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Brett
Queen Carvania stood haloed by the morning sun. An army hung on her every word.
Alice
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Alice
Fees may apply.
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Brett
Are you a parent looking for an independent, flexible and tuition free school in Oregon? Evergreen Virtual Academy offers a dynamic and tuition free public education with Oregon certified teachers for PK through 12th grade students. Your student gets a laptop, live class sessions, and the ability to chart their own unique path. Plus in person events and social activities all year. When school has no walls, learning has no limits. Learn more and enroll now. Evergreen Virtual Academy, evergreenvirtual.org. I'm brett and I'm. We are the prosecutors. Today on the Prosecutors, we continue our investigation into the murder of Lacey and Connor Peterson. Hello, everybody, and welcome to this episode of the Prosecutors. I'm Brett and I'm joined as always with the Mona Lisa of co host Alice.
Alice
The Mona Lisa. Oh, my goodness. No pressure, Alice.
Brett
Trying to change it up a little bit. I mean, one, it's possible people might think that means like the most overrated thing in the Louvre, but that's not what I'm going for. I'm going for the exquisite piece of. Of art that the Mona Lisa is.
Alice
You know, when you have to explain a joke, it means it's not funny. So if you have to explain, explain the descriptor. I don't know what that means. Oh, my.
Brett
I can't let your head get too big, Alice. Then you'll go off. You'll be doing a solo career, a solo podcast career without me. And then what would I do?
Alice
I am nothing. I'm nothing without you. You know that. Like, literally, what would I do at work? I'd be so bored.
Brett
Oh, whatever, whatever. I just don't want to be, you know, the police without Sting or Hootie without the blowfish or whatever. Anyway, so everybody, this is our. What, Alice? I don't even know anymore. Our fifth episode.
Alice
That sounds good.
Brett
Scott Peterson. It's a record. This is the most episodes we've ever done on a single topic. So we'll try and keep the chit chat to a minimum here so we can actually get into this. We are going to. We're going to see what we do today. If we finish the case, great. If not, we will release another episode tomorrow. So you will not have to wait another week for the final episode. We are finishing up Scott Peterson this week, no matter what. So that's our promise to you, and we're going to see whether or not we can keep it. We've been through a lot of the prosecution's case, but there's still some more stuff that we want to get into. And I think that really starts with what the prosecution was doing or not the prosecution really, but the police were doing as soon as Lacy went missing. You hear a lot, and you hear a lot in cases like this that the police very quickly focused on a suspect, and sometimes that's used as a negative, that they focused on a suspect too quickly. And because of that, they didn't really look into other possibilities. And a lot of people have said that about this case. And so let's talk about what the prosecution. Excuse me, let's talk about what the police did in the days after Lacey went missing.
Alice
Right. So, of course, there was a search that was launched as soon as it was discovered that Lacey was missing. Now, the going defense theory is that Lacey was either kidnapped by someone else near her home or in the park when she walked her dog down there. But the police searched the park, including with canines, and found absolutely no trace of Lacey. And the police interviewed the folks in a homeless camp that was near the park, and none of them saw anything. A lot of people find this very controversial because if you've watched the Scott Peterson documentary, you know that there are a lot of eyewitnesses who say that they see a pregnant woman walking a dog who looks like Mackenzie, who's a golden retriever.
Brett
We're gonna talk about that when we get into the defense side of the story. But it's certainly the case that people say that. There are a lot of people who have come forward to say that. We'll talk about that in more detail in a little bit. But I think one thing that should be highlighted is what Alice just said. The police did look to see whether or not Lacy had wandered off somewhere, was walking the dog or whatnot. They attempted to rule that out or if it were true, to find Lacey. And while there would eventually be people who came forward to say that they saw Lacy in the park or walking the dog or whatnot. The people that they interviewed in those days, right around the disappearance, the people who were definitely there, the people in the homeless camp, did not see Lacy. And the immediate evidence of trying to find some trace of Lacy with their own dogs came to nothing. So we'll talk about those people later on who claim to have seen Lacey. But to the extent people say that the police made no effort to see whether or not Laci went missing in the neighborhood, that is just simply not accurate.
Alice
And then let's go to the arrest. When Scott was arrested, they found four cell phones on him, his brother's ID, some camping gear, and $15,000 in cash in his car. Remember, Scott was golfing when the police finally cornered him and executed the arrest warrant. And when they got to Scott, Scott dyed his hair blonde and grown a beard, which is also dyed blonde. And he was no longer home in Modesto, California. He was hanging out in San Diego, close to the border. Now, the point of bringing this up for the prosecution is to show that maybe Scott was running. He was trying to change his appearance. He dyed his hair color. He grew out facial hair, dyed the facial hair to match his new blonde coloring. And he had a lot of cash. I certainly don't carry $15,000 worth of cash. And if you are on the run, you don't want to be traced. So carrying cash is a popular method to be able to make a quick getaway and not be traced. And having four cell phones, you know, Brett, I carry two cell phones, a work cell phone, and a personal cell phone, but that's pretty much it. Any more cell phones than that? The prosecution is trying to insinuate and tell the story that he's having burner phones, he's trying to avoid detection, he's making calls from different numbers, generally just trying to fly under the radar or confuse law enforcement as to where he is. And then, of course, there's the brother's id, right? I mean, he doesn't really look like his brother in the id but the idea is he's going to try and pass off as his brother, whether it's when he crosses the border or if he ever needs to show an ID for whatever purpose, he can show his brother's ID So that if he, say, goes and buys alcohol at the corner grocery and the police come in and say, have you seen this guy named Scott Peterson? They think, no, the license I looked at was for another. Another person.
Brett
And Scott has excuses for really all of this. This is like so many things in this case, Scott has a story that he tells about why this is true. I forget the excuse for the cell phones, but for the brother's id, he was going to play golf, and apparently he would have gotten a discount if he used his brother's ID, the $15,000 cash. There's this very convoluted story about how somebody took out cash accidentally, and somehow it ended up with Scott. And I never really understood what they were trying to say. But he does have a purported explanation for that. He's in San Diego because that's where his family is. That's what he says. And he says he's grown a beard and he's dyed his hair because he wants to avoid the media. So it's not. It's not that he wants to go on the lam and evade detection, though all of these things would make you think he might be doing that. It was. Each individual thing has its own explanation. The reason this is significant when you're in a trial, an attempt to escape is proof of sort of consciousness of guilt is what typically they say in cases like this. Because you were trying to flee the jurisdiction, you're showing that you know you're guilty, and you know if you're arrested and tried, you'll be convicted. It's a little controversial because you could say someone who's innocent, who thinks they're railroaded or going to be railroaded, might run too. That doesn't mean they're guilty. But certainly the courts, generally speaking, allow prosecutors to bring this kind of information in to show that you do know you're guilty and you do know that the police are closing in. And that's the. That's what the prosecution was doing in this case when they brought this stuff out.
