Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - BONUS EPISODE | ‘The Prosecutors’: Scott Peterson Is Guilty

Episode Date: July 15, 2024

The thoroughness of a prosecutor can make or break how a case unfolds in court. And it can take a prosecutor to explain why a case led to a conviction or failed to do so.  Enter "The Prosecutors"  podcast. Alice and Brett pool their experiences as prosecutors to dive into some of the country's most followed cases.  In this episode, Alice and Brett compiles the evidence, presenting the case for why Scott Peterson is guilty of murdering his wife, Laci Peterson, and their unborn son, Conner.   Subscribe to The Prosecutors: https://podfollow.com/1513765512See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Highly educated prosecutors to the most famous cold case mysteries of all time. Murder, mayhem, disappearances, you name it. If it's true crime, they're on it. In today's episode, Alice and Brett condense a six-episode series into one concise hour of all the evidence they believe points to why Scott Peterson is guilty in the murder of wife Lacey and unborn son Connor. The prosecutors. I'm Brett. And I'm Alice.

And we are The Prosecutors. Today on The Prosecutors, Scott Peterson is guilty. Hello everybody and welcome to this episode of The Prosecutors. I'm Brett and I'm joined as always by my efficient co-host, Alice. Hi, Brett. Okay, guys. Hi, Alice. We're letting you in on a secret.

Brett thinks we can somehow get through today's episode in one episode. I don't know if we can. I'm not going to lie, because we have not been known. We are going to do it. We have not been known not to be long-winded. The whole point of this is to do this in one episode. Okay, fine. No, okay.

You know what? You're right. Let's be efficient. We can do this. We're going to be efficient. Challenge accepted. Challenge accepted. Okay, so what we're doing today, as you guys know, typically we go into cases, we try to

keep an open mind. We have done Scott Peterson. We did, I think, six episodes on Scott Peterson, maybe seven. Who knows? It was a ton. And a lot of you guys have been very complimentary about those episodes. But Scott Peterson's been in the news lately. In December, we're going to find out whether he gets a new trial. People always ask us why we think he's guilty to sum up sort of the entirety of what we did before. So what we have decided to do is to cut out all the fluff and reduce this down to just the evidence that Scott

Peterson is guilty. If you want to hear the full thing, go listen to all six episodes where we will include the defense's arguments and various other things. This is why Scott Peterson is guilty. And we have tried really hard to cut this down to the point where we can do it in one episode. There's a lot here. So we're going to see, but we're going to give it our best shot. And guys, note what we just said.

We kept an open mind in all our previous episodes of Scott Peterson. What we're attempting to do here is like how we would write a brief where you have an advocacy point that you're taking. And our advocacy point here is that he's guilty. So those of you listening for the first time, don't say they're so biased. We've already done the whole considering all sides of the issue. This is written like a law brief where you are an advocate for your side.

Yeah. So if anybody ever tells you there's no evidence that Scott Peterson's guilty, you can just direct them to this episode because frankly, not even all the evidence is in here. We cut judiciously to try and do this in one episode. So I think that's enough introduction. I think everybody gets what we're trying to do now. So we're going to do this. Godspeed, Alice.

You too, Brett. If we can do now. So we're going to do this. Godspeed, Alice. We'll see if we can do it. I don't know which of us is going to be more inefficient. Well, we're going to do our best. Okay. Let's start with the timeline. November 20th, 2002, Modesto, California. On November 20th, Peterson and Amber Fry meet at a bar in Fresno. They begin a whirlwind romance. On December 2nd, while they are decorating the Christmas tree, Amber asks Peterson if he has ever been married or ever been close to being married. Peterson says no. Amber also asks Scott if he has children or if he's ever been close to having children. Again, Peterson said no. Amber also asks Scott if he has children or if he's ever been close to having children. Again, Peterson said no. For context, at this point, Lacey Peterson, who is his wife, is approaching eight months pregnant with their first child, a son named Connor. December 6,

2002. A friend of Amber's, Sean Sibley, who's actually the person who introduced them, confronts Scott. Scott is sobbing, and he leaves a message on Sibley's voicemail that says, I'm sorry I lied to you earlier. I have been married. It's just too painful for me to talk about. Call me back. They eventually speak. Later that day, Peterson was sobbing hysterically. The next day, December 7th, Peterson begins looking for a boat. On December 8th, 2002, an internet search was made on the home laptop with the terms boat plus ramp plus Pacific and also boat plus ramps plus Watsonville plus Pacific and San Francisco Bay plus boat plus ramp. Websites were accessed related to the Berkeley Marina, Central San Francisco Bay and Susan Bay and related to nautical charts. and this is on the Peterson computer. On the night of December 8th,

someone used the home laptop at the Peterson home to access websites for the San Francisco port, the United States Geological Survey's velocity maps for currents in central San Francisco Bay, and other sites with navigation and nautical charts. A couple of image files were also viewed, which were linked to webpages on Bay Currents. The image files showed an enhanced map view of the tip of Brooks Island and surrounding area in the Berkeley Marina. For context, why this matters,

Lacey Peterson and her unborn son Connor's bodies were found in this very area. On December 9th, 2002, Peterson told Frey he lied about being married and that it was less painful for him to let people think that he was never married rather than to tell them the truth. And the truth, he said, was that he had, quote, lost his wife. Peterson explained that the upcoming holidays would be the first without his wife. Frey thanked Peterson for sharing the information with her and asked him if he was sure he was ready for a relationship with her. Peterson replied, quote, absolutely. That same day, Peterson paid $1,400 cash for a boat. December 15th, 2002, Peterson tells Amber he

is going on an extended trip. He spoke to her on the 19th, the 22nd, and the 23rd. On the 24th, Amber did not hear from him. That is the day that Lacey will disappear. She does hear from him on the next day, the 25th, which is Christmas. Peterson talks to Amber and claims to be in Maine with his family. He will talk to her on the 27th as well. Going back, that was the 15th when he said he was going on an extended trip. On December 20th, Scott purchases a two-day fishing license, good for two days and two days only. December 23rd and December 24th. December 23rd, 2002. From 545 to 830, Lacey goes to Salon Salon where her sister, Amy Rocha, works, and Amy gives Scott a haircut. Amy says that Scott mentions plans to play golf in the morning and offers to pick up a gift basket for their father at a store called Vela Farms.

