RedHanded - Episode 278 - Scott Peterson: Sex, Lies & Fishing Boats - Part 1

Episode Date: December 15, 2022

When beautiful, eight-and-a-half-month-pregnant Laci Peterson vanished without a trace on Christmas Eve 2002, headlines across the US exploded. As much as the media and the public obsessed over the case, and the seemingly odd behaviour of her husband Scott, no one was prepared for the shocking revelations that were to come… Leaving people asking: did Scott Peterson kill his wife, or is he just the unluckiest man alive? Merch pre-orders start Friday 16 Dec at  percivalclo.com Code: REDHANDED10 for 10% off 2023 North American Tour Tickets: redhandedpodcast.com See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. So, get this. The Ontario Liberals elected Bonnie Crombie as their new leader. Bonnie who? I just sent you her profile. Check out her place in the Hamptons. Huh, fancy. She's a big carbon tax supporter, yeah? Oh yeah. Check out her record as mayor. Oh, get out of here.

She even increased taxes in this economy. Yeah, higher taxes, carbon taxes. She sounds expensive. Bonnie Crombie and the Ontario Liberals. They just don't get it. That'll cost you. A message from the Ontario PC Party. Get ready for Las Vegas-style action at BetMGM,

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And we cannot wait to see you all on the road next year. I'm Saruti. I'm Hannah. And welcome to Red Handed. It's the last one of the year, almost. Yes, the penultimate episode of 2022. It's been a hell of a year. Thank you, everyone who has stuck by us.

Do you know what our first episode this year was? Fuck no. Scientology. Doesn't that feel like a hundred years ago? It also feels like it was yesterday. I'm very confused, but it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Let's not look back. Let's look forward and onwards to today's episode. This is going to be a two-parter. It's got to be. So let's get on with it because it's a fucking beast. And everyone be talking. Oh yeah. Everyone be having opinions. Oh they do indeed. Let's get

on to ours. In November 2004, 33-year-old Scott Peterson was sentenced to death for the murder of his pregnant wife, Lacey, and their unborn son, who they had named Connor. To this day, Peterson claims to be innocent, saying that he was a victim of a media storm that whipped up a frenzy of hate against him. Scott Peterson has spent years appealing his conviction and in December 2021, his death sentence, but not his conviction, was overruled

and he was re-sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. And last Friday, so Friday the 2nd of December 2022, we were supposed to find out if Scott Peterson's appeal to try and get a whole new trial had been successful or not. But the judge decided that there was no need for a hearing on

the matter and that she will be releasing her decision on whether or not he will be having a new trial in writing before the 16th of December. Which means at the time we are recording this episode, we do not know what is going to happen. All we know is that there is going to be no hearing and a decision is on the way. We don't know what that decision is. And this case has been on our list for quite some time. And you will already know if you know anything about this case. There's no way we'd be able to do it justice in an hour, even an hour and a half. So we're doing a two-parter. And that means we will be closing 2022 with Scott Peterson. It is the last case you will hear this year at Red Handed Towers,

coming to you hot from East London, where it's actually quite cold. So there was so much information to get through on this one. And I went into the research on this case, honestly, with an open mind. I didn't really know the story that well. But it looks like there are a decent number of people out there who think that Scott Peterson was indeed wrongfully convicted. So I figured there must be something in it. Maybe, as many of his defenders say,

Scott Peterson had been convicted based on emotion and rage stirred up by the media, and not by any real evidence. Maybe he was innocent, but just a deeply, deeply unlucky man whose pregnant wife had been murdered, and the circumstances just so happened to paint him in a very bad light. I even wondered if perhaps, say he was guilty, but that maybe there hadn't been a strong enough prosecutorial case against him. So maybe his guilt hadn't been proven beyond a reasonable doubt in court. And so the jury had been wrong to convict him. Like I said, I didn't really have a strong opinion before going into it. I know what I think now. But over the next two episodes, we're going to try and be as even

handed as we possibly can. And let's see what we all think at the end. And let's try not to give ourselves hernias in the process. So our story today begins on the 24th of December 2002, which is, of course, Christmas Eve. And this Christmas Eve was in Modesto, California. Scott Peterson said that his wife Lacey woke up at about 7.30am and headed downstairs to have breakfast. He then joined her between 8 about 7.30am and headed downstairs to have breakfast.