Alice
Right. You know what. You know what's reminding me of this as we're going through this spread is there's so much the prosecution is bringing in, but it is a bit scattershot. You have to draw a lot of inferences, and they all connect to tell sort of a story, but it isn't one. It isn't one like cannon blast through everything. Right. And so even though there are so many pieces around that all point to a good story, We've talked about this already. The prosecution just lacks exactly what happened. And that's why they have to bring in all these little bits and pieces and kind of paint a picture. It's like a pointillism picture, right? You see little dots everywhere. And if you look, if you take a step back, all these little dots seem to connect and tell A story. But what you don't have is a clear picture.
Brett
Right. And I think we compared it to a mosaic earlier, and I think that's right. You know, maybe. Maybe a magic eye. Do you remember those fuzziness and the like pops out and I think that's exactly right. They recognize this whole the best story wins idea, and they're trying to do that even though they don't have a good story to tell about the murder itself.
Alice
Right. But they have a good story to tell around the murder, and. And that's what they're doing. So keep that in mind if it feels like we're herky jerking you around. This is. This is the prosecution's presentation, and this is what the jury saw as well. The next thing that the prosecution presents is the condition of Lacey and Connor's bodies when they were finally found. There are those who say that the condition of Lacey and Connor's bodies indicate that she and the baby were actually not in the water for the same amount of time. Lacey's body was in pretty bad shape, as you know. Only her torso was found, and there were barnacles growing on her bones. And there are some that speculate that Connor was actually born somewhere else, and then the bodies were dumped separately. Now, if that's true, that would, of course, mean that Scott is innocent, but the autopsy does not support that argument, because even though Connor was found separate from Lacey's body, when they did an autopsy of Lacey's torso, there was no vaginal birth. The autopsy confirmed that Lacey's birth canal had remained closed. In fact, there also wasn't something called a coffin birth in this case. A coffin birth is what happens when a baby is expelled from a decomposing body. And I know that may sound very, very depressing for a lot of you, and that's hard for me to read, too, but they have to look at all the ways in which Connor's body was separated from Lacey. And so there's another method, right, that Connor could have been removed from Lacey's body. And that's a C section. But again, the autopsy showed that there was no evidence of a C section or anyone trying to cut Connor out of Lacey's torso. What the autopsy shows, though, is at some point during Lacey's decomposition, the baby was actually expelled from the top of the uterus and out of the body. And because it took a while for the baby to be expelled in that manner, Connor's body was likely protected from degradation to an extent greater than Lacey's. And that's probably the Reason why their bodies look like they were not in the water for the same amount of time. Lacey's body was actually protecting Connor's body from the elements.
Brett
And you hear this a lot when you're listening to this and the story about how much worse off Lacy was. And it feeds into this idea, which, I mean, I don't want to show my cards, but I think it's pretty absurd to think that someone kidnapped Lacy, held her somewhere long enough for her to give birth to the baby, then murdered her, then I guess kept the baby for a while, then murdered the baby, then dumped them both in the bay, But I guess dumped Lacy in the bay earlier than they dumped Connor in the bay because Lacy needed to be in the bay longer so that she could decompose more. And then they dumped Connor. I mean, I don't. I don't really understand the how this would have happened or how this would have worked, but you do hear this a lot because one of the things, Lacy had to die that day if Peterson did it. And Connor had to have died obviously that day if Peterson did it. And so they're just people who think, look, you dump the body in the bay, you should have equal amounts of decomposition. But there's a couple things that cut against that. I mean, as Alice said, the baby's protected by the mother's body. You know, I mean, that's just all there is to it. Lacy was exposed directly to the elements. It would have been Lacy that would have had weights tied to her, which is probably what led to the separation. Her arms and her legs and her head is essentially. The weights would have eventually separated those off, which is why all we have is the torso. This coffin birth thing is important, because if you buy this story, if you believe this story that Mark Garagos was trying to tell that somebody, and you see this, if you watch the Lacy Peterson, the Scott Peterson documentary in episode six, which is really just the. The defense speculates section, which is all about telling a story that makes you doubt the story that you've heard from the prosecution. They have this sort of roving gang of people who are looking for a pregnant woman, and they're pointing out other pregnant women who were either attacked or kidnapped within, like a 300 mile radius of Modesto. They show this picture where it's just like all over California, but it's supposed to be close to Modesto. If you believe that and you believe that these people allowed or forced or whatever, kept Lacy hidden somewhere for months and then had this baby, there should be Evidence of that. And as bad as Lacy's body was, the one part of her body we have is the part of the body that tells the story of what happened here. Coffin birth is fairly common. You know, I don't. It's. As Alice said, it's a very difficult thing to discuss. Essentially, what you have when you have a pregnant woman who dies, at some point, the gases that accumulate in the body will force the baby out. And that's what a coffin birth is. You don't have that here. That did not happen here. There's no evidence of a C section. What happened here was. Was the baby was expelled from the top of. Of Lacy's body. So it's possible. I mean, look, it's possible that somebody else killed Lacy, and maybe you think they kept her body on ice somewhere, trying to figure out what to do with it, and then they're like, aha, they think Scott Peterson did it. And where was Scott Peterson? He was in the bay. So I'll take the body out to the bay and dump it in there to frame him. Right. Maybe they did that. But that's really the best thing you can come up with here, that Lacy was killed, Connor died, and at some point, somebody dumped Lacy's pregnant body into the bay, and then from that point on, essentially what the prosecution said happened, happened. Her body slowly degraded, and eventually the baby was expelled from the top of the body. Given that Connor and Lacy were found on the same day after a storm, I think probably what happened here is the storm is what caused Lacy's body to separate from these anchors. And it's not unlikely that that's when Connor's body was expelled, which means his body was in the water directly for a very short period of time, particularly compared to Lacy, maybe 24 hours. So I think that explains a lot of what you see here in the autopsy.
Alice
Right. Because if they were separated for longer, it's unlikely that they would have been found in relative close proximity on the same day.
Brett
Right, exactly. It's almost impossible to believe that would have happened. And this leads into the other thing, which was a big deal, the prosecution's case, because once again, they want to show that Lacy died on the 23rd or the 24th, and that means Connor died on the 23rd or the 24rd. Now, we know that Lacey was due on February 10th, 2003. So we're talking, you know, essentially two months, less than two months after she disappeared. So a month and a half, I guess, give or take. And she. Depending on who you believe she Likely died on the 24th, which was about seven weeks from that due date. One would expect then that the baby was between 31 and 35 weeks old when he died. Given that due dates are not exactly an exact science. I mean, all of you know that. I don't know how many people out there have had babies, and y' all got due dates. I guess some of you might have hit that due date.
