Original subtitles

[soft dramatic music]

* *

- Scott and Laci's wedding was quite the event.

Laci looked absolutely gorgeous.

It really was a beautiful day.

Very much in love.

[dramatic music]

- An intense search is underway

for a missing Modesto woman who is eight months pregnant.

- Her husband had seen her before he went

on a fishing trip.

- Did you murder your wife?

- I had absolutely nothing to do

with Laci's disappearance.

- Nothing adds up because he's a man

with something to hide.

- Police in Modesto, California

issued an arrest warrant for Scott Peterson.

- He faces capital murder charges

in the deaths of his pregnant wife

and unborn child.

- We, the jury, find the defendant,

Scott Lee Peterson, guilty of the crime of murder.

- I believe my brother-in-law, Scott,

has been wrongfully convicted of that murder.

He's been in prison since April of 2003.

Scott has not spoken on camera about the case

in those 21 years.

Until today.

- Why I want to speak.

I regret not testifying.

I have a chance to show people what the truth is,

and if they're willing to accept it,

it would be the biggest thing

that I can accomplish right now.

Because I didn't kill my family.

* *

- Speed.

- Rowlands, take one. Soft sticks.

- I think the public was so interested in this case

initially because of Laci.

This was a beautiful, pregnant, missing woman.

How did she just fall off the face of the Earth?

And then Scott Peterson became

the most hated man on the planet.

His behavior, the things that he did

and said and lied about, but the deeper

you get into this case, the more questions you have.

Because on the surface, oh, he did it.

But how? How did he do it?

And how did he not leave behind

any sort of a trail of evidence?

And if you didn't think Scott Peterson did it,

well, who else did it?

It's the reason that people to this day

are talking about this case and why some people think

that he didn't do it.

- I never dreamed I would put these four words

in the same sentence.

Scott Peterson, Innocence Project.

- 20 years ago, Scott Peterson was convicted

of murdering his wife, Laci.

- Serving life without parole after his death conviction

was overturned in 2020.

- An organization that works to exonerate people

wrongfully convicted of crimes is now reviewing

the Scott Peterson murder case.

- The LA Innocence Project is taking up the effort

to set Peterson free.

- I was floored.

- It was very, very surprising.

I would say borderline shocking.

- The LA Innocence Project is no joke.

- Over the years, Peterson has made many attempts

to get his case retried.

None of them have been successful.

- The new motion revolves around a theory

that Laci Peterson was killed by burglars.

- There was a van found close to Laci

and Scott's house that has a mattress

in it that has blood stains.

They're trying to get that mattress tested.

- This van is of high interest.

- Could we have gotten it wrong?

- Today, convicted killer Scott Peterson

will attend a court hearing via Zoom

that could allow him to get a new trial.

[indistinct chatter]

- Good morning.

We are on the record in the matter of

People versus Scott Lee Peterson,

case number SC055500A.

Mr. Peterson is present via Zoom.

Mr. Peterson, can you both see and hear the proceedings?

- Yes, I can. Thank you, Your Honor.

- And do we have your consent to appear

via Zoom this morning?

- Absolutely, Your Honor. Thank you.

- All right. Thank you.

Counsel would like to state their appearances,

starting with counsel for Mr. Peterson.

- Mr. Peterson has two objectives.

One is to get the discovery and the DNA testing

that we're requesting as soon as we possibly can.

- Scott Peterson was back in court today,

seeking a new trial.

- His new attorney argued for the release of evidence

she says should have been made available

at the time of the trial.

- They've raised some things that really have people

all across the country saying,

"Boy, I'm second guessing this now."

- My feeling on that is, where was this claim

when we were in trial?

If there was something missing,

I see them bringing it up and rubbing our face

in it in the original trial.

To me, it seems like it's kind of a wild goose chase.

- I had nothing to do with Laci's disappearance.

- There was no conviction behind what he had to say.

- It's hard to figure out sociopaths.

Controlling, and that they are...

have lack of emotions, lack of sympathy.

And Scott Peterson shows all of that.

- Oh, it's polarizing.

You bring up Scott Peterson

to a Scott Peterson hater and...

[growls]

- We, the jury,

find the defendant, Scott Lee Peterson,

guilty of the crime of murder.

[all cheering]

- I'm just glad he's guilty, because he is guilty.

- After calling him cruel, uncaring, and heartless.

- Scott got what he deserved.

- A lot of people are invested in believing Scott was guilty,

but if you really get into the details,

it gets much more complicated.

- My name is Shareen Anderson,

and I am a documentary filmmaker

and an investigative journalist.

