Original subtitles

[waves lapping]

[mysterious music playing]

[Sharon Rocha] Laci worked in Pismo Beach,

so she decided to have her wedding around there.

She was... she was excited. She was really excited.

She wanted everything to be just perfect.

She called me after the rehearsal dinner, but she'd been...

you know, had a couple cocktails with dinner,

and so, of course, she was feeling a little...

getting a little nervous at that time.

And she's a little concerned that she might be too young to be getting married.

She was asking me those questions,

if I thought she was too young to get married.

And I just told her...

Yes, whatever... whatever she wanted to do. It was up to her.

[mysterious music continues playing]

[Sharon Rocha] I remember, before I met Scott,

Laci telling me all these things about him,

all these things that he had done.

I remember turning to Ron and saying,

"I hope he's not filling her with a lotta crap about himself."

I said, "Because that just... doesn't sound plausible

to have done that much, and he's, what?"

Whatever age he was at the time, 22 or...

But then, when I met him, you know, he seemed very nice

and, like I said, respectful and pleasant,

and... I didn't think much about that again.

I have learned to go with a gut feeling.

[helicopter whirring]

[newscaster] Just this afternoon, a badly decomposed body

was found near Point Isabel in Richmond,

and last night, the body of a male fetus

was found just a few miles away, if that far.

Gloria Gomez joins us live from the scene with more on this story. Gloria?

Paul, this could be a major break in the Laci Peterson case.

I can tell you that investigators from Modesto PD are here.

We, of course, will be here, Paul,

and bring you the very latest when we have it.

Her torso had washed up.

And so we were right back out there,

basically telling the audience that the worst-case scenario has happened.

It was heartbreaking to tell it.

I had to... keep myself composed

because I knew that I was delivering some hard news to the community

that was really rooting for Laci to be alive.

And I knew that.

I saw it on the news, and I immediately called the detective,

and I said, "Is it her?"

And he says, "I can't say."

He said, "But..." And I said, "Okay."

[helicopter whirring]

- Devastating. - Knew right away.

- I think we got phone calls. - Devastating.

- Yeah. - 'Cause we knew.

We knew right away.

Laci made that happen. She came back.

She wanted us to know that things were going to be okay,

as well as they could be.

And that the person responsible was going to

face his...

- Justice. - Yeah.

[melancholic music playing]

The chief of police called me.

[inhales sharply]

Yeah.

Yeah. Um...

[Gloria] And so this is now a murder investigation.

It's no longer a missing case.

It is a complete fast-forward investigation.

[suspenseful music playing]

He did it. I mean, that's where I'm at right now.

My focus is we've caught Scott, and his alibi is so blown up

because on December 24th, during my interview with Scott Peterson,

he told me he went to Brooks Island fishing.

When you got in your boat, and you took off, did you go very far or...

[Scott] Maybe a couple miles. I went north, um...

Found a... like, a little island kinda deal there, um...

The island had a bunch of trash on it.

I remember a big sign that said, "No landing."

[Al] Four months later, Laci and Conner were found near Brooks Island.

That's a huge... thing to overcome.

[Sharon Hagan] The bodies coming up in the bay solidified in my mind

what we actually believed all along.

In my opinion, and this is based on my experience in many homicides,

I believe that this was what I would call a soft kill,

um, that he either suffocated her or he strangled her,

and there would be two reasons that he would choose to do that.

One is that it's very quiet.

Secondly, it doesn't make a mess.

[Al] Then, I think, between the 23rd or the 24th,

he wraps her in the tarp,

drags her through the house.

It's all tile floors except for when you get to that one door,

and that's where the rug is all scrunched up.

I think he, on purpose, left the dog on the leash.

He put her in the back of the truck,

puts these umbrellas in a blue tarp,

probably covered her with it.

He took her over to the warehouse.

He backed his truck into the warehouse where the boat was.

He put her in the boat.

- Then he drove her to the bay. - [seagulls crying]

[Sharon Hagan] And he put the boat in the water with Laci's body in the boat.

He went out to Brooks Island,

and he dumped her weighted body into the water,

hoping that it would never, ever come up.

He tried to make this look like a disappearance,

but the story just didn't...

didn't stand up.

[Jon] This case doesn't have a witness, doesn't have a video,

it doesn't have a confession,

but it's got everything else that you're lookin' for.

And then once the bodies were found, we had a complete case.

[dramatic music playing]

But we knew that to confirm the identification of the bodies,

it had to be done by DNA.

[Al] Us, the cops, the homicide guys, we know it's Conner.

