Vanessa Richardson (17:59)
Stitch Fix Online Personal styling for everyone. Free shipping and returns. No subscription required. Get started today@stitch fix.com. In December 2002, Scott and Lacey Peterson appeared to be living the American dream. But below the surface, things weren't as perfect as they seemed. 30 year old Scott had already had one affair and weeks earlier he'd started another one with a massage therapist named Amber Fry. Scott told her that he'd been married, but his wife had recently died. In reality, 27 year old Lacey was hard at work preparing for the holidays and the upcoming birth of their son, who was due in February. On Monday, December 23, Scott took Lacey to an OB GYN checkup where they learned about their son's heart rate and looked at ultrasound images. That evening they went to a local salon where Lacey's sister worked so Scott could get a haircut, then grabbed a pizza and went home to watch a movie. The following morning, Scott left the house at 9:30 to go fishing at the Berkeley Marina, about an hour and a half away. When he got back to the house at at 4:45pm Lacey's car was in the driveway, but she was nowhere to be found. Scott called Lacey's mother, Sharon, to see if Lacy was with her, but she wasn't. Scott went on to explain that when he left that morning, Lacey was planning to take the dog for a walk in nearby Dry Creek Park. Fearing that something had happened to her, Sharon told her husband to call 91 1, then jumped in the car to help Scott search the park. By 6pm on Christmas Eve, police had arrived at the Peterson house. But as the search for Laci got underway, investigators immediately found something suspicious her husband. For a man whose heavily pregnant wife had just vanished, Scott Peterson was remarkably calm. He was more worried that a police car might ding his pickup truck than he was that his wife was missing. And he seemed almost irritated to have to answer so many questions about where he'd been that day. Day and Scott's answers to those questions didn't always add up. When police found a wet mop and bucket in the house, Scott explained that Lacey had been mopping the floor when he left. But at eight months pregnant, it would have been extremely difficult for her to repeatedly bend over and wring out a wet mop. In another instance, Scott claimed that she was planning to take their dog for a walk, even though her doctors had told her not to go for long walks anymore. Scott's alibi was also suspicious. He told police he'd been fishing all day. Then he handed them a time stamped receipt from the Berkeley Marina. Even though they hadn't asked for proof, it already seemed strange that he would leave his pregnant wife alone on Christmas Eve to go fishing 85 miles away. And it only got stranger when one of the detectives, an experienced fisherman, started asking Scott basic questions. When the detective wanted to know what fish Scott was looking for and what kind of lures he used, Scott couldn't answer. Scott claimed he was still learning. He said he'd only bought the fishing boat two weeks earlier, which was a surprise for Lacey's mom and stepdad. They didn't even know he owned a boat, and they hadn't known that Scott used it that day. Apparently, he failed to mention that on his call with Sharon. Within hours of Lacey being reported missing, police believed Scott had something to do with it. And as the search for Laci Peterson ramped up over the next few days, another group became suspicious of Scott's behavior. Lacey's family. Lacey's mother and stepfather, Sharon and Dennis Rocha, were desperate to find their daughter. They organized and led search parties through Dry Creek park and went door to door handing out missing persons flyers with Lacey's picture. And they were in regular contact with local and national media, conducting interviews and hosting press conferences to get the word out about their missing daughter. But the Rochas, who had always gotten along with Scott, were confused by their son in law's behavior. He often seemed vacant and uninterested in the search, as though he'd already given up on finding his pregnant wife. Even stranger, he avoided all contact with reporters, refusing to give interviews, appear at press conferences, or even allow Laci's family to circulate pictures with him in them. Scott claimed he didn't want to distract from the search. But in reality, his motivations weren't so selfless. He was more concerned about making sure his girlfriend didn't see him on tv. Scott kept up his relationship with Amber Fry throughout the early days of the investigation. He chatted with her twice on Christmas, claiming to be at a hunting lodge in Maine with his father. Over the following days, he called her several more times, claiming to be on a post holiday trip to Paris. He even reached out on New Year's Eve. He said he was still in Paris when he was actually at a candlelight vigil for Lacey. But as Amber chatted with Scott about his New Year's resolutions and the future of their relationship, she was keeping a few secrets of her own. She knew that Scott's pregnant wife was missing. A friend had recognized Scott's name on the news and tipped her off two days earlier. Now Amber was recording their phone calls, and she was sharing the tapes with detectives at the Modesto Police Department. Thanks to Amber, the police knew everything that she did, including the fact that he'd tearfully claimed to have lost his wife just 15 days before Lacey went missing. For the next week, detectives coached Amber through several more phone calls with Scott, hoping she could coax him into giving up incriminating information. In the meantime, police began conducting round the clock surveillance of Scott, putting a GPS tracker in his truck and assigning undercover officers to follow him. Scott repeatedly made the 90 minute drive to the Berkeley marina, where divers were searching for Lacy's body in the area he'd been fishing on every trip, he sat in the parking lot and watched the divers for just a few minutes before driving home. At the same time, the media firestorm surrounding