and this is "Dateline:
Secrets Uncovered."
- I miss her smile
and her laughter.
I miss everything
about her.
It's more difficult to speak
in public about it now.
- The news swept the nation
when she vanished,
Laci Peterson,
the beaming young mom to be.
- Please, please let her
come home to us.
- Prosecutors speak out
in an in depth
television interview.
- When you put so much
of your life into it,
it stays with you.
- Laci's husband--
finally hear the story he told.
- His rarely seen
police interrogation.
- We couldn't find anything
wrong with this guy.
- He was that charming.
- And surprising details
from the other woman
who helped uncover
the truth.
- It still affects me
emotionally.
- Did Scott Peterson
kill his wife?
- I do not believe he did.
- I mean, really,
who else coulda done it?
- I'm glad you
asked that question.
**
- Hello and welcome to
"Dateline: Secrets Uncovered."
To loved ones,
Laci and Scott Peterson
appeared to have
an idyllic marriage.
With a baby on the way,
Laci's dreams
of becoming a mother
were about
to come true.
Then, on Christmas Eve,
she vanished.
Laci's story gripped
the country as dark secrets,
once hidden behind
closed doors,
were exposed
for all to see.
Here's Keith Morrison
with "The Disappearance
of Laci Peterson."
**
- Once upon a time,
in a small California city,
lived a sweet pregnant woman
with a radiant smile,
and outside of friends
and family,
hardly anyone
knew her name.
- She would never know,
of course, how famous
that name of hers
was about to become.
- We have no indication,
no significant leads,
at this point.
- Would never know that
a curious, sympathetic,
puzzled nation had cast
an eye her way.
Laci Peterson,
she was 27 years old,
and, on the night
before Christmas,
she was gone.
- Laci, if you're out there
and can hear us and see us,
we love you,
and we're-we're searching.
We're looking.
- It hit something,
something in the air,
the zeitgeist, that name,
that smile, that mystery.
Impossible to put down.
- Whoever has her, please,
please, please let her go.
Bring her back to us.
- We love her so much.
We want her back.
Please give-- let her--
let us have her back.
- Yes.
- And then there was him,
the husband,
the inscrutable
Scott Peterson.
- I really don't care what
people think of me
as long as it continues
to keep Laci's picture,
description, tip line
in the media.
- Before our very eyes,
he would morph
from a faithful husband
who loved his wife
to an object
of suspicion.
An outrage,
such a circus,
the whole sad thing
sometimes seemed to be.
- Scott, hey, why don't
you come and talk to us
and tell us the truth?
- But for all the noise,
all the breathless coverage,
the hours of TV,
the acres of tabloid,
there was and is a story
never completely told,
a story the prosecutors
told "Dateline" first.
What do you think
of Scott Peterson,
his personality?
- He's a very
unusual person.
He's clearly very-- he's--
I think he's very smart.
I think he thinks
he's very smart.
- The story the detectives
saw firsthand.
- When somebody is
in a position like him,
and they didn't do it,
usually they'll say,
"Take blood.
Take a polygraph.
"I don't care."
But Scott wouldn't do that.
He'd only go to a point.
- He was just
cool as a moose.
- He was
Steve McQueen cool.
- The story of what
happened to her, too,
the other woman whose name
was also thrust into
a cultural moment,
Amber Frey.
What does a saga like that
do to a person's life?
- Well, I'd say, I mean,
from day one,
it completely
changed my life.
- And the story told by
a frustrated ex-journalist
convinced that the cops,
the prosecutors,
the public
got it all wrong.
Did Scott Peterson
kill his wife?
- I don't believe that.
I do not believe he did.
- And a video we found buried
in the court archives.
- Scott Peterson talking
to a detective just hours
after sounding the alarm
Laci was missing.
But before we get there,
we'll begin here,
with Laci Peterson's mother,
Sharon Rocha,
surrounded, fortified really,
by Laci's best friends,
Stacey Boyers, Lori Ellsworth,
and Rene Tomlinson.
They seem to make
you feel cheerful.
- They do.
They-they help a lot.
I'm glad they're here.
[laughing]
- But it's tough still, huh?
- It is tough.
- Perhaps harder than ever
to talk about it, she said,
to talk about her
long dead daughter,
whose case so
captivated the country.
There are people growing up
who probably either
don't remember or never knew
about Laci Peterson.
Tell me about Laci.
- I moved to Modesto
in the third grade,
and, um, I knew nobody.
- Uh-huh.
- And she was one of
the first people I met,
and there was no
not meeting her.
- You get the idea,
big personality.
- It just makes
you wanna whistle.
[laughing]
La-la-la-la.
[whistles]
- She made everybody laugh
and welcomed in
just with a smile.
She could smile,
and you would know
that that is the girl
that you're going
to be probably spending
the rest of the night
talking to or laughing at.
- Or listening to.
Maybe not talking
so much but...
She was hard to get
a word in edgewise.
- Talkative,
smart, tenacious.
- Do you have us?
- Oh, no.
- I have you.
- Is it working?
- Yeah, it's working.
- Okay.
- A person who went
for what she wanted,
the way she did
for Scott Peterson.
How did Laci meet Scott?
- At, um, a cafe
where Scott worked.
- Or at least saw him there
and, just like that,
gave a waiter her phone number
to pass on to Scott.
- She wasn't bashful.
[laughing]
- And Laci's mother
liked Scott,
liked him a lot.
- Very charming, very polite,
perfect gentleman.
- Bring you roses,
that sort of thing?
- Yes, he had
a dozen roses for Laci
and then a dozen rose--
roses for me.
So, of course,
I was impressed.
- The courtship
was like that,
old fashioned in what
seemed a good way.
- He actually asked
our permission to marry Laci,
and we gave him
our permission.
- There was a big wedding
in the summer of '97,
and by the turn
of the millennium,
Scott was a fertilizer
salesman in Modesto,
Laci a substitute teacher.
His job took him
on the road a lot,
but they were happy.
Did the three of you get
to know the two of them
together much before?
- Mm-hmm.
I thought he was
a great guy.
- We thought they were
great together.
- She was always happy.
It was almost a joke of, gosh,
does he have a brother?
- Though Laci struggled
to get pregnant,
after nearly five years
of marriage, that came, too.
- The day after my baby shower
that she threw for me,
she took a pregnancy test
and called everybody.
- Yeah.
- Very early.
- Yeah.
- Very early the next morning.
- Soon enough, the Petersons
learned they were having a boy.
They readied the nursery
and decided to name him Conner.
Laci was nearly eight months
pregnant by Christmas,
the last Christmas before
little Conner was due.
You were supposed to have
a, uh, Christmas Eve dinner.
Is that right?
- Yes, I was.
She was having
Christmas Day,
and I was having
Christmas Eve dinner.
That was when he called.
It was close to 6:15,
and he called and asked
if Laci was with me.
- Missing.
- I said, "No, she's not here."
"Well, she's missing."
- And that was
the beginning.
Christmas Eve 2002,
Laci Peterson
with her bright smile
was nowhere to be found.
- Where is Laci?
It's the question on
everyone's lips
as the missing mom to be
becomes national news.
- There's a $500,000 reward.
I thought somebody
kidnapped her.
- I was
absolutely panicked.
- The first clues--
her dog dragging its leash.
[barking]
Her neighbors robbed.
Her husband
asking for help.
- Did he seem frantic
or worried?
- A little bit.
**
- What was it about
this woman, this man,
this case that so quickly
gripped the nation?
Was it her smile?
Was it because it
happened Christmas Eve?
Subject for
some PhD thesis, that.
But at the beginning,
it was like 1,000
other such cases,
a stomach flipping
phone call.
She's missing.
I've had a child missing
for ten minutes,
and the-the sense
of, oh, my God,
something may have
happened here is so powerful.
It just takes over
everything, right?
- It does. It does.
- It does.
- It absolutely does.
- Laci Peterson's mother,
Sharon, remembers
telling her son-in-law, Scott,
check with the neighbors.
Call Laci's friends.
And he did. You all--
- Yeah, we all got a call.
- Yeah.
He asked me if I'd
seen her that day.
