest type of testimony that you can have.

Seeing someone on one day. Even if you see him on a Monday and then you see him on getting on a Thursday and somebody says, Hey, have you ever seen this person? It's really hard for you to recall what day you actually saw them on and Who you actually saw if you don't know who the person is. It's part of the reason why the testimony about seeing Lacey walking around the neighborhood was so flawed because there was other people that were also pregnant and also had golden retrievers that had walked that same path that day and so She could have very easily seen the van At a different address down the street next door, she could have seen it on a, on a different day, but that's a very strong possibility, but the police did go through and verify the alibis of those individuals.

Not just that, but there had been a van that had been talked about on the news, um, concerning some other criminal activity, and even just hearing things sometimes, you can relate things together that aren't related in telling your story, and not intentionally, so that can happen as well. Now, on December 30th, Amber Fry.

Is deep into a relationship with Scott Peterson. She only met him the month before, but okay. That's true. That's true. Amber Fry had a friend named Sean who was on a job function offsite in Anaheim with Scott Peterson. And while there, Scott was hitting on her. Scott was trying to talk to her, ask her questions, and he was being provocative, and he was being inappropriate and making inappropriate comments to her, trying to bait her into...

Like a one night stand or whatever she wasn't having it. She wasn't falling for it. She was in a relationship and she wasn't, she wasn't going for it. He asked her, do you have any friends who would be interested in a single guy? He was portraying himself as single. This is in November. And so Sean is the one who introduces Amber Fry to Scott Peterson on the 20th.

And basically what he does is he gives her her phone number and go, Hey, I want you to meet my friend, give her a call, talk to her. So he calls her and then he drives down to Fresno and they go on their first date. Their first date starts off fine. They sleep together that night. Lots of bottles of wine, lots of roses, and they sleep together.

And then this begins the relationship with Amber Frye. And so he spoke to her almost every single day from the time that he started dating her on the 20th. And he'd met her daughter and he was spending time with them basically as a little family. And they were talking about the future. They were talking about having a future together.

That relationship advanced extremely fast. Emotionally on December 30th is when Amber Fry gets wind of everything that's going on in Modesto. And that was due to a friend who spoke to her about it and said, Hey, isn't this the Scott that you've been talking to? And that is how she found out. Yeah. So what she does is she calls the Modesto police department and she asked about the investigation and she asked about Scott Peterson and she asked if his birth date is this birthday.

And they're like, yes, that's his birthday. That's the birthday that we have on the Scott Peterson that is involved in this case. And so she goes, I have information on this case. And that's how she gets involved to that case. On December 30th, that's also when the search for Lacey expanded over to the marina and they started looking in the marina for Lacey Peterson.

This is more kind of in alignment when Scott is really being looked at as more and more of a suspect at this point. And by the 30th of December, Scott has already, it's been about five or six days where Scott is just acting very strange, where he won't go to the press conferences. He's only been to one, the very first one.

He hasn't been to any other. He won't talk to the media. He is very aloof. He's just not very engaged in the investigation. He's, he's developed an adversarial relationship with all the detectives. He's refusing to, to communicate and share. Even when they bring the dogs in to find, like, and they're like, hey, we need something with Lacey's scent on it so that the dogs can search for her.

He's like, I want a receipt for all that. And even the, the lady's like, this is the first time I've ever heard. A person who lost their family member that's asking for a receipt for a slipper So the dog can smell it and go find his wife Are you even trying to find your wife at this point on new year's eve december 31st?

We already know that scott is at the vigil. No, he's in paris Watching fireworks That's what I heard. That's what he said Yeah on december 31st scott's in paris He's he's virtually in paris mentally in paris, um, but his body is at the Is that the vigil for Lacey and he refuses to go on stage with the rest of the family and say anything for Lacey and not just that, but he was late.

He wasn't there when it started. He was speaking to Amber Frye, who at this point obviously knows what's going on. So she knows that he's lying to her. All his calls to Amber Frey are being recorded right at this point. So he has this conversation with her and then he's late to the vigil. Well, no wonder he's not going to get on the stage.