Alice
I certainly didn't.
Brett
A lot of people don't. Yeah. Why don't you tell us a little bit about due dates, Alice?
Alice
Sure. I mean, due dates is not just one date, really. It can happen within a month. Long span. Right. Between 38 and 42 weeks of gestational pregnancy is the window in which, I think something like 95% of babies are born. They pick the middle date. And to say that likely by this point, you probably would have had your baby, but two weeks after your due date is still well within the period of an average bell curve of when babies are born gestationally. So I had. I did not have my babies on their due dates. I went past due dates. A lot of people do. Right.
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Brett
My baby. My daughter was born a couple weeks early. And you know, a lot. I know a lot of women who. Their due date comes and the baby hasn't been born, and they're kind of like, what's going on here? Am I going to have this baby or not? So, yeah, it's an inexact science. It's just not. It's not an exact science. And this. This actually kind of kills me about this case, and I think it's such a good example of the problem with expertise and expert witnesses and trying to use expert witnesses for things like this. You have an inexact science, like trying to determine when a baby's going to be born and the gestational age of a baby, when the bodies have been in the water for two months, and you're trying to somehow use what you have to figure that out. The prosecution called a pathologist, their expert, to the stand. That pathologist said that the gestational age was between 33 and 38 weeks, which is basically pretty much exactly what you would expect if she died on the 24th on cross. The defense attempted to push that number higher, at least to 35 weeks. And this was to further their theory that Lacy was kidnapped, held somewhere for some period of time. Either the baby was born or Lacey was killed later when the baby had developed more. Now, the pathologist was solid on this and just did not. Didn't bend on it. And you can read what is very dry and tiresome testimony, but you can read it. And this pathologist just repeatedly explains, goes back and forth with Gerga saying that given the science, the development of unborn children, they really thought that 33 to 38 weeks was the best range. They also put on another pathologist, a Dr. Devore, who determined that Connor died between the 21st and the 24th of December. I found that testimony to be not that convincing. Once again, I know that's, I know that fits for the prosecution's theory. I know it's probably true. But once again, I don't know how he could say with such specificity that that's when Conor died.
Alice
But the gestational age at least I can see plausibly how science could support it because there are certain things develop in a fetus on certain weeks, right? The difference between 21 weeks gestation and 24 weeks gestation is actually pretty large. With respect to the lungs, for example, certain things just don't develop before a certain time. And actually it gets harder when you get further into the third trimester. So the fact that they have a six week span, three, you know, five to six week span of gestational age is pretty good because I think it just gets harder later on when most of the babies organs, major organs have been developed at that point and they're really just gaining fat.
Brett
And I really think this is an interesting question about whether or not this was a good thing or a bad thing for the prosecution to do. I think when you're just talking gestational age and you're saying, look, there's just no real way to know, but it's within the span you would expect if Lacey had died on the 24th. That's one thing I can believe that I can get behind that when you start telling me, oh no, she, based on our, based on what we see, she had to have died on the 23rd or the 24th. What it does is exactly what we saw. Which it opens the door for the defense to put on an expert who's going to say, nope, I also know exactly when this child died. And in the defense's case, the defense wanted to say that the earliest Connor could have died was December 29th. Now, I find this to be absurd. I find it to be absurd on both sides. It just seems far fetched to me. I do not understand how a doctor could say with certainty that a body in the water for months, for four months at least, died without question, no earlier than December 29th. To say December 24th, that's crazy. It must have been at least five days later. Five days. That's all we're talking about here. It's not like we're talking about months here. And I think cross examination really kind of bore this out the prosecution. And this became a big thing that the doctor just kind of. It's funny, when you read the transcript of this doctor's cross examination, you can see him sort of backtracking in the transcript, but the cold transcript apparently just does not tell the story. Apparently when he is doing this backtracking, he's like completely collapsing on the stand and appears incredibly flustered, like he has no idea what he's really talking about and apparently made a big impression on the jury. But in any event, his entire assumption was that Lacy found out that she was pregnant on June 9 and then immediately told her friends and her family, a fact that was disputed. And you can imagine why that would be disputed.
Alice
I mean, it's not even just disputed, but the June 9 day, it's not like you conceive and it's like the sperm meets the egg and you're like, I'm pregnant today. I mean, I will say that among my pregnancies, they were wildly apart because one of them, I was like, huh, I'm probably definitely pregnant. And it was like weeks later in the pregnancy than my other pregnancy, because I knew what to expect right when I was pregnant again, I was like, oh, I know what this is. And I found out weeks earlier, gestationally. So just to say that she found out on June 9, that could mean anything. Some people take pregnancy tests and can tell, you know, days within a missed period, whereas other people, because it's all about the. Is it HGC hormone? HCG, HGC, human growth hormone. The human growth hormone doubles every 24 hours. And so some women, it doubles faster than others. And that's, you know, how you tell the health of the baby. But all to say you can tell on a test based on that hormone, and it depends on the time of day you take it, it's more likely to pick it up if you pee on a stick earlier in the day, then later in the day, and all that makes a difference of when you can find out, how early you can find out you are pregnant. So just to say that Lacey herself found out she was pregnant on June 9th doesn't tell you anything about the gestational age of the baby, except that you're probably within a three month window.
Brett
Yeah, I mean, we're talking about a matter of days here. Days. Right. There's. I just, I don't think there's any way, once again, with bodies that have been in the water for that long that you're going to be able to tell exactly when this baby died. And you see that on the documentary. They really oversimplify this when they're trying to undercut the doctor's testimony and talking about bone growth and all this other stuff. Essentially the things that you would do to figure out, you know, if, if, if a woman with a child, an unborn child was killed today and they had the body today, they can do these tests on bone growth and all this other stuff and sort of figure out, generally speaking, exactly how long, how far along the child is. But in this case, even though the baby was protected, decomposition was underway and the bones were just not. They weren't solid anymore. You just couldn't do that kind of measurement. You couldn't do the kind of measurements you would normally do. It just. It just wouldn't work. And so they were having to put all these things together to try and figure this out. And then for either side, frankly, to try and throw a dart at a calendar and say, aha, it couldn't have been any earlier than the 29th. And the prosecutor's like, no, no, it couldn't have been any later than the 24th. It's absurd. I just think it's absurd. And I think it's absurd either way. I don't think it proves anything as far as it goes with Scott's guilt. And I don't think it proves anything as far as Scott being innocent. Right.