Amy tells police that Lacey was wearing tan pants and a black blouse with small flowers. The next day is Christmas Eve. At 8.40 a.m., someone logs onto the Peterson computer in the spare bedroom. The MSN homepage, a weather site from Yahoo, and two Yahoo shopping sites are accessed. One shopping site was for a red gap scarf and the other a sunflower umbrella stand. The searches for the umbrellas and scarf were made at 8 42 a.m. At 8 45 Scott wrote an email. When police arrived at the house they found that the curling iron was plugged in and a bench that Lacey sat on was pulled out. The housekeeper said that the day before, they were not like that because the housekeeper had cleaned and recognized that the curling iron and bench were new and that they were pulled out. The searches in this detail, along with a few others, have led some to say that Lacey was

clearly alive, as Scott would have needed to be a criminal genius to fake them. However, if Scott killed Lacey, he had been planning it for days, if not longer, and his plan was always to fake a kidnapping attack when he left for his warehouse, as evidenced by his dog wandering the neighborhood with its leash attached to his collar. It would not be surprising at all if Scott took additional, quote, proof of life steps he could later point to when he told his detailed story to the police about that morning, a story where Lacey was alive and well when he left. Scott loaded three patio umbrellas from the backyard into the bed of his truck. He was going to store them at his warehouse. However, Scott arrives at the warehouse but does not drop the umbrellas off. Instead, he drove to the warehouse

with the umbrellas in the back of his truck, drove with them to the marina, and drove with the umbrellas back to his house. He told the police he forgot to take them out, though in order to attach his boat at the warehouse, which he did to drive to the marina, he would have had to seen the umbrellas. Scott checks his voicemail on his cell phone at 10.08 a.m. According to the prosecution, the call pinged the same tower that his calls from home always pinged, indicating that Scott was still at home or near it when this ping happened. However, by the end of the call, the call had changed to the tower near his warehouse, which was only minutes from his house.

So Scott leaves 1008 at the latest. At 1018, some estimates as late as 1030, a neighbor finds the family dog, McKenzie, walking around with his leash on. She puts the dog in the backyard. The dog will be found there when Scott returns home with its leash still attached. At 1035, the Medinas, who live in the house across from the Petersons that will be burglarized at some point, leave their home for Los Angeles. So they are leaving their home after the dog has already been found with its leash. A witness sees people outside the Medina home just before noon. The burglars who robbed the Medina home will be arrested

and say they robbed the place at 4 a.m. on the 26th. They said they saw some TV trucks on the street, so they went in a different entrance. All things considered, they probably robbed the house on the 23rd and lied about it to avoid association with a Peterson murder. Though once again, significantly, whenever they robbed the house, it would have been after Mackenzie the dog was found wandering the neighborhood with its leash still attached. Scott leaves the warehouse about 11 18 a.m. to drive to the Berkeley Marina. This is about an hour and 36 minute drive.

Scott said he felt it was too cold to golf, so he decided to head to the Berkeley Marina to go fishing instead. Of course, this makes it awfully convenient that on the 20th, Scott bought a fishing license for just two days. And this was one of the two days that the license was good for. Scott purchased a boat launch ticket at 12.54 p.m. when he arrived at the Berkeley Marina.

From the time he bought that ticket until the time he left was approximately 78 minutes or 18 minutes less than the time it took him to drive there. So a relatively short amount of time. During that time, Scott motored north for probably two miles. He was near a little island that had a bunch of trash on it. He saw a big sign that said no landing and there were some broken piers. Fitting Scott's description, the island described turned out to be Brooks Island. Evidence photos show the trash, the piers, and the no landing sign as described by Scott. When the state called an expert to the stand at trial, he stated that based on the currents, the bodies would have

started their trek to where they were found between Berkeley Marina and Brooks Island. In fact, if the bodies had been dumped in deeper areas of the bay, they would have washed out to sea rather than end up where they were ultimately found. And if Scott did dump the bodies, this was just unlucky for him. He basically dumped the bodies in the one area of this marina where they would end up washing to shore instead of washing out to sea. At 2.12, Scott says he leaves the marina. He eventually calls Lacey at home on her cell phone. He leaves the message.