I mean, where it came up compared to where, uh, Scott said he was,

we know it's Conner.

When Laci came up, she had maternity clothes on.

We pretty much knew.

[dramatic music continues playing]

And that's when we went to the judge.

We got the warrant for Scott's arrest.

We had a tracker on his little truck, and we found the truck,

but somebody else was driving it, so we couldn't find him by tracker,

but we did find him by wiretap.

- [man] Hey. - [Scott] Hey, Joe.

[Joe] Brother. What's up?

I saw the... picture in The Modesto,

where everybody's leaving flowers and stuffed animals and everything

in front of your house.

- [Scott] Oh yeah. - [Joe] Yeah.

I mean, people are just leaving a lot of stuff.

You know, like, gosh. Yeah.

[Al] He was in San Diego,

and that's only about less than an hour from the Mexico border.

That's why we wanted to keep an eye on him.

[Susan] Scott was staying at my house in San Diego that day.

He had left early that morning

to meet up with my dad and my brothers, Mark and Joe,

to go golf, do something that was normal for them to do.

Kind of take the pressure off.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Jon] He's up and running early in the morning, and we're following him.

We've got DOJ agents in cars.

We've got an aircraft up, and we're following him in our two cars.

[suspenseful music continues playing]

[tires screech]

That morning, he's noticing he's being followed,

and Scott spends the next three to four hours

trying to shake this tail he's got that he thinks is media.

[Al] And he is driving worse than any drug dealer I've ever followed.

I mean, it's getting dangerous.

He is driving so bad that the helicopter even lost him.

But we could keep finding him by his phone.

- [Joe] Where you at? - [Scott] On Genesee.

- I don't think I should come play golf. - [Joe] Oh gosh. Oh brother.

And we knew he knew he was being followed

because we could hear him on the phone,

but he thought we were the media.

[Scott] These guys know I'm onto them.

I stopped on the highway, and they, you know, stopped behind me.

I better skip it 'cause I don't think I want a picture of me

in the press playing golf.

Finally, we got to the point where this is dangerous,

so we decided we have to arrest him.

[tires screech]

[Janey] It's when he's pulling up to the Torrey Pines Golf Course,

one of those cars puts a siren on top.

[siren wailing]

[Jon] We were in a long caravan of cars.

We pulled up just as the DOJ guys were handcuffing Scott.

We got out, we told him that he was under arrest.

[Al] He had orange hair. He had an orange goatee.

I walk up, and he's, "Al, tell me it wasn't my wife and baby." You know?

I'm like, "That's ridiculous."

I mean, you know, come on, Scott. You know better than that.

[theme music plays]

And hello, everyone.

I'm Arthel Neville in the CNN Newsroom with the headlines at this hour.

CNN has confirmed that Scott Peterson is under arrest tonight,

arrested in San Diego...

We begin tonight with breaking news.

There's a break in the case of Laci Peterson...

The arrest of Scott Peterson right now...

[newscaster] Police have taken Scott Peterson into custody.

From Torrey Pines, we drove him over to the Department of Justice,

where we searched him and searched his car.

It was a little two-seater, a Mercedes.

He was prepared for anything in the car.

He had over... almost 15,000 dollars in cash.

I think he had four or five cell phones.

He had several knives.

I mean, he had some Viagra.

He had a shovel. He had rope, a cooking grill.

He had credit cards for himself,

but he also had family-member credit cards in the car.

He also had his brother's ID right on the center console

that actually he similarly looked like with the new hairdo he had.

The fact that Scott Peterson is arrested 30 miles from the Mexican border

created this perception that Scott was in flight

when he was arrested, and...

But that's just not the case.

He'd been to San Diego multiple times while Laci was missing,

so the notion that Scott was trying to evade the police

is just... it just isn't accurate.

[tense music playing]

He agreed and signed off to come home with us to Modesto.

Scott was sitting behind me, Craig Grogan was sitting next to him in the back seat,

and we drive back to Modesto, a five, six-hour drive.

[Al] We had to arrest him before the DNA was confirmed.

Then we got a call, and it was confirmed.

That's Conner and Laci's DNA.

So then Scott... Craig told me he just kind of lowered his head.

He said he saw a tear, but he didn't say anything.

He was just quiet.

[tense music continues playing]

It was time to get some gas and use the bathroom,

and then probably get a bite to eat.

He asked where I was goin', and I said,

"Well, there's an In-N-Out up the road here a little ways."

"We're gonna probably stop there." I've got the transcript right here.

And Scott goes, "I'll have a double-double with cheese, fries."

"A small vanilla shake would be great."

