Crime Junkie - MURDERED: Laci Peterson Part 2

Episode Date: December 25, 2017

The story everyone thinks they know... but do you really? In part two, we discuss the continued focus on Scott as a suspect in the disappearance and murder of his wife, Laci. Sources for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/murdered-laci-peterson-part-2/   Did you know you can listen to this episode ad-free? Join the Fan Club! Visit crimejunkie.app/library/ to view the current membership options and policies.  Don’t miss out on all things Crime Junkie!Instagram: @crimejunkiepodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @CrimeJunkiePod | @audiochuckTikTok: @crimejunkiepodcastFacebook: /CrimeJunkiePodcast | /audiochuckllc Crime Junkie is hosted by Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat. Instagram: @ashleyflowers | @britprawatTwitter: @Ash_Flowers | @britprawatTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AF Text Ashley at 317-733-7485 to talk all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, and more! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This episode of Crime Junkie is brought to you by Crime Stoppers of Central Indiana. Excuse me, can I ask you a question real quick? Yeah, go for it. Do you know what Crime Stoppers is? Is it that dog, the scruff by gruff? Nope, can't sing the song, can't afford the song, but do you know what they do? Isn't it the dog just kind of goes around and helps solve the murders for the state government? I don't know.

No, no, not quite. While everyone loves the idea of a badass crime-fighting dog, that's not what Crime Stappers is. Crime Stoppers is a nonprofit that allows a place for people to give anonymous tips about crimes if they are in fear for their life or for whatever reason don't want the police to know who they are when they give the tip but they have valuable information. You can do this through phone numbers, online tips, they even have an app called P3 that you can download and submit your tip along with photos and videos. Crime Stoppers is a nonprofit and receives no government funding.

So look into yours, see how you can get involved, see how you can help. And if you want more information on crime stoppers of central Indiana, go tocimes.org. Merry Christmas junkies. You know, most of the podcasts that I subscribe to and listen to all go on hiatus during the holidays. And it's something that drives me insane because there isn't a time in my life when I need podcasts more than A when I'm traveling and B, when I have to spend a ton of time with extended family. and then I just need like a couple of minutes to myself to turn off my brain and listen to a story about murder. So with that, I figure I would give you your Christmas fix by giving you the second part of the Scott Peterson episode. If you didn't listen to the first part, make sure you go back and download episode two, Scott Peterson part one.

And where we left off is it is March of 2003 and the case had gone pretty cold. Investigators really believe Scott did it. They're not looking into any other suspects, but nothing is happening to further the case and they're kind of just stuck. On April 13th and 14th, that's when the bodies of Connor and Lacey were found. And Connor was found first on the 13th. And then Lacey was found on the 14th. And they were found just about a mile apart. And the first body was alerted to police because someone was walking their dogs.

And prior to this, you know, they had actually searched the Berkeley Marina where Scott said he was. I mean, they had done multiple searches, searched the water, didn't come up with anything. They found an anchor, a lone anchor. But they actually washed up in the San Francisco Bay. And the police say that when they initially washed up, they thought there's no way that this is our body. Like the San Francisco Bay is too huge. Bodies washed up all the time. We're just not that lucky.

but sure enough they find out that it is Lacey, it is Connor, and the bodies are obviously a mess. They have been in the water for some time. We don't know exactly how long, but Lacey was just a torso. Her arms, her legs, and her head were missing, and just her torso washed up. And then for Connor, it looks like he had been almost disemboweled. and he had some electrical tape on his ear and this fishing wire or some kind of wire that looked like a noose around his neck. So when we talk about the trial, there'll be a lot of speculation about what happened to the body, whether it was the tide or not, but they were found in extremely unusual conditions.

After the body's found, obviously it takes a couple of days to identify them. And I think another, one of the big infamous points in the trial is on April 1st. 18th. It's good Friday. And this is when Scott is air quotes running for the border and trying to escape. What happens is police arrest Scott in San Diego and in his car, they find, oh, so many things. They find camping gear, four cell phones, his brother's ID, between $14,000 and $15,000 in cash, hiking boots, a shovel, a dozen Viagra, and a picture of him and Lacey. And his hair has dyed blonde. And all that we hear, again, in the media is he's fleeing, he's on the run.

