Laci Peterson: A New Turn

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Speaker 12 Tonight on Dateline.

Speaker 13 I miss her smile and her laughter. I miss everything about her.

Speaker 14 It's more difficult to speak in public about it now.

Speaker 15 It just takes over everything.

Speaker 14 It does. I was absolutely panicked.

Speaker 16 It's been 20 years since she vanished. The beaming young mom to be.

Speaker 13 Please, please let her come home to us.

Speaker 16 Now, a new turn in the case of Lacey Peterson and her husband, Scott.

Speaker 19 Habeas petition in the matter of Scott Lee Peterson.

Speaker 15 He was Steve McQueen Cool. We couldn't find anything wrong with this guy.
I don't think there was a ward on his body. I don't think he ever had a traffic ticket.

Speaker 19 It still affects me emotionally. Scott told me he was not married.

Speaker 19 We did have a romantic relationship.

Speaker 21 I was shaking uncontrollably.

Speaker 22 That changed everything you'd ever thought about.

Speaker 14 It did.

Speaker 23 Did Scott Peterson kill his wife?

Speaker 24 I do not believe he did.

Speaker 7 I mean, really?

Speaker 25 Who else could have done it?

Speaker 24 I'm glad you asked that question.

Speaker 16 20 years later, new developments in the haunting case of Lacey Peterson.

Speaker 27 I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dadline.

Speaker 16 Here's Keith Morrison with Lacey Peterson, a new turn.

Speaker 30 You may not recognize him, but that's Scott Peterson behind the mask.

Speaker 1 Back in court last summer.

Speaker 19 Calling the habeas petition in the matter of Scott Lee Peterson versus the people of the state of California.

Speaker 29 This was a gift, in a way.

Speaker 34 An opportunity very few convicted murderers ever get.

Speaker 3 Here in the very same courthouse where he was tried and sentenced, Peterson was getting a chance to prove to a judge that he deserved a new trial.

Speaker 38 It's been 20 years since we first heard about the mom-to-be with a radiant smile who disappeared on Christmas Eve.

Speaker 40 Lacey Peterson.

Speaker 4 A case that transfixed the whole world, seemed like.

Speaker 7 Hey, I'm here. My son-in-law falls.

Speaker 41 She's been playing well.

Speaker 42 My daughter's been missing since this morning. She's eight months pregnant.

Speaker 44 Lacey, if you're out there and can hear us and see us, we love you.

Speaker 46 And

Speaker 47 we're searching, we're looking.

Speaker 48 It hit something.

Speaker 49 Something in the air.

Speaker 52 The zeitgeist, that name, that smile, that mystery.

Speaker 23 Impossible to put down.

Speaker 47 Whoever has her, please, please, please let her go. Bring her back.

Speaker 53 We love her so much.

Speaker 55 We want her back.

Speaker 56 Please,

Speaker 18 let us have her back.

Speaker 57 And then there was him, the husband, the inscrutable Scott Peterson.

Speaker 58 I really don't care what people think of me, as long as it continues to keep Lacey's picture, description, tip line in the media.

Speaker 60 Before our very eyes, he would morph from a faithful husband who loved his wife to an object of suspicion and outrage.

Speaker 61 Such a circus, the whole sad thing sometimes seemed to be. Scott,

Speaker 18 hey, why don't you come and talk to us and tell us the truth?

Speaker 2 But for all the noise, all the breathless coverage, the hours of TV, the acres of tabloid, there was a story never completely told until the prosecutors sat down with Dateline.

Speaker 67 What do you think of Scott Peterson, his personality?

Speaker 71 He's a very unusual

Speaker 71 person.

Speaker 71 He's clearly very...

Speaker 71 I think he's very smart. I think he thinks he's very smart.

Speaker 34 The story, the detectives saw firsthand.

Speaker 15 When somebody's in a position like him and they didn't do it, usually they'll say,

Speaker 15 take blood, take a polygraph, I don't care. But Scott wouldn't do that.
He'd only go to a point.

Speaker 72 He was just cool as a moose.

Speaker 15 He was Steve McQueen cool.

Speaker 9 The story of what happened to her, too,

Speaker 60 the other woman whose name was also thrust into a cultural moment, Amber Fry.

Speaker 40 What does a sago like that do to a person's life?

Speaker 19 Well, I'd say,

Speaker 44 I mean, from day one, it completely changed my life.

Speaker 12 And the story told by a frustrated ex-journalist, convinced that the cops, the prosecutors, the public got it all wrong.

Speaker 23 Did Scott Peterson kill his wife?

Speaker 24 I don't believe that. I do not believe he did.

Speaker 4 And a video we found buried in the court archives.

Speaker 79 So, if you're telling me, Scott, is there a job?

Speaker 79 You'd have no idea where this is.

Speaker 52 Scott Peterson talking to a detective just hours after sounding the alarm.

Speaker 30 Lacey was missing.

Speaker 80 But before we get there,

Speaker 1 we'll begin here with Lacey Peterson's mother, Sharon Rocha, surrounded,

Speaker 48 fortified really, by Lacey's best friends, Stacey Boyers, Laurie Ellsworth, and Renee Tomlinson.

Speaker 35 They seem to make you feel cheerful.

Speaker 80 They do.

Speaker 14 They help a lot. I'm glad they're here.

Speaker 14 But it's tough still, huh? It is tough.

Speaker 82 Perhaps harder than ever to talk about it, she said, to talk about her long-dead daughter, whose case so captivated the country.

Speaker 83 There are people growing up who probably either don't remember or never knew about Lacey Peterson.

Speaker 84 Tell me about Lacey.

Speaker 46 I moved to Modesto in the third grade and I knew nobody

Speaker 46 and she was one of the first people I met and there was no not meeting her.

Speaker 30 You get the idea.

Speaker 68 Big personality.

Speaker 85 It just makes you want to whistle.

Speaker 46 She made everybody laugh and welcome and just with a smile.

Speaker 46 She could smile smile and you would know that that is the girl that you're going to be probably spending the rest of the night talking to or laughing at or listening to.

Speaker 74 Maybe not talking so much, but she was hard to get a word in edge-wise.

Speaker 86 Talkative, smart, tenacious.

Speaker 8 A person who went for what she wanted the way she did for Scott Peterson.

Speaker 89 How did Lacey meet Scott?

Speaker 14 At a cafe where Scott worked.

Speaker 29 Or at least saw him there and just like that gave a waiter her phone number to pass on to Scott.

Speaker 14 She wasn't bashful.

Speaker 28 And Lacey's mother liked Scott, liked him a lot.

Speaker 14 Very charming, very polite, perfect gentleman.

Speaker 6 Bringing roses, that sort of thing.

Speaker 72 Yes.

Speaker 14 He'd had a dozen roses for Lacey and then a dozen roses for me.

Speaker 14 So of course I was impressed.

Speaker 1 The courtship was like that, old-fashioned, in what seemed a good way.

Speaker 14 He actually asked our permission to marry Lacey, and we gave him our permission.

Speaker 30 There was a big wedding in the summer of 97.

Speaker 12 And by the turn of the millennium, Scott was a fertilizer salesman in Modesto, Lacey a substitute teacher.

Speaker 37 His job took him on the road a lot.

Speaker 68 But they were happy.

Speaker 22 Did the three of you get to know the two of them together much before?

Speaker 46 I thought he was a great guy.

Speaker 54 We thought they were great.

Speaker 46 She was always happy. It was almost the joke of, gosh, does he have a brother?

Speaker 39 Though Lacey struggled to get pregnant, after nearly five years of marriage, that came too.

Speaker 92 The day

Speaker 93 after my baby shower that she threw for me, she took a pregnancy test and called everybody.

Speaker 18 Yep, very early.

Speaker 46 Very early the next morning.

Speaker 67 Soon enough, the Petersons learned they were having a boy.

Speaker 5 They readied the nursery.

Speaker 37 and decided to name him Connor.

Speaker 35 Lacey was nearly eight months pregnant by Christmas, the last Christmas before little little Connor was due.

Speaker 48 You were supposed to have a Christmas Eve dinner, is that right?

Speaker 14 Yes, I was. She was having Christmas Day and I was having Christmas Eve dinner, and that was when he called.

Speaker 14 It was close to 6:15. He called and asked if Lacey was with me.
And I said, no, she's not here. Well, she's missing.

Speaker 89 And that was the beginning.

Speaker 34 Christmas Eve, 2002.

Speaker 70 Lacey Peterson, with her bright smile, was nowhere to be found.

Speaker 39 When we come back, the missing mom to be is about to become national news.

Speaker 93 There's a $500,000 reward.

Speaker 20 I thought somebody kidnapped her.

Speaker 14 I was absolutely panicked.

Speaker 16 The first clues, her dog dragging its leash, her neighbors robbed. Her husband asking for help.

Speaker 77 Did he seem frantic or worried?

Speaker 14 A little bit.

Speaker 48 What was it about this woman, this man, this case that so quickly gripped the nation?

Speaker 25 Was it her smile?

Speaker 2 Was it because it happened Christmas Eve?

Speaker 9 Subject for some PhD thesis now.

Speaker 2 But at the beginning, it was like a thousand other such cases.

Speaker 1 A stomach-flipping phone call.

Speaker 48 She's missing.

Speaker 83 I've had a child missing for 10 minutes, and the sense of, oh my God, something may have happened here is so powerful, it just takes over everything.

Speaker 49 It does. It does.
It does.

Speaker 14 It absolutely does.

Speaker 3 Lacey Peterson's mother, Sharon, remembers telling her son-in-law Scott, check with the neighbors, call Lacey's friends.

Speaker 25 And he did. You all.

Speaker 55 Yeah, we all got a call.

Speaker 46 He asked me if I'd seen her that day. Have you seen Lacey at all today?

Speaker 92 I said, no, I haven't. And he's like, well, she's missing.

