Crime Weekly - S1 Ep42: The Murder of Laci Peterson: Christmas Eve (Part 3)

Episode Date: September 24, 2021

Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop 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.  Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod

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This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur. So today we're picking up with part three of the Scott Peterson case. We have a lot to cover today. But, you know, I really want to talk about the prosecution's case against Scott Peterson and the theory that they put forth. They said the motive for Scott killing his pregnant wife was so that he could be with his new girlfriend, Amber Frye. But what the prosecution did not have, and you talk about this all the time, Derek, is means motive opportunity. They thought they had the motive, but they never had the means. They could never quite put their finger on how he had done it, where he had done it, because as

we'll find probably in the next episode when we talk about their actual investigation, they didn't find any sign of a struggle in the house. There was no blood. There was no sign that a crime scene had happened. So they never really actually had a crime scene. And as we go over the timeline of Christmas Eve in today's episode, we're going to talk about and highlight the times that it seems law enforcement overlooked certain pieces of evidence that may have supported Scott's story. We're also going to point out incidences of the media printing false information about this case. And both of these things are important because at the end of the day, whether they were right or wrong about Scott Peterson's guilt, the police focused in on Scott almost exclusively as the perpetrator of this crime. And the media, they were more focused, as they always are,

on sizzling headlines than they were on the truth. So if you want somebody to blame and you want to ask, why is Scott Peterson going to get a new trial? You can look at the media partially for this because they printed a lot of things that were not true. And in the end, whether we want to accept it or not, it does taint a jury pool, right? Especially in a place like Modesto, even though the trial was moved, it was moved, I believe, a couple of towns over. So it's not like it was moved to a different state. It wasn't

moved very far. Everybody in this area of California knew what was happening. Scott's face was on the front of every paper. Wife murderer, this, this and that on all these papers. He was truly tried in the court of public opinion. And once again, not saying he's innocent, but I'm saying if he gets a new trial, this is partially why. Yeah, you ain't wrong. You know, we always want to have when these cases come up where you don't know exactly what happened, you want to involve the public. And this kind of goes back maybe a deeper discussion for a different day. on it, if there is eventually a trial, how that public information that was shared by law enforcement or was slightly shared by law enforcement and then embellished by the

media can actually come back to hurt them. And to what you said earlier, I always like to quote my favorite actor of all time, Denzel Washington, training day. That's my favorite actor of all time. One more thing that you and I have in common that's even more weird but that said what's his line it's not what you know it's what you can prove and that and it sounds like oh that's just a really cool movie no it's the truth because you can you can have an opinion as a police officer of what happened and you know think you have it all worked. But if you're missing a small block that connects two different dots, that's the dot that the, that's the line that the judge,

the jury is going to be looking for. And if you don't have that information by the eyes of the law, it's not proof beyond a reasonable doubt. You can't prove how they did it. And therefore they would go free. And that's where a lot of people who think Scott is innocent, they kind of fall back on saying, you know, we get it. He, you know, he was doing some shady stuff, but there was really nothing tangible that showed us how he conducted, how he carried out this murder. So, and that's why you and I are here today and we're covering it again as many others have kind of differently, but this is what makes this case so polarizing.

Yeah. And I really look at this case and I know how gung ho that jury was. You know, when Scott Peterson, when the verdict was read and it was guilty, you could hear cheers ringing through the streets, people waiting outside the courtroom, completely silent, waiting outside the courthouse, outside, completely silent. And that verdict came through guilty. Everybody started cheering. And I get it, but it was also very morose in a way. And when you look at it, the cops that were on this case, they did some things that I personally think were unethical. And I think that you will think that too. And when it was posed to the jury, it was almost as if at that point, the jury was like,

well, we don't really care that they did this thing unethical because he's guilty. We know it. And the cops are just trying to put him away. So if they did this unethical thing to put him away, it was just a means to an end. That was almost the attitude by the time this went to trial. Yeah, that's unfortunate. You can't have it going down that way. And there are times where you have cops who are like, hey, listen, sometimes you got to skirt the line in order to get to where you need to get to. And that's the name of the game. But the reality is, if they're skirting the line and they're filling in the blanks or doing things they shouldn't be doing, there's a potential that they're wrong. And that's not the oath that we take when we become police officers.

And although, and again, I'm not justifying this, so don't come for me. Some officers do really bad things because they think what they're doing is right. Right. And that's human nature, right? Yeah, they're doing it. They found a way to justify it where they're like, listen, I don't have enough, but this guy's a really bad guy and I'm going to get him off the street for everybody else. Yeah. It's just not the way it's supposed to be done.

Yeah. It's that simple. You may be a person, not you, Derek, but somebody listening may say, well, I get it. I understand he's a bad guy. He should go away. But you would feel differently if it was your brother or your father or your son. So we have to always look at not only these victims, but everybody involved in these cases. How would I want this person to be handled if they were a loved one of mine? I would want them to have a fair trial. I would

want them to get their day in court. And I would want the police not to be overlooking things and leaving things out and flat out making things up at times to make sure that they go to prison. I want them to have a fair trial. That's what this country was built on. Nailed it. Yeah, that's it. Well, before we talk about Christmas Eve 2002, I do want to talk about some important points that we've touched on in the past two episodes, but we really didn't have time to go deep into them. First is the question of whether or not Scott was looking forward to becoming a father or if it was something he was dreading. Because if we believe the prosecution, he did not want to have a baby with Lacey or, I mean, according to Amber Frye, anyone else.

He didn't even want to have a baby with her. Secondly, we're going to talk about the other women that Scott was allegedly having relationships with after he and Lacey were man and wife. So many of Lacey's family members came forward after she disappeared, and they claimed that Scott was dreading becoming a father. He did not seem super pumped about it. Scott's sister-in-law, Rosemary Rocha, this is the wife of Lacey's younger brother, Brent, she testified during the trial that Lacey had been trying to get pregnant for a while. And once it happened, she was obviously very excited. But when Rosemarie asked Scott if he was ready for it, you know, she's like, you ready to be a dad? He looked at her very seriously

without even the hint of a smile. And he said, quote, I was kind of hoping for infertility, end quote. Gwendolyn Kemple, this is Lacey's cousin, she testified that when she talked to Scott six weeks before his wife disappeared about the fact that he was going to have a son, she mentioned, you know, it's going to be fun. You can throw the football around with your boy. And Kemple said Scott was dismissive and told her that he didn't play football. Gwendolyn Kemple, she kind of pushed it and she was like, oh, what about baseball? You know, you can throw baseball around with him. And Scott responded, quote, what about baseball? You know, you can throw a baseball around with him. And Scott responded, quote, I have friends to do that, end quote.

After Gwendolyn testified, by the way, she also got into it with Scott's father, Lee Peterson. There was like a break in the morning session. So she testified. They took a break and she was going to testify when she came back. And apparently Lee was walking by Gwen and he was like kind of smiling at her as he walked by. And so she was like, what are you grinning about? And he was like, what? I can't grin. And then she responded, you always walk by with a smile on your face.

And Lee Peterson shot back. I guess you can't grin in this courthouse before walking away. Like, what a douchebag. You can't. You shouldn't be grinning in this courthouse, Lee Peterson. You shouldn't. Yeah. Your grandson and your daughter-in-law are dead.

Yeah. What's the smile about? What do you have to smile about? Exactly. But I liked that Gwen called him out. She probably sat there looking at his smug face for days on end in this courtroom, and she finally just couldn't take it anymore. She's like, what are you grinning about over there?

I can visualize it. I've been in courtrooms where stuff like this has happened. It's not uncommon. Yeah. Well, a friend of Lacey's, her name's Kim McNeely. She told police that when Lacey first found out she was pregnant, she couldn't wait to tell Scott. But later, Lacey reported that when she did tell her husband that they were going to have a baby, he was so hungover from a party the night before that he did not want to be bothered with this news. Not long after, Lacey expressed her dismay to Kim that Scott had not done anything to make sure that health insurance related to Lacey being pregnant was in effect. So when you get pregnant, you're supposed to tell your insurance company this.

Like they're supposed to prepare for it because it is a big expense. But he did not do that, even though Lacey had stressed to him how important it was because she was really into the details. Scott was out of town when Lacey discovered that he hadn't done this insurance change and a friend who was with Lacey at the time remembered her basically telling Scott off over the phone, accusing him of not caring for her or their child. Later, when it was time for the sonogram, Scott insisted that Lacey get a 3D sonogram. So I don't know if you guys are aware, but there's different sorts of sonograms. The 3D one is kind of creepy, actually. It looks really weird. It looks like a melted waxy. It's creepy. I don't like it, but it's supposed to be a more

three-dimensional picture of your child. It just looks like a wax figure that melted. It really creeps me out. But a friend of Lacey said, quote, it seemed he wanted to make absolutely sure there was no chance of the child having birth defects, and he'd made it clear he would consider an abortion if that happened. Now, none of Lacey's closest friends believed for a second that abortion would be something she would have wanted or even would have considered. So they saw this as evidence that maybe Scott was looking for an out. Additionally, when Lacey was just two months pregnant, Scott had a conversation with a friend of his who had just become a father. Apparently, Scott asked this friend about, you know, sex, like, what's your sex life like after your wife gives birth? And the

friend responded, you know, it's going to be some time before Lacey's able to have sex again. So doctors generally recommend waiting to have sex for at least four to six weeks after giving birth, regardless of the delivery method. And Scott's friend also said, like, something that kind of makes him a dick, but he was like, dude, it's never going to be the same. So apparently, according to this friend, Scott seemed very concerned that the frequency and quality of sex with his wife was going to change after she became a mother. And just nine days before Lacey went missing, Sharon Rocha paid the Petersons a visit at their home. Sharon's Lacey's mother. This is the last time she actually saw Lacey alive. It's the last time she was with her in person before she died. And Sharon was, you know, sitting with Lacey on the couch and

she was listening to Lacey's stomach, trying to see if she could hear the baby or feel baby Connor. And as she was doing this, Lacey made a comment that Scott never wanted to hear or feel the baby. She said she would put his hand on her stomach for a moment, but he wouldn't even wait long enough to feel Connor moving before he took his hand off. She said the baby was kicking, so I put my hand on her stomach because I'd never felt him kick. But she leaned over to me and she said, Mom, she said, Scott doesn't like to do this. She said, I asked him to feel my stomach when the baby kicks and he never wants to touch my stomach. That really, really bothered me. And that was the last time I saw her.

Yeah, all of this is really enlightening. We had heard about Scott from some people who said he was really excited about Connor. He was, you know, painting the room and all these things. But we're hearing from a lot more people, again, that have no skin in the game, saying he wasn't really excited about it, including from Lacey Peterson, not directly, but indirectly through Sharon. And I do think there's, you definitely have to take that into consideration again, when we're talking about motive, I don't care about him as a father or husband. Is he capable of murder? Did he have

a reason for wanting to kill Lacey? And the more and more people that come forward and talk about how he was conducting himself in a way that is not normal for an expecting father, especially his first child, the things he was doing, including not wanting to touch his wife's stomach, hear the baby, what really bothered me were the conversations about playing catch and stuff. I would never think that you would say, I have friends for that. That's crazy. So I don't care if he's a good person or a bad person. I'm looking at it from a detective's perspective. Again, this man has been accused of killing his wife, his pregnant wife. This information right here is extremely valuable when looking through that lens because all it really says to me is motive, motive, motive, motive. That's all I'm picking up from it. Well, additionally, Connor Peterson's due date was February 10th. And this happens to be the same day that Scott's girlfriend, Amber,

would be celebrating her 28th birthday. So her birthday was the same day as Connor's due date. Scott had told Lacey he was going to be out of town in Europe for business, when in reality, he was going to be with Amber, celebrating her birthday with her. So knowing that his son was going to probably be born around this time, Scott still made the decision to spend it with his girlfriend instead of being with his wife during labor or, you know, being with her in those last days when she could go into labor at any time. Lacey later told friends on December 7th that after arguing and begging, she had convinced Scott to cancel the trip, but she was still hurt that he even considered going. I can't even, I would lose my mind.

If it's like my due date and you're like, I'm going to be out of town for work, not only that, but you're really going to be with another woman when I'm about to give birth to our first child. I would have lost my mind. Yeah. Again, it's not in good taste at minimum, but considering the circumstances of why we're here, really not good when you're thinking about him as a potential suspect and what his reasoning again would be for carrying out this heinous act. All of these things right here, being willing to go to another country with another woman, he clearly didn't have much respect or love for Lacey. And you could also assume for Connor as well.

Yeah, it doesn't seem that he cared about Connor at all. And yeah, he did the baby room, but- That doesn't mean nothing to me. That's a nothing burger. I know you love when I say that. It's a nothing burger. That's not because he wanted to it's him because it was a responsibility he had to right so to me you know that in and of itself doesn't mean like oh he yeah he threw some

paint on the wall you know do it doesn't that doesn't impress me now modesto police detectives also discovered that besides amber scott had cheated on Lacey with at least two different women. Some sources say up to six, but they haven't been able to prove or name all of these women. And Scott hadn't told either of these women that he was married. Both of these women were college classmates of Scott. So this was after Lacey had graduated and Scott was still in college. And one of them found out that he was married when she walked in on Scott and Lacey in bed together. So we have to assume then that Lacey also found out, right? That Scott was with another woman at this point. That's interesting. Again, these are things I'm hearing for the first time. That's really interesting. So he had been caught before. He had been caught before. So been caught before so it wouldn't be

i mean is it possible and maybe you're gonna hit on this as we go but i wonder if during this relationship with amber lacy might have already been onto it slightly i don't know if you're gonna go there he claims that she knew he scott is gonna later claim as we get into it that she was aware that he was seeing another woman okay and we're supposed to believe that the way you're telling me that. There's evidence that she did know. Really? Wow. Okay. Are we getting into that tonight? Maybe. Or is that like later?

