The untold truth of the Laci Peterson murder case

The story of Laci Peterson's Christmas Eve disappearance shocked America to the core back in 2002, but nationwide disbelief quickly gave way to outrage when it transpired that her husband Scott was suspected of murdering her and their unborn son Connor. After claiming that he had returned home to find his pregnant wife missing, Scott initially had the full support of friends, family and the media, though they all turned against him as details of his involvement began to emerge. He became the most reviled man in America when authorities announced that he had been arrested for double-murder after the remains of Connor and Laci washed up in San Francisco Bay.

In 2004, Peterson was found guilty on both charges and sentenced to death, though the state of California has yet to execute him despite the public backlash that followed the leak of the autopsy report—Laci's head and limbs had been removed and lacerations were found on Connor's tiny body. Sadly, this is just one of many startling facts about this case, some of which were not even heard by the jury and only came to light after the verdict. This is the untold truth of the Laci Peterson murder case.

Peterson's in-laws soon started having the same suspicions the police had, Laci's stepfather in particular. Ron Grantski was an avid fisherman and after hearing his son-in-law's account of what he did that day, he started to poke holes in the story, questioning why he set out so late and which rod he used (Peterson's personal rod was sitting in Grantski's garage). "I said, '9:30? That's what time I get home from fishing, not when I go,'" Grantski recalled. "I said, 'I think your Berkeley fishing trip is a fishy story.'"

Laci's brother, Brent Rocha, also thought that something didn't add up, and decided to confront Peterson about the evidence mounting against him after he saw a tabloid story about police finding a cement anchor in his brother-in-law's garage. Rocha said that Peterson attempted to explain away the find with a story about how he "used to make cement anchors," but authorities only discovered a single anchor on his property, not a collection. When Rocha pointed this out, Peterson replied: "Well, I used the rest as cement for my driveway."

Laci's mother Sharon Rocha also had a gut feeling that something was wrong with the picture when she first heard from Peterson what had happened. She was preparing an evening dinner for Scott and Laci when the former called to let her know that Laci was "missing," which she thought a strange choice of word to use right off the bat.

Four weeks after her disappearance and with Laci presumed dead by Peterson's hand by authorities at this point, Detective Brocchini decided to go over the first interview he conducted to see what else his suspect might have tripped up on. He knew that Peterson had either made a mistake or lied about the time he made the "sweetie" phone call that had everyone doubting his sincerity, and if they were going to build a case for his prosecution without a murder weapon or dead bodies, they needed more. Brocchini found it.

Peterson had told him that he and Laci had watched Martha Stewart on morning television the last time he saw her, but when pressed for details on what Stewart was baking, he said it was something with meringue. Upon reviewing the episode, Brocchini found that no meringue was used that day. The interview also brought up several points of interest to the prosecution—Peterson took a phone call from his sister-in-law during the session and didn't once ask how their search for Laci was going, and he also told Brocchini that Laci would often get into arguments with the homeless people who lived in the park she had supposedly walked the dog through the day that she vanished, something her family and friends said was not in her character.

When Detective Brocchini asked Peterson about the phone calls he made the morning that Laci went missing, he neglected to tell him about one he made to his father, Lee Arthur Peterson. While the true topic of discussion in that particular phone call will never be known, Lee Peterson testified that his son never mentioned that he was fishing that day—in fact, he didn't even know that he owned a boat. The defense argued that it wasn't unusual for Scott to make a frivolous purchase and keep it from his dad, whose comments seemed to put his son in further trouble.

The contents of a later phone call between Peterson and his father were recorded, however, and it didn't paint them in a good light. "On January 14th Scott receives a call from his dad, whom he refers to as Chief," Investigator Steve Jacobson's report read. "His dad talks about sending him $5,000 to help out financially, then asks where he is. Scott states, 'I'm going to workout for a few minutes here at the club, relax a little bit. I don't know if I'm pulling an O.J. by being at the club or not, but…' Scott goes on to explain about 'you know, misperception.' It is very interesting that Peterson would compare himself to O.J. Simpson, who was charged with the murder of his wife but was later acquitted by a jury."

When massage therapist Amber Frey saw the man she was dating on the news in connection with a murder, she called police and told them everything about her relationship with Peterson. According to Detective Brocchini, it was the shot in the arm that their investigation needed. "Amber told me, 'Yeah, that's my boyfriend.' She had dates down. She was very articulate … It was exciting to think that Scott is calling this girl in Fresno while we're looking for his wife."

Knowing that the media would find out, they showed Laci's family the photographic evidence of Scott's infidelity that Frey had provided, and the penny finally dropped. "Sharon and Ron came and sat down at our lunch table, and we briefed them quickly," Detective Buehler said. "Then I just slipped the photo across the table. Sharon buried her head in her hands and said, 'Why did he have to kill her?'"

They later learned that Peterson told Frey he was a widower after being introduced to her by a woman named Shawn Sibley. Sibley later discovered the truth about Peterson, but he cried as he talked his way out of it, telling her he lost his wife emotionally, not literally. "We learn from Sibley that Scott wept uncontrollably and that Scott begged her not to tell Amber," former prosecutor Dean Johnson told CBS. "Some would say that Peterson showed more emotion over getting caught than about his missing wife."