Speaker 14 Did he seem frantic or worried?

Speaker 42 A little bit worried enough to ask for their help so did you all go over to his yeah to their place sharon roach's longtime boyfriend ron gransky called the cops hey up here my son-in-law called she's been playing golf my daughter's been missing since this morning she's eight months pregnant golfing on a cold christmas eve odd but okay

Speaker 52 meanwhile sharon followed up on something scott told her that he came home to find the dog out in the yard wearing a leash

Speaker 14 I went directly to the park.

Speaker 39 Because of that leash on the dog and

Speaker 14 we had walked together in the park before. I was absolutely panicked.
I was running around. I was looking in trash cans.
I was screaming her name.

Speaker 52 No sign of her anywhere.

Speaker 70 Lacey's friends spent the early hours of Christmas morning making missing posters.

Speaker 93 The next morning I walked in, was it Christmas Day? We had flyers and tape and everything.

Speaker 97 We're going to start passing these out to family and volunteers. It's awesome.
Just

Speaker 46 another way to get her picture out there. We hit the ground running.

Speaker 14 We're just going to get up the next day and I didn't sleep for days.

Speaker 66 To Oakdale.

Speaker 46 Yeah, that's where I'm going to be.

Speaker 30 Pretty soon, the whole town of Odesto seemed to be looking for Lacey Peterson.

Speaker 91 Please have prayers.

Speaker 14 Anyone out there,

Speaker 91 help bring her home, bring her home alive.

Speaker 70 Of course, the police were searching too, full out.

Speaker 37 How long did the search go on in here anyway?

Speaker 81 Well, all night and then all the next day.

Speaker 3 Al Brokini, the first detective on the case, watched as searchers scour the area.

Speaker 4 They were everywhere here, right?

Speaker 29 They were just...

Speaker 100 Oh yeah, they did a grid search, meaning they would have been in eye contact and walked this whole area.

Speaker 6 Broccini and his partner John Bueller had a feeling from the start.

Speaker 2 Lacey Peterson missing wasn't going to end well.

Speaker 15 Because she didn't lead an at-risk lifestyle. She didn't hang around at the bars and she wasn't out two-timing him or doing anything like that.

Speaker 15 I mean, mean, she was a girl that was just ecstatic from everything that I learned about her of being a mother.

Speaker 51 So she wasn't someone who would just walk away.

Speaker 45 And yet, in the anxiety, hope.

Speaker 70 An idea formed in the minds of those who loved Lacey that somehow this might turn out all right.

Speaker 14 We know we're going to find Lacey. We know we're going to bring her home alive and safe.
We were going to find her.

Speaker 20 Like, I thought somebody kidnapped her.

Speaker 93 That's what I thought, just for the baby or something.

Speaker 35 Here's Laurie, Renee, and Stacey, along with another friend

Speaker 30 in January 2003.

Speaker 93 You know, there's a $500,000 reward for her and, you know, the baby's safe return.

Speaker 93 Just take that. You know, take the money and give us Lacey back.

Speaker 35 So in those first days, an exhausted Sharon Rocher, her ex-husband, Lacey's father, Dennis, beside her, went on TV and pleaded with a kidnapper.

Speaker 14 And we'd just like to send a message out there that

Speaker 14 whoever has her, please, please, please let her go.

Speaker 47 Bring her back.

Speaker 53 We love her so much.

Speaker 70 Early on, there were clues the cops uncovered that made kidnapping seem plausible.

Speaker 26 Remember the couple's dog with the leash attached?

Speaker 59 Scott found it in the backyard?

Speaker 39 A neighbor said she saw the Peterson's dog wandering the street earlier that day, so maybe Lacey was kidnapped while walking the dog.

Speaker 64 And just about the time Lacey disappeared, There was a burglary right across the street.

Speaker 35 So, did she witness a crime?

Speaker 45 Did Did burglars take her?

Speaker 77 The police wanted to know.

Speaker 35 A reward for information

Speaker 102 for the identity

Speaker 35 of

Speaker 35 the persons responsible for the burglary.

Speaker 37 Then two men were caught.

Speaker 69 Didn't take long.

Speaker 76 And soon enough, one of them showed up in a TV interview.

Speaker 50 I went and picked up the safe and took it to my house, and I saw that I had to do with it. I didn't have nothing to do with

Speaker 77 that lady's

Speaker 59 And police agreed no connection to Lacey.

Speaker 57 So they kept digging.

Speaker 15 We were also looking at and researching up all the sex registrants and the parolees, people with histories of violent crime, abductions, kidnappings, sexual assaults and things like that.

Speaker 77 A lot of them hung out of the park.

Speaker 15 We had some and we were clearing those guys. We were interviewing them and we were verifying their alibis.

Speaker 62 What the police were not saying was that homicide detectives had other suspicions.

Speaker 66 Of course, they talked to Lacey's husband, Scott.

Speaker 15 We're certainly going to look at Scott first. He's the closest to Lacey, and that's where you start when you're working a case like this.

Speaker 52 That was behind the scenes.

Speaker 62 In front of the camera, the official police statements were more circumspect.

Speaker 102 Let's focus on the fact that we would still like to find Lacey alive, but we have to understand what the other possibilities are. The other possibilities are that she could be,

Speaker 102 you know, a victim of foul play.

Speaker 52 Those closest to Lacey, who at first were having trouble grappling with the whole idea of foul play,

Speaker 65 certainly couldn't fathom that Scott had anything to do with Lacey's disappearance.

Speaker 34 Back then, early 2003, even Sharon Rocher told us impossible.

Speaker 14 People who know Scott and Lacey have no doubt whatsoever that he has nothing to do with her disappearance.

Speaker 61 It's a powerful thing, true belief, but when it comes crashing down,

Speaker 7 my, my, my.

Speaker 106 Coming up,

Speaker 16 Scott Peterson down at the station.

Speaker 17 A rare look at his interrogation.

Speaker 108 When do you realize you're gonna go fishing?

Speaker 109 Oh, that was a warning decision.

Speaker 16 Was there something fishy about his story?

Speaker 56 He didn't even know what he was fishing for. He didn't know what bait he was using.

Speaker 16 When Dateline continues.

Speaker 8 Didn't take long for the Lacey Peterson story to go wide.

Speaker 36 That face was smiling out of magazines and television screens nationwide.

Speaker 26 The more we leap we get, the more she's out there somewhere.

Speaker 28 Friends and family, desperate to get the story out, talked to anyone, everyone.

Speaker 40 But they noticed one person seemed to stay in the background.

Speaker 66 Scott, grieving in private, his parents told us back in 2003.

Speaker 89 He's brave, but he's just devastated.

Speaker 14 He just would not be a good spokesperson.

Speaker 104 But there was one camera Scott couldn't shy away from.

Speaker 67 At the police station.

Speaker 62 Here's Scott with Detective Broccini just hours after he reported Lacey missing.

Speaker 48 In this rarely seen video, you can watch Scott hear his words.

Speaker 5 Does he seem like a worried, frantic husband?

Speaker 4 You'll see.

Speaker 109 Just tell me about the morning.

Speaker 109 I don't know how to begin. Okay.

Speaker 109 I'm trying to remember what time. I got up.

Speaker 110 Probably

Speaker 110 Lacey got up and went and

Speaker 111 assumed

Speaker 111 she had some show for breakfast.

Speaker 76 Was he okay with talking to you?

Speaker 53 Was there any hesitation? No, he agreed.

Speaker 56 He was okay with it.

Speaker 70 Didn't ask for an attorney or anything like that?

Speaker 56 No, didn't ask for an attorney.

Speaker 111 And then she was going to the store to buy for

Speaker 111 a Christmas morning breakfast tomorrow.

Speaker 110 And that was going to be a involved prep.

Speaker 110 So that was her afternoon prepping the breakfast.

Speaker 111 And she's going to make gingerbread cookies for tonight.

Speaker 35 As Burkini sat there, he was struck by how impassive Scott was, even as he revealed.

Speaker 80 He didn't go golfing.

Speaker 108 When did you realize you were going to go fishing?

Speaker 109 Oh, that was a morning decision. It's either that was a morning to go play golf at the club or go fishing.

Speaker 109 It seemed too cold to go flick off at the club.

Speaker 88 He said he drove to his warehouse office a few miles away.

Speaker 108 And he went over to your shop, right?

Speaker 108 And what do you do over there?

Speaker 111 I assembled my mortiser.

Speaker 112 You know, the mortiser is

Speaker 109 a woodworking tool to make tables. Yeah.

Speaker 108 I just got that, so I assembled it.

Speaker 108 Checked my email,

Speaker 110 sent one email,

Speaker 109 then hooked the boat up and went.

Speaker 88 Then, said Scott, he drove to the Berkeley Marina about 90 miles away, parked his car, and put his boat in the water.

Speaker 84 When you got in your boat and you took off, did you go very far?

Speaker 109 Well, I mean,

Speaker 109 probably a couple miles.

Speaker 110 I went north,

Speaker 43 found

Speaker 110 like a little island kind of deal there.

Speaker 110 Island had a bunch of trash on it.

Speaker 108 I remember a big sign that said no landing. It looked like some broken piers around it.

Speaker 111 I just assumed it would be a

Speaker 108 decent, you know, shallow area.

Speaker 79 Did you troll?

Speaker 109 A little bit.

Speaker 108 I mean,

Speaker 108 a lot of the reason I went was just to get that boat in the water.

Speaker 25 Details that sound plausible enough.

Speaker 113 Except to Detective Brokini.

Speaker 37 He drew a short straw when he got a fisherman to talk to.

Speaker 56 Me and the officers. They were fishermen, too.
His fishing pole is like one you'd use in a stream.

Speaker 100 And his lures are jigs that you would use in the Delta.