You know, he's still thinking Amber Frey believes him and he's beginning to lose confidence from his friends. So his, even his friends are starting to be bothered by his attitude. And when he's at the vigil. They call for him to come up to the stage and he says, no, I'm fine down here with my friends and his friends are upset about that.

They're like, you're making yourself look bad. You need to go up there on the stage and, you know, make a plea to find your wife. But he keeps saying, no, I don't want the focus to be on me. I want the focus to be on my wife. It's very possible at this time, Scott Peterson is trying to sustain his lie to Amber.

And he may be thinking that if I get on stage and I get in front of a camera, she's going to discover my lie. Right. And so that might be his motivation at this point. January 1st comes, January 2nd, the police come out and they see Scott Peterson's truck in his boat. Divers begin searching the Berkeley Marina for Lacey Peterson's body.

On January 6th, Amber Frye will confront Scott Peterson about Lacey's disappearance. And what's really important about this call on January 6th is that this is the day where the police have given Amber Frye a script of questions to ask Scott. They want to get Scott on audio recording. Confirming some of the comments that Amber Fry has made saying that Scott has made himself like my wife is lost.

My wife is not here. This is going to be the first holiday without my wife. But we're staying a little longer. Okay. And I'm so sorry that this has happened and I'm so sorry I'm going to hurt you. I'm sure it's why Saki called me. Why? Why? What's up? What are you talking about? It's the worst thing. Um, you haven't been watching the news, obviously.

I have not been traveling during the last couple weeks. I have, I've lied to you when I've been traveling.

Okay. The girl I got married to, her name is Lacey. Uh huh. She disappeared just before Christmas. Uh huh. For the past two weeks I've been in Modesto with her family and mine. Searching for her.

Okay. She just disappeared, and no one knows where she's been. And I, I, I can't tell you more because I, I need you to be protected from the media. And I, uh, okay, they are amazing. Scott, are you, are you to me earlier in December and told me that you had lost your wife. What was that about? She, I mean, she's alive.

What? She's alive. Where she's alive. Where? In Modesto. Now I know I, this is the hardest I, I wanted to tell you first, I, the media has been telling everyone that I had something to do with her disappearance. I hope so much that this doesn't hurt you. How could it not affect me? It does. You never answered my question, Scott, sweetie.

You don't. You don't. I can't. I can't say anymore. I think I deserve. You deserve so much better. There's no question you deserve so much better. Yeah, and I deserve to understand an explanation of why you told me you'd lost your wife and this was the first holidays you'd spend without her. That was December 9th you told me this and now all of a sudden your wife's missing?

Are you kidding

me? Did you hear me? I did. I, I, I, I don't know what to say. I, I think an explanation would, uh, be a start. I know. You absolutely deserve an explanation. Yes, I do. I do. And I want to give you one. The conversation that they had was on December 9th. And it was December 9th where he, where he tells her that, that that's going to be the first holiday without her.

And the day prior, the police have found evidence that he was searching for a boat and actually paid for the boat and went to the DMV and did the paperwork for the boat on December 9th, the same day that he spoke with. Amber Frye. So. Right. So this is all part of all the different little red flags that are coming out, so they're trying to confirm, you know, like, okay, you know, this date's important because if he told her this on the 9th and he got the boat on the 8th, you know, why is that?

So they're kind of trying to, to decipher whether or not he's being honest or he's not. And if all these red flags are just, you know, coincidences or if they're indeed red flags. Right. And so as the police start to build a theory. On what happened to Lacey, their theory is that between the 23rd and 24th, Scott Peterson killed Lacey Peterson via a soft kill what they call a soft kill, which is a non bloody nonviolent kill, such as suffocation, strangulation or poisoning, which typically leaves very little evidence.

