Crime Weekly - S1 Ep40: The Murder of Laci Peterson: Tainted Love (Part 1)

Episode Date: September 10, 2021

Check out a sample of Vodacast! --https://vodacast.com It was December 24th, 2002, Christmas Eve morning, and in Modesto California, where Laci Peterson lived with her husband Scott, it was a cool, foggy, northern California morning. The young, attractive couple woke up that morning, each with their own plans in mind. Laci had some last minute items to pick up for Christmas dinner at her parents home later, and she also wanted to take her golden retriever McKenzie for a walk. Her husband Scott had plans to go fishing at Berkeley Marina, about an hour and a half away from the couples home. Scott left the house around 9:30 in the morning, and did not return until 4:30 that evening. When he got home, his wife was not there, and she wasn’t answering his calls. He normally would not have been so concerned, but Laci was eight months pregnant with their first child, a son who they had named Connor. Over the course of the next few months, a massive search and investigation took place for Laci, and as Connor’s due date came and went, the need to find mother and child became more urgent, until April 13th, 2003, when the bodies of Laci and her son were found washed up on the shore of San Francisco Bay.  Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod

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slash clinical. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, 2002, Christmas Eve morning, and in Modesto, California, where Lacey Peterson lived with her husband Scott, it was a cool, foggy, northern California morning. The young, attractive couple woke up that morning, each with their own plans in mind. Lacey had some last-minute items to pick up for Christmas dinner at her parents' home later, and she also wanted to take her golden retriever Mackenzie for a walk. Her husband Scott had plans to go fishing at Berkeley Marina, about an hour and a half away from the couple's home. Scott left the house around 9.30 in the morning

and he did not return until 4.30 that evening. When he got home, his wife was not there and she wasn't answering his calls. He normally would not have been so concerned, but Lacey was eight months pregnant with their first child, a son who they were going to name Connor. Over the course of the next few months, a massive search and investigation took place for Lacey, and as Connor's due date came and went, the need to find mother and child became more urgent until April 13, 2003, when the bodies of Lacey and her son were found washed up on the shore of San Francisco Bay. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur.

So we do have a case to talk about today. We are talking about the Lacey Peterson case. I'm sure there's a lot of people listening and watching today who know about this case. You may have even seen the series I did on YouTube about this case, but I did it in the beginning of 2019. So at that point, you know, we don't know everything we know today, first of all. And I was still perfecting my research skills. So I was really excited when Derek told me that he wanted to tackle this case next for Crime Weekly. I was especially excited when I asked him, do you want to just do like a surface level overview, spend most of the time talking about Scott Peterson's appeal, or do you want to do like a true deep dive? And he said he was not

super familiar with, you know, the details. Like he knows the overview of the case. He knows the basics. So he was down for a deep dive. And sweeter words have never been spoken. I was so pumped. As most of you probably know, Scott Peterson was convicted of murdering his wife and unborn child in 2005. But to this day, he claims that he's innocent and that he was wrongfully convicted. So we're going to cover Lacey's case in true Crime Weekly form. We're going to look at the timelines and the evidence. We're going to look at it without any previous biases. We're going to try to explore it with fresh eyes because there's a good chance that Scott Peterson might win his appeal. A few months ago, I read about 400 pages of paperwork,

the writ of habeas corpus that his lawyers submitted, and I won't lie, regardless of what I think he did or didn't do to his wife and unborn child, he does have a good shot at proving that he didn't really get a fair trial. Yeah. And that was part of the reason I wanted to cover this case now. A little backstory, I did a TV pilot where we discussed Scott Peterson and this particular topic, the fact that he was trying to get a new trial. And one of my colleagues, Anahita Senegarfar, she's an attorney. Brilliant. Actually, I believe she's never lost a

case, actually, that she's been involved in. And in the pilot, she actually said right out, based on this jury misconduct that we're going to get into, she felt that Scott would get a new trial. And I was surprised to hear that. But again, I had only known surface level material about this case. So I do have an overview. I don't think you could live on this planet and not have heard of this case, but as far as the details of it, I do not know them. And I specifically on this case, I know some of you guys don't like this. I have not researched this case any more than just the surface level stuff. I want to kind of go along for the ride with you guys. There may be some of you that know the case.

There may be some of you that don't. And even for the people that do, I feel pretty confident in saying that I'm sure as Stephanie lays out this case for us with through her research, you're going to learn something new anyway. So I kind of, we were talking about this on the phone and you had a good idea as far as making it more of a crowd solve type thing, as opposed to what we usually do. Does that sound about right? Yeah. And I mean, it's more than jury misconduct. Like they had experts and testimony that have scientifically been like disproven. So the prosecution's experts weren't exactly sound.

So there's a lot to it. And yeah, I was thinking with this case, we could do things a bit differently. I know that a lot of people have gone very deep into this case and the evidence. They have their own feelings, their opinions about what each piece means. There's so much to this case. And I think we're all stronger and smarter together as a group.

So Derek and I would love for you, as you follow along, take notes, keep track of everything. And if you would reach out to us and communicate about what you're thinking, what you see that as you follow along, take notes, keep track of everything. And if you would reach out to us and communicate about what you're thinking, what you see that maybe we don't, you can do this by sending us an email, by leaving us a speak pipe through our website, which might be the easiest way if you have a lot to say, or you can send us messages on Instagram or Twitter. And if you're watching this on YouTube, you can write your thoughts in the comments,

and then we can look all of those things over and use them while formulating our theories and examining each piece of evidence. So it's really going to be a crowd solve sort of experiment. And if you give us something that we use, we will give you credit for it. We'll shout you out. So make sure you also include the name that you want us to use when referring to you and your brilliant ideas when you leave us a message. Yeah, I think it's a pretty cool idea. We're going to have a lot. Yeah, it's going to be a lot.

Let's just preface it by saying, you know, we're not going to get everybody in there, but we will select a couple. And I think it will give a different dimension to it, something a little different. And I know you had mentioned, you know, again, we'll save it for the actual story, but I know there was some stuff involving Connor as far as the science behind how they measured or determined how old Connor was at the time of Lacey's death. biased perspective, there is some things, as Stephanie alluded to, that if you take the emotional aspect out of it, you would say, yeah, maybe this guy, how was he convicted? And does he deserve a new trial? And I know as we sit here right now, we're recording this for you guys on the 6th of September. You will see this episode. It'll be Friday. So whatever the date is as Friday's concerned, I think it's the- It's Monday right now. So five days from now.

Yeah. So it'll be the 11th, right? Did I do that math right? Yeah, it'll be the 11th. And so as we sit right now, the judge was supposed to come out with something on the 25th. They never did. Of August. Yeah, of August. And so it could be any day now. It could be any day now or it might not be for a while. So I think it'd be pretty cool to kind of have this archival episode where we go through this. It's going to be a multi-parter. We don't know how many parts yet, but it'll be a multi-parter and we'll be able to go back to this and look at what we said then, not only us, but you guys, when the determination comes out, whether or not to give Scott a new trial. So it could be really cool. Yeah. And I know it is emotional, like you

said. It's an emotional case. A woman and her child died before she even got a chance to hold him in her arms and meet him, allegedly. There's going to be some question to that too. But it is an emotional case. And there's a lot of people who vehemently believe that Scott Peterson is guilty. I was one of those people. And I'm not saying that I'm not anymore. But what I am saying is, if there's a chance he's innocent, we don't want him sitting in prison, right? No matter what we think of him, no matter what our feelings are, we have to support the justice system. And if we want the justice system to be fair to everybody, that includes Scott Peterson. So we're going to try to look at all this evidence and go over this case as if we have no idea whether he's innocent or not. And we're going to use the evidence and what we find out to bring us to that conclusion one way or the other. You know, my phrase,

remember my phrase about any innocent and guilty people? You'd rather have 10. There we go. No, no, go for it. You got this girl. You'd rather have 10 guilty people go free than one innocent person go to prison? It's close. I mean, it still works. I'd rather have 100 guilty people go free than one innocent person go to jail

for a crime they didn't commit. Oh, 100. Can you just say 10? Because I don't really want 100 guilty people walking around. The world is your oyster. The world is your oyster. Whatever you want to say because i don't really want 100 guilty people the world is your oyster the world is your oyster the world is your oyster whatever you want to say i don't think it's it's probably copywritten but you know you you own your own version but yeah the moral of the story is you know there are guilty people who go free every day it's it's a it's a reality of the situation lawyers are really good these days they can get people who've

committed crimes off of those crimes that they committed. But to think that someone who had nothing to do with a particular incident is sitting in prison right now for something they did not do, that's a really hard pill to swallow. So I have always operated as an investigator under this kind of mantra where I always want to second guess myself because I would rather be wrong and not charge someone than charge someone because of a gut instinct and come to find out later, I took away this person's freedom for any period of time. I don't care if it's a week, a month, I don't care what it is. So I still operate under that mantra today. I think most people should. And if we do it that way, most of the time, I think the justice system will get it right.

Hopefully. But look at Casey Anthony, man. Well, I think that's an example of someone having a good lawyer and obviously the investigation itself. And we'll do that case as well at some point, but the investigation was not conducted properly and there was a lot of missteps in there. No, the investigation was good. The trial was bad. The investigation wasn't great. They literally missed an entire search of a computer that had incriminating searches on it.