Maybe. Okay. All right. All right. All right. I sound like the listeners now. I'm like all excited. It's crazy. It's absolutely crazy. This is why we're doing it. I know, again, not to get off the beaten path, some people get offended that I haven't researched, first and foremost, to clear the deck. I've definitely read about the case. I'm not. I've read about the case.

I know the players, all that stuff. But we're trying to change it up a little bit so that I'm reacting the same way you guys are. If we find out we don't like this, I won't do it in the future. But I thought it would be cool. I kind of like it too. It's fun. But some people are, oh, poor Stephanie. You do all the research. Don't poor Stephanie because every time I say something shocking in Derek's face, it's just all of the payoff that I need. He's like, what? You got me there. You got me there. Okay. But I digress. That was really it. Do you think? So while Scott's going to college, right? He worked at the Morro Bay Golf Club and a coworker You got me there. Okay. But I digress. That was really it. You know, do you think? So while Scott's going to college, right?

He worked at the Morro Bay Golf Club and a coworker of Scott's at this golf club claimed that Scott was a brazen womanizer who would pick up a girl at the drop of a hat. He said it was common knowledge that Scott was married, but it was also common knowledge that he was having multiple affairs like at once. The source said quote when lacy was around he would act madly in love with her so attentive and lovey-dovey but when she was out of sight no girl was safe from scott's advances he was such a jerk he had a huge ego and he loved no one but himself end quote damn so we're establishing what we've kind of already learned which is yeah he was a womanizer he was having sex with multiple women've kind of already learned, which is, yeah, he was a womanizer. He was having sex with multiple women. We kind of touched on it last week where it's like sex addict,

love addict, little bit of both, all these different things, the thrill of the chase, so to speak. And I think validation for him too. Validation's a big one. I agree with you. He wanted to at least prove that he could still- He still got it. He still got it. That's the best way of saying it. He still got it. I'm still, even though I'm kind of, you know, got the ball and chain on, I can still have any woman I want. That's, I think, I think validation is the perfect way to describe Scott Peterson. Before we keep going, let's take a quick break. Did you know that many products for pregnant women do not have their own clinical trials for safety or efficacy? That's because pregnant women are often excluded from clinical studies.

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and I don't think it was just validation for himself because it didn't seem like he hit these affairs, right? It didn't seem like he was on the down low about it. His coworker said it was common knowledge. He was this just brazen womanizer. So it's almost like he wanted props from the people around him. Like, yeah, I know you're married, but you can also sleep with as many women as you want, like high fives, locker room kind of thing. But I do find that even a lot of men are turned off by that kind of like, I don't know, brazen, that word is good, that brazen sort of like just degenerateness, right? Yeah. No, there's a, it's a slippery slope because I've definitely been in situations where you have guys who anytime they're out, they're always looking for the bigger and better thing. And then I've had other guys that, you know, might be talking to maybe two women at the same time, things like that. And it's, you know, depending on how you're brought up, depending on where you're from, you are going to have an

opinion on it. That's not what we're here for. But it does seem like this behavior, this pattern is something bigger than just, you know, being a guy who, you know, has a hard sex drive or like a big sex drive. Right. There's more to it. This guy is like over and it's from so many different people now, coworkers, friends, family, it's so many different people. And it almost seems like this is an excuse by any means, like a sickness. He can't help himself. Right. He literally can't help himself. And he's definitely not socially aware that people are picking up on it around him, that he's a scumbag. You know what I mean? He's, he thinks he's the coolest cat on the golf course. Yeah. He thinks that they're all like, they're all like, Oh Scott, that's Scott Peterson. He's got it all, man. He's a stud. Yeah. You know, that person, many women where it's like, they're telling a joke or something or at a party and like, they're completely not aware of their surroundings and that everyone thinks they're a fool, but in their mind, they're like the life of the party. Are you talking about me right now?

No, I haven't been at a party with you yet like that. No, no, but you know what I mean? Like, they're like, dude, this person is so unselfaware of like they look like an idiot. But like in their mind, they're like, I am owning this place right now. It's like Michael Scott. It's like the forever Michael Scott. Yes. Michael Scott. No, he's that guy.

He's that guy. He thinks he's like the cat's meow. Like all the girls want him. They're fawning over him. All the guys want to be him. Yep. And in reality, the women are making fun of him and the guys are looking at him like, dude, you're a clown.

Yeah. It's one thing if you want to have affairs, but to openly brag about it, you look bad. You look bad. And to think you're so smooth that nobody's connecting the dots. I'm doing it to all these women and they have no idea. Yeah. And they're like, dude, come on. That's Scotterson for you but later after

lacy went missing and before scott was arrested he appeared on good morning america and he admitted you know he was like yes i've been having an affair with amber fry but lacy knew all about it and we never argued about my infidelity a family insider claimed that a few days before Christmas Eve, Lacey found a picture of Scott and Amber. Lacey told friends that she felt it was almost as if Scott had wanted her to find this picture. But with Christmas coming up right around the corner, Lacey kept it to herself, not wanting her family to find out about Scott's extracurricular activities because she didn't want to ruin Christmas for them. This insider also claimed that Scott was a hard person to live with. He was demanding and self-centered, and he believed his wife should wait on him hand and foot. They said he treated

Lacey like a servant and would get upset if he came home and dinner wasn't ready. The source said, quote, at the beginning, Lacey was so happy about the pregnancy. She beamed with delight, determined to be the best mother any woman could be. But as months passed, Lacey was becoming increasingly unsure that she would be a great mother. But she was always the optimist, and she put up with the abuse because she hoped it would all change. She wanted her child, and she wanted to believe that their marriage would get stronger and the abuse would pass. It never did. End quote.

So something that we need to know about Lacey, which we haven't touched on before, is before she met Scott, she was in a long term relationship with a man. I believe it was about two years that they were together. They lived together and it turned out he was abusive. He was physically and emotionally abusive. So I'm not going to say that it's a pattern because I don't know if Scott was physically and emotionally abusive. We can't believe everything this unnamed insider says. They could be making it up and that's why they don't give their name. But at the end of the day, I think somebody like Lacey is going to look around and say, listen, I have a child in me right now. We have this beautiful house that we created together. Yes, he may be

stepping out on me, but maybe this is just a phase. Maybe this is something guys go through when they're about to have a kid and it's like a midlife crisis and he just needs to get out of his system. I think I can bring him back. We can still have this family that I've always dreamed of. And that's potentially what happened here. However, I wonder if she didn't confront him about this, maybe on Christmas Eve, right? Because Scott says they never argued about the infidelity, which I find hard to believe. I can't imagine that Lacey was just like, yeah, you're cheating on me. But you know what? When you get out of your system, you'll be back. So you just do you, boo. Right. I have to imagine that they argued about it and she expressed her distaste for this whole situation. And maybe on Christmas Eve, she just had enough. And she was

like, you got to choose. It's me or her. At this point, I'm done with this. And maybe then he snapped. Yeah. I'm glad you brought that up because I said earlier, oh, we're supposed to just believe that Lacey knew about this. And I guess I should clarify and say maybe she knew of it. She wasn't accepting of it. Okay. It wasn't a position where Scott was openly having this affair with this other woman or having this relationship with this other woman and Lacey was on board with it. I think that narrative, I don't buy it one bit. I wanted to ask you because as a woman with children, you're married, you know, I don't

love the insider source as the family, that person, because I mean, anybody can do that, right? I mean, it could be somebody that's Scott's family for all we know, but I do find it pretty interesting that there's another woman that Scott had an affair with who was saying, Hey, listen, I don't know what you've heard, but I can tell you that I walked in on it, you know, and you know, Lacey was there. I have no skin in the game. I'm telling you, she was definitely aware of that situation. So, you know, you know, let's say once a cheater always a cheater like it's one of those things where lacy knew what she was dealing with it and you kind of

just hit on this so you think that although lacy knew there might be something going on behind the scenes maybe before in the beginning whatever he was going through a phase she felt that this pregnancy was a good thing because maybe it would have him settle down. Like maybe this would be the thing where he said, okay, I have to get my shit together. Is that, do you think that's part of, could he have resented her for that? Maybe thinking she was trying to lock me down by having this kid? He's locked down. She's having the kid. You know, he was locked down before he even started the affair with Amber.

So I can't imagine that he would think that. You mean initially? No, because they had decided together that they were going to have this was this was a planned pregnancy. Yeah, they were trying for months. OK, OK. So I think he you know, there's been people who say Lacey wore the pants. Scott went along with whatever she wanted. Happy wife, happy life. There may have been a point where he became resentful of that but if you if you believe what this insider is saying she found out about well she found this picture of scott and amber very shortly before she went missing okay she didn't want to do anything

about it because it was christmas so obviously she's not going to tell her mother she's not going to tell her stepfather it's going to like put a cast over over the holidays so i i think that what happened was she probably asked scott about the picture and he made something up like oh no that's a co-worker blah blah blah but as she's thinking about it more she's like you know gut instinct i know this isn't a co-worker you know she's in your lap you're wearing a christmas hat that means this was recently is that where you were when i was alone at this party and she's getting more and more pissed off about it as she's thinking about it maybe on christmas eve he's's like, oh, I'm going to go fishing. I'm going to

go golfing. And she's like, or are you going to go meet your girlfriend? And then things spiral out of control. Right. She was trying to maybe bite her tongue for a little bit and then was like, nope, nope, can't do it. Yeah. She was probably like, let me actually think about this. Maybe it is what he says. But as she's thinking about it, she's realizing more and more, especially when she's remembering that he maybe did have affairs in college. And she's suddenly putting two and two together. Once a cheater, always a cheater. And she's going to tell him, this isn't how it's going to go.

You know, choose me and your son or her. And he was like, I don't have to choose Lacey. I'll just take you out. Yeah. And if you guys haven't seen it, the picture's out there. I actually used it for our thumbnail for last week's episode. So you guys can see it. It'll probably be popped up right here. John's going to be right on that, but it's a, it's a really telling picture. That's why

I picked it because I know that that's the time when, when Lacey was near the end of her pregnancy and she's at home and you know, seems so happy you know he seems so happy to be with amber they seem like they're they've been a couple for years and the way he's looking at her and she's looking at him yeah it's it's in the public it's not even like some of these relationships where the guy's having an affair and it's it lives in hotel rooms this guy's like literally living a double life yeah and so it's it's, it's fascinating stuff that he, he was that brazen where he thought he had the ability to pull that off and you know, nobody was going to notice. Yeah.

But you'll certainly never convince me that Lacey knew that he was having an affair and she was like, well, whatever, you'll come around. I'm with you. That's what I was trying to say earlier. And I probably didn't say it that great, but yeah, yeah. It's one of those things where she might have had a feeling but she definitely wasn't giving him the hall pass no you know it wasn't like hey you know you know some relationships nothing wrong with it goes back to our undercover pineapple right

like some relationships the wife might be like hey listen you know as long as you i know about it i'm fine with it maybe you invite me in every once in a while yeah don't do it stephanie they're already thinking they're already They're already thinking. They're already thinking. But if that's the case, you know, I think other people around Lacey and Scott would be like, I will say this. They were very open. You know, there would be some indication of it because usually couples like that are very open about the fact that they're swingers or whatever, that they allow for, you know, an open relationship where you can go see other people. Like they're like, oh yeah, we do that. That's usually how those, those couples, that's how they get other people involved. But you get that impression from Lacey Peterson.

She seemed a very traditional type, right? No, she seemed very traditional and I, you know, forget what I think her family and friends are the people who know her best. Anyone who could come out and say, you know, listen, they were, they were very open with each other. Nobody's come out and said that. The only thing they're saying is what we just watched with Sharon. You know, it's, that was not the case. It was the opposite. So, you know, there's my pineapple behind me. It's on this side. Sorry, I was covering it. There he is. Hanging out. Well, our timeline actually starts on December 23 23rd 2002 scott says that at a quarter to six in the evening he and lacy went to the salon that lacy's half sister amy worked at it

was in modesto so that amy could give scott a haircut before christmas amy said this was not out of the ordinary she cut scott's hair at least once a month so lacy sat next to scott while he got his haircut and amy showed lacy how to use use a flat iron to flip her hair up at the ends. Amy testified that as the three of them chatted, Scott offered to pick up a fruit basket that Amy had ordered for their grandfather for Christmas. Scott told Amy he was going to be playing golf the next day, and the course he was playing was near Villa Farms. And this is a produce market who had sold Amy the basket. Amy had actually gone there earlier in the day, picked it out, paid for it. Amy told Scott that he could pick up the basket on December 24th, any time afternoon,

but he had to be there before three because that's when Villa Farms closed. Amy said that Lacey seemed really tired. She was wearing cream-colored maternity pants, a black blouse with cream dots or cream flowers on it, a pair of Mary Jane slip-on shoes, a cream scarf, and a jacket. Scott claims that before they left, he invited Amy to their home that night for pizza, but she declined. She said she was meeting a friend. When they left the salon, Scott claims he and Lacey picked up a pizza from Mountain Mike's on the way home, and once they got home, they ate the pizza and watched Monday Night Football. 8.30 p.m. on December 23rd was the last time anyone besides Scott spoke to Lacey, that night or ever again.