Speaker 56 He didn't even know what he was fishing for. He didn't know what bait he was using.
And he didn't have any gear that was really meant to be fishing in the bay.

Speaker 62 Bukkini also wondered, why had Scott bought a fishing license days before?

Speaker 25 He didn't know he was going to fish that day.

Speaker 56 There's a receipt dated December 20th. That's when he bought his fishing license.

Speaker 23 But then he said it was a last-minute decision.

Speaker 56 He said it was just that day, the last-minute decision.

Speaker 39 So that didn't quite jibe.

Speaker 56 That doesn't jibe.

Speaker 12 The detective was, to say the least, skeptical of Scott's fishing story.

Speaker 56 Why would you go 90 miles? If all you're doing is you want to try out your new boat, right, and you live in Modesto, I could tell you.

Speaker 56 20 places within 25 miles of here, you could put that boat in the water and try it out.

Speaker 5 But Scott said he had proof, a parking receipt from the marina.

Speaker 56 Yeah, here they are. Here's my receipt,

Speaker 56 just to prove I was there, you know.

Speaker 6 So,

Speaker 56 I mean, I've fished at Berkeley Marina lots of times, and I've probably got four or five of them on my dashboard right now, but I don't know what made him decide to, okay, I'm done fishing.

Speaker 56 I'll take it off my dashboard now and I'll put it in my pocket in case I need it for later. I don't know, but that's just,

Speaker 56 he was ready.

Speaker 80 prepared.

Speaker 29 Scott said the fish weren't biting that Christmas Eve afternoon, so he headed back to Modesto and got home around 4.30, where he found the dog with the leash attached, an unlocked back door, but no Lacey.

Speaker 110 Grabbed some pizza from the fridge, took the box out, put it on the counter like it was,

Speaker 109 lots of milk,

Speaker 112 and took it from the shower.

Speaker 26 He was calm as he spoke to Burkini.

Speaker 24 Calm, matter-of-fact, helpful.

Speaker 79 Were you calling for Lacey or?

Speaker 109 Oh yeah, of course.

Speaker 79 But she went home?

Speaker 109 No.

Speaker 112 Assumed she's at her mom's.

Speaker 79 Okay, so then you called over her mom's?

Speaker 43 That's right.

Speaker 37 Had they heard from her?

Speaker 110 No.

Speaker 61 He answers your questions, but he doesn't do any more than that, right?

Speaker 56 Is that fair to say? He has an answer.

Speaker 56 And he doesn't elaborate, doesn't get emotional.

Speaker 57 Which the investigators thought at the time wasn't necessarily a good thing.

Speaker 56 He told me, oh, that's concerning. I get home and her car's there and the dogs run around a leash and, you know, the door's unlocked and her purse is here.

Speaker 96 And

Speaker 56 that's really concerning me. But let me take all my clothes off and wash them.
And let me, you know, eat some pizza and take a shower before I even try to figure out what's going on here.

Speaker 56 That's concerning. That was...

Speaker 34 concerning to me.

Speaker 72 And then the detective asked the question that soon everyone would be asking.

Speaker 79 So, what you're telling me, Scott, is there's no

Speaker 79 you have no idea where this is.

Speaker 66 Most people in that situation

Speaker 15 are going to have a lot of questions for you. Well, are you guys doing this? I've heard of this.
Why don't you do this? We got that from Sharon, we got that from Ron, we got that from Lacey's friends.

Speaker 15 Everybody had an interest in trying to get us to go faster.

Speaker 4 Everybody, that is, but Scott.

Speaker 52 Now, why, they wondered, would that be?

Speaker 106 Coming up.

Speaker 114 Get beautiful. I just left a message at home.

Speaker 15 When I listened to that, I thought that he was leaving this recording for us to hear.

Speaker 23 Scott, under scrutiny.

Speaker 14 I was afraid to say it out loud, could he be involved with her disappearance?

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Speaker 101 A week after Lacey Peterson disappeared, they had a vigil.

Speaker 44 Everyone coming together and praying just

Speaker 44 helps you feel like you're doing something.

Speaker 2 Candles and prayers and tears.

Speaker 68 And though much of Modesto was here in body or spirit, not a single person understood, not yet, not for a while, why this gathering would become a defining moment.

Speaker 29 Especially perhaps Scott Peterson.

Speaker 48 Because though it looked as if he might have shed a tear or two, he seemed to be avoiding Lacey's family and friends.

Speaker 12 What about the vigil?

Speaker 47 He wasn't on the stage.

Speaker 19 No, he wasn't on the stage.

Speaker 46 He was on the phone.

Speaker 66 Sharon wouldn't know for a long time the truth about Scott's phone call that night.

Speaker 25 But it was that night after the vigil that privately Sharon first allowed her mind to go to that very dark place.

Speaker 14 I remember it was New Year's Eve when I started started going back and forth, but just to myself, I wouldn't say it out loud.

Speaker 14 I was afraid to say it out loud, but I started just kind of thinking, could he be involved with her disappearance?

Speaker 90 Sharon was a frantic mess, and she looked at him, and he just seemed so detached somehow.

Speaker 14 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.

Speaker 71 Never, ever once.

Speaker 29 You were feeling that panic.

Speaker 30 Even as you talk about it, you can can see a little bit of it left.

Speaker 49 Yes.

Speaker 51 He did not seem to have that sense?

Speaker 14 He did not have it. And I actually made out a list of did he or didn't he? I had a list.
And there was a lot more on the did than didn't. And that's what really scared me.

Speaker 30 It scared her.

Speaker 25 She didn't want to believe it, didn't want to go there.

Speaker 29 So she didn't put that thought out of her mind.

Speaker 40 But the detectives were trained to go there.

Speaker 64 They turned over everything Scott said and did and didn't do and wondered why.

Speaker 61 There was a slickness somehow, a fake feeling from the very beginning, like the voicemail he left Lacey while he drove home from the Berkeley Marina.

Speaker 114 Hey, beautiful. I just left a message at home.

Speaker 15 When I listened to that, I thought, nah, this doesn't sound right. Been married five years, she's pregnant, and he's talking to her like they're on their third date.

Speaker 114 I live in Berkeley. I'll see you in a bit.
We love you. Bye.

Speaker 15 The tone to it that he was leaving this recording for us to hear so that he would appear to us as this devoted husband and not somebody that was involved in foul play.

Speaker 76 Of course, it could also be that he was just a romantic guy.

Speaker 32 We couldn't rule that out at all.

Speaker 12 And there was this, under the circumstances, the very day Lacey disappeared, why was he almost obsessively fastidious when they searched his pickup truck?

Speaker 56 He was worried about the wrong things. I'm searching his truck, and I open the door and it bangs into the Land Rover.
He was right up there. He goes, Al, he has a glove.

Speaker 56 I'll hold this or I'll move my truck. But you know, I actually, I wrote it in my police report because I'm like, that's weird.

Speaker 57 These weren't hard facts of evidence, of course, just a rising damp of suspicion.

Speaker 51 Things like, when did Scott get a boat?

Speaker 14 The detective said that

Speaker 14 he said that he had taken his boat out. And I said, what boat?

Speaker 14 Scott doesn't have a boat.

Speaker 18 Yeah.

Speaker 14 Until

Speaker 14 he did have a boat.

Speaker 60 Scott had told Brochini that Lacey knew about the boat.

Speaker 70 How could it be that Sharon had no idea that Scott had recently bought a used 14-foot game fisher?

Speaker 56 The light didn't just go on my head and say, oh, he killed her. No, it didn't.
I treated him like a husband

Speaker 56 and the husband of a missing person.

Speaker 101 But I had suspicions.

Speaker 56 And I asked him to take me to the boat, show me the boat.

Speaker 86 Very late that first night, the detective and Scott went to Scott's warehouse where he worked and kept his boat.

Speaker 59 You came here that night, right?

Speaker 56 Christmas Eve night, yeah.

Speaker 22 What did he tell you when you came here and you wanted to look inside and you had your flashlight out and stuff?

Speaker 56 He said there's no electricity.

Speaker 28 No lights, which was a lie.

Speaker 56 So I just said, open the door and I'll put my headlights in there.

Speaker 25 To the detectives, it all smelled bad.

Speaker 64 So they did the things detectives do.

Speaker 86 They got a wiretap on Scott's phone, hit a GPS under his car, and they watched him constantly.

Speaker 52 Sometimes, they noticed, he watched them, too.

Speaker 56 I was surveilling him, and I'm in an unmarked car. I'm parked three blocks away in a high school parking lot full of cars, and I'm watching this place with binoculars.

Speaker 56 And all of a sudden, I look in my side view mirror, and Scott. So I got out of the car, and he says, hey, Al.

Speaker 57 It was just odd.

Speaker 35 And yet he seemed such a Boy Scout.

Speaker 30 He had no secret criminal past, no history of being abusive.

Speaker 15 You guys have had any problems.

Speaker 112 Marriage problems.

Speaker 35 So they stewed in their suspicion, aware they really had nothing on him.

Speaker 15 We couldn't find anything wrong with this guy. I don't think there was a ward on his body.
I don't think he ever had a traffic ticket. I mean, he really was the guy you want to marry your sister.

Speaker 15 We were waiting for that one thing that showed that he wasn't this perfect guy.

Speaker 69 In one remarkable moment, they'd get that and more

Speaker 62 because of her

Speaker 106 coming up.

Speaker 21 She was single and looking for the one.

Speaker 29 Enter Amber.

Speaker 12 It was going really good.

Speaker 96 Did you start to think about, wait a minute, I could actually make a life with this man?

Speaker 120 You know, I did.

Speaker 16 When date line continues.

Speaker 30 October 2002, months before Lacey Peterson disappeared.

Speaker 62 And 100 miles away in Fresno, California, something happened that would make all the difference in the case.

Speaker 1 A young woman named Amber Fry got a phone call from a friend about a guy.