In 2013, I started researching this case.

My initial thought was that he was probably guilty.

I mean, he was convicted, sentenced to death.

He deserved to be behind bars.

And it was only when I started looking

at the evidence and the facts that I started to question.

You can interpret a lot of the evidence in a variety of ways.

It is a circumstantial evidence case.

You can take one piece of evidence

and it could be a sign of guilt or the opposite.

And I wanted to dig deeper

and possibly make a documentary about it,

so I reached out to Scott Peterson.

I didn't hear back from him, but I did hear from

someone in his family.

- Are you excited about all the new developments

for the case?

- I think we have more hope than we've had in a long time.

[soft dramatic music]

My name is Janey Peterson.

I'm Scott and Laci Peterson's sister-in-law.

Scott Peterson is my husband's younger brother.

For this case, being 20 years old,

there are a lot of things going on

that are very encouraging.

And I think, in the coming year,

we're going to have a lot of answers as to what happened.

I think I first met Shareen Anderson in 2013.

She was interested in doing a documentary.

I was kind of impressed with her knowledge of the case.

She really was digging in.

We hadn't done any interviews in years,

and Scott has not spoken on camera

with the media about his case since before his arrest.

* *

- Scott Peterson can now have video visits up to 15 minutes.

I had a lot of things that I wanted to talk to him about.

Just hearing it in his own words,

whether it be about the evidence

or the lies that he told.

I wanted to see how far he was going to go

in terms of answering questions.

This case is still a mystery.

And whether you think he's innocent or guilty,

there's still a lot of unanswered questions.

[tense music]

* *

OK, here we go.

- Hey there, Shareen.

- Hey, how are you? - I'm all right.

How are you doing today? - I'm good.

So you were convicted of a horrible crime,

the murder of your pregnant wife and unborn son.

Why should anyone want to hear your side of the story?

Why should anyone care about

what you have to say 20 years later?

- If I have a chance to get the reality out there,

I have a chance to show people what the truth is,

and if they're willing to accept it,

maybe that takes a little bit of hurt off my family.

And that would be the biggest thing

that I can accomplish right now.

Don't trust me, but look at the evidence.

* *

[clock ticking]

[haunting music]

* *

- How can I help you? - Yeah, um...

- Laci's always been a happy, outgoing person.

She and her husband are very, very happy together.

We talked about 8:30 Monday night.

She had called to let me know that they were going to be

over Christmas Eve for dinner.

And we said we would see each other tomorrow evening.

He called me.

He thought she might be at my house.

And when I answered the phone, he said, "Mom, is Laci there?"

And I told him no.

* *

- When I got home, I started calling friends,

and they hadn't spoken to her. They didn't know where it was.

And then as the hours progressed,

it's like, oh, my God, she's not somewhere

that we know of. So it was anxiety and panic.

- Scott said that Laci went to walk the dog

and she hadn't come back,

and my husband... I could only hear

his end of the conversation, but I just remember him saying,

"I'm coming, brother."

And he hung up the phone and walked out the front door

and got in his car.

[phone ringing]

- It's Christmas Eve.

I'm at my cabin with my family.

[phone ringing]

When the phone rings up here on a holiday,

it's not good news.

A sergeant said, "Do you mind driving down

"to the city of Modesto for this missing person?

"It's a pregnant lady.

We got a gut feeling something ain't right."

Hey, she's eight months pregnant.

We need to find her.

It was like 9:00 at night.

It's 90 miles, so it takes an hour and a half to get there.

[crickets chirping]

I said, lock the house up.

Don't let anybody go in it until I get there.

And when I get there, introduce me to Scott Peterson.

[soft dramatic music]

When I drove up to the house, the first thing I noticed

was there had to have been 30 people in the driveway.

- You had neighbors, friends, and family

canvassing the neighborhood, looking for Laci.

There was an underlying panic. Where is she?

- They were knocking on doors, yelling her name.

They had a helicopter up.

They had dog teams and officers

walking in the park looking for her.

* *

Scott was there.

I told him who I was and what I was there for,

and I was, you know, there to help,

and he was kind of just nonchalant.

He didn't have any urgency about him that I noticed.

To me, that was suspicious.

- He was just calm. He was...

you know, he was pleasant. He was polite.

He didn't have the near panic

that everybody else we met after that had.

- I asked Scott to take me in the house.

I wanted to know if there was any sign of struggle

or a break-in.

- Scott never made any claims that there was

a home intrusion, that there was somebody

had broken into the house and abducted her by force.