Lacey's mother, Sharon, remembered that she was on the phone with a friend that evening discussing holiday plans, and Sharon told her friend that she was still waiting to hear if Lacey and Scott were going to be at dinner for Christmas Eve the next night it was happening at Sharon's house. Sharon said that it wasn't like Lacey to leave her waiting until the last minute, but she kind of expected that they would accept the invitation, so she'd already gone grocery shopping for the meal. While she was on the phone, Lacey called and Sharon answered quickly, since they'd been trying to contact each other for the last few days, but they kept missing each other. Lacey told Sharon that she and Scott would be going to dinner the next night. Lacey also told Sharon about her doctor's visit from earlier in the day. And she went through the whole exam as she always did. And she told her

mother that everything was fine with her and the baby. And this day, this doctor's exam that day is going to be very important during the trial in trying to determine Connor's gestational age at the time of his death. Sharon and Lacey exchanged I love you's and then Lacey hung up. According to Scott, once Lacey got off the phone, they finished watching football and then they watched the movie The Rookie before going to bed around 10 30 p.m. Scott claims that Lacey went to bed wearing his blue pajama bottoms to bed so there's like these blue pajama pants there's actually a picture of her laying on the couch she's wearing a white t-shirt and like light blue pajama pants and these are the pants that she was wearing that night she liked to wear them they're bigger and more comfortable later the police would find the cream maternity pants and a black blouse that Lacey had been wearing at the salon, and they found these clothes in the dirty clothes hamper.

After Lacey disappeared, the Modesto police brought Amy, Lacey's half-sister, to the house and had her identify the clothes that she'd seen her sister wearing on the 23rd. Now, the media would report that when Lacey's body was found, she was wearing those clothes from the night before she went missing, the cream maternity pants and the black blouse with the cream dots on it. And this actually came directly from the prosecutor, Rick D'Estasio. He insinuated this during his opening statements at Scott's trial, but it was, I mean, unequivocally false. It wasn't true. In reality, Lacey, when she was found, she was wearing khaki maternity pants, capri pants. So from the evidence we have, it appears that on the night of December 23rd, Lacey removed her clothing and got changed before bed.

She put on a pair of Scott's pajama pants, and those were also found in the hamper the next day. So initially, the prosecution and the police were trying to say that Scott had killed Lacey that night, December 23rd, after she'd gotten off the phone with Sharon. Something happened, never changed, got it. Right. And then if they're saying she's found in the bay wearing those clothes from the 23rd, that's going to make sense. But she wasn't found wearing those clothes those clothes were found in the clothes hamper the pajama pants she was wearing were found in the clothes hamper so it looks as if lacy got changed that night put the pajama pants on and the next morning she woke up got changed again and put those pajama pants in the hamper right got it now she's wearing when she's found she's wearing

khaki colored pants not the same ones from the day before because cream colored, khaki colored, you know, definitely different pair of pants on a different day. But the worst part is Rick D'Estasio, the prosecutor, he had this information, right? The police had those clothes that Lacey was seen wearing on the 23rd. They knew that they were there. They knew they weren't on Lacey's body when she was missing. So why he would say that in opening statements and be misleading to the jury, it's a good question. Stupid. Stupid. But it worked.

It might work, but at the end of the day, yeah, you're right. You keep going. It did work. But how's it working now that he's up for a new trial? How's it working now? Yeah. Yeah. So Scott claims that on the morning of December 24th, Christmas Eve, Lacey woke up around 7 a new trial. How's it working? Yeah. Yeah. So Scott claims that on the morning of December 24th,

it's Christmas Eve, Lacey woke up around 7 a.m. and got dressed. Apparently she was feeling sick that morning, which is normal. She's pregnant. And by the time Scott woke up around 8 or 8.30, Lacey had already eaten a bowl of cereal, but she sat with Scott while he ate his cereal and she had a piece of plain toast. Apparently, Scott was eating cinnamon puffs from Trader Joe's, and we actually have a receipt that shows Lacey purchased this cereal the day before when she'd been out grocery shopping. At 8.40 a.m., there was activity on the home computer, and this home computer was kept in the spare bedroom. At this time, Scott claims he was in the shower, so it must have been Lacey using the

computer. Whoever did the searches accessed the MSN homepage. They accessed a weather site from Yahoo and two Yahoo shopping sites. One of the shopping sites was for a red Gap scarf, and the other was for a sunflower umbrella stand. Now, Lacey notoriously loved sunflowers. She also really liked scarves. So we're going to assume that this was Lacey using the computer or it was Scott pretending to be Lacey using the computer. But the activity on the computer stopped at 8.45 a.m. So whoever used it was on there for only five minutes. The argument here, well, go ahead. No, I want to, there's so much, I can see what's coming in time. So I want to kind of break it down, but I agree with you. The assumption

is that it was Lacey. I think reasonableness would say it was Lacey, unless this was something that was premeditated. Scott, not being a dumb guy, decided that this, you know, they're going to check the computer. Let me make it look like activity. But I think this in conjunction with the clothing she was wearing, all that stuff, it does suggest that she was still alive that morning. And it wouldn't be completely out of question to say she was online looking for certain things. He could have made it even more overt, like had her text something or something like this was kind of subtle. And it's definitely possible. Or check her email or something. Something. Something. It's like subtle and and it's definitely possible email or

something you know right something it's like oh it was definitely lacy this can be open to interpretation which is why i think it was in fact lacy i do have a question for you um and you might get to this and if i am going if you are going to don't let me ruin your thunder we'll get to it later but stomach contents i know she was in the water for a very long, you know, for a decent amount of time. So I don't know what the condition of her stomach would be in at that point. But the fact that she allegedly had cereal and toast that morning, I would be curious. Are we going to dive into that? Was there anything that just kind of ruled it out saying it was her body was too badly decomposed by that point?

Derek, her body was a mess. So when she was found, she didn't have arms. She didn't have legs. It was just like a torso. And yes, she was in the water for so long. She goes missing in February. I think it was April when they found her, if I'm correct. Yes, it was April. You're right. Yeah, April. So there was something in her stomach. There was plant life growing in her body cavity. So no way to determine. Water is the biggest enemy of investigators.

We talked about it with Robin Pope, even for a short period of time, 20, 30. I mean, yeah. So I just was asking because I know people out there are probably asking, and it would be something that would be extremely important because if she had toast and cereal, you'd be able to prove that she was in fact alive at that time. Yeah. So again, question asked, question answered. Well, the argument here is that if Lacey was using the computer, she was still alive on December 24th at 8.45 in the morning. However, an analysis of Lacey's computer was never done. So this may have helped

prove whether this online activity was typical for her or atypical, but the police and the prosecutors never had that done. So we don't really know what other things Lacey would do online typically, or if she was known to go shopping in the morning or do things like that. They never really dove into that. I think that the prosecutor and the police initially believed that it was Scott using the computer trying to make it seem like it was Lacey because they were still on that whole he killed her on the 23rd kick. Right.

Especially if they're putting out there that she was in the same clothes as the night before. So, yeah, that wouldn't make sense. They would tunnel vision, right? Yeah. They see what they want interesting still though i you know goes back to the same you know with the um the other case i'm uh it's the case where they didn't do the search i'm drawing a blank right now can't stand this woman um casey anthony thank you um you know the decision they did search a computer they just

searched only one right you know i can understand to a certain degree this was done less back then, but still, we're talking 2002. 2002, but I was going to say it still should be done. And it might not be as thorough or as good as it is now or as efficient as it is now. They can do it so quickly now. But the fact that they didn't do it doesn't really make sense to me. Why not? What do you have to lose? Yeah. Or they didn't want to do it because they didn't want it to be proven that it was Lacey using the computer. That's the argument there. Fair enough. Yeah, fair enough. I think people

who... Yeah, absolutely. Fair enough. So we are going to continue on with the timeline after a quick break. Did you know that many products for pregnant women do not have their own clinical trials for safety or efficacy? That's because pregnant women are often excluded from clinical studies. Ritual is aiming to set a new standard with their essential prenatatal Multivitamin. It's the number one best-selling prenatal and 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. Moms taking essential prenatal had a lower overall cortisol level during pregnancy

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All right, we're back. So between 8.46 and 9.47 in the morning, Scott claimed that he and Lacey chatted while he got dressed, and she told him about her plans for the day. She said she was going to walk their dog, Mackenzie. She said she had to go grocery shopping to buy bread for a French toast dish she was going to serve at their Christmas Day brunch. So they were going to have dinner at Sharon Rocha's house on Christmas Eve. And then on Christmas Day, everybody was coming over to their house, to Scott and Lacey's, for a Christmas Day brunch. And Lacey also wanted to make gingerbread that day. Later, Scott would try to explain the French toast dish that Lacey had

been planning to make, and he called it a couple of different things. He called it cordon bleu French toast to one person. He called it grand marnier French toast to another person. Scott also mentioned that he knew Lacey had to marinate the bread for quite a while before baking the French toast, and a recipe for creme brulee French toast was found on the counter calling for the bread to marinate anywhere from 18 to 24 hours. So I've actually made a dish like this. You got to take the bread. You got to lay it in the bottom of a baking dish.

You got to pour a bunch of stuff over it like eggs, you know, Grand Marnier, alcohol, cinnamon. I'm so hungry. Butter. And then you let that sit in the refrigerator overnight. And the next morning you bake it and it's delicious. And this does sound like something Lacey would make. And there was a recipe on the counter that the police found for this French toast.

So, so far, his story is making sense. Check it out. Yep. During this time, Scott also remembered seeing Lacey sitting on a bench in their bathroom. So there's their bedroom and then there's the bathroom attached to their bedroom. And she brought in this little bench, I think, from the kitchen. And she was sitting in front of the mirror trying to style her hair the way that Amy had shown her the night before, like flipping it with a flat iron. Scott said she looked so cute doing it.

That's how he remembered that she was doing it. He just saw her and he was like, oh, she's so cute. Now, the Petersons also had a cleaning lady named Margarita Nava. And she'd been at the house the day before to clean. She would later testify that when she'd been there on the 23rd, there were no items on the bathroom sink and no bench had been found in front of the mirror. But when police searched the Petersons' home after Lacey went missing, they did find a flat iron on the bathroom sink plugged in, and that little bench was also in the bathroom. So this is once again further evidence, if we believe the timeline and we believe Scott, that Lacey was alive that morning.

Because would he go to these lengths to be like, I saw her doing her hair in the bathroom and then like plug her flat iron in and put a bench in there? Would he think to do all of that? It's possible. But we know that those things were not in the bathroom the day before when margarita was there yeah and i you said it perfectly it's possible you know we don't know the extent he went to if you're trying to avoid being charged with murder there's a lot of extents that people would go to to avoid apprehension so could he have set up a little scenario where he knew what his narrative was going to be to police and he was going to have little details like the fact that she was flipping her hair with

this flat iron you don't have to be a genius to figure that out because these little details you would think oh he would never come up with something like that but to take it at face value for now it seems reasonable based on everything we know that more than likely the searches, the flat iron steps ahead. So if that's the way his brain worked, I guess. But it's kind of hard to believe that he wouldn't he wouldn't like catch up or get himself caught up on any of these little details. And he really doesn't yeah slip up contradict himself something like that you know it's we always say that if criminals were smart we wouldn't catch him you know they usually make a mistake um and that's the mistake you have to find and capitalize on as a police officer as a detective so yeah you're right if he did all this and he pulled it off you know perfectly well you know then i had never heard anybody accuse him of being a genius at this point by the way either you know when they're talking about scott no one's ever said

the guy's brilliant i mean if he's lying about everything that happened this day this morning if his timeline is a lie or even a couple things in the timeline are a lie he really like made sure that nobody would ever find out it was a lie. We do know he's a liar though. I mean, that's, he is a liar. And regardless of what you think about him, he's a pretty good liar. Cause he, he had people like Amber convinced that she was, he was going to be the man of her dreams. You know, he was the man of her dreams. So got to give credit where credit's due, not in a good way, but he was able to manipulate situations to fit the narrative that he wanted you to believe.

And what do they tell you when you're being trained to pass a lie detector test? You got to believe your own lies. You have to try to keep it as close to the truth as possible, right? Yeah, keep it as close. Absolutely. So he might have done that. Yeah. And if he's a pathological liar, they do eventually say things where they're like,

they forget what's fact and what's fiction and he may have had this ability to really play into whatever scenario he was trying to portray and we could be looking at that here we may find out that this was all set up by him and again if it did you did, you know, that's intense. Yeah. That's intense. That's a lot of work. To think he pulled that all off. Yeah, it is. So at this point, Scott claims he went outside and he loaded three patio umbrellas from the backyard into the bed of his truck. He was planning to store them at his warehouse office on Lacey's request because apparently they didn't have a garage and Lacey wanted the umbrellas stored somewhere for the winter.

While he was doing this, a neighbor, her name was Kristen Dempwolf, she walked by and she said that Scott smiled at her and he called out, good morning. Now, Kristen was also pregnant at this time and she was about as far along as Lacey. And this would be the woman that the prosecution would later claim witnesses saw walking her dog, not Lacey Peterson, because you'll find out that after Scott claims he left the house and his cell phone records proved he left the house, something like 10 or 11 people claim they saw Lacey Peterson walking around the neighborhood. And the prosecution's

like, no, you didn't see Lacey. You saw this other pregnant woman. Okay. So after loading up the umbrellas, Scott went back inside and he filled up a mop bucket for Lacey. He claimed that she had expressed wanting to mop the kitchen floor that day, and Scott didn't want her carrying around a heavy mop bucket in her condition. Now, something that's interesting about this claim is the cleaning lady, Margarita, she'd just been to the Peterson home the day before. Margarita testified that she'd used Clorox and Pine Sol to clean the floors of the Covina Avenue home, and she says she mopped the entire house, as she always did when she was at this house twice a month. Margarita also testified that while she was there, she noticed Lacey was very tired. I mean, she's eight and a half months pregnant, right? She's like very far along. Her feet are swollen. So Margarita said that, you know, Lacey was like eating lunch. She was sitting on the couch a lot, watching television, propping her feet up. She was just very exhausted. And many people remembered that in the weeks leading up to Lacey's disappearance, she was expressing feeling very tired and very heavy from the pregnancy. So I guess the question is, if Lacey was so tired and her floors had just been mopped the day before, why would it be one of the first things she did on the morning of the 24th? Like get up to mop the floor again if they had just been mopped the day before. Yeah, that's interesting. And the first thing I thought of when you said it was, wow, man,

eight and a half months pregnant. And you could see from the photo, she was very pregnant. And to think that she's going to be up there using a mop and bucket. Kudos to her if she's able to do that. But I've never been pregnant, but from what I've heard, it sucks. It's not that pleasant. And so I don't think that in a half month you're ready to have a baby, you're going to say, hey, you know what? A little mop and bucket. I'm going to clean this floor right after we just paid someone to do it. Right. Well, Scott was asked this question and he claimed that Lacey wanted to mop the entryway because that was where like their dog Mackenzie went in and out and they had cats and they would go in and out and she was going to be entertaining people the next day.