And... to me, that was an enormous red flag

on the fact that the notification didn't surprise him,

that he already knew the results of this from four months earlier,

and that he really didn't care. He was ready to eat.

[suspenseful music playing]

[crowd cheering]

[Al] We got to Modesto, and it was, like, midnight or even after,

but there was a crowd of people with signs.

I've never had that happen before, other than this case,

where somebody cheers, you know, after an arrest.

We're outside the gate of the Stanislaus County jail.

This is where Scott Peterson will be held until his arraignment.

Look at this, all the people who have gathered

to catch a glimpse of Peterson

as he was driven here from San Diego by detectives.

[Gloria] All of these reporters lined up

right in front of the Modesto Police Department.

All of a sudden, you have members of the public showing up.

They had lived this case for so many months.

Now they wanted to see a villain firsthand.

[tense music playing]

[crowd cheering]

I think I watched

because it was broadcast live,

him driving in the back seat of the detectives' car

and the gauntlet of people

that had come out in the middle of the night.

I was horrified.

It looked like he was being taken to the slaughterhouse.

You know, it was...

it was just a... a terrible scene.

[distant chatter]

[Gloria] I'd never seen anything like that ever.

In a crazy way, internally, I was like, "Wow."

"We kind of created this."

We, the media, created this.

[theme music plays]

[Larry King]Tonight, what's going on with Scott Peterson's defense?

There are reports that none other than Mark Geragos,

the high-profile attorney who's been a frequent guest on this program,

could be the new lawyer.

The moment I hear it's Mark Geragos,

I'm like, "Oh wow, that's a big name. That's a big lawyer from LA."

[reporter] He's one of the most well-known attorneys.

It's a position he earned by taking on some of the highest-profile cases,

vigorously defending his clients both inside and outside the courtroom.

[man] Mark and I started working together on trials about two years before Scott.

The way that it happened that... that we came to represent Scott Peterson

was that Mark was on Larry King.

Uh, pretty much every night, Larry King was now running a Scott Peterson segment.

Condemn him as a narcissist.

- [woman 1] No. - Condemn his character flaws.

But that does not make him a murderer.

Condemn him because he might be guilty of adultery.

- [woman 2] Wendy, Mark... - Mark...

- Why do you make him a murderer? - Mark...

[Susan] My parents got to be familiar with him through seeing him on TV.

All of Mark's points resonated with them,

so when it came time to look at attorneys, he was one of the first.

[Gloria] The judge says this can move forward,

and right when that hearing is over,

Mark Geragos, along with the Petersons,

come right outside the courthouse steps and give a press conference.

And he says he is going to prove

that Scott Peterson had nothing to do with this,

that this is a witch hunt.

We are happy that Mark, uh, is in place as Scott's attorney,

and, um, we do look forward to proving his innocence.

[tense music playing]

[indistinct chatter]

[man] I was one of the two attorneys

that basically packed up and moved to Modesto

to start working on this case.

This case was just your garden-variety homicide.

It didn't involve any celebrities,

yet it turned into this media feeding frenzy.

[Amber] I had no idea how I was supposed to

deal with the stories coming out,

and so I started looking for an attorney.

So my dad gave me a number of an attorney.

Her name was Gloria Allred.

Women who find themselves in high-profile scandals

with the famous and powerful flock to Gloria Allred for legal counsel.

Allred represented the family of Nicole Brown Simpson.

Allred also represents

two of Tiger Woods' mistresses, Joslyn James and Rachel Uchitel.

[Amber] So I called Gloria's office,

and we made arrangements for her to come out to meet with me

so we could have a face-to-face.

She had offered to retain me pro bono.

There was a good connection. I felt good about Gloria.

[Gloria Allred] In addition to being a witness,

Amber is also a victim of Scott's deception.

Victims are entitled to attorneys, as are witnesses.

I had been commenting on the case on television,

particularly on Fox News,

and I was very concerned.

It seemed as though every day there were stories about Amber coming out,

and, of course, it would be and was in the interest

of the defense and supporters of the defense

to undermine her credibility.

That was key.

If she's going to be the key prosecution witness,

the court of public opinion is also very important

because, after all,

the jurors who were ultimately going to be chosen for the jury pool

would likely have been hearing or reading or seeing or all of the above

quite a bit about this case

before they ever sat in the courtroom.

We were just chomping at the bit...

[indistinct chatter]

...to get information. People were eating it up.

- Come on, be human beings. - [man] Leave her alone.

But keep in mind, the more stories I do

and the more stories that end up in national news and everywhere,

it became such a toxic community for Scott Peterson to get a fair trial,

and so at that point, they made a motion to move the case.