"Have you seen Laci
at all today?"
- And then he called back.
- I said, "No, I haven't."
And he's like, "Well,
she's-she's missing."
- Did he seem frantic
or worried?
- A little bit.
- Worried enough to ask
for their help.
So, did you all
go over to his--
to their place?
- Yeah.
- Sharon Rocha's
longtime boyfriend,
Ron Grantski,
called the cops.
- Golfing on
a cold Christmas Eve?
Odd but okay.
Meanwhile, Sharon followed up
on something Scott told her,
that he came home to find
the dog out in the yard
wearing a leash.
[barking]
- I went directly
to the park.
- Because of that leash
on the dog and the--
- Yes.
We had walked together
in the park before.
I was absolutely panicked.
I was running around.
I was looking in trashcans.
- Mm-hmm.
- I was screaming her name.
- No sign of her anywhere.
Laci's friends
spent the early hours
of Christmas morning
making missing posters.
- The next morning, I walked in
was at Christmas Day.
We had fliers, and tape,
and everything.
- Set up.
- We're gonna start
passing these out
to the, um, family
and volunteers.
It's awesome,
just one of the--
another way to get
her picture out there.
- We hit the ground running.
- We go, go, go.
- Yeah.
- We just get up
the next day and, I mean--
- I know I didn't sleep
for days.
- Yeah, didn't
put makeup on. I--
that was the last thing
from my mind.
- We did good.
- I mean, we pretty much
canceled Christmas, like,
with our families.
- Yeah. Oh, yeah.
- Yeah.
- My daughter's first Christmas,
I was not with her.
- Yeah.
- Let's do, um, Oakdale.
- Yeah, that's
where I'm gonna be.
- Pretty soon,
the whole town of Modesto
seemed to be looking
for Laci Peterson.
- Please have prayers.
Anyone out there,
help bring her home.
Bring her home alive.
- Of course, the police
were searching, too, full out.
How long did the search go
on in here anyway?
- Well, all night
and then all the next day.
- Al Brocchini,
the first detective on the case,
watched as searchers
scoured the area.
They were
everywhere here, right?
They were just--
- Oh, yeah,
they did a grid search.
Meaning they would have--
they would have been
in eye contact and walked
this whole area.
- Brocchini and John Buehler,
his partner at the time,
had a feeling
from the start.
Laci Peterson missing
wasn't going to end well.
- Because she didn't lead
an at risk lifestyle.
- Yeah.
- She didn't hang around
at the bars,
and she wasn't out
two timing him
or doing anything
like that.
I mean, she was a girl
that was just ecstatic,
from everything
that I learned about her,
of being a mother.
- So, she wasn't someone
who would just walk away,
and yet,
in the anxiety, hope.
An idea formed in the minds
of those who loved Laci
that somehow this might
turn out all right.
- We know we're
gonna find Laci.
We know we're gonna bring
her home alive and safe.
- We were gonna find her.
Like, I thought
somebody kidnapped her.
I-- that's what I thought
just for the baby or something.
- Here's Lori, Rene,
and Stacey,
along with another friend,
in January 2003.
- There's a $500,000 reward
for her and, you know,
the baby's safe return.
Just take that.
You know, take the money
and give us Laci back.
- So, in those first days,
an exhausted Sharon Rocha,
her ex-husband, Laci's father,
Dennis, beside her,
went on TV and pleaded
with a kidnapper.
- I would just like to send
a message out there
that whoever has her,
please, please,
please let her go.
Bring her back to us.
- We love her so much.
- Early on, there were clues
the cops uncovered
that made kidnapping
seem plausible.
Remember the couple's dog
with the leash attached?
[barking]
Scott found it
in the backyard.
A neighbor said she
saw the Peterson's dog
wandering the street
earlier that day,
so maybe Laci was kidnapped
while walking the dog.
And just about the time
Laci disappeared,
there was a burglary
right across the street.
So, did she
witness a crime?
Did burglars take her?
The police wanted to know.
- A reward for information,
uh, for the identity
of the, uh, the persons
responsible for the burglary.
- Then two men were caught.
Didn't take long.
And soon enough, one of them
showed up in a TV interview.
- And police agreed,
no connection to Laci,
so they kept digging.
- We were also looking at
and researching up
all the sex registrants
and the parolees,
people with histories
of violent crime, abductions,
kidnappings, sexual assaults,
and things like that.
- A lot of them hung out
at the park in that area.
- We had some.
We were clearing those guys.
We were interviewing them,
and we were verifying
their alibis.
- What the police
were not saying,
was that homicide detectives
had other suspicions.
Of course, they talked
to Laci's husband, Scott.
- We're certainly gonna
look at Scott first.
He's the closest to Laci,
and that's where you start
when you're working
a case like that.
- Of course.
- That was
behind the scenes.
In front of the camera,
the official police statements
were more circumspect.
- Let's focus on the fact
that we would still like
to find Laci alive,
but we have to understand
what the possibilities are.
The other possibilities
are that she could be, uh,
you know, a victim
of foul play.
- Those closest to Laci,
who, at first, were having
trouble grappling with
the whole idea of foul play,
certainly couldn't fathom
that Scott had anything
to do with
Laci's disappearance.
Back then, early 2003,
even Sharon Rocha told us,
impossible.
- People who know Scott and Laci
have no doubt whatsoever
that he has nothing
to do with her disappearance.
- It's a powerful thing,
true belief,
but when it comes
crashing down, my, my, my.
**
- Scott Peterson down
at the station,
a rare look at
his interrogation.
- Was he okay with
talking to you?
Was there any hesitation?
- No, he agreed.
He was okay with it.
- Didn't ask for an attorney
or anything like that.
- No, he didn't--
he didn't ask for attorney.
- Was there something fishy
about his story?
- He didn't even know
what he was fishing for.
He didn't know what bait
he was using.
**
- Didn't take long for
the Laci Peterson story
to go wide.
That face was smiling
out of magazines
and television screens
nationwide.
- The more leads we get,
the more--
she's out there somewhere.
- Friends and family,
desperate to get the story out,
talked to anyone, everyone,
but they noticed one person
seemed to stay
in the background, Scott.
Grieving in private his parents
told us back in 2003.
- He's brave,
but he's just devastated.
- He just would not be
a good spokesperson.
- But there was one camera
Scott couldn't shy away from.
At the police station,
here's Scott with
Detective Brocchini
just hours after
he reported Laci missing.
In this rarely seen video,
you can watch Scott,
hear his words.
Does he seem like a worried,
frantic husband?
You'll see.
- Was he okay with
talking to you?
Was there any hesitation?
- No, he agreed.
He was okay with it.
- Didn't ask for an attorney
or anything like that.
- No, he didn't--
he didn't ask for attorney.
I didn't read him
his rights.
I wasn't planning on
arresting him,
so I don't have
to do that.
I knew, whatever he told me,
I'm taking him home,
and I told him that.
Doors are unlocked.
I'll drive you home.
Don't have to talk to me
if you don't want to.
- As Brocchini sat there,
he was struck by
how impassive Scott was
even as he revealed
he didn't go golfing.
- He said he drove
to his warehouse office
a few miles away.
- Then, said Scott, he drove
to the Berkeley Marina
about 90 miles away,
parked his car,
and put his boat
in the water.
- Details that sounded
plausible enough
except to
Detective Brocchini.
He drew a short straw when
he got a fisherman to talk to.
- Me and the-- and the officers,
they were fishermen, too.
His fishing pole is like one
you'd use in a stream,
and his lures are jigs that
you would use in the Delta.
He didn't even know what
he was fishing for,
he didn't know what bait
he was usin',
and he didn't have any gear
that was really meant
to be fishing in the bay.
- Brocchini also wondered--
why had Scott bought
a fishing license days
before if he didn't know
he was gonna fish
that day?
- There's a receipt dated
December 20th.
That's when he bought
his fishing license.
- But then he said it was
a last minute decision.
- He said it was just that day,
the-the last minute decision.
So...
- So, that didn't
quite jive.
- That doesn't--
that doesn't jive.
- The detective was,
to say the least,
skeptical of Scott's
fishing story.