For me, it was pretty much immediate

that there was foul play here, for the simple reason

that Laci didn't lead an at-risk lifestyle.

When you have somebody like that that goes missing,

the first place you look and the first place

you have to clear out is the person

closest to the victim, and that was her husband.

[tense music]

- In the driveway, I saw in the back of his truck,

he had four or five big outside umbrellas,

and they were all wrapped in a blue tarp.

He said, "Well, I was going to store them

for the... you know, for the winter at my shop."

- We've got patio umbrellas

that he said he was going to take over to the warehouse,

but ended up back at his house.

- I noticed the washing machine

had all these rags on it, and I thought that was odd.

What Scott told me was he went fishing.

Said, "It started to rain when I was out there fishing,

and so I was wet, so I wanted to wash my clothes."

He went right to the washer,

took these rags out, and took his clothes off,

and put them in the washer.

When I searched his truck after he told me

his clothes were all wet from fishing,

his jacket in the truck was not wet at all.

To me, he's just making excuses for evidence

that we're finding or seeing.

It didn't make sense, anything he was telling me.

- From day one, the police investigators

made it abundantly clear that they had one suspect.

You know, they went with the top hit statistically.

It's likely to be the husband.

And it was the person they had in front of them.

You don't commit a violent crime

without getting your hands dirty,

and yet there are no defensive wounds.

There's no murder weapon.

There are no witnesses of any crime,

and there's no crime scene.

They have nothing.

* *

- There was something about him from the beginning,

and I think investigators thought that.

Scott Peterson was an oddball,

and he had this beautiful missing woman.

What happened to her?

* *

- Christmas Eve, did you feel that

they were already looking at you?

- Definitely Detective Brocchini was.

When Brocchini took a first walk through the house

with the other officers, I don't think

they knew that I was near them

when one of them, you know, said, "Oh, yeah,

"we know what's going on here.

It's the husband."

And then he realized I was there

and kind of turned around.

* *

- I took Scott back to my office.

[light switch clicks]

I actually videotaped the husband of a missing person.

* *

- Brocchini's questions were not questions.

They were accusations.

He had made up his mind before he even arrived at our home.

- I told Scott, I have to eliminate you

as being involved in her disappearance or anything.

And I said, "And I know eventually

"you're not going to like me very much because

that's just the way this happens."

* *

And it turned out he didn't like me very much.

- Oh, he's right there.

- And this is Laci. Can you tell she's pregnant?

Look at that stomach. It's really sticking out.

- Aw, that's mean. - That's not mean.

That's being nice because it's not.

[soft dramatic music]

- One of the most confounding things

about the behavior with Scott Peterson

is how much friends and family all loved him.

He and Laci Peterson were sort of this perfect couple

who everyone said had a great relationship.

- OK, I was hoping both of you guys

would wave to the camera now.

Both you guys wave to the camera now.

- [chuckles] - Whoo-hoo, hi.

- Chasing after him. - I think I finally...

- In the early stages of the investigation,

we really couldn't find anything wrong with him.

If you're a father, he's the kind of guy

that you want to marry your daughter.

- Scott and Laci met at college

at San Luis Obispo.

- As I understand it, they had kind of

a casual meeting at this party.

- What was your first impression of Scott?

- I was very impressed.

He'd had a dozen roses for Laci and then a dozen roses for me.

So, of course, I was impressed.

- I thought he was a great guy.

It was almost a joke of, gosh, does he have a brother?

- They went everywhere together.

He did everything for her.

He's always been a gentleman.

I've never heard him raise his voice or anything.

- Scott wanted us to meet Laci.

They actually cooked dinner for us.

I remember him introducing Laci

as, "Meet the future Mrs. Peterson."

And I just went, "Oh. Nice to meet you."

[chuckles]

* *

- The things that I relish

are, you know, I can see Laci's smile

when she was doing her hair in the morning of the 24th.

You know, the way we shared a bowl for cereal

because we were lazy to do two bowls of cereal.

[chuckles]

Just those little things are still with me.

[soft dramatic music]

* *

* *

It's hard to explain what was going on.

It's just so out of any experience

that anyone should ever have to have.

- He is leaned back.

I mean, he is more comfortable in that chair

than I'm comfortable talking right now.

- I'm just trying to keep it together,

trying to get the search started,

trying to deal with the police.

There was no time to fall apart.

I couldn't let that happen.

- I noticed that a couple times,

he was talking about Laci in the past tense.

- I didn't say nothing to him.

I was just keeping track.

- Want to make little meringues?

