1972-present
Scott Peterson Today: Convicted Murderer Gives First On-Camera Interview in Decades for Peacock Documentary
Scott Peterson has been behind bars for decades, but starting August 20, he’ll be on TV screens across the nation. That’s because the 51-year-old, who is serving a life sentence for murdering his pregnant wife, Laci, gave his first on-camera interview since 2003. His conversations are featured in the new Peacock documentary Face to Face with Scott Peterson.
The three-part documentary arrives 20 years after a jury found Scott was guilty in August 2004. He has maintained he didn’t kill Laci and their unborn son ever since his arrest. In Face to Face, Scott shares his side of the story outside of his past and ongoing appeals. He began working with the Los Angeles Innocence Project in January and is currently seeking access to evidence.
Another new docuseries is also revisiting the case. Netflix released American Murder: Laci Peterson on August 14. It features the first interview Laci’s mother, Sharon Rocha, has given since her daughter’s death.
Watch Face to Face with Scott Peterson and American Murder: Laci Peterson
Who Is Scott Peterson?
In a case that riveted the nation, Scott Peterson was convicted of killing his pregnant wife, Laci, in 2004. Laci was nearly eight months pregnant when she disappeared on Christmas Eve 2002. Her body and the body of her fetus washed up on the shores of San Francisco Bay three and a half months later. Scott was quickly arrested and eventually found guilty. His initial death sentence was overturned on appeal in 2020, and he is now serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Scott continues to maintain his innocence and is now working with the Los Angeles Innocence Project in effort to gain his freedom.
Quicks Facts
FULL NAME: Scott Lee Peterson
BORN: October 24, 1972
BIRTHPLACE: San Diego, California
SPOUSE: Laci Peterson (1997-2003)
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Scorpio
Early Life
Scott Lee Peterson was born on October 24, 1972, in San Diego. He is the only child of Lee and Jackie Peterson, though both his parents had other children from previous relationships. Scott’s mother, Jackie, died from cancer at age 70 in 2013.
Scott grew up in a San Diego suburb and was a model student and avid golfer. He graduated from the University of San Diego High School and spent a semester at Arizona State University before returning home to attend Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo. In 1994, he transferred to nearby California Polytechnic State University, where he majored in agricultural business.
Laci and Scott Peterson
While a student at Cal Poly, Peterson met Laci Rocha. The couple moved in together and married in 1997. She changed her name to Laci Rocha Peterson.
Soon after their wedding, they opened a burger joint called The Shack, eventually selling the profitable business and moving to Modesto, about 90 miles east of San Francisco, to be closer to Laci’s family. There, Scott got a job selling fertilizer, and Laci became a substitute teacher.
Early in 2002, Laci became pregnant. She and Scott were expecting their first child, a son they planned to name Conner, in February 2003. But before he was born, tragedy struck.
On Christmas Eve 2002, Laci went missing. Scott later told police he had last seen his wife, then 27 years old and nearly eight months pregnant, that morning around 9:30 before he left to go fishing. Later in the day, neighbors saw their dog wandering around alone with a leash on, and one of them put the dog in the Petersons’ backyard. Scott says he returned home to find their dog there, but Laci was nowhere to be found.
Laci’s disappearance launched a massive search by authorities and volunteers and a media frenzy. Initially focusing around the Petersons’ house, police eventually expanded their search throughout the city of Modesto and into more remote areas in Stanislaus County. Meanwhile, a reward of $500,000 was offered for Laci’s safe return.
There would be no happy ending. In mid-April 2003, Laci’s body and the fetus of her and Scott’s unborn son washed up on the shores of San Francisco Bay not far from Berkeley Marina, where Scott went the previous Christmas Eve.
By that point, news of Scott’s infidelity had gone public. In late November 2002, he met a masseuse named Amber Frey, and they began an affair unbeknownst to Frey. “Scott told me he was not married,” Frey later shared with reporters. “When I discovered he was involved in the Laci Peterson disappearance case, I immediately called the Modesto Police Department.” She contacted the police in late December.
Murder Case: Arrest, Trial, Conviction, and Appeals
On April 18, 2003—four days after Laci’s body was discovered—police arrested 30-year-old Scott in a San Diego suburb. He was found with dyed blonde hair and a goatee, $15,000 in cash, his brother’s ID, and multiple cell phones. Prosecutors charged Scott with two counts of capital murder and pinned his motivation for the crimes on his affair with Amber Frey. Scott pleaded not guilty and has maintained his innocence ever since.