- Why would you go 90 mile--
if all you're doin' is,
you wanna try out
your new boat, right?
- Mm-hmm.
- And you live in Modesto,
I could tell you 20 places
within 25 miles of here
you could put that boat
in the water
and t-try it out.
- But Scott said he had proof,
a parking receipt
from the marina.
- "Yeah, here-here-here's
my receipt just in--
"just to prove
I was there, you know."
So, I mean, I've-I've
fished at Berkeley Marina
lots of times, and I've probably
got four or five of 'em
on my dashboard, right now,
but I don't know what made him
decide to, okay,
I'm done fishin',
I'll take it
off dashboard,
and then I'll put it
in my pocket in case
I need it for later.
I don't know, but that's just--
he was ready, prepared.
- Hmm.
- Scott said the fish
weren't biting
that Christmas Eve afternoon,
so he headed back to Modesto
and got home around 4:30
where he found the dog
with the leash attached,
an unlocked back door,
but no Laci.
- He was calm as he spoke
to Brocchini,
Calm, matter of fact,
helpful.
- He answers your questions,
but he doesn't do
any more than that, right?
- Yeah, he has an answer.
- Uh-huh.
- And, uh, he doesn't elaborate,
doesn't get emotional.
- Which, the investigators
thought at the time,
wasn't necessarily
a good thing.
- He told me,
"Oh, that's concerning.
I get home,
and her car is there,
and the dog is running around,
a leash,
and, you know,
the door is unlocked,
and her purse is here,
and-and that's-that's really
concerning me."
But let me
take all my clothes off
and wash 'em
and let me, you know,
eat some pizza
and take a shower
before I even try to figure out
what's going on here.
That's concerning.
That was concerning to me.
- And then the detective
asked the question
that soon everyone
would be asking.
- Most people
in that situation,
they're gonna have a lotta
questions for ya.
- Sure.
- Are you guys doin' this?
I've heard of this.
Why don't you do this?
Oh, we got that
from Sharon.
We got that from Ron.
We got that
from Laci's friends.
Everybody had an interest
in-in trying to get us
to go faster.
- Everybody,
that is, but Scott.
Now, why, they wondered,
would that be?
- Coming up...
- When I listened to that,
I thought that
he was leaving this recording
for us to hear.
- Scott under scrutiny.
- I was afraid to
say it out loud.
Could he be involved
with her disappearance?
**
Welcome back to
"Dateline: Secrets Uncovered."
I'm Kate Snow.
After Laci Peterson
disappeared,
detectives questioned
her husband, Scott.
He told them he was fishing
the day she vanished,
but to investigators,
who happened to be
experienced anglers,
Scott's story didn't pass
the smell test.
Laci's mother couldn't
fathom Scott harboring
such a dark secret,
but soon she, too,
would have suspicions.
Here again
is Keith Morrison with
"The Disappearance of
Laci Peterson."
* This little light
of mine *
- A week after
Laci Peterson disappeared,
they had a vigil.
- Everyone coming together
and praying
just helps-helps you feel like
you're doing something.
- Candles, and prayers,
and tears,
and though much of Modesto
was here in body or spirit,
not a single person understood,
not yet, not for a while,
why this gathering would
become a defining moment,
especially, perhaps,
Scott Peterson because,
though it looked as if he might
have shed a tear or two,
he seemed to be avoiding
Laci's family and friends.
What about the vigil?
- He wasn't--
- He wasn't on the stage.
- No, he wasn't on the stage.
- No.
- No, he was on the phone.
- Sharon wouldn't know
for a long time
the truth about
Scott's phone call that night,
but it was that night
after the vigil
that privately Sharon
first allowed her mind
to go to that very dark place.
- I remember
it was New Year's Eve
when I started
going back and forth.
- Yeah.
- But just to myself.
I wouldn't say it out loud.
I was afraid to say it out loud,
but I started
just kinda thinking
could he be involved
with her disappearance.
- Sharon was a frantic mess,
and she looked at him,
and he just seemed
so detached somehow.
- Never once did he say,
"Oh, my God, where is Laci?"
- No.
- "Where could she be?
I hope she's okay.
I hope, you know,
she's not harmed."
Never, ever, ever.
- You were feeling
that panic.
Even as you talk about it,
you can see
a little bit of it left.
- Yes.
- He did not seem
to have that sense.
- No, he did not have it.
- Uh-uh.
- And I actually made out
a list of did he or didn't he.
I had a list,
and there was a lot more
on the did than didn't,
and that's
what really scared me.
- It scared her.
She didn't wanna believe it,
didn't want to go there,
so she didn't,
put that thought
out of her mind,
but the detectives
were trained to go there.
They turned over
everything Scott said, and did,
and didn't do,
and wondered why.
There was a slickness somehow,
a fake feeling,
from the very beginning,
like the voicemail
he left Laci while he drove home
from the Berkeley Marina.
- When I listened to that,
I thought now
this doesn't sound right.
Been married five years,
she's pregnant,
and he's talking to her
like they're on
their third date.
- The tone to it
that he was leaving
this recording for us to hear
so that he would appear to us
as this devoted husband
and not somebody
that was involved in foul play.
- Of course, it could also be
that he was just a romantic guy.
- We couldn't
rule that out at all.
- And there was this.
Under the circumstances,
the very day Laci disappeared,
why was he almost
obsessively fastidious
when they searched
his pickup truck?
- He was worried about
the wrong things.
I'm searching his truck,
and I open the door,
and it bangs into
the Land Rover.
He was right up there.
He goes, "Al,"
and he has a glove,
"I'll hold this,
or I'll move my truck,
but, you know."
I, actually, I wrote it
in my police report
because I'm like that's weird.
- These weren't hard facts
of evidence, of course,
just a rising damp
of suspicion,
things like
when did Scott get a boat.
- The detective said that,
um, he said that
he had taken his boat out.
And I said, "What boat?"
- What boat?
- Mm-hmm.
- "Scott doesn't have a boat."
- Mm-hmm.
- Yeah.
- Until...
- It turned out...
- He did have a boat.
Yes.
- Yeah.
- Scott had told Brocchini
that Laci knew about the boat.
How could it be that
Sharon had no idea
that Scott had recently bought
a used 14-foot game fisher?
[snaps]
- The-the light didn't just
go on my head
and say,
oh, he killed her.
No, it didn't.
I treated him like a husband.
- Mm-hmm.
- And a miss--
the husband of a missing person,
but I had suspicions,
and I asked him
to take me to the boat.
Show me the boat.
- Very late that first night,
the detective
and Scott went to
Scott's warehouse
where he worked
and kept his boat.
You came here that night,
right?
- Christmas Eve night, yeah.
- What did he tell you
when you came here,
and you wanted to look inside,
and you had your flashlight out
and stuff?
- He said,
"There's no electricity."
- No lights,
which was a lie.
- So, I just said,
"Open the door,
and I'll put my headlights
in there."
- To the detectives,
it all smelled bad,
so they did the things
detectives do.
They got a wiretap
on Scott's phone,
hid a GPS under his car,
and they watched him constantly.
Sometimes, they noticed,
he watched them, too.
- I was surveilling him,
and I'm in an unmarked car,
I'm parked three blocks away
in a high school parking lot
full of cars,
and I'm watchin' this place
with binoculars,
and all of a sudden,
I look in my sideview,
and it's Scott.
So, I got out of the car,
and he-he says, uh, "Hey, Al."
- It was just odd,
and yet he seemed
such a Boy Scout.
He had no secret criminal past,
no history of being abusive.
- So, they stewed
in their suspicion,
aware they really had
nothing on him.
- We couldn't find
anything wrong with this guy.
I don't think there
was a wart on his body.
I don't think he ever
had a traffic ticket.
I mean, he really was
the guy you want
to marry your sister.
We were waiting for
that one thing
that showed that he wasn't
this perfect guy.
- In one remarkable moment,
they'd get that and more
because of her.
- Coming up...
- He was single and
looking for the one.
- Enter Amber.
- It was going really good.
- Did you start to think about,
wait a minute,
I could actually make
a life with this man?
- You know, I-I did.