- Oh, that would be nice.

- This is going to be our glue.

- The phone records show him leaving

his house after 10:00.

- He bought that boat on December 9th.

He told me that this was going to be his maiden voyage.

- He's telling me it was a that morning decision,

but he's got a fishing license dated for the 23rd and 24th.

Then he left and went to the Berkeley Marina.

He told me, here's the tag where I paid the boat ramp.

In Modesto, we are surrounded by reservoirs.

He could have drove 10 miles to put his boat in the water,

but to drive 90 miles to put his boat in the water

in the Bay, that's crazy.

- The great thing about cell phone records

is it can show movement, and in Scott's case,

the movements that he claimed to us

were substantiated by the cell phone evidence.

And so when it came to him leaving the house,

going over to his warehouse, loading the boat,

driving up to Berkeley, launching the boat,

his story matched up with the evidence

from the cell phone records.

- He is describing where he is.

- Later in the afternoon,

he called Laci, left her a message.

- This message he leaves Laci is like they're newlyweds.

I mean, it's gooey and it's, "I love you, honey,"

and, "I can't wait to come home and see you."

To me, it was really meant for me to hear it.

- Oh yeah, that was common with us.

I mean, you know, she would call me cutie.

I would call her beautiful. Absolutely.

We loved one another. We enjoyed one another.

We were great friends.

And they opined that it was too sweet

of a message for a married couple or something.

I bet they have really sad marriages if they think that.

Frankly, I feel bad for them.

- One of the questions I have is,

why did you want to get Ron a boat as a Christmas gift?

- I really loved the idea of grandparents,

and I wanted him to have a relationship with Connor.

And part of that would be fishing

because, you know, Ron really enjoyed it,

and I knew he'd be going all the time.

It'd be something to kind of bring us together as well.

* *

- You know, I didn't have any concerns

when I got home because I just thought,

"All right, Laci's with her friends,

or she's at her mom's house, helping her cook,"

which would not be uncommon.

So I really wasn't thinking.

I was jump in the shower, put on some clothes.

And then when I called over there and found out

Laci was not at her mother's house,

then yeah, I started to get concerned.

- He's telling me how concerned he is

about Laci being gone, but what does he do

when he gets home?

First thing he does is go and dump the mop bucket.

Then he goes and takes all his clothes off and washes them.

Then he went and ate some pizza.

Then he went and drank some milk.

He took a shower.

He listened to his voicemails on his phone, got dressed,

and he's really concerned about all these concerning things.

And then he finally calls Laci's mom.

- Yeah, yeah.

- He said, you know, it sure would be nice

to get some grief counselors for the family.

And I'm thinking BS, because he knew.

Those were all red flags to me.

He's really concerned, but what does he do?

Nothing concerning.

- Yeah, I know there's this narrative

that I wasn't concerned or something.

But there were so many times when I was on the edge

and just trying to hang on.

I was surprised to read that in their reports

and totally reported falsely about my mood.

[static buzzing]

[soft dramatic music]

- During normal part of an investigation,

one of the things you do is they call it a canvass.

You go to neighbors' houses and you interview them.

We knocked on a lot of doors.

We followed up on tips of other people.

Karen Servas, she was a next-door neighbor

to Scott and Laci, lived immediately

to the south of their house.

- On December 24, Karen Servas spotted Mackenzie, their dog,

running around with his leash on outside the gate.

- Christmas morning, I went and interviewed her

for probably an hour or more,

and she knew the dog shouldn't be unattended,

so she put it in the fence in the back area of the house,

and then she left.

She went to a retail store in downtown Modesto

and made a purchase.

Well, she still had the receipt,

and the receipt was time stamped.

Through that receipt, we were able to backtrack drive time

and narrow it down to when she found the dog

at about 10:18 in the morning.

With Scott claiming that Laci was there at the house

when he left, whatever happened to Laci

happened before 10:18 in the morning.

- When you found the dog, I believe

the leash was still attached.

- Correct. It was.

- Meaning that most likely Laci had gone by that point.

- Yeah, that would probably be the case.

- Because of Karen Servas, 10:18 is that magic number.

Anything after 10:18 didn't matter

in terms of the investigation.

- They drew the conclusion that the dog in the street

meant Laci was already dead.

[tense music]

- She was a great witness and provided information for us

that took us to a place where we could eliminate other people

from having abducted her.

The only one person that would not cooperate all the way

and help us exclude himself was Scott.

[somber music]

* *

- These are items from the actual volunteer center.

Buttons.

It's kind of surreal we still have some of this stuff.