Hey, beautiful, I just left you a message at home. It's 2.15. I'm leaving Berkeley. I won't be able to get to Vela Farms to get the basket for Papa. I was hoping you would get this message and go on out there. I'll see you in a bit, sweetie. Love you. Bye. This message is unusual given that, according to Scott, Lacey had no idea he was in Berkeley in the first place. It is, however, consistent with Scott's plan to make it look like Lacey had been alive when he left for the warehouse that day. On January 3rd, 2003, the burglars are arrested. The police find no evidence of Lacey Peterson. And if you believe that the burglars kidnapped Lacey and Connor and kept Lacey somewhere,

and then Connor was born later, it would have been very difficult for them, given that January 3rd is only 9, 10 days after the kidnapping would supposedly have happened. But at no point, that very early period of time, do any of the burglars flip on anyone else, say where Lacey's being kept, or really reveal any evidence related to her disappearance. On February 10, 2003, Connor's due date comes and goes. On April 12, 2003, there is a heavy storm in San Francisco Bay around the marina, causing higher-than-normal wave action in the area. The next day, April 13th, people walking near the San Francisco Bay find the body of Connor Peterson. One day later, they will find Lacey. The bodies

are in the exact area where Scott was fishing. Now, turning to Scott's demeanor, Scott's awfully relaxed during the first interview with the police. For instance, when he's being interviewed, he's drinking coffee from a coffee cup and his hands aren't shaking, which you can see because he's holding that coffee cup. He doesn't have trouble getting it from the table to his mouth, no issues at all. Moreover, he shows no emotion during the press conferences. He never breaks down.

He never seems as though he really cares. Now, he also doesn't grill the police about what they're doing and whether they have any updates for him about his missing pregnant wife. His non-blood relatives are honestly more emotional today than he was at the time of Lacey's disappearance. The night during the search,

when Lacey's mother, Sharon, approached Scott to give him a hug and comfort him, Scott maneuvered away from her. It seemed to Sharon that he was also avoiding eye contact with her. Likewise, Brent, Lacey's brother, noticed that Scott was off by himself and was reluctant to make eye contact. In fact, Peterson and Brent never spoke that night, even though they had a, quote, great relationship. Sharon's cousin, Gwendolyn Kemple, also took note that Scott would not look at her, despite the fact that they had seen each other numerous times at family functions. Lacey's stepfather, Ron Gransky, asked Scott if he had gone golfing that day, as Scott had planned. Now, Peterson paused and then replied that he decided to go fishing instead.

After Peterson told Gransky what time he left to go fishing, Gransky asked Peterson what he would be fishing for at that time of day. Peterson walked away without responding. Although Peterson told Gransky and the police that he went fishing, Peterson told Sharon's cousin Harvey Kemple that he went golfing that day. Peterson also told neighbors Amy Krigbaum and Tara Venable that he was golfing that day. Peterson also told neighbors Amy Krigbaum and Tara Venable that he was golfing that day. Sandy Rickard was standing outside the Covina residence when Peterson approached her. He put up his hands and volunteered, quote, I wouldn't be surprised if they find blood on my truck because I cut my hands all the time. Peterson explained that it was because he

was an outdoorsman or something to that effect, as Rickard recalled. And Rickard found this interaction incredibly perplexing. So in summary, in that one day, Scott tells some people he went fishing, some people he went golfing, and offers this strange comment about finding blood in his truck. Now let's talk about the boat that he took out that day. The boat was a 14-foot aluminum fishing boat. That's a class 8 boat, one of the smallest boats you can buy. Although it's not impossible to take this kind of boat out into the San Francisco Bay, it would be really dangerous for someone who was not an expert at boating. So let's talk about Scott as a fisherman. Conventional wisdom will tell you that Scott was a terrible fisherman, but he had been fishing before. He had owned a fishing boat before,

and he should have known what he was doing. And yet on the day that he supposedly went fishing, everything seemed to go wrong. Scott said that he was taking the boat out to do some sturgeon fishing. The prosecution called an expert fisherman to testify about that. He stated that Scott's rod was not rigged for sturgeon fishing, it was rigged for freshwater bass. The line and weight was wrong. The rod was wrong. One of Scott's rods didn't even have a handle on it and thus wasn't functional. Another rod had no line on it. When the expert reviewed Scott's tackle box, it was filled with equipment to fish for freshwater bass. Remember, this is a saltwater marina. Moreover, the anchor

would not work in the bay. It was an anchor that Scott had made for himself, but it was too small and it wouldn't dig into the ground and hold the boat. And there was no long rope in the boat for an anchor. Finally, there's the question of why Scott would go all the way out to San Francisco Bay more than an hour and a half away. The prosecution put on evidence of at least a dozen places much closer to home in Modesto, where he could have fished much more suitable for his boat and his tackle than the San Francisco Bay. The Bay, however, was the closest saltwater fishery to Scott. Though Scott preferred saltwater fishing, one wonders why he had so much freshwater tackle. Alice mentioned Scott's behavior before we put that in there because some of you find it

very important and some of you don't but nevertheless it's not the only strange thing that scott did on january 8th 14 days after his wife has gone missing and four months before she'll be found scott adds the playboy channel on the family's cable package. Five days later, he decides that isn't doing it for him, drops Playboy, and adds the tin ecstasy package instead. Now, let's talk about whether Scott was considering running or was it Lacey. The closet in the spare bedroom of the Peterson home was open and duffel bags appeared to have been pulled off the shelf and one was lying upside down on the floor. During an interview with the police, Scott says that he abandoned his initial plans for the day, which was to play golf, because it was too cold. Instead, he decided to go fishing. Now, it's strange that it would be too cold to go golf, but not too cold

to fish. One of the employees at the harbor testified that hardly anyone came down to the marina because of how cold it was that day. Scott was one of three people there all day, and the employee called it a gray, drizzly, nasty day. And it is interesting that Scott just so happened to have a fishing license for this spontaneous decision, one that he'd bought on December 20th that was only good for December 23rd and 24th. Let's talk about Amber Frye some more. So after Amber realizes who Scott is, she calls the police. Amber agrees to cooperate and to record Scott's calls. Scott tells her that he is in Paris. He has an elaborate lie about being in Europe. He talks about fireworks at the Eiffel Tower. In fact, he is at a candlelight vigil for his missing wife while he is talking to

Amber. They talked dozens and dozens of times with 29 recorded hours of calls. Scott now claims he only talked with Amber to keep her from going public lest it interfere with the investigation in finding Lacey. Scott will eventually admit to Amber that his wife had disappeared. So one piece of evidence that the police found interesting was a mop that was out. Scott told the police that the reason the mop was out was because Lacey was going to mop the floor that morning. But the maid had been there the day before and she had mopped the entire house. This led the police to wonder if Scott had something he needed to clean up. Then there's Scott's behavior during the search.