So that was a pretty big F up, if you ask me. It probably would have swayed some jury members. Yeah, and the prosecution really overkicked their coverage on that one, too. Yeah, there was a lot there. We'll hit that one for sure. Well, today in part one, we're going to go over who Scott Peterson was, who Lacey was, how they met, what kind of relationship they had. I think truly understanding who they were, what their dynamic was like, it's incredibly

important in helping us understand what happened at the end. And it will give us insight into determining whether or not we think Scott Peterson actually killed his wife, or if he is what he says he is, completely innocent and wrongfully convicted. Let's start with Scott Peterson, who came from a family with some strange dynamics and a couple buried skeletons. And our story actually starts in December as well, but it's December of 1945. So on December 20th, 1945, 36-year-old John H. Latham was found murdered lying in a pool of his own blood inside his business at 2190 Main Street in San Diego, California. His skull had been crushed by blows from a three-foot-long rusty metal pipe which had been wielded by a former employee of John's.

The motive had been robbery, a man's life for $200 measly dollars that he had in his wallet. And because of that, John Latham did not go home to his wife Helen and his four children that night. John and Helen were the proud parents of three boys, John Jr., who was six, Patrick, who was four, and Robert, who was only three months old at the time of his father's murder. They also had one daughter, two-and-a-half-year-old Jacqueline, who we know better as Jackie Peterson, Scott Peterson's mother. Shortly after the death of her husband, Helen Latham suffered a mental breakdown, and all four of her children were placed in the Nazareth house. This was an orphanage. And at this point, little Jackie was separated, not only from her mother, but from her brothers

too, because they had separate units for girls and boys. So basically, overnight, this two-year-old girl, she lost her father, her mother, and all her siblings. And she was essentially completely alone, surrounded by strangers. And she had no clue why she was alone and what had happened because she was far too young to understand. Jackie would return to live with her mother 10 years later when she was 13, but their reunion was a bit short-lived because right after Jackie graduated from high school, her mother Helen passed away and she was alone again. This started a pattern of Jackie looking for love in all the wrong places. Between the years 1962 and 1967, Jackie would become pregnant three times by three different men. The first man, he abandoned her. So when she gave birth to a son named Don in April of 1963, she gave this baby up for adoption.

The next man that got her pregnant, he was already married to another woman. So when Jackie gave birth to a daughter named Anne, she bled this baby up for adoption as well. The third father also walked out. And when Jackie gave birth to another son named John, apparently she got a little flack from her doctor when she showed up pregnant again. And he was like, so do you think you're going to keep this kid this time instead of putting him up for adoption? I don't necessarily agree with the fact that he sort of pressured her into it or shamed her into it. But Jackie did end up keeping John. And she became a single mother trying to juggle her career and her role as a mother after purchasing a dress shop in La Jolla, California called The Put-On. Now, those who knew her at the time remembered her bringing her son John to work with her often, but they also said that she would often overlook his needs in favor of the needs of her business. So when she met Lee Peterson, a divorced father of three, it seemed like a good fit. They both had responsibilities from prior relationships.

Lee Peterson had grown up with very little money in Minnesota, and he was working for a trucking company when Jackie met him. His three children, 12-year-old Susan, 10-year-old Mark, and 9-year-old Joe, lived with their mother in San Diego during the week but would spend weekends with their father. Lee Peterson was a driven man, though, and he wouldn't be broke for long. He started his own successful packing and delivering business in San Diego, and within no time, the money began rolling in. And as fast as it would roll in, Lee would spend it. And I think he did this in order to sort of hide from his humble beginnings at all costs. He would do this by purchasing expensive houses, fancy cars, and this was a habit that would eventually lead to financial problems. Yeah, I really think that he kind of got up into this upper tier of friends and society, and he didn't want people to know that he had come from nothing.

He didn't want them to know that he'd grown up poor. It's a really common story, isn't it? You know, sometimes you want to appear to be something you're not. And you've seen a lot of movie plots, and it's one of those things where people overextend themselves. Even now, you see it around every day where people overextend themselves to create this illusion that they're doing better than they actually are. And it does, in most cases, catch up to you. I think a lot of people go into it with the assumption that like, Hey, I'm going to borrow against myself right now, because I know eventually I will get to that point where I can afford those things with no problem. It's just a matter of time. And, and, and unfortunately they don't always get there. And that's when, um, the, the, the lifestyle that they're living, the overex, you know, overspending, um, the banks come calling and, uh, and it can cause some problems. And again,

it isn't isolated to a few people. I think a lot of people in our world today definitely spend beyond their means and it can cause some issues, not only for that person as far as the pressures to try to keep up that facade, but it also causes a lot of stress within the family because they know what's going on behind the scenes and they know what the real story is. Or they don't know what's going on behind the scenes, which puts more stress on the person who's actually- Ah, true. You know what I mean? So now he's like, I really have to keep- He's hiding it from them as well. Yeah, I have to keep up this facade. I have to make sure that people don't know anything's wrong. And you're right. It's a very common story.

It's the plot of tons of movies and TV shows. I'm re-watching 30 Rock right now, and I'm sure some people have watched it. But in one scene, Liz Lemon says to Jack Donaghy, oh, I forgot you grew up poor. And he goes, thank you. He's trying to say, yeah, I don't want you to think about that. I want you to think about the man I am today, not the man I was. So isn't it crazy, though, what happened to Jackie Peterson's father, like just murdered when she was two, she spent a decade in an orphanage. Yeah, no, it's great. From such a young age.

Yeah. The family. And, and, and it's interesting when you go back that ways, because you can learn a lot about the people that we're going to talk mostly about tonight, um, from their past. And, and this is what you do. Stephanie says, why you're great is you go back, not just one generation, two generations in it. And it's important because it could create a foundation for someone later in life, you know, based on who they were raised by.

But, you know, you could say, well, you know, the parents of so-and-so were treated them poorly and therefore they were a result of their environment. Well, then we should ask the question, why did their parents treat them that way? And usually there's a story behind it, which is what you're revealing right now. And I think this is what's important because I'm pretty confident most people are hearing this much information about the backstory. When you say backstory, you really went backstory. Yeah, it's important. I think a lot of people who may think they know the case very well are hearing this for the first time. And that's pretty cool because I'm hearing it for the first time. By the way, if you guys are watching on YouTube and you see me looking down a lot, it's not to be rude. I'm actually writing notes with you guys as well. So if you see me looking down, it's just because I'm being a good note taker. I'm not sitting on my phone playing video games. Well, it's funny because after everything happened with Lacey, Scott's, his parents notoriously defended him and supported him. And there's a specific interview that we will talk about. I think it was with Barbara Walters. And it was a super awkward interview where I think, I think it was Barbara Walters. I could

be wrong, but she says, you know, your son like cheated on Lacey and his father Lee was like, well, you know, that happens sometimes and it doesn't mean he's a bad person. And sometimes a man just needs a little outlet and you can kind of see where this entitlement, because whether he's a murderer or not, Scott Peterson did grow up to be a very entitled adult.

And you can see where this entitlement comes from and you'll see it more as we get more into it. But let's take a quick commercial break. You can't rely on blind faith to get the pregnancy support you deserve. Ritual's Essential Prenatal Multivitamin is the only leading prenatal backed by its own human clinical trial. Essential Prenatal is proven to deliver key nutrients, including folate, biotin, and vitamin D during pregnancy. Get 25% off when you visit ritual.com slash clinical. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, does give an understanding. And that's all we're

looking for here. You can judge him however you want to judge him. Everyone's entitled to do that. And we're not making excuses for Lee or for Scott or for anybody. We're just trying to give you the full picture because I think a lot of times in media, in storytelling, even on TV shows, you get a very watered down version of these individuals because you usually have 42 minutes to tell an entire case. And it's just not enough time, frankly. And so with a podcast where we control the narrative, literally, we can dive into these things. So as we go forward, instead of just building a house on this half put together foundation, you're getting the full picture before we get into the meat and potatoes of this case, which most people have heard of. Yeah. So Lee Peterson, Scott's

father, he's always presented as a very stoic figure. And those who knew him, they claimed he was a private man. He was not comfortable expressing his emotions. And it was rumored that his first marriage had failed because he wasn't even comfortable connecting with his own children. And this will make sense as we see his relationship with Scott evolve. So Jackie and Lee, they meet, they get married. Lee adopted Jackie's son, John. Then on October 24th, 1972, the golden child was born. And I'm talking about Scott Peterson, who was basically his parents' favorite from the second he existed. From the second they knew about him, I think that they thought this was their chance because they both had kids from previous marriages. Lee wasn't close to his children. You know, Jackie had kind of a rough start with John. But here was this new baby that kind of connected them and he would become the favorite. In an interview, Scott's mother, Jackie, said, quote, He didn't walk before he was one because someone was always carrying him.