He then joined her between 8 and 8.30am. He had a bowl of cereal that Lacey had picked up at Trader Joe's the day before. Cinnamon puffins. Are they puffin-shaped? Maybe. I don't know. I don't know. Do you know what? In all the hours of research I put into this, I didn't look up. Well, when we go to our North American tour, we'll find out in Trader Joe's. Cinnamon puffins. No don't ruin the mystery. No I'm gonna. They're not they're not puffin shaped. Are they like rice crispy shaped? No they're just like they're like cinnamon grahams. Oh. It's got a puffin on the front of the box. I'm disgusted. So Scott sits there eats his

cinnamon not puffin shaped puffins and he watched some TV with his wife. They happen to be watching Lacey's favourite tax avoider, Martha Stewart. And Martha Stewart, according to Scott, was talking about meringues. The entire timeline that you are about to hear, that we are going to lay out for you, is according to Scott Peterson. And if you're like, why are you giving so many random details like cinnamon puffins and Martha Stewart meringues? Well, it's because that is exactly what Scott would later tell the police about how his morning unfolded.

So Scott says that Lacey told him that she was going to make some fancy French toast for their Christmas breakfast the next morning and that she needed to go to the shop and pick up the ingredients, because it needed to marinate overnight. She also told Scott that she was going to mop the floor, walk the dog, and make gingerbread biscuits. Then that evening, they were planning to head over to Lacey's parents' house for Christmas Eve dinner. A big schedule for a woman who was eight and a half months pregnant. And what about Scott? Well, he was going to spend his day playing golf. Now, if you look into this case, even at a cursory glance,

you will see that a lot of people give him a hard time for this. They're like, what the hell is he doing going off to play golf, leaving pregnant Lacey all alone on Christmas Eve? But to be honest, Lacey is definitely a type A personality. She loves cooking. She loves like having a beautiful house. She loves the holidays. So I can kind of see Lacey just kind of wanting Scott out of the way, out from underneath her feet so that she can just get on with her like holiday prep list. I don't really think that him going to play golf in and of itself was that big a deal. No, how many people take themselves off to the pub on christmas eve yeah exactly exactly how many people in this country wake up on christmas day with a savage hangover because they went out to the pubs on christmas

eve like i don't think it's that big a deal it's the tradition to not be able to see properly on christmas morning precisely which is why we all start drinking at nine. So before Scott left, he said that he filled up the mop bucket for Lacey because apparently she couldn't lift it up to the sink. He then loaded three garden parasol umbrellas that he wanted to store at his workshop into the back of his truck. A neighbour spotted him and waved hello. Lacey was mopping as Scott left at about 10 o'clock. Scott later on gives a few different times for when he left that particular morning, but we're pretty sure that about 10 o'clock is the most accurate, for reasons that we will come on to.

On his way to the golf course, Scott stopped at his workshop slash office, which was about 10 minutes' drive from the Petersons' home. Scott was an agricultural salesman, selling everything from tools to manure. So this unit was set up for his work things. But why was he heading there on Christmas Eve? Well, it seems that the world of agricultural equipment sales does not stop for the celebration of the birth of baby Jesus. Apparently Scott received a call from his boss at 10.08am as he was leaving his home to hit the holes. When he arrived at his office, Scott checked his inbox and sent an email replying to his boss. He spent about 25 minutes at his office in total,

during which time he checked his emails and googled instructions on how to assemble a woodworking tool called a mortiser that he had recently purchased. And it was during this time that Scott decided that that day it was far too cold to go golfing after all. So he figured he'd go fishing instead. Now I'm not a golfer, and nor am I a fisherwoman but I can't help but think that standing on a golf course wearing like a sexy argyle sweater and a nice big coat and gloves and a hat is probably a bit warmer than getting wet and wild on a boat. Whatever we might think though, Scott says that he had just bought a brand

new boat and reckoned that this was the perfect chance to test it out. So he hooked up this 14 foot aluminium boat to his truck and hit the road. And boy did he hit it hard because he drove 90 miles from his office to the San Francisco Bay, a journey that would have taken at least an hour and a half. Now again, I'm no watery activity expert, but I did take a look at a map. And there looks to be a lot of freshwater lakes in and around the Modesto area. But instead of visiting any of these, Scott drove 90 miles to go fishing. And maybe, just maybe, driving that far for a bit of fishing may not be weird to you Americans with all of your lands and your big cars and your big roads. But on Christmas Eve, when he and Lacey had plans that night, everyone's on the road on Christmas Eve.