Physical evidence and that she was then loaded into the back of his truck with the umbrellas wrapped in a blue tarp so nobody can see her. And then she was transported to the warehouse. Where she was put into the boat, covered in the tarp, and then taken out to the marina, and then dumped in the water.

That's their theory. At this point, as they're getting more and more red flags on Scott Peterson, they start to bring this up as a theory. This is also part of why they continue to search the marina. Why they keep looking in the marina. They also worry that maybe he dumped her somewhere along the way. In another body.

That's a possibility. So they also begin to look at whatever other bodies he had access to or that he could have driven to within that time period. So they're looking at all that. That's really important because the boat becomes a major concern because of the timing, the comment that he made to Amber Fry on December 9th, buying the boat on December 8th, purchasing the permits.

To go fishing on December 20th for valid fishing only on the 23rd and the 24th. There's too much coincidence. In that scenario to not think that Scott may have done something to Lacey during that period of time and that he hasn't been planning it since the very beginning. Right. On January 16th, the police revealed that Scott Peterson had extramarital affairs.

On January 16th is when police tell the family members. Right. And they want to do this in person. They don't do this by the phone. They don't, they don't send an email. For Sharon Rocha and for Ron, they want to. Soften the blow of what's getting ready to come out in the media because the reason why they decided to move forward with letting Them know is because it's getting ready to come out because the Enquirer got a photo.

Yeah, right It's one of Amber's friends that sent it to the Enquirer So they go and they have the conversation with the roaches and they're distraught They're devastated because they've the whole time they've been supporting Scott. They've had his back. They've been fighting for him They've been excusing his behavior But now everyone's starting to look at everything that he's done and everything he's done is now suspect Because they were already feeling you know as family and close friends because her friends were feeling the same way His friends were feeling feeling the same way they were feeling like and he's he's got some bizarre behaviors, but okay Maybe he's taken things differently than What I would, or what I would, you know, so everybody's kind of giving him the benefit of the doubt.

But when that news broke and nobody knew that's when everybody was like, none of this is a coincidence at this point. Right, exactly. And just so you know, even before the police revealed that Scott Peterson was having extramarital affairs, they came to Scott Peterson and they showed him the photos and they said, Hey, what's going on here?

What is this? What's happening? We got this, we got this photo and the photos that the police got were from Amber Frye. So they use those photos to challenge Scott to see what his, his demeanor was going to be. And he said, this is response was, is that supposed to be me? Even with the photos in front of his face, he was still like, deny, deny, deny, deny, deny, deny.

It's still not me right until Amber comes forward. And that's why it took all the way until January 24th. Scott was still saying, Oh, that's not nobody. That, that was, he was still downplaying the whole scenario. He's still trying to tell the family members that, Oh no, that's, it's not true. They're trying to make me look bad.

This is his story. How did Lee Peterson take it? What was Lee Peterson's response? Lee Peterson's response was, well, everybody has affairs. So no big deal. Two thirds of America has affairs. No smoking gun here, guys. This doesn't mean that he killed Lacey. This doesn't mean that he had anything to do with this.

At no point in time... Does he attempt to hold his son accountable for his actions? He doesn't admonish him. He doesn't say, oh, he shouldn't have done that. He, it's messed up that he had an affair. No, he's continuously making excuses for Scott. On January 24th, Amber Fry comes forward and she confirms that she's been having an affair with Scott Peterson.

And that is a moment that is altering to now the whole world knows. But also now Scott can no longer deny it. There is a person that is saying, I have a relationship with Scott Peterson. He can no longer hide it now. And not just that, but when she came forward, you know, there's a lot of cases where, you know, the other person comes out or is forced out somehow, some way because of a photo or video or whatever.

And generally a lot of the general public will look at them and be like, Oh, were they part of it? Are they a suspect too? And in her case, when she came forward, She was so very vulnerable and honest and visibly upset. She was completely floored that this guy that she's been talking to could quite possibly have anything to do with the disappearance of his wife.