Speaker 19 I was doing really well in getting my career started in massage therapy and single mother and was told about this great guy that

Speaker 120 my friend wanted me to meet.

Speaker 37 He sounded perfect.

Speaker 19 She had said he had a good sense of humor, good looking, had a career.

Speaker 21 He was single and looking for the one.

Speaker 21 like

Speaker 21 soulmate.

Speaker 91 You were serious about this?

Speaker 21 Yeah.

Speaker 37 His name?

Speaker 12 Scott Peterson.

Speaker 59 It was late November when they met in person, and it was electric.

Speaker 19 I mean, we just had a really great first date.

Speaker 21 Like, really good.

Speaker 70 Sometimes you meet somebody, it's very easy to talk to them.

Speaker 23 You feel as if there's no wall between the two of them.

Speaker 74 It was like that. Yeah.

Speaker 4 He wooed her fast with strawberries and champagne.

Speaker 8 It was early, bright, and exciting.

Speaker 19 Absolutely.

Speaker 113 He was eager to bond with Amber's little girl.

Speaker 19 He was really sweet with her. She was excited.

Speaker 21 We had planned a picnic and a little hike.

Speaker 19 She held both of her hands as we walked and was comfortable with him.

Speaker 15 That must have been very sweet at the time.

Speaker 19 It was.

Speaker 23 And it's not always you find a man who is comfortable with the idea that you have a child or a children.

Speaker 73 Right.

Speaker 35 He bought them both gifts.

Speaker 3 He brought groceries to their house.

Speaker 113 He made dinner.

Speaker 50 He was considerate, caring, even a voicemail.

Speaker 73 Thanks for your heart.

Speaker 43 Call him on I'm like, driving to the gym here to do my weekly five-minute workout.

Speaker 123 See how you're doing.

Speaker 124 I'll try to give you a phone mom.

Speaker 19 I was going really good. I was really excited.
He was always complimenting, you know, like, you leave the best messages.

Speaker 18 And,

Speaker 19 you know, looking forward to seeing you.

Speaker 62 Also perfect.

Speaker 3 What Scott never mentioned, of course, was that he was married. His wife was Lacey, and he and Lacey were readying a nursery for their firstborn who was on his way.

Speaker 59 No, Amber knew nothing of that.

Speaker 61 And yet, something wasn't sitting right with her, she thought.

Speaker 70 Why, when he called her, was there so often the sound of running water in the background?

Speaker 36 As if he was masking the sound of their conversation.

Speaker 19 It was just odd. Like, why are you talking to me in the shower?

Speaker 21 Yeah, he kind of blew it off.

Speaker 19 Like, it wasn't a big deal.

Speaker 125 But then, early December.

Speaker 19 He had called me one day saying he really needed to talk to me. And I could hear in his voice he was worried or concerned or something was going on.

Speaker 2 Scott was contrite, said he had a confession to make.

Speaker 19 He apologized because he wasn't honest with me, that I had asked if he had ever been married and

Speaker 19 that, in fact, he had lost his wife, and this would be the first holidays without her.

Speaker 67 That's the expression he used.

Speaker 7 I lost my wife.

Speaker 19 Yes.

Speaker 19 And he was crying and just,

Speaker 21 you know, like very emotional.

Speaker 35 It was a tender moment, said Amber.

Speaker 62 and she felt compassion for him.

Speaker 19 I thought, well, maybe she died of, you know, cancer or in an accident or, I mean, because obviously his, his words were obviously, you know, something recent or more recent.

Speaker 4 Did you ask?

Speaker 44 I didn't ask.

Speaker 19 I didn't want to pry because he was so emotional.

Speaker 67 With that secret of his chest, Scott gave her a new cell phone number where she could reach him when he took a long planned trip to Europe over Christmas.

Speaker 4 That is.

Speaker 19 If you still want to talk to me after,

Speaker 120 you know.

Speaker 7 After I've told you this.

Speaker 74 Right.

Speaker 19 And so I was like, yes, of course.

Speaker 12 Did you start to think about, wait a minute, I could actually make a life with this man?

Speaker 21 You know, I did.

Speaker 86 And yet, even here, December 14th, as they got ready for a Christmas party with Amber's friends, the little beast of doubt was worming its way into her mind.

Speaker 19 I was starting to feel

Speaker 19 that women's intuition something just wasn't right.

Speaker 90 Really?

Speaker 44 Yes.

Speaker 60 Well, he was in Europe, he told her.

Speaker 41 She should write to him at a post office box in Modesto.

Speaker 61 But he had told her he lived in Sacramento, so why Modesto?

Speaker 67 Why these odd questions she couldn't answer?

Speaker 63 She had a cop friend, she called him.

Speaker 53 Could he check up on Scott Peterson from Sacramento?

Speaker 103 A few days later, her friend called back.

Speaker 19 He'd said that he found an article and that he was going to print it and bring it to me. I said, okay.

Speaker 35 That was December 29th.

Speaker 57 Scott had left for Europe two days earlier, or so he said.

Speaker 82 And then Amber read the article.

Speaker 19 I was in disbelief of what I'm reading because it sounds like him. Fertilizer salesman, Modesto.
I don't think there was a full picture of him. But there was,

Speaker 19 his truck was in this article.

Speaker 86 So were these words, pregnant and missing.

Speaker 19 I need this confirmed.

Speaker 46 I don't want to believe what I just read.

Speaker 40 Kind of turning your world upside down.

Speaker 19 Oh yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 70 And that's when Amber called the Modesto police.

Speaker 19 I reach a dispatcher

Speaker 19 and I said, I've been dating this person.

Speaker 19 I just want to know if this is the same person.

Speaker 19 And she just kept saying, okay, okay. And like, okay, it is or okay, what? I gave his birth date.

Speaker 21 I gave his full name. And

Speaker 19 then she says, okay. And I said, okay, yes.
She goes, yes.

Speaker 86 Yes. Amber Scott Peterson and the Scott Peterson with the missing wife were one and the same.

Speaker 21 And I just remember crying. Like, I don't know for how long I was shaking like the adrenaline and just I was in shock.

Speaker 4 Amber Fry, who thought maybe she'd met the one,

Speaker 67 was in the middle of something terrible.

Speaker 106 Coming up.

Speaker 15 We wanted to start recording calls.

Speaker 16 Hushed conversations, hidden recordings.

Speaker 4 Amber goes undercover.

Speaker 43 I tried to.

Speaker 21 I was shaking uncontrollably.

Speaker 19 I was so just nervous and scared.

Speaker 8 In all fairness to the Modesto Police Department, scrambling to manage that flood of tips about Lacey Peterson, Amber's phone call was a barely discernible ripple.

Speaker 77 Did they call you back right away?

Speaker 71 No.

Speaker 75 So the next day, she called again, and looking over the dispatcher's shoulder at just the right moment was Detective Brocini.

Speaker 56 I just happened to be standing behind one of them, and Bev was typing, and I could see the name Amber Fry, and then she's saying, Scott Peterson's my boyfriend.

Speaker 118 You're seeing all this.

Speaker 56 I'm seeing this, so I said, Bev, are you talking to her? And yeah, I said, can let me talk to her.

Speaker 3 And before long, the two detectives were in Fresno listening in person to Amber's story of Scott's amorous courtship.

Speaker 15 It was almost like a script writer was writing this,

Speaker 15 very talented with the romance he was.

Speaker 19 I basically just told them our

Speaker 19 whole relationship that we had been having and what our conversation was currently at the moment.

Speaker 61 And that he was over in Europe somewhere.

Speaker 29 Right. And

Speaker 29 they you know i think they too were just a little like in disbelief shaking their head no he's definitely a modesto scott had been lying the whole time elaborately he'd even called amber from a payphone at the airport to say goodbye when he supposedly left for europe so she'd see the caller id

Speaker 3 but if amber hadn't known where scott really was

Speaker 15 she sure knew a lot And she had a mental recall that was punctuated with wine corks and all sorts of of memorabilia that she'd saved from their romance.

Speaker 1 So then the detectives asked, Could she help them in their investigation?

Speaker 15 Well, we wanted to start recording calls.

Speaker 4 Amber agreed. So they went right out and bought a portable recorder.

Speaker 1 And what do you know?

Speaker 56 As soon as I plug in her little recorder and I'm showing her, push the red button, the black button, the phone rings.

Speaker 18 He called.

Speaker 18 Oh boy.

Speaker 124 Hey there?

Speaker 124 I can barely hear you.

Speaker 19 And their expression, they were just like, wow, I can't believe he's calling you right now.

Speaker 124 Hey, I'll be here in Marin tomorrow. But I'll try to normal you right now.

Speaker 124 And hopefully your car is better.

Speaker 21 I was shaking uncontrollably.

Speaker 19 My fingers were like just sweaty, palmy mess.

Speaker 19 And I was fumbly because I was so just nervous and scared.

Speaker 8 And so it began.

Speaker 41 For the next eight days, Scott Peterson pretended he was traveling in Europe.

Speaker 3 Amber Fry pretending she was still his girlfriend.

Speaker 50 The cops, they kept looking, bringing scent dogs to Berkeley, divers to the bay. Lacey's friends held that vigil and prayed.

Speaker 50 All the while, Amber secretly recorded her conversations with Scott.

Speaker 77 inwardly trembling.

Speaker 44 I was shaking and trying to catch my breath and calm down.

Speaker 19 There was just too much nerves there.

Speaker 21 And

Speaker 19 I would pace back and forth.

Speaker 86 One of those calls, of course she didn't know it at the time, was going to be notorious.

Speaker 19 New Year's Eve.

Speaker 70 That was the big one.

Speaker 13 Yeah.

Speaker 119 Emma, if you can hear me, it's New Year's. I know.

Speaker 43 I can hear you. Emma.

Speaker 43 I wish you could hear me.

