Notorious: Scott Peterson - Part 2

42m

When 8 months pregnant Laci Peterson went missing on Christmas Eve 2002, her disappearance became a shocking national story. Scott, convicted of her murder 15 years ago, now has grounds for an appeal. Did Scott receive a fair trial? 

Season 20, Episode 1 (Special Episode)

Originally aired: May 6, 2017

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Listen and follow along

Transcript

Weight loss medications are everywhere right now.

Everyone's talking about them, everyone's on them.

But let's be real.

Have you seen the price tag?

It's hard to believe they're actually accessible.

That's where HERS comes in.

HERS is transforming women's healthcare by providing access to affordable weight loss treatment plans.

They connect you with a medical provider who will work with you to determine the best treatment option for you.

So, if you've been struggling to find a solution to your weight loss journey, it's time to find the best option that works for you through HERS.

Start your free online visit today at forhers.com/slash snapped.

That's F-O-R-H-E-R-S dot com slash snapped for your personalized weight loss treatment options.

For HERS.com slash snapped.

Weight loss by HERS is not available everywhere.

Compounded products are not approved or reviewed for safety, effectiveness, or quality by the FDA.

Prescription required.

See website for full details, important safety information, and restrictions.

Actual price depends on product and plan purchased.

Everyone wants to be stronger, not just physically, but in every part of life.

But between confusing workout advice, complicated equipment, and trying to figure out nutrition, where does anyone even start?

Well, to get stronger mentally and physically, go to Anytime Fitness.

You'll get a personalized training, nutrition, and recovery plan, all customized to your body, your strength level, and your goals.

You'll get expert coaching to optimize your results.

anytime, anywhere, in the gym, and on the Anytime Fitness app.

And you'll get anytime access to 5,500 gyms worldwide, all with the right equipment to level up your strength gains and your life.

So get started at anytimefitness.com.

That's anytime fitness.com.

What started with a report of a missing pregnant woman is now a notorious double murder case in Modesta, California.

When eight-month pregnant Lacey Peterson went missing on Christmas Eve, the community searched furiously, hoping for her safe return.

The reward for information leading to Lacey's whereabouts stands at half a million dollars.

Police appeared to immediately focus their attention on Lacey's husband, Scott, possibly ignoring other potential suspects.

Shocking revelations about Scott's personal life turned the media and the public against him.

Scott told me he was not married.

A week after two bodies washed ashore, police arrested Scott Peterson, although there was no forensic evidence connecting him to the crime.

DNA analysis completed yesterday established the identities as Lacey Peterson and their baby.

Once the bodies were found, I had to call some of the family.

I know I called Brent,

Lacey's brother.

It was hard because

these are people.

They're not just the subjects of your story, they're people.

Brent's such such a good guy.

He said, I knew he did this to her.

I knew he did this to her.

At that point, you're not really a reporter.

You're just

a human being relating to another human being in complete anguish.

Returning from San Diego with Scott Peterson in custody, the Modesto police must notify Scott about his wife and child.

We told him that the DNA results had identified Lacey and Connor.

There might have been a little sniffle.

I couldn't tell really if he was tearing up too much.

But of course, I'm driving, so I can't study him too much except through the rearview mirror.

We continued the drive until I said, hey, we're going to get something to eat.

If you'd like, we'll get you something to eat.

And that was when he said, well, John, where are you thinking of stopping?

And I told him, I said, well, there's an In-N-Out burger up the road.

And he looked at me and he just said, in and out.

I'll have a double-double with cheese, a small fry, and a vanilla shake.

Maybe 10, 20 minutes earlier, we told him that his wife and his child were dead, and he's ordering a cheeseburger like it's no big deal, like you're coming back from fishing.

Now, to me, that kind of summed it up.

And if I had any doubts about his involvement in her murder, they were pretty much erased with his supporter of that cheeseburger.

We had heard that he was taken into custody around noon down in San Diego and that they were on their way back.

Over the next few hours, this huge crowd assembled outside the jail.

And when they pulled in, it was an incredible scene.

People were yelling, murderer, and it was something that I've never seen before or since.

He was in the backseat of a sedan, and they brought him in.

It was just a wild, wild scene.

I'll never forget it.

Under tight security, Scott Peterson was walked into a packed Modesto courtroom today, facing two counts of murder.

California law allows for a second count of murder.

for the death of an unborn child.