Alice
I think the prosecution was in a rock and a hard place here because I don't think they could have left this, this big question out there unanswered. But by. So I think they had to address it. And they probably were trying to determine whether they wanted to bring it in their case in chief or to wait and see what the defense did and cross examine. But that's very risky because if you are not. If, if you don't tell the story of the gestational age of Connor and you wait until the defense puts on an expert, you don't then get to bring on an expert after you see their expert. You have to present all of your case in chief at the same time before you do something that we call rest. So if you've watched law shows, the prosecution, when they're finished presenting their case in chief, they say the prosecution rests. And they do that because that Is the. They are supposed to have met their burden by that point. And if they haven't, the defense can actually make motions to dismiss the case before the jury even gets to determine innocence or acquittal or guilt. And so I can imagine that this may have been a conversation with the prosecution of whether to bring this up. And at the end of the day, it's a weak argument for either side, but I think they had to address it because they couldn't leave it to chance that the defense would present something and they have no rebuttal. Instead, what I think you have is battle of two weak experts or multiple weak experts on either side.
Brett
No, I think that's right. I think that's right. And, you know, at the end of the day, the jury got to hear this testimony and got to make whatever decision they wanted to make. Personally, I think the weight of the evidence bears out that Lacey was killed very shortly after the 24th. I mean, even if you're the defense, it was shortly after the 29th here. So I do think the weight of the evidence bears that out. I think trying to pin down to a particular day is a little bit difficult. We're going to pay some bills. We'll be right back. So that's basically, that's basically it for the prosecution's case. I say that. I mean, this case went on for months. There were a lot of witnesses called, a lot of them testified to very small, discreet things. But this was essentially the case that the prosecution put on. We probably noticed this is a very circumstantial case, and it's circumstantial beyond what we normally mean. There are no fingerprints in this case. There's no DNA in this case. You know, the defense harps on the idea that there's no forensics in this case. And that's true. That's true. And the defense is playing on what some people have called the CSI effect, this notion that if there's no forensic evidence, well, then how could you ever know whether or not Scott killed his wife? The prosecution's case is a very classic top case. I mean, think about how they prosecuted people before they had things like forensics. This is a case built on whether Scott had the means, motive and opportunity to commit this crime and then to get rid of the body. And this is the case the prosecution has put on. At this point, it's the defense's turn, and the defense is going to see if they can show that Scott did not do this.
Alice
Right. And so, remember, because of the burden of proof, all the defense really has to do is to poke enough holes in the prosecution's case to create reasonable doubt in the jurors minds. But as we've talked about before, and the defense understands in this case, the best story wins. So while all you have to do legally is sit there and poke holes and not present your own story, that's not satisfying. Especially when you have someone like Scott Peterson who's already been demonized by the media's narrative and you have a devastating story of an eight month pregnant woman whose husband may have murdered her, but certainly was cheating on her, and both her and her eight month gestational age baby were murdered is just heart wrenching. And so the defense in this case recognizes we better bring our own story. We can't just say, ah, your experts don't, don't meet the level of proving your case. So the defense comes in hot and says this is hard to pull off. What the prosecution is saying Scott did to Lacey and Connor is just very hard to pull off. It would have been a bold thing for Scott to take Lacey's body out the boat, a small boat, in broad daylight on a holiday and dump her in the middle of the bay. When we've talked about how there are other bodies of water that are closer to his home, that are less open to public viewing and he could have reached in the middle of the night rather than really the middle of the day. And you know, we've talked about Scott's boat, it's a small boat from the witnesses that saw him trying to back his trailer into the bay. They were all laughing that he was struggling so much with it. Imagine if there were a body in it, a pregnant body in there with anchors, even more weight, even more to struggle with, even more to laugh at. Maybe people come and try to help you out if you're struggling so much and you risk being discovered. The defense is saying we have such a short timeline to work with. There's no way Scott could have carried this out in the manner that the prosecution says he did.
Brett
And look, I mean, I think that's a powerful argument. I think it's an argument people overlook a little bit. This is a bold thing to do. I mean, you have to imagine once again, he takes her body, he puts it in the back of the truck. He then covers up with umbrellas, his neighbors saying hello to him while he's covering up the body, his pregnant wife with some umbrellas. He then drives with a body in the back of his truck, presumably, you know, or in the boat, maybe it's in the boat by then. Maybe when he gets to the warehouse, I guess it would be. He moves the boat once again in broad daylight. And there are people who say, and I'm not sure exactly how true this is, but one of the things the defense tried to say was he couldn't get his boat and the truck into the warehouse at the same time. So he would have to move the body, at least to some extent, in the broad daylight, from the truck to the boat. He then drives down the highway, the interstate, for an hour and a half with the body in the boat. Then, like Alice said, he backs the boat with a body in it and a small boat. Not a lot of room to hide a body down the boat ramp, takes it out into the water, and then in the middle of the day, just dumps the body into the water. And, I mean, that is. That is incredibly bold. I think you could also say it's desperate. It makes you wonder if he did do this, whether or not it was planned. I go back and forth on if he did this, did he plan it? There's certainly evidence of planning, but maybe not necessarily this day. I think that's another possibility, is that he was always going to kill his wife, and he was always going to dump her in the bay. But he did not intend to do it like this, in this sort of slipshod manner. But if he did do it, he managed to do it without anybody knowing, without anybody seeing him. And Alice mentioned the small boat. And it's kind of funny, if you've seen the documentary, the defense puts on, like, a recreation of this, of dumping the body, the bay. And it's kind of the opposite of what we saw in the Scott Peterson case, or, excuse me, the Michael Peterson case, where the prosecution, the state, is doing anything they can to recreate what they think happens. So they can just show it's possible. The defense is doing the opposite. They're trying to show it's completely impossible you could ever throw a boat over the edge or, excuse me, a body over the edge of this boat. And it reminds me of one of those commercials that you see at midnight for, like, the spatula that makes it really easy to flip the egg. And so to show you how much easier it is, you have people trying to flip an egg with a regular spatula. And it's like they've never done it before. And so they're flipping the egg, and the egg's going up in the air and going everywhere. You know what I mean?
Alice
There's a friends episode about this where Joey is, you know, not a very successful actor. And he gets one of these ads for. For, like, I don't know, QVC or something where he can't open, like, wine bottles or something. I can't remember right now. It's either a can opener or something. And every time he tries to open it, he hits his face. And he's not acting. He's just really that stupid. And this whole bit is about how. How dumb he is. And that's exactly what it reminds me of. Over exaggerated, like, oh, my goodness. I think the prosecutor. I'm sorry. I think the defense even says our, you know, our tester almost drowned trying to throw a weight over. He almost drowned. And I was like, he was not about to drown.
Brett
And they show him, and he's, like, tipping the boat over and he's, like, slipping into the water. It's just so ridiculous and absurd. I would like to see an actual unbiased attempt to do this. It does not. As someone who's been in small boats before, small fishing boats before, it does not strike me as something that would be anywhere near as difficult as the defense makes it seem like it would be.