End quote. Scott was coddled. He was showered with attention as soon as he was born from both of his parents. At first, they all lived together in a two-bedroom apartment in La Jolla, where Scott and his older half-brother John shared a room. But when Scott was four, the family moved into a nicer home in Scripps Ranch, which is a suburb in northeast San Diego. Scott would accompany both of his parents to work. He was always with one of them. He would ride along with his father, Lee, as Lee made his rounds picking up packages for delivery,

or he would look on from his crib as his mother, Jackie, helped with customers at her dress shop. It seemed that Lee Peterson, who had had trouble connecting with his three older children, he was only able to connect with a child of his if they shared similarities, things in common. So he kind of made sure that Scott was brought up as a mini Lee. He brought Scott to do all the things that he himself enjoyed doing, like fishing, hunting, and golfing. When Scott was five, he was hanging out with his dad at the driving range, and he had his own golf clubs and fishing poles by the time he was seven. Now, Scott's older half-brother, John, he didn't get this same kind of treatment. He ended up getting into some trouble, and then he was just basically sent away

to live with relatives. They basically were like, okay, you're not a great representation of what being a Peterson means, so we're going to send you away and pretend you don't exist, essentially. And this left Scott to receive most of his parents' attention as well as bear the brunt of their high expectations. Because if Jackie and Lee felt that John was a lost cause, Scott was the last chance to represent their family and carry on the legacy. Really interesting dynamic. And I think it does make sense to a certain degree. Again, not saying it's okay, but this was the first child they had together. So it was kind of like

a fresh start. They're in this new relationship with each other. They love each other. They're building a business that he had started together as they continue to grow it. And this was kind of the start of their new lives. They had both had previous relationships. And I think it is easy to have, and again, I don't agree with this, but to have some resentment towards your previous kids or with a woman or a man that you don't really care for anymore. It reminds you of them. So to have Scott, who they now had this something they shared in common, it was something they created together, kind of like as they were building their business. And so they were, I think they were maybe,

you know, neglecting the other kids and almost pretending like this was the start of their life, not when they actually had kids prior to this. Yeah. And it feels like John might've sensed that, right? Maybe that's why he acted out a little bit and started getting into trouble. Yeah. And I mean, again, that's also something, you know, I'm not a psychologist, but as a cop, a lot of the times when we deal with kids who are troubled and are causing problems, it'll be something similar to this where they're, they come from a divorced family or, you know, mom got divorced and now she's with somebody new. They're acting out because, you know, they, this, this child feels like they're moving on with their life without him or her.

And so again, very common thing. And as police officers, I know we're not trained to do this. And there's a lot of debate around these conversations, but not every call we go to is for someone who did something wrong. Sometimes it's to mediate a situation between parents and children. And so as a police officer, I had to do this a lot where eventually i got to break through to the kid and we'd have a conversation and you know we talk over a few days and they would tell me that they felt like their mom or dad had moved on from them and basically replaced them with um their new significant other so really sad story and i do think you got to put the blame at the feet of the parents for the most part. Kids are kids and they may not always perceive things the right way. But I always think even as a parent myself, I feel like there's

always things that I can do better to make sure that my kids know I'm there for them. And ultimately they're my number one priority. Yeah. Kids are going to have those feelings regardless. They're going to feel displaced when there's a new relationship or a new kid. It's how you handle it. Like you have to be proactive and have that conversation. Like, okay, just because I'm having a new baby, it doesn't mean mommy loves you any less. It doesn't seem that that conversation was had with John because he did kind of get into trouble

and I think he was just trying to get attention and then they sent him away, which is very sad. Yeah, do you think it's more of an old school thing too? Kind of like, I think now in today's society, like parents with everything going on in the world, you know, like I think parents feel more of an obligation to talk to their kids because of all the things we're learning about how it can affect a child in the long run, where I think back in the day, it was like, Hey, shut up and take it. We're the adults. You're the kids, you know, you do as we say, not as we do. Is that like a a more old school way of bringing up your children

i think it was an old school way i also think it's a personality factor we know lee private doesn't like to express his emotions has a hard time connecting with people even his own flesh and blood probably not a big like let's sit down and have a talk kind of guy you know probably more of i'm gonna get the belt kind of guy. Yeah, true. True. Well, when Scott was 10, the family was moving on up again. As Lee's business became more successful, he started making more money. He wanted to live in a home that represented that. So they purchased a new house in Poeway. And this had a swimming pool and there was a nice little creek nearby where Scott could fish.

He began attending Painted Rock Middle School where he took his duties as a school crossing guard very seriously. His mom tells the story and she thinks it's cute. And she's like, oh, he was just so adorable, my little crossing guard. But what would happen is all these parents would get really upset with little Scott because he would not let them drive and he'd wait and he'd look both ways like a million times and he'd be like, hold it, hold it. And they would be like, okay, enough, dude. We have to drop our kids off. And Jackie was like, the parents would get so agitated. I just thought it was so cute. He's taking this very seriously. He's a little bit of a perfectionist. And I think in the end,

he wanted to be seen as this super responsible person, even at a young age. And that's something you hear people say a lot about him. Like he seemed very mature for his age. Even though he was a kid, he seemed kind of more grown up than the other kids. He also joined Cub Scouts and his mother, Jackie, was his Cub Scout group leader. Many of the parents of Scott's peers remembered marveling at how well behaved he was, you know, like a little adult, especially compared to their very active children. A woman named Joan Parancano said, quote, he was a little bit reticent, stoic, maybe. My son bounced off the walls, but Scott wasn't that way.

He was quiet and polite. He's a smiler. When he smiles, his whole face lights up. End quote. Now, Scott's brilliant, easy smile. You've seen pictures of him. He's got this huge smile. It takes up half his face. And this is another thing that many people would remember and comment about him because it put them at ease. It took down their guards immediately. It kind of said without saying, this is a friendly guy. This is a nice guy. This is a guy you can trust. I think that did have a lot to do with how he was very accepted by most people. When he was

a teenager, Scott began working part-time at a Rancho Santa Fe country club, and he did this in exchange for lessons and time on the course. Scott had shown promise as a golfer from early on, probably because his father had him on the golf course since he was like a baby. And Lee wanted to encourage him to pursue golf as a potential career, like go pro. So Lee made a bet with Scott. He said that if Scott could shoot par, he would buy him a Ferrari. So you can imagine how stunned Lee was when Scott achieved this by the time he was 14. In fact, at that point, Scott was

a much better golfer than Lee Peterson had ever been. Scott did not get a Ferrari though. Um, cause probably cause Lee couldn't afford it, honestly. He probably never thought it was going to happen, you know, and then he was given like a used sedan on his 16th birthday. But still, you know, it's pretty good to be 16 and be given a car. Car's a car. Yeah. No one ever bought me a car. My parents bought me my first car.

Really? That's so sweet. Yep. Yep. Shout out mom. We were too broke for that. My mom could barely buy her own car. Well, the car was $500.

Oh, that's. But it was. And it didn't. It had a hole in the. It had a hole in the floor. In in the radiator and uh but you know what it had four wheels and it turned on so i thought it was the coolest thing ever it didn't have a rate i i think my first check because i was working at the time instead of spending it on something that actually was worth spending on like you know fixing the car i bought a radio did you get it from crutchfield that was the catalog back

in the day the crutchfield catalog, yeah. The Crutchfield catalog. No, I think, I don't even know. I can't even remember, but I remember a Subaru Loyale was my first car. Subarus are great. They last forever, right? That's what the commercials say. It didn't last forever. Didn't even make the school year. Well, Scott had his used car. He was fine with it. He didn't complain, you know, but all throughout school, Scott was like just a really good guy. He was a good student. He was named MVP of his golf team twice. He did well in class, you know, just an all around like good kid. So up to this point, we've established that although there were some really some tragedies in Scott's mother's life and also his his father was a guy that did things his

own way, kind of beat it to his own drum, but was a hard worker, right? He wanted more. I can't blame him for that. But up to this point in the story, Scott's a great guy, good athlete, good golfer, smart, well-behaved, charismatic. What's not to like about this guy, right? However, he's only 16 years old up to this point. So I'm sure the story is just getting started. And it doesn't mean that he's well-adjusted, right? It means that he really wants everyone to think that he's well-adjusted and he has his good life because I think maybe it was kind of pushed on him by his parents. Like, you've got to do well. You've got to be good. Like, you have to represent this family.

That was probably a thing that he constantly heard. So when a kid strives to be a perfectionist like this, it's not always a sign of anything healthy. Right. And listen, like father, like son, maybe, you know, even though his father probably tried to hide it from him, I'm sure Scott being a intelligent kid probably could see between the lines, especially when his dad's promising him a Ferrari, but he gets a used sedan that things aren't what they always appear to be, especially the way his father presents them to other people when they're around.

And that may be something that rubbed off on Scott, where he, he may have presented himself in a way to others where he made things seem a lot better than they were. So it'll be interesting as we continue this. Let's take a break and we'll keep going. You can't rely on blind faith to get the pregnancy support you deserve. Ritual's Essential Prenatal Multivitamin is the only leading prenatal backed by its own human clinical trial. Essential Prenatal is proven to deliver key nutrients,

including folate, biotin, and vitamin D during pregnancy. Get 25% off when you visit ritual.com slash clinical. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Okay, we're back. And I liked what you said before break. I agree. Scott, in my opinion, he was kind of an intuitive kid.

He noticed things, but he didn't always comment on them. He filed them away for later use. He remembered them, and then he would sort of integrate them into his own life and personality, kind of like how sociopaths, they don't know how to express human emotions, so they watch other people and they mirror their actions, their behaviors, their mannerisms. Scott was very smart and he did watch everything from a very young age. And besides a few of his peers feeling that Scott could be kind of arrogant, most just saw him as a regular guy. He was nice.