The prosecution charged him with double murder and immediately said that they were intending to seek the death penalty.

Even though there was no direct evidence in this case, no eyewitnesses, no blood, no fingerprints, no saliva, no anything, no crime scene, the DA announced they'd be seeking the death penalty for Scott Peterson.

A week later, Scott Peterson hires Mark Vargos.

Mark Varagos, he had already established himself as a high-powered attorney in Los Angeles, who had celebrity clients like Renona Ryder, Michael Jackson.

He's the big dog.

The story of how he got Mark Garagos

was

very interesting.

He appeared, I believe, on Larry King.

Garagos said, well, of course he's guilty.

They seem to be fairly confident that they have something and they clearly are focused on him.

Jackie, his mom,

got hold of Garagos and told him the story.

And Garragos said, okay,

maybe I'll check this out.

In three months, Garagos goes from skeptic to convert.

They became convinced that he's innocent.

When was that?

After talking with the parents and reviewing the discovery.

Choosing a lawyer is difficult in any case, but when you get to a level of this type of media coverage, you need a lawyer that can handle the spotlight.

For someone like Mark Garagos to step into this case is,

you know, basically a lie at the end of the tunnel to someone like Scott Peterson.

Mark Garagos suggested Detective Phil Owens did not follow up on critical leads.

Garagos immediately gets to work investigating suspects the police did not pursue.

Mark Garagos said that there was this subculture in Modesto of real dark, demented people that were going around kidnapping pregnant women.

And one of them happened to be Lacey Peterson.

They were driving up, saw Lacey, kidnapped her, threw her in the van.

Before Lacey had disappeared, the children of Satan cult had been prosecuted by the Modesto DA

on multiple murder counts.

My name is Matt Dalton.

I am a criminal defense lawyer, worked on the Scott Peterson case.

Seven pregnant women disappeared from that area between 1999 and 2002.

The Modesto DA's office had a cult unit which specialized in the prosecution of cult members.

It's not a coincidence that seven pregnant women disappeared from that area.

I'm telling you on Lacey Peterson,

there's satanic cult influence here.

She was targeted because she was pregnant.

It appears police chose not to investigate this theory.

You can't just look at one person no matter how smart you think you are as an investigator, that you've got the right guy and ignore all other leads.

Scott Peterson, who is always their only suspect, truly, in the murder.

A survey conducted by a local TV station finds that 83% of Bay Area residents think Scott Peterson is guilty or probably guilty.

To counteract this, Defense Attorney Mark Garragos uses a pretrial motion to push for a change of venue.

The judge ruled that there needed to be a change of venue.

There was no way they could hold this trial in Stanislaus County because Scott was enemy number one there.

The judge agrees to move the trial from Modesto to Redwood City.

Redwood City and Modesto are basically the same communities.

80 miles away, and they have the same basic news coverage.

Michael Cardoza, I was part of the Scott Peterson criminal defense team.

You want to move this case and give this kid a fair trial, you move it to L.A.

or San San Diego where people don't pay a lot of attention to it.

That is the biggest mistake in this trial.

Wall-to-wall media coverage of the case makes it incredibly difficult to find impartial jurors.

You couldn't go anywhere where people didn't know about the Scott Peterson case.

It took months and months and months to pick a jury.

Most of them said, no, I think he's guilty.

Attorneys interview over 1,500 potential jurors over a period of nine weeks before agreeing upon a jury.

My name is Mike Belmasieri.

I was juror number four in the Scott Lee Peterson murder trial.

I'm Justin Faulkner.

I was juror number five in the Scott Peterson trial.

When I first received the summons for jury duty, My wife handed it to me and I opened it up and I go, oh damn, I've got jury duty.

She goes, oh, it's probably for the Peterson trial.

I said, no way.

I didn't follow anything about Scott Peterson or Lacey Peterson.

When I got the jury notice, I just thought it was for a random jury trial.

So automatically it was, how do I get out of this?

With the change of venue, a new judge is assigned to the trial.

On his first day, Judge DeLucci bans cameras from the courtroom to reduce media influence on the jury.

Judge DeLucci did not want the jurors swayed by seeing the media cameras in his courtroom.

I'm Peter Shaplin.

I was the media coordinator for the Scott Peterson double murder trial.

The trial of Scott Lee Peterson begins on June 1st, 2004, 17 months after Lacey Peterson was reported missing.

With Scott Peterson's life on the line, Lead prosecutor Rick Destaso faces off against defense attorney Mark Garagos.