So she wanted it to be freshly cleaned. And we do know from reports of people close to Lacey that she was a meticulous housekeeper. So I suppose it's possible that she decided to mop the floor that morning. Personally, me, if I'm having guests the next day, I'm going to wait until the evening to mop the floor. Because if you have animals coming in and out of the house all day long, mopping it first thing in the morning when you're having guests 24 hours later isn't going to be a huge feat. It know, it's going to get dirty again. But that's just me. Maybe that was the only time she had to do it.

At 9.48 a.m., Scott claims that he and Lacey were watching The Today Show, which was featuring Martha Stewart. And he remembered that Martha was talking about making cookies or meringue. Now, later, Detective Al Brocchini would testify that he'd looked into this story and he claimed in court under oath that when he watched this Today Show segment, he heard no mention of meringue. He claimed that Martha was making meringue on a segment that aired on December 23rd, not on the 24th. So therefore, Scott's lying. Later, Al Brocchini would have to backpedal and admit that upon further investigation, Martha Stewart's cookie and meringue segment had in fact happened on the 24th. He said he must have missed it. During the trial, Scott's lawyer, Mark Garagos, he played the court that Martha Stewart segment twice just to really like cement it in, you know, that this was the 24th. Here she is talking about meringue and cookies, just like Scott said. And this false information had actually been used by Modesto PD to get a wiretap on Scott's phones. And it was presented to the jury as fact during opening statements. So the prosecution during opening statements was like, Scott lied about this Martha Stewart segment on the 24th. So therefore, he wasn't home or he wasn't watching

the Today Show with Lacey. He was murdering her or he already had murdered her. But either way, he lied about this. But he didn't lie about it. What do you think about that? Yeah. It reminds me of fruit of a poisonous tree doctrine. When you're obtaining information, search warrant, whatever it may be, based on lies, based on something that's not true. And then therefore therefore that evidence can become, even if you find something incriminating, that evidence becomes inadmissible. So poor police work, I'm assuming the segment wasn't that long. And if you're looking specifically for these phrases like cookies and meringue, that's what I'm going to be really paying attention to.

So to think that you would miss that, it makes me wonder if he watched the video at all. Or if he, that's what I was going to say. Do you think it was poor police work or do you think it was purposeful? Once again, Scott actually watching the Today Show on December 24th with Lacey. It doesn't make him look guilty.

It makes him look like a normal husband hanging out with his wife in the morning, watching TV, having breakfast, not killing her. So is it possible that Al Brocchini was like, this doesn't fit my narrative. So I'm just going to pretend I missed it. I'm just going to pretend I didn't hear the word meringue in this segment. So this is where my bias comes in, right? Because I want to believe that he's just dumb, that he just made a stupid mistake. But it'd be ignorant for me not to acknowledge the fact that if this detective had it out for Scott, he may have lied under oath for the intention of getting in a search warrant.

However, they obtained- A wiretap. That wiretap. So that wiretap would be through a search warrant, right? So he would have to write up an affidavit, submit it to a judge, and then the judge would grant the wiretap based on the information laid out in that search warrant and had to, yeah, you know, omit some things or, or change his narrative in order to make sure the judge would sign off on it. Absolutely possible. Absolutely.

In my heart, I don't want, I hope that's not the case, but I'd be a fool to not sit here and say that that could have been the main purpose of him getting this information quote unquote wrong. You know? Yep know yep well wouldn't be the first time that it's been proven that that's the case so that's what i'm saying and once again you guys start yelling at me yeah well i mean once again you may have people out there who are like well who cares scott's clearly guilty who cares well i care and you should all care because if we keep letting the justice system make its own rules then we could be the victim of that one day or someone we care about could be the victim of that one day. We have to have the same set of rules for everybody, whether you think they're guilty or not, because you are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. And if you're proven guilty in a court the fruit of poison street doctrine exclusionary rule? So for anybody who doesn't know, cause I'm talking like a third language, a lot of the true crime fans do know this stuff, but let's say that on that wiretap, warrant in the beginning, anything he said on that wiretap would be inadmissible in court. That's literally, it's based on the exclusionary rule.

And that just extends it basically saying, hey, listen, if you got access to the tree illegally, any fruit that obtained from it is poisonous. You can't use it. So it happens a lot. It happens a lot where the defense attorneys will not go after the evidence itself. They'll go after how the evidence was obtained. Yes. And that's usually effective, right? It's super effective. And if they can do that where they show poor police practices or not following procedures, they can cut you off at the knees and say, hey, listen, you got us on the evidence. I'm going to go after the way it was obtained. And that's where you can really get

police officers jammed up. Because back to what we were saying in the very beginning, sometimes officers feel like, hey, this is for a bigger purpose. Sometimes you got to skate the line in order to skirt the line, I should say, to get the stuff you need, because you know the guy's guilty. And this is where a good defense attorney- You think you know they're guilty. Yeah, you think you know. But even if you're right, even if you're right because you know the guy's guilty and this is where you think you know you think you know yeah you think you know but even if you're right even if you're right you're like this guy killed her right and you just need the wiretap and like i said that scenario i just gave where on the wiretap he says man i killed her and i got away with it you're you being not being creative

and finding another way to obtain that search warrant legally could have a guilty man go free. No problem. Because again, now everything you obtained because you were blinded by your own ambition to solve it, you just screwed up the whole case. Congratulations. And that happens all the time. So a good lawyer like a Garagos is going to tear you up. He's going to find that. And I don't think there was anything too incriminating from the wiretap right but it was just that they were using that in the trial yeah i think um a lot of the wiretap well we'll talk about that well we'll get there i don't want to get too far ahead but no yeah it's this is an unfortunate thing i've had when i was in narcotics

before i was doing normal cases like the regular breaking under rings, homicides, all those things, robberies. And in narcotics cases, they never go after the drugs that you seize because you got the drugs, right? You make the arrest, you have a search warrant. I get the kilo of drugs and they're like, okay, you got the drugs. We're not going to go after the drugs. You found him in his car. He was sitting next to him. He got his dead to right there. We're going to go after how you get the search warrant to get in his car. That was the name of the game in the narcotics business. So I'm all too familiar with this. Well, Scott claims that while Lacey was mopping the floor, he left through the side of the house. So there's French doors on the side of the house. And he believes that he left the house a little bit before 10 a.m. He then drove to his office, which is located in this warehouse space that he rented

at 1027 North Emerald, suite number B1 in Modesto, California. The drive from his home to his office would take him roughly nine minutes, and at 10.08 a.m., Scott checked his voicemail. He got a voicemail from his boss. This was proven with his cell phone records. Once at his office, Scott checked his email, and then he sent an email to his boss in response to the voicemail. Activity on Scott's work computer shows he was logged into the computer for 26 minutes between 10.30 and 10.56 a.m. After checking his email, Scott looked up instructions on how to put together a woodworking tool called a mortiser that he'd recently gotten in the mail. Evidence shows that Scott received this tool on December 20th. After logging off his computer, Scott claims he assembled the mortiser. He then opened the roll-up door in the warehouse so he could unload

some tools from the back of his truck. He told police that while he was doing this, he got a small cut on his knuckle from the toolbox, so he opened the driver's side door of his truck and got a napkin. Scott believed, and he told this to the police, he was like, you might find a small spot of my blood on the door of my truck because I was bleeding when I opened the door. Law enforcement would later find a fully assembled mortiser on a trailer in Scott's warehouse office, and forensic testing showed that one drop of Scott's blood was found on the door of his vehicle. So we have a couple things that could happen. If he got the tool on the 20th, he could have already assembled it before the 24th and then just said he assembled it on the 24th, right? Just looked up the instructions and then said, yeah, that was me assembling it. That's possible. But so far, like I said, all of his timeline, all of his story,

it adds up and they're supporting evidence to show that he was where he said he was when he said he was. Yeah. And it could be because he's telling the truth or it could be because he's concocted this complete story that supports everything that he knows is going to be of interest to police, the blood on the door, et cetera, things like that. He's got a story for it all. Yep. Well, once the prosecution had gotten over their theory that Lacey was killed on the 23rd, their next theory was that Scott killed Lacey the morning of the 24th. He then put her body in his truck, drove her to the warehouse, at which point he unloaded her body from the truck, brought it into the warehouse where he stored the bone that he had just purchased. Now, it's important to understand this isn't some giant warehouse that Scott has. So Scott was

already storing his boat and the boat trailer in there, and there was like tons of bags of fertilizer. So there wasn't enough room for him to like back the truck up into the warehouse. So if what the prosecution claims is true, Scott would have been taking Lacey's body out of the truck in broad daylight. And in clear view of anyone who happened to be walking by or watching, he would have also have needed to bring her body outside into the truck from the home into his truck in broad daylight since they don't have a garage at the Covina Ave home. And as we know, a neighbor walking by Scott, she saw him loading umbrellas into his truck. So that seems like a big risk to take,

unless the prosecution's original theory was a little bit more right than we think. And Scott killed Lacey earlier in the morning and brought her body out while it was still dark. And then he went back outside and didn't leave until it was daylight. So people could see him leaving and he's loading things up. But that still doesn't help him once he gets to the warehouse, right? And he has to move her body again, because then it would be light by that point. Yeah. It's a lot of theories. I don't have a lot to weigh because it's all speculation. So for me to sit here and weigh in on multiple theories, I don't, based on, again, taking it at face value, not being the guy going through the evidence, based on the searches, based on the flat iron, based on the fact that multiple people would say later that they saw Lacey, all these different things, right?

It suggests that she was alive at least on the 23rd, okay? That she was alive come the morning of the 24th. But not knowing the the, the warehouse myself, it does seem like it was very small and you would be running a major risk by, uh, moving around a pregnant woman's body and not having anyone notice anything out of the ordinary, because I did look up the boat and the boat's very small. It's not like it's a cabby, a cabin cruiser where you're bringing things downstairs. It's a little aluminum boat where anything that's positioned in that boat, anything at all, a cooler, you're going to see. There's

just two or three little benches. It's not deep. So having a duffel bag or anything large in size on that boat would be completely obvious to anybody seeing you at the warehouse or while you're driving to wherever you're going while trailing the boat. Well, Scott had also told Lacey and her sister, Amy, remember, that he'd been planning to go golfing that day. But he claims while he was at his office, he was like, it's too cold to golf. So he decided to bring his new boat to Berkeley Marina to try it out for the first time. Now, this is a hard one for people to understand. They don't really get why on Christmas Eve morning, Scott would be leaving his very pregnant wife to go and do anything, golfing, fishing, anything.

So if Scott thought it was too cold for golf, wouldn't that definitely make it too cold to go out in the San Francisco Bay on the water where it's going to be even more cold? This is what he claims happened. But let me tell you, I've been to San Francisco on the bay. It gets super cold, super windy. It's definitely worse weather conditions than you're going to see on a golf course. Yeah. And the boat, again, we talked about it last episode, the boat itself, you could see the motor on the back. It's a small gas powered motor. The tides, if they're strong, a small motor like that would not allow you to maneuver that water easily. So from someone who's been on boats multiple times, I'm talking about Scott, that would not be the ideal time to take it out.