Alice
You know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of when I'm trying to get my toddler into the bathtub, and he's, like, naked and literally just flopping on the ground, and it's like his legs don't work anymore. And I'm like, come on, I'm so much bigger than you. And he's like. He pretends to stand up and just, like, falls on his face. And I'm like, oh, my goodness. Get your butt in the bathtub.
Brett
Right, Exactly. I mean, that's. That's watching them do it. That's kind of. That is what it. What it reminds me of. I'll say this. If Scott did it, he would have gotten very wet doing it. And lo and behold, Scott tells us that when he gets back from Modesto an hour and a half later, his clothes are still wet to the point that he immediately takes them off and washes them in the washing machine. So that's consistent.
Alice
And you're right, Brett, I didn't say that earlier when we described how he got home, took off his clothes, put them in the wash, and that he washed his clothes. And you said earlier that that's typically did because he worked with chemicals. I don't know. When I have wet clothes and when my husband has wet clothes, sure, we'll throw them into the wash. But if it's an empty washing machine. And there's just the clothes I'm wearing. I'm not gonna do an entire load now. Maybe it was full. Maybe it was ready to go, but that's a. Maybe he's just really clean, and he always does something like that. But that's just. There's something about him going the extra step. He just found his dog, Mackenzie, with the leash still on, you know, hasn't heard from his wife all day, and he's gonna run the laundry.
Brett
No, I think that's. I agree with you 100%. The laundry wasn't full. We know that because the maid had done the laundry, and the only thing in the laundry, apparently, were some dirty rags. So, yeah, I mean, he just decides he's gonna run the washing machine for his wet clothes. When I think, like you were saying, the obvious thing to do is just hang them up, you know, in the bathroom, let him dry out a little bit, and then put them in the dirty clothes. You don't have to wash them immediately, but that is something he does. So I get this. I get this argument. It's a strong argument. I'm not saying it's not. I think it's one of his best points, and it's a point that the defense is going to come back to. There are people who've developed this sort of alternative theory that Scott did all this the night of the 23rd, that he murdered Lacy. He took her body out to the bay, he dumped her body in the bay, and then he essentially recreated that the next day so that if there were any questions about him being at the bay, he could say, yeah, I was there on the 24th, fishing, or whatever. I find that hard to believe. I don't think that's likely. I think it's much more likely that he just. She was dead. And look, when he got a dead body on your hands, you got to do what you got to do. You got to make a decision on how you're going to deal with this, and then you have to follow through with it. So if he murdered her and he decided, I'm gonna dump this body in the bay, and maybe, like I said, you know, he had this plan laid out of what he was going to do, and he had the weights ready to go, and he. He was gonna do it at just the right time, and then she found out about Amber, or they got in a fight, or he killed her accidentally or whatever, the plan has to go into effect, even if this is not the ideal time to do it, right?
Alice
And next the defense talks about. And this, a lot of you guys talked about it, either private messages to us or on Twitter. The dog walking. So a number of people seem to have seen Lacey walking Mackenzie, her dog. For instance, Vivian and Bill Mitchell said that they saw Lacey walking the dog that morning. And you shouldn't. We should note that they don't say they see Lacey, they don't know Lacey, but they describe a woman who is clearly pregnant with a white blouse and black leggings walking.
Brett
And I want to just stop here because you've just made a really important point that I want to highlight. Whenever the defense talks about this, they always say people saw Lacey. That's what they always say, because they want you to believe that. They want that to get in your head. That all these people saw Lacy. That is not what they saw. Well, I mean, it might have been what they saw, but that's not what they're saying. They're not saying, I know Laci Peterson and I saw her walking her dog that day. At this time, it's typically people who do not know Lacy. It's people who have a description of Lacey from later on who've come to the police and said, on that day, I saw a woman fitting her description walking her dog. And that is a really important distinction that the defense always allied.
Alice
Huge distinction. In fact, if I were the prosecution and they are framing questions like that, I would probably object as argumentative because the prosecution is arguing that it's Lacey and not letting you know, not having the witness testify. But.
Brett
And we're going to talk about this later, but we're putting this in the defense story, in the defense camp, because you hear about it so much and you hear about it so much in the documentary, and you hear about it from Scott's appellate counsel. But there's a reason the prosecution couldn't object to these stories, and it's because these witnesses never testified. So we're talking about them and we're laying them out for you, but they never testified.
Alice
In other words, we're giving even more story. We're giving even more to the defense's story than the jury would have heard, because we feel like this is important to address since a lot of you know about this particular storyline. Now, Homer and Sue Maldonado say that around 10am they go out driving to deliver Christmas presents and they see a very pregnant lady struggling with a dog. The assumption here is that, again, it's Laci, but they do not say Lacey. They do not know Lacey. They just state that they see A very pregnant lady struggling with a golden retriever. One thing I want to note about this is what we do know about mackenzie, and we said this, I think, in the last episode, is that she's a golden retriever, and she's actually a pretty old dog and sleeps all day. It doesn't seem to fit the description of the Mackenzie that we seem to know that she would be pulling or struggling with a very pregnant Lacey. And if she. And I've had dogs, I've had dogs who are very bad on a leash, right? They see a squirrel and they go after it. And when I have. Say, when I've thrown out my back, I don't walk my dog because I know that if they see a squirrel, I'm gonna be flat on my back. And so if Lacey knows that she has difficulty walking, she's had a difficult pregnancy. So if Mackenzie is a difficult dog, which she isn't, I don't think Lacy would be walking her. Now, those are not the only people who state that they see a pregnant lady walking a dog. Tony Freitas says that he saw a pregnant woman walking a dog that morning. Frank Aguilar and his wife also see a pregnant woman with her dog. Diana Campos is a woman who is taking a break while she is working at a local hospital. And she's behind the hospital smoking a cigarette, looking into the park. She says she looks across the the creek into the park, and she sees a pregnant woman walking a dog. She also says that two men were following that pregnant woman and that the dog was barking at Lacey. And the two men said, shut that effing dog up. By the end of all of this, around 11, people say that they saw a pregnant woman walking a dog. One thing to consider. Do you try and kidnap a woman in broad daylight with a dog?
Brett
I think that's a great question.
Alice
Yeah. I mean, here's the thing with home invasions. So basically, for all of you out there, all the research shows that there's almost no deterrence to someone who is determined to break into your house. They can break down doors, windows, security systems, and floodlights do not deter criminals who want to break into your house. Basically, they did this survey of people who were serving time for actually breaking into homes to say, what would actually deter you? How would you choose to skip a house in your line of work? And repeatedly, people said, lights don't deter us. People being home doesn't deter us. Security systems doesn't deter us. Gates don't deter us. The only thing that would make them think twice Is a big dog that barks, or any dog really, that barks. If they walk up to a house and they hear a dog barking, that is basically the only thing that will make them change their mind. Because the dogs could attack them no matter their size. They could alert people in the house and outside of the house about their, you know, what they're about to do. And also, you can't shut a dog up while you're trying to burglarize a home. So you need some time to be able to break into the house and take things. The dog is a constant, constant alarm. And so I would think this applies to someone who's walking with a dog as well. You don't want to mess with someone. The dog. You don't know if this is a sweet old golden retriever or a crazy golden retriever who has mental issues and will snap at you the second you look at him sideways.