He tutored the homeless. He wore white polo shirts and Letterman jackets to school. And he helped lead his golf team to an undefeated season his senior year. Scott's golf coach felt that Scott was extremely respectful and he never used bad language, like he didn't swear or anything. The coach said, quote, some kids will hit a bad shot and go into all kinds of antics. Scott would hit a bad shot and go to the next one. I don't think I ever saw him get out of control, end quote. Most people in his

town, at least like in his orbit, they thought for sure that Scott was going to go pro, especially when he graduated from high school at 17 and then received a golf scholarship to the University of Arizona in 1990. So fun fact, professional golfer Phil Mickelson was actually one of Scott's teammates during high school. And he also went on to the University of Arizona where he would become the second collegiate golfer to earn first team All-American honors all four years. So probably- That's interesting. Isn't it? I think he graduated like a year or two before Scott. So he was there before Scott went there. But I think probably Scott had big shoes to fill. People kind of thought he was going to follow Phil's footsteps. Well, I will say this. I am a golf fan, University of Arizona, good school, good golfing school. And again, when you're playing with people like Phil Mickelson, for people who don't know, Phil Mickelson's one of the, I think almost

everyone does, one of the best golfers in the game today. He's been one of the best golfers for a very long time. He was kind of the guy who always went toe to toe with someone you might've heard of by the name of Tiger Woods. So, I mean, he's a very good golfer. And I think this is really interesting because it shows that, you know, at up to this point, Scott really did, you know, put his money where his mouth was, so to speak, because you can't fake being good at a, I mean, he clearly was very good. But I can kind of see where you're going with this, where now he's having to compare himself to someone else like a Phil Mickelson and how he reacts to that. I'm interested to hear if there's anything in here on that, because is he a jealous person? Is he a supportive person?

How does he conduct himself when he's not the best person in the room or not the smartest guy or the most talented? How does he react to those situations? I don't think we'll ever know if Scott was a jealous guy or a resentful guy or a supportive guy because he played his cards very close to the chest. He didn't ever tell people how he was feeling. He was the kind of guy who you'd be like, hey, Scott, how's it going today? And he could have just crashed his car that morning and he'd be like, everything's great. Life is great. Everything's super cool. So he would never really let anybody know what he was feeling. He always just was very positive and upbeat, but he was this perfectionist. He wanted to be kind of a jack of all trades. And you'll see that as the story goes. But whatever you want to say about

Scott, yes. If he wanted to be good at something, if he wanted to do something, he would learn how to do it. He would be good at it. That was his motivation. Really interesting. Phil Mickelson. I didn't see that one coming. Yeah, but it is a story as old as time. So Scott was a big fish in the pond of his high school in his town.

But when he went to Arizona State, I mean, like you said, this is a golf school. He realized there were many others who were just as good as him and many who were better. His father, Lee Peterson, later looked back and commented, it was probably a mistake to send him there because it was such a big golf school, end quote. Yikes. Yeah, right? Ouch. But imagine, okay, like Lee Peterson is saying that about us. It was probably a mistake to send him there because it was such a big golf school. Can you imagine what he's saying at home?

Like, yeah, you know, you couldn't cut it there. You're just not as good as them. Instead of saying like, you can get better, you know, just stick it out. His dad's pretty much saying like, cut and run because if you can't be the best, what's the point? Right. And I'm sure, I'm sure there might have, maybe I'm giving Lee too much credit, but maybe there are points where Lee didn't say too much overtly. But like Scott could tell by his tone and intonation that like he was he was disappointed in him for sure. Of course.

Yeah. Kids are very. Lee doesn't seem like the type that would be able to hide it well or even try to hide it for that matter. Nope. So Scott left ASU after just one semester and he moved back in with his parents who had relocated to a cottage in Morro Bay. They thought that the kids were all out of the house. They were planning to retire. And then he's like, hey, mom and dad, I'm home. It seemed like he genuinely just did not want to be in a place where he wasn't the best.

So in 1992, Scott attended Custa College in San Obispo, and he played on the golf team for two years. He then transferred to California Polytechnic State University. And so he moved out of his parents' house and he told his parents, quote, I've had the greatest parents. You don't owe me anything. End quote. So he's yeah, he's he seems like a super nice guy though, right? Yeah, so far. Again, we're very surface level. Who knows what's going on behind closed doors or what stories aren't out there. But yeah, I mean, and I think that's pretty normal because for the most part, when we hear about people who've been involved in heinous acts,

I think even with like a Chris Watts, as much as I hate that scumbag, you can go back and probably find people that say, you know, before the incident, he was someone who what people like to be around, et cetera. I know he was a little different story, but you know, but you, you do hear these stories. I don't think it's completely uncommon to find individuals who are charismatic, well-liked, easy to be around, who end up carrying out acts that are unfathomable. It's like, it's just, it's theed, easy to be around, who end up carrying out acts that are unfathomable. It's the world we live in, unfortunately. You got to be aware of everyone. You don't really hear any stories of anybody who knew Scott growing up, high school, college.

Nobody says, oh yeah, that guy was, he could get angry. Nobody could do that. Nobody would ever say anything bad about him. It's very strict, even as he's an adult, you know, and that is very similar to Chris Watts. To his defense, though, I mean, you would think with all these things that have come out about him, if there were incidences that were bad, everyone would be selling their story to someone. I agree. And so the fact that it hasn't. They're not there. It's me to believe that they just don't exist. Yes.

Which is creepy. Yep. Yep. It leads me to believe that they just don't exist. Yes, which is creepy. Yep, yep. Well, when Scott started going to California Polytech, he shared an apartment with a few friends. They covered the roof because it was a flat roof. They covered it with artificial grass so they could go up there, drink some beers, hit golf balls into a nearby field. I guess he decided to go to the Polytech school because he was going to go into like international business. And then he was like, no, I want to go into agricultural business because he liked growing plants and growing vegetables and cooking. He found this like newfound passion for cooking.

So he goes there. Once again, in college, Scott was extremely well-liked. One professor commented that he wished he could have a class full of Scott Petersons. This professor said, quote, he seemed more mature than most. He was pleasant to deal with, end quote. Scott majored in agricultural business and he started working multiple jobs to support himself, put himself through school and pay for the apartment. It was at one of these jobs, working as a waiter at the Pacific Cafe in San Luis Obispo, where Scott met his future wife, the bright, beautiful, and vibrant Lacey Rocha. Lacey was sunshine and happiness wrapped up in this petite frame. She was only 5'1". She was this tiny brunette with a big smile and an even bigger personality. She might have been small, but she was fearless, and she knew who she was and what she wanted from

a very young age. She was born on May 4, 1974, to her parents, Sharon and Dennis Rocha, in Modesto, California. A childhood friend of Lacey said, quote, She was always smiling and bubbly and talkative, usually the center of attention. End quote. Lacey's mother, Sharon, said that Lacey slept through the night pretty much from the time she came home from the hospital. She was an easy baby. She was just a small toddler when she began spending time outside in the garden with her mother. And Lacey developed a love of all things green.

She liked to learn how to grow plants and flowers and vegetables. The Rocha family operated a dairy farm, and both Lacey and her older brother Brent spent a lot of their childhoods there, playing and helping with the farm work. Lacey also loved to watch movies, and it didn't matter how many times she'd seen a film, she would still get emotional at all the sad parts, to the point where her mother Sharon had to watch movies first and sort of like screen them to judge whether or not they would be too much for her sensitive daughter. When Lacey and Brent were still kind of young, their parents got divorced, and they went to live with their mother in Modesto, but they would still visit their father on the

dairy farm on weekends. So, I mean, it was a divorce, but overall, it was the best possible case scenario for a divorce. They still got to go to the dairy farm where they'd spent many childhood years happily. They were with their mother. They saw their father. And Lacey and her brother Brent became very close, as children of divorce often do. But by the time Lacey was 13, Brent was discouraging her from hanging out with him and his friends because they. So I never really had friends in common, but if I had, that would have been the vibe with us. Like, yeah, no, that ain't happening. So, so it's, it's interesting though, that you have, and I'm sure this played into it. You do have Scott who his parents are together, you know, at this time, they're still happily

married, but that's just the surface level. We don't know if it's happy right that's true that's true but they're together so as far as scott scott's biological parents are together but i'm sure by this point scott does know the background of both his father's previous marriage and also i don't i wonder how much uh jacqueline shared with her kids oh i can tell you really yes are you going to get to it am i get am i getting i actually i didn't i didn't I wonder how much Jacqueline shared with her kids. Oh, I can tell you. Really? Yes. Are you going to get to it?