**
- October 2002,
months before
Laci Peterson disappeared
and 100 miles away
in Fresno, California,
something happened that
would make all the difference
in the case.
A young woman named Amber Frey
got a phone call
from a friend about a guy.
- I was doing really well
in getting my career started
in massage therapy
and single mother
and was told about
this great guy
that-that my friend
wanted me to meet.
- Sort of set you up on a date.
- Yeah.
So, it was a blind date
at first.
I said,
"Okay," a little,
kinda like I wonder,
you know,
I wonder who she sees
as a good fit for me.
- He sounded perfect.
- She had said he had
a good sense of humor,
good-looking,
had a-a career.
He was single and looking
for the one, like, soul mate.
- He was serious about this.
- Yeah.
- His name?
Scott Peterson.
It was late November
when they met in person,
and it was electric.
- I mean, we just had
a really great first date,
like, really good.
- Sometimes you meet somebody,
it's very easy to talk to them,
and you feel as if
there's no wall
between the two of you.
- Right.
- It was like that?
- Yeah.
- Was it like he was
immediately attracted to you
and you to him?
- When we first met,
we were both kinda chuckled
about being pleasantly
surprised at one another,
and so I would say there
was a-a mutual attraction.
- What did he tell you
about himself?
- So, on our first date,
he was telling me a little bit
about his family and
plans he had upcoming,
like Thanksgiving and, like,
fishing trips
and going to Maine
with his family in a cabin,
and he was planning to
go to Europe, uh,
with some friends.
- He wooed her fast
with strawberries and champagne.
It was early, bright,
and exciting.
- Absolutely.
- He was eager to bond
with Amber's little girl.
- I mean, he was
really sweet with her.
She was excited.
We had planned a picnic
and a little hike.
She held both of our hands
as we walked
and was comfortable with him.
- That must have been
very sweet at the time.
- It was.
- And it's not always
you find a man
who is comfortable
with the idea
that you have a child
or children.
- Right.
- He bought them both gifts.
He brought groceries
to their house.
He made dinner.
He was considerate, caring,
even in voicemail.
- It was going really good.
I was really excited.
He was always
complimenting.
You know, like,
"You leave the best messages,"
and, you know,
"Looking forward to seeing you."
- All so perfect.
What Scott never mentioned,
of course,
was that he was married,
his wife was Laci,
and he and Laci
were readying a nursery
for their firstborn,
who was on his way.
No, Amber knew nothing of that,
and yet something wasn't
sitting right with her.
She thought, why,
when he called her,
was there so often
the sound of running water
in the background,
as if he was masking
the sound of their conversation?
- It was just odd.
Like, why are you talking to me
in the shower?
And he kinda blew it off
like it wasn't a big deal.
- But then, early December...
- He had called me one day
saying he really needed to
talk to me,
and I could hear in his voice
he was worried or concerned,
or something was going on.
- Scott was contrite.
Said he had
a confession to make.
- He apologized because
he wasn't honest with me,
that I had asked if he had
ever been married
and-and, uh, that, in fact,
he had lost his wife,
and this would be
the first holidays without her.
- That's the expression he used.
"I lost my wife."
- Yes, and he was crying
and just, you know,
like, very emotional.
- It was a tender moment,
said Amber,
and she felt compassion for him.
- I thought maybe she died of,
you know, cancer
or in an accident or,
I mean, because obvious--
his-his words were obviously,
you know,
it was something recent
or more recent.
- Yeah, sure.
Did you ask?
- I didn't ask.
I didn't wanna pry
because he was so emotional.
- With that secret
off his chest,
Scott gave her
a new cell phone number
where she could reach him
when he took
a long planned trip to Europe
over Christmas.
That is...
- "If you still
wanna talk to me after,"
you know, because--
- After I've told you this.
- Right, and so I was like,
"Yes, of course."
- Did you start to think about,
wait a minute,
I could actually
make a life with this man?
- You know, I-I did.
- And yet, even here,
December 14th,
as they got ready
for a Christmas party
with Amber's friends,
the little beast of doubt
was worming its way
into her mind.
- I was starting to feel
that women's intuition.
Somethin' just wasn't right.
- Really?
- Yes.
- While he was in Europe,
he told her
she should write to him
at a post office box in Modesto,
but he had told her
he lived in Sacramento,
so why Modesto?
Why these odd questions
she couldn't answer?
She had a cop friend.
She'd called him.
Could he check up
on Scott Peterson
from Sacramento?
A few days later,
her friend called back.
- He said that he found
an article
and that he was gonna print it
and bring it to me.
I said, "Okay."
- That was December 29th.
Scott had left for Europe
two days earlier,
or so he said,
and then Amber
read the article.
- I was in disbelief of
what I'm reading because I--
it sounds like him--
fertilizer salesman, Modesto.
I don't think
there was a full picture of him,
but there was--
uh, his truck
was in this article.
- So were these words,
"pregnant" and "missing."
- I need this confirmed.
I don't wanna believe
what I just read.
- Kinda turning your world
upside down, huh?
- Oh, yeah, absolutely.
- And that's when Amber
called the Modesto police.
- I reach a dispatcher,
and I said,
"I-I've been dating
this person.
Um, I just wanna know
if this is the same person."
- Sure.
- And she just kept saying,
"Okay, okay,"
and, like, okay, it is,
or, okay, what?
I gave his birth date.
I gave his full name.
And-and then, uh,
she says, "Okay."
And I said, "Okay, yes?"
She goes, "Yes."
- Yes, Amber's Scott Peterson
and the Scott Peterson
with the missing wife
were one and the same.
- And I just remember crying,
like, I don't know for how long.
I was shaking, like,
the adrenaline,
and just I was in shock.
- Amber Frey, who thought maybe
she'd met the one,
was in the middle
of something terrible.
- Coming up...
- We wanted to
start recording calls.
- Hushed conversations,
hidden recordings,
Amber goes undercover.
- Soon as I plug in
her little recorder,
and I'm showing her
push the red button
and the black button,
the phone rings.
- He called.
I was shaking uncontrollably.
I was so just nervous
and scared.
**
- In all fairness to
the Modesto Police Department,
scrambling to manage
that flood of tips
about Laci Peterson,
Amber's phone call
was a barely discernible ripple.
Did they call you
back right away?
- No.
- So, the next day,
she called again and
looking over
the dispatcher's shoulder
at just the right moment
was Detective Brocchini.
- I just happened to be
standing behind, um, one of 'em,
and Bev was typing,
and I could see the name
Amber Frey,
and then she's saying,
"Scott Peterson
is my boyfriend."
- You're seeing all this being--
- I'm seeing this.
So, I said, "Bev, are
you talking to her?"
"Yeah."
I said, "Let me talk to her."
- And before long,
the two detectives
were in Fresno
listening in person
to Amber's story
of Scott's amorous courtship.
- It was almost like
a scriptwriter was writing this
and, uh, very talented
with the romance he was.
- I basically just told 'em
our whole relationship
that we had been having
and what our conversation
was currently,
at the moment.
- And that he was over
in Europe somewhere.
- Right, and-and they, you know,
I think they, too,
were just a little, like,
in disbelief,
shaking their head.
"No, he's definitely
in Modesto."
- Scott had been lying
the whole time, elaborately.
He'd even called Amber
from a payphone at the airport
to say goodbye when
he supposedly left for Europe,
so she'd see the caller I.D.
But if Amber hadn't known
where Scott really was,
she sure knew a lot.
- And she had a mental recall
that was punctuated with
wine corks and
all sorts of memorabilia.
- That she had saved.
- That she'd saved
from their romance.
- So, then the detectives asked,
could she help them
in their investigation?
- So, at that point, I said,
whatever was needed,
I would cooperate with them
because it wasn't about me,
at that point.
- No.
- There was a missing
pregnant woman.
- True.
- And, you know,
I've been having a relationship
with her husband.
Unknowingly,
he was married.
- Well, we wanted to
start recording calls.
- Amber agreed,
so they went right out
and bought a portable recorder,
and what do ya know?
- Soon as I plug in
her little recorder,
and I'm showing
push the red button
and the black button,
the phone rings.
- He called.
- Oh, boy.