That's mad. And that's the thing. You could argue that maybe he's just like, fuck it, I do have to go to my in-laws tonight, so I'm going to go drive 90 miles to go fishing. But it does seem crazy. But we don't know many things. I know that San Francisco is fucking cold. I do know that. And I also know that saltwater, like the saltwater in the San Francisco Bay. And unlike in all of those freshwater lakes in and around the Modesto area.

Saltwater corrodes aluminium. Which is what his boat was made of. So Scott Peterson, a man who had been fishing his whole life, took the wrong kind of boat to fish in the San Francisco Bay and didn't remember in the whole 90 miles he was driving on his own. And he had been fishing since he was a child. Surely he would have known that. I mean, maybe he just forgot.

Maybe he's an idiot. Who knows? In any case, Scott Peterson went to the San Francisco Bay. And at 12.54 that afternoon, Scott paid for parking at the Berkeley Marina. Meanwhile, back at the Peterson home in Modesto, at 10.18am, so not long after Scott had left Lacey mopping, Karen Severus, a neighbour, had found the Peterson's golden retriever, Mackenzie, wandering around in the street with his leash on.

Karen got hold of Mackenzie and put him back in the Peterson's back garden and closed the gate behind her and then went about her day. Just after 2pm, so a little over an hour after Scott had arrived at Berkeley Marina, he wrapped things up and headed home. And that struck me as not being a particularly long time on the water for a man who'd just driven 90 miles to get to San Francisco Bay. And some places report that he was fishing for an hour. Like even Rolling Stone, who did like a huge long form article on this, said he was fishing for 78

minutes because they're using the parking time and the time that his mobile phone left the marina. But like, that's not true. Because if you think about the time that he arrived, the time that it would have taken for him to unhook his boat from his truck, get that boat down the ramp into the water, and then get to where he fished, about two miles away from the marina, that he admitted to, and the time it would have taken for him to get back to the dock, hook his boat back up to the truck, and then leave,

he probably had 20 to 30 minutes tops in the water. Scott would later say that the reason he was in the water for such a short amount of time was because he'd left his saltwater lures in his truck when he was sat in his very much freshwater boat. So he does know what saltwater is. Yep. And he said that he tried for a bit with the wrong type of lures,

but he got a bit cold, he wasn't catching anything, so he just gave up and left. And as Scott left the marina, he very quickly got stuck in some heavy holiday traffic. And at 2.15, he called Lacey and left the following message. Hey, 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. Sweetie, love you. Bye. A lot to unpack there. Before we go on, let's just clear one thing up. The basket that he's referring to in this message is a fruit basket that Lacey and her sister Amy had ordered for their granddad for Christmas. So he's just saying, I haven't done it. The night before Christmas Eve, Scott and Lacey had gone to the salon where Amy, Lacey's sister, worked as a hairdresser and got Scott's haircut. After the trim, Amy had then taught Lacey how to curl her hair with straightness. And it was then that Amy remembered that she needed to go and pick up the fruit basket

the following day, to which brother-in-law of the year, Scott, said that she didn't need to worry he would do it for her. But he doesn't. No, he doesn't. But let's discuss the call because, yeah, like Hannah said, there's a lot to unpack there. And to me, honestly, and this is a personal opinion,

maybe people have different opinions, to me, honestly, it seems rehearsed and incredibly cringeworthy. I don't think it sounds like a natural call. Firstly, he's calling to tell Lacey that he's going to be late on Christmas Eve when they have plans that night to go to her parents' house. And he's also telling her that she now needs to go out after the incredibly busy day that she's had in Christmas Eve traffic to go and get the basket that he said he would get but that he's fucked up and he fucked up because he decided to drive for a three-hour round trip to go fishing for 20 minutes there's no sort of contrition there's no sorry there's no like awkwardness you would have when you have to tell somebody