His murder trial began June 1, 2004. More than five months later, on November 12, a jury convicted Scott of first-degree murder for Laci’s death and second-degree murder for the fetus. Upon the same jury’s recommendation, Judge Alfred Delucchi sentenced Scott to death by lethal injection on March 16, 2005.
First Appeal Ends with a New Sentence
Scott was placed on death row at San Quentin State Prison in California pending an automatic appeal. Scott’s defense team filed a 423-page appeal in July 2012 and argued their client didn’t receive a fair trial partly because some prospective jurors who opposed the death penalty but agreed to consider the punishment were dismissed from duty.
In August 2017, authorities fought against Scott’s appeal. In a 150-page document, the attorney general’s office cited the “overwhelming evidence” that he murdered his 27-year-old wife and child in 2002. Some of the evidence mentioned in the document included:
“his expressed wanderlust and desire to be responsibility-free, which he conveyed to his mistress as the birth of his son neared; buying a boat mere weeks before Laci’s disappearance; ‘fishing’ with the wrong gear on Christmas Eve morning in inclement weather; surreptitious trips to the marina in various rented vehicles after Laci’s disappearance; lies to friends and family concerning his whereabouts;
“The sale of Laci’s car and inquiry into selling their home, including furnishings; subscribing to pornography channels while the search was ongoing; Laci’s and Conner’s bodies washing ashore not far from [Scott] Peterson’s location on the bay; condition of the bodies correlat[ing] with the timing of Laci’s disappearance; and [Scott] Peterson’s disguised appearance and possession of survival gear and copious amounts of cash at the time of his arrest.”
In August 2020, the California Supreme Court reversed Scott’s death sentence and ordered a new sentencing. “Peterson contends his trial was flawed for multiple reasons, beginning with the unusual amount of pretrial publicity that surrounded the case,” the court said in its ruling. “We reject Peterson’s claim that he received an unfair trial as to guilt and thus affirm his convictions for murder.”
Scott received a new sentence for life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for Laci’s murder in December 2021. Concurrently, he is serving 15 years to life for his unborn son’s murder. Barring any new developments in his case, he is expected to be behind bars for the rest of his life. He is an inmate at Mule Creek State Prison.
Second Appeal
In 2015, three years after submitting an automatic appeal, Scott’s attorneys filed a habeas corpus petition with the Supreme Court of the State of California that was largely similar to the first appeal but included new details about how one member of the jury had lied during the selection process by not sharing she had once been threatened by her boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend while pregnant. The petition argued the juror, who later publicly identified herself as Richelle Nice, was unfairly biased against Scott.
The appeal failed to earn Scott a new trial nor freedom. In December 2022, a California Superior Court judge deemed Nice’s misconduct was accidental. Her lies during jury selection “were the result of a combination of good faith misunderstanding of the questions and sloppiness,” the judge wrote. The ruling also rejected the argument that Nice was determined to convict Scott prior to his trial because of her own experiences.
2024 Innocence Project Investigation
Most recently, Scott’s case has been taken up by the Los Angeles Innocence Project. The nonprofit offers free legal services to people who are wrongly convicted or imprisoned. With Scott’s legal team, the Innocence Project submitted a request for evidence in January 2024 and sought DNA testing on more than a dozen items. In May, a judge ruled one item—a piece of duct tape found on Laci’s pants—could undergo DNA testing. Hearings for the evidence request, mostly from a burglary that happened across the street from Scott and Laci’s house around the time of her disappearance, are ongoing.
Documentaries and Movies
Since Scott’s conviction, a number of documentaries and movies have been released exploring the murder and tabloid-frenzied trial.
In 2004, the TV movie The Perfect Husband: The Laci Peterson Story was released, starring Dean Cain as Scott Peterson. A year later, CBS premiered its own retelling of the tale, Amber Frey: Witness for the Prosecution, which starred actor Janel Moloney as Frey.
As the years passed, there has been a shift in perspective. In 2016, the documentary, Trial by Fury: The People v. Scott Peterson, took a critical approach to the case, claiming Scott didn’t receive a fair trial. In the same vein, A+E Networks’ 2017 docuseries The Murder of Laci Peterson also cast doubt on whether he was guilty. The case was review again in 2018 through Marcia Clark Investigates.
Two new docuseries are releasing in August 2024 to mark the 20th anniversary of Scott’s conviction. American Murder: Laci Peterson on Netflix focuses on Laci’s life and death and features interviews with her mother and Frey. Scott also gave his first on-camera interview since 2003 for Peacock’s Face to Face with Scott Peterson.
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