By Christmas morning, the police had issued

a press release that Laci was missing.

My stepmother had actually worked in public relations.

And she said, "Well, I can send out a wire,

to news agencies." And she distributed that.

And that's one of the reasons that this case was covered

by national news so quickly.

- Police in Modesto, California are still looking

for a missing pregnant woman.

- Her name is Laci Peterson.

- Laci Peterson. - Laci Peterson.

- Laci Peterson.

- Laci Peterson is eight months pregnant.

- And she has disappeared without a trace.

- This was a media firestorm.

Within days, the national media

had taken this story and ran with it.

And instead of maybe two or three other reporters outside

of Scott's house, it became the entire street

was filled with satellite trucks

and members of the media from across the country.

There was a universal like, yes,

let's cover this again tomorrow.

Let's go down, back down to Modesto.

- From talking to the family and friends of the family,

this is completely out of character for her.

- No concrete leads. - No trace.

- Desperate for a break in the case.

- Where is she?

And it's really overwhelming to realize

how many places there are to look.

[indistinct radio chatter]

- Search teams on horseback,

in helicopters, in boats.

- We're looking just to make sure

that we cover all areas.

- Still, nothing has turned up.

- Whatever way you can help us,

we appreciate it.

- Somebody has Laci, and we hope

that person is watching and will bring her back to us.

- Checking the backyards and checking the alleys,

checking the garages.

- We don't know her personally, but we had to do something.

- Somebody knows where she is, and she's OK

and she can come home safe.

* *

- She's considered a high-risk missing person

under suspicious circumstances.

- The Modesto Police Department,

it's not what they said.

It's what they didn't say.

- Nobody's been ruled out.

- The criminal investigators were very quick

to try to take control of the media interest

in this case and the narrative.

- Is Scott Peterson a suspect or is he not?

- They're not calling him a suspect,

yet they're not ruling anyone out.

- They clung to their theory that it's the husband

right out of the gate.

- Police are focusing on the husband to some degree,

but they say he isn't a suspect.

- Her husband was the last person to see her alive,

so that's where the investigation has to start.

- It almost became what should have been

looking for Laci became looking for Scott.

People were calling me up. Where is he today?

What is he doing today?

- Of course, I am.

- He is not in any way, shape, or form

involved in her disappearance. It's just not a possibility.

- No motive, no family history.

They were doing awesome.

Looking very forward to having their baby.

- You know, so many people pointed out your behavior.

He acted weird or he didn't cry.

- They're saying it because I was unwilling

for the first few weeks to go in front of a camera

and give them the terrible emotions

I was feeling.

* *

- Of course, with the media attention to this,

we were also getting tips, some credible

that had to be looked into, some completely off the wall.

* *

- The tip lines were up to about 850,

and none of them have panned through yet.

- Police in Washington State are investigating

a possible sighting of missing California woman

Laci Peterson.

- The 27-year-old expectant mother may have

been shopping at a local

sporting goods store on Christmas Eve.

- But as everything started to be cleared out,

there was no parolee that did this

because we accounted for where they were.

There was no sex registrant that had done this

because we were able to account for their whereabouts

and alibi them out.

It started to narrow the focus on Scott

because we still weren't able to clear him yet.

- Most of our family did not really

have any indication how much the police were leaning on him.

Scott's consensus was it doesn't matter.

I didn't do anything.

When the dust settles, I'm going to be fine.

* *

- We wanted to go look deeper into the house,

because if there was an abduction,

we want to find out.

We knocked on the door, and we're like, "Hey,

"Scott, maybe she was abducted from your house.

"Maybe she had a boyfriend you didn't know about.

"We would really like to get into her computer,

maybe search the cars, search the shop."

And then we just hand him this form.

Just sign right here and we can do all of that.

And he picks it up, and he's like,

"You don't expect me to sign this without a lawyer?"

And I'm like, "Scott, we got a search warrant.

"You got to get out. We're going to do it anyway."

- He just denied us the ability to try

and do more things that would clear him

if he didn't have anything to do with this.

Scott looks at the search warrant

and he says to Al, "Al, where's the trust?"

It just seemed like a misplaced concern

when he should have been concerned more

about where she is and is she going to come back.

[dog barking]

- For the record, as well, it is 12/26 of '02.

It's now 19:56 hour.

- Scott did not deny the police access

to his home, his vehicles, or his warehouse

the night that Laci went missing.

And then they showed up two days later

with a search warrant.

- I called in some other detectives.

We wanted to look deeper into the house.