Because when you're fishing, especially if you're not trolling for fish, you want to stay in a certain position for an extended period of time if you're trying to fish a specific area. And having a small motor that doesn't allow you to kind of position yourself or even anchor yourself would not be ideal conditions for fishing. Let's take a quick break before we go on. All right, we're back. So Scott decides he wants to go fishing. He wants to go take his boat out instead of go golfing. He said he backed his truck up to the warehouse door. He hooked the trailer with the boat on it up to his truck. He went back inside the warehouse, closed the roll down door, locked it, and then he exited the warehouse through the pedestrian door through the office. He left the warehouse at 1118 a.m. and drove to Berkeley Mar, which is a roughly 90-minute drive from where his office was located. At 1254 p.m., Scott parked at

the marina, and he was able to produce a time-stamped parking receipt when later asked by law enforcement, which it's funny because when he had that, because the police were like, well, do you have anything to prove you're at Berkeley Marina? And Scott's like, yes, I have this thing right here. And then they were like, well, that's suspicious that you kept it. police were like, well, do you have anything to prove you're at Berkeley Marina? And Scott's like, yes, I have this thing right here. And then they're like, well, that's suspicious that you kept it. It's like, what do you want? You asked him if he had proof. You had proof. And then you told him it was suspicious that he had the proof. So it's clearly this bias. And we'll talk about it when we talk next episode about when the police went in the house. From the get go, they all went in. They were like, something's up with this. Like,

it's definitely the husband. They even like sent out a message on the radio where they're like, something's odd about the husband. Right from the beginning, they thought it was him. Scott told the police that he launched his boat and headed north for about two miles. He then found what he described as a small island with a no landing sign on it and some trash on it. He said that he felt this would be a decent area to fish because it was shallow. Now, this area ended up being Brooks Island, and witnesses have confirmed that it is, in fact, a shallow area. Scott claimed he had forgotten some lures he'd just purchased in his truck, so he used some freshwater jigs he had in his tackle box. He claimed he trolled for a bit,

and then he headed back to the marina because it started to rain and he was getting wet. Law enforcement would later recover a Big Five shopping bag with brand new lures inside. They were in Scott's truck, just like he said they were. Scott had also purchased a fishing pole on December 20th, and when that was recovered, it did in fact have a freshwater jig on it. The fishing pole had never been used before December 24th, and the price tag for it was found on the bottom of Scott's boat. A two-day fishing license for December 23rd and December 24th was also found in the truck, and this license had also been purchased on December 20th, the same day he bought the fishing pole and the lures. Now, this raises another question. If

Scott got the fishing license on the 20th, but he hadn't used it on the 23rd and he'd only decided last minute to go fishing on the 24th, was it actually a last minute decision? You know, that he was like, it's too cold to golf, so I'm going to go fishing? Or was the whole golf story a lie? Did he never plan on going golfing? Yeah. I mean, I'm going back and forth with all stuff it's like especially the parking ticket you know like i normally wouldn't keep a parking ticket you know but again like you said with the cops are like hey do you have any proof and as soon as he pulls it out it's like well why would you have proof well you wouldn't keep a parking ticket for like an extended period

of time but if you went fishing what do you do with the parking tag you put it in your in your pocket yeah you put in your truck you gotta display it so they know that you paid to park right oh yeah and they went in the mirror so they don't tell your car while you're out so you're not like holding on to it or you're not like i'm parked now i can throw this out and he left the marina and then went home to find out his wife's missing and then all this stuff happens and he produces this for them on the 24th on the evening of the 24th so it's not as if a lot of time had passed and they were like do you have this parking receipt and he was like yes three months later i still have this no yeah it was like immediately after same day yeah yeah i mean i'm trying to think to me when i do it like usually i'll have stuff that i'm throwing out from my

boat when i'm like getting ready to leave the park and i'll usually take the parking ticket down i'll throw it all in the trash can nearby. But- Oh, dude, I don't. Those parking tickets stay up in my car for weeks, man. Weeks until my husband's like, why do you still have this here? And I'm like, I don't know, throw it out, man. Yeah, so some people would say like, oh, you know, I throw them out right away. But to have it for the reasons you just said,

it's not like, it doesn't raise a red flag to me where it seems like, as you said, six months later and he still has this parking ticket. That's interesting. I mean, the golf thing, as you pointed out, being too cold, too chilly to play golf, but not chilly enough to go fishing. Maybe he just wanted to go fishing more. I don't know. I'm trying to play devil's advocate here, but I could see how, depending on what camp you're in, you can interpret that information both ways well that's that's what's complicated about it because he he later says to to al brockini the detective

he wasn't really fishing for anything he just wanted to put the boat in the water but we'll get to that um what came on the media about this fishing trip a lot of it was false. They said that Scott claimed he was fishing for sturgeon. And so then obviously all these local fishermen were like, that's not true. This guy, Carl Ostley of Oakdale, he says he's fished 35 years for huge tough-skinned sturgeon. And Carl Ostley says none of his story made any sense. It just doesn't hold water. And then another fisherman, Robert Kisner, he was like, pretty much any fisherman will tell you that guy didn't go out there fishing. It could be that he just didn't know what he was doing. So they're basically saying like, no, you wouldn't be going out in San Francisco Bay in a small

aluminum boat to fish for sturgeon in December. They were saying that was a lie, but Scott never told anybody that he went to fish for sturgeon. It was just something that it looks like either the media completely made up or somebody from in the police department leaked this information to them, which you'll see often. Like when they would go into the house on December 24th, the media started printing that the police said, oh, we smelled bleach. That's in no police reports. And all the responding detectives were like, no, we didn't smell bleach. There was no smell of bleach.

There was no smell of like cleaning products. And it didn't appear that a crime scene had been cleaned up. Yet the media was printing that the police went in the house and all they could smell was bleach. So this is just another one of those things where just actual lies are being printed in the media. Quick question. I was looking it up. I was looking at the photos. I didn't see anything. I've seen some images where it looks like it's Scott Peterson's boat with a boat cover for storage. And then I've seen a lot of images, including it being hooked up to a truck. I think it'sott's truck where where there's no cover do we know if there was a cover on that boat i usually didn't transport my boat with a cover because i was always afraid it would like sail up and pull you pull off but like do we know

if he had a cover for that boat i don't believe that he had a cover when he was like driving with the boat but i think he had a cover when it was, when it was in storage. Okay. Because there's people who say they saw him that day in the boat and nobody mentions anything about a cover. Any boat cover. Cause again, you know, you, if it's, if there's a boat cover on it, it would be easy to hide something underneath it. So, um, if people saw him driving that boat 90 minutes, I'm sure a lot of people saw him. I'm sure some cameras probably picked him up as well. Um, and there's no body in the boat he could have the body in the truck well once the the eyewitnesses came on they were like no we didn't see a body in the boat the police were like well um scott could have put lacy's body in the toolbox because there's like a big toolbox

attached to his truck in the back you know like it's the entire length of the back of the pickup or the bed. Yep, I can see it. It's a huge one. And they said, well, did he put her body in there? But we'll get to that. Man, that would still be a tight quarters. But yeah, we'll get into it. We'll get into it. So yeah, like I said, these reports came out saying that he was fishing for sturgeon.

Some other reports came out saying that he didn't know what he was fishing for. But during his interview with Detective Al Brocchini, Scott simply said that he hadn't purchased bait because he wasn't a bait fisherman because Brocchini was like, well, what bait did you get? And Scott said, I'm not a bait fisherman. And when Brocchini asked him if he trolled, Scott responded, quote, a little bit. I mean, a lot of the reason I went was just to get the boat in the water to see, you know, end quote. I mean, this was the first time he put the boat in the water to see, you know, end quote. I mean, this was the first time he put the boat in the water. He's claiming, I really didn't plan on catching any fish. I just wanted to kind of go out and troll a little bit and just see how it was in the water. There was

also a witness who had seen Scott launching his boat that day. But after Scott's arrest, this witness, he ended up needing to go out of town. And Scott's attorney, Mark Garagos, told him, you know, go ahead and leave. We're probably not going to need you at the trial. Now, if this witness had been presented at trial, he would have testified that he'd seen Scott. He'd seen Scott putting the boat in the water. He'd seen the boat and there was nobody in Scott's boat. And this is like you said, a pretty small boat.

It's not like deep, you know, it's not huge. So you would think that there's not a lot of space to hide the body of a pregnant woman, right? Yeah. John's got to throw these photos all over this. I have a bunch of photos I'm going to send. Yeah. We're going to send them. I have them as well. I sent them. So there's definitely images in the previous video that as we're recording this in the previous video you're already seeing images of the boat because i sent them to him but we'll throw up even more and and and it's exactly what you're saying there's like um these benches that are made right in the boat so the areas in between these benches are very small yeah you would have to lay a body or any big object over these benches

so they would the the object if it were a body would actually be elevated and would be seen over the side of the boat. So I don't, and that's what I kept going back to. Like, how would he, you know, if he's at a Marina or something, you know, people around during the day, I don't know how he would not be seen. And again, we all as fishermen, like we're used to seeing people bring a tackle box out or a backpack. That's like normal, you you know sandwiches or whatever a cooler but if if we if i ever saw a fisherman hauling this big bag or the suitcase or whatever blanket or something like rolled up yeah onto this little boat i'd be like what that would stand out to me i would be like that's weird you know what i mean and i may not report it to police but if something like this

came out afterwards i'd be like oh no i saw him with a rolled up carpet, you know, dropping it onto a boat, like whatever it may be. Anything bigger than a tackle box would be something that I would be like, that's a little weird. What's he fishing for in that little boat? What's he going after? prosecution and the defense did like experiments to see if the boat would even you know be steady enough to be able to do that because you're you're thinking you know when he's got to throw her in you're going to completely throw off the balance of the boat it's a 14 foot aluminum boat it's not like a super sturdy boat is it even possible to do that without the boat capsizing and there's a lot of controversy about these experiments too.

And we're going to get into that next time. Do you dive into anchors at all? Not this episode. But you know what I'm talking about, right? There was anchors. Do you want to hit on it a little bit or no, don't touch it yet. We want to wait. No. It's more evidentiary stuff. There's a lot there that we could spend a whole episode just on the boat. There was experiments done in regards to anchors that were made all these different things that i was seeing and i'm like damn this is if we really wanted to we can make this 10 parts yes so there's just so much so much so don't don't uh be mad if we don't include every single detail because literally we could we're gonna hear damn well

try for sure so scott he got back to theina. He spoke to a few maintenance guys who were there that he like they talked about fishing. And, you know, they got a good laugh while they watched him trying to back his trailer down the ramp to load his boat back up. They're just kind of standing there. Look at this clown. He's having a lot of trouble. And yeah, and he'd been out in the water for roughly 90 minutes. He left Berkeley Marina at 2.15 p.m., at which point he called Lacey at home and on her cell phone. When he couldn't get a hold of her, he left a message on their home

answering machine. I'm getting beautiful. I just left a message at home. 2.15. I live in Berkeley. I won't be able to get to the Villa Farms to get that basket for Papa. I was hoping you would get this message and go on out there. I'll see you in a bit. We love you. Bye. End of message. So basically what Scott says in this message is, I am not going to make it to the farm to pick up the basket.

Because remember, Amy had told him that he had to be there before 3 because that's when they closed. And Vila Farms actually called Amy at 3.45 p.m. And they were like, hey, you know, it's Christmas Eve. Like, we have your basket here. Nobody's been here to pick it up yet. Are you.m. and they were like, hey, you know, it's Christmas Eve. Like, we have your basket here. Nobody's been here to pick it up yet. Are you going to come and get the basket? So Scott's at Berkeley Marina. It's 90 minutes away from Modesto. He figures out he's not going to get back in time to get this basket and he wants to know if Lacey can do it. After this,

Scott got gas at a Chevron station in Livermore at 3.25 p.m. Once again, this is all backed up by credit card records, by his cell phone records, GPS location, etc. And he tried calling Lacey again. Scott tried calling Lacey's phone again at 3.52 p.m., but this time he didn't leave a message. So it was a 48-minute drive from the gas station to his warehouse office. He arrived back at the warehouse at 4.15 p.m., at which time he unhooked the boat, stored it back inside his office on the trailer. He estimated that this took only about five minutes, but he was in there long enough to see a fax that he'd received about a shipment that was coming in. Apparently, it was urgent.

He was like, oh no, it's coming in late. It was a big deal. Later, the police would also find this fax and it was timestamped 1128 a.m. So we know given Scott's timeline, he'd already left the warehouse before the fax came in. So these are all things that support his timeline. He went to the warehouse and saw this fax that he hadn't seen. He was bothered by it. It was urgent. This is all stuff that really you can't plan out in advance, right? You can't plan it out. But just to, again, I've been playing devil's advocate. Let me go the opposite way. You said earlier, when you're trying to deceive a polygraph, you want to stay as close to the truth as possible. I could come up with a scenario here where everything he said to police for the most part is true, except for the fact that he left out the part that while she was

flat ironing her here they were having an argument and it got out of control and he ended up killing her and so everything else he did at that point was all true except he left he omitted the fact that the entire time lacy was in the vehicle with him and then you know all these things so although his timeline does line up because he you know there is a lot of facts in it, there is a scenario where it was able to line up because he did, in fact, do all these things. But unfortunately, Lacey was already deceased at that point and was with him when he was doing it.

Well, remember earlier, I said it's hard to believe Scott would be taking Lacey's body in and out of his truck in broad daylight. But it is possible he killed her and disposed of her much earlier while it was still dark. And there is some evidence of this. A truck driver named Dave claims to have seen Scott Peterson, his truck and his boat at 3.30 a.m. on Christmas Eve morning, driving near Berkeley Marina. Now, Dave was interested in Scott and the boat because he said he was considering buying one for himself. So he kind of paid special attention as he was driving by the boat. And he said that

the name of the boat was the Game Fisher. That was the name of Scott's boat. Yep. Dave also told a coworker that he saw a large bundle wrapped in a Mexican style motif blue blanket in the back of the boat. I mean, you know, you keep going, but that's what we were talking about earlier. This is where, you know, now again, what he did the next day, all true, but he omitted this whole part if this is what in fact happened. Well, the neighbor who lived across the street from the Petersons, her name was Susan Medina. She also claimed that she saw both Scott and Lacey's vehicles in their driveway at 5 a.m. that morning, but she couldn't remember if she saw Scott's truck there later. But a man

named James McGrick claims to have seen Scott Peterson in a boat off of Emeryville, which is south of Berkeley Marina, between 6.30 a.m. and 7 a.m. on Christmas Eve morning. James claimed that Scott was dragging something alongside his boat. Now, for a while, law enforcement ran with this, suspecting that Scott may have made two trips to Berkeley Marina that day, the earlier trip to dispose of the body, and then the later trip to come up with an alibi for why he wasn't home and why he would come home and find out that Lacey was missing.

But his cell phone records, they don't support this. They do, however, support the exact timeline and routes Scott claims to have taken later in the afternoon. So he could have left his phone at home during this early morning trip to the marina. Like I would think that would be the smart thing to do. Yeah. But what do we also know about eyewitness testimony? It's some of the most unreliable, right? Yeah, it is very, it can be unreliable. You obviously have to gauge the credibility of the people that are giving you the information as well. But from what you just said, if you just did something that you don't want people to know about, and you're going to be going to an area that you don't want people

knowing you had visited, you'd be a moron, especially if he were to believe he did everything else to take your phone, even in 2002, because you know one moron, especially if he were to believe he did everything else to take your phone, even in 2002, because you know, one of the first things they're going to do is check your GPS coordinates and what cell towers your phone pinged off of throughout the night. So you could be a moron and still do that. So having his GPS coordinates, not support this witness, you know, testimony isn't like a, doesn't, isn't a deal breaker for me. I almost wonder, were there cameras, surveillance cameras in the warehouse? Because he would still have to go to his warehouse office to get the boat.