Am I getting ahead of you? I actually, I didn't put it in here, but Scott didn't know. Scott didn't know that he had all these siblings that had been adopted out. Wow. He didn't know until after he'd already met Lacey. And I think after they were married, he found out. And he wasn't even mad or anything, right? He wasn't like like you lied to me he just took everything in stride like I said he could have been really pissed off inside but he

would never show you so as soon as he found out he had all these siblings a sister and a brother out there he just was like oh let's meet let's get together let's start a relationship and he did you know he wasn't like oh you're not my brother you're not my sister he wanted them to be a part of his family he invited them in he encouraged them to spend time with him and lacy lacy and scott went to one of his siblings weddings um he was very cool about it and open about it so he didn't find out about a lot of his mother's past until he was pretty much an adult do you think lee knew everything like about the previous the previous adoptions and stuff like did she go into it disclosing that information my guess is no but i'm just i'm wondering if you i i'm testing you here i know i'm testing i'm

testing the uh so i don't know i don't know he's never you know lee doesn't leave like scott if he's upset about something he's not going to tell you. That would be a surprise. I have a feeling he knew, honestly. You think so, huh? Yeah, because how is she going to explain, like, yes, my son John, you know, was his father, was a man that abandoned us, you know. how this is kind of like a domino effect for her because I really do believe growing up in an orphanage from the age of two without parents, never really having a father figure, never knowing her father,

she gravitated towards trying to find love. She wanted to find love because she grew up in an orphanage. So she really did choose the wrong people, obviously, because one guy was married, the other two just left her as soon as they found out she was pregnant. She obviously chose the wrong people, toxic people, obviously, because one guy was married, the other two just left her as soon as they found out she was pregnant. She obviously chose the wrong people, toxic people. But that is a symptom we see when people, when children don't have great relationships with their parents or they don't have a father or they don't have a mother.

They do try to fill that gap with the love of somebody else and they'll kind of try to fill it fast. So they're not doing a lot of vetting. So I feel like she would have had to have told him, her husband, at some point. But I don't know. Interesting. Before we continue on,

let's have a word from one of our sponsors. Okay, so we are back. We're still talking about Lacey. In high school, Lacey was a cheerleader. She was very social. She had a large group of friends. You know, they did the things that teenage girls normally do. They went to sporting events. They had sleepovers. During these sleepovers, they would like sneak alcohol out of their parents' liquor cabinets and get a little giggly and prank call boys. Lacey was vivacious. She was outgoing. She did well in school. Overall, she just seemed to be winning at life. After high school, Lacey

began studying ornamental horticulture at California Polytechnic. So ornamental horticulture is basically the practice of growing, arranging, and tending to decorative plants and flowers. And Lacey's mother, Sharon, always felt that Lacey had been born to be a wife and mother because she loved to cook. You know, she loved to decorate her home, keep her home. She loved to care for others. She was a very maternal sort of person. One day, Lacey decided to have lunch with some friends at the Pacific Cafe. And while waiting for their food, one of the waiters caught Lacey's eye. He was golden skinned, dark haired, shining dark eyes, and he had this incredible smile. So Lacey gave one of the other servers her number and she was like, hey, can you

give it to this dude? You know, give my number to this dude. And this dude turned out to be Scott Peterson. So when Scott first got Lacey's number, he thought that it was like a joke or a prank. So he threw her number out. But remember, Lacey knew who she was. She knew what she wanted. So she was not shy about returning to the cafe and asking Scott like, dude, why don't you call me? I gave you my number. Like, why don't you call me? So the two began chatting over the phone and making plans for an official first date. So this is like you look at Scott and Lacey's life. It's like a rom-com, right?

It's a romantic comedy. This is like the meet cute where they see each other in the cafe or she sees him and she gives him her number. But he throws it out because he thinks it's a joke. But fate brings them back together. What do you think about her sort of pursuing him? I love it. I mean, like you said, she knows who she is and guys have no problem doing it. Why wouldn't she? And I think it just goes to speak to the confidence she had in herself, right? She gave the number, but she wasn't given the number as like, maybe he'll call. It was like, oh, he's going to call.

It's just a matter of time. So when she didn't get the call, not only was it something that she remembered doing, but she was anticipating a phone call very shortly. And when it didn't happen, she decided to go back to the restaurant and find out why, which again, hey, kudos to her to have that confidence. If it happened to me, I would have slid the number. If I didn't get the call, I would have took it as a hint that like, okay, maybe she saw me and wasn't that interested. So I'm never going to go back to that restaurant again for that exact reason. So shout out to Lacey on that one because I damn well wouldn't have gone back. She was confident. She did have a huge amount of confidence to the point where when she went to college, she wasn't out

there getting drunk at frat parties, doing keg stands. She didn't want to have anything to do with that. In fact, she spent most weekends like her brother, Brent, because they were like best friends. They were very close. He would come out and visit her and she would bring him to like wineries and out to dinner because she was really into like good food and good wine. And they just did things together. So she she wasn't like this super collegey sort of girl where she's like, I can't wait to get drunk this weekend. She was like, I don't need that. I know exactly what I want, who I am.

And she wanted Scott. Lacey was so taken with Scott that she really would have done anything he wanted, including going deep sea fishing on their first date. Yikes, that's brave. Right? Brave. So Scott, obviously, he sort of took on the hobbies and the interest of his father, Lee, and he'd been interested in deep sea fishing his whole life. But Lacey, she would get motion sickness on boats. Saw that coming. Well, she didn't tell him this, right? She didn't say, you know, a simple dinner and a movie will be just fine. I get seasick. She went deep sea fishing and she spent the whole time throwing up. But

even before their first date, Lacey had already called her mother Sharon and told her that she had met the man she was going to marry. Lacey told her mother that Sharon needed to make a trip to San Luis Obispo so that she could meet Scott. Sharon did drive up to San Luis Obispo, I think the weekend after Scott and Lacey's first date. And Lacey took her to lunch at the Pacific Cafe where Scott had pulled out all the stops. He'd already picked a table for them and he set up the table with two dozen roses. A dozen red roses for Lacey and a dozen white roses for her mother, Sharon. So I personally think he did this because, once again, Scott's intuitive. He listens. He doesn't always comment, but he listens. He files things away. He stores them. He knew from a short amount of time with

Lacey that family was incredibly important to her. He knew how close she was to her brother, to her mother, to her father. And he knew that impressing Sharon would give him points with Lacey. Yeah. I mean, listening to your wife or your girlfriend or opposite husband or boyfriend, obviously listening is a key factor to being successful in the relationship. And clearly, he was a charismatic guy, probably could carry a conversation really well. But maybe one of his best qualities was the fact that he listened attentively and Lacey seemed to be close with her mother. And again, if he wanted to win Lacey over, he was going to have to win her mother over as well, which is a

common thing. Sometimes it's the mom, sometimes it's the dad, sometimes it's both. So well played by him. It's a good move. Can't blame him for that. Yeah, absolutely. For Lacey, she wanted Scott to meet her mother within weeks of meeting him. And I can tell you personally, I've never done that. I've never dated a guy for a couple of weeks and brought him home to mom. Never, ever. It's going to be months. Maybe never, right? But Lacey, she felt that she knew Scott was the one from the moment she met him. I mean, she went back to the cafe to be like, dude, what's wrong with you? I'm amazing. Why didn't you call me? And she wanted her mother's stamp of approval. And Scott knew that she wanted Sharon's stamp of approval. So

he had to get it or else it probably would have ended there, honestly. Yeah, no. And again, this is, I'm loving that we're going so deep into this because some of this may seem trivial. But when we come to the end of this and we're giving opinions on theories as to whether or not Scott killed his wife,

I want those opinions to be based in the whole story or as much of the story as we can. And so everyone, if you're listening to this entire series will be as up to date as we are. I hear so many compliments from you guys about Stephanie's attention to detail and her, the depth she goes to in her research. Well, this is what she does. A lot of this may not always make an episode of crime weekly, but it doesn't mean that it hasn't been researched. We're including it in this part because we're going to want your opinions as well as our own at the end of the series. And we want you to have all the information that we have when you make those opinions, when you tell us those theories so so that you're as well-versed on the situation as we are. So it's already making me feel like I know Scott and like I know Lacey, because I'm finding things that I can empathize with. And whenever you're an investigator, you want to remain impartial, but you want to learn as much about your victims and or your suspects so that you can understand

how they operate, what their mindsets are like when you're trying to determine when learning new pieces of information or finding new evidence, how true that holds up to the person you've spent so much time learning about. So I really appreciate you going to this depth and these little detailed stories because it really does give us a different type of insight to these two names that we've heard so much over the years. Yeah, I think it's all super important. And I always say on YouTube, on my channel, to understand what happened at the end, we have to go back to the beginning, right? So I could tell you, oh, Lacey was murdered. Scott was arrested for it. He says he didn't do it and we're like okay but understanding

who Scott was who Lacey was and who they were together is going to give us such a more widespread understanding to the end when we say did Scott do this we'll understand better if it's possible or not based on who he was and how he carried on his relationship with Lacey and vice versa. It's all relevant. I can tell you guys firsthand, this isn't just fluff. This is all relevant. If this was an active case in my police department, I would be interviewing friends and family and not just asking them about the days leading up to the incident. I'd be asking them about the years from the time that Lacey and Scott met, what the first impression was of Lacey's mother when she met Scott. I would be asking things like that because nothing is of no value. You may not decide your opinion on this one piece

of information, but it could be a totality of stories that ultimately leads you to develop a profile or an impression of the person you're investigating. And in this case, it was Scott Peterson. And Lacey's family loved Scott. I mean, to the point where after he was arrested and he was being suspected of murdering their daughter, they defended him in the media. They loved him. So it's very important to understand why. And it seemed that Scott was just as head over heels for Lacey as she was for him. He proudly introduced Lacey to his parents and siblings, telling them that he hoped she would be the future Mrs. Peterson. Thus began a whirlwind romance. And Scott and Lacey became inseparable.