Speaking of the contents of Peterson's car, 12 Viagra tablets were also found in there, though the jury were never told this. Peterson's problem with erectile dysfunction was not the only information that Judge Alfred A. Delucchi deemed unnecessary for jury ears, also dismissing claims that tracker dogs had proven that Laci had been in her husband's boat as "iffy." He also barred the pornographic contents of Peterson's computer from being entered as evidence—a search of his hard drive uncovered images of bondage and bestiality as well as an essay called "Rape The Teacher."

Perhaps the most damning evidence that was kept out of the trial was the fact that Peterson purchased four phony college diplomas totaling $267 a week before his wife went missing. When lead investigator Craig Grogan questioned Peterson about the bogus certificates, he told him that they were not part of some plan to flee and create a fake identity, but a practical joke. He said that the whole thing was done by Laci, who liked to tease him about how long it took him to finish his degree, but investigators found that the counterfeit diplomas were charged to Peterson's own credit card and shipped to their home under his name.

There are those that have sympathy for life-term convicts, and those that don't. In the case of Scott Peterson, finding people willing to spare a thought for his predicament is nigh on impossible (though they do exist, as we'll come to in a moment). Those that have been willing authorities to make Peterson the first sanctioned execution in California since murderer Clarence Ray Allen was put to death by lethal injection back in 2006 were infuriated when they found out that he had been living a "shockingly comfortable lifestyle" on death row.

An In Touch exclusive used documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act to reveal the items that Peterson receives from the commissary on a regular basis, including fat-free milk, smoked scallops and oysters, granola, multivitamins, sugar-free honey and weight-gain protein tablets. Journalist Nancy Mullane, who was granted permission to interview Peterson for her 2012 book Life After Murder: Five Men in Search of Redemption, confirmed that he was looking fit and well. "When I saw Scott, he was playing basketball," she said. "He didn't look depressed. He looked like someone you'd see on the street playing basketball. He had his shirt off and his boxer shorts up. He wasn't ripped, but he looked healthy. He was having a good time."

Condemned men like Peterson have two avenues of appeal open to them from death row, the first being a direct appeal. The convicted killer filed this with the state Attorney General's office in 2012, with his appeal demanding a new trial on the grounds that the judge's rulings on which evidence to admit and which jurors to excuse were deeply flawed. Peterson's team got a response in 2015 and are currently awaiting their chance to make their argument with the Supreme Court.

Not content with waiting for a date to be set for the oral proceedings, however, Peterson launched a second appeal in 2015, which is known as a habeas petition. A habeas is normally used when new evidence that should have been presented at trial has come to light, but it can also be used to point out errors made by the defense counsel during said trial, which Peterson's family have done on several occasions.

"There were things that Mark Geragos could have done better," Scott's sister-in-law Janey Peterson said when discussing their 200-page petition with 10 News. "One of the jurors evidently lied on her jury application. She said she's never been involved in a lawsuit. She'd never testified as a witness. Both those things are not true. It is to me clearly evident, not only that Scott is innocent, but in addition to that he did not get a fair trial."

Mark Geragos was not only convinced his client was innocent, he believed he knew who the real culprits were. In an interview with People (via ABC News), the lawyer blamed Laci's murder on a Satanic cult that had supposedly been operating in the California area for years, pointing to another murder that took place under similar circumstances. Evelyn Hernandez also went missing in 2002 while pregnant, and her body also washed up in San Francisco Bay. Her disappearance happened on May 1, which (like December 24, the date Laci vanished) is a holy day in the Satanic calendar.

Similarities were also drawn with the Salida massacre of 1990 in which four people were slain at a trailer park by cult members, with Larry King even mentioning a possible connection to the Peterson case on his show. According to the Modesto Bee, the police took the claims seriously enough to consult Randy Cerny, a local expert on ritualistic crimes. They also contacted the owner of a local furniture store after a tip off that Satanists were operating out his his building, but came up with nothing.

The defense even claimed to have obtained a jacket belonging to an occultist who had bragged about being involved with Laci's murder, but it all proved to be posturing. In the end, people just didn't believe it. "I think you'd be better off suggesting Saddam Hussein really did it," said Richard Ofshe, the author of Making Monsters: False Memories, Psychotherapy and Sexual Hysteria.

While transcripts of Peterson's first interview on Christmas Day 2002 were made available at the time, it was only recently that actual police footage of that initial interrogation surfaced. Dateline NBC ran a piece on Laci's murder to coincide with the 15 year anniversary of her disappearance, and in it they included clips of her former husband looking nonchalant as he fields questions about the day she vanished.

Peterson slouches back in his chair as he gets quizzed about the last time he saw Laci, appearing to not have a care in the world despite the fact that his pregnant wife is unaccounted for at 1AM in the middle of winter. "Never once did he say 'Oh my God, where is Laci? where could she be? I hope she's okay, I hope she's not harmed," Laci's mother Sharon Rocha told Dateline, who also revealed incriminating audio recordings of Peterson's phone calls to mistress Amber Frey.

Rocha had stood by her son-in-law until the day Frey came forward with the details of their affair, at which point she – like the rest of nation – turned on him. "It has definitely been a rollercoaster since December 24, 2002," Rocha told Dateline's Keith Morrison. "There are many times when I get up in the morning and just go back to bed… I'm never going to get over this. I don't see how any parent will ever get over it. You just have to get through it."