One witness testified that he actually followed Scott from the volunteer center during the search. Scott was supposedly going out to search for Lacey. Instead, he went to a mall parking lot and sat for 45 minutes in his vehicle rather than taking part in the search. Multiple witnesses would testify that Scott did not actively participate in the search. Moreover, Scott referred to Lacey in the past tense in television interviews, which some people think is significant. Also, Scott during the search is playing golf all the time including on the days after his unborn child and wife are found murdered and dumped in the bay Scott was actually arrested in Torrey Pines at the golf course police stated that Scott had almost no reaction when told the DNA results came

back confirming the entire family had been murdered. And apparently, despite his sudden interest in fishing, it was golfing that he was doing during that time. Now, let's talk about Scott's trips to the marina. Police put a GPS tracker on Scott's car to see where he went. And on at least three occasions before Lacey was found, police tracked Scott to the Berkeley Marina. While there, he would just park and stare out over the water. This is significant to some people because some people will say it's strange that he continually visited a place where Lacey and Connor's bodies were

ultimately found. And let's talk about the nursery at the Peterson home. When the police returned to their home in February, Scott had essentially turned the nursery into a storage room, piling a mattress, office chairs, clothing, and other items into it. And some of the items had actually come from his warehouse. And note that February is actually the month of Connor's due date. Now, prosecutors also entered two hairs that they found in a pair of pliers believed to be Lacey's. It looks and seems identical and was from someone related to Lacey's mom, which is pretty close to definitive. It's not much, but given that Lacey was never in the boat and Scott claimed to have only been in the boat once, it is interesting that they found two hairs that belonged to Lacey. And the police

also utilized a cadaver dog. And this police dog actually hit on Lacey's scent at the Berkeley Marina on December 28th, just four days after she disappeared. So let's talk about the anchors. Scott bought his boat without an anchor. He told the police he made one out of concrete in his warehouse. A concrete anchor was found in his boat, though there was no line long enough to use it. Concrete residue was found inside of some buckets in his warehouse. There's also an area where it's obvious the anchors were made. According to the prosecution, there are multiple quote-unquote voids or areas of less powder on the surface, indicating that multiple buckets were sitting there making multiple anchors. The prosecution speculated that these anchors were

used to weigh down Lacey's body when it was put into the water. The defense attempted to make a big deal of Scott using excess concrete to fill a hole near his drive rather than making multiple anchors, though even if he did that, it's unclear how that's inconsistent with him making multiple anchors since we don't know exactly how much concrete there was in the beginning. Moreover, the prosecution was ready for this and had an expert in concrete who testified that the concrete near the driveway was not consistent with the concrete used to make the anchor. Rather, it was similar to cement used by Scott to put in a fence post near where the concrete was found, indicating that if Scott used additional concrete on the driveway, it was from the fence post concrete, not the anchor concrete. When Scott

was eventually arrested, the police found four cell phones, his brother's ID, camping gear, and $15,000 cash in his car. Scott had dyed his hair blonde and grown a beard, which he also dyed blonde. And he was hanging out in San Diego, which in fairness was his home, but also was close to the border. Let's talk about Lacey's clothes. Scott told police that Lacey was wearing a white blouse and black pants on the day that she disappeared, December 24th. But when Lacey's body was found, she was wearing tan pants, which is what she had been wearing on the 23rd, as well as a maternity bra. The prosecution and defense disputed whether these were the same tan pants that she'd been wearing. It is often stated that Amy Rocha, Lacey's sister, positively identified

pants at the house as the ones Lacey was wearing. However, on the stand, despite many attempts by Mark Garagos, who was Scott Peterson's lawyer, to get Amy to confirm this, she refused to do so. And although the top Lacey was wearing on the 23rd was found at the house. Lacey had a number of different pairs of tan pants, and it is certainly possible that the tan pants she was found in were the tan pants she was wearing on the 23rd. But what's very important here is whatever happened to the tan pants. The pants Lacey was wearing weren't black, and this becomes very important. Let's talk about people who claim to have seen Lacey. A number of people claim to have seen Lacey walking her dog.

For instance, Vivian and Bill Mitchell said that they saw a woman matching Lacey's description walking the dog that morning. Homer and Sue Maldonado said that around 10 a.m., they went out driving to deliver Christmas presents and saw a very pregnant lady struggling with a dog. Tony Freitas says he also saw a pregnant woman walking a dog that morning. Frank Aguilar and his wife also saw a pregnant woman with her dog. Diane Campos was having a cigarette behind a local hospital. She looked across a creek into a park and saw a pregnant woman walking a dog. Diane Campos was having a cigarette behind a local hospital. She looked across a creek into a park and saw a pregnant woman walking a dog. She saw two men following this woman. The