And he was trying to, now that their bodies are found and identified, he's trying to get away. Now, if we go back again, there's always the family side of the story. And what they say happened is wildly different. So they say that that day, on Good Friday, Scott was going to play golf with his family. They say that, you know, it had been just a crazy couple of months. They were just like starving for some normalcy. And so he wanted to get away. He had been actually living in San Diego for a while because he had family that lived down there.

So it's not like he drove from Modesto to San Diego that day. He had been living in San Diego. And he was on his way to the golf course. he saw some unmarked cars behind him, and he thought it was the media. So he just kind of starts driving around. He actually calls his family. He doesn't want to bring the media to the golf course because, you know, getting pictures of him golfing. That would just be a nightmare.

So what he doesn't know at the time, which I think ends up being good for him, is police have his phone tapped. And he actually calls his family to tell him that he's not going to make it. He ends up driving and driving and driving, and they're still following him. and they're being pretty aggressive. He finally does end up going to the golf course. He doesn't know where else to go. And he pulls over. And that's when they put on their lights.

And he realizes that it's been the cops the whole time and not media. And they end up arresting him and find all of the stuff in his car. But what the family will point out as well is, okay, yes, he was blonde. However, he had been blonde for a while. He had met with cops while he was blonde and had the goatee. So it's not like he was disguised. himself from the cops. He was just trying to get through like day-to-day life going to the gas station and going to the grocery store without people bombarding him. So really he didn't change

his appearance for that, which again, I never knew. No, me neither. No idea he met with the cops like that. And then they they go to try and explain away all this stuff in the car. And they say that, you know, the $15,000 in cash was actually, his mother had borrowed some money out of his account. And the day before, they have all the transactions to prove this, but the day before, she pulled money out to pay him back. And he hadn't gotten a chance to put it in the bank yet. You know, again, I don't know what to believe anymore. It's like I wouldn't be driving around with $15,000 of cash. But on the other hand, it's Good Friday and banks may not be open all day.

Oh, that's a good point. I didn't think about it. They said he had his brother's ID because he was going to the golf course and he could get a discount with his brother's ID rather than using his ID. and then the hiking boots and stuff like that he had bought like a long time ago and left in his car. And they also point out that he's driving like a red Mercedes. And they say like who trades in their like pretty inconspicuous truck for a red Mercedes to. If you're going to go on the run. Right.

So again, like what I keep coming back to with this case is, oh my God, he either like did it and he's a genius who can like kill somebody. and leave zero evidence, or, like, he is an idiot with just, like, the worst luck possible. Because, like, I mean, I can't even imagine getting pulled over with all that stuff and just being, like, every single one of it has, like, this, like, benign explanation, but altogether looks really, really shady. Yeah, like, I got pulled over for speeding once, and there was a bottle of maple syrup in my front seat. And I was like, I'm sorry, officer, this isn't liquor, it's maple syrup, you know, the entire time. So now that there's an arrest, there's actually a pending trial.

So the defense gets all 30,000 pages of documents. And they can actually, because prior to this, like the family and the defense have no right to any of the information in the investigation. They have no idea what the police do and do not have. So this is the first time they really get their hands on like, okay, what do they have against Scott that? they think they have such a firm case. And as they're going through all these documents, there isn't a single piece of physical evidence that suggests Scott had anything to do with the disappearance or that he had anything to do with a body dump or body removal.

And they went so far back in his history to like middle school, there wasn't a single incidents of violence. They decided to move the trial. Instead of having it in Modesto, they said, you know, You know, it's everyone in Modesto is too tainted. We have to move this. So they move it to Redwood, California, which is about 50 miles away. Everyone in Modesto is tainted by the trial.