something that you fucked up you know there's no sort of like tail between his legs voice in that message the chirpiness just sounds a bit off like given the context of what he's actually saying i also think it's weird that he doesn't give an estimate of when he'll actually be home and also there's no explanation of why he's in berkeley because he just says on the call i'm just leaving ber now. But when did he tell Lacey that he was going to Berkeley? He decided to go fishing there at the very last minute when he was already at his office, in his own words. Lacey thought that he was going golfing much closer to home. Maybe he just forgot. Maybe he forgot that he didn't tell her. Maybe, you know,

this guy, everything just falls out of his head like a sieve. I don't know. But in this message, he doesn't explain why he's in Berkeley, just that he's leaving. And it just strikes me as a little bit odd. This is the argument that you will come up against in this case time and time again. Perhaps we are reading too much into it. Maybe he's just a real dickhead and maybe he would never care about picking up a fruit basket maybe that was the nature of their relationship maybe he never apologized maybe he was just like this is the way it is exactly i think you know we're looking at it from the point of view of people who wouldn't if i had to tell somebody i'd done something wrong i

wouldn't deliver a message like that but maybe he is just a dickhead yeah and that's why he says it i think i mean we will go on to discuss this at length. I don't believe for a second that he's not a dickhead. I don't think it's a defence. So many people are just like, well, yeah, he's a horrible person. The end. Anyway, the call we think is weird. Let's accept it and use it for what it is useful for,

which is the timestamp that it gives us in our timeline. The call and the tower it pinged off do place Scott near the Berkeley Marina at 2.15pm. At 3.25pm, Scott stopped to refill his truck at a Chevron petrol station. And at 3.52pm, having heard nothing from Lacey, Scott called her again, but she still wasn't picking up her phone. From the petrol station, it would have taken Scott about 50 minutes, 5-0, to drive back to his office workshop, and he did, indeed, arrive back there at about 4.15 in the afternoon. Once he was at his office-slash-work emporium, he noticed that a fax had come through about a shipment, so he stopped to read it. He also unhooked his boat, put everything

away and left to head home at about 4.30pm. But oddly, despite having both hooked up and unhooked his boat from his truck, and having loaded and unloaded his truck with all of his fishing equipment, apart from his saltwater lures obviously, he did all of that at his office slash workshop. He seemingly forgot all about the three huge parasols that were sat in the bed of his truck. He had wanted to leave them at work, but he forgot. And he returned home with all of them jangling around on the bed of his truck. You would notice. Yeah. And we'll come back to the parasols, I think next week. So just, you know, hold them in your mind.

So when Scott got to the house, there was no sign of Lacey. But he still wasn't worried. Lacey's car was in the driveway, but her mum Sharon had probably just come to the house and got Lacey in her own car and taken her back to their house to prep dinner. Scott then found Mackenzie the dog in the back garden with his leash still on. That was probably a bit weirder, but maybe Lacey had just forgotten to take it off in all the Christmas rush. I do find it weird that Scott just assumes that Lacey is at her parents' house

and that he doesn't, like, text her or call her now he's home, you know, just to check, especially seeing as he hasn't heard from her all day. The only thing I could put this down to, to give Scott any benefit of the doubt, is that maybe he's like, she's probably pissed at me. But not that worried that he didn't stop at the office and like check his facts and do all of that before he came home. And obviously not that worried that he calls her or texts her to apologize. But maybe he's like, you know, she's pissed at me. Let me just let her cool down at her parents' house and I'll just head over there later. Anyway, Scott, who was probably wet and probably pretty gross from being on the water all day,

then took off all of his clothes and stuck them in the washing machine to run a load. He then emptied the mop bucket that was sat in the kitchen, grabbed a slice of leftover pizza and a glass of milk, and headed upstairs for a shower. That is disgusting. It just makes my stomach turn. I've spoken before about how i feel about adults drinking i agree it is not an accompaniment to a meal that's the worst thing i can possibly

think of makes me sick so gross so there's some people um unlike hannah who is very distracted by the milk situation, some people find the clothes washing a bit suspect. People are like, why does he do this? Why does he get home immediately, take off all of his clothes in the kitchen and stick them in the washing machine? I'd do that if I was soaking wet. I would do that too.