dog was barking and the two men said, shut that effing dog up. Then there's Tom Harshman, who said he saw a woman in a red shirt and black pants, fitting Lacey's description, being forced into a He said that she had been squatting and urinating on the side of the road. By the end of this, around 11 people say they saw a woman who might be Lacey walking the dog. Nearly all of them described the person they saw as wearing a white blouse and black pants, just as Scott had said, and just as the missing person's posters described. That was all well and good until six months later when Lacey's body was found and she wasn't wearing black pants. She was wearing tan pants. Moreover, even though there was testimony that Lacey enjoyed getting out and being active, the prosecution put on a number of witnesses that testified that Lacey

was having extreme difficulty even walking by the end of her pregnancy, and the doctor had told her to take it easy after she complained of dizziness and exhaustion. They also testified, given this, it is simply not believable that she would have taken the dog on some sort of long, strenuous walk through the park. And that's not just anecdotal. In fact, at the end of October, two months before Lacey disappeared, Lacey had walked to the park and gotten very sick to the point that she was vomiting and almost passed out. Her mother testified that she was extremely embarrassed because some maintenance men saw her and had to help her and the doctor told her that she should either stop walking altogether or do it much later in the day after she'd had an opportunity to get hydrated. In another instance, Lacey's prenatal yoga instructor testified that on December 20th, Lacey was in so much pain that she could barely walk and that she needed help to get to her car. Furthermore, the shoes Lacey typically used to go on walks were found in the house. Finally, the police did not ignore these sightings. They searched the park, including with canine

teams, and found no trace of Lacey. They also interviewed folks in a homeless camp near the park. None of them had seen Lacey. And the defense didn't call any of the witnesses you always hear about. The defense never called a witness who supposedly saw into Scott's boat and said it was empty. The defense also never called witnesses who claimed to have seen Lacey that day, either walking the dog or being forced into the van. Moreover, there was another witness who saw a pregnant woman walking a dog that day, called it into the police, and then, when he was shown a picture of Lacey, said that he was certain the person he saw was not Lacey.

Christopher Van Sant testified that he saw a pregnant woman walking her dog near the footbridge at Dry Creek Regional Park near the scenic hospital. This sighting is consistent with many of the other sightings offered by those who believe Scott is innocent. But Sant testified that he is quote 100% positive that the woman was not Lacey Peterson. Following this testimony, the prosecution called four different people, the husband of a pregnant woman and three pregnant women who testified that they had walked 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 didn't even have a dog. In other words, a lot of pregnant women were walking dogs in the days surrounding Lacey's disappearance in the area. 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, or who were just in the neighborhood that day, none of whom saw anything unusual, and any of whom might have been mistaken by someone for Lacey. So when the bodies were found, Lacey's body was in pretty bad shape, with barnacles growing on her bones. The forensic anthropologist Allison Galloway testified that her level of decomposition was consistent with being in the San Francisco Bay for three to six months. Connor was less decomposed. The difference in decomposition has led some to speculate that

Connor was born somewhere else and then the bodies were dumped separately. This, of course, would have meant that Scott is innocent, but the autopsy does not support that argument. There was no vaginal birth. The autopsy confirmed that Lacey's birth canal remained closed. In fact, there also wasn't something called coffin birth in this case, which is what happens when a baby is expelled from a decomposing body. Moreover, there was no evidence of a C-section. Although Lacey's entire body was not recovered, the trunk of her body was, and had there been a C-section, there would have been evidence of it. What actually happened is that at some point during decomposition, the body was expelled from the top of the uterus and

out of the body. Some have suggested that if Connor remained inside Lacey's body for some time after death, it should show telltale signs of degeneration often seen in babies that are miscarried and in fact Connor's body did show those signs the process is called maceration the pathologist testified we'll even use the term maceration in a hospital pathology where we're looking at the stillbirth and a baby that's died in the uterus and then perhaps is delivered a day or two or three or more later will undergo the same type of changes. Not to the degree that we see in Connor, but maceration type changes anyway. In a fresh or stillborn, those will often involve skin changes, overriding of the skull

plates, and to a certain degree, liquefication of the organs. So we'll see that in a hospital setting too, and that's where the term maceration would be used. Although Connor suffered from this kind of effect and did so far worse than your average stillbirth, he was still protected from the worst of the ailments in the bay, including predators. Thus, because it took a while for the baby to be expelled, Connor's body was protected from degradation to an extent greater than Lacey. In fact, Dr. Gallet would testify that Connor's body had been exposed in the bay for no more than one to

two days, at the most. A quarter inch of Connor's umbilical cord was still attached, and it was torn, not cut. There is no evidence that the umbilical cord was still attached and it was torn, not cut. There is no evidence that the umbilical cord was knotted or clamped, which, if Connor had been born alive, would lead to the baby bleeding to death. Some people pointed to some trash or twine that was wrapped around his throat as a possible means of killing him, but there was no damage from the twine and it had about an inch of slack. It wasn't tight around his neck. Moreover, leaving the twine would be a pretty stupid thing to do if that's how you killed Connor, but you're going to dump him in the bay to try and frame Scott Peterson. And let's talk, we've talked a lot about Connor, but let's talk

about the age of the baby. Now, Lacey was due on February 10th, 2003. She disappeared and likely died on December 23rd, about seven weeks from the due date. So one would expect then that the baby was probably between 31 and 35 weeks gestational age when he died, given that due dates are not an exact science. According to the pathologist, the gestational age of Connor was between 33 and 38 weeks. On cross-examination, the defense attempted to push this number higher to 35 weeks to further the defense's theory that Lacey was kidnapped and held somewhere for some period of time alive and therefore Connor was alive as well. The pathologist did not bend on this,