Brett
Yeah. And look, I know somebody's going to write in with stories about woman attacked while walking her dog or whatever it happens. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but Alice is absolutely right. Again and again and again, you hear from people that that's the thing that deters them. If there's a dog, they avoid it. I think there's even been serial killers who talked about this, might even maybe btk, I can't remember. There are certainly people who've talked about this how if there was a dog in the home, they move on. It's just not worth it. And this is not in the home. This is in broad daylight in the middle of the day. You have to believe that these people decided. And once again, who do criminals go after? You know, they go after people who are weak, who can't defend themselves. A pregnant woman might be that. I can see a pregnant woman being an easy target, but not when she has a dog. That taking the chance to go after someone like that when they have a dog, to me seems utterly unbelievable, particularly to just let the dog go. If Mackenzie were dead somewhere or injured, I could maybe see that. But once again, you have to believe they kidnapped Lacy Mackenzie, who we know was very territorial and protective. We know that from the testimony of the post, the postman who testified in this case and talked about how Mackenzie barked at him all the time and was very protective. And Mackenzie would have been very protective of Lacy. He would have barked like crazy. Even if he didn't bite, he would have barked like crazy. And the idea that you wouldn't do something to shut that dog up is hard to believe it is a real stretch to think that what happened here was Lacy was walking her dog in broad daylight when literally a dozen different people supposedly saw her. And yet somehow she was kidnapped, and nobody saw the kidnapping, and the dog didn't. You know, the dog didn't bark or the dog didn't attack or whatever. It's very difficult to imagine that happened.
Alice
Right. And furthermore, the prosecution put on a number of witnesses who testified that Lacey was tired during the end of her pregnancy, that the doctor had told her to take it easy after she complained of dizziness and exhaustion, and that it simply was not believable that she would have taken the dog on some sort of long, strenuous walk through the park. For instance, Lacey had a prenatal yoga instructor who testified that on December 20, Lacey was in so much pain she could barely walk and that she needed help to get to her car. So from the yoga studio, which prenatal yoga is just a lot of stretching. It's not strenuous, it's not cardio, it's not hot yoga. It's a lot of laying down on your mat and stretching. And even after that, Lacey needed help to get her car. Feet away. And these people, if you've seen the documentary, they plot out where these people say they saw this woman who supposedly is Lacey. And it's a long walk. It is a long walk that goes far from your house. It's one thing to maybe go on a long walk around your house, but if you walk far from your house, you know, at some point you have to come back to your house. So it's going to be a long distance to cover. Four days earlier, Lacey could barely get to her car. And now the defense is trying to say that she took this long walk with a dog who was struggling, you know, pulling on the leash, and she was. She was up for it. There's the walking of the dog, but we already previewed for you. The defense didn't call any of these witnesses that you always hear about who say that they saw or saw a woman who looked like Lacey, 11 of them. And those aren't the only witnesses that the defense doesn't call. There are witnesses at the marina who would have seemingly be helpful for Scott. So there was a witness who claimed he was at the marina that day and saw into the boat, and he said that there was nothing in Scott's boat. But the defense never called that witness. The defense never called the witness who claimed to have seen Lacey that day either, walking the dog. There seemed to be Some people who said that they were driving by Lacey's house and they saw what appeared to be a white van and maybe some sort of a few men who did not look like they lived in the neighborhood, forcing a woman into a van. They didn't call that witness, who I think there was discussion of them in the documentary, but this never was presented in trial. And there was another witness who saw a pregnant woman walking a dog that day, called it into the police. And then when the witness was shown a picture of Lacey, was certain it wasn't her. Christopher Van Sant testified that he saw a pregnant woman walking her dog near the footbridge at Dry Creek Regional Park. That's near the scenic hospital. Now, if that's true, this sighting is consistent with many of the other sightings offered by those who believe Scott is innocent. But Van Sant testified that he's 100% positive that the woman he saw was not Laci Peterson. So you can begin to see how there are witnesses who could have helped Scott. But. Because there are. But they can't say that they saw Lacey. They can describe what they saw. But if you put them up, what you open yourself up to are these rebuttal witnesses I just told you about who say that they are 100% positive the woman they saw was not Laci Peterson, and it would debunk all the other witnesses who seem to help Scott. So it was a decision that the defense had to make. And now you'd have to think, if they think that those witnesses were worth anything, not just to tell a story, but just enough to poke holes into the prosecution, they would have called them. They. They. I'm sure they talked to these witnesses. I'm sure they even coached up these witnesses. I'm sure they probably even subpoenaed these witnesses and determined not to call. And they made that call, I think, because they think it would not have ultimately helped Scott.
Brett
Yeah, and we. I mean, we've talked about these people, and you hear about these people all the time. And I think this is one of those areas where there's a reason. Like Alice said, there's a reason these people didn't get called. Okay? Mark Garagos is a really good lawyer. The man knows what he's doing, and he'll take the hit on this. I mean, if you watch him on the. On the documentary, he never says, well, yeah, the reason we didn't call those witnesses is because it would have murdered us if we'd done that, because they all would have ended up being not credible, particularly when compared to the witnesses that the prosecution could muster against us. He's not going to say that, but that's what he was thinking, and that's why he didn't call these witnesses, because he knew it would be worse for him if he did. And I just want to remind you, if you've watched the documentary, every single person who saw these. These. These sightings said, much like Scott said, that Lacy was wearing a white blouse and a black in black pants. What we know for sure, those were hanging up in the. In the closet. That outfit was hanging up in the closet. She wasn't wearing it that day. And her body, when it was found, she was wearing tan pants. I just think most of these people, you've heard their names again and again. Two things that you need to remember. They're not saying they saw Lacy. They're saying they saw a pregnant woman walking a dog. They may very well have seen a pregnant woman walking a dog. There were a lot of pregnant people in that area who walk dogs, apparently, and the prosecution had them lined up of people who could. Who could rebut that or could be the pregnant person. There's simply no evidence that Lacy ever walked that dog. The only evidence that she walked the dog is the fact that Mackenzie is roaming free with. With his leash on. And that's what you would expect if one of two things happened. Either Lacy was kidnapped while walking the dog, or Scott always planned for that to be his story, that he left. She was going to walk the dog, and lo and behold, there's a dog with a leash and no Lacy. Somebody must have taken her.