Destaso has prosecuted several death penalty cases.

This is Garagos'

first.

When I walked into that courtroom, when I finally saw Scott Peterson, I saw a young man that was about the same age as my oldest son.

And you walk in the room, and that place was packed.

And it was like, wow.

I mean, wow.

The interest in the trial was off the charts.

There were people from literally around the world covering this trial.

I had a friend that was in Iraq and saw my face on the TVs playing in the background.

You know, OJ trial you could watch on TV.

That was easy.

This was a little different.

Cameras were not allowed, yet information was disseminating out of that courtroom.

Reporters inside the courtroom managed to work around Judge DeLucci's restrictions.

You could either text or email from inside the courtroom, and that was the way you could alert your producers around the country on what was going on minute to minute.

So while there were no cameras allowed during the trial, there was plenty of information.

There was more media at this case than there was at O.J.

Simpson.

The media demonized him, saying there was just one murderer, Scott Peterson.

Anything to say, Mr.

Peterson?

After almost a year of preliminary hearings, jury selection, a change of venue, and an increasing public appetite for all things Scott Peterson, the trial for the murder of Lacey and Connor Peterson is underway.

I think Scott Peterson was a cold, calculating person.

I think he intended to kill Lacey.

The prosecutors presented to the jury a very strong circumstantial evidence case.

And they did it methodically, and they did it in a way that was very compelling to this jury.

The prosecution's case was: Scott killed Lacey in the home.

He then transported her body near the back of his truck

to the warehouse where he kept his boat.

He then transferred her body into the boat

and then took the boat out to the bay.

He left her body there anchored down by these little eight-pound anchors that he supposedly created in the warehouse.

That was what they wanted us to believe.

But not everyone believes this version of events.

He's not a guy that would kill a woman.

The police early on in the case had leaked false stories about Scott making anchors.

The lead detective says that he sees an outline of five circular marks on Scott's flatbed trailer.

Show us what you were looking at.

We see the picture, and there aren't five circular marks on that.

flatbed trailer.

He made it up.

Zero evidence of anchors being made.

The prosecution was unable to create any momentum at all because there was no real physical evidence against Scott Peterson.

There was no murder weapon.

There was no blood, no DNA.

I remember during the trial, I railed against the prosecutors, saying they weren't prepared.

Right from the get-go, I could tell they're not going to prove this beyond a reasonable doubt.

With no forensic evidence, it appeared to some that prosecutor Rick Destaso was presenting a lackluster case.

Garagos was doing a very good job.

I actually wondered to myself if Destaso Destaso actually believed what he was putting forth because it just didn't seem like he did.

The prosecution did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he killed her.

The feeling was for the first few months of this trial was that Scott Peterson was going to be found not guilty.

The public need for any stories related to the case continues to drive the media frenzy.

The insatiable appetite for this story was like nothing that I'd ever seen before.

This was covered on an hourly basis, not just a wrap-up of what happened in court today.

It was what happened 10 minutes ago and people were glued to every part of this case.

They all wanted to be part of the big show because it became a show.

It became a spectacle, really.

It was big business for the networks.

What was happening was riveting riveting even if you couldn't see it.

That drama helped networks sell a lot of commercial time because the audience was eating it up.

They had set up tents and all these legal analysts came out of nowhere.

They came out of the woodworks and they would all break apart every witness.

Were they credible?

Were they not credible?

So we were getting analysis in a split second, the moment they were off the stand.

It was insane.

With every network delivering its own own spin on the case, even the people deciding Scott's fate can't escape the media.

That jury should have been taken away and sequestered, taken out back doors, not anywhere, let anywhere near the public, not be allowed to go home during that whole trial.

You know, you're walking past these media tents and they're in there, you know, talking about Scott Peterson this, Scott Peterson that, and it's the next tent, and it's the next tent.

I hear it, what they're saying, you know, I mean, and it's not like I had a choice.

There was no going around it.

The media was always filming inside the lobby of the courthouse.

And I was coming to the courthouse one morning.

Brent Rosha happened to be standing next to me that day, and there was a cameraman right behind us.

I said, Trying to avoid the news today.

And he said, Yeah, wait till they're calling through your garbage.

That was all we said.

And the media was all over me.

What did you say to Brent?

Then the bailiff said, Justin, we need to talk to you in the judge's chambers.

I said, okay.

And I walked in there.