[reporter 1] Now his fate is in the hands of the people of San Mateo County.

[reporter 2] It's taken months to get to this point,

but jury selection has finally started in Scott Peterson's murder trial.

The judge told prospective jurors that they'll know within an hour

whether they'll be sitting on the Peterson case

that is now set to start on June 1st.

[man 1] When I heard about Scott Peterson and Laci,

I didn't really follow it until, I think, the last thing I'd heard

is when they found the bodies,

and later on, I'd gotten a jury summons,

and it wasn't even clicking.

When I got there, when I walked into the lobby and I saw all the people,

there must've been hundreds of people,

and it was like, "What's going on? This is crazy."

And then we got shuffled into this courtroom,

and then I remember Scott Peterson stood up,

and then I was just like, "Oh my."

[man 2] I promised myself one thing, that I would do everything I could

to assure that this gentleman got a good trial.

I'm looking at this young man,

and I'm saying, "I've got a son about his age."

I looked at this guy, and I said, "No way."

You know, "Show me what you have."

"Convince me

that this young man did what you're accusing him of doing."

He's a cad. He cheated on his wife. Whoopee!

Yeah, that... a dollar won't buy you a cup o' coffee at Starbucks.

It's just that simple. It doesn't matter. It's not relevant.

What's relevant is,

"Show me what would lead me to conclude he was guilty,"

and if you don't have that, have a nice day.

It's been nice talking to ya.

[reporter] More than a year after Scott Peterson's arrest,

he is finally getting his day in court.

[newscaster] Let's get to our top story. It is here in California this morning.

Opening statements begin today

in the double-murder trial of Scott Peterson.

[reporter] Now, there are expected to be a hundred witnesses or more

over the next five months or so,

a marathon case that has just begun.

[Sharon Rocha] I went every day.

The police weren't telling us anything because they couldn't.

That's why I desperately wanted to be in that courtroom. I...

I found out more information during the trial than I even knew existed.

I... I could not not be there.

[indistinct conversation]

[Susan] I absolutely felt helpless.

And that's why I wanted to get on a plane and be there,

and I didn't want to go through that experience,

but I knew I wanted to be in the courtroom.

[reporter] In opening statements, Mark Geragos said

the case against Peterson was flimsy and circumstantial,

adding his client was, quote, "stone-cold innocent."

[Nareg] There was no direct evidence connecting Scott to these murders.

The government essentially relied on circumstantial evidence.

The prosecutor is not able to prove

where the crime occurred, how the crime occurred,

and when the crime occurred.

[gavel bangs]

All rise and come to order.

It was like a real-life soap opera happening in your living room.

It was always being compared to OJ Simpson, right?

Well, Scott Peterson became the new OJ Simpson.

The only difference was that this case was not televised.

This was basically left up for journalists to tell the story

based on what they observed,

and I was there every day for the trial to find the hook for the day,

find the headline of the day.

Sources tell us, during the course of the hearing,

prosecutors are likely to call close to 30 witnesses.

The only issue...

[reporter 1] Prosecutors laid out their circumstantial case for jurors

brick by brick.

From the moment Laci Peterson was reported missing,

prosecutors say Scott Peterson couldn't keep his story straight.

Be that as it may...

[Ted] The lead prosecutors for Stanislaus County

were Rick Distaso and Dave Harris.

[inaudible speech]

And... and... [sighs] ...they just felt a little bit...

Well, not a little bit. They were outmatched. Let's face it.

Stanislaus County is not LA County.

These guys were now up against

probably, you know, arguably, one of the best attorneys in the state.

[reporter 2] The first point scored against prosecutors

came from an unlikely source,

a Martha Stewart cooking show featuring meringue.

[Ted] The State basically called Scott a liar,

saying that he made up he and Laci were watching TV

the morning that she disappeared

and that they were watching this Martha Stewart program.

And one of the major points they were gonna hit on

in their opening was there was no meringue on that show.

Well, we got the video of the 24th,

and, lo and behold, at almost exactly the same time as Scott said,

there's Martha Stewart talking about meringue.

So what are we going to do with all the egg whites?

- Ooh, you wanna make little meringues? - Oh, that would be nice.

That was the end of the meringue.

You never heard from the prosecution again.

[Ted] I mean, how do you make that mistake?

And Geragos was ripping the first few witnesses apart

on cross-examination.

[Al] I am one of the first witnesses.

There's a lot of people out there,

and the front row is Sharon and the family,

and Lee's family on this side,

and then all the media, the Fox people, people I see on TV who I don't know,

they're all looking at me.