Everyone in the country was exposed to this case and had very strong opinions about it. Because me and you and Indiana had opinions. Right. Like, in my mind, moving it 50 miles, I mean, we were 2,000 miles away. It does nothing. Right. I don't know what the point was. And actually, they, moving it to Redwood, they actually moved it closer to San Francisco,

which was the media hub in the area. So, I mean, in my mind, I feel like they're only making it worse. Yeah. So initially, when they're doing jury selection, 50% of the jury pool gets automatically dismissed because they say, nope, yeah, he's for sure guilty, like the end. They dismiss those people. And also, they dismiss anyone. who says that they're against the death penalty.

And this is a death penalty case. However, what the judge was supposed to do is he's supposed to ask people, okay, I know you're against the death penalty, but you know that's the law here. And if we find that he's guilty, do you think that you could apply the law to this case? But he didn't do that at all. He just said, okay, you're against the death penalty, you're out. which really left a very specific type of juror left in this pool. Yeah, like an angry vindictive one.

Right. And then we even had people like from the jury. So in this documentary I watched, people who were on the jury admitted that like as soon as they found out what trial they were on, even if they weren't familiar with it, they went home and just Googled. And of course, again, all we're getting is the media, their version of what happened. And that's what these prospective jurors who are now on the jury are getting all of this information before even day one of walking into the courtroom. And once they're in the courtroom, the judge makes the decision not to sequester the jury. Which is insane.

Insane. A trial this big, like the OJ trial was about the same size and scope. And the jury was sequestered there for eight to ten months. And here they were allowed to go home. They were allowed to talk to their families. And again, it's against the law for jurors to research the case on their own or to like even listen to the news about it. But this case was everywhere. I don't know how they were able to get away from it. You couldn't go grocery shopping without hearing about it, honestly.

So now that they have a jury, the prosecution finally lays out its case. And nobody knew what they were going to say because again, there's really nothing. So everyone's really interested to see what they're story. story was. And the prosecution says that Lacey was killed on the 23rd. He cleans up, moves her body in the morning to his truck, and that he takes it to the marina and dumps it. And their whole motive is that basically he did not want to be a father. He did not want to be married anymore. It was all too much. He wanted to live the life of a young, single guy. And he just thought it would be easier to murder her than to get divorced.

The defense gets up in their opening arguments and basically says, you know, what we all know, they say, you aren't going to like my clients. Like he's done some stupid shit and he's not necessarily a nice guy or a nice husband or a faithful husband. But we're going to prove to you that he is an innocent husband of murder. And they have this great like gotcha moment right in their opening trial. So the prosecution, when they were laying out their scene of the crime or their way it went down, they are going through all of his lies. And he lied about this.

And one of the lies that they point out is, you know, he has this whole fabricated story about how he was spending the morning with Lacey. Really, he didn't spend the morning with her. He says they were watching Martha Stewart and that they were, she was baking lemon meringue cookies. But she wasn't. So he's obviously lying about that, blah, blah, blah. And in the defense's opening statement, they actually bust out. the episode of Martha Stewart, she was on Good Morning America, I think, that day, and they play

the clip of her on Good Morning America. And sure enough, she's talking about lemon meringue cookies. So even the- That's amazing. It is. It's like kind of a Perry Mason moment. Like whoever the prosecution was, didn't even bother to watch the clip. They're just, I'm kind of like the media. They're just saying things that they want to be true. And they actually got caught red-handed. another huge moment for the defense in this trial is when the prosecution calls their computer witness. So every time the prosecution is bringing somebody up, it's kind of like a one-two punch. Like, yeah, they say some good stuff for the prosecution, but then the defense gets up and kind of gets them to either refute what they say, contradict themselves. But the jury said that every time a prosecution witness came up, basically when they got off the stand, they either felt like the defense was ahead or the prosecution didn't.

get ahead. So the defense was doing super well. Prosecution calls up the computer witness to talk about the computer activity on Scott's work computer, where he was in his warehouse that morning when I said he was emailing his boss and putting together this like tool thing. And they don't ask any further questions. Well, when the defense gets up, they say, you know, was there any computer activity in the home that morning? And sure enough, It wasn't in the sky's report. It wasn't anywhere else, but he's on the stand and has to testify truthfully. He says that that morning, around 8.40 in the morning, Lacey or someone, was looking at like a red scarf from Gap or something like that.