A wife that she didn't even know that he had. Right. I will say that initially she volunteered to record their conversations. And that saved the police because that allowed them to get a lot of recordings before they had a search warrant for the tap wire. Now, the way that that worked is, this is back in the 90s, so the way that that worked is, she was recording these conversations on cassettes, and then as she would compile them, one of the detectives would drive down there and collect them, and he would listen to them.

Eventually they would get a wiretap authorization and what they started to realize is that she was omitting some of their conversations. On the recordings that she was doing and that made them think, is she hiding something? Right. Could she potentially be involved? And so they did dig deeper into her alibi and they did give her a polygraph as well.

So she did at some point become a person of interest. Right. Yeah. And naturally. Yeah, naturally. Yeah. Yeah. And she had nothing to hide. She wasn't involved, obviously, and she didn't have anything to hide. Between January 24th, uh, going into February, Scott continued his BS. In February, Scott decided to move forward and started talking to press.

This is the first time that he begins speaking to the press. And my best guess would be that It was a chess move for him, so he thought, it wasn't a good one, but he thought, he thought it was a chess move because Amber Frye came out, she gave a very emotional speech on what had occurred and her feelings towards Lacey's family and apologized, so it was a very genuine one.

You know, from what I can tell, it appeared to be very genuine. So, now he's feeling the pressure between, you know, January 24th and then in February when he finally decided to open up and actually speak to the press. It was because he was starting to feel pressure that, hey, if I don't put my face out there at this point, obviously Amber knows.

The whole world knows now. And now they're looking at me as the bad guy. And the only way for me to fix this is for me to now get in front of the press and be that husband. So that was his move. But he kind of flounders a little bit on his interviews. A lot of bit. Yeah, and he makes himself look pretty bad.

And he kind of isn't really prepared very good for those interactions with Diane Sawyer. Yeah. When you're talking to somebody who's used to interviewing people and getting things out of people, and she was very, very well known for that. You know, yeah, he didn't go in very prepared. Not if he were being open and honest, he didn't go in there prepared.

So he had a few slips of the tongue. He even made a straight out lie. When he told Diane Sawyer that he had told police about the affair during the initial interview, he says, Oh, from the very beginning, I've told the police about, about the affair. They called him out almost immediately. The detectives did.

You didn't tell us about the affair from the very start. We had to figure it out. We had to find it. February 10th comes and February 10th was Connor Peterson's due date that comes and goes and still no evidence of Lacey. March 5th, Lacey is, her classification from a missing persons is changed to a homicide case.

And why is that significant, Crystal? That's significant because generally based on the amount of information that's garnered in a certain period of time, you can start making some pretty serious assumptions, but generally that comes with. a trigger in the case to allow for certain resources and things of that nature.

So it shouldn't be looked at as a, as a negative thing either, but they had to have gotten enough information to want to release that trigger. And that is why they did that. On April 13th of 2003, the human remains of a fetus is discovered in the San Francisco Bay shoreline. It's approximately 2 to 3 miles north of where Scott Peterson was fishing in the Berkeley Marina.

The very next day, the human remains of a woman are discovered in the San Francisco Bay shoreline within close proximity of the location of the fetus, approximately 2 to 3 miles north of where Scott Peterson was fishing. on December 24th. Now, the fetus was found almost fully intact. The torso of Lacey Peterson was found no hands, no feet, and no head.

Also, all the internal organs were missing as well. Her uterus was the only thing that was still intact, and her cervix was also intact, meaning she didn't have a vaginal birth. When they found the torso of Lacey Peterson, there were some dogs on site that were eating the torso. It had to be shooed away, um, and they called the people to come get the remains of the body.

And for three or four days, they didn't know if it was Lacey and Connor. They were doing DNA tests to determine. They used DNA tests from a pap smear that Lacey had done to confirm the body of Lacey Peterson. And then they used DNA that they had taken from Scott Peterson to confirm the baby was Connor.