First question. I've always done this.

I turn to the jury, and I'm answering to the jury.

Geragos is like, "Look at me! Look at me when I'm talking to you!"

And I... I looked at him, and Distaso...

Everybody's, like, in shock, and Distaso's... "I object, Your Honor."

"He can look wherever he wants when he's talking."

And he asked me another question. I started turning.

He goes, "You're afraid to look at me!" I mean, he's screaming at me.

And he's... I guess he's just trying to intimidate the crap out of me.

[dramatic music playing]

[Al] Geragos wants to play something. We don't know what.

I'm sitting on the witness stand waiting,

and they go back in the judge's chambers for a while,

and when they come out, I could see Distaso and Harris.

They're looking a little nervous.

So I don't know what's gonna be played. I have no idea.

But they sit down, and then they let Geragos do it.

So what we do in Modesto is we dictate a police report,

and on this one day, I'm talking to a neighbor of Scott's shop.

When I got home, I dictated that John Doe said he heard through the grapevine

that Laci used the other neighbor, Peggy O'Donnell's, bathroom.

So when I was testifying, he plays my tape,

and it's typing at the same time.

Then he puts my police report up there. Same thing, types it out.

But that one line is gone.

And everybody in the courtroom is like, "Ooh!"

Like that is really... I'm hiding s... evidence.

Then Geragos is like, "Your Honor, I think we should call it a... the weekend,"

so that could just sit there for... and percolate.

A blistering attack.

They're trying to put the finger on Brocchini.

How can you believe what a police officer said?

[reporter] His attack on the credibility of police investigators...

It's unclear at this point

why Detective Brocchini actually deleted that information from his report,

but you can bet prosecutors on Monday will try to rehabilitate him for the jury.

[Al] What happened was, on this one day, after I dictated it, turned it in,

now we all sit down together, and I tell all the detectives what I heard,

and Detective Dennis Holmes, he says, "Whoa, I interviewed Peggy."

So he could testify to what Peggy said.

Mine was through the grapevine,

and so I deleted that sentence because it was in his report.

Could look wrong to the jury.

It could look wrong to the, you know, Rochas.

I mean, I... I was feeling...

When I was seeing Sharon and Ron and the kids,

it was a tough... it was... it was a tough cross-examine for me.

Listening in at the beginning, I thought it was going nowhere.

I thought this was gonna be a waste of taxpayer dollars.

I knew the death penalty was on the table, but, for me, Scott Peterson was innocent,

so I didn't think it was going to get to that point.

I really thought that this was going nowhere.

It was stressful, but, you know, it was intense.

But... I needed to know everything that they knew.

It was only a couple days I wasn't there.

One morning, I had a really bad cold, but I ended up going in the afternoon.

The other time was when they were talking about the conditions of her body.

I didn't go to... to trial that day.

[Gloria Gomez] In a case that lacks physical evidence,

most believe there is one powerful piece.

Don't trip.

[Gloria] A medical examiner's testimony would come down to one critical question.

Was baby Conner born alive? Prosecutors want the jury to believe

Conner died with his mother on December 24th.

The defense wants them to see it another way.

[Jon] What the coroner determined on Conner's age

was an estimate of between 33 and 38 weeks.

Again, this is an estimate only,

and there's not an exacting science that's gonna be able to pin that down,

but that does put it outside of, uh, and a bit later than, uh, December 24th,

when we believe Laci was actually killed.

Not being able to hone in to a specific time of death

did hurt the prosecution's case

because it opened up a whole different theory

of, uh, potentially someone kidnapping a pregnant woman

because they want the baby.

This is not good for the State of California.

Scott Peterson is gonna be found not guilty.

And then Amber Frey completely changed all that.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Gloria Gomez] Amber Frey.

Everybody wanted to hear Amber Frey's story.

She was the prosecution's star witness.

This case is either gonna win or lose on Amber Frey's testimony.

If she flops on the stand,

and if the defense starts chipping away at her credibility,

they're gonna lose this case.

[Pat] Our strategy had always been

that we were gonna have to sort of admit Scott had this affair.

Essentially try and make Scott seem more human

so that we could then argue, "Look, just because you hate somebody

or somebody does... it doesn't make them a murderer."

[suspenseful music continues playing]

[Amber] The first day of trial, I'm walking in the courtroom.

It was completely packed

and as silent as can be.

[voice breaking] And when I first sat on the stand,

I wasn't just sitting there alone.

[inhales sharply]

But I was sitting there for Laci and her unborn child.