- And their expression,
they-they were just like,
well, I can't believe
he's calling you right now.
- I was shaking uncontrollably.
My fingers were, like,
just sweaty palmy mess.
- Yeah.
- And I was fumbling
because I was so just nervous
and scared.
- And so, it began.
For the next eight days,
Scott Peterson pretended
he was traveling
in Europe.
Amber Frey pretending
she was still his girlfriend.
- The cops, they kept looking,
bringing scent dogs to Berkeley,
divers to the bay.
Laci's friends
held that vigil, prayed.
And all the while,
Amber secretly recorded
her conversations with Scott,
inwardly trembling.
- I was shaking and trying to
catch my breath and calm down.
There was just
too much nerves there,
and I would pace
back and forth.
- One of those calls,
of course she didn't know it
at the time,
was going to be notorious.
- New Year's Eve...
- That was the big one.
- Yeah.
- Coming up...
- Okay, first of all,
I met Scott Peterson
November 20, 2002.
- Revealing the truth
to the world,
Amber Frey's firestorm.
- We believed, at the time,
it was probably best
to get her up there,
almost like
exploding your own bomb.
- I was introduced to him.
I was told he was unmarried.
Scott told me
he was not married.
We did have a romantic
relationship.
I-I had a panic attack.
I couldn't breathe.
I literally could
not catch my breath.
**
- Welcome back to
"Dateline: Secrets Uncovered."
I'm Kate Snow.
Investigators searching for
Laci Peterson
caught a huge break when
Amber Frey called in a tip.
She suspected
her boyfriend, Scott,
wasn't who he said he was,
that he was actually
married to Laci.
Immediately,
detectives asked Amber
to record the couple's
private conversations.
Now, Scott's secret life
was about to become very public.
Once again,
here's Keith Morrison
with "The Disappearance
of Laci Peterson."
- Amber Frey had been working
with detectives covertly
recording her conversations
with Scott Peterson.
In this one,
Scott told Amber
he was calling from
a continent away,
having a ball in Paris.
Of course,
it was a big lie.
- In fact,
the crowd was huge.
It just wasn't in Paris.
It was in Modesto,
and they weren't celebrating.
Scott called Amber
from the vigil for Laci,
the one where
he made himself scarce
while Sharon and Laci's friends
pleaded for help,
and Scott called Amber,
inventing fine details
from his trip,
like jogging on
the cobblestones of Europe.
- He worked out
the time difference
for his phone calls.
- And he kept on
wooing her,
unaware of
who was listening.
- All very interesting,
but...
What were you hoping for
from those recorded
conversations
that you didn't get?
- Well, of course,
ideally, I was hoping
that he would say,
"No, I murdered my wife.
"I dumped her in the bay.
"And let's run off
to Europe."
But that wasn't
gonna happen.
- So, detectives
went right at him.
They asked Scott
to come down
to the police department again.
And without telling him
where they got it,
they showed him a fax
of a photo of himself
with Amber Frey
at the Christmas party.
- And, of course, he lies
when he's confronted.
- Prosecutor Birgit Fladager.
- He sees the picture
of himself with Amber,
and he says,
"That's not me."
- Was it clearly him?
- It was.
- If Scott suspected
the detectives had
somehow found out
about Amber,
he didn't let on,
and he kept calling her,
and she kept recording,
but he started testing her
with questions.
- And I was like,
uh, what bombing?
There was another time
he had asked,
um, if I had seen the article
on the-the monarch butterflies
that are in Pismo,
and I said, "No."
I gathered right away
he was asking
because these were,
in fact,
something that was
in the paper, possibly.
- Right.
- If I was looking
at the news.
- To find out, in other words,
if she knew about Laci.
And then, on January 6th,
13 days after Laci
disappeared,
Scott told Amber himself.
- Scott had no idea,
of course, that Amber
happened to be
in the police station
when he offered
that big admission
or that Amber's
responding question
was a huge deal to
both her and the cops.
- Different kinds of loss?
Now, what did that mean?
While investigators built
their case against Scott,
Laci's family was
in a world of pain.
It was January of 2003,
and Sharon Rocha
was still gripping onto
a slipping remnant of hope
that her Laci was still alive,
was barely hanging on
the day soon after
that New Year's Eve vigil
when Scott walked
into the house.
- And I asked him,
"How are you doing?"
And he said,
"You know, I'm doing okay."
And I just remember
it was almost like
I was just pulling
back from him,
thinking you're doing okay.
What do you mean
you're doing okay?
- Sharon definitely
wasn't doing okay.
While the cops, moving
forward incrementally,
needed more.
- Police looking
for Laci Peterson
in Modesto, California
want to verify
her husband's alibi.
- Modesto P.D. put out
a bulletin.
Had anyone seen
this truck, this boat,
on Christmas Eve?
They expanded
their ground search
to the foothills,
the reservoirs, even mineshafts.
And by mid-January,
police decided they needed
to tell Sharon
about Scott's affair.
- We said, "Hey, we--
we've got some information
"we gotta let you know
about on this,
"and the best thing
we can do,
"is just give it to ya."
- They showed her the photo
at Amber's Christmas party,
the one Scott said
wasn't him.
- I literally thought
I was going to throw up.
I stood up real fast
because I wanted
to get out of there.
I wanted to get away
from them.
I didn't wanna hear
what they were saying.
- What mother would?
- I just remember
my stomach just turning,
and I-- just saying--
just crying, he didn't
have to kill her.
- That changed everything
you had ever thought about him.
- It did.
- Detective Buehler had
told Sharon about Amber
because rumors
were in the air.
The media was sniffing about
and getting close.
- Get to the office.
The reporter was
right there.
- Oh, boy.
- Yeah.
- January 24th,
local news showed up
at Amber's workplace.
National tabloids
were not far behind.
- At--
- Did you talk to them?
- No, I refused
to talk to anybody.
- Trapped in her office,
she called Detective Buehler.
That's when
the Modesto P.D. decided
that if Amber's story
was going to break anyway,
they'd break it
on their terms.
- We believed, at the time,
it was probably best
to get her up there,
almost like exploding
your own bomb.
- Buehler sent two colleagues
to fetch her,
with a statement
all prepared.
- We were speeding back,
in a sense, getting there,
and, you know, having
this statement written out,
you know, trying
to read it a few times,
so it's not too foreign.
- As they drove to Modesto,
headquarters gathered
the media.
Big news a-comin'.
- We are waiting for
Modesto Police
to come out any moment
and speak on developments
in the Laci Peterson
investigation.
- And this is the moment
when Amber Frey burst
like a deer in headlights
onto the public stage.
[sighs]
- Okay, first of all,
I met Scott Peterson
November 20, 2002.
I was introduced to him.
I was told
he was unmarried.
Scott told me
he was not married.
We did have
a romantic relationship.
I-I had a panic attack.
I couldn't breathe.
I literally could not
catch my breath.
When I discovered he was
involved in the disappear--
the Laci Peterson
disappearance case,
I immediately contacted
the Modesto Police Department.
- She spoke for
just over a minute.
- I am very sorry
for Laci's family
and the cau--
the pain that
this has caused them,
and I pray for
her safe return, as well.
- And now, everyone knew,
and Scott knew
everyone knew.
So, did he stop
calling Amber Frey?
No, listen to this.
- Scott called
to congratulate her,
to thank her.
Very strange.
The police were
thanking Amber, too.
Now, they had new clues,
like the day Scott told Amber
he lost his wife.
It was the very same day
he bought the boat.
Coincidence?
No, thought the police.
Had to be evidence
of premeditation.
The very existence of
Amber Frey changed everything
and revealed that
many little beasts of doubt
had been churning
about in the minds
of even Scott's
diehard supporters.
- After Amber came forward,
that's when they started
to open up about
the things that
they had been kind of
hiding and holding back.
- People remembered things,
like how Scott
once told someone
he was hoping
for infertility,
that he seemed uncomfortable
holding babies,
that he didn't want to touch
Laci's pregnant stomach,
that he complained
he was having
a midlife crisis
at age 30.
Now, when people
thought about his story
that Laci walked her dog,
they remembered she'd been
too tired to do that.