Everyone who knew them marveled at how close the couple were, how they did everything together, how they both loved each other so much. They'd been dating for roughly two years before Scott proposed, and they got married just months before Lacey graduated college. Their outdoor ceremony was attended by 150 of their closest friends and family. And from the outside, it seemed as if the newlyweds had found true love. They were both such attractive, outgoing, kind people. They were smart. They were both motivated to achieve certain goals and successes. Together, they could be unstoppable. Scott still had one year of college to complete after they got married, and there are reports and allegations from the police that at this time, unbeknownst to Lacey, Scott had his first extramarital affair. The prosecution and the police have brought this

up. They've never said who it was really. They never said really how they know it. They've just said that they do know it's true. So I don't know, take it with a grain of salt or not. But once again, cheating on your wife or cheating on your girlfriend doesn't necessarily make you a murderer. So it could be relevant or not. No, I think it's important. I have a couple questions for you and you may or may not have it, but just to understand kind of the timeline, do we know what year they got married in? Because I know you said it was two years before Scott proposed and then they got married just months before Lacey graduated. And obviously she was ahead of Scott.

And I know you're typing right now. So I just want to have a timeline of what we're talking about here. But my takeaway is whenever, whenever Scott and Lacey got married, it was, you know, he still had one more year of school to go. So she was done. She was, you know, starting her, you know, big, you know, big girl job. And he still had to finish college. August 9th, 1997 was the date of their wedding.

You said August 9th, 1997? Yeah. Okay. 1997. And so, okay. That was really the only question I had there. And then you're saying that there's speculation both from probably leaks within the police department and people that knew them that while Scott was still attending school, he must've probably met someone on campus or a local somewhere in that area where he was having relations with only within a year of marrying Lacey. So not a good start. Yes. The prosecution, they came right out and said it. They just didn't give super big specifics.

And it may have been that it was right before they'd gotten married so um i'll actually tell you the woman who came out and said it now once again the police and the prosecution haven't confirmed that this is the woman they're talking about but um hold on i have her name and while you're looking that up so i'm guessing they got married in August of 97. So it was late 97 or early 98 when the first alleged affair occurred. So she said she was 18 when she met Scott Peterson at Abba's Pacific Cafe, the same place that Lacey and Scott met. But apparently this woman, she said that they worked there together and her attraction to Scott Peterson was instant and mutual. She said her friends and family were also struck by the young, ambitious businessman so much that Putnam said her mother wanted her to marry Scott. She said, quote, My mother especially wanted me to marry him because he was a catch. He treated me like a queen. He was very romantic. He would send me flowers and roses and just say

the sweetest thing. He would literally take me to the beach and have a picnic set up on the sand, and he would feed me strawberries or fresh berries that he had picked with a nice wine or champagne. Wow. So this wasn't just sex? No. So she says after dating Scott for a year and a half, things took a turn in their relationship. He became what she described as a stay-at-home guy and lacked the ambition he once had. Putnam said she ended up breaking up with Scott.

One of the reasons why I didn't want to be with him was that he was a little more straight. Sometimes you just want to break free and dance until 2 a.m. and take a shot and he would not loosen up. He was a little uptight. When Putnam broke up with Scott, she recalled that he was pacing back and forth and upset, but within a week of their breakup, Scott seemed to have rebounded with Lacey Rocha, the woman he would ultimately marry and later kill, allegedly. Putnam recalled Lacey as angelic and said that Scott went out of his way to make sure she met his new woman face to face. It was mostly, hey Lacey, come into the restaurant so Lauren can see us,

she said. They sat in my section. I had to wait on them. Putnam believes Scott did it to make her jealous, but Putnam says the couple's appearance at the restaurant didn't make her resentful. So it looks like this was the woman he dated before Lacey, which resentful. So it looks like this was the woman he dated before Lacey, which is also important because it looks like she broke up with him because he kind of,

you know, lost that old glimmer. And then a week later, he's suddenly in this very like hot and heavy relationship with Lacey. And this woman thinks that he did it to make her jealous. All right. So I took it a little different. Maybe I misheard you. So I think it might be a different woman that they're talking about, but they've never released it. But it sounds like after they broke up, he proposed or got married shortly after. So it almost sounds like for the first two years while he was dating Lacey, he was also dating this woman.

And then I'm kind of reading between the lines here, but if, if I'm, if I'm hearing you right, he very shortly after he became official with Lacey, he's dating this woman as well. In the beginning, he was very, you know, lovey and all that stuff. He was able to pull it off. But again, it sounds like things started to get more serious with Lacey. He knew where it was going. So he became more reserved and pulled away from Miss Pundit here. Or Pundit, am I saying that right? Yeah, Pundit. Lauren Pundit. It almost sounds like he started pulling away consciously because he knew where

he was going with it and he wanted to break up with her as soon as possible to take the next step with Lacey. That's at least, it might not be the same girl, but am I reading that wrong? I think it's a different girl. She's saying that they dated for a little over a year. He was motivated. Her family loved him. And then all of a sudden he was just kind of like a shut in and he didn't want to do anything and he wasn't fun anymore. So she broke up with him. And then a week after she broke up with him, all of a sudden he's got this new, the shiny new girlfriend that he's like bringing into the restaurant, sitting in his ex-girlfriend section. She thinks he was trying to make her jealous.

Do you believe that this girl was before he ever started dating Lacey? Yeah. Okay. So you don't think that this was, he was cheating on her. You believe this is a girlfriend before Lacey came into the picture. And there's another girl that we don't know about that the prosecutors were referring to as the person he had an affair with. Yes. But a family member said that Scott

cheated on his wife at least four times with different women. One relative who does not believe that he's guilty of murder described him as a sex addict. They said, quote, he has a sexual problem and has a need to sleep with other women, end quote. So it looks like he's kind of had this thing where he's had affairs. The police and the prosecution mentioned that his first extramarital affair happened very shortly after he and Lacey got married. And it must have been somebody who was either at the college or in the area, but they haven't really been specific about who it was or how they know. Yeah. And then it would be nice to know, but at least we know there's something in knowing a little bit about this story without going into too much. This is very important. This is extremely important. If it's true. If it's true, if it's true, but I will say where there's smoke, there's fire. And if there's one accusation of it, you can kind of say, listen, you know, choose who

you want to believe. But when there's three, four incidences where they believe this occurred, um, I do think it starts to give more credence to it. Um, I kind of think about, uh, uh, what's the quarterback there, Watson from the, from the Texans right now, he's been accused of sexually assaulting a masseuse. Well, now from what I know, and I'm not keeping up on it, there's like 22 masseuses who have come forward and said he's had some type of similar situation with them. To me, we could do it on somewhere else, but it sounds like there's probably some truth

to what these women are saying, although there might be a couple sprinkled in there that are not telling the complete truth. There's probably some truth to what these women are saying. Although there might be a couple sprinkled in there that are not telling the complete truth, but I think 22 people saying a similar story, you start to believe what you're hearing. Um, but this is really interesting. And so we have a couple of girls in the mix here at this point, but the one that's important to me is the one where immediately after getting married, he's already cheating on Lacey allegedly. And, uh, that does show, does show some insight to the person he is and how he views Lacey and what he thinks he should be allowed to do or what he thinks he can get away with at minimum. Yeah. And it's possible that he was a sex addict. I don't think he's ever been diagnosed, but sex addicts, they don't think about it. Just like a regular addict,

you know, a drug addict, for instance, They chase their drug of choice and they know intuitively that somebody's going to be hurt, that their family's going to be hurt by this, etc., etc. But it comes second to what they need. It comes second to their drug of choice. And then afterwards, they feel guilty and it perpetuates that cycle of drug use. And sex addicts are very similar. They don't really think about the wife or the girlfriend or whatever that they're cheating on. They have to, you know, chase what they want first. And then later they feel guilty about it. And then they end up cheating again and having sex with somebody else to take away those feelings of guilt because they're pleasure seekers. It has something to do with a certain part of the brain, but it's possible he was, and he wouldn't have necessarily been doing it to manipulate Lacey or say, oh, I know what I can get away with. He wouldn't have really had a lot of control or a lot of say over the matter. Yeah. No, it could be something that was also

transactional. He just wanted to have sex with these women. There was no emotional connection, whatever the case may be. It's definitely important when we talk about down the road, what transpired, what are some of the allegations as far as the motive behind him possibly killing Lacey, very important stuff. So we will kind of beat this over and over into your heads because it's very important to take in all the facts. Again, a lot of it is subjective as far as, I don't know how much of it has been substantiated. I'm sure we'll get into that, but nevertheless, it's still important. And the more stories we hear about it, as I do believe there becomes some more credence to the idea that maybe some of it at least is true. And it's interesting to think about because if it's true that he was with one or two or three other women while he was married to Lacey, he never killed Lacey to get her out of the picture to be with one of these women.

So if that was his motive, like the prosecution said, what changed? Exactly. Absolutely. No, we're going to keep going, guys. We're going to get right into it. We have a little bit more to go. But before we do that, let's have our final break and we'll dive right back into it. After college, Lacey and Scott went into business together.