Of course we're going to find his fingerprints,

Laci's fingerprints.

- Scott's fibers, his clothes, everything around in the house,

you know, that belonged to him showed that he was there.

- But it also shows that nobody else was.

There was no forced entry into the house,

no stranger intrusion, no evidence of

a bloody crime scene cleanup.

- But at the foot of the bed,

there was a spot of blood that later

was determined to be from Scott.

- Maybe it was related to Scott harming Laci.

Maybe it wasn't.

There was nothing conclusive that showed

that anything violent in there happened.

I mean, I guess the best thing that you could say

about the house search was it eliminated

somebody else coming into that house and abducting Laci.

[dramatic music]

I think it's called confirmation bias,

where they only look at evidence

which supports their bias.

[tense music]

* *

- After that, we drove over to the warehouse.

* *

Near the boat was a flatbed trailer

that was used for hauling bags of fertilizer

and agricultural products.

And it was on that flatbed trailer

that the cement powder rings and residue was found

consistent with somebody making

several different concrete anchors.

- There was one anchor that was in the boat.

Looks like he made five anchors,

but we only found one. Where are the other ones?

- There are reports that there is evidence

that I made five weights.

I'd definitely dispute that

because there's no evidence of that because

the only reason I made one was to go fishing.

* *

- There was a needle nose pliers

that was found in the bottom of the aluminum boat,

and it had a hair that was wrapped up in it.

Laci could not be excluded as a donor of that hair.

Maybe the hair came off of Scott's clothing,

but the fact that it was entwined in the pliers

suggests that it wasn't.

If you're going to wire tie four homemade concrete anchors

onto four limbs and you're going

to submerge somebody, you might be using

a needle nosed pliers to do it.

In addition to that, there was concrete residue

along the inside edge of the boat

that would be there if somebody was rolling

a weighted body

with homemade concrete anchors out of the boat

and into the water.

There were so many pieces of circumstantial evidence

that painted the picture.

At this stage of the investigation,

we didn't have anything that helped with a motive,

but then we got some pretty important information,

and that kind of broke a different leg of the case over.

[phone ringing]

- I'm just in the detectives bay,

and we had two gals answer the tip phones.

So I'm standing behind one of them,

and she's typing, "Scott Peterson

is my boyfriend."

So I said, "Let me talk to her."

And she says, "My name is Amber Frey,

and I'm dating Scott Peterson."

* *

- That's just... wow.

That really surprised me.

There was no indications there were trouble

in the marriage or anything like that,

and we had no indication that there was

another side to Scott.

* *

[soft dramatic music]

* *

- Amber said that she was dating

a guy named Scott Peterson, and she learned

that he was involved in this case

and she had information for us.

It was the October before Laci went missing.

A friend of hers had been at this convention

down in Anaheim,

and Scott had been there representing himself

that he was single.

He had written on his name tag "horny bastard,"

obviously trying to find some new conquest.

He's charming and he's gracious and he's polite and he's funny.

One thing led to another, and she said,

"Well, I have a friend named Amber Frey.

"She lives in Fresno.

Maybe you guys would be a good fit."

And in November, Scott gets a hold of Amber,

and he meets her down in Fresno,

and they just start this whirlwind romance.

* *

- I asked her, "Does he know

you're calling me?" "No."

I said, "Do not tell him you're calling me."

So we get in the car and we drive to Fresno.

Sat down with her.

She tells me he calls every day.

So I go in the RadioShack right next door.

I said, "I'm going to buy you a cassette recorder,

and I'm going to show you how to use it."

And it ain't even five seconds I plug it in.

[phone ringing]

And there her phone ringing. It's him.

- Now things were starting to take shape.

Now we were seeing a completely different side

of Scott Peterson that he, up until that point,

had successfully kept hidden.

- We taped something like 29 hours

and 15 minutes of wiretap.

- He constantly lied to her about, "I'm in Europe,

I'm in Paris, I'm in Alaska."

- We continued to monitor the phone calls

that she was having with Scott until it got to the point

where it really didn't look like we were getting much more.

So we thought we'd turn up the heat a little bit on that

and have her be a little bit more

confrontational on her calls.

- Scott had told her in December that same day

that he bought the boat that he had actually lost his wife

and this was going to be his first Christmas without her.

- He's lying about things he doesn't need to lie about.

That's how pathological he is.

* *

- With Amber coming forward, I felt we had a motive.

He just didn't want to be part of this domestic life.

He didn't want to be a father.

Didn't want to pay child support.

And he just wanted out of it to just start enjoying

life in a different direction.