And they remembered, too,
the peculiar way he acted
the night Laci disappeared.
- We're standing
in the driveway.
I asked if he had
called his parents.
He said, "No."
I was trying to have
a conversation with him,
and he continued
to just turn away from me.
He would never look me
in the eye.
I had to keep
following him around,
trying to have
visual contact with him.
- Because Scott Peterson
had something to hide.
- Coming up...
- I had a romantic relationship
that was inappropriate.
- Scott Peterson goes public
- Since Christmas Eve,
our one and only focus
is to find Laci
and to bring her home to us.
I love my daughter
so much.
I miss her every minute
of every day.
- On the same day that
Amber Frey told the world
about her relationship
with Scott Peterson...
- Scott told me
he was not married.
- Laci's mother stood
before the cameras, too.
It was exactly a month
since Laci disappeared.
- I miss sharing our thoughts
and our lives together.
I miss her smile,
and her laughter,
and her sense of humor,
and I miss
everything about her.
- Sharon, who kept trying
to keep hope alive,
found it slipping away.
- Someone has taken
all of this away from me
and everyone else
who loves her.
- Any thoughts that Scott
had nothing to do with it
gone, too,
even though Sharon
would not mention him by name.
- I know that someone
knows where Laci is,
and I'm pleading with you.
Please, please let
her come home to us.
- Unbeknownst to them,
Scott was thinking
about going public, too,
and he discussed it
with who else?
Amber.
- He got it, all right,
a sudden whirl of interviews.
A few days after his affair
with Amber was revealed,
Scott talked about it
on NBC's Bay Area station.
- Obviously, yes, I had
a romantic relationship
that was inappropriate
and unfair to a lot of people.
- And now, many of
the people
who knew Scott
and loved Scott
no longer believed
a word he said.
For the police who'd
never believed him,
Amber Frey was just
one part of an intricate
and entirely circumstantial
case against Scott.
It relied on
the smallest of details,
strands of evidence
they tried to weave
into a rope with which
to hang Scott.
Another strand?
Scott's sudden desire to
sell his and Laci's home
just weeks after
she went missing.
- He said, "I think
we should get the house
up on the market,"
and my mom said,
"This isn't the time to be
discussing this, Scott."
- But he did sell Laci's car,
another strand.
And then there was
this cement dust
at Scott's warehouse.
- A lot of people use
concrete anchors
for small aluminum boats.
- Sure.
- And it looked like five of
these little coffee can anchors
had been made there
on that trailer.
- But only
this one anchor was found.
- It's clear there
was more than one.
Now, where are those?
Nobody knows.
- Were the other four used
to weigh down Laci's body?
And though Scott
said going fishing
was a last minute decision,
there were sea charts and maps
of the Berkeley Marina
on his computer
from early December.
And Scott told police
he spent time
at his warehouse office
on the day Laci disappeared.
They couldn't help
but notice how secluded
the place was.
- This is very isolated
back here
and especially on
a Christmas Eve.
- If-if you wanted
to get away with something,
this is a place
you could do it.
- Yeah.
- Like move a body
into a boat,
thought the detective.
So, police gathered
the strands, spun the rope,
and everything
that happened,
happened with
a lot of people watching.
- Where does Scott Peterson
stand in all of this?
- He's not been eliminated
from the investigation,
nor has he been, uh,
identified as a suspect.
- Not identified as
a suspect, not officially.
Yet, clearly the only
person of interest
for the cops and the media.
- What you got
in the bag, sir?
- I have evidence.
- Evidence?
- And Sharon kept grappling
with the depressing truth
that she just didn't
want to believe.
- I felt that
I should have felt...
her leave this earth.
I brought her
into this world.
I should have felt
when she left
so that I would have known
whether she was gone or not.
So, at that time,
I still had hope
that-that she was
coming home.
- It's a strange and powerful
thing, though, isn't it?
- It is.
- You give birth to a person,
you bring them up,
and you feed them,
and you care for them, and...
- And we were
very, very, very close.
- Yes.
And Scott, he soon faded
from public view.
Didn't stay much
in Modesto,
and Amber finally told him
to stop calling her.
[horn blowing]
- And everyone just
waited until the sea
finally revealed what everybody
had been waiting for.
- Coming up...
- I felt something
that day.
I just knew.
- A devastating discovery
and a ride into danger.
- This was completely
off the charts.
Nobody has ever reacted
this way.
- April 13th, 2003,
it was a cool day
in Northern California.
Sharon Rocha was hiding
from the world.
- It was one
of those days.
I just buried myself
on the couch
with a blanket
over my head.
- She had so locked
herself away that day
that friends had
to come to her house
to tell her
there was news.
- They're knocking
on my back door,
on the slider
in the backyard.
- It had been
nearly four months
since Laci disappeared.
Yet, somehow Sharon felt
more bad news was coming.
Early that morning
when the tides were low,
the body of a baby had been
found on the shoreline
north of Berkeley.
The next day,
another body, a torso,
badly decomposed,
was found nearby.
- The Contra Costa
County Coroner has arrived
at the scene
and has now recovered
the remains of the victim.
We're, at this time,
letting people know
that we believe the gender
of the victim is female.
- But even without
positive identification,
everyone knew,
even Sharon,
who, despite everything,
kept trying to hold on
to a shred of hope that
she'd wake from a nightmare.
From Scott,
there was not a peep.
- The fact that
he didn't pick up the phone
and call anybody
to find out
if that was his wife
and his baby
left no doubt
in my mind.
- Her daughter was dead.
Her grandson would
never be born.
Detective John Buehler
had known that for a while,
and now he was nearly
ready to arrest Scott,
just not quite.
- We were gonna wait
to serve the warrant
until after the DNA results
were released
to confirm the bodies
were Laci and Conner.
- Yes.
By that April,
Scott Peterson was living
in San Diego
near his parents.
So, tick-tick-tick.
Detectives waited
for lab results.
Police kept an eye
on Scott.
- They had the surveillance
going on him
for quite some time
before that.
- Then April 18th, 2003,
7:00 a.m.,
the lab results were
still pending
when Scott Peterson decided
to play cat and mouse
with whomever
was after him.
- He's a pretty good driver.
At least, he was.
He knew we were
behind him.
- Scott started driving
erratically, very fast.
- We were trying to keep
this rolling surveillance
on him.
We had a helicopter
for part of the time.
- He stopped and started.
- He'd cross over
three lanes of traffic
and take an exit ramp,
and, of course,
we couldn't do that.
We'd end up missing him.
- Driving evasively
at times.
Giving one cop the finger.
How long did he lead you
on this merry chase?
- Oh, gosh, this was--
it seemed like
it might've been
a couple hours or so,
maybe longer.
- Scott, with
police trailing,
traveled 160 miles
that morning
until law enforcement
decided it was
just too dangerous.
- We have to arrest him.
They put the lights on him,
and he pulled off
into the entrance
to Torrey Pines Golf Course,
and they made contact
with him as we pulled up,
came out of the car,
put the handcuffs on him,
no hysterics, no profanity,
typical, you know, Scott
in all his, uh, controlled,
you know, demeanor.
- What they found
in the car with Scott
was fascinating,
camping gear,
four cell phones,
his sister's credit card,
his brother's driver's license,
and cash.
- Almost $15,000 in cash.
- In cash.
He also looked different,
way different,
by intent, clearly.
When you arrested him,
did he express anything
that would su-suggest
he understood
that was it?
He was going away?
- I went to search his car,
and he said, uh,
"John, can you tell me
if those bodies
"were my wife and son?"
And I just told him,
"Scott, you already know
the answer to that."
- As they drove
north of Modesto
with their prisoner
in the backseat,
Buehler got confirmation
that the DNA was in.
The bodies were
Conner and Laci.
They told Scott.
- Now, he's wearing
sunglasses, at the time.
I look, and I can't--
he doesn't make
hardly any reaction
whatsoever.
- And just
a few minutes later,
they stopped by
a roadside burger place
to get something to eat.
Given the news
he'd just received,
Buehler assumed Scott wouldn't
have much of an appetite.
He was wrong.