Alice
But like you said, even though the defense didn't call all of those people who claimed they saw someone who looked like Lacey, the prosecution was ready. They did. They called four different people to show that even if other people saw a pregnant lady walking a dog, it wasn't Lacey. They called the husband of a pregnant woman and three pregnant women who were pregnant at the time that Lacey disappeared. And they all testified that they walked in the neighborhood either on that day or around it. One walked a chocolate lab, one a lab mix, one an Australian shepherd, and another one just didn't have a dog. In other words, like you said, there's a lot of pregnant women, a lot of dogs walking with them, surrounding Lacey's disappearance. And to continue to hammer home that point, the prosecution called a parade of people who were walking in the park that day, who were walking any number of golden retrievers that day, and who were just in the neighborhood that day, none of whom saw Anything unusual, and none of. And any of whom might have been mistaken by someone. For Lacey, I think that's a pretty compelling story for the prosecution. I bet during trial, it was really boring. It was witness after witness after witness saying, like, the same short, little testimony, yes, my name is not Lacey. Yes, I'm fat. Yes, I walk. Yes, I walked on the 24th. Yes, I have a dog. Next one. And I bet you is one of those things where, like, the fourth or fifth or sixth witness got on the stand and the jurors kind of rolled their eyes, which is actually good for the prosecution, because the jury's rolling their eyes to say, I get it, it probably wasn't Lacy.
Brett
Right? Exactly. And we've seen that. We've done it before in cases where you just want to hammer that point home. And confirmation bias is a real thing. It's a thing you have to avoid as a prosecutor. It's a thing you have to avoid if you're looking at these cases and you're trying to figure out what happened. An example of that is how, if you think, for instance, that someone was wrongfully convicted, you are very open to the idea that the eyewitness who saw the crime got it wrong, that they misidentified the person, that they weren't close enough, whatever. You're very open to that. And yet, when you have a situation like this where people want to believe that Scott is innocent, they hear someone saw Lacy walking her dog, and they just believe it without questioning it. And, in fact, much more likely that the person who's seeing a crime being committed, that the details would be impressed upon them, and they would think, man, this is crazy. This is shocking. This is something I'm gonna remember forever. What you have here are people who saw a pregnant woman walking a dog on a day that was completely inconsequential. Later on, it became consequential, and they thought, huh, I did see a woman walking a dog, and I think she was pregnant. Was it a golden retriever? I think it might have been. Right. And that's how these stories develop. No one would have thought this was significant to see a woman walking a dog down the street. They just wouldn't. It wouldn't be important. And to think that their memories are perfect, I just. I find a hard time putting as much credence into this as a lot of people do. And a lot of people. This is the most important thing about this case. This is what convinces them that there's reasonable doubt here. And Scott didn't kill Lacy. It's all these people who saw Lacy. And just a couple things on that. The most powerful one is that Mark Garagos, who is a very good lawyer who knows, who knows how to poke holes, did not call these people. And he didn't call these people for a reason, because as long as he hadn't called them, he can still make the argument that Lacy was walking her dog that day. But if he puts all these people on the stand and they get eviscerated and the prosecution destroys them and it's. It's evident that none of them know what they're talking about, the jury's gonna say, yep, she wasn't walking her dog that day. That door closes. And it's a critical decision for a defense attorney to make. Do I push forward and try and prove this? Is this, Is this going to be something I try and prove as part of the defense, or do I just want to leave it and say it's a possibility you should consider, but I'm not going to put on my evidence because then it'll be subject to cross examination and you may see all the problems it has.
Alice
Absolutely.
Brett
Now, a variant of this, which is a little different. And I think in some ways it's more believable. In some ways is less believable. As I just said, you would imagine that seeing a crime happening would be something that would be impressed upon you, that you might remember more. And there was someone, a Tom Harshman, who people have pointed to before, who was a retired police officer who claimed that he had seen a pregnant young woman being pushed into a van on the 24th. He claimed that he'd seen a man standing over her as she squatted to urinate with her back up against a chain link fence. He described the man as in his 30s, tall, thin, with a ponytail, dirty blonde to gray hair and scrubby looking, which is a pretty good description. That's not a. It's not a vague description. When this lady finished the man and another person forced her back into the van. Now, his description of her is sort of a combination of things. He says that she was wearing black pants, which is consistent with what other people have said and consistent with Scott said she was wearing, but not consistent with what Lacy apparently would have been wearing, but a red shirt, which is not something you really hear from anybody. He said that she looked scared on her face. And the van in question was said to be similar to one that had been outside a neighbor's home during a burglary that we're going to talk about. More, and we've mentioned briefly before, that is also a cornerstone, not necessarily of the defense's cases. The defense's case at trial, though, obviously it was mentioned and discussed, but is really sort of important for Scott's defenders today.
Alice
So I. That, you know, that's somewhat of a powerful testimony, except all I can think of during that testimony is you're a reserve police officer and you did nothing. When you thought. When you now testify that you think someone was being kidnapped, it seems a little bit unbelievable. So it makes me doubt what he really saw that day.
Brett
Yeah, I think what it feels like. What it feels a lot like, is that he is sort of recreating in his mind the story, but it's not really what he saw at the time. I think what he saw at the time was a man and a woman, and the woman was urinating on the side of the road, which is not necessarily the kind of thing you want to see, but I guess in San Francisco happens all the time, and afterwards they just leave. And he didn't think anything of it at the time, and then he hears about Lacy missing, and in his mind, it all of a sudden has all this significance and it becomes more sinister than it probably was at the time.
Alice
And the reason I say I don't think Thom Harshman is lying or anything. I think he's putting more important into what he saw and shading it by what he now knows. But again, I think any man, if they saw a pregnant woman looking like they were being forced into a van against her will, cop or no cop, would probably want to do something to help her or call the police, do something contemporaneous, to act on it. Right. Even if he wasn't going to do anything because he didn't know how dangerous the man was. Call. Call the cops. Have someone follow it, take down the. The license plate number. Anything that wasn't done here. I can imagine that though he testified, this is what he saw. If I were a juror, I would take it with a grain of salt.