And then a sunflower umbrella. And this basically blows the prosecution's theory out of the water because at this point, Lacey's supposed to be dead. Right. And now someone is on the computer at her home looking up stuff. And everyone said, you know, Lacey was obsessed with sunflowers and whatever. So now she's all of a sudden alive. And, you know, there's some back and forth later. So at this point, prosecution doesn't know where or how.

All they have is when. But by the time this guy gets off the stand, they don't have how she was murdered. They don't have where she was murdered, when she was murdered. and they basically have a loose why, but they basically have no case at this point. But they keep going. And then they try and say, well, you know, Scott was just trying to cover his tracks. And so he got on and looked at stuff on the computer that Lacey would look up.

Well, if that's the case, why wouldn't Scott be using that in his defense? This didn't come out until the middle of trial. The police have been saying she was dead on the 23rd for like a year at this point. Why wouldn't Scott, if he did that intentionally, be like, hey, look at the computer, I saw her on the computer, she was on the computer, it just doesn't make sense. And if that was the case, even if Lacey was, so basically the prosecution changes their whole theory. And they say, okay, we kind of concede to, Lacey's on the computer, then you have about an hour to kill her, clean up, and then load up her body and leave. So mid-trial, which is they completely changed their whole theory of the case, which I think is damn near. unheard of. Yeah, that's not a good move. Right. The prosecution also says that he, they found some

empty, like, concrete powder bags in his workshop. And he admits that he made one anchor for his boat. And they say, well, you know, there should be like four more anchors. And that's the perfect amount because Lacey's limbs were missing and, you know, whatever you had an extra room for head, who knows. And Scott's like, no, I kind of, I dumped out the rest of that concrete in my driveway. And again, this was something that the media took off with, especially Nancy Grace. She was all over this concrete. And there's this kind of great outside of the trial gotcha moment where on video, they take Nancy Grace to the house to show her where Scott says he poured out the concrete because she's just going on and on and on in the news about how that's crazy and why would anyone ever do

that. And they show her where it is in the ground and you can see it. And she just goes, huh, And then never talks about it ever again. Man. I know. So at this point in the trial, the defense is crushing it. And all the jurors even say, like, they had nothing. The prosecution had nothing. And we were all wondering kind of why we were there.

But then the trial totally changes with the introduction of the tapes. When the defense gets a hold of these, they first get the transcripts of the tapes between Scott and Amber. and they realize, like, as they're reading the transcripts, like, yeah, this is, like, bad, but it's, it's not super bad. Like, I think we can, we can work around this. He's a bad husband, but this isn't, like, send a man to death row worthy. But they say that when they hear the tapes, it's just a totally different story. It shows that Scott has zero problem lying. And, I mean, in the midst, there's not even, like, sadness in his voice.

In the midst of everything that's going on, he's. putting on this whole charade about being in Europe and being in love with her. And you would have no idea that something was going wrong in his life, much less that his wife and his child had been abducted and then murdered. So once these tapes are introduced in court, even the jurors say it's just kind of over. The defense really tries to give them to consider anything else. They actually set up this test where they take 150 pound like body shaped weight in the same size boat that Scott had and tried to show that it would be impossible to put something that heavy over the side of a boat without capsizing or flipping the boat and they tested it four times and every single time they couldn't do it without

flipping the boat and the guy that actually did the test almost drowned twice but the court wouldn't allow any of that information in, they said it was just too inflammatory, which is, I think, a little bit crazy. Yeah, inflammatory is definitely a little bit of a stretch. Right. The other thing that the prosecution had that really resonated with the jury is they said that they got dogs that tracked Lacey's scent to the marina. The dogs had come out months after Lacey went missing, and what they find, the defense finds, is that the dogs had actually failed their certification test for for being tracking dogs. And twice before they had gone out and hadn't hit on Lacey's scent, but that was never entered into evidence. They basically just said that they went out and