- And he goes, "I'll have
a double-double with cheese,
a small fry,
and a vanilla shake,"
like we were comin' back
from fishin'.
- Cold?
That's what Buehler thought.
- I've run into people
that have had grief before
many, many times,
and this was completely
off the charts.
Nobody has ever reacted
this way in my presence
when it came to
something like that.
- Yeah.
When they got
back to Modesto,
Scott was booked into jail.
It seemed like the end of
the road for Scott Peterson,
but the circus
wasn't leaving.
It was just moving
up the road a bit.
- Coming up...
- Prosecutors speak out
in an in depth
television interview.
- He wanted
a different life.
- Welcome back.
Sharon Rocha's
worst nightmare became real
when authorities
recovered the bodies
of her daughter, Laci,
and unborn grandson, Conner.
After a wild car chase,
detectives took
Scott Peterson into custody.
He was traveling with
four cell phones,
thousands in cash,
and had changed his appearance.
Police believed
he was trying to flee.
Now, with this trial looming,
might he escape justice?
Here again is
Keith Morrison
with "The Disappearance
of Laci Peterson."
- Is that correct,
Mr. Peterson?
You're pleading not guilty
to the two charges
of, uh, murder
plus the special--
uh, denying
the special allegations?
- Absolutely.
- That's correct, Your Honor.
I am innocent.
- As the case against
Scott Peterson
slowly made its way
from arrest to trial,
what really happened
to Laci Peterson
became a kind of televised
courtroom theater.
The cast included
legal celebrities
like Defense Attorney
Mark Geragos,
who signed on
to defend Scott Peterson.
- Scott looks forward
to finding out who did this
to his wife and to his,
uh, child, Conner.
- And women's advocate.
- Thank you
for coming today.
I'm Attorney
Gloria Allred.
To my right,
is Amber Frey.
- Gloria Allred,
who erected a protective wall
around the story's wild card,
Amber Frey.
- Amber was not gonna be
doing any interviews
during the course
of the case
even though so many people
wanted to interview her.
- Sure, yeah.
Wasn't she offered
immense amounts of money
to do covers
and things like that?
- There were many offers
to Amber
if she would only provide
an interview,
but she needed to
protect her testimony
for the actual case.
- But altogether missing
in the legal cacophony
were the prosecutors,
Birgit Fladager
and Dave Harris.
This, all these years later,
was their first in-depth
television interview
about the Peterson case.
During the trial,
they often had to
bite their tongues.
- Your radio would go off
in the morning,
the radio alarm,
and the little news blurb
that you would hear--
- First thing you hear.
- On the pop radio station,
whatever, would-
would reference the case.
They could say whatever
they wanted, right?
And it wasn't always
necessarily true.
- Good morning, Your Honor.
- Good morning.
- In court, Geragos
wanted change of venue,
though just 90 miles
or so from Modesto.
Did anyone not know
about the Peterson case?
- How is Scott feeling
about the move?
- He just wants the trial
to take place,
so that people will be able
to see what really took place.
- Scott's mom
assured reporters
her son was innocent,
but she couldn't
have been very happy
when everyone decamped
to the new courthouse
and saw this billboard
a local radio station bought
right across the street.
- "Man or monster?"
What'd you think
when you saw that?
- Well, that was when we
were about to start
jury selection.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Jury selection,
first day of jury selection.
- So, I-I think we were
worried we were going
to have another
change of venue.
- But here it stayed.
June 1, 2004,
a year and a half
after Laci Peterson
vanished,
her husband, Scott,
went on trial for her murder.
And right off the bat,
the prosecution told the jury
about Scott and Amber.
He winced as they showed
these photos of the two of them
from the night
of the party,
the same photos
that helped him get caught.
And then they showed
the jury this picture of Laci,
same night,
different party.
She went alone.
- The reason for the murder
was he didn't wanna be
married anymore.
He didn't wanna
have a child.
He wanted a different life,
and Amber was just
a symptom of that.
He didn't want
what he had.
- And he wanted to be rid
of what he had.
- He did.
- One way or another.
- Mm-hmm.
- Laci and Conner were-
were responsibilities,
and he didn't want that.
- He doesn't care
about anyone but himself.
He can be very smooth,
but there's something
underneath the surface
that is truly evil.
- So said the prosecutors,
Scott strangled or suffocated
Laci on Christmas Eve,
early in the morning
or possibly the night before.
And then after that,
after he had done that...
- Dragged her from the bedroom
out to the carport,
pickup truck
backed into the carport,
take her out the side door,
wrapped up most likely,
load her into
the bed of the truck,
drive over to the warehouse,
move her to the boat,
cover the boat.
- Then after sending an email
and putting together
a woodworking tool,
law enforcement believed
he headed to the bay.
But evidence of murder?
That was all circumstantial.
They had no incriminating DNA,
minimal forensics,
just all those
little strands.
And, in fact, it didn't always
go well for the prosecution,
as Geragos worked
to keep them off balance.
- We would try
and present witnesses
in a chronological order
in a way that made sense
to our theory of the case,
and they were very good
at disrupting that
and saying,
"We're not ready
for that witness."
- Just trying to throw
a monkey-wrench
into your smooth telling
of the story.
- Yeah.
- If-if it happened once,
maybe it was just coincidence.
If it happened
every single week,
at some point time,
it's a plan.
- It got worse
for the prosecution.
Geragos, who believed
the Modesto P.D.
had it out for his client,
tried to make it look like
Al Brocchini
had hidden evidence.
He asked him on the stand.
"Did you delete information
from a police report
about Laci visiting
Scott's warehouse
December 23rd?"
- The answer was, "I did."
And then, "Okay,
we're done for the day."
And it's like, uh,
you know, can I answer?
- And that was a very good
point for him to make
because it would create
the impression that,
in fact, Laci did know
about the boat,
as Scott said she did,
and it lent credibility
to the rest of his story
as a result.
- Well, maybe, maybe not,
but he could have got
the whole story.
- Of course,
the whole story
wasn't what the defense
attorney wanted,
that the information was in
another cop's report,
that nothing
had been hidden.
But what did
the jury think?
- What was your sense
of how well that
prosecution was going?
- I was a bit concerned.
I felt that their burden
of proving guilt
beyond a reasonable doubt,
uh, had not yet been met.
- But the big change,
the sea change,
was the day she walked in.
- Walking in the courtroom,
you could hear bodies
shifting towards the door.
Uh, a lot of pressure.
- As Scott watched,
Amber Frey told the jury
everything from
strawberries and champagne
on their first date
to his tearful confession
of losing his wife
weeks before she went missing.
- And all those phone calls
were played for the jury.
- The jury
could hear his words,
of course,
not his words under oath
but his words
on the phone call to Amber,
and how he lied,
and lied, and lied,
and even lied about lying.
- Mark Geragos
did what he could.
He went after
Amber repeatedly.
Questioned her about
how much she had to drink
on her dates with Scott
and about how often
she and Scott had sex
and how soon.
Did the defense
rattle you?
- No.
He tried.
- Amber didn't buckle,
and the prosecution
hit its stride.
An expert told the jury
the baby died
between December 23rd
and December 25th.
Another expert
told the jury
that Laci's decomposition
was consistent
with three to six months
in the water.
And a search dog handler
testified
her dog picked up
Laci's scent
at the Berkeley Marina.
And, said the prosecutors,
it was obvious
Scott Peterson knew
Laci and Conner
were gone for good.
He'd even turned
Conner's nursery
into a storage room.
- Put office furniture,
and pillows,
and a locking device
from a car in there.
Scott wasn't expecting Conner
to ever come home.
- The evidence appears stacked
against Scott Peterson,
but not everyone
believes he's guilty.
Coming up...
- He's a lying cheat.
- Yes, he was.
- A cheater, a liar,
but a killer?
- I mean, really,
who else coulda done it?
- I'm glad you asked
that question.
**
- Four months
into the trial,
the defense got its chance
to disprove
the prosecution theory.
We wanted to talk
to Attorney Mark Geragos
about the trial.
He didn't respond
to our request.
We wanted to talk
to Scott Peterson,
but he wasn't interested.