[indistinct news reporting]

[Amber] I... I feel like Geragos

got a little agitated with me at times.

I didn't answer in the way he thought I would or anticipated.

Like, "Did Scott ever say he loved you?"

And in reality, my answer was valid. Not in those words.

I mean, his actions, the things he did, the thoughtfulness, um...

I mean, those are all actions of...

But, ultimately, the answer was no.

But I think it kind of got under Geragos's skin...

[chuckles]...because I didn't answer straightforward.

It wasn't necessarily a straightforward question either, in my opinion, so...

She held her head high when she did testify.

I think she earned the respect of the jury.

They saw the real Amber Frey,

not the mistaken stereotypes.

[Amber] I was not a mistress.

If you read the definition, that is a woman

knowingly in a relationship with a married man,

and I was not knowingly.

For the first time, there was clarity

as far as who I was

and my relationship with Scott.

[phone line crackling]

[recording plays]

Those tapes... were essential.

Scott Peterson invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege

against self-incrimination

and chose not to testify in the case.

But his voice was still in the courtroom

on the tapes that Amber had recorded.

I had no idea that those were gonna be play...

played publicly for other people to hear.

People were hearing conversations

that I thought were only meant for the police department and...

possibly attorneys, but not everyone,

meaning, like, pretty much anyone in the world.

That was a little... that was a little... hard.

[recording plays]

[Mike] A lot of people believe that the affair was a big deal.

No, I... I didn't see it as a big deal,

and I don't think anybody on the jury did either.

What we did see as a big deal is what he said and what he did.

It was damning. It was absolutely damning.

And not only the phone calls but the lies.

Yes, the... the charade.

What was particularly startling about Scott's style of lying

is that he was very shortsighted.

Um, it was obvious to me

that he did not think these things through carefully.

He is emotionally detached to the point where he believed

that investigators and Laci's family and friends and the public

would lose interest in her disappearance

in a few short weeks.

It was startling and shocking

that he seemed to sincerely believe

that he would be free to go on with his new life.

So Scott's behaviors are what told us

that this is a planned, premeditated homicide.

He told Amber he had lost his wife,

that he needed to be away,

and that when he got back, they could start their life together.

He bought a boat.

He bought this boat in secret.

When he came home on the 24th, her car was in the driveway,

her purse was in the closet,

he did laundry, he ate pizza,

he took a shower,

and then he called Laci's parents.

There is no sense of urgency.

Nothing taken from the house, nothing damaged, nothing disturbed.

He sold Laci's car. He... he wanted to sell the house.

He turned the nursery into a storage area.

These are all inappropriate behaviors.

This is not a man who's waiting for Laci to come home.

And this was the evidence presented by the prosecutor.

Laci didn't just disappear.

This was actually planned, premeditated murder.

You know, the Scott Peterson case, you can't take a part of it

and look at it and say, "Aha,"

'cause there is no "aha" moment.

But you take the bits and pieces, and you put them all together,

then it draws a picture.

It paints a portrait.

[judge] Members of the jury,

you have heard all the evidence and the arguments of the attorneys.

[Gloria Gomez] After being instructed by the judge for nearly an hour,

the six men and six women of the jury will now decide Scott Peterson's fate.

There is a verdict in the Scott Peterson trial,

and it will be announced at 1:00 p.m. Pacific time.

- [indistinct chatter] - [dramatic music playing]

[Al] They gave us 90 minutes

from when the... the jury came back before they were gonna read it.

We're going to have a live audio feed of the verdict in this case.

There's a huge gathering of folks from the public that have gathered here.

It sends everybody scrambling.

It fills up the courtyard outside the Redwood City courthouse.

Everybody just waited with bated breath.

[newscaster] What kind of reaction do you think we'll have out here?

[Ted] I think the majority of the public thinks that Scott Peterson is guilty,

and I think if this jury comes back with a not-guilty verdict,

there is going to be a sense of despair and anger.

[Al] Modesto to Redwood City is about 75, 80 miles,

and all the detectives went lights and sirens

from Modesto to Redwood City to get there in time.

They said the verdict was coming in two hours,

so, at one o'clock, it was gonna be...

you know, we were gonna hear Scott's fate,

and we were pretty much in very good spirits.

I just kind of had felt a sense of, "This is finally coming to an end."

It was very fortunate that Jackie, Janey, and Joe were in Redwood City,

but there was no way my dad and I were gonna make it from San Diego.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Janey] We were excited.

We thought Scott was coming home, and we thought this was it.