So were there surveillance cameras where they would show that he was there that early? I'll have to look into that. I'm sure there's something, right? I'm just shocked that all this driving, residential neighborhoods, main roads, marinas, there's no cameras. There's no cameras that shows that he was in the vicinity at 3.30 in the morning or even later in the day. This entire drive from his house to the warehouse to the marina, not one single camera. And you would think that if there were, they'd be plastered all over the internet right now, a la what's the case we just did in Connecticut, Fotis Dulos, where you have footage on the highway the whole time of the

red pickup truck. Yes, it's later in life. Cameras are more abundant, but still, 2002, you would think that a home security footage, something would show this truck and the back of his boat at both times. Well, here's the thing. I think at least one of these eyewitnesses has to be wrong. And I'm not saying they're lying. After this case comes out and it's all over the TV, sometimes people will be like, oh, I think I saw that guy or I think I saw her. And they're trying to be helpful. They're not being malicious, but they're just not correct. It could have been another guy. They're just wrong.

And the timeline doesn't make sense because if this Dave guy saw him driving near Berkeley Marina at 3.30 a.m. And then this other guy, James Magritte, saw him south of Berkeley Marina between 6.30 and 7 a.m., but his neighbor across the street saw his car parked in his driveway at 5 a.m. That doesn't make sense, right? Yeah. So out of the three eyewitnesses, at least, well, at least, well, technically, two of them could be right still, right? I mean, but the two, the one that sees him at 630 and 7 and the one that sees the neighbor that sees. Yeah. that sees him at 6.30 and 7 and the one that sees the neighbor that sees yes but two of them could be right where he was in the water they saw the boat at 3.30 and then he was south of that around

6.30 but then to your point he you know the vehicle wouldn't have been seen in the driveway so and Susan Medina she was getting up early because her and her husband were going out of town they were going to go spend Christmas in LA and this is the house directly across the street from Lacey and Scott the one that ends up getting robbed. And that's the whole other theory that Scott's trying to perpetrate is that this house across the street from them was robbed and the guys who robbed this house kidnapped Lacey. So Susan Medina gets up early. She's packing. She's getting ready. She looks outside and she sees both Lacey and Scott's vehicles in the driveway. So I believe her because there's no reason for her to lie. And she remembers this specifically. And she also knows them, knows what

they look like, know what their vehicles look like, where these other two guys have never met Scott or Lacey in person. So they could be just imagining things. But you're right. Susan can be right. And one of these, David or James McGrath, could be right. That's right. That's right. And boy, it would even be more so more the three 30 guy because at six 37, he wouldn't be back in time. I don't think he would be back in time at three 30 either. I mean, he could,

unless he made a really short trip in the water or short trip in the water, which would explain what he was doing. Yep. If David saw this body right in the, the Mexican, um, the Mexican blanket thing,

then we're having to assume that Scott still has to get the boat in the water, dump Lacey, and then get back home. And it's a 90 minute drive from Berkeley Marina to his house. It's short. It's short. I did look up on GPS as far as Scott's address and a family living across the street, they would know what vehicle's in the driveway the same way I would. If I got up in the morning to go somewhere, I would notice if my neighbor's cars were not in their driveways or not because I can't not see it every time I get into my car. So I tend to believe the neighbor. But I do think you make a great point where people want to be helpful.

Sometimes they think they see things that they don't see. I would be interested in knowing if at that point when this interview was given or when this witness statement came out, it had already been highly publicized. It was. Okay. So knowing that it was the game Fisher is not anything like compelling because anybody with a computer at that point would know. And once again, not saying that they're being malicious, but these are, you know, sometimes you remember things that you don't even know you knew. You'll repeat a joke you heard and you'll think you came up with that joke and you're brilliant only to find out that two weeks ago when you're watching Comedy Central, you saw a standup routine and a comedian said the joke.

You thought it was funny. And then you say it two weeks later thinking it was your joke. So I don't think anybody here is trying to be malicious. But right. You can still. Yeah, you can still not be malicious, but also be wrong. And it's possible. Yes.

Let's take one last break before we continue. And then we are break less for the rest of the episode. Okay, so we're back. Let's talk about the boat for a second. The prosecution would claim that the purchase of this boat was a premeditated act because Scott knew that he was going to kill Lacey and then use the boat to get rid of Lacey's body. They also claimed to the jury that Scott had kept this boat a secret from Lacey, but that's not necessarily true. Scott used his and Lacey's joint bank account to purchase the boat. It was legally registered in his name and a witness who occupied a neighboring warehouse next to Scott's office, she testified that she ran into Lacey Peterson there on either December 20th or the 23rd.

She couldn't be sure, but she remembered that Lacey had been pregnant. This woman's name is Peggy. Peggy said she let Lacey use her bathroom in her warehouse because Lacey had to pee, and Scott's bathroom was blocked by bags of fertilizer. According to Peggy and another witness, Peggy's employee, Rosemary Ruiz, Scott's boat was in plain sight when Lacey was there. So either the warehouse door was open and the boat could be seen or the boat was out, but Rosemary and Peggy were like, yeah, we saw the boat, so Lacey must have seen it as well when she was there.

Detective Al Brocchini, who interviewed these witnesses and knew what they had said, he did not include their statements in his report. And he would later admit under oath to having knowingly left this information out when writing his report. Now, there's some argument about this. He's like, yeah, I said it to other cops and they put it in their report. But at the end of the day, it was not in his report from that day. It wasn't in his report from interviewing these two women. So the question is, again, is this bad police work or is this purposeful on the part of Al Brocchini? Because these women saying that Lacey was there at Scott's warehouse, that she saw the boat, that he wasn't trying to keep it a secret from her. It didn't support the narrative that Scott bought the secret boat with the pure and sole intention of killing his wife and getting rid of her body with it. Yeah, we're taught from a very early on in our careers that if it's not in the report, it didn't happen. And because that's ultimately what a judge or jury is going to see.

So there's a couple scenarios here. Either again, he's just a bad detective and he's only putting in there certain things that he thinks are valuable, or it's worse where we've talked about this numerous times over the past year, where as a good detective, you want to let the evidence tell the story, not find the evidence that supports your theory. And you can have officers or detectives who have a theory about what happened or, and believe it completely. And they're only out there searching for evidence that supports what they believe. That's the wrong way to do it. There are times where I've had a person of interest in mind and I'm certain I would put money on it, that it was them.

And I find one piece of evidence, two piece of evidence, three pieces of evidence. And then the fourth piece of evidence completely rules them out. It's exculpatory, even though it fit the first three fit. And it's the most demoralizing thing ever. Cause you know, you've got to start from square one again, but that's our job. That's what we're supposed to do because you will have situations where you're like, I think this is our guy. That's what we're supposed to do because you will have situations where you're like, I think this is our guy. And a lot of the factors will fit, but in order for it to be them, they all have to be, for example, you can have a person who drove there, but if they, if their DNA, if someone else's DNA is on the weapon, more than likely it was not them. You

know, it's like, you can't just omit certain things because they contradict what you believe. And that's worst case scenario here. That's what he did. He, he purposely omit certain things because they contradict what you believe. And that's worst case scenario here. That's what he did. He purposely omitted those things. You're saying he already said he did, right? He kept those things out. I'm sure he didn't come out and say, I lied on purpose, but oh, other officers put it in there.

That's not what you're supposed to do. All officers write up their own reports and that's how you corroborate the stories because all the reports of the different officers involved will line up. So I have a problem with it. I don't like it. And I think that's why a lot of people have come to the conclusion on their own, you know, oh, maybe Scott is innocent. You know, like these officers had it out for him and they, what else don't we know? So not good. I don't know what his purpose for not doing this was, but at minimum, it's really shoddy police work. So according to Scott, he arrived back home between 430 and 445 p.m.

He said Lacey's car was in the driveway. He entered through the side gate, at which point he saw their dog Mackenzie in the backyard with his leash on. Scott took Mackenzie's leash off, put it on the patio table before going inside. He said he saw that the mop bucket was still on the floor, so he emptied it because he didn't want the cats or the dog to drink out of it. He poured the water outside near the front walkway and he got the mail while he was out there. Lacey was not home, but her car was, so initially Scott assumed that her mother or stepfather Ron had come to pick her up so she could help prepare dinner for that night. Scott

decided to wash his wet clothes, claiming they smelled like the bay. He said, you know, Lacey being pregnant, she's sensitive to those smells, so I didn't want to, you know, not wash them. They were damp. They were gross. So I decided to throw them in the washing machine. He removed the cleaning rags that Margarita Neva had thrown into the washer the day before. He got undressed, threw his clothes in the washer with some soap, and he grabbed some cold pizza out of the refrigerator and a glass of milk before heading to the shower with a slice of cold pizza in his hand, which is gross. There's nothing grosser than cold pizza. I'm just going to tell you right now.

Well, first of all, I was just about to say, jail, instantly, milk and pizza, prison. Sentence right there. A lot of people say that. Like, you don't like milk and pizza? Prison. Sentence right there. A lot of people say that. You don't like milk and pizza together? It's a very good combo because the milk, the spicy sauce, the milk tempers it out. I can't eat cold pizza. It's gross. But you eat pizza with milk? I mean, it's not my favorite. I usually like to have a nice Pepsi. Comment down below. I got it completely off subject. But if you're on YouTube,

comment down below. Pizza and milk? If I have nothing else, I'd rather drink pizza with milk than water. But if I have a nice cold Pepsi, obviously. Oh, my God. Pizza and milk. Cold pizza, though. Oh, God. I don't understand how people do it.

It's like congealed oil on top of cold, hard cheese. This is what Scott ate. I mean, I know. Electric chair, right? See ya. So he gets in the shower. He gets dressed. Afterwards, he returned to the kitchen and he said that he listened to the messages on the answering machine. So he heard his own message from earlier, the one that had been meant for Lacey. So obviously he knew that she didn't hear it. And he also heard a message from Lacey's stepfather, Ron Gransky, asking if Scott and Lacey could bring whipped cream when they came for dinner that night.

So this obviously made Scott realize that Lacey wasn't home and she didn't appear to be with her mother and Ron. So he called Sharon's house at 5.17 p.m. to see if Lacey was there. When Scott called, Sharon was already starting on dinner because her guests would be arriving at 6 p.m. She said that Scott said to her, hi, mom, is Lacey there? And when Sharon said she was not, Scott said that when he had gotten home, Lacey's car was in the driveway. Mackenzie was in the backyard with her leash still on and Lacey was missing. Looking back, Sharon wondered, why did Scott say Lacey was missing? Why hadn't he said Lacey wasn't home or I don't know where Lacey

is? Why did he choose to say missing? And I agree. That's a weird thing to say. So maybe he's not this evil genius, right? Because that's a slip up right there. A slip. Yeah. Later, Sharon found out that Scott had done a variety of things before, you know, between coming home and before calling her. He showered, he washed his clothes, he ate some pizza. And she wondered, why hadn't he realized something was wrong earlier? If Scott and Lacey were supposed to be at Sharon's at six for dinner and he gets home right around five and Lacey's not there and she hasn't answered his calls and she hasn't told him she's going to her mother's house early and to meet her there, why did Scott wait so long before calling and notifying somebody? Yeah. And the other thing I have a problem with, and maybe it's because I don't know the whole

story, but I know in my house, I mean, even if you assumed your wife was going over to cook the meal early, that means the dog would still be home. Mackenzie would still be in the house more than likely unless she brought it, brought the dog with her, which I don't think she would to a dinner. So as soon as I get in the home and I'm basing this off how my house is laid out, but when I go into the kitchen, I can see my backyard. So if I'm looking for the dog, my wife's not here. And then also my dog's not here. Oh, the dog's there. What are you talking about? The dog's in the backyard with the leash on still. Yeah. He found her already. He found her as soon as he got home.

That's what I'm saying. So to what Sharon's saying, if he got downstairs, he had the pizza, he sees the dog in the backyard with a leash still on. No, he saw the dog in the backyard as soon as he got home. That's what I'm saying. You said he has the pizza and then he sees the dog. I'm confused. Well, wherever it is, he gets home and he sees the dog in the backyard with a leash on. You're not going to go take a shower. You're not going to eat cold pizza. Do you get what I'm saying? You're not going to do that after that. So I got the impression that Mackenzie would often be in the backyard. With a leash on? So there are reports that Mackenzie was known to escape and be seen around the neighborhood

with her leash on. Yeah. Was there any information that he tried calling Lacey when he got home? Not when he got home, no. Okay. That's weird, right? That's weird. Do you think that would be a common thing? You know, hey, listen.

Where are you? Why is the dog in the backyard? Why are you not answering any of my calls? Yeah, where are you? I mean, unless they fought that morning and he was like, she's pissed at me and that's why she just left and she didn't tell me where she was and she needs time to cool down. No, he didn't. He didn't say that, did he?

That'd be something you- Well, maybe he didn't want to say that because he didn't want to make it look like he was a murderer he was a murderer right like he doesn't want to admit to having fought with his wife on the day she goes missing right yeah no so what i was getting at is if he comes home and he immediately sees the dog i'm just going off most reasonable people i don't think it's a normal thing to have your dog in the, your wife's nowhere to be found. Your dog is in the backyard with their leash still attached to them. The reason you don't do that is for common sense. The dog could choke on it. You don't, you shouldn't, for anybody out there, you don't leave your leash on a dog unattended because the dog could get caught on something and you could strangle the dog.

He could hang himself like it's bad. Right. So the minute I see that I'm calling my wife again and i'm calling everyone around me i'm not gonna have a slice of cold pizza and milk take a shower and wash your clothes i'm not gonna take a shower i'm not gonna do all the messages that is something that as a reasonable person i would see and it would raise a red flag for me and i would be immediately on high alert and the last thing on my mind would be smelling like the bay for my pregnant wife, who I currently don't even know where she is. So that to, you know, everything you said about Sharon, the words he used, some of the things he did before calling her completely agree.