He turned us down,
said his family,
because he didn't like
my coverage of the case
back in 2003.
Scott's frantic story,
simple yet utterly baffling,
was this...
His family still insists
he's an innocent man,
and we wanted
to hear that from them.
They turned us down, too,
and suggested we talk
to a retired journalist
named Richard Cole,
who shares their point of view,
and said the prosecution theory
of the case makes no sense.
- Because it was
so ridiculous.
Scott Peterson
kills his 160-pound wife--
puts her body
in the back of his truck.
He then drives it to his office
to pick up the boat.
And then what does he do
with the dead body of his wife
in a parking lot?
He goes back into the office,
spends an hour on the internet
sending a Christmas email
to his boss,
and then he said, "Oh,
"well, I guess I better
get rid of the body now."
- Cole believes
that media coverage,
biased against
the defendant,
somehow seeped inside
the courtroom.
- This gigantic tsunami
of media coverage,
much of it false,
much of it totally distorted--
- Mm-hmm.
- Uh...
concentrating on things
that had nothing to do
with the evidence,
and that basically,
I think, consumed
that little fact trial
inside the courthouse.
- The most damaging witness
against Scott, he said,
didn't see anything
really related to a murder
but nonetheless,
forever tainted Scott
in the eyes of the public
and the jury.
- Once you started looking
at that case
through an Amber lens--
- Uh-huh.
- Everything he did
was wrong.
- 'Cause he's a lying cheat.
- Yes, he was.
- The affair with Amber,
said Cole,
made everything Scott did
look sinister,
but it didn't prove
he killed Laci.
Scott Peterson was behaving
pretty oddly.
- His behavior
does look odd.
He backed himself
into a horrible position.
- Sure.
- He's thinking,
if anyone ever finds out
about this woman,
not only will it
look bad for me,
but that will become
what this story is about,
and he was exactly right.
So, he very foolishly
and not very well
tried to keep her at bay
with lies,
thinking Laci will be home
next week.
- And that would explain
why Scott hid from TV cameras,
not guilt about Laci,
guilt about Amber.
In Cole's mind,
Scott acted like a man
who'd expected his wife
to come home.
So, that, said Cole,
is why Scott didn't want
a ding on the car door
when the cops were
searching his truck.
Sold Laci's car, though.
- He did sell the car
because, you know,
he-he was not rich.
The Peterson family
isn't rich.
- And Scott hemmed and hawed
about what he was fishing for,
said Cole, because
the whole point of the trip
was not so much
to catch something
as it was to test the boat
before giving it to Laci's
step-dad, Ron Grantski,
as a Christmas present.
- The boat was basically
a kind of a gift,
and that's why
it was kept a secret
from the Grantskis,
'cause it was
a Christmas thing.
- All innocent, said Cole.
But why did Scott
tell Amber
before Laci vanished,
"I lost my wife?"
Amber confronts Scott
about having a wife,
and he says, "I lost her,
and this will be my
first Christmas without her."
- Yeah.
Scott had had that line
used on him by a woman
who was married,
and, uh,
he asked her
if she was married,
and she said,
"Uh, I lost my husband,"
and Scott decided
that he liked that,
and that was
a really good line.
- In other words,
Scott was a cad,
not a killer,
so said Cole anyway.
But then how to explain
the strange similarities
between Scott's fishing story
and the circumstances
of the murder?
But, you know,
he went fishing in the bay.
- Yeah.
- They found the bodies
in the bay.
- Yes.
- I mean, really?
Who else coulda done it?
- I'm glad you asked
that question.
Let's remember the scene.
She disappears.
Within a few days,
Scott's "I went fishing
"in Berkeley" story
is all over the media.
- So, the real bad guys
may be local sex offenders
or the two men arrested
for the burglary
across the street.
Took their victim to the bay
and framed Scott that way.
That's Cole's theory
anyway.
Made more sense, he said,
than the case against Scott.
So, what really happened
on that cold December morning?
Twelve people would decide.
After five months of trial,
the jury went off
to deliberate.
One day, two, a week
they stayed out,
and nobody knew
what were they thinking.
- Coming up...
A legacy.
- She's in heaven,
and she's in our hearts.
- A lesson.
- That gut feeling,
more women need to listen
to that.
- A life
in the jury's hands.
- I just burst into tears.
Everything
just comes gushing out.
**
- Nearly two years
after Laci disappeared,
after nine days
of deliberation,
the jury in
the Scott Peterson trial
finally announced
they had a verdict.
- This was pretty exciting
and terrifying.
- As the crowds
gathered out front,
the reporters
got into position,
and everyone flooded
back into the courtroom.
What is it like
for your level of anxiety?
- I felt like
I was going to explode.
- The verdict is being read,
right now,
in a California courtroom
in the double murder case
against Scott Peterson.
There is no camera
in the courtroom,
but an audio, live audio feed,
is being provided.
- Finally, the words Sharon
and all those who loved Laci
had been waiting for,
guilty of Laci's murder,
and...
[cheering]
- Outside the courthouse,
crowds cheered.
Inside...
- I-I remember,
I just burst into tears.
Everything
just comes gushing out.
- Oh, yeah.
- It was two years of--
- Anxiety, of waiting.
- Mm-hmm.
- A month later,
the jury decided Scott's fate.
- For 15 years,
Scott Peterson
sat on San Quentin's death row,
a condemned man.
- Calling the matter
of The People versus
Scott Lee Peterson.
- Then, in June of 2020,
via video conference,
the California State
Supreme Court
heard his appeal,
which focused, in part,
on how the trial jury
was chosen.
- What happened here,
was the systematic exclusion
of those jurors who were
opposed to the death penalty
but could consider death.
- The state countered.
- There is no credible claim
in this appeal
that any one of the 12 jurors
that heard that evidence
was anything other than
fair and impartial.
- In a written ruling issued
nearly three months later,
the court sided with Peterson
on the jury question
and overturned
his death sentence,
but the court also affirmed
his murder conviction.
Meanwhile,
the California Supreme Court
delivered another ruling.
The very same justices who
overturned Peterson's sentence
now said they also wanted
his conviction reexamined,
ordering a lower court
to determine
whether he should
get a new trial.
At issue,
whether a juror committed
prejudicial misconduct.
Prosecutors said they
expect the process
to take years before the case
is fully resolved.
In the meantime,
Peterson was resentenced
to life without
the possibility of parole,
and he remains in prison.
No one has survived
untouched.
Amber Frey's life certainly
never returned to what it was,
but, if anything,
she told us,
the whole strange experience
made her stronger,
her beliefs stronger.
- I'm a Christian.
I'm a true believer
in Jesus Christ.
- Uh-huh.
- And I believe
truly in my heart
that God prepared
my life for this.
- And she's determined
to teach her own daughter
something she wished
she'd understood better
when she met Scott.
- We all have heard
the expression
women's intuition,
that gut feeling.
I think more women need
to listen to that
because it's so easy for...
I will say, a man
to say, "You're crazy.
Like, you're being paranoid."
- Mm-hmm.
Sharon Rocha wishes she had
had some sort of gut feeling
in late December 2002
when she and Laci
were looking forward
to the new baby,
their lives full of hope
back then,
back in those innocent days,
before the rest of us heard
the name Laci Peterson
or saw that smile.
- It does make you
question yourself.
- Mm-hmm.
- Um, you no longer
trust your instinct.
- Yeah.
- Or what you think
you know about people
or who you know
or how you know them.
- Laci's mother,
her friends,
their lives never really
returned to normal.
How could they?
But they've adapted
like humans do.
Stacey, Lori, and Rene
now have their own children,
and those children,
who never met Laci,
know her in a way.
- She's a part
of our lives.
I mean, she is a part
of our life still,
so that means our children
need to know
about that part
of our lives.
- She's special,
and she had a baby.
- So, the cemetery isn't
a place of sadness
for them, usually.
It's a place where
they can celebrate a life,
someone they loved.
- She's in Heaven,
and she's in our hearts.
- Their Laci.
- They're beautiful.
- Oh, how pretty.
- That's all
for this edition
of "Dateline:
Secrets Uncovered."
I'm Kate Snow.
Thank you for watching.