Judge DeLucci said, you know, we're going to go ahead and let you go.

Justin Falconer is dismissed for having contact with the victim's brother, Brent Rocha, despite the fact that their exchange had nothing to do with the case.

I kind of was surprised by it.

Garragos was furious.

I remember Mark Garagos saying, are we letting the media pick our juries now?

Garragos demanded a mistrial, but was refused.

Justin Faulkner, dismissed and now free to talk to the press, gave both the prosecution and the defense their first real insight as to what the jury might be thinking.

An excused juror told reporters he thinks Scott Peterson is not guilty.

I haven't seen anything that...

you know, would make me believe that, you know, he committed the crime.

Justin Faulkner was very clear about that, that Scott Peterson was innocent.

And it was a real wake-up call for both sides.

Let's go!

Bravos, the real housewives of Salt Lake City, are back.

Here we are, ladies.

I don't like it.

And they're taking things to the next level.

You know, some people just get on your nerves.

You questioned every single thing I have.

You're supposed to be my sister.

I am your sister.

No, you're not.

We have to be honest about this.

I'm afraid.

You should pay the lawsuits off.

No one sues the bottom.

They all go for the top.

Can I have the crazy pill at y'all put?

Apparently, you're already taking it.

The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, September 16th, I'm Bravo.

And streaming, I'm Peacock.

Streaming now on Peacock.

We sell toilet tissue and local newspapers.

That is in order of quality.

Gonna take a little time.

From the crew that brought you the office.

My name is Ned Sampson.

I am your new editor-in-chief.

Comes a new comedy series.

Have you read this paper?

Uh-huh.

It sucks.

But we are going to make it better.

Meet the underdog journalist.

I hope it's not too disruptive to have me shake everything off.

Don't be so self-defecating.

With major issues.

Oscar.

Oh, God.

Not again.

The paper.

Only on Peacock.

Streaming now.

Amber Fry knows she's a reluctant celebrity in an intensely publicized murder trial.

When Amber Fry walked into that courtroom, everything changed.

It was packed and it was

completely silent.

You could hear people's body shift to see me walk in.

After they swear you in,

I was to point out Scott Peterson.

That was the only time that I had to look at him.

Only thing I had to do was give truthful testimony.

What she was able to do on that stand turned every member of that jury against Scott Peterson.

Not only by her testimony, but more importantly, by those tapes.

Cooperating with the police, Amber Fry had started taping her conversations with Scott just six days after Lacey went missing.

These tapes became the prosecution's most damning evidence.

One of the most poignant phone calls between Amber Fry and Scott Peterson was a call made on New Year's Eve.

And during that time, there's a vigil going on for Lacey.

Hello?

Baby!

Yes!

Amber!

How was your new year?

It's good.

I did true awesome fireworks there with Evil Tower.

Well, that's good.

I'm glad you guys decided to go out.

Oh, definitely.

Scott told me he's in Europe and he was walking on cobblestones and there was all kinds of festivities going on.

I can never remember your friend's name.

Pat's call.

Prosqua, yeah.

Good.

Resolution.

What should my New Year's resolution be?

Oh, I don't know.

That was my question.

What he did talking on the phone to his mistress, lying about being in Paris while he's at a vigil for his missing wife, is something that you cannot relate to as a human being.

I'll miss you, and I'll I'll try to call you back.

It'll be nine o'clock here in the morning.

I meant to call you back for New Year's, for your New Year's.

I just send it.

Typically, as a juror, you envision yourself as the defendant.

This was a scenario where, as a juror, you look at him and you listen to those tapes, and you cannot envision yourself in his seat.

I don't miss you, baby.

I'm missing you.

I get reminded every so often.

Our relationship is to go.

Have confidence in that.

Do you know everything in this time?

Tell how beautiful you are.

Good night.

Good night.

The jury is now seeing two faces of Scott Peterson.

One where he's the grieving husband that he plays for the cameras.

On the other end, a narcissist, psychopath, who's on the phone with the woman he's romancing while his wife is still missing and he's portraying himself as the grieving husband.

And the jury is not liking Scott Peterson.

That jury hated him.

Amber Fry's conversations with Scott, they did tend to make you wonder about the credibility of the individual sitting in the defense table.

What the prosecution was doing was putting up a picture of Lacey Peterson all alone at a Christmas party, pregnant.

This is what Lacey was doing while he's cheating with Amber Fry.