Speaker 79 I'm by near the Eiffel Tower.

Speaker 119 New Year's Celebration is Unreal.

Speaker 119 The crowd is huge.

Speaker 4 In fact, the crowd was huge.

Speaker 77 It just wasn't in Paris.

Speaker 75 It was in Modesto.

Speaker 45 And they weren't celebrating.

Speaker 35 Scott called Amber from the vigil for Lacey, the one where he made himself scarce while Sharon and Lacey's friends pleaded for help.

Speaker 30 And Scott called Amber, inventing fine details of his trip like jogging on the cobblestones of Europe.

Speaker 119 I think I should just run on the street because these cobblestones are so free.

Speaker 70 He He worked out the time difference for his phone calls.

Speaker 43 She goes ahead at nine. That's six o'clock my time.

Speaker 4 And he kept on wooing her, unaware of who was listening. Can I tell you how wonderful you are?

Speaker 4 That's pretty easy to do.

Speaker 4 How possible you are. Amazing.

Speaker 4 You know, I always call you, but I tell you you're special.

Speaker 4 And it's just not a big enough word for it.

Speaker 8 All very interesting.

Speaker 82 But

Speaker 67 what were you hoping for from those recorded conversations that you didn't get?

Speaker 15 Well, of course, ideally, I was hoping that he would say, no, I murdered my wife. I dumped her in the bay, and let's run off to Europe.
But that wasn't going to happen.

Speaker 9 So detectives went right at him.

Speaker 36 They asked Scott to come down to the police department again.

Speaker 1 And without telling him where they got it, they showed him a facts of a photo of himself with Amber Fry at the Christmas party.

Speaker 71 And of course, he lies when he's confronted.

Speaker 57 Prosecutor Burgitt Flatiger.

Speaker 71 He sees the picture of himself with Amber and he says, that's not me.

Speaker 94 Was it clearly him?

Speaker 71 It was.

Speaker 25 If Scott suspected the detectives had somehow found out about Amber, he didn't let on.

Speaker 30 And he kept calling her, and she kept recording.

Speaker 7 But he started testing her with questions.

Speaker 73 Did you see Talks on News on Paris? No, I didn't, actually.

Speaker 43 There was a bomb that exploded.

Speaker 19 And I was like,

Speaker 19 what bombing? There was another time he had asked

Speaker 19 if I had seen the article on the monarch butterflies that are in Pismo.

Speaker 19 And I said, no, I gathered

Speaker 19 right away he was asking because these were, in fact, something that was in the paper, possibly. Right.

Speaker 21 If I was looking at the news.

Speaker 70 To find out, in other words, if she knew about Lacey.

Speaker 67 And then on January 6th, 13 days after Lacey disappeared, Scott told Amber himself.

Speaker 119 The girl I got married to, her name is Lacey,

Speaker 119 she disappeared just before Christmas.

Speaker 43 For the past two weeks, I've been in Modesto with her family in mine

Speaker 119 searching for her.

Speaker 73 Okay.

Speaker 119 She just disappeared, and no one knows.

Speaker 30 Scott had no idea, of course, that Amber happened to be in the police station when he offered that big admission.

Speaker 57 Or that Amber's responding question was a huge deal to both her and the cops.

Speaker 126 You came to me in December and told me that you had lost your wife.

Speaker 127 What was that about?

Speaker 119 She I mean, she's uh alive.

Speaker 69 What?

Speaker 119 She's alive.

Speaker 127 Where? She's alive?

Speaker 20 Where?

Speaker 127 And you came and told me this elaborate lie about her missing and this tragedy and that

Speaker 127 and that that this will be the first holidays without her yeah I never said amber yes

Speaker 119 I got I don't want to fight with you

Speaker 119 you know that I

Speaker 20 I never said tragedy or missing oh yes you said you've lost your wife no

Speaker 119 yes obviously without me saying much but we will said that I lost my wife yes you did I did and yes how did you lose her then before she was lost

Speaker 1 explain that

Speaker 119 There are different kinds of loss, Amber.

Speaker 32 Different kinds of loss?

Speaker 26 Now, what did that mean?

Speaker 106 Coming up.

Speaker 19 We did have a romantic relationship.

Speaker 16 Revealing the truth to the world.

Speaker 107 Amber Fry's Firestorm.

Speaker 15 Almost like exploding your own bomb.

Speaker 44 I had a panic attack. I couldn't breathe.

Speaker 16 When dateline continues.

Speaker 61 It was a world of pain that January of 2003. Sharon Rocha was still gripping onto a slipping remnant of hope that her Lacey was still alive, was barely hanging on.

Speaker 30 The day soon after that New Year's Eve vigil, when Scott walked into the house.

Speaker 14 And I asked him, how are you doing? And he said, you know, I'm doing okay. And I just remember, it was almost like I was just pulling back from him thinking, you're doing okay?

Speaker 14 What do you mean you're doing okay?

Speaker 86 Sharon definitely wasn't doing okay.

Speaker 4 Well, the cops, moving forward incrementally, needed more.

Speaker 46 Police looking for Lacey Peterson in Modesto, California want to verify her husband's alibi.

Speaker 26 Modesto PD put out a bulletin.

Speaker 30 Had anyone seen this truck, this boat, on Christmas Eve?

Speaker 80 They expanded their ground search to the foothills, the reservoirs, even mine shafts.

Speaker 66 And by mid-January, police decided they needed to tell Sharon about Scott's affair.

Speaker 15 We said, hey, we've got some information we've got to let you know about on this, and the best thing we can do is just give it to you.

Speaker 70 They showed her the photo at Amber's Christmas party, the one Scott said wasn't him.

Speaker 14 I literally thought I was going to throw up. I stood up real fast because I wanted to get out of there.
I wanted to get away from them. I didn't want to hear what they were saying.

Speaker 29 What mother would?

Speaker 14 I just remember my stomach just turning and I

Speaker 69 just

Speaker 14 saying, just crying. He didn't have to kill her.

Speaker 22 That changed everything you'd ever thought about.

Speaker 83 It did.

Speaker 30 Detective Bueller had told Sharon about Amber because rumors were in the air.

Speaker 89 The media was sniffing about and getting close.

Speaker 19 You get to the office. The reporter was right there.

Speaker 73 Oh, boy. Yeah.

Speaker 57 January 24th, local news showed up at Amber's workplace.

Speaker 77 National tabloids were not far behind.

Speaker 12 Did you talk to them?

Speaker 13 No.

Speaker 19 I refused to talk to anybody.

Speaker 66 Trapped in her office, she called Detective Bueller.

Speaker 75 That's when the Modesto PD decided that if Amber's story was going to break anyway, they'd break it on their terms.

Speaker 15 We believed at the time it was probably best to get her up there, almost like exploding your own bomb.

Speaker 66 Bueller sent two colleagues to fetch her with a statement all prepared.

Speaker 19 We were speeding back, in a sense, getting there.

Speaker 21 And,

Speaker 19 you know, having this statement written out, you know, trying to read it a few times so it's not too foreign.

Speaker 75 As they drove to Modesto, headquarters gathered the media.

Speaker 64 Big news are coming.

Speaker 121 We are waiting for Modesto police to come out any moment and speak on developments in the Lacey-Peterson investigation.

Speaker 113 And this is the moment when Amber Fry bursts like a deer in headlights onto the public stage.

Speaker 19 Okay, first of all, I met Scott Peterson November 20th, 2002. I was introduced to him.
I was told he was unmarried.

Speaker 19 Scott told me he was not married.

Speaker 19 We did have a romantic relationship.

Speaker 44 I had a panic attack. I couldn't breathe.

Speaker 21 I literally could not catch my breath.

Speaker 19 When I discovered he was involved in the disappearance or the Lacey Peterson disappearance case, I immediately contacted the Modesto Police Department.

Speaker 3 She spoke for just over a minute.

Speaker 19 I am very sorry for Lacey's family

Speaker 19 and the pain that this has caused them.

Speaker 19 And I pray for her safe return as well.

Speaker 59 And now everyone knew.

Speaker 30 And Scott knew everyone knew.

Speaker 63 So did he stop calling Amber Fry?

Speaker 4 No.

Speaker 40 Listen to this.

Speaker 129 I'm really glad

Speaker 129 It wasn't a matter of choice. What's that? It really wasn't a matter of choice.

Speaker 129 They were staked out at my work all day. I know, but still, it's incredibly brave.
It just shows what amazing character you have.

Speaker 36 Scott called to congratulate her, to thank her.

Speaker 61 Very strange.

Speaker 3 The police were thanking Amber, too.

Speaker 1 Now they had new clues.

Speaker 35 Like the day Scott told Amber he lost his wife, it was the very same day he bought the boat.

Speaker 75 Coincidence? No, thought the police.

Speaker 76 Had to be evidence of premeditation.

Speaker 1 The very existence of Amber Fry changed everything and revealed that many little beasts of doubt had been churning about in the minds of even Scott's die-hard supporters.

Speaker 15 After Amber came forward, that's when they started to open up about the things that they had been kind of hiding and holding back.

Speaker 86 People remembered things.

Speaker 5 Like how Scott once told someone he was hoping for infertility, that he seemed uncomfortable holding babies, that he didn't want to touch Lacey's pregnant stomach, that he complained he was having a midlife crisis at age 30.

Speaker 8 Now when people thought about his story that Lacey walked her dog, they remembered she'd been too tired to do that.

Speaker 130 And they remembered too the peculiar way he acted.

Speaker 76 the night Lacey disappeared.

Speaker 14 We were standing in the driveway. I asked if he had called his parents.
He said no. I was trying to have a conversation with him and he continued to just turn away from me.

Speaker 14 He would never look me in the eye. I had to keep following him around, trying to have visual contact with him.

Speaker 57 Because Scott Peterson had something to hide.

Speaker 4 Coming up.