repeatedly explaining to the defense attorney that given the science and the varying development of unborn children, 33 to 38 was the best range. Another pathologist, Dr. DeVore, determined that Connor died between the 21st and the 24th of December, which is a much more precise date. The defense called an expert who testified that the earliest Connor could have died was December 29th. Just on the face of things, this testimony seems far-fetched. That the doctor could say with certainty that a body in the water for four months died without question, no earlier than December 29th, does not seem medically feasible. Cross-examination bore out this point. The prosecution was able to unnerve the doctor who admitted that his entire calculation

was based on the assumption that Lacey found out she was pregnant on June 9th and immediately told her friends a fact that was actually disputed by those who knew her. If she found out before June 9th and only told her friends then, his whole theory fell apart. Given that we are talking a matter of days here, the notion that the doctor who was not a forensic pathologist could determine with such certainty that Connor could not have died a mere five days before his earliest estimate just falls flat. And let's talk about where the bodies were found. As the prosecution repeatedly stated, the bodies of Connor and Lacey were found exactly where Scott was supposedly fishing. As a matter of fact, the prosecution put on evidence that given where the bodies ended up

and the currents in the area, the probable dumping spot for the bodies was just off Brooks Island. So there's a lot of evidence there about what happened. And as we've said before, this is a circumstantial case. There's not going to be an eyewitness. There's not going to be a slam dunk. What you have are a bunch of different bricks that you are building a case with. But the most significant point is the one that Alice just made. Where the bodies were found. The bodies were found in the place that Scott Peterson had gone fishing that day. Now, people who don't think it was Scott suggest that someone else kidnapped Lacey. Maybe it was the burglars.

Maybe it was a satanic cult of pregnant women snatchers. Maybe it was someone looking to harvest organs. The theory goes that Lacey was kidnapped, kept somewhere until Connor was born, then both were murdered. At this point, the police had announced that they were looking in Berkeley Marina because that was the place Scott had been, knowing that the police were looking there. The kidnappers hatch a daring plot to dump the bodies in exactly the same place Scott had been fishing the day of the disappearance. And this is a point that people grasp onto because you have to. This isn't a coincidence. It's not a coincidence that the bodies were found an hour and a half away.

One of two things is true. Either Scott dumped them there, or someone looking to frame Scott dumped them there. And oftentimes, people will just say, well, the police said it was Berkeley Marina, so somebody probably just dumped them there. And people just go with that. And they don't stop to examine what would have to be true for that to be true. And here's the thing. That didn't no credible sightings of Lacey on December 24th. None of the sightings of a pregnant woman that day match Lacey, nor are they consistent with the physical limitations Lacey was having. Eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable,

and they are the first thing that innocence advocates attack when attempting to overturn a conviction that is actually faulty. To rely on them here, given all we know, is questionable at best, but there's more. As to the burglars, they could not have shown up until after the dog was found wandering with her leash, meaning that the theory that Lacey confronted them after her walk with the dog is impossible. Moreover, there is no evidence Lacey was kidnapped. There are no signs of struggle. No one saw Lacey being kidnapped.

One of the chief arguments against Scott being responsible for Lacey's murder is that he would have had to have gotten her body into his truck with no one noticing. But what's more likely? That Scott could kill Lacey in the privacy of his home and maneuver her into the truck, which he also happens to be loading with large umbrellas that would conceal her? Or that a gang of organ harvesters, burglars, or Satanists snatched Lacey in broad daylight while she was walking her dog. But it doesn't end there. You'd have to believe that no one has ever come forward stating that they saw a captive pregnant lady in the months she would have been held.

No one has ever flipped on the kidnappers. There is not a hint of anything like this happening, and it smacks of conspiracy. And still, that's not the end of the problems with this theory. The theory that someone would frame Scott by dumping the bodies falls apart upon even the barest scrutiny. It is one thing to dump a body on a cold, rainy Christmas Eve when no one is out. It is another thing altogether to dump a body in a bay that is being constantly searched by police and is the center of media and public attention, and even Scott Peterson is there watching the bay at various times. Moreover, for this plan to work, the kidnappers would need to

dump the bodies in such a way that they would decompose sufficiently to not give the game away. If the bodies were found too soon, then it would be evident sufficiently to not give the game away. If the bodies were found too soon, then it would be evident that they had been killed much later. The means of death would be easily determinable, and they would need to do so by dumping the bodies in the one area that would be consistent with Scott's guilt. Dump them in an area that was too deep, and the bodies would be swept away. Dump them in an area that's too shallow and they might be found by the constant searches by the police, leaving you open to forensic evidence that would convict you. Dump them in an area other than Brooks Island and the tides would have taken

them somewhere else, somewhere that an expert could trace back to a place that Scott could argue he'd never been during his very short trip out. The kidnappers would be taking enormous risks, all in the hopes that enough time would pass before the bodies washed up, if they ever washed up at all, to convince the police that Lacey and Connor had been killed months before, just around the time that Scott was at the marina. And yet, with all the focus and attention on Scott and none on them, much simpler to bury the bodies in the desert and never worry about it again. But somehow,

according to this theory, the kidnappers pulled all this off without anyone seeing them or suspecting any different, fooling the state's forensic pathologist, and having gotten away with this plot to this day without a single person involved ever saying a word. That is what you must believe in order to believe Scott is innocent. Put aside the sightings of Lacey, the condition of her body, whatever else it is that makes you think Scott is innocent, unless you can show that a gang of criminals managed to pull all that we described off. Scott is guilty. That is the conspiracy that has to be true for someone else to be involved. Or maybe, instead, a man who routinely cheated on his wife

was finally facing up to the enormity of having a child and being forced to be forever tied down. And he decided the easiest thing was just to take care of both problems once and for all. And that, folks, is how you do a closing argument. Boom. I can't believe we got through that. It was so hard.

