SCOTT PETERSON
On 12 March 2024, Scott Peterson appeared in aSan Mateo County courtroom via livestream, two decades after he was convicted of murdering his wife and unborn son. Peterson is currently serving life without the possibility of parole, but in January this year, the Innocence Project LA took up his case. Now, Peterson is seeking anew trial, with some compelling evidence backing him up.
Peterson, now 51, has always claimed he was on a fishing trip alone when Laci went missing. He believes she was killed after witnessing a burglary (see The Retrial Bid). At the hearing last month, Peterson’s attorney said, “What if he’s not guilty? What if he had an affair and was a crappy husband, [but] what if he didn’t kill Laci? If [DNA] testing shows what they think it’s going to show, it’s a whole new ball game.”
On 20 November 2002, Peterson met massage therapist Amber Frey and they embarked on a relationship. The prosecution insisted Peterson murdered Laci because he wanted to start a new life with Amber, and did not want to be a father. Amber was a key witness at the 2004 trial, saying Peterson told her he was a widower when they met. She also secretly recorded their conversations for the police as evidence.
Peterson and Laci began dating in 1994, when he was 22 and she was 19. They moved in together after two years, marrying in 1997. Laci got pregnant in 2002 and was due in February 2003. She went missing on Christmas Eve 2002, and both her body and that of her full-term baby – a boy they had named Conner – washed up in San Francisco Bay in April 2003.
Prosecutors asserted that the hairs found in Peterson’s boat had come from Laci’s body after she died, insisting he’d disposed of her at sea, sinking her remains with concrete. However, the defence argued that hair analysis was not a credible process. Scott’s attorney Mark Geragos said there was “zero, zip, nada, nothing” in the way of forensic evidence