Speaker 131 I had a romantic relationship that was inappropriate.

Speaker 16 Scott Peterson goes public, but in private.

Speaker 11 Strange behavior.

Speaker 92 He said, I think we should get the house up on the market.

Speaker 4 Suspicious clues.

Speaker 15 It looked like five of these little coffee can anchors had been made.

Speaker 13 Since Christmas Eve,

Speaker 13 our one and only focus is to find Lacey and to bring her home to us. I love my daughter so much.
I miss her every minute of every day.

Speaker 66 On the same day that Amber Fry told the world about her relationship with Scott Peterson.

Speaker 19 Scott told me he was not married.

Speaker 35 Lacey's mother stood before the cameras too.

Speaker 104 It was exactly a month since Lacey disappeared.

Speaker 13 I miss sharing our thoughts and our lives together. I miss her smile and her laughter and her sense of humor.
I miss everything about her.

Speaker 66 Sharon, who kept trying to keep hope alive, found it slipping away.

Speaker 13 Someone has taken all of this away from me and everyone else who loves her.

Speaker 86 Any thoughts that Scott had nothing to do with it, gone too.

Speaker 7 Even though Sharon would not mention him by name.

Speaker 85 I know that someone knows where Lacey is, and I'm pleading with you.

Speaker 13 Please, please, let her come home to us.

Speaker 7 Unbeknownst to them, Scott was thinking about going public too.

Speaker 72 And he discussed it with who else?

Speaker 1 Amber.

Speaker 1 I am

Speaker 1 going to speak to the press this coming week. During this coming week.

Speaker 53 You have a date?

Speaker 53 Well, I'm debating on when it should be

Speaker 53 done because Tuesday is the State of the Union address.

Speaker 55 Okay. So that won't take up a lot of time.

Speaker 18 Well,

Speaker 18 and I want maximum coverage.

Speaker 88 He got it, all right.

Speaker 2 A sudden whirl of interviews.

Speaker 70 A few days after his affair with Amber was revealed, Scott talked about it on NBC's Bay Area station.

Speaker 131 Obviously, yes, I had a romantic relationship that was inappropriate and unfair to a lot of people.

Speaker 89 In an appearance on CBS's KOVR, Scott claimed Lacey knew.

Speaker 131 I told Lacey about the relationship.

Speaker 131 She knew about it, and it's

Speaker 131 important between us.

Speaker 6 Then he went on ABC to assure the whole country he was innocent.

Speaker 117 Did you murder your wife?

Speaker 79 No, no, I did not.

Speaker 123 And I had absolutely nothing to do with her disappearance.

Speaker 94 And now many of the people who knew Scott and loved Scott no longer believed a word he said.

Speaker 98 For the police, who'd never believed him, Amber Fry was just one part of an intricate and entirely circumstantial case against Scott.

Speaker 86 It relied on the smallest of details, like this outtake from his interview with KOVR.

Speaker 131 I'm glad that Amber came forward. Let me turn that on.
Yeah, what is that? That's my phone, unfortunately. I thought.

Speaker 15 Well, it seems strange. His phone's ringing,

Speaker 15 and he's not stopping the interview to go in and answer it. Now, this could be the call that's bringing Lacey back to him.
It could be the ransom call.

Speaker 15 It could be us calling him and saying, hey, we've got some good news for you that we found her. He went over there and just shut the phone off and resumed the interview without checking out.

Speaker 63 Didn't check him to see what it was.

Speaker 4 Not at all.

Speaker 15 One more strand.

Speaker 25 Strands of evidence to try to weave into a rope with which to hang Scott.

Speaker 70 Another strand?

Speaker 2 Scott's sudden desire to sell his and Lacey's home just weeks after she went missing.

Speaker 92 He said, I think we should get the house up on the market. And my mom said, this isn't the time to be discussing this, Scott.

Speaker 31 But he did sell Lacey's car.

Speaker 61 Another strand.

Speaker 23 And then there was the cement dust at Scott's warehouse.

Speaker 15 A lot of people use concrete anchors for small lunar boats. And it looked like five of these little coffee can anchors had been made there on that trailer.

Speaker 25 But only this one anchor was found.

Speaker 56 It's clear there was more than one.

Speaker 23 Now where are those?

Speaker 56 Nobody knows.

Speaker 63 Were the other four used to weigh down Lacey's body?

Speaker 70 And though Scott said going fishing was a last-minute decision, there were sea charts and maps of the Berkeley Marina on his computer from early December.

Speaker 87 And Scott told police he spent time at his warehouse office on the day Lacey disappeared.

Speaker 72 And they couldn't help but notice how secluded the place was.

Speaker 56 This is very isolated back here and especially on a Christmas Eve.

Speaker 113 If you wanted to get away with something,

Speaker 35 it was a place you could do it. Yep.

Speaker 25 Like move a body into a boat, thought the detective.

Speaker 58 You have

Speaker 84 a window here in the front and note that the screen is ajar.

Speaker 6 So police gathered the strands, spun the rope.

Speaker 54 And everything that happened happened with a lot of people watching.

Speaker 44 Where does Scott Peterson stand in all of this?

Speaker 132 He's not been eliminated from the investigation, nor has he been identified as a suspect.

Speaker 4 Not identified as a suspect, not officially, yet clearly the only person of interest for the cops and the media.

Speaker 102 She got in the backs there.

Speaker 14 Evidence. Evidence.

Speaker 66 And Sharon kept grappling with the depressing truth that she just didn't want to believe.

Speaker 14 I felt that I should have felt

Speaker 55 her leave this earth.

Speaker 14 I brought her into this world. I should have felt when she left

Speaker 14 so that I would have known whether she was gone or not.

Speaker 14 So at that time, I still had hope that

Speaker 14 she was coming home.

Speaker 83 It's a strange and powerful thing, though, isn't it?

Speaker 95 It is. You give birth to a person, you bring them up, and you feed them and you care for them.

Speaker 71 And we were very, very, very close.

Speaker 14 Yes.

Speaker 65 And Scott,

Speaker 30 he soon faded from public view.

Speaker 25 Didn't stay much in Modesto, and Amber finally told him to stop calling her.

Speaker 119 I think right now, for me, Scott,

Speaker 119 and really everything

Speaker 14 that has happened in the last 50-plus days for myself and the family and you and

Speaker 126 everything that's going in right now, I think it'd be best if you and I didn't talk anymore until there's resolution in this.

Speaker 55 Great.

Speaker 119 Good.

Speaker 86 And everyone just waited

Speaker 113 until the sea finally revealed what everybody had been waiting for.

Speaker 106 Coming up.

Speaker 14 I felt something that day I just knew.

Speaker 16 A devastating discovery and a ride into danger.

Speaker 15 This was completely off the charts. Nobody's ever reacted this way.

Speaker 16 When Dateline continues.

Speaker 11 Hey, everybody.

Speaker 32 It's Rob Lowe here.

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Speaker 101 April 13th, 2003.

Speaker 3 It was a cool day in Northern California.

Speaker 70 Sharon Rocha was hiding from the world.

Speaker 14 It was one of those days I just buried myself in the couch with a blanket over my head.

Speaker 25 She had so locked herself away that day that friends had to come to her house to tell her there was news they're knocking on my back door on the slider in the backyard it had been nearly four months since Lacey disappeared yet somehow Sharon felt more bad news was coming early that morning when the tides were low the body of a baby had been found on the shoreline north of Berkeley the next day another body a torso badly decomposed was found nearby the Contra Costa County coroner has arrived at the scene and has now recovered the remains of the victim.

Speaker 132 We're at this time letting people know that we believe the gender of the victim is female.

Speaker 45 But even without positive identification, everyone knew.

Speaker 98 Even Sharon, who, despite everything, kept trying to hold on to a shred of hope that she'd wake from a nightmare.

Speaker 25 From Scott, there was not a peep.

Speaker 14 The fact that he didn't pick up the phone and call anybody to find out if that was his wife and his baby

Speaker 14 left no doubt in my mind.

Speaker 89 Her daughter was dead.

Speaker 38 Her grandson would never be born.

Speaker 52 Detective John Bueller had known that for a while, and now he was nearly ready to arrest Scott, just not quite.

Speaker 15 We were going to wait to serve the warrant until after the DNA results were released to confirm the bodies were Lacey and Connor.

Speaker 35 By that April, Scott Peterson was living in San Diego near near his parents.

Speaker 40 So, tick, tick, tick, detectives waited for lab results.

Speaker 36 Police kept an eye on Scott.

Speaker 15 They had the surveillance going on him for quite some time before that.

Speaker 75 Then, April 18th, 2003, 7 a.m., the lab results were still pending when Scott Peterson decided to play cat and mouse with whomever was after him.

Speaker 15 He's a pretty good driver. At least he was.
He knew we were behind him.

Speaker 98 Scott started driving erratically.

Speaker 28 Very fast.

Speaker 15 We were trying to keep this rolling surveillance on him. We had a helicopter for part of the time.

Speaker 35 He stopped and started.

Speaker 15 He'd cross over three lanes of traffic and take an exit ramp. And of course, we couldn't do that.
We'd end up missing him.

Speaker 70 Driving evasively at times, giving one cop the finger.

Speaker 86 How long did he lead you on this marriage chase?

Speaker 15 Oh, gosh, this was...

Speaker 15 It seemed like it might have been a couple hours or so, maybe longer.

Speaker 98 Scott, with police trailing, traveled 160 miles that morning until law enforcement decided it was just too dangerous.

Speaker 15 We have to arrest him. They put the lights on him and he pulled off into the entrance to Torrey Pines Golf Course.

Speaker 15 And they made contact with him as we pulled up, came out of the car, put the handcuffs on him. No hysterics, no profanity.
Typical, you know, Scott, you know, his controlled, you know, demeanor.