They were married. They wanted to own a business together. They bought an old bakery in a strip mall and they transformed it into The Shack. This was a burger place that they wanted to be the go-to place for the area's college students. Lacey decorated The Shack. She wanted it to have a cool but upscale vibe with signs made out of driftwood, a trash can made out of a wine barrel, and you know coastal elements like that. Now we were talking earlier about how Scott kind of anything he sets his mind to, he will do it. And there was an issue with like the ventilation system and they needed to have it up to code by the time the inspector came, but they couldn't find anyone to fix it.

So Scott actually like figured out how to do it himself by reading and researching. And he was able to get the ventilation system up to code before the inspection. Handy? Yes, he was. The shack did become a popular local hangout. It had a good food. There was a nice aesthetic and Lacey and Scott were warm, friendly and welcoming with their customers. Everything was going great. They were happy. The business was thriving. It was profitable, which is, if you're familiar with the restaurant business, which I am, because my dad's been in the restaurant business since 1991, most new restaurants, I think 95% of them fail within

the first year. So I guess his parents, Scott's parents, they were like, no, we didn't give him money for that because we thought it wasn't going to be successful. And this kind of gives you also an indication of how Scott's kind of like branching out and he's trying to do these things. But maybe his parents were like, oh, is this really a good idea? When he decided to study agricultural business, Lee Peterson made a comment to, I think, CNN where he was like, oh, I thought I was going to be, you know, the father of a jet setting, martini drinking, international business major, but I guess I'm going to be the father of like a pickup driving beer drinking agricultural major. So it's kind of these little passive aggressive digs. So Scott- Yeah, while he's watching Phil Mickelson on the tour. Right? Right? That must be a tough pill to swallow. I know. What a douche though. And so he says, we didn't give them money because he was asked,

Lee Peterson was asked, did you give your son startup money? He was like, no, he did it all himself because. And Lacey's family and friends, they were in Modesto. It was a smaller town that she knew. She felt comfortable there. She felt safe. And she knew that her children would have a support system there, people around who knew her and could babysit and just have people around that were familiar. Many have claimed that Scott did not want to sell the shack and he was in no rush to become a father. But either way, they purchased a three-bedroom, two-bathroom cottage bungalow located at 523 Covina Avenue in October of 2000. And Scott, he got a job working for a Spanish-based agricultural supply company called Tradecor, where he worked on salary plus

commission selling irrigation systems, fertilizer, and chemical nutrients. He was their West Coast representative, and his clients were big farmers and flower growers throughout California, Arizona, and New Mexico, so obviously his job did require him to travel quite a bit. Lacey began working as a substitute teacher, but she spent most of her free time turning their house into a home. She planted a flower garden, wanting to one day, you know, work with her own children in it, as she'd done with her own mother. She and Scott, they put a swimming pool in. Scott joined a local country club so he could play golf. He became the youngest member of the Modesto Rotary Club. And the couple were known for hosting parties at their home where Lacey played the effortless host and Scott played

the doting husband. They both loved to cook. They shared that in common. So they would like cook beautiful meals for their guests and, you know, the typical happy, perfect couple that everybody's seeing. But by 2002, Lacey was pregnant, and she immediately began decorating the nursery in a white and blue nautical theme for her son, Connor Peterson. Scott seemed to be genuinely excited for the birth of his child. He never said, oh, I'm not looking forward to this, although he did make some comments to family and friends that we will talk about next episode, where people were like, hmm, that's a weird take. But he was supportive. He attended prenatal Lamaze classes with Lacey. He was there for her. Now, while he showed this front, I guess,

of a husband who was madly in love with his wife as a man who was looking forward to becoming a father, no one really saw the cracks under the surface. When his wife was about seven months pregnant, Scott was introduced to a young woman from Fresno named Amber Frey. She was a massage therapist. She already had a child from a previous relationship. And when she and Scott began seeing each other, he failed to mention something very important, that he was already married and he and his wife were expecting a child. According to Amber, she had no idea that he was married. She had no idea that he had this whole separate and second life. And that brings us to the holiday season of 2002 and Christmas Eve,

the day that Lacey and Connor would vanish without a trace before turning up months later, washed up on the shore a mile apart from each other. And in the next episode, we're going to go over what happened that day, December 24th. We're going to talk about the timeline, which has definitely evolved and changed since I did my video about this in 2019. We're going to talk about what Scott says he was doing. And we're going to talk about multiple eyewitnesses who claim to have seen both Scott and Lacey throughout that fateful day. And the timeline is incredibly important on this day. It's kind of the crux of everything because his attorneys are

saying, well, if it's true that this person saw Lacey at this time or this person saw Lacey's dog Mackenzie at this time, then it's not possible that Scott could have done this. So the timeline is essential. And it is really like building on the foundation of what we've already talked about to to try to figure out if it's even possible that Scott was there and could have done this to Lacey. Question. So when Scott met Amber Frey for the first time, you said that Lacey was seven months pregnant at the time. Yes. OK. And so how many months pregnant was she when she vanished? Eight months pregnant. So this was a month after meeting Amber?

Yeah. Okay. So I just want to make sure I have that. So a month after meeting Amber and not telling her about, you know, you know, Lacey, his background, that he had a child on the way. My initial thought just from hearing that is that I'm assuming that this relationship between him and Amber was more than just a one night hookup. So there was clearly feelings there. And I think it's reasonable to assume that part of the reason he didn't tell Amber about,

this is one for the sex, let's just call it surface level. He wanted to have sex with her, but also because he wanted to pursue a relationship with her. And he was trying to, again, have this relationship with Amber because without, you know, filling in on Lacey, because maybe he felt like if he told Amber, Amber being the person that she was, maybe she would have ended it and he didn't want that. So that's interesting. A month after the meeting of, of Amber, Lacey goes missing on Christmas Eve. She was eight months pregnant. Yeah, the affair with Amber, the conversations that he had with Amber after Lacey went missing. It's the one thing that keeps coming back to me where I'm like, how innocent can this guy be? Because he was manipulative and he was just next level kind of like gaslighting both Lacey and Amber. And it's almost hard to believe that somebody could do that to somebody.

We'll talk about it, but there's times when he calls her and he's like, oh, I'm in Paris. But he wasn't. He was at like this memorial service for Lacey and Connor when they were still missing. And he eventually brings up the fact like, oh, yeah, like my my wife is missing. And she's like, what? And it's just crazy the way that he sort of reveals this stuff to her and then kind of expects her to be like oh that makes sense you know right it doesn't make sense like nobody nobody would i mean amber and scott were having dinner together he had met her daughter you know he had cooked dinner for her and her daughter they were going to christmas

parties together the month that lacy went missing there's a picture of Amber and Scott. Like, she's sitting in his lap. They're at a Christmas party. People knew that they were together. This wasn't a relationship that he was trying to hide. This wasn't something that he was keeping behind closed doors. It's just very odd that he would do this. And it does make you wonder if he's had affairs before and and never gotten you know done away with his wife was it because lacy was pregnant did he think

that once that child came things would be a little stricter like lacy would maybe start asking him where are you or why aren't you home more i don't want you working late or i don't want you traveling they maybe even had a conversation where lacy said know, I don't like this job that you have because you're traveling a lot. And he may have been using his job of traveling a lot as an excuse to see Amber telling Lacey, oh, I'm going to be in Arizona this weekend. But really, he was with Amber. So if Lacey saying we're going to be parents and I would like you to be home to raise your son so that he knows you. So I would like you to start looking for a new job. He may have felt that those reins tightening and he would like you to be home to raise your son so that he knows you. So I would like you to start looking for a new job. He may have felt that those reins tightening

and he's like, it's gonna be a lot harder for me to carry on this separate life if I have to quit my job that kind of allows me to be more on the down low and not have to account for my whereabouts. So was it the fact that he was gonna have a baby that kind of caused him to snap and want to get rid of them both? I don't know.

Why not just get a divorce? Yeah. I mean, that's the simple answer, right? Like, that's what you should do. If you're not in love with Lacey anymore, regardless of whether there's a child on the way or not, get divorced. But, you know, this goes back to what you were talking about earlier about these alleged affairs that happened before Amber and why they're so important. And unfortunately, maybe we won't be willing to bet that if they're true, he had an MO for the backstory he would give, for the way he would treat them, how he would do things, how he would have them call him, how he would call them, how he would phrase things. I'm

sure if those four women, if they're all real, if how they got together, they would have similar stories to tell like, Hey, he did the same thing with me. I wonder if it was different with Amber. What I'm getting at here is with these first three or four girls, whatever it was, was it more superficial where, Oh, we would have sex for a weekend. And then I wouldn't hear from him for a week. And, you know, he, he was very passive. He didn't really speak to me a lot. I never thought it was going to be serious where we find out with Amber, all these things that you've already talked about. He, in his mind was potentially in love with Amber and to everything you just said, if he's in love with this woman

and he wants a future with her, it would clearly make it very difficult to live out that fantasy of his having a wife and a newborn son. And if he had respect for Amber and Amber had respect for herself, more than likely once he told her, hey, this entire time I've been seeing you, I've actually been married with a son on the way. Amber probably would have told him to kick rocks. Exactly. So he was looking for a way to kind of transfer from Lacey to Amber smoothly, which there is no smooth way, spoiler alert. But he was probably, if he did do this, and I'm sure this is the thought of many people out there,

he was trying to find a way to transition from Lacey and Connor to Amber and her daughter in the smoothest way possible without confirming that he was having an affair with Amber. He was going to manipulate it somehow. Or without confirming to Amber that he'd ever been married, right? Because even if he gets divorced, now you have an ex-wife and child out there who are still going to want things from you. And Amber's going to find out that they existed to begin with and know that he was lying to her. And yeah, you're right. I think she was the type who would have been like, I can't continue our relationship when it's built on lies at this point.