Right. During this time of discovery, Scott Peterson was in San Diego. Supposedly, he had relocated down there in order to hide from the media. He was escaping the media attention. Before he gets to San Diego. Yeah. How many times had he gone to watch the search in San Francisco Bay? So, what's really funny is that Scott Peterson had gone to the Bay three to four times.

Every time he had gone there, it had been for About five to 10 minutes at the most. Each time he had come to the Bay Area, it had been during a time of search when they were searching the Bay. He would come there, he would drive through the parking lot, he would watch, see where they were at. He would be there for about 5 10 minutes, and then he would drive back home.

He would take evasive maneuvers to not be followed, not be tracked. He would rent cars, he would go and pick up rental cars to make the drive, and then try to evade the police to not be tracked to where he was going. So that's all before he takes this trip to San Diego. So I just wanted to make sure that we, we had that before we got to San Diego.

That's true. And every time they went to the Marina, every time they announced in the news that they would be doing searches within the Marina, and you bring up a good point on one of the searches of the Marina, they had found, I want to say it was like January 9th, they were doing a search of the Marina and they found something that they thought could possibly be a body.

And so he was there a lot at different points. Yeah, but when they found that there was something in the water, the weather was too bad and they'd already been searching for all day. So they, they weren't in a position to try to recover it. So what they did was they said they were going to come back next day.

Well, because of the weather, they weren't able to come back until the 11th of January. Now, Scott wasn't there on the 11th of January when they went back. When they went to go find out what that item was, they determined that it was an anchor. Where the detectives found out that it was an anchor, they called Sharon Rocha to let her know it wasn't Lacey.

They called her and they said, hey, just letting you know, it was an anchor, it wasn't Lacey's body. And so, she called Scott to let Scott know. And when she called Scott, she said, hey, they found an anchor, they didn't find Lacey's body. When she hung up, he was still on the line, on his, on his recorded line, and they heard him make a whoo sound, like a whistle, like a, like a whistle of relief type sound.

That was part of evidence that was allowed to be admitted. On April 18th, four days after finding the human remains of Lacey on the beach, the body is identified as Lacey. And that's the day they weren't planning on apprehending Scott. Well, they were trying to wait until the results had come back and they had been following him, but he was driving erratic.

He was, they just were getting a weird feeling and so they decided, you know what, we don't have the results back yet, but we're going to pull him over. And so they did. And they did pull him over. And when they pulled him over, he had some strange stuff going on. Some very innocent type person stuff going on.

So his hair was dyed blonde, 15, 000 worth of cash, 14, 000 of a hundred dollar bills that were still paper wrapped. His car was unregistered. What we later find out is that he purchased the car in his mom's name and told the seller that it was a unisex name. He told the seller that Jackie Peterson was a unisex name and he bought the car in his mom's name.

And so I want to talk over a couple of these things because there's been some various things that have come out as far as oh, but maybe he wasn't up to no good. At one point, Scott Peterson had said that the reason that his hair was a different color, that he didn't indeed dye it that color, that he had been at a friend's house staying with a friend who had a pool and he had been swimming in that pool and it had bleached his hair.

And so the question would be. You had a pool at your house. You had been swimming in your pool at your house and your hair never changed colors. How after this occurred, did suddenly your hair turn blonde? Right. So another huge red flag and then within the car. So just in aside from those things as well, there was a gun.

There was knife. There was a Leatherman. There was. There was razor blades, there was a dagger, there was multiple cell phones, there was camping gear, there was sleeping pills, there was Viagra, and now the Viagra stood out to me. And the reason that the Viagra stood out to me is because if you've committed a crime and you're running to Mexico, why is Viagra important to have in your go kit, right, for running away?

Well guess what Viagra can be used for? It can be used for mountain sickness. which is something that you can get when you're out in the middle of nowhere, not used to it, um, at different altitudes or, you know, just where a mountain person would get something where you're probably not really a mountain person.