Completely agree. If he saw the dog immediately in the backyard, the first thing he should have done was call, call Sharon, call Ron, call whoever. Call Lacey, for that matter. I personally find it odd that he decided to wash his clothes as soon as he got home. Because, I mean, in my house, we're not running a load of laundry unless there's a full load, right? I'm not just going to put an outfit in the washing machine and wash it. Because that's wasteful and it's just not productive. So why didn't he just throw them in the hamper? And then when there was a full load, all the clothes would get washed. He made it sound like, oh no, the clothes smelled so bad,

like Lacey would notice as soon as she got home. Yeah, that's odd too. That's odd too. And if you're not swimming in the water, there might be a slight smell. I've swum, I've fished in the ocean. Put them in a plastic bag and leave them on the laundry room floor until you have a full load. I think what you said was perfect. Throw it in your laundry basket. until you have like a full load i think what you said was perfect i mean throw it in your laundry basket it's not gonna it's you know if you're in a room full of smoke if you throw them in there it might make all your clothes smell like it but to immediately come home and wash them out of the courtesy uh out of courtesy for your for your wife when it doesn't seem like you're too concerned about what she thinks that seems a little bit out of care where she is so you're worried about like oh oh, when she finally shows up, she's going to be really happy. I wash my clothes.

And who the hell washes clothes and then goes and takes a shower? I don't know about you guys, but if I'm running the washer and I try to take a shower, my water temperature is all off depending on what the washing machine is doing. Like it'll get hot and then it'll get cold. I mean, I don't know if that's the case for them, but it's been the case with every house I've lived in. The water pressure changes. It's just annoying to take a shower when you're running a load of laundry. Moral of the story for me in this small section, there's been a lot of things that could make sense as far as him being innocent, but this little section that you're covering right now is definitely bothering me.

My spidey sense is going up because this is the aftermath. There's some things here that he might not be anticipating that he's trying to prepare for. He's starting to involve other people in his, in his story. Now that's where it gets complicated because you can't control other people and their thoughts and what they say. So you're kind of, you have to be adaptable and that's probably not what he's used to. So up to this point, if he did kill her, it was all planned. And now he's starting to include other people in the fold. And this is where mistakes can be made. And this is where people start to question your behavior.

And that's what we're seeing here as they should, because it does seem like this is very odd behavior. If you are under the impression that your wife is with someone, you learn she isn't. And yet you're, you're taking showers and eating pizza and. And you say she's missing she's missing yeah she's missing that the freudian slip there the word but to me it sounds so minimal trivial but dog in the backyard with a leash on it i don't mind the dog being in the backyard even though that's still a little odd for me i wouldn't do that dog can get out or jump the

fence whatever i'd want him inside or her inside. But the leash being still attached. Yeah. If I ever saw that, I'd be like, what, what? So I'm grabbing a gun. Something's not going, something's not right. Right. Especially because he knew she planned to take the dog for a walk earlier that day. Right. Right. And you would be on more in high alert because it is your pregnant wife. You know, you're more concerned about her. Not if you're a narcissist, right? Yeah. Yeah. And again, we're kind of piece in pieces together here. You know, you're more concerned about her. Not if you're a narcissist, right? Yeah. Yeah. And again, we're kind of piece and pieces together here. You know, everything we've learned about Scott up to this point, he's a lot of things, but he doesn't seem like a caring husband.

So for him to paint this narrative that he's now concerned about her or even just as concerned about her smelling clothes that, you know, she's not, she doesn't like, it just doesn't fit the person that we've learned about up to this point. So even though it might seem trivial that you're like, why are you guys still talking about these clothes and the fact that he wanted to wash them? Because for two episodes, we've been talking about how the guy is basically, besides being a cheater, he's an asshole. Self-serving. Yeah, he's very self-serving. And to think that he would come home and be like, oh, I want to make sure the house doesn't smell for her. That doesn't fit the guy that we've been hearing about. So that in and

of itself doesn't incriminate him of murder, but it definitely doesn't line up with the person that we've kind of been developing this profile on as far as how he conducts himself, especially around Lacey. Yeah. Well, Sharon told Scott, you know, call Lacey's friends, see if she's with one of them. You know, did anybody talk to her today? Ask your neighbors if they saw her. So then Sharon gets off the phone with Scott and she goes and tells her husband, Ron, Lacey's missing. And Ron's like, calm down. You know, Lacey's probably out shopping with friends. She's probably like doing something. But then Scott called back and he was like, OK, I talked to her friends. I talked to the neighbors. No one's seen her. No one's talked to her. Now, all these people he's calling, he does call a couple of people.

They say that he called and they said he sounds panicked. He sounds alarmed. He sounds stressed out. Where's Lacey? Is she with you? He sounds, you know, like alarmed, like a husband who can't find his pregnant wife would. So, you know, there's that. But he doesn't seem super alarmed with Sharon, though.

Yeah. I mean, not to beat a dead horse. so you know there's that but he doesn't seem super alarmed with sharon though yeah i mean not to beat a dead horse it goes back to if he if this was premeditated and you've watched any true crime documentaries they're always analyzing these phone calls and you know your reaction and oh he didn't seem very concerned so could this be genuine absolutely could it be just a form of acting to try to so that these people that he's talking to later as witnesses will say he sounded panicked? He sounded like a concerned husband. Absolutely. Yeah, that's possible as well. a white t-shirt and tennis shoes. Lacey's sister Amy recalled that at the time of Lacey's disappearance, she had been trying to stay fit and she was conscious of the weight that she was gaining, which is sad. You're pregnant. Like, chill out, girl. You're going to get that body

back. You don't have to stress yourself out. But Lacey would be physically active. She walked every single day or almost every day. And every Monday she went to yoga. Lacey's friend Kristen Reed told police that Lacey had stopped walking because she'd been having dizzy spells, but by the start of December 2002, Lacey was walking regularly again. Scott claimed that Lacey's normal route would bring her from their house to East La Loma Park, which is about an 18-minute walk from her Covina Ave address. It's really close, actually. It's like a four-minute drive. It's kind of right around the corner. But she would then head towards the tennis courts in the park and then back towards her home in like a loop. It's a mile loop. And this would take Lacey about 45 minutes, definitely under an hour. Sharon said that since

Scott had found Mackenzie with her leash on, she assumed it meant Lacey had taken Mackenzie for a walk and she had taken this route as she always did. But later, Sharon claimed that if she'd been thinking clearly, she would have realized that this didn't make any sense since it was freezing outside. It had rained that day and the trail that Lacey would take from her house to the park, it would have been muddy and wet and kind of treacherous. And, you know, for anybody, not even just a pregnant woman. Let's go back to our timeline and find out what was happening in the Petersons' quiet neighborhood that morning after Scott left for his office. No less than 10 people have claimed to have seen Lacey after Scott left. Between 9.45 and 10 a.m., Homer Maldonado and his wife Helen stopped by gas at the

USA station at the corner of Miller Avenue and Camellia Way. This is right around the corner from Covina Ave. They claim they saw Lacey and her dog in front of 211 Covina Avenue. Homer said the woman who he thought was Lacey looked very pregnant and she seemed to be having trouble getting her dog under control. And from reports, we know that Lacey always kept Mackenzie on a leash because she did have trouble controlling him. Homer Maldonado claims that he looked in his rearview mirror, and he saw Lacey turn the corner and continue walking west on the north side of Miller Avenue. Homer reported the sighting to the tip line on January 1st, 2003. But Modesto PD never reached out to him, and he was not spoken to about his sighting until July of 2004

when he was interviewed by someone from the DA's office. A woman named Martha Aguilar also saw who she believed was Lacey and Mackenzie walking on La Loma Avenue around 10 a.m. Aguilar says that she is sure that she saw Lacey because Lacey lived just two blocks south from her and they went to the same doctor. So she would see her in the office sometimes. Martha also called the tip line, but no one ever reached out to her. She was never even interviewed by anyone from the Modesto PD or the DA's office. Again, around 10 a.m.,

a man named Tony Freitas was driving his delivery route northwest of La Loma Avenue when he saw Lacey and Mackenzie near the intersection of La Loma Avenue. He called the tip line on December 30th, and the woman who took his call said that he would be contacted by a detective, but the Modesto PD never reached out to him. Other neighbors saw Lacey dressed in a white shirt and black pants walking Mackenzie in the park around 10 a.m. Between 10 and 10.30, Vivian and Bill Mitchell, who lived on Buena Vista Avenue about 10 blocks from Lacey's house, they claimed they saw Lacey and Mackenzie walking by. At 10.18 a.m., Lacey's neighbor, Karen Service, was backing out of her driveway when she saw Mackenzie standing in the

street in front of her house with his leash on. At the trial, Karen would testify that she often saw Mackenzie running loose with his leash on. So, you know, she wasn't like, oh, what's going on here? This is a red flag. It was kind of normal for her to see this. Karen took Mackenzie's leash and led him back to the Peterson home, but she found the gate to the front door was locked. She claims at this point she heard something in the backyard and she assumed it was Lacey so she walked Mackenzie to the driveway to find the side gate that went into the backyard. It had been left wide open. She walked through the gate all the way to the end of the pool but no one was there

and at this point Karen realized that the sounds she'd been hearing were coming from Lacey's neighbor's yard. So she left Mackenzie in the backyard and she closed the gate behind her so that he couldn't escape again. Karen says she did not see anyone in the backyard. She didn't notice anyone in the house. She didn't really notice anything out of the ordinary, but she did notice that as she was walking away, there was like this wet dirt on her hands from Mackenzie's leash. And she said the dirt seemed to have grass clippings and leaf clippings in it. Okay, so let's break down that real quick because I know you have more of a timeline to go through

and I have a lot I'm writing here. So I want to get to a couple things. You had mentioned a woman earlier in this episode that was also pregnant walking in the area. I can't remember her name, but some people believe that this was the woman that everyone was seeing. Do we know what kind of dog she had and what kind of breed Mackenzie was?

So Mackenzie was a golden retriever. And it's very funny because you remember that A&E series about Lacey Peterson? Yes. I didn't watch it, but I remember it. I think it was called Truth and Lies or something. But Detective Al Brocchini was featured prominently in in this series and he says um we have located another pregnant woman in the neighborhood who also has a golden retriever and we believe that everyone was seeing this woman and not lacy but the thing is so the same breed not the same breed though

this woman does not have a golden retriever she is okay so he was just he was making it up well allegedly because there's no other pregnant woman that was walking around lacy's neighborhood Okay, so he was making it up. Well, allegedly. Because there's no other pregnant woman that was walking around Lacey's neighborhood that had a golden retriever. I mean, this other woman did have a dog, but it's not a golden retriever. So, you know, everything you're saying right now, there's multiple people. The one that's the most compelling for me is the person who actually personally knows Lacey from the doctor's appointments. The other people I could see it being them being mistaken, but the person who says, no, I, I, not only did I see Lacey, but I know who Lacey is. So it's not a matter of me thinking I might've seen a woman who looks like the girl that I keep seeing on TV. You know, this is a woman that I knew before

this and it was definitely her. So I, again, this is, this is interesting because this puts her still alive at around 10, 10 30. And, you know, if you're trying to paint a narrative of how Scott could have done this, he's already gone. He's gone. And we know he is because he checked his voicemail at 10 0 6 and the GPS put him not at the house. So we call that reasonable doubt, right? Right.

Right. So if he's, if he's where his phone says he is, which you would have to believe he was, and there's definitive proof that she was still alive at that time, you know, don't need us to put together the pieces for you. It's not possible for her to already be dead first and foremost, or for him to be responsible for her death after that. Um, the McKenzie thing with the the dog with the leash in the backyard that explains that. But I still have a question where let's take it from the angle that these people are wrong. Right.

These people are wrong in the person they thought they saw. They didn't. Okay. Or it's possible that they had the time wrong or it's possible it was even another day. Right. That they saw her walking and they thought it was the 23rd or the 24th. We talk about witnesses and being them being wrong just about the boat with Scott. They could be wrong here too, where they thought they saw Lacey. They're trying to do the rightrd or the 24th. We talk about witnesses and being them being wrong, just about the boat with Scott. They could be wrong here too, where they thought they saw Lacey.

They're trying to do the right thing. They're wrong. But there's one person that you're talking about here, Karen. She's not going to mistake the idea that she saw Mackenzie and that she took that dog and put it in the backyard. That's not, that's something that was physically done. So she's definitely not wrong. She definitely is not mistaken.

It wasn't the wrong dog. So at some point McKenzie left the yard or was on its, on his own and was walking around and had in areas that were muddy, grassy, whatever. How'd that happen? Well, I mean, one explanation could be Lacey was, you know, kidnapped, whatever. Another one could be Scott let the dog out before he left. Scott wanted to look like she got kidnapped. Yeah, exactly.

So they can be easily explained either way. He could, if he, if he put Lacey in the back of his truck, it wouldn't take much to leave the door open and say, go ahead, boy, go ahead, take off. And he's already known to run the area. So the dog is going to take off like a bat out of hell. And he knows that someone's going to find the dog walking around with its leash and it would support a narrative that she was attacked during her walk. That means again, it's not too far fetched. So maybe not realizing it,

Karen became part of a premeditated narrative that Scott had created. Yeah. Just something to think about. Well, at around 10.30 a.m., Lacey's neighbors across the street, the Medinas, they were getting ready to go out of town for the holidays.

They would return on December 26th to find their home had been the target of a break-in. At 10.30 a.m., Amy Craigbaum was woken up by the sound of dogs barking. She knew both of the dogs involved in the barking incident.

