How Scott Peterson cops missed seven chilling clues in Laci Peterson murder case and ‘dismissed’ burglary nearby
SCOTT Peterson will be resentenced on Wednesday after spending more than 15 years on Death Row over the 2002 murders of his pregnant wife and unborn son.
The convicted killer was found guilty of the first-degree murder of Laci Peterson, 27, who was eight months pregnant, and the second-degree murder of the boy they planned to name Connor.
But Peterson maintains his innocence and his family say police ignored, dismissed, or missed several important pieces of evidence they say would clear Scott's name.
Superior Court Judge Anne-Christine Massullo said she wants to sentence Peterson before deciding whether he deserves a new trial in 2022 over alleged juror misconduct.
Here The Sun looks at the seven chilling clues that may be re-examined under a new trial.
BURGLARY 'IGNORED'
If Peterson gets a new trial, his attorney has said he will present new evidence bolstering the defense theory that Laci was killed when she stumbled upon a nearby burglary.
The state’s high court last year said that there was considerable circumstantial evidence incriminating Peterson in the slayings.
Peterson's sister-in-law Janey has concluded that her brother-in-law is innocent and that authorities are to blame for his conviction.
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Janey claims police disregarded most of the leads into Laci’s murder, including a burglary that transpired across the street from their home on that fateful 2002 day.
"A neighbor, Diane Jackson, said she saw three men in a van in front of the home on Dec. 24 that morning,” she has said, claiming that Laci caught robbers in the act and they kidnapped and killed her.
However, the robbers Donald Pearce and Steven Todd denied any involvement in the case and were cleared by a police investigation.
Despite being cleared by police, Janey believes they killed Laci and framed Peterson by disposing of her body 90 miles away in an area where Peterson happened to be fishing at the time.
"If you have an opportunity to get away with murder, you're going to do it," Janey said.
"We don't have justice. This crime is not solved," she added.
NEIGHBORS 'SAW LACI'
Janey has also created a “war room” of evidence and has talked to witnesses who say they saw Laci alive after authorities say she was killed.
“The justice system has failed here, and a lot of aspects have failed,” she told CBS 13.
“It started with the Modesto Police Department. And it started with the fact that they didn’t follow up on evidence that showed Laci was alive the morning of December 24,” Janey added.
Authorities had said that they believed the pregnant woman died on the morning of the 24th or the previous night.
The reported sightings all happened between 9.45 and 10.30 on the morning of the 24th, after Peterson said he left to go fishing.
None of these witnesses were called to trial.
However, Modesto Police Department detective Al Brocchini has said that cops concluded the woman they spotted was not Laci but another pregnant lady with a golden retriever.
PRISONER 'CONFESSION'
Lieutenant Xavier Aponte at Norco Prison in California phoned in a tip in 2003 claiming that he overheard an inmate's conversation where Laci was mentioned.
“We sent our investigator down to interview Lieutenant Aponte who confirmed and signed a declaration saying it was true,” Peterson’s defense attorney, Pat Harris, said.
“We ask him specifically if he had been interviewed by the Modesto police, and he said, ‘Yes, they interviewed me back before the trial started.’"
Aponte's initial telling of the conversation appeared to align with the theory that Laci was killed by burglars.
He claimed that the inmate said she had seen one of the burglars and he threatened her.
Harris said they decided not to bring Aponte to testify at trial, however, when he began to change his story.
"He started saying, ‘Well, I don't really know what I heard,’ He started backing off everything,” Harris claimed.
TIMELINE DISCREPANCIES
At Peterson's trial, a neighbor testified seeing the couple's golden retriever inside the Petersons' gated yard at 10.15am on the day Laci disappeared, which was Christmas Eve in 2002.
Janey said that when the mailman arrived around 10.30am, he said the dog wasn't there, which was never heard in court.
She believes that is proof Laci was out walking the dog after Peterson left the house, reportedly about 9.30am.
"There's evidence that was completely ignored that shows Laci was alive after he left for the day," Janey said.
She has claimed that if the couple's dog McKenzie had been at the property at the time, he would have barked at the mailman.
However, the mailman also said that he did not have a clear recollection of that day when the time came to testify.
He said he remembered "nothing out of the ordinary."
BOAT EXPERIMENT
Before trial, prosecutors said Peterson took his wife’s body from their Modesto home on Christmas Eve 2002 and dumped her in San Francisco Bay from a fishing boat he recently bought.
The team also claimed that he had weighted her body down using homemade concrete anchors.
The body of his wife and the boy’s fetus washed ashore separately in April 2003.
Scott's defense team filmed an experiment they say used the same type of 14-foot aluminum boat before his trial.
It showed a man of Peterson's size shocking a dummy the size of Laci off the floating boat.
The video was not allowed at trial as prosecutors had not been present at its filming to verify conditions but a reenactment of a pregnant woman fitting into the toolbox of Peterson's pick-up was allowed.
DOG TRACKING EVIDENCE
Sister-in-law Janey has also slammed the judge in Peterson's trial for allowing some of the scent-dog tracking evidence to be presented at trial.
Original trial judge Al Delucchi, who died of cancer in 2008, had disallowed most of the dog tracking evidence, including from the Peterson home and his warehouse where he hitched up the boat.
However, he did allow testimony that a dog had indicated detecting Laci's scent four days after she vanished at the Berkeley Marina, where Peterson had launched the boat.
Peterson's lawyers had argued that dog-scent tracking is not an exact science and mistakes have been made.
Its inclusion was later deemed to have been crucial in Peterson receiving a guilty verdict.
“It was prejudicial against Scott,” Janey told The Modesto Bee.
“At the time, it was not real common for dog handlers to testify as to what the dog was thinking or doing. The science behind dog handling doesn’t meet the threshold (for) a jury in a courtroom.”
SATANIC CULT?
According to ABC News, Modesto police worked on a tip that a satanic cult was linked to Laci's death after receiving a tip early in the investigation.
Furniture store owner Bill Austin said that in January 2003, months before her body was found, he was questioned about the possibility that a cult was operating from one of his buildings.
He said that he told them he knew nothing about a cult and was never contacted by police again.
Peterson's team had also raised the possibility of a cult connection.
His lawyer Mark Geragos told People in 2003 that there were links between Laci's death and the unsolved case of another pregnant woman Evelyn Hernandez.
She went missing on May 1, 2002, and her body also later washed up in the San Francisco Bay.
Geragos claimed that the dates the women went missing are holy days on the satanic calendar.
Richard Ofshe, author of Making Monsters: False Memories, Psychotherapy, and Sexual Hysteria, told ABC, however, that satanic cults are a myth.
"I think you'd be better off suggesting Saddam Hussein really did it," he claimed.
Peterson was initially given the death penalty when found guilty of his wife and unborn son's murder in 2004.
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However, the California Supreme Court reversed his death sentence in August 2020.
The court will determine his fate on Wednesday.