[indistinct chatter]

[suspenseful music continues playing]

[Sharon Rocha] I didn't know enough about the legal system to...

One way or the other, I just couldn't help but have a little bit of a doubt.

You don't know what these 12 people are thinking.

[indistinct background conversation]

[Sharon Rocha] I remember getting the call to say,

"We have a verdict."

[Gloria Gomez] We were all rushing into the courtroom to get in there,

and they're filing in, they're filing in, they're filing in.

They all take a seat,

and the first thing I see

was one of the jurors.

She looks right at Laci's mom, and she gives her a wink.

And I'm like... [gasps]

The gesture seemed to indicate, "We got him."

And then the verdict was read.

[indistinct chatter]

[jury foreperson] State of California versus Scott Peterson.

We, the jury, in the above-entitled cause, find the defendant, Scott Lee Peterson,

guilty of the crime of murder of Laci Denise Peterson.

[foreperson] We, the jury, in the above-entitled cause,

find the defendant, Scott Lee Peterson, guilty of the crime of...

- [crowd cheering] - [soft music playing]

I just remember the relief hearing the word "guilty."

I mean, it was like, you know, being inflated all this time,

and all of a sudden, all the air just comes out of your body.

It's... It was just a relief. A huge relief.

It wasn't... You know, I can't say we were all excited and happy about it.

That's not the feeling that I had at all.

Um, just a relief.

Yeah, when they read the verdict, I just... I... I just...

I thought my heart beat really loud, and I missed the word "not."

I just was like, you know, I...

And... and then they said it again with Conner, "guilty,"

and then it felt very quiet in the courtroom

and very surreal and kinda out of body, like...

Um...

- [distant cheering] - But you could hear the crowd outside.

- [cheering] - [foreperson] ...Penal Code Section 187A...

We, the jury, further find the degree of the murder

to be that of the first degree.

[cheering continues]

[cheering intensifies]

[indistinct chatter, shouting]

[woman] Hope you're proud of your son!

[woman shouts]

[indistinct chatter]

[Janey] I remember being taken into a back hallway.

They were gonna escort us outside because there was such a huge crowd.

And we... we come out a door,

and we're way at the other end of the courthouse from our car.

And they walk us the whole way in front of the whole crowd.

It felt like we were paraded in front of them to our car.

[indistinct chatter]

[woman] No, right...

[man] Burn in hell!

[indistinct chatter continues]

[Janey] With people hollering and screaming and jeering.

I just remember looking out at the sea of people and thinking,

"They have no idea."

"They have... they have no idea

what just happened the last four months in this courtroom. No idea."

[woman] Everybody in?

[indistinct speech]

[engine starts]

[indistinct shouting]

[man] Wow.

[reporter] Today, the judge ruled that the same jury

that convicted Scott Peterson of murdering his pregnant wife

will also determine whether he lives or dies for his crimes,

and the case will stay in Redwood City.

The biggest moment had to have been when Sharon took the stand.

If you did not cry during that

or at least shed a tear during Sharon's...

you just weren't there.

It was really her only time to address Scott.

Like, face to face.

I remember her looking right at him.

[reporter 1] Many in the room began to cry as Laci's mother, Sharon Rocha, asked

if Laci knew she was being murdered.

Then she imagined Laci's unborn baby begging for its life, saying...

"Daddy, please don't do this to me. Please. There's another way."

[reporter 2] One other thing she said, "The fact that you no longer wanted Laci

did not give you the right to murder her."

"She was my daughter. I trusted you, and you betrayed me."

"You betrayed everybody."

[sobbing] She may be physically gone, but she's not gone out of our hearts.

She still lives with all of us.

[exhales softly]

[indistinct chatter]

[reporter 1] The jury that convicted Scott Peterson

of killing his wife and unborn son

came in with its decision on a sentence.

[foreperson] We, the jury, in the above-entitled cause,

fix the penalty at death, dated...

- [woman 1 screams] - [woman 2] Death! Oh my God!

[reporter 2] Some jumped in the air and clapped.

Christmas comes early.

[reporter 3] People around the world are applauding your decision. How do you feel?

They have to answer to themselves on that.

Tell somebody, "You did a good job. You just put somebody to death."

Yeah.

I don't see anything good about that.

That would be like me telling you, "That person, you pull the trigger."

It eats me up to hear that

because I say, "You don't even know what death means, then."

It's so easy for you to say that? It's not... it's not that easy.

[shouting and cheering]

[tense music playing]

[indistinct chatter]

Come on. Let's keep going.

[applause]

- [cheering] - [indistinct shouting]

Our family's going to make it... make it.