Brett
I would, too. Now, once again, they didn't get the opportunity to take it with a grain of salt because to my understanding, he never testified. But, yeah, I think the holes that you're poking in the story is probably one of the reasons that he did not. Another thing the defense did was to rebut some of this notion that Scott showed no emotion. Now, as we've said, we don't really read much into this either way, but the defense did put on witnesses who testified, and there was substantial testimony to this point, that Scott was visibly upset at various points after Lacey disappeared, that he was crying, that he was inconsolable. All the things that you would expect. Once again, you know, when's he faking it? When's he not? It's impossible to say. But you can understand why this would be important for the defense to do. Whether or not you think it's significant how someone acts when their wife or girlfriend or whatever goes missing, the. The jury certainly wants to hear that the husband was upset. So it was important for them to put on this information and this testimony. And they did put it on. And one thing they pointed to that was missing. As we've said before, best story wins. Right. Well, the most important part of any murder has nothing to do with whether or not someone is guilty. It's not an element of the crime at all. But something juries want to hear is motive. They want to understand why this man would kill his beautiful, young, talented wife and his unborn child. They want a reason for that. Now, we have one reason, which is Amber. Right. Well, we're gonna. We're gonna talk about that more later. And how is that really a motive for murder or not? But one thing that seems not to have been a motive was finances. There apparently was no financial motive. There was an insurance policy, but they'd had it for a while. So it's not like Scott all of a sudden decided to kill her. Scott did have some financial difficulties. He was in his company, wasn't making that much money. He was spending more money than he was bringing in. But in many ways, Lacy sort of had her own money, and it was probably better for him, and her family had money. It was probably better for him if she was alive, frankly, he probably could get more money out of this circumstance if she was alive with, you know, the grandchild than he could if she were dead.
Alice
Right. And I think that's why you have such a scattershot approach for the prosecution in the sense of all these little blips. Right? Because they're trying to paint a picture of motive when there isn't the obvious one of heat, of passion, some. Some big fight that happened that everyone heard, and. And she said she was leaving him with her, you know, unborn child, and the neighbors overheard this big, great fight. There's nothing like that. And so they're trying to paint a picture and hope that one of the. One of the potential motives carries weight with the jurors.
Brett
Okay, so we're five episodes in. We're gonna have a sixth episode. We are not gonna make you wait till next week to hear it. We will do that episode tomorrow and we'll wrap up this case. We know we've spent a lot of time on this, but there's so much to talk about and there's a lot to talk about, both in the case itself and a lot of this surrounding legal maneuvering and the way the trial went and those sort of things. So hopefully this has been one that you've enjoyed and you've learned something from. Keep hitting us with your questions. There will be a follow up, obviously, on the Peterson case. Prosecutors podmail.com is our email. Prosecutors podcast.com is our website. Prosecutors Pod for all your favorite social media sites. We're on Reddit, we're on Instagram, we're on YouTube. Some of you are watching us on YouTube. If you're listening to this and you hate ads, you don't want to hear any ads. We also have a Patreon site, and if you join Patreon, you get ad free episodes. So that's all we have for today. We will see you again tomorrow and wrap up this case. But until then, I'm Brett.
Alice
And I'm Alice.
Brett
And we are the prosecutors. You know, it's funny. It's funny. I, I did dated a lot of people. You need.
Alice
I feel like you need to save this for. I feel like you need to save this for the podcast. I don't know where this is going, but I feel like it's gonna be golden.
Brett
Well, no, I mean, I don't know if it's going.
Alice
I just, I dated a lot of people.
Brett
I like women. I'm a big fan of women. Right? And. But when I got married and really before I got married, but particularly when I got married, it was like, okay, I'm getting, you know, I'm now in committed relationship. That's the best way to do it, in my opinion is, you know these people who date one person a whole lot, I don't know how they.
Alice
Oh, yeah, I'm. I'm impressed. But my friends who married their home school sweethearts, I'm like, how you need
Brett
to date a few crazy girl, Find the one that's my.
Alice
Sam.
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Brett
You gotta know what you got, right? I mean, you can't know what you got if you don't. Like, if you've never had caviar, you don't.
Alice
Yeah.
Brett
If you've never had, like. I remember when I was in college, I used to think this a lot, like, cheap red wine was really good and now if I drink that crap right, it's the same thing.
Alice
So. Sam,
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Date: July 24, 2026
Hosts: Brett & Alice
Main Theme: Continuing the deep-dive analysis of the Scott Peterson case, focusing on the prosecution’s evidence, the defense’s counter-arguments, and pivotal aspects such as the timeline, expert testimony, and eyewitness accounts.
Brett and Alice move into the fifth part of their exhaustive series on the Scott Peterson case, examining the final stages of the prosecution’s evidence and turning to the defense’s strategies and narrative. The episode aims to dissect the strengths, weaknesses, and broader implications of each side’s story, highlighting issues around evidence, police work, expert testimony, and public perception.
"To the extent people say that the police made no effort to see whether or not Laci went missing in the neighborhood, that is just simply not accurate."
— Brett [06:43]
"Attempt to escape is proof of sort of consciousness of guilt…It’s a little controversial because you could say someone who’s innocent…might run too. That doesn’t mean they’re guilty."
— Brett [10:10]
“As bad as Laci’s body was, the one part…tells the story of what happened here.…There’s no evidence of a C-section.…The baby was expelled from the top of Laci’s body.”
— Brett [16:29]
“For either side…to throw a dart at a calendar and say, ‘aha, it couldn’t have been any earlier than the 29th’…is absurd.”
— Brett [27:21]
“It reminds me of when I’m trying to get my toddler into the bathtub and he’s…just flopping on the ground. It’s like his legs don’t work anymore.”
— Alice [38:09]
“They’re not saying they saw Laci. They’re saying they saw a pregnant woman walking a dog. They may very well have seen a pregnant woman walking a dog.”
— Brett [53:16]
“I think any man, if they saw a pregnant woman looking like they were being forced into a van…would probably want to do something to help her or call the police.”
— Alice [62:52]
“They’re trying to paint a picture and hope that one of the potential motives carries weight with the jurors.”
— Alice [66:14]
On the Circumstantial Nature:
"There are no fingerprints in this case. There's no DNA in this case.…This is a case built on whether Scott had the means, motive and opportunity."
— Brett [29:58]
On Police Investigation:
"To the extent people say that the police made no effort to see whether or not Laci went missing in the neighborhood, that is just simply not accurate."
— Brett [06:43]
On the Absurdity of Alternative Timelines:
"To throw a dart at a calendar and say, 'aha, it couldn’t have been any earlier than the 29th'…is absurd."
— Brett [27:21]
On the Defense’s Boat Demonstration:
“The defense even says our tester almost drowned trying to throw a weight over. He almost drowned. And I was like, he was not about to drown.”
— Alice [37:07]
On Eyewitness Accounts:
"They're not saying they saw Laci. They're saying they saw a pregnant woman walking a dog.…There’s simply no evidence Laci ever walked that dog."
— Brett [53:16]
Brett and Alice close by acknowledging there will be a sixth episode, promising listeners a wrap up and further discussion of legal maneuvering and the broader implications of the case.
Tone & Style:
Engaging, conversational, and analytical, with a strong emphasis on providing complete context and challenging popular misconceptions surrounding the case. Brett and Alice use humor and relatable analogies (toddlers, infomercials) while maintaining a critical legal lens.
This summary delivers a comprehensive roadmap of the episode, key takeaways, and critical timestamps—making it an essential reference for those unable to listen or wishing to revisit standout moments and legal analysis.