Speaker 32 What they found in the car with Scott was fascinating.

Speaker 63 Camping gear, four cell phones, his sister's credit card, his brother's driver's license, and cash.

Speaker 15 Almost $15,000 in cash.

Speaker 62 He also looked different, way different, by intent, clearly.

Speaker 70 When you arrested him, did he express anything that would suggest he understood?

Speaker 98 That was it. He was going away.

Speaker 15 I went to search his car. He said,

Speaker 15 John, can you tell me if those bodies were my wife and son? And I just told him, Scott, you already know the answer to that.

Speaker 70 As they drove north to Modesto with their prisoner in the back seat, Bueller got confirmation that the DNA was in.

Speaker 82 The bodies were Connor and Lacey.

Speaker 63 They told Scott.

Speaker 15 Now, he's wearing sunglasses at the time. I look, and he doesn't make hardly any reaction whatsoever.

Speaker 30 Later, when they stopped at a roadside burger place to get something to eat, Given the news he just received, Bueller assumed Scott wouldn't have much of an appetite.

Speaker 98 He was wrong.

Speaker 15 And he goes, I'll have a double-double with cheese, a small fry, and a vanilla shake.

Speaker 49 Like we were coming back from fishing.

Speaker 18 Cold?

Speaker 5 That's what Bueller thought.

Speaker 15 I've run into people that have had grief before many, many times.

Speaker 15 And this was completely off the charts. Nobody's ever reacted this way, in my presence, when it came to something like that.

Speaker 82 When they got back to Modesto, Scott was booked into jail.

Speaker 60 It seemed like the end of the road for Scott Peterson.

Speaker 28 But

Speaker 86 the circus wasn't leaving, it was just moving up the road a bit.

Speaker 106 Coming up,

Speaker 71 he can be very smooth, but there's something underneath the surface.

Speaker 12 Prosecutors speak out in an in-depth interview.

Speaker 71 He wanted a different life.

Speaker 16 20 years later, they share their story.

Speaker 132 Is that correct, Mr. Peterson?

Speaker 36 You're pleading not guilty to the two charges of murder, plus the special, denying the special allegations?

Speaker 28 Absolutely.

Speaker 58 That's correct, Your Honor.

Speaker 122 I'm innocent.

Speaker 86 As the case against Scott Peterson slowly made its way from arrest to trial, what really happened to Lacey Peterson became a kind of televised courtroom theater.

Speaker 66 The defense is asking that the jury be sequestered for up to five months.

Speaker 128 The jury's going to hear a lot of theories, and they simply must latch on to the one that is most reasonable.

Speaker 44 Jurors who are deathqualified are more likely to vote for conviction.

Speaker 52 The cast included legal celebrities like Defense Attorney Mark Garagos, who signed on to defend Scott Peterson.

Speaker 56 Scott looks forward to finding out who did this to his wife and to his child, Connor.

Speaker 70 And women's advocate.

Speaker 121 Thank you for coming today. I'm Attorney Gloria Allred.

Speaker 121 To my right is Amber Fry.

Speaker 4 Gloria Allred,

Speaker 62 who erected a protective wall around the story's wildcard, Amber Fry.

Speaker 135 Amber was not going to be doing any interviews during the course of the case, even though so many people wanted to interview her.

Speaker 70 Wasn't she offered immense amounts of money to do covers and things like that?

Speaker 135 There were many offers to Amber if she would only provide an interview.

Speaker 135 But she needed to protect her testimony for the actual case.

Speaker 30 But altogether missing in the legal cacophony were the prosecutors, Burgen Flattiger and Dave Harris.

Speaker 34 This, all these years later, was their first and only in-depth television interview about the Peterson case.

Speaker 68 During the trial, they often had to bite their tongues.

Speaker 71 Your radio would go off in the morning, the radio alarm, and the little news blurb that you would hear on the pop radio station, whatever, would reference the case.

Speaker 71 They could say whatever they wanted, right? And it wasn't always necessarily true.

Speaker 8 In court, Garagos want a change of venue, though just 90 miles or so from Odesto, did anyone not know about the Peterson case?

Speaker 14 How is Scott feeling about the move?

Speaker 14 He just wants a trial to take place so that people will be able to see what really took place.

Speaker 30 Scott's mom assured reporters her son was innocent.

Speaker 113 But she couldn't have been very happy when everyone decapped to the new courthouse and saw this billboard a local radio station bought right across the street.

Speaker 95 Man or monster.

Speaker 77 What did you think when you saw that?

Speaker 71 Well, that was when we were about to start jury selection.

Speaker 122 First day of jury selection.

Speaker 71 So I think we were worried we were going to have another change of venue.

Speaker 4 But here it stayed.

Speaker 41 June 1st, 2004, a year and a half after Lacey Peterson vanished, her husband Scott went on trial for her murder.

Speaker 3 And right off the bat, the prosecution told the jury about Scott and Amber.

Speaker 62 He winced as they showed these photos of the two of them from the night of the party, the same photos that helped him get caught.

Speaker 35 And then they showed the jury this picture of Lacey.

Speaker 23 Same night, different party.

Speaker 1 She went alone.

Speaker 71 The reason for the murder was he didn't want to be married anymore. He didn't want to have a child.
He wanted a different life. And Amber was just a symptom of that.

Speaker 73 He didn't want what he had.

Speaker 69 And he wanted to be rid of what he had.

Speaker 33 He did.

Speaker 55 One way or another.

Speaker 122 Lacey and Connor were responsibilities, and he didn't want that.

Speaker 71 He doesn't care about anyone but himself. He can be very smooth, but

Speaker 71 there's something underneath the surface that is truly evil.

Speaker 30 So, said the prosecutors, Scott strangled or suffocated Lacey on Christmas Eve early in the morning or possibly the night before.

Speaker 104 And then after that, after he had done that.

Speaker 15 Drag her from the bedroom out to the carport, pickup truck back into the carport, take her out the side door, wrapped up most likely, load her into the bed of the truck, drive over to the warehouse, move her to the boat, cover the boat.

Speaker 80 Then, after sending an email and putting together a woodworking tool, law enforcement believed, he headed to the bay.

Speaker 25 But evidence of murder?

Speaker 2 That was all circumstantial.

Speaker 39 They had no incriminating DNA, minimal forensics, just all those little strands.

Speaker 103 And in fact, it didn't always go well for the prosecution, as Garagos worked to keep them off balance.

Speaker 71 We would try and present witnesses in a chronological order in a way that made sense to our theory of the case.

Speaker 71 And they were very good at disrupting that and saying, we're not ready for that witness or that.

Speaker 87 Just trying to throw a monkey wrench into your smooth telling of the story.

Speaker 95 Yeah.

Speaker 122 If it happened once, maybe it was just

Speaker 122 coincidence. If it happened every single week, at some point in time, it's a plan.

Speaker 34 It got worse for the prosecution.

Speaker 52 Carragos, who believed the Modesto PD had it out for his client, tried to make it look like Al Brocchini had hidden evidence.

Speaker 89 He asked him on the stand, did you delete information from a police report about Lacey visiting Scott's warehouse December 23rd?

Speaker 56 The answer was, I did. And then, okay, we're done for the day.
And it's like,

Speaker 56 you know, can I answer?

Speaker 39 And that was a very good point for him to make because it would create the impression that, in fact, Lacey did know about the boat as Scott said she did, and it lent credibility to the rest of his story as a result.

Speaker 56 Well, maybe, maybe not, but he could have got the whole story.

Speaker 68 Of course, the whole story wasn't what the defense attorney wanted, that the information was in another cop's report, that nothing had been hidden.

Speaker 35 But what did the jury think?

Speaker 88 What was your sense of how well that prosecution was going?

Speaker 128 I was

Speaker 135 a bit concerned. I felt

Speaker 33 that

Speaker 135 their burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt had not yet been met.

Speaker 62 But the big change, the C change, was the day she walked in.

Speaker 29 Walking in the courtroom, you could hear body shifting towards the door.

Speaker 19 A lot of pressure.

Speaker 103 As Scott watched, Amber Fry told the jury everything from strawberries and champagne on their first date to his tearful confession of losing his wife weeks before she went missing.

Speaker 127 How did you lose her then, before she was lost?

Speaker 1 Explain that.

Speaker 119 There are different kinds of lost Amber.

Speaker 1 And all those phone calls were played for the jury.

Speaker 135 The jury could hear his words, of course, not his words under oath, but his words on the phone call to Amber and how he lied and lied.

Speaker 56 and lied and even lied about lying.

Speaker 5 Mark Darragos did what he could.

Speaker 30 He went after Amber repeatedly, questioned her about how much she had to drink on her dates with Scott, and about how often she and Scott had sex and how soon.

Speaker 77 Did the defense rattle you?

Speaker 73 No, he tried.

Speaker 35 Amber didn't buckle and the prosecution hit its stride.

Speaker 23 An expert told the jury the baby died between December 23rd and December 25th.

Speaker 30 Another expert told the jury that Lacey's decomposition was consistent with three to six months in the water. And a search dog handler testified: her dog picked up Lacey's sand at the Berkeley Marina.

Speaker 61 And said the prosecutors, it was obvious Scott Peterson knew Lacey and Connor were gone for good.

Speaker 53 He'd even turned Connor's nursery into a storage room.

Speaker 122 Put office furniture and pillows and a locking device from a car in there.

Speaker 122 Scott wasn't expecting Connor to ever come home.

Speaker 106 Coming up.

Speaker 40 Did the lying cheat?

Speaker 49 Yes, he was.

Speaker 63 A cheater.

Speaker 16 A liar. But a killer?

Speaker 7 I mean, really.

Speaker 25 Who else could have done it?

Speaker 24 I'm glad you asked that question.

Speaker 16 When dateline continues.

Speaker 30 Four months into the trial, the defense got its chance to disprove the prosecution theory.

