In his first on-camera interview since being convicted of murdering his wife twenty years ago, Scott Peterson maintains his innocence and shares his theory about what really happened to his pregnant wife.
“Why do I want to speak? I regret not testifying,” Peterson said in the new three-part Peacock series. Face to face with Scott Peterson“I have the opportunity to show people what the truth is, and if they are willing to accept it, that would be the most important thing I can accomplish right now, because I did not kill my family.”
Laci, 27, was eight months pregnant when she disappeared on Christmas Eve 2002. Peterson reported her missing after allegedly returning from a solo fishing trip to find her Modesto home empty. Laci's body, along with that of her unborn son, Conner, washed up on the shore near Peterson's fishing spot four months later.
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Scott Peterson and Laci Peterson in a photograph that appears in the documentary series “American Murder: Laci Peterson.” (Courtesy of Netflix)
After he was arrested at the Mexican border with bleached hair and 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 to have gone fishing, and found the woman’s hair on the teeth of a pair of needle-nose pliers on Peterson’s boat.
Convicted of Laci's murder in 2004, Peterson returned to the headlines after the Los Angeles Innocence Project announced it would take up his latest appeal for a new trial.
“There was a robbery across the street from our house,” Peterson told filmmakers via video call from Mule Creek State Prison. “And I think Laci went there to see what was going on, and that's when they took her.”
A robbery was committed near the Peterson home around the time Laci disappeared, but one of the convicted robbers testified that the robbery took place on December 26, 2002 instead of December 24, when Laci disappeared.
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Scott Peterson listens to Stanislaus County Deputy District Attorney Dave Harris speak during a hearing at San Mateo County Superior Court in Redwood City, Calif., 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 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 witnesses had told police they saw a suspicious van in the area of Peterson’s Modesto home on Dec. 24; one witness even claimed to have seen a pregnant woman being forced into a van.
The robbery was not mentioned at Peterson's 2004 trial, and he cites it as evidence that police failed to turn over evidence during discovery that could have potentially exonerated him.
“There are many cases where there was evidence that didn't fit the detectives' theory and they ignored it,” Peterson said.
Peterson even claims that the detectives in charge of the case assumed he was guilty from the first walk-through of his home.
“When [Modesto Detective Al Brocchini] “I took a first walk through the house with the other officers, I don't think they knew I was near them when they said 'we know what's going on here, it was the husband,'” Peterson said in her jailhouse interview. “Then he realized I was there and turned around.”
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Scott Peterson and Amber Frey photographed at a Christmas party on December 14, 2002, before Laci Peterson was murdered 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 the filmmakers they covered up any evidence or failed to investigate leads in the case.
“He was a laid-back guy, he had no urgency,” Brocchini said of his first meeting with 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 Peterson left a voicemail for his wife at 2:15 p.m. on Dec. 24, 2022, telling her he loved her and would see her “in a moment,” 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, adding that the voicemail was “saccharine.”
But Peterson said the heartfelt messages were typical of his relationship with Laci, and suggested that officers who question the intent of the voicemail must have “really sad marriages.”
“We loved each other and enjoyed each other,” 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-nose pliers, which they found on her husband and convicted murderer Scott Peterson's boat. (Superior Court of California, San Mateo County)
“Every moment is still so tangible,” 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 lover, went to police when she heard about Laci's disappearance. Peterson, the man she believed to be her boyfriend, had told her he had never been married, but later changed his story and said 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 fell apart due to sea conditions after being anchored.
Prosecutors argued that the homemade concrete anchor Peterson used for his boat could have easily been duplicated. They suggested he made more and used them to try to keep his wife's body on the seabed.
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Prosecutors said these photos of a smiling Scott Peterson were taken during a vigil for Laci Peterson on New Year's Eve in 2002. Jurors concluded at the end of his trial in 2004 that he killed her days later. She was more than eight months pregnant with their son Conner. (Superior Court of California, San Mateo County)
Following Laci's disappearance, Peterson allegedly told Frey that his wife was alive and pregnant, but had disappeared. Frey began recording his phone conversations with the suspected killer in an attempt to help police.
Last week, those recorded conversations were broadcast for the first time in a new Netflix documentary, American Murder: Laci Peterson.
“So, do you want to be with me?” Frey asked Peterson in one of the recordings.
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“I think we could take care of each other for the rest of our lives,” Peterson replied.
In May of this year, Peterson’s defense team asked that DNA testing be done on a blood-stained mattress that was found in the trunk of a burned-out van near Peterson’s Modesto home the day after Laci disappeared. In the past, the Los Angeles Innocence Project says, only a sample of the mattress was tested. Now they want the entire mattress tested, as advances 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's unclear whether the mattress will be among the items tested.
Lara Yeretsian, one of Peterson's attorneys in his first trial, remains hopeful that her client will be exonerated.
“This is not the end,” he said in the documentary series. “It's just the beginning, and at least we've achieved a victory.”