saw her or smelled her immediately. There was also cross-contamination. So some of the stuff that they gave the dogs of Lacey's also could have had Scott scent on it. And of course, Scott was at the marina. So I don't know again what order this came in. If the first two times, if they were working off the same scent piece, or maybe the third time, the one they were working off of had both rather than just lacy's. Either way, I think it was something that shouldn't have been entered in because it's, you can't have a dog that fails their certification, then doesn't hit twice. I mean, if you're not going to allow the boat thing in, I don't know how this got in. Right. Another thing that was really contested during trial was the

time of death for Connor. Because Lacey was pregnant at the time, they wanted to show, again, their prosecution's whole theory is either she's killed on the 23rd or the 24th. Either way, Connor would have to be dead in the womb at that point. So the prosecution has an expert come up that says Connor's dead on the 24th. The defense has a witness come up that says Connor's dead on the 29th. So this shows that he could have actually lived in the womb five days long. longer. And five days later, Scots with the media, Scots with family, he's not doing anything. There's

no way he's even got Lacey, like, tucked away somewhere. Right. So they kind of go back and forth. The defense witness kind of breaks down on trial. Like he's clearly never been cross-examined, or at least not cross-examined properly. And basically there's a little bit of a meltdown and just ask people to like give him a break. And at that point, everyone on the jury just kind of stops listening to him. Also in court never used, and this was a choice of the defense attorney, he never brought anyone up who said they saw Lacey walking that day. Again, they saw her walking the same time that Scott's on his computer.

So this would be huge. I mean, we have proof that Scott is not at home and then sightings of Lacey at the same time walking around the neighborhood. But the lawyer said it was just a judgment call. He said too many people's stories. I mean, he had, I think, like, 21, 24 witnesses. So he said there were too many that were like contradictory. I mean, when you have eyewitness testimonies, the time isn't always right. You know, it's one of the most like unreliable. I mean, but I think when you have 21 to 24, you've got something there. Yeah, definitely. He just felt like it wouldn't hold up in court. So he decided to not use it at all. Jurors later said they would have loved to like at least hear a couple of people

say like, hey, yeah, I think I saw her. And the way they basically wrap up the trial is the defense kind of goes flat and they just say, you know, we showed a lot of evidence. He didn't do it. They don't have any physical evidence. And the prosecution came out with a one-two punch and they relied on what their whole case was based on on this affair. And they have this kind of dramatic moment at the end where side by side they put up a picture of Lacey who's eight months pregnant alone at a Christmas party that was taken the same time as Scott is cuddling with Amber

at this other Christmas party and really hammer in because they don't have anything else. They just hammer in motive. And sure enough, the jury comes back with a guilty verdict. and sentences him to death. So in 2012, Scott has a new team of attorneys, and they've actually filed an appeal. And really, there's three things that they're basing the appeal on.

One is they said that the jury selection was defective, that the judge should not have allowed people who just fully wholeheartedly believed in the death penalty. There was also a lot of jury turnover during the trial of people who got kicked off, people who felt threatened and asked to get kicked off and people who were talking about the case outside of the trial, which they shouldn't have been, but then didn't get kicked off.

So it was very tumultuous, yeah, lots of jury misconduct possibly. So they're saying that that was one reason. They said that the evidence was faulty, that the only real evidence the prosecution has was that those hits on the dogs made, but that that should never have been allowed in because it wasn't really 100% accurate, 100% of the time. And they were saying that they should have been able to present the case of the

boat. They allowed the jury to see the boat on land and they actually let them get in it. And the jurors were like going back and forth and like you could see that they were kind of catching on and seeing if they could push something out of the boat, but they're on land. So it doesn't really do anything. Right. And the prosecution or the judge wouldn't let them go out on water because he said it was too dangerous, which kind of like I feel like if you thought they were going to flip the boat, maybe proves the defense case. Yeah, that action kind of speaks louder than words for me. Right. So as they're going through this appeal, they get to do a full reinvestigation of the case. And one thing that they're really bringing up that was never brought up the first time is Modesto isn't this tiny,

small, quaint town. The media portrayed it to be this, you know, idyllic American California town, but that's just because it really played well into their story. The motto for Modesto is water, wealth, contentment health. But I guess everyone who lives in Modesto, they always say murder meth and auto theft. Like, that's their slogan. So there's, I mean, a ton of, like, seedy underbelly. I mean, they have a meth problem. There's constant robberies. And you can't even say that like, oh, that was outside of where Scott and Lacey lived in Modesto because, again, there was a robbery across the street from them. There was a break in right across the street. Yeah, they're not, they're not too far removed for that. And then they also find this other huge,