That was dedication. It was really hard not to talk about our feelings. I know and put myself in other people's shoes to do all the things that irritate people. But, you know, look, OK, so there you go, guys. You have all of the evidence right there. If you want to hear the reasoning behind all that, listen to the multi-part episodes that we have. But we've tried to compile all the evidence here for you. Yeah. I mean, I just want people to be armed because look, there's a 50-50 chance Scott's going to get a new trial. We're going to cover that on legal briefs. We don't want to do that

tonight, but we'll cover everything that's going on with jury misconduct or whatnot. If he gets a new trial, we're going to have to go through this circus all again. Let's hope that doesn't happen. For the sake of Lacey and her family, I hope that is not the case because we've said this time and again, this is circumstantial. That does not affect the weight of the evidence. Circumstantial evidence is just as weighty as direct evidence. We do not have anyone who saw him dump Lacey overboard. That we know to be true. And most cases like this, you don't have that.

Because if you did, there probably wouldn't be a trial. They wouldn't have taken long to figure out who it was. But this is circumstantial, and that is fine with respect to the weight of the evidence. And there is so much circumstantial evidence in this case. Take away the word circumstantial. If that's funny with you because you've been told before that circumstantial evidence in this case. Take away the word circumstantial. If that's funny with you, because you've been told before that circumstantial evidence is not as good. It is. It is just as good. There is so much evidence in this case. We spoke at lightning speed,

taking out all our opinions and all explanation to fit it into one hour, which is so much evidence. And that's why the trial spanned for so long. And that's why our previous episodes explaining this case was also multi-part. And I just want to say, now that we've finished and we've got time and we can extemporize, I understand the desire not to look at Scott's behavior because it's almost like you don't want to prejudice yourself. I understand that. We have rules in the law about evidence, about what you can admit to keep people to look at Scott's behavior because it's almost like you don't want to prejudice yourself. I understand that. We have rules in the law about evidence, about what you can admit to keep people from being prejudiced, to keep people focused on the actual evidence. So I totally get that.

But the simple fact of the matter, if you look at most family annihilators, a lot of them are having affairs. A lot of them are in very similar places to Scott. I mean, if you look at Chris Watts, Chris Watts and Scott Peterson are almost the same person. Chris Watts did almost the exact same thing. He strangles his wife, probably. He loads her body into the back of his truck. It's just, instead of it being 2002, it was much later, and his next door neighbor had a ring camera, and so you basically caught him doing this on camera. And if you've seen the documentary, you see, you see the way Chris Watts is reacting. And the thing is with Chris Watts, nobody says, well, how he's acting is completely

relevant. No, you do the much more human thing. If you watch him and you're like, that is not how somebody reacts when their love of their life is missing. He clearly is guilty. And sure enough, he was. With Scott Peterson, people want to hand wave it away. They want to say, oh, you know, it doesn't matter he was having an affair. And it doesn't matter that he was a terrible person. It

doesn't matter how he acted after she went missing. It doesn't matter that he got all the porn channels. But it does. That speaks to the circumstances surrounding the case. Now, is it the strongest evidence against him? No. The strongest evidence against him is that his wife's body showed up an hour and a half away from her house where he just so happened to have been fishing on the day she went missing. Come on, people. It doesn't take a rocket scientist. On the day he went fishing when he had the night before said he was going to go golfing. And this was supposed to be a spontaneous trip to fishing when he had bought the license for that specific day, many days previously. And then later that day at a vigil told some people he went fishing, told some people he went

golfing. And oh, by the way, before he even bought those licenses, he was looking at the currents at that very place that he ended up on the day she disappeared. And I'm sorry. And I just go back to what we said earlier. The problem for Scott Peterson defenders in this case, I don't want to hear about who saw her walking the dog. OK, we've explained why that's not relevant. Well, let's just summarize it for maybe people who didn't quite see all the different parts. Basically, there is absolutely no evidence that anyone saw Lacey walking a dog.

There is evidence that people saw someone who looked pregnant walking a dog. But that person or those people were not wearing what Lacey was wearing when she was found. And that's huge. It's absolutely huge. And most of these people didn't know her. You know, some people go, well, there was one person who did. Well, they went to the same doctor. That's how they knew her.

They weren't like best friends. Also, once again, you can point to this stuff all day long. But what you have to do, you have to show that someone dumped those bodies in that marina to frame Scott. And that is just absurd. It is absurd to believe that Lacey was kept alive. She obviously wasn't. I mean, there are barnacles on her bones, for goodness sake. She had been in that marina for a very long time. And Connor had been inside of her most of the time. And we know that because of what they, the condition of his body. And people say, well, but he was so well protected. No, no. Look, he was more protected than Lacey, whose body was in terrible shape,

who had been ravaged by the elements and animals and everything else. The pathologist even testified that really one more day and Connor's body probably would have been never found. The predators would have taken care of it. He was in the water for a couple days at most. His body was not in good shape. It was in really bad shape. It's one of the reasons that figuring out exactly how old he was is hard. Because one of the things you do is you look at bones. And a lot of his body had kind of liquefied by this point. It was just really hard. And by the way, you know, we've talked about how liquefied by this point. It was just really hard. And by the way, you know, we've talked about how this is a circumstantial case.