So there was some thought into getting those pills. He didn't get those Viagra pills because he needed Viagra, not for what most people use Viagra for. On April 18th, Scott Lee Peterson is apprehended in La Jolla, California near his mother's residence in San Diego. He gets the choice. Of staying there in San Diego, going to jail there and waiting for an extradition up to Modesto or volunteering to go up to Modesto and he volunteered to go and be arraigned in Modesto rather than go to jail in San Diego.

That completes the investigation. That's the entire investigation timeline. The detectives did a wonderful job. Is it possible they rushed to judgment from the very beginning? I don't believe so. And the reason why I don't believe so is because as a detective. You have to follow the evidence, you have to follow the evidence, and if the evidence is pointing to the most obvious person, then you have to work to rule that person out.

Right, and it doesn't mean that you're judge and jury, or you're making a decision right there, but that's good investigative work, honestly. Yeah. So, if you don't have anything to hide, And if you're being honest, then you have to be 100 percent transparent. And I'm going to tell you, if you're in a situation where your spouse is missing and you've been unfaithful, that better be one of the first things that you tell the police.

Is look, guys, I've been cheating on my spouse and, you know, we got in a fight, like they need to know that stuff because you hide it and you're going to look guilty. It's going to be a flag, a big flag. And you may be thinking, well, that's going to, that's going to make them look at me. And then Scott used that as his excuse.

Well, the reason I didn't tell you is because if I told you that, then you would just focus on me as, as the main suspect. But if you let us find it out, then it's going to make us. Zero in right, you know forget having a suspicion forget it being a small red flag now We're zeroing in because you're being a deceptive right, right you lose your credibility, right?

And that really hurt him that would that you know the next the next episode that we're gonna run is gonna be the trial and What we're gonna find during the trial is that a lot of the lies that he told really hurt his credibility Severely hurt his credibility if Scott Peterson is innocent his lies You Is what buried him because his lies made him look guilty and the more lies that he told and the and the more Deceptive he was and the more it looked like he was so natural with his deceptions That really made him look like a bad guy and actually his defense from his from his defense attorney was hey We're not arguing that Peter Scott Peterson's not a bad dude that he's not a piece of crap.

He's not a bad husband We're not arguing that and later on when they go into the trial when they go into the sentencing phase They tried to retract that because now they want to say hey, don't give him death He's not that bad of a guy, you know, but that they actually heard him during that, that part of the process.

But you can't argue with the fact that he was a douchebag. You just can't. He can't. And you know, also during the investigation, there was a point in time not long after she was missing where he sold her vehicle. Yes. And he also tried to sell the house. Yes. And you're talking within how long of when she went missing?

You're talking weeks. Yeah. Weeks. So if you're expecting for your spouse to be found, that your spouse is missing. You don't sell their vehicle and sell your house, your home for your wife and your child. Yeah, and you know, I'm going to play devil's advocate, right? And I'm going to say Lacey's car was problematic.

That could have been why he was trying to sell it. It wasn't a good car. He gave her problems. He said himself, the reason why he wanted to sell the house was because he didn't want his wife to come back to that home. I don't know why. It was their home. I don't know why you wouldn't want her to come back unless something bad happened there.

And I can see if you're having some really bad financial issues at that point in time, you know, a lot of people, when, when something like this occurs, you know, they lose time at work, they have a dip in their income, you know, she's not there, so she's no longer receiving income. So there's multiple reasons as to why somebody would try to offload something within a fairly recent amount of time of when something such as this occurs.

to try to bring some income in, but these, both of these things together are just really strange. And actually the dealer that he sold her vehicle to actually went and gave the vehicle to Lacey's mom. Yeah. And said, I don't feel right about this. I want to give you the vehicle. Right. And part of the reason why is because after everything came out about Amber Frye, Sharon Rocha, obviously she went off on.

Scott Peterson was like, I don't have anything to do with you. Piece of crap. Right. Then she tried to get Lacey's stuff because she wanted memories of her daughter. She wanted things that her daughter had. And so she asked detective Roshini to go in, work as an intermediary, try to get some of these things from Scott Peterson to give to the family.