She said one was Sage and the other was Lacey's dog, Mackenzie. Now, Amy claimed Sage was a barker. Sage barked a lot, but he usually did not trigger Mackenzie to bark. Between 1030 and 1050 a.m., the Peterson's mailman, Russell Graybell, arrived. He claimed when he got there, the side gate was wide open. Now, remember, this is after Karen's putting Mackenzie back into the backyard. But he also claims that Peterson's dog, Mackenzie, did not bark at him, which was out of the ordinary, because if Mackenzie was out when Russell showed up, he always barked at him. The memory of Russell Graybell does contrast with

the testimony of Karen Service, who remembered putting Mackenzie in the backyard around 10.20 a.m. before closing the gate behind her. But Russell Graybell claimed the gate was open and Mackenzie was not there or he would have barked or come like running out, right? And this is normal because even if the mailman walks up and the gate's open, Mackenzie's going to come running out. I mean, I have three little dogs and it doesn't matter. They'll run at you. They don't care. Scott's lawyers have argued that this is because Karen's service did put Mackenzie in the backyard. But then Lacey, who was still alive at this point, then took Mackenzie for a walk after Karen put him back in the backyard. And this proved that she was alive after Scott Peterson left the house that morning. Prosecutors have argued that Karen's service's statements are stronger because they're supporting evidence of her timeline. They looked at it because she was

going to the store. That's why she was getting in her car. So they saw the time of her purchases made from her shopping trip that morning. They saw her cell phone records. So they say that this is better testimony from Karen because we have evidence that backs up her timeline. Whereas with Russell Graybbill maybe he was there in a different day and he saw this maybe he didn't remember correctly etc i mean i wouldn't even go that far you know again i'm just i'm only hearing what you're telling me but karen saying that between you know it was around 10 20 that she put mckenzie in the backyard right where this this mailman uh russell is saying it was between 1030 and 1050 that

he showed up and the gate was open. Yes. One of their times could be off. I mean, they might have just missed each other. It could be simple as- Karen's time was not off because she went right to the store after that and they have like her purchases. Russell could have been there earlier, later.

Yeah. Could have been there at 1015 right before. I mean, they literally could have just missed each other where it would might've been like so close that he's not, I'm assuming he didn't check his watch the minute he opened, you know, saw the gate. Maybe he did, you know, but if he didn't and he's just, again, the fact that he's approximating that it's between 1030 and 1050 tells me he's not sure. Yeah. And so he could have easily gotten there moments before Karen got there with the dog. And that would also explain, again, if we're under the theory that Scott let Mackenzie go freely, he didn't just walk out in the middle of the road and go, you're free.

He would have put him in the backyard. You're free. He would have put him in the backyard. And opened the gate. Opened the gate, left it open, and then said hey do you buddy run mckenzie run yeah exactly and so go find that girl dog go find that sage dog you've been you've been barking at over the fence my point it would have been a lot more subtle for his first guy for sure he would have done something where if someone was walking by they would have seen mckenzie run out of the

backyard because the gate was left yeah not sc, not Scott, just like throwing her leash. Right. Yeah. Right. So it would have been a lot more subtle. So I do think you could be looking at a classic case of people are trying to give you timestamps, but unless you're like a police officer or someone whose job revolves around specific times, you may be off by 15 or 20 minutes. And unfortunately, in this particular case, that 10 or 15 minute window is extremely important.

Yeah, but don't you think between you both being right or wrong don't you think if the prosecutor wanted to prove or disprove russell's statement they could have gotten his cell phone gps records and been like when were you in the you know covina avenue area like what time of the morning were you there like so much was so much should have been done to verify or not verify that wasn't done. And now you have, he said, she said, which helps nobody. Right. Yeah.

The thing about the pinging of the phones is it wouldn't ping every second. So like it would show them like, and it also wouldn't show them the exact spot where they were. So it would show them bouncing off a specific tower, but that could be an area to 300 yards, 400 yards. I don't know the science behind it, but it could be a large area where it would just show,

hey, his phone was in this area at that time, but it wouldn't say, oh, he was right at the gate at that time. But it still should have been done if it wasn't, but it wouldn't be that specific. And I mean, it's not like mailmen, like USPS, they're not like FedEx where they scan the package before leaving it.

So you have some sort of timestamp. It's just basically like his word. That's it. And nothing wrong with it. Again, we keep saying it's kind of become a theme throughout this episode. He hearts in the right place, but he could definitely be often it's,

I've been so many times where you think you're, Oh yep. It was definitely 10 30. And then you have camera footage saying, Hey Joe, I'm seeing you here at 10 four five. Yeah. Oh man.

Was it that early? right wow i was way off sorry about that and he never gives like a reason for why he thinks that he wasn't like yeah i was listening to my favorite morning show which is on at this time so i know that it was closer to this time like he never really gives a reason to support why he believes it was that time just like that's usually the time i would be at this part of my route. So that's why I think it was this time. Yeah. I am leaning towards the idea that Russell's time was off. Yeah. Well, back at Sharon and Ron's house, Sharon went to put on some warm clothes so she could go out and search for Lacey. And she instructed Ron to call around to hospitals to see if Lacey had been

checked in. She had not. So Ron finally called 911 to report Lacey missing. And in this call, he claims that Scott told him that he was golfing that morning and that he had left at 930 a.m. Sharon remembers also at this point how quickly Scott called her back after she told him to contact Lacey's friends and talk to neighbors. She feels that it was only like a 10 or 15 minute gap between his first call and his second call when he called back and said, nobody knows where she is. And Sharon wondered, you know, how many people could he have possibly spoken to in that short period of time? Like how many doors could he have knocked on? How many calls could he have made? So Sharon called Scott at 5.49 PM and she was like, I'm on my way to La Loma Park.

I'm going to look for Lacey. And Scott said, hey, I'm already here. Meet me by the tennis courts. Sharon said when she arrived, there was no sign of Lacey or Scott. In fact, there was no one around since it's Christmas Eve night. The weather was cold. It was wet. You know, it's getting dark. Nobody's out there at the park right now.

Eventually, after being there for some time, Sharon did see Scott with Mackenzie. And she said he was like walking. He was like walking along a creek and she was like calling his name, but he either didn't hear her or he pretended he didn't hear her. And she watched him walking along this creek and she said he wasn't using a flashlight and he was not calling Lacey's name. So if you're looking for somebody and you're walking along in this park, you'd think he'd be shouting, Lacey, Lacey. He was not doing that, which was a red flag for her. Fair. The fact that no one has been able to get on the same page, though, about what exactly Scott Peterson had been doing that day when his wife went missing, it added a lot of fuel to the fire.

Ron Gransky had told that 911 operator that Scott had been golfing, and others testified that Scott had also told them he would be golfing, and this made it look like he lied and he had something to hide. According to Scott's appeal, he never lied about fishing that day. He had called Lacey on his way home earlier, and he told her, you know, hey, hon, I'm leaving Berkeley Marina. And when he spoke to the first responding police officer, Sergeant John Evers, at 6.15 p.m. on December 24th, Scott said he'd been fishing in the bay and he provided Evers with his receipt from Berkeley Marina. Lacey's stepfather, Ron, approached Scott around 8 p.m. that evening and he was like, hey, how was your golf game today? Which to me, this is this is Ron already suspecting Scott, because when your daughter's missing, you don't walk up and like talk about golf games and like, you know, par and all of that. And Scott responded, no, I wasn't golfing today. I went fishing. Later, Ron testified that he'd told the 911 operator Scott had been

golfing because that's what Sharon assumed. And because he had also mentioned it to Lacey's sister Amy the night before. But what I'm trying to get at here is like, besides Amy, it doesn't seem like Scott directly told any of Lacey's family that he'd been golfing that day. He'd always been upfront about the fact that he was fishing in Berkeley Marina. And so that brings us up to date on the timeline. And in the next part of the series, we're going to go into the aftermath. We're going to talk about Scott's behavior in the days and weeks and months after his pregnant wife vanished. We're going to talk about his interviews with police, his interviews with the media.

We're going to talk about the investigation that happened, what they found, what they didn't find. And we're going to talk about his girlfriend, Amber, playing double agent once she, you know, began to put two and two together and decided that she needed to be on the right side of history when it came to Scott Peterson, his lies, and his double life. And Amber basically, I think it was not long after Lacey went missing, December 30th, I believe, she called Modesto Police and she was like, listen, I am dating Scott Peterson. He lied about being married. Now his wife's missing. I think he did something to her. Let's get him. You know, and they started recording Amber's calls with Scott, which are disgusting. being married. Now his wife's missing. I think he did something to her. Let's get him. And they started recording Amber's calls with Scott, which are disgusting in the wake of the fact that his wife, his pregnant wife was missing. And yeah, there's a lot more to talk about still, guys. Yeah, it's interesting. Not to regurgitate everything because we did, we were over two hours at this point.

My main takeaway is it sounds like, sounds like what, where Scott was, you know, his whereabouts, all those things might be accurate. But my question in my head is, was his plan to play golf the next day and that changed because of whatever events occurred that night or the next morning? You know, because you had said it. Why did he get the fishing license if he wasn't going to go fishing either of those days, right? Well, a fishing license is good for the year. No, he had a two-day fishing license, December 23rd, December 24th. Okay. That's interesting. I don't know. I don't know. Again, we could be looking at a situation where, you know, sometimes I'm operating under the assumption that like he didn't plan on killing her. And this was something that happened like a crime of passion. And then he had to come up with all the, that's when people usually get caught. Right. But if we're operating under the

assumption that this was something he had been planning for weeks, then all those questions, like the one you just asked, they all make sense, right? They all make sense. The boat, the purchasing of the fishing license, the dog, all these things. If that's the theory you're going under, you can apply most of this to that theory. But very interesting stuff. Real quick, just to hit on us. Let me ask you a question, though, as a man. Hit me. Okay.

Hit me as a man. And I want you to answer honestly. I'm not going to judge you because I don't even judge him. I don't even judge him for this, but a lot of people do. You are Scott Peterson. You're Scott or someone like him. Your wife's pregnant. It's Christmas Eve.

You don't have kids right now. Do you leave your wife on Christmas Eve to go fishing or go golfing? Is that something that you would find to be acceptable? I mean, I guess it depends on your dynamic with your wife. Yeah, I would do it. If it's early in the morning or whatever, it's like, hey, babe, you know, you're going to go do what you got to do with your parents. You got things you want to do.

I'm dying to get my new boat on the water. It's killing me. I really want to get out there and just try it out for a couple hours. I'm not going to spend all day on the boat. So, you know, as long as you're cool with it, I'm going to go out there because I really want to. Yeah, I think it's different if you have kids, right? Because you want to be more family time.

It's Christmas Eve. You want to spend time with the kids. But if you're if it's just you and your wife and she's going to make gingerbread and she's got all these plans, I don't think there's anything wrong with going out and doing something that you enjoy. What are you going to do? Help her make the gingerbread? Yeah, I mean. More than, I'm not that guy. Oh, you know, let me help you bake. I'm not going to do that. So it's like, hey, if you're going to be baking. You're going to freaking bake if I say you're gonna bake man you know but yeah if she said to me i'm gonna make gingerbread i might be like perfect i'm gonna go take the boat out for a couple hours because i want to see how the more you let me know how that gingerbread goes um quickly about the uh speak pipes we have said we're going to include them we listened to all the speak pipes regarding this

episode really good stuff included really good stuff we're actually have an excel sheet going right now it's so it allows us to see it both the transcription and to listen to it and i want to mention before derrick continues that those first like couple of you know i have 10-15 minutes of this episode where we are addressing did scott want to be a father uh was he you know having multiple affairs a lot of those questions came directly from your speak pipes and that's why I made sure to include it because like I said, we are solving this together. So I wanted to answer your questions and we're getting a lot of good stuff. Yeah, you nailed it. We did incorporate a lot of what you guys were, most of what you had was questions. So we incorporated it. And I will say this,

a lot of the speak pipes transitioned from, not to go down this rabbit hole, but from Lacey to Gabby Petito. That was some of the stuff I was seeing too in DMs and stuff like that. So we incorporated a lot of the narrative, the way it was scripted by Stephanie was based on your questions. The final thing, and for those of you who can't see it

because you're listening on audio, Stephanie is rocking an undercover pineapple shirt right now. I'm jealous. I don't have mine yet. I love it. I texted him yesterday. I'm like, did you get your merchant? He's like, no. Did you get yours? I'm like, I don't have mine yet. I love it. I texted me after. I'm like, did you get your merchant? He's like, no. Did you get yours? I'm like, I don't know. But my USPS email says I'm

about to. And then it came today. What's the verdict? I love it. I love it. It's so soft. I love the color. Bella walked up to me when I was getting ready to come down and record. And she's like, I want a pineapple shirt. And then she was like, who's that? I was like, that's me and Derek. And now she keeps pointing and she goes, that's mommy that's derrick it's adorable so uh i probably have to get her one now told you yeah it's a hit i know it's a hit hit us up it's kind of you know we'll just get some plushies right get some little pineapple i know i was looking at that they're expensive i told you about that i was looking at we can sell them expensive. I told you about that. I was looking at it. We can sell them ourselves. Yeah, just add it to the list of things.

If you guys want to check it out, you can go on right now. There's the t-shirts that Stephanie's wearing. There's hooded sweatshirts. You have the Crime Weekly logo. You have mugs for both the Crime Weekly logo and the undercover pineapple. We also added water bottles like stainless steel travel water bottles. They're so nice. I use them all the time.

That's why I kind of like them on there. Really convenient. So if you want to check that out, you can see the link right here. It's crimeweeklypodcast.com slash shop. Check it out. Support the channel. We really appreciate it. Anything else before you close us out?

I mean, it was a long one. I know it was a long one. So I'm going to let you guys go on with your life. I'm going to let Derek go on with his life because he's going to be up till five o'clock in the morning and I'm going to go to bed. We'll see you guys next week. See you guys. Bye.

Bye.