In his first on-camera interview since he was convicted for his wife’s murder twenty years ago, Scott Peterson maintains his innocence – and shares his theory on what really happened to his pregnant wife.
“Why do I want to speak? I regret not testifying,” Peterson said in Peacock’s new three-part series Face-to-Face with Scott Peterson. “I have a chance to show people what the truth is, and if they’re willing to accept it, it would be the biggest thing I can accomplish right now – because I didn’t kill my family.”
Laci, 27, was eight months pregnant when she vanished on Christmas Eve 2002. Peterson reported her missing after allegedly returning from a solo fishing trip to find their Modesto home empty. Laci’s body, along with the body of her unborn child Conner, washed up on shore near Peterson’s fishing spot four months later.
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Scott Peterson and Laci Peterson in a still photo appearing in the docuseries, “American Murder: Laci Peterson.” (Courtesy of Netflix)
After he was arrested at the Mexico border with bleached hair carrying his brother’s passport, prosecutors revealed a mountain of evidence against him. A police K9 unit picked up Laci’s scent at a boat ramp in Berkeley, where Peterson claims he went fishing, and found the woman’s hair in the teeth of a pair of needle-nose pliers on Peterson’s boat.
Convicted of Laci’s murder in 2004, Peterson returned to headlines after the Los Angeles Innocence Project announced it would take on his latest appeal for a new trial.
“There was a burglary across the street from our home,” Peterson told filmmakers via video call from Mule Creek State Prison “And I believe that Laci went over there to see what was going on, and that’s when she was taken.”
A burglary was committed near the Peterson home around the time Laci went missing – but one of the convicted burglars testified that the break-in took place on December 26, 2002 rather than on December 24, when Laci went missing.
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Scott Peterson listens to Stanislaus County Deputy District attorney Dave Harris speak during a hearing at the San Mateo County Superior Court in Redwood City, California, on Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2021. Peterson appeared in San Mateo Superior Court for the first time since he was sentenced to death there more than 17 years ago for the murders of his wife Laci and their unborn son Conner. (Andy Alfaro/The Modesto Bee/Tribune News Service via Getty Images) (Andy Alfaro/The Modesto Bee/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
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Journalists and legal experts interviewed in the docuseries said that witnesses had told police that they saw a suspicious van in the area of Peterson’s Modesto home on December 24 – one witness even claimed they saw a pregnant woman being forced into a van.
The burglary wasn’t mentioned the Peterson’s trial in 2004, and the convict cites this as evidence that police did not turn over evidence during the discovery process that potentially could have exonerated him.
“There are so many instances where there was evidence that didn’t fit the detectives’ theory that they ignored,” Peterson insisted.
Peterson even claims that detectives on the case assumed he was guilty from their first walk through of his home.
“When [Modesto Detective Al Brocchini] took a first walk through the house with the other officers, I don’t think that they knew that I was near them when they said ‘we know what’s going on here – it was the husband,'” Peterson claimed in his jailhouse interview “Then he realized I was there and kind of turned around.”
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Scott Peterson and Amber Frey pictured at a Christmas party on Dec. 14, 2002, before the murder of Laci Peterson and before Frey knew Scott Peterson was a married man. (Superior Court of California, San Mateo County)
But Brocchini and former Modesto Police Officer Jon Buhler told filmmakers that they withheld any evidence or failed to investigate leads in the case.
“He was kind of just nonchalant – he didn’t have any urgency about him,” Brocchini said of his first time meeting Peterson. “To me, that was suspicious.”
Peterson, who was involved in multiple extramarital affairs, quickly became the prime suspect in his wife’s disappearance.
Brocchini said that a voicemail Peterson left for his wife at 2:15 p.m. on December 24 2022, telling her he loved her and would see her “in a bit,” was made to cover his tracks hours after killing Laci and dumping her in the San Francisco Bay. “To me, it was really meant for me to hear it,” Brocchini said, saying that the voicemail was “gooey.”
But Peterson said that heartfelt messages were typical in his relationship with Laci, and suggested that police who cast doubt on the intention of the voicemail must have “really sad marriages.”
“We loved one another, we enjoyed one another,” he said in his jailhouse interview. “We were great friends.”
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Prosecutors said police recovered Laci Peterson’s hair from the teeth of these needle-nosed pliers, which they found on her husband and convicted killer Scott Peterson’s boat. (Superior Court of California, San Mateo County)
“Every moment remains so tactile,” Peterson said of his final memories with his wife. “I’m still there, and the smells and the lighting, the sound of when I said goodbye to Laci. And then my family was gone.”
Amber Frey, Peterson’s mistress, went to police when she learned about Laci’s disappearance. Peterson, the man who she thought was her boyfriend, previously told her he had never been married, then changed his story and said that he was a widower.
Laci was missing her head and three limbs. A forensic pathologist determined she had not been dismembered, but her body likely came apart due to the marine conditions after being anchored down.
Prosecutors argued that the homemade concrete anchor Peterson used for his boat would have been easily duplicated. They suggested he made more and used them to try and hold his wife’s body on the seafloor.
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Prosecutors said these photographs a smiling Scott Peterson were taken during a vigil for Laci Peterson on New Year’s Eve in 2002. Jurors found at the end of his trial in 2004 that he killed her days later. She was more than 8 months pregnant with their son Conner. (Superior Court of California, San Mateo County)
After Laci’s disappearance, Peterson allegedly told Frey that his wife was alive and pregnant, but had gone missing. Frey began recording her phone conversations with the suspected murderer in an effort to help police.
Last week, those recorded conversations were aired for the first time in a new Netflix documentary, American Murder: Laci Peterson.
“So what, do you want to be together with me?” Frey asked Peterson in one of the recordings.
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“For the rest of our lives I think we could care for each other,” Peterson replied.
In May this year, Peterson’s defense team asked for DNA testing on a blood-stained mattress found in the bed of a burned-out van located near Peterson’s Modesto home the day after Laci disappeared. In the past, the LA Innocence Project says, only a sample of the mattress was tested. Now they want the entire mattress tested, saying that advancements in DNA technology could find DNA that would support their client’s claim.
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But a judge ruled in May that a piece of duct tape found on Laci’s body could be retested, along with a dozen other pieces of evidence. It is unclear whether the mattress will be among the tested items.
Lara Yeretsian, one of Peterson’s lawyers from his first trial, remains hopeful that her client will be exonerated.
“This is not the end of it,” she said in the docuseries. “It’s just the beginning, and at least we’ve got one win.”