And he wouldn't, they would eventually get a second search warrant for the house and the cars as well. And during the second search warrant, Scott told Roshini that he wasn't authorized to take anything from his house to give it to Sharon. So he was being a little vindictive there. He just didn't want to give her anything.

A lot of reasons for that, potentially. I don't know. But one thing that I do want to bring up since you were talking about selling the house is, and this is one of the things that will also come up at the trial as well, is one of the things that he did was he subscribed to multiple pornographic channels on his, on his cable.

That's what I'd do if my spouse was missing. That's exactly the first thing I would do. And, and that was, that was very, That was very damning for him with the jury only because it indicated that he didn't expect for his wife to return. Because Lacey wouldn't have accepted that. She wouldn't have approved of that.

Obviously because they didn't have it when they were together. He waited until she was gone and now he has it. And so that was a problem. The investigation, I would say was done very thoroughly by the detectives. And I would say that some of the things that went kind of South for Scott Peterson was one, they brought the detectives in early, early, early in the game that allowed him to get a headstart before he was able to start getting rid of any type of evidence, right?

There's so much that they wouldn't have seen on day two, day three, day four. If they would have been looking for Lacey for seven days and then all of a sudden, starting to investigate, it would have been way harder to get a lot of this, the, the evidence that they were able to get off of day one, photos of like the bed that was made up, not like Lacey would have made it.

Right. That had the body imprint on it. There was the scrunched up rug that looked like somebody had been drug out through the back door. Like, those were different things that wouldn't have been noticeable on day 7 that were noticeable on day 0. Right. And obviously, I think the other thing that went bad for Scott Peterson is that he was seen at the marina.

And I say that because if he would have never been seen at the marina, his alibi would have been that he was golfing. Which would have never put him at the marina. I think because he was seen at the marina, he thought that would come up. They would find somebody who saw him there, and then that would be a problem for him.

And so, he was forced to flex his alibi, and so his alibi kind of fell apart. They say that because one of the things they say about Scott is that he was an avid cell phone user. He was constantly on his cell phone, so his normal use pattern changed. The time that he was at the Marina, he didn't use his cell phone to make any calls or take any calls from the time that he left the warehouse at 11 o'clock until he got ready to leave the Marina, which is when he called his wife on the house phone and on her cell phone.

Right. And when he started taking calls. And there's other calls too. That was the other thing too, that came out in the investigation is that he had told Lacey's sister that he was going to pick up the basket, you know, for Papa. And. He didn't and so she got a call saying hey like it hasn't been picked up They were gonna be closing because it's the holidays And so she started trying to call Scott and what's interesting is that he's ignoring her calls But there was other calls that he had made or received during that time frame.

So he was just ignoring her He didn't want to speak to her Right. Which is odd. Right. Absolutely. So another red flag. Yeah. You know? So, you know, I think it's important for people to understand that there wasn't one single red flag. There was many red flags. Yeah. Enough red flags for a jury to come back and give them a guilty verdict.

Right. Our next episode is going to be really focused on the trial. And there's going to be a lot of evidence that we're going to discuss, uh, during that came out during the trial and how the jury looked at some of that evidence and what their thoughts were in terms of some of the testimony from the family members, from friends, from witnesses.

Uh, and so it's going to be. Extremely interesting to hear what happens during the trial and what happens that culminates in Scott Peterson Getting a guilty verdict and then getting a death sentence

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 Leave a review and hit that like button share our podcast with others and engage with us on our website and social media platforms You can find us on all major podcast platforms As well as our website at www.

bodyofcrimepodcast. com Where you can access all of our episodes and bonus content including valuable resources. By expanding our community, we believe we can make a greater impact in our pursuit of truth and in shedding light on crucial cases. If there's a case that you'd like for us to cover or a personal story you'd like to share, please don't hesitate and contact us through our website.

We always welcome your feedback and suggestions. Until next time, stay sharp and thank you for tuning in to the Body of Crime Podcast. Bye!