Speaker 35 We wanted to talk to Attorney attorney Mark Geraclus about the trial.

Speaker 52 He didn't respond to our request.

Speaker 66 We wanted to talk to Scott Peterson, but he wasn't interested.

Speaker 61 It turned us down, said his family, because he didn't like my coverage of the case back in 2003.

Speaker 91 Scott's frantic story, simple yet utterly baffling, was this.

Speaker 113 His family still insists he's an innocent man,

Speaker 113 and we wanted to hear that from them.

Speaker 50 They turned us down too and suggested we talk to a retired journalist named Richard Cole who shares their point of view and said the prosecution theory of the case makes no sense.

Speaker 24 Because it was so ridiculous. Scott Peterson

Speaker 24 kills his 160-pound wife, puts her body in the back of his truck.

Speaker 24 He then drives it to his office

Speaker 24 to pick up the boat. And then, what does he do? With the dead body of his wife in a parking lot he goes back into the office spends an hour

Speaker 33 on

Speaker 24 the internet sending christmas email to his boss and then he said oh well i guess i better get rid of the body now

Speaker 69 cole believes that media coverage biased against the defendant somehow seeped inside the courtroom this gigantic

Speaker 24 tsunami of media coverage, much of it false, much of it totally distorted,

Speaker 24 concentrating on things that had nothing to do with the evidence.

Speaker 24 And that basically, I think, consumed that little

Speaker 24 fact trial inside the courthouse.

Speaker 25 The most damaging witness against Scott, he said, didn't see anything really related to a murder, but nonetheless, forever tainted Scott in the eyes of the public and the jury.

Speaker 24 Once you started looking at that case through an Amber lens, everything he did was wrong.

Speaker 40 Because he's a lying cheat.

Speaker 49 Yes, he was.

Speaker 4 The affair with Amber, said Cole, made everything Scott did look sinister, but it didn't prove he killed Lacey.

Speaker 87 Scott Peterson was behaving pretty oddly.

Speaker 24 His behavior does look odd.

Speaker 33 He

Speaker 24 backed himself into a horrible position.

Speaker 40 Sure.

Speaker 99 He's thinking, if anyone ever finds out about this woman, not only will it look bad for me, but that will become what this story is about.

Speaker 24 And he was exactly right. So he very foolishly and not very well tried to keep her at bay with lies, thinking Lacey will be home next week.

Speaker 4 And that would explain why Scott hid from TV cameras, not guilt about Lacey.

Speaker 25 Guilt about Amber.

Speaker 70 In Cole's mind, Scott acted like a man who'd expected his wife to come home.

Speaker 59 So that, said Cole, is why Scott didn't want a ding on the car door when the cops were searching his truck.

Speaker 12 Sold Lacey's car, though.

Speaker 24 He did sell the car because, you know, he was not rich. The Peterson family isn't rich.

Speaker 70 And Scott hemmed and hawed about what he was fishing for, said Cole, because the whole point of the trip was not so much to catch something as it was to test the boat.

Speaker 35 before giving it to Lacey's stepdad, Ron Gransky, as a Christmas present.

Speaker 24 The boat was basically a kind of a gift, and that's why it was kept a secret from the Gransky's, because it was a Christmas thing.

Speaker 64 All innocent, said Cole.

Speaker 4 But why did Scott tell Amber before Lacey vanished, I lost my wife?

Speaker 37 Amber confronts Scott about having a wife, and he says, I lost her, and this will be my first Christmas without her.

Speaker 24 Yeah, Scott had had that line used on him by... a woman who was married and

Speaker 24 he asked her if she was married and she said

Speaker 24 I lost my husband. And Scott decided that he liked that and that was a really good line.

Speaker 70 In other words, Scott was a cad, not a killer.

Speaker 88 So said Cole, anyway.

Speaker 70 But then how to explain the strange similarities between Scott's fishing story and the circumstances of the murder?

Speaker 25 But you know, he went fishing in the bay. Yeah.

Speaker 70 They found the bodies in the bay.

Speaker 29 Yes.

Speaker 7 I mean, really.

Speaker 25 Who else could have done it?

Speaker 24 I'm glad you asked that question. Let's remember the scene.

Speaker 24 She disappears. Within a few days,

Speaker 81 Scott's I Went Fishing in Berkeley story is all over the media.

Speaker 80 So the real bad guys, maybe local sex offenders, or the two men arrested for the burglary across the street, took their victim to the bay and framed Scott that way.

Speaker 64 That's Cole's theory, anyway.

Speaker 70 Made more sense, he said, than the case against Scott.

Speaker 7 So, what really happened on that cold December morning?

Speaker 40 Twelve people would decide.

Speaker 84 Members of the jury, you have heard all the evidence and the arguments of the attorneys. And now it is my duty to instruct you on the law that applies to this case.

Speaker 35 After five months of trial, the jury went off to deliberate.

Speaker 7 One day, two,

Speaker 82 a week, they stayed out, and nobody knew what were they thinking.

Speaker 4 Coming up, a legacy.

Speaker 19 She's in heaven and she's in our hearts.

Speaker 16 A life in the jury's hands.

Speaker 14 They just burst into tears. Everything just comes gushing out.

Speaker 4 And now, 20 years later, a new turn in the case.

Speaker 67 Nearly two years after Lacey disappeared, after nine days of deliberation, the jury in the Scott Peterson trial finally announced they had a verdict.

Speaker 71 So it's pretty exciting and terrifying.

Speaker 40 As the crowds gathered out front, the reporters got into position and everyone flooded back into the courtroom.

Speaker 89 What is it like for your level of anxiety?

Speaker 14 I felt like I was going to explode.

Speaker 107 Your verdict is being read right now in a California courtroom in the double murder case against Scott Peterson. There is no camera in the courtroom, but an audio, live audio feed is being provided.

Speaker 14 We, the jury, in the above entitled Cause, find the defendant Scott Lee Peterson guilty of the crime of murder of Lacey Denise Peterson.

Speaker 66 Finally, the words Sharon and all those who loved Lacey had been waiting for.

Speaker 30 Guilty of Lacey's murder.

Speaker 29 And.

Speaker 14 Guilty of the crime of murder of baby Connor Peterson.

Speaker 82 Outside the courthouse, crowds cheered.

Speaker 101 Inside?

Speaker 14 I remember I just burst into tears. Everything just comes gushing out.
It's just two years of anxiety, of waiting.

Speaker 66 A month later, the jury decided Scott's fate.

Speaker 14 We, the jury in the above-entitled cause, fixed the penalty at death.

Speaker 30 For 15 years, Scott Peterson sat on San Quentin's death row.

Speaker 57 He filed the usual appeals, but was pretty well written off, a condemned man.

Speaker 30 Until 2020, when something completely unexpected happened. The California Supreme Court affirmed one of his appeals and changed his sentence to life.

Speaker 67 And then those same justices took another step.

Speaker 30 They ordered the original court to evaluate another of Peterson's claims that

Speaker 67 one of the trial jurors, a woman named Rochelle Nice, known at the time as Strawberry Shortcake for her hair,

Speaker 30 lied to get on the case because she had it out for Scott Peterson.

Speaker 125 San Quinn's your new home.

Speaker 30 The Constitution guarantees the right to an impartial jury.

Speaker 30 So if Peterson's attorneys could prove Nice was biased before she sat on that jury, Scott Peterson's conviction for killing his wife and unborn child would be overturned.

Speaker 98 And so there were hearings through 2022.

Speaker 36 Nice was questioned about her responses on a questionnaire given out to potential jurors.

Speaker 36 In particular, why she neglected to mention an incident of domestic abuse.

Speaker 62 She also failed to mention she'd filed for a restraining order against a woman she said threatened her while she was pregnant.

Speaker 82 Nice testified she hadn't remembered the restraining order, and as for the abuse, she was the one who started the fight.

Speaker 25 In fact, her boyfriend back then never hit her, even though he pleaded no contest to one charge of battery.

Speaker 37 Peterson's appeals attorney told the judge,

Speaker 37 the original defense would have booted Nice from the jury pool if he'd known her true story.

Speaker 63 He would never have permitted this juror.

Speaker 2 The prosecution countered that Nice wasn't biased, she was just sloppy.

Speaker 136 Being wrong does not necessarily make it false or make her a liar. It just might be that she's really bad at filling out forms.

Speaker 34 Then, just before Christmas 2022, the judge issued her decision.

Speaker 25 Peterson's request for a new trial was denied.

Speaker 35 She wrote, Nice's responses were not motivated by preexisting or improper bias against petitioner, but instead were the result of a combination of good faith misunderstanding of the questions and sloppiness in answering.

Speaker 37 Scott Peterson's family said, it's not over.

Speaker 30 He'll try again.

Speaker 54 And really, none of it will ever be over for those who were drawn into this case.

Speaker 38 Lacey's mother, her friends, their lives never really returned to normal. How could they?

Speaker 40 But they've adapted like humans do.

Speaker 25 Stacey, Laurie, and Renee now have their own children.

Speaker 30 And those children who never met Lacey know her.

Speaker 7 In a way.

Speaker 46 She's a part of our lives. I mean, she is a part of our life still, so that means our children need to know about that part of our lives.

Speaker 19 She's special and she had a baby.

Speaker 66 So the cemetery isn't a place of sadness for them, usually.

Speaker 46 I love it because my boys get to hear about her and they always bring cars out for Connor, or I think they brought a baseball out this time.

Speaker 61 It's a place where they can celebrate a life.

Speaker 50 Someone they loved.

Speaker 93 She's in heaven and she's in our hearts.

Speaker 89 They're Lacy.

Speaker 89 They're beautiful.

Speaker 132 Oh, how pretty.

Speaker 26 That's all for now.

Speaker 17 I'm Lester Holt.

Speaker 39 Thanks for joining us.

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