- Scott met Amber on November 20th.

On December 9th, he buys the boat.

Then we find out that he's searching the tides

for San Francisco Bay.

- From an investigator's standpoint,

Scott Peterson looking up tides in the San Francisco Bay

means where should I dump my dead wife after I kill her.

- He buys his fishing license beforehand.

He buys his boat beforehand.

It's starting to look premeditated to me.

- Then you start thinking in terms of,

"Well, how do you actually kill her?

The physical evidence and the circumstantial evidence

indicated that Scott likely killed her that morning.

Wrapped her, dragged her through the house,

loaded her in the truck, covered her with

the patio umbrellas, drove to the warehouse,

drove up to Berkeley Marina, dumped her in the water.

She was weighted with the homemade concrete anchors.

Made the staged call to Laci's cell phone.

- Hey, beautiful.

I just left you a message at home.

- Came back, washed his clothes,

ate some pizza, drink some milk,

took a shower, called Sharon.

Where's Laci? She's missing.

And so this is kind of the theory

that we put together as far as what actually happened.

You're trying to find logic in Scott killing his wife.

Well, the only logic I can see is twisted logic.

The fact that he didn't want to be a dad,

didn't want to pay child support,

didn't want to pay spousal.

And this is the way he thought about getting out of it.

[tense music]

- They said that you killed Lacey

because you didn't want to be married

and you didn't want to be a father.

- That's so offensive. It's so disgusting.

I just don't get that argument.

It's just absolutely not true.

I certainly regret cheating on Laci.

Absolutely.

It was about childish lack of self-esteem,

selfish me traveling somewhere,

being lonely that night because I wasn't at home,

and, you know, someone makes you

feel good because they want to have sex with you.

That's what that was to me.

- Why did you keep talking to Amber Frey

after Laci disappeared?

- I was searching for my family.

I wanted the search to continue.

Stay in contact with Amber, I thought,

and she wouldn't get into the picture,

complicate it, ruin the search for Laci.

- His number one goal is don't let Amber Frey

come out of the woodwork, because once she's out,

they'll just think that he had something to do

with Laci's disappearance.

It would focus the attention on him.

- The search for Laci is going to stop as soon as

the police officers or the public know that

I was having sex with another woman.

The knowledge of her was a time bomb.

- And that fear that he had absolutely came to fruition.

- "The National Enquirer" somehow got a copy of a photo

of Scott and Amber together.

- When I found out that Scott was having an affair,

it was very disappointing.

I was shocked. I was mad.

I think there was a huge shift in public perception

when my brother-in-law's adultery was revealed.

- As soon as Amber Frey did come out,

it changed dramatically.

It went from where's Laci, this is a mystery,

to Scott.

- For Laci Peterson's family,

there is fear, anger, and now disappointment.

- A real rift seems to have developed

between her family and her husband's family

or her family demanding answers.

- He's not acting like a husband

who's missing his wife.

He's not working with the family...

our family, at least.

- Investigators add Scott has been less than cooperative.

- We'd love for him to cooperate to that end,

to try to eliminate him from the investigation.

- You know, we were starting to have a concern

when Scott's infidelity became public

because it felt like nobody's looking for her alive anymore,

and that just wasn't an acceptable resolution.

We felt like it was getting to the point

where the police were focused solely on Scott.

[tense music]

There was a point where our family did hire

an investigator named Gary Ermoian.

- Right across the street to our left

at 523 Covina is Laci and Scott's home.

I'm Gary Ermoian.

I'm a private investigator, and I've worked here

in Modesto, California for about the last 40 years.

* *

Scott and his family hired me

to begin the investigation regarding Laci.

Modesto Police Department was starting

to focus on Scott as a suspect

with regards to her being a missing person.

We, of course, wanted to treat the case at that point

as a missing person case and do everything

that we could to try to make a determination

what happened to this young woman.

- Scott Peterson had left home

sometime shortly after 10:00 a.m. that morning.

And the evidence shows that Karen Servas

was putting that dog in the Petersons' backyard

and closing the gate around 10:18 a.m.

Because of that, the police believe

he murdered his wife on the morning of the 24th,

sometime before 10:18 a.m.

- If anyone is seeing Laci alive in the neighborhood

after that point in time, Scott is innocent.

* *

- Almost everybody I found that had information

I found by canvassing neighborhoods.

I talked to several individuals

who recall seeing Laci walking her dog

after 10:00 in the morning.

- In 2002, December 24, it was in the morning.

We went around, delivered gifts

to friends and relatives.