Is that any evidence of anything?

No.

Is that a rational argument?

No.

Was it a persuasive argument?

Hell yes.

Amber Frye, they went after her pretty hard.

Mark Garrigos wanted to ruin her reputation.

He said, you know what?

She's some floozy, just some loose tramp that, you know, slept with Scott on the first night.

But I think she came out very sympathetic,

like really another victim of Scott's.

The prosecution was struggling, but after Amber took the stand and the tapes were played, it was over.

Scott was going down.

The prosecution presents some of its most persuasive evidence near the end of their case.

Horrific autopsy photos of Connor and Lacey Peterson.

Little Connor, he was almost fully developed.

You could see his face, and all you had is a torso of Lacey.

That's all you had.

Oh, God, they were terrible.

When I saw that,

after having seen the beautiful young woman who was fat before,

It hit me.

Lacey's mom and stepdad, you could see the wear and tear on their faces.

The emotions.

It's been nearly two years since Lacey Peterson was reported missing.

For over four months, the prosecution has presented a circumstantial case against Scott Peterson.

Most compelling are the audio recordings of Peterson and Amber Fry, and the gruesome autopsy photos.

On October 5th, the prosecution rested.

They proved

that Scott Peterson had done exactly what he said he did that morning.

She went fishing,

but they presented a scenario where somehow Scott Peterson killed Lacey.

They have no forensic evidence.

Drags her out, puts her body in the back of his pickup truck.

They examined that truck over and over.

There was no forensic evidence in the truck, and it had not been cleaned.

Drives her.

to his office to pick up the boat.

Transfers transfers her body in an open parking lot into the boat.

He says to himself, Oh, wait, I have some email I need to check.

This is what the evidence at the trial show.

I don't know anybody who would have the calm, the nerve, if you will, to sit inside of an office and send off Christmas emails while the body of my dead wife is now sitting in the back of my truck.

And he goes and he drives 90 miles to the Berkeley Marina.

It was a marina full of thousands of houseboats.

There were people there that watched him try to back the boat up into the water.

He hit a pole.

They saw this.

This boat was tiny.

They can see inside the boat.

Goes out and dumps that body in the shallowest part of San Francisco Bay.

The whole story just didn't make any sense to me.

Starting October 18th, 2004, more than four and a half months into the trial, with the possibility of the death penalty on the table, Mark Garragos presents Scott's defense.

What I expected from the defense

was for them to tell me why Scott was innocent or to give me some evidence that would suggest that he wasn't guilty.

Eager to create reasonable doubt, the defense presents a different scenario for what might have happened to Lacey Peterson.

Lacey was kidnapped by homeless people.

They took her and then they killed her and they drove her over the San Francisco Bridge and threw her in the bay.

You have a homeless person kidnapping this woman.

They happen to have a vehicle that they can afford to drive to San Francisco Bay.

And then I guess they had to have a boat, took her out there and dumped her in the bay.

That's basically the summarization of the defense's case.

There was nothing to indicate or that would support that claim.

A jury trial, especially a murder trial and a special circumstance case, in other words, a death penalty case, is based a whole lot on emotion and a whole lot on whether the jury likes the defendant or not.

We know in this case, Scott was not well liked.

In my mind, I thought, you got to put Scott on.

You got to have him explain this.

I did cross-examine him in a mock cross-examination.

It was not enough time to prepare him to properly testify in front of that jury.

Too little, too late.

You know, Scott never testified.

So

you had to draw conclusions based on things other than his testimony.

Garagos' decision to keep Scott Peterson off the stand may have been the safe choice.

Why take a chance and put a witness on the stand who might screw you up?

Certainly, that's why you don't put Scott Peterson on the stand.

I believe Mark felt he was so far ahead and the case against Scott was so weak that he was able to rest without presenting critical information.

The defense never presented any evidence nor testimony.

that would lead anybody to believe within reason that Scott Peterson was not guilty of murder.

The defense was working on the assumption that they were working an old-fashioned trial where you present the facts, if there's reasonable doubt, you get acquitted.

What the defense didn't know is the jurors didn't want to hear the facts.

After nearly five months of grueling testimony, the case goes to the jury.

By the end of the the trial, I didn't like Scott Peterson, and yeah, others didn't like him either.

But

it had no bearing on our decision of guilt or innocence.

I can tell you straight up: this jury didn't base it on the facts of the case because they had no facts, they did it on pure emotion.