What Brett just said there is so important. A day longer and Connor may never have been found. And Lacey maybe would have been found much, much later, even more decomposed. And we would not have been able to know as much as we already do about the gestational age, about lack of a coffin birth or C-section. So the fact that this is a circumstantial case is actually, it's more than a circumstantial case. The fact that Connor and Lacey were found in conditions that could even be examined by a pathologist strengthens this case so immensely. It was terrible luck for Scott Peterson that Connor's body was found because we know so much more about the time frame and also when gestationally he was when he passed away because his mother passed away. And so just know that the facts in this case really are so incredibly strong. This case could have been tried without their bodies.

It absolutely could have been tried without their bodies. It absolutely could have. The fact that their bodies were found and they were able to try the case with the pathology information from their bodies, it's overwhelming how strong this case is. And that's why Scott's out there staring out over the bay, because he knows his entire future depends on those bodies not being found. You know, he'd weighed them down. He hoped they would never be found. But you had that storm the day before they were found. And that's when it happened. That's when the bodies separated from the weights. It's when the body of Connor was expelled from his mother.

And then the bodies turned up two days later. And once again, Scott Peterson, most unlucky man in the world, basically, if he had put the bodies anywhere else in the bay, the title action would have carried them out to sea. But because he put them where he did in a shallower area, that's why the bodies washed up where they did. And by the way, he may have done that because he had, remember, kind of a terrible boat. He had a class A boat. This was not a good boat to have in a very windy, very tumultuous bay. The San Francisco Bay is not easy sailing at all.

So he had a small boat. He couldn't actually venture much further out. And you know why he had a smaller boat that he just bought? Because he really only had one purpose for this boat. He couldn't actually venture much further out. And you know why he had a smaller boat that he just bought? Because he really only had one purpose for this boat. This was not so that he could regularly go out into the San Francisco Bay and fish with his, by the way, ill-equipped anchor and fishing gear. So the reason this is a bad boat is that he only needed a good enough boat to accomplish this task, not to fuel his hobby in the San Francisco Bay. Well, we could rant about this for another five episodes, as we've done in the past. We won't. We'll stop here. We won't. We'll stop here.

And look, if you think Scott Peterson's innocent, I would love to hear it. I would love to hear your argument for how he's innocent. I would love to hear your argument for how the whole conspiracy to dump the body thing went down and nobody noticed. How the inept burglars who got arrested 10 days after the burglary nevertheless somehow managed to keep Lacey's body for another three months until they dumped the body somewhere. I mean, I would love to hear it. And maybe that's what you think happened. And I'll just say, true crime, the

great thing about true crime is at the end of the day, it really just comes down to evidence and facts. It doesn't matter what you think of us. It doesn't matter what you think of Scott Peterson. Either the facts show he did it or they don't. And when you look at the facts here, I just, like I said, when we did the first six episodes, I didn't know going in whether he was guilty or not. I just knew that everybody said he was guilty. We have really just skimmed the surface. Read the transcripts. We will put links up where you can read the transcripts of these testimonies. Read the transcripts of the pathologists.

Their testimony is absolutely damning to any theory that those bodies weren't in that bay for multiple months. Absolutely damning. Read the whole thing. We quoted some of it. Read the whole thing. And I just don't think you can read the testimony and not see the truth here. with this case is because it is circumstantial and you every little brick being built on every little brick unless you really dig down into it and really look at the evidence it can be easy to be misled into believing there's no evidence it's one reason we wanted to do this today kind of do

the reading for you but nevertheless if you got time and you're really curious we're going to put the links on the website check it out but i want to hear what you think. Shoot us an email, prosecutorspod at gmail.com, at prosecutorspod on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. Hello to you guys watching this on YouTube and hello to you awesome people on the Patreon who are listening early and ad free. And join us on the gallery, which is on the Facebooks where we hang out a lot. I'm sure people will be talking about this case on there. Like I said, this case will continue to develop. There will be follow-ups on this as the judge decides whether or not to give him a new trial. Obviously, if a new trial is granted, that will be appealed.

And if it's not granted, it will be appealed. So this won't end in December, but it will be the first step into figuring out whether or not Scott Peterson is actually going to get a new trial or not. But I will say the same thing I said at the end of our last six episodes. If he's tried again, he will be convicted again because the evidence against him is overwhelming. Indeed. Thank you guys for joining us. We'll see how people like this and if we need to do this for some of our longer series. Yeah.

And we promise not to recycle everything. We're not going to just do that to you. But, hey, you know, we are very long-winded. So if there are cases you'd like us to do a follow-up on or really kind of drill down, we will be back next week with a case that has been one of the most recommended cases, one of the most requested cases that we have. And I'm really excited to dig into that. It's a case that needs all the attention it can get. But until then, I'm Brett.

And I'm Alice. And we are The Prosecutors. So we want to do this all in one episode. Okay. Okay. I have tried to limit it as much as possible, but it's still 11 pages long. Scott Peterson is guilty. We're not going to get through this in one episode. So that's the whole point is to do it in one episode.

Because we've already done six episodes on it. Okay, so no extra. We're just going straight with the script. I got it. Basically, that's what we got to do. Let to do it in one episode. Okay, fine. We've already done six episodes on it. Okay, so no extra. We're just going straight with the script. I got it. Basically, that's what we got to do. Okay, let's do it. No, no, no. I love going straight with the script.

I'm all for it. Okay. Because you know what I'm going to do after we're finished? I'm going to go watch Neil Hallmark's Christmas movie. We'll see you next time. Thank you. It is time to see whether or not we can pull this off. I don't think we can, but let's do it. Okay. Okay. Are you ready?

I'm so ready. I've been ready. I'm bored of everyone. I've been podcasting for 45 minutes at this point. We'll be right back. This is an iHeart Podcast.