We're stronger because of this.

- And Scott got what he deserved. - [distant siren wailing]

He not only took her away from us,

but, you know, he's destroyed a lot of lives.

His family's lives and...

I'm not gonna say he destroyed our lives. He upset our lives.

But I wouldn't give him the credit for destroying our lives.

[indistinct chatter]

[Al] I remember, later, I saw Sharon and Ron and the family and...

and, uh, we... you know, I hugged them and...

[sighs]

Kind of apologized, you know, how it started, and that...

But she said, "I never lost...

you know, I never lost, uh, faith or anything in you or that,"

and so it was kinda hard.

I kinda stayed close with them for a little while,

and then I realized after a while that

I'm, uh... I'm not a good memory.

I mean, you know, I'm kind of...

When you see me, maybe you think of that incident all the time.

And so I didn't... I kind of pulled away a little bit.

[Ted] Scott's off to San Quentin, and the Petersons continued to fight.

They immersed themselves in this fight for Scott,

and he never admitted guilt on any level.

[tense music playing]

[Janey] We didn't have time to grieve Laci when we found out she was gone

because Scott was arrested.

Laci was part of our family.

Laci was my sister-in-law.

Conner was my nephew.

We went from looking for her...

And the moment we found out she was dead,

he was arrested, and we're fighting for his life.

And here we are 20 years later, trying to right this injustice.

[Sharon Hagan] I really believe that it's very difficult

for Scott's family to believe that he would ever do this.

The severity of the crime is an important factor here.

You know, is there anything worse

than killing your wife and your unborn child?

You know, what... what would be the consequences of...

of acknowledging that he must have done this?

I think, at the end of the day,

they both... know what they know.

And... and the Rochas know that he killed her,

and they live with that pain every day,

and the Petersons know that he didn't kill her,

and they live with that pain.

[melancholic music playing]

[Sharon Rocha] There are times I look back, and I think, "Gosh."

"It's hard to believe it was 20 years ago."

And on the other hand, it seems like it wasn't 20 years ago.

I've always said, "You don't get over it. You just get through it."

You just have to muddle through it because you're never going to get over it.

It's always gonna be there.

Always. It'll always be there.

[melancholic music continues playing]

[Sharon] We have a whole different life than we did before.

It's the before and the after, and that's the way I refer to it.

When I talk about different things, it'll be before Laci and after Laci

because it does, it changes your life. There's no doubt about that.

Changes everybody's lives that are involved.

[soft music playing]

[muted speech]

[Lori] What the last 20 years has brought to me

is that, um, we check in with each other more... a lot more often.

Good, the bad, the ugly.

We have tougher conversations.

We promised each other that it doesn't matter who knows.

- One of us knows... - Yeah.

...what's happening in each other's lives.

You just realize when you're questioned about your best friend,

like, how little you knew. [sniffs]

And yet we... And then...

So...

That's, I think, why we just...

make sure that we're all...

in the know.

[soft music playing]

She was in love. There's no doubt about that.

She was just really excited. She was in love with him.

And we always liked him. He always treated her well.

Until he didn't.

With a low-risk victim such as Laci, who was very much a homebody,

um, whose world was very small and... and condensed...

[inhales deeply]...the most likely person who will harm someone like her

is her intimate partner.

And the statistics that we keep on homicide bear this out.

In fact, not only does pregnancy increase the risk

of victimization for women,

but it is the number one cause of death for pregnant women.

[soft music continues playing]

Hmm.

This was from her actual memorial.

And this is her. This just...

I love this picture 'cause this just captures her spirit so perfectly.

Her laugh was just so infectious.

[melancholic music playing]

[muted conversation]

[Sharon Rocha] She would've loved to have had her child

and raised him, and... she would've been a good mother.

We would've had something else to tease her about. [chuckles]

Wow, she's been gone almost as long as she was here.

I just want her to be remembered as a person

and not as a victim of murder.

Um, she was alive. She's still alive to all of us.

I see dragonflies, and I think of her.

This time of the year, as a matter of fact.

Her legacy is just that she was a loving person.

She loved her husband. She trusted her husband, and he betrayed her.

He betrayed her, and he betrayed everybody else.

His family, our family, everybody.

Over the years, I've received many, many, many letters from people,

from women who are in a similar situation with...

They didn't know their husband. They thought they did.

And how many I can't tell you that, because of Laci, they left in time,

that they were still alive because of Laci.

- [girl 1] Hi, Laci! - [girl 2] Let's dance, baby!

[melancholic music playing]

[muted singing]

[soft piano music playing]