When the deliberations first started, we brought in the whiteboard, we have papers hanging all over, we had flip charts, and you know, we said, Okay,

let's let's begin to dissect the case.

The jurors deliberated for six days and we heard nothing.

As every day passed, the

intensity just ratcheted up the pressure.

People were coming to the courthouse.

Even though court wasn't in session, they were just standing around waiting for word that the jury had come to a verdict.

It was a mob outside that courtroom.

I'm telling you, it was a hanging mob.

The case was saturated with media, and so the jurors really had no choice but to comply with kind of a mob mentality that was arguably created by the media.

Is it possible the jury is feeling the intense pressure from the public gathered outside?

Those jurors think, oh my God, if I vote not guilty in this, what's going to happen to me?

Will they come to my house?

Will my life be threatened?

One week into the deliberations, jury foreman Gregory Jackson asks Judge DeLucci to remove him from the case.

He went to the judge and said that they're not in there deliberating guilt or innocence.

They're deliberating the best book deal.

I want to be off this jury.

And inexplicably, he was dismissed.

Removing a juror in the middle of deliberations is unusual and extreme.

Gregory Jackson is the second juror replaced during deliberations.

Pundits and public alike are shocked by Judge DeLucchi's action.

I've heard people say that our jury foreman wanted off because he felt threatened by other jurors.

And I don't know how he would have felt that way.

Somehow, those 11 people intimidated the holy bejesus out of him to the point where he went to the judge and said, I really feel threatened.

You got to get me out of here.

That's shocking to me.

The verdict happened on November 12th.

By the time the verdict was going to be announced at 1.30, the plaza was filled and these people were emotionally charged.

They wanted justice.

They wanted justice as they saw it.

The day of the verdict, Jackie Peterson, Scott's mom.

She walked in, she had the oxygen with the tank, looking frail, and Sharon Rocha, Lacey's mother, along with Brent, Lacey's brother.

The courtroom was packed and dead silent.

I remember the jurors filing in.

My heart was like.

All eyes are on the fourth person.

Trying to read the jury, was there any kind of signal at all that we could discern?

And there wasn't.

A verdict is reached,

but is it based on evidence or emotion?

The jury system didn't work.

And will Scott Peterson have grounds to make a successful appeal?

There was critical evidence that was never presented to Scott's jury.

A juror lied during jury selection.

That's a pretty big red flag to me.

After an exhausting and emotional double murder trial that dominated national news for five months, Scott Peterson returned to the courtroom to receive his verdict.

The people of the state of California versus Scott Lee Peterson, we the jury.

Find the defendant Scott Lee Peterson guilty of the crime of

the crowd.

Absolutely went crazy.

You could even hear it on the second floor in the courtroom.

Cheers.

Congratulating.

It's like your team just won the Super Bowl.

It was a circus.

People were excited and like giving each other high fives.

It was disturbing.

All these lives have been destroyed.

There's nothing to be celebrating.

The jury reached its verdict after just seven days of deliberations.

When we rendered our verdict, what I saw and what my 11 other fellow jurors saw was very clear.

Scott kills Lacey.

Scott dumps Lacey in the bay.

Scott's behavior is not indicative of what one would expect of a grieving husband.

If the body had turned up in Sassoon Bay, Richardson Bay, down in Milpitas, 100 and something miles out of where he says he was, Scott would be walking free today.

That's not where it turned up.

She was found near the Berkeley Marina, exactly where Scott had been fishing.

That was really the ultimate factor that supported our decision.

Ladies and gentlemen, Scott Peterson is guilty because he went fishing at the same place the body was found and he didn't act as a normal husband would act in this particular case.

To me, that's shocking.

Detective Broccini has a press conference in December of 2002.

They announced that Scott Peterson was fishing in the San Francisco Bay.

That information was leaked early in the case.

It has no value.

The fact that he was there on the 24th doesn't prove anything.

Certainly raised the possibility that somebody else could have dumped her body there after Scott became the center of attention.

On October 30th, 2004, the trial penalty phase begins.

This time, jurors will also hear impact statements from family members before deciding whether or not Scott Peterson should be put to death.

I think the moment everybody remembers was when Sharon Rocha took took the stand.

Oh my God.

Sharon Roach's impact statement was riveting.

She spoke for Lacey and Cotter.

She goes, you left her with no arms to clutch her child to protect Connor.

I mean, she was looking right at him as she was testifying to this.