- After we left our house delivering presents,

getting gas, I noticed a beautiful young lady,

very pregnant.

She was struggling with the dog,

a golden retriever.

And I asked my wife, "Did you see

that pregnant lady?"

- I said, "I hope she doesn't fall."

And we just went on about our business.

* *

- Another sighting that we had was from Frank Aguilar,

who was driving down La Loma Avenue.

- It was Christmas Eve that morning

between 10:00 and 11:00.

She was walking, like, towards the park.

Her dog's like a golden brownish retriever.

- The house on the left, which is

on the corner of Buena Vista and La Sombra,

is the home of Vivian Mitchell.

- I was standing right here and washing some dishes

when I could see her walking across the street.

The dog was a beautiful golden retriever.

- The next sighting is right here by the park.

Diana Campos had just came to work.

She saw a woman walking a golden retriever dog.

She was certain that it was about 10:45 in the morning

when she came down here to smoke

because she was going onto shift.

* *

We started to put together a pattern

based upon the observations of these individuals

and the time periods that they remember.

After all, she was someone who would stand out.

Not only was she a beautiful young woman,

but she was pregnant,

and she had a large golden retriever dog

walking alongside her.

And it was pretty obvious to me

I could put together a path that she had taken.

* *

- Oh, the police never came out here.

* *

- People complain that they didn't feel

as though investigators were taking them seriously

or even responding to their tips.

- I talked to a sergeant, told him what I saw

and who I saw. Laci Peterson.

But no one called or came over and talked to us at all.

- The next morning, my neighbor says,

"Hey, did you hear about that lady was missing?"

I told him, I said "Yes, and I bet you I know

what color clothes she had on."

- Who was last seen wearing black pants

and a white pullover shirt.

- She had black pants on and a white blouse.

- She was wearing a white shirt and black pants.

- I don't believe that Modesto Police were following

the same leads as I was.

The police, I believe, were already focused on Scott.

* *

- So I wasn't the last one to see Laci that day.

There are so many credible witnesses

who saw her walking in our neighborhood.

I've recently learned that one of the reports,

the person came down, talked to the police

at their command center, and the police told him,

"No, you're wrong. You did not see her."

Just dismissed him without even looking into it.

It's devastating to learn that kind of stuff.

[indistinct chatter]

- A status conference is underway

for Peterson right now.

- His new attorney argued for the release of evidence

she says should have been made available

at the time of the trial.

- We spent a lot of time trying to suss out

what, frankly, are very alarming deficiencies

in the discovery that was provided

to the defense at the time of trial.

Mr. Peterson has been waiting 20 years

to find some of these police reports

that should have been provided.

- Our family is very relieved that the Los Angeles

Innocence Project came on board

to help find all the things that were

ignored by the Modesto Police Department

and not followed up on.

To have an innocence organization

take his case, finding out that they would

also be filing a discovery motion,

and that we might have more answers.

- Thank you all. OK. We'll be in recess.

Thank you.

- I think the police decided very early on

that Scott was guilty,

and I think if the Modesto Police Department

properly investigated Laci's disappearance

and followed the evidence, we would not be here.

Scott is innocent.

I'm not afraid of the truth.

I just hope people start listening.

- The missing woman's apparently perfect marriage

may not have been so perfect.

- Why didn't you tell the police

right away about Amber Frey?

- I'm only left to question what else he may be hiding.

- He looked like a narcissistic, lying killer.

- I had people spit on me at gas stations.

I've received death threats on the phone.

- The female adult body was discovered

late this morning by a woman

walking the shoreline at Point Isabel.

- After months of suspicion, her husband, Scott,

is tonight in police custody.

- I have no doubt that Scott did this.

We investigated everything.

- There's so much evidence in this case

that the police did not initially follow up on.

- A week after Laci goes missing,

a Croton watch is pawned.

- There had been a burglary next door.

- There's blood on a mattress in a van that was burned.

I believe this is bullshit.

- Why would you not want the jury to know everything?

- The information we were given in that courtroom

only leads to the decision we came up with.

- The dramatic verdict, guilty of murder.

- As the dust settled, everyone started

to realize this doesn't feel like

it was a powerful, compelling case.

- And that's where organizations

like The Innocence Project comes along.

- The LA Innocence Project

says new evidence now supports Mr. Peterson's

long-standing claim of innocence.

- There are so many instances where

there was evidence that didn't fit the detectives' theory.

They just assumed she was dead.

But what if they talked to these people

and they found out where she was

and they learned information from them

which could have brought her home?

* *