Like the first thing you did was lie to me. Yeah. And just from the surface, from what you've explained to all of us so far, my initial thought is it's going to be very hard to explain that he's been seeing another woman and kind of present his story, his version of the truth. If Lacey's still alive, because if Lacey's still alive, she's going to be able to contradict what Scott is telling Amber. The only way to only have his narrative be the only narrative that Amber gets is to make sure Lacey's out of the picture. I'm not saying I'm going there, but just at this point in our

story, that's my initial thought. Hey, you're having an affair. You're in love with this woman. You want to start a new life with her. You need to be in control of the narrative. There are a few people who could derail that narrative, one of them being Lacey. So you have to tie up that loose end before pursuing anything further. And I'm sure, again, we're going to get into it, but that's a pretty strong motive. When you think about the timing, I could see how police would look at this and think it's very valuable as they develop their investigation and the direction they end up taking it. Absolutely. So I actually can't wait until next week when we dive deeper into this and go into the timeline. But I think that's all we have for today.

Do you want to talk about merch? We got a few things to talk about. So we want to talk about merch. And I have a thing that I saw on TikTok today that I want to hit you and I want to hit all of you out there with. It's kind of a lighter note, but I want to hit you with it because I thought it was kind of funny. But do you want to do merch first? Yeah. So we're actually releasing new merch. We're releasing the undercover pineapple design,

and we'll have John put it up here on the screen so you guys can see it. And we're releasing the Crime Weekly logo, which won't have the Day Wanderers on it, but still the Crime Weekly logo. So it's cool. And it looks really great. And we have them on all different colors now. You're not just stuck with white. We have them in all different styles. We've got hoodies. We've got baseball tees that Derek made me put in there because he was like, baseball tees are awesome. And I actually ordered one. I ordered a baseball tee, a Crime Weekly baseball tee. So. shout out to Amber. I won't say her last name in case she doesn't want it. If she does, I'll say it next episode. But Amber was the one who you guys had a ton of great designs. The undercover pineapple designs were great.

I posted the majority of them. Amber came up with an initial design. It was almost spot on. Stephanie and I saw and we're like, that's the one. And we went back to her. We added some things to it. We added, as you can see in the photo, we added the Crime Weekly logo to the, what do you call those jackets? Like the bomber jackets? Trench coats. The trench coats they're wearing. Yeah, the bomber jackets.

I don't know. What are they? Is it a Top Gun? Yeah. So they're wearing the trench coats where they have like the Crime Weekly logo. We really like it. There was actually only a male version of the pineapple. And we were like, nah, we need the female version to make it look like Stephanie.

So it was really cool. Thank you, Stephanie, for that. No, thank you, Amber. Not Scott Peterson's Amber either, okay? Yeah. It's not the same. Complete coincidence. So we have that.

And as far as where it's going to be linked, you can find the link to where to buy this product. By the way, international shipping. That was the main reason, right? Yes, much better international shipping rates. Much better international shipping. You guys can let us know about the quality. Amber's been using Bonfire for years. Stephanie.

I'm confusing the names with them right now. I feel a little offended that you're just interchanging my name. I'm interchanging them. With the only other woman you're talking about. Sounds like I'm at a Hooters right now. Amber, Stephanie. No. So, you know, Stephanie had just, you know, said it, she's been using Bonfire for years. So we're very confident. It's going to be good. They've been great to work with, but the description you'll be able to find the link to that.

Hopefully it's on our website, but either way, right in the description below, you can click on it. It'll bring you right to the page where you can purchase whatever you want. And we're really excited for you guys to get it. We just, we don't, we haven't even got our own stuff yet or we'd be wearing it right now. Yeah. I've used bonfire on YouTube forever. I know the quality is great. I know the shirts feel so good. They're so soft. The hoodies are nice and thick, but not too thick where you feel like you're just going to sway your ass off. They're, they're great. We got long sleeve shirts, get tank tops. We got a short sleeve shirts t-shirts racer backs yeah we even got a couple kids shirts on there because you know why not tell them tell them tell them we tell them everything tell them the story behind

we were picking all the colors and everything and then derek was like well my daughters want like this crime weekly you're like i'm not gonna do i'm not gonna do a t-shirt with a kid with an undercover pineapple we already they already think that means we're swingers yeah well i was like this is awkward i feel like it's like just sending these kids out into the world to be like bait for pedophiles like oh look at that kid wearing an undercover pineapple shirt hmm that's the one i just don't like yeah i don't like it but i mean tenly loved it she was like oh i want the pink one peyton was like i want teal and you're like all right we'll throw it on all right we'll do it we'll see how they go i think

i i'm definitely getting for the kid the as you saw in the photo and you'll see it on the site the the pineapples are really like cartoony they're they're really cool we're reclaiming the pineapple the undercover pineapple okay it's no longer mean swingers you guys need to come up with something else it's now a crime weekly thing, point blank period. That's it. Hey, shout out to the person. I put it in the background because you guys always talk about my background. I saw one comment in all the videos since I've had it. I got a pineapple. Is that a pineapple in the back? Yes. Somebody said it last video.

Yep. Somebody saw it. I'm like, wow. I was like, nobody mentioned the pineapple. And then sure enough, I was going through the comments and they were like, is that a pineapple in the background? I was like, love you. An undercover pineapple. It's undercover apparently because nobody saw it. I thought it was pretty obvious, but I guess not. But that was really, I want to hit you with this TikTok thing and then we can go.

Probably people already logged off or whatever, but we're having fun here. So we'll keep going. So I saw this TikTok today and this is for everyone and it's probably not scientific or anything, but I thought it was, I want to, it was enlightening. So this TikTok, the scenario I'm going to give you may suggest that you might be a psychopath. Me in person, like me personally? You and everybody who's about to get this scenario and how you answer it could suggest that you might be a psychopath. All right. So here it is. You're in your apartment and you're it's, you know, right across from your apartment complex. There's another apartment complex across the way. And you can actually see into one of the apartments across the way. And one night while you're in your apartment, you look over and you see the person who lives there being murdered by someone, by some guy. And as this person's being brutally murdered, the murderer looks over directly right in your eyes at you and sees you staring at them. So the person, this murderer turns towards you and immediately starts pointing

down to up as you're standing there. What's he doing? He's pointing down to up. Yep. As he's pointing at you. What's he doing? You got to answer it fairly quickly or because if you take too much time, but everyone out there, pause it, put in the comments what he's doing. If you answer this it might mean you're a psychopath if you answer it correctly you mean yeah and this isn't there's a lot of truth to this i don't think there's any scientific value i have no idea what he would i couldn't figure it out can you do the hand motion again so i can see he's he's going like this

now you don't he's going like this yes no he went like this he's going like this? Yes. No, he went like this. He's going like this. Down to up. What's he doing? You ready for it? Yeah. He's counting the floors below you to see where you are. Holy. That's terrifying. Right?

I was like, when they did the TikTok, when they did it, they're going down to up one, two, three, four, counting what floor you're on. Right? I was like, when they did the TikTok, when they did it, they're going down top one, two, three, four, counting what floor you're on. Right? Damn. But then when you have to count side to side to figure out like which apartment you are. I mean, it's a TikTok, Stephanie. I mean, it's a TikTok. But anyways, I saw that today.

I was like, I got to tell Stephanie tonight on the show. Well, I guess I'm not a psychopath. Probably a sociopath, not a psychopath. Hey, it's a good answer. It's the fact that if you would have like rolled it off, he's counting the floors i would have said oh all right all right well that's it for this week no that's all i got though i wonder if anyone in the comments writes that cleanly without it i mean maybe something to look into the fact that that's your first like oh counting the floors so you can go kill her next damn i wish i'd answered it now like

it's a good one yeah it's good it's. I don't even know who the TikToker was or I'd give him credit. I'm so sorry. I was just kind of scrolling through and that popped up and I was like, true crime, got to go with this one. But that was all I had. Something a little funny note to end it on,

but I'm really excited about the series. We don't know because we haven't done it. What are you thinking? At least three parts for this. At least, yeah. Right? If we're really diving into it, at least three. Yeah, probably four.

Okay. And maybe not too many insights from, maybe one or two from our audience for the next episode, because there's not a lot of investigatory stuff here. We're just building the baseline. Yeah, well, we'll see what they come up with. We'll see. Yeah, of course. Of course. I'm looking forward to it, because with the Asia degree case, people were putting stuff in the comments and I was like, yes, that's a good point.

Like, I swear you guys come up with the best things that I've never thought about or I've never heard. But once you say them, I'm like, yes, that is possible. Or yes, that is a good point. Great insights. And so I'm just really looking forward to see how we we go forward and do this together. And I can't wait likewise all right we will see you guys next week bye later you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you Thank you.