I mean, you could hear a pin drop.

That's how quiet the courtroom was.

Even for a tough old fart like me, it hits you.

But how could it not?

The jurors were crying.

It didn't hit Scott.

Didn't hit him.

Like, what the hell is wrong with you, fool?

When the jury came back, none of them looked at Scott.

The jurors return once again to deliver a verdict, but this time, they they will choose life or death for Scott Peterson.

We, the jury in the government helicopter,

fix the penalty of death.

Sharon?

She hunched over like this.

There was a collective exhale in the room, like

it was over.

people.

All the jury was given in the penalty phase was evidence based on emotion.

So how can you expect the jury to make a decision based on anything other than emotion?

Guess what, Scotty?

San Quinn's your new home.

And it's illegal to kill your wife and child in California.

The jury got so emotionally entangled with this and had such hate and dislike for Scott, they walked that death penalty verdict right in.

Scott Peterson was judged, not on the basis of evidence that came into trial.

He was judged with a scarlet A across his chest for adultery.

Did people come across like they didn't like him?

Of course, because they didn't.

And who would?

It was a witch hunt.

It was a mob.

It was a lynching.

In this instance, the jury system didn't work.

I do not believe Scott Peterson should be on death row.

I think this was a bizarre combination of media insanity and police duplicity.

And what the prosecution did par excellence is make people angry at Scott Peterson.

It fed into a narrative that people wanted.

Media fed on it.

The police used it and he became the

to many people.

In 2015, Scott Peterson submitted a habeas petition to the California Supreme Court, looking to overturn his conviction.

Due to evidence that has come to light, Peterson's sister, Janie Peterson, summarized the new information in a statement.

There was critical evidence that was never presented to Scott's jury.

Several witnesses have come forward who saw Lacey Peterson after Scott Peterson had left his home for the day.

Six witnesses reported seeing Lacey Peterson alive walking her dog around the block the morning of December 24th, all documented in the Dasco police reports.

Why weren't those six witnesses presented to the jury?

The police interviewed all these people and they just dismissed them.

It was important to the police that nobody had seen Lacey walking that dog because if they did, then their whole theory falls apart then there's no way that Scott Peterson could have killed her because he was gone by this time

also in the petition evidence that a house near the Petersons was burglarized around the time Lacey went missing my theory is that the burglary occurred on the day that Lacey went missing Lacey went out for the walk that morning, went down to the park.

She came back up.

She happened to see the Medina residence being burglarized.

She sees the van, maybe she sees people moving stuff into the van and goes over and says, Hey, who are you?

And what are you doing?

Because that's who she was.

They panicked, they snatched her up and then forced her into the van.

One of the guys who was involved in the burglary, a friend of his was now in prison.

The guy's brother was talking to him, and the brother in prison says to him, What about the Lacey thing?

And the brother outside says, don't say anything.

This conversation is being recorded.

The defense since then has gone back and said, well, we want to see the tape.

Oops, tape gone.

That's a free big red flag to me.

And it doesn't stop there.

The habeas petition even includes new evidence about a juror who lied.

to get on the jury.

A juror lied during jury selection on something really important, which was she'd been a victim of a very similar crime.

And when she was asked that question, have you been a victim of crime?

She said no.

That's called a stealth juror.

If you can't find out if a juror was biased, it impacts your right to a fair and impartial jury under the Sixth Amendment.

You didn't get a fair trial.

It's clearly not over for Scott Peterson.

He murdered my child.

So as far as I'm concerned, he's where he needs to be.

I don't think the wound ever closes.

The word closure means nothing to me.

It's just a word.

Because Lacey's gone, so that is never going to end, come to an end, and close.

And I miss her as much today as I did from the very beginning.

Tune into oxygen.com for more.

How hard is it to kill a planet?

Maybe all it takes is a little drilling, some mining, and a whole lot of carbon pumped into the atmosphere.

When you see what's left, it starts to look like a crime scene.

Are we really safe?

Is our water safe?

You destroyed our town.

And crimes like that, they don't just happen.

We call things accidents.

There is no accident.

This was 100%

preventable.

They're the result of choices by people.

Ruthless oil tycoons, corrupt politicians, even organized crime.

These are the stories we need to be telling about our changing planet.

Stories of scams, murders, and cover-ups that are about us and the things we're doing to either protect the Earth or destroy it.

Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad-free right now by joining Wonder Plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.