his wife's disappearance had gotten too big to control. Now Lacey's parents were doing interviews with national journalists like Nancy Grace. These journalists often asked them why Scott wasn't appearing in front of the press. At this point, it seemed like Scott knew the walls were closing in. So on January 6, 2003, he called Amber and confessed to everything. He told her that he hadn't been in Europe, that he had a wife, and that she was missing. When Amber picked up the phone, she was sitting in a police interview room with two detectives. They listened as she grilled Scott for the next next 90 minutes. She demanded to know what else he was lying about and asked him again and again why he'd said he'd lost his wife two weeks before his actual wife disappeared. Scott was evasive, repeatedly telling her that he couldn't explain why he'd said it, but he insisted that he had nothing to do with Lacey's disappearance. By the time the call ended, the police had had more than enough circumstantial evidence to use against Scott. And soon he would suffer another damaging blow in the court of public opinion. On January 24, one month after Lacy disappeared, Amber Fry held a press conference at the Modesto Police Department. She told reporters that she had been in a romantic relationship with Scott Peterson immediately before and after his wife's disappearance. She made it clear that he'd never told her he was married and expressed her deep sympathy for Lacy's parents. The media and the general public had already been suspicious of Scott. But when news broke that he'd been cheating on his pregnant wife, Scott became the most hated man in America. Even Lacy's parents, who'd remained publicly supportive of Scott throughout the search changed their tune. During an appearance on Good Morning America, Sharon told interviewers that Scott's secrecy about the affair had given her, quote, a lot of doubt about her son in law. Growing desperate to try and control the narrative, Scott decided to break his Media silence. On Jan. 28, he sat down for an interview with Diane Sawyer. It was a disaster. Scott lied repeatedly, at one point claiming that he'd told Lacey that he was having an affair and that she wasn't angry about it. The interview only made people more upset. Reporters began hounding Scott everywhere he went, asking if he'd killed his wife. By early February, Scott quit assisting investigators altogether. It would take another two months before the next break in the case, and it would be a tragic1. On April 13, 2003, a couple was walking their dog in Point Isabel State park park, which runs alongside the San Francisco Bay near Berkeley, when they made a shocking discovery. Washed up on the rocky beach was the decomposing body of a full term male fetus. As police worked to identify the remains, another body was discovered in the same park the following day. This time, a jogger spotted a decomposing torso in the surf along the beach. Police rushed to the scene to recover the body, which was missing its head, hands and feet. It was a woman's body, still wearing a pair of deteriorating maternity pants, and it had washed up on shore, directly across from the area where Scott told police he'd been fishing on Christmas Eve. Four days later, DNA tests confirmed the Rocha family's worst fears. The bodies were Lacey Peterson and her uncle unborn son, Connor. Because of how long she'd been in the water, investigators weren't able to determine Lacy's cause of death. However, forensic evidence suggested her body had been intact when it went into the water. Detectives believed that weights had been attached to her hands, feet and head, which had eventually separated as her body decomposed at the bottom of the San Francisco Bay. As soon as the remains were identified, police went looking for Scott Peterson. They tracked him down in suburban San Diego, where he'd been staying with relatives. After a car chase, Scott was placed under arrest outside a golf course at the edge of the city. He'd changed a lot since his last encounter with police. His hair, eyebrows and beard were now all dyed blonde, and it seemed like he had big plans. When police searched Scott's car, they found $15,000 in cash and Mexican pesos, four cell phones, camping supplies and 12 Viagra tablets. Thirteen months later, in June of 2004, 31 year old Scott Peterson went on trial for the murder of Lacy Peterson and his unborn son, Connor. Prosecutors argued that Scott had strangled Lacy at their home in Modesto, motivated by a desire to continue his affair with Amber Fry. They believed that once Lacey was dead, he let their dog loose to make it look like something had happened to her while she was on a walk. Then he dumped her body into the San Francisco Bay, weighed down with several anchors made out of concrete he'd purchased earlier in December. It was a compelling story, but prosecutors only had one piece of physical evidence, a strand of Lacey's hair found in Scott's boat to tie it all together. Most of their case hinged on Scott's suspicious behavior before, during, and after Lacey's disappearance. Scott hired celebrity defense attorney Mark Garagos to represent him in court. But the experienced lawyer still struggled to explain Scott's actions to the jury. Instead, Garagos downplayed Scott's affairs and suggested that Laci had been kidnapped, possibly by a homeless man who killed her after she'd given birth to Connor. This version of events turned out to be unconvincing. On November 12, 2004, the jury found Scott Peterson guilty of murdering his wife and unborn child. He was sentenced to death, but after a lengthy appeals process, the California Supreme Court overturned his death sentence in 2020, commuting it to life in prison. Today, Scott Peterson is still locked up, though he continues to file appeal after appeal. Unless something changes, he'll remain behind bars for the rest of his life. It's plenty of time for him to reflect on how he turned the holiday season into a lasting nightmare for the Rocha family. Up next, another mysterious disappearance that changed Christmas forever.