I think, story that totally gets like my wheels turning. And this is the thing that makes me question everything the most. Between 1999 and 2002, seven pregnant women in the Modesto area go missing. Whoa, that's a lot. That's a lot. There's three in Modesto and then four within an 80-mile radius of Modesto. And in three years. Like, I don't know the rate of pregnant women going missing in Indianapolis, but I'm pretty sure it's not this. Yeah, that seems unusually high.

Yeah. There was a one woman named Evelyn Hernandez who was eight months pregnant and disappeared within six months of Lacey. But of course, like the whole lace thing was going on so it didn't really get attention. And there was this story of a woman in a documentary that I watched who actually could have been lacy. So she was eight months pregnant on Christmas Eve of 2002. And she said she was actually working at this little shop that she owned. And there were these men who were like stalking her outside of her shop. And she really felt threatened by them.

they were following her. And so she ended up like calling her family and just staying inside and calling the police. And when she called the police, they went away. And that was earlier in the day, like shortly before Lacey goes missing. And this lady ended up having her baby the same day that Connor was due. And she said she really feels like those men were after her to kidnap her. And she, it's her belief. And you know, when you're in the situation, always feels probably scarier.

But it's her belief that it's, If those men would have taken her, she would have been Lacey and Lacey would have been okay. Wow. That's crazy. That's an insane story. It is. Finally, the defense is really pushing that Connor was handled outside of the womb. He had been almost disemboweled and they said that his injuries weren't consistent with like the tide action.

That's what the prosecution tried to say is, oh, that's just what happens when you're in water that long. But the defense doesn't think so and they're still working on getting experts. Bert's and he had that electrical tape on his ear and that noose around his neck and they said none of that like you wouldn't get tape on your ear from being in the water like right not even possible um so they don't I mean the problem is I think what people really want is they want a 100% story okay like well what are happening to these other pregnant women we don't know like do they want their babies do they like has any of them gotten caught no so there's no there's this kind of alternate narrative, but I don't feel like there are enough answers or enough solid answers to revoke

this like provocative story that the media and the prosecution have told about Scott Peterson. So I don't know what to believe. If I'm being honest, so when I came into the story, I was kind of like everyone else. Like I've heard this, he did it. The first time I went through all of this, it was so much new information that I thought, oh my God, like there's no way. There's no way he did it. The second time I go through it, I think, okay, all of this is super new.

It's super interesting. But again, my God, he's got to be the most unlucky man in America to have all of this happen to him. And he's got to be the dumbest man in America. And like, what are the odds that this guy is just such a crappy husband? Anne is so stupid. And this happens to his wife. So now I don't know what to think.

I think where I land is based on the evidence 100% he should not have been convicted. He should not have been sentenced to death. I have no idea what happened to Lacey. Yeah. I mean, at the beginning of these episodes, I said that I was 100% sure that Scott did it. And you definitely gave me a lot of things to think about and a lot of things to reconsider. I'm with you. If he didn't do it, he is the unluckiest guy on the planet.

Yeah. But yeah, I'm not sure where I fall either. Everyone I talk to seems super divided on this. I mean, they're either really passionately believe he's guilty or they really passionately don't. People don't usually fall in the middle. I don't know if we're going to be seeing more of that. But I would really love to hear what the listeners think after hearing all this information. So if you guys could engage with us on social media, I'm super, super interested to hear your thoughts. If you want to tweet at us, it's at crime junkie pod if you want to follow us on instagram it's at crime junkie podcast and if you have any questions or feedback on the case feel free to send us an email our email address is crime

junkie podcast at gmail.com all of our sound production and editing comes from bripriwa and all of our music including our theme comes from justin daniel crime junkie is an audio chuck production so what do you think chuck do you approve