In salt water as well, definitely. If I'd been on a boat all day. And apparently Scott also had a habit of doing this because in his job he works with a lot of chemicals and so he would usually come home every night, take off all of his clothes and put them in the washing machine straight away, seeing as he did have a pregnant wife at home. Post-shower, Scott started on another slice of pizza

and he noticed that there were new unheard messages on his home answering machine. The little red light of Times of Yore was flashing. The first message was the one that he had left Lacey about the fruit basket, being like, I'm a terrible husband, I haven't done it because I've been taking care of my own fishy needs. The second message was from Lacey's stepdad, Ron. Ron was asking Lacey to bring some whipped cream over to their house that evening for the pie. So now, at 5.17pm, about 45 minutes after he got home, Scott Peterson thought he'd better call Lacey's parents and ask them if Lacey was there. Which begs the question, once again,

why doesn't he call Lacey? But in any case, he doesn't. Sharon, Lacey's mum, picks up the phone and she told Scott that Lacey wasn't with them. So Scott explained that Lacey's car was still in their driveway and that he'd found Mackenzie the dog with his leash still on. So where could Lacey be? It was then that Sharon started to panic. And she told Scott that she and Ron would call Lacey's friends and all of the local hospitals. Maybe Lacey had gone into labour and she hadn't been able to call any of them. Scott tells Sharon that he'll start knocking on neighbours' doors

and go to the park where Lacey usually walked the dog. But not willing to take any chances, Lacey's stepdad Ron called 911 at 5.47pm. The police met Scott, Lacey's parents and a group of Lacey's friends and neighbours who had come out to help, directly at the park. Everyone assumed that something must have happened there, if Lacey walked Mackenzie. Maybe she'd fallen over, and the dog had just run home.

If so, she might be lying hurt or unconscious somewhere in the freezing dark. The police even had a helicopter join the search, checking the aerial view for any sign of Lacey. With enough hands on deck at the park, Detective Al Brachini asked Scott if he could go and look at their house. In the house, Brachini found Lacey's keys, her wallet and her sunglasses in a bag in her wardrobe. And even stranger than that, Lacey's phone was in her car. What eight-and-a-half-month pregnant woman

goes out walking the dog without her phone? Not one single one. They are quite forgetful, though, pregnant ladies. Maybe. Maybe she just got lost. That night, Scott was questioned by Al Brachini, the detective at the Modesto Police Department. The whole interview is over an hour long, so we're not going to play it all for you here.

We'll leave a link in the sources if you're absolutely desperate. It is worth watching. We've selected a few snippets for you, which we think give you a really good idea of the tone of the entire hour-long conversation. Pretty much done all I'm going to do. Let's just go over what we already talked about so I can make some notes. See if you remember something that you don't. Maybe you don't really remember. So, today,

just tell me about the morning. I'm going to begin. Okay. I don't know what time I got up. Probably, Lacey got up and went and I assume she had some cereal for breakfast. Each Friday she wakes up, otherwise she gets sick because she's pregnant. I laid around in bed longer.

I got up at 8 o'clock probably or so. Showered. We were watching her favorite show Martha Stewart. Watched a little bit of that. You didn't watch the whole thing though? No. Remember what part you saw? I don't know, I don't know what it is. Well, it could be the old time.

I don't know. I don't care. It could be some sort. They talk about what to do with the ring. And I can't remember. Your house, you had the converted garage area. Is that your TV room, Mike? Yeah. Is that where you were then?

Wait, did you eat any breakfast? Yeah, material. Okay. Okay. and then what? When did you realize you were going to go fishing? Oh, that was a morning decision. Oh, it was a morning decision? Go play golf at the club or go fishing. Okay.

It seemed too cold to go play golf at the club or go fishing. Okay. It seemed too cold to go take off to the club so um yeah just decided to you know buy 30 or whatever that. So what she was going to do for the day and Okay so she told you what she was going to do for the day. Yeah. And what was that? She was going to fish clean the house, like I said, she was walking to the kitchen floor. Take the dog for a walk and then she was going to the store to buy for Christmas morning breakfast tomorrow. And that was going to be an involved prep. So that was her. She was prepping for breakfast.

She's going to make gingerbread cookies for tonight. What was she momming? The tile on the entryway area. The entry of the front door or the entry of your little interior converted? Uh, when I, oh, the um,

not the front door, but that back door that we came in. Right, where the mop was outside of it? No, no, no. Oh, where, oh, where your dogs? The one out to your right there? Well, okay, if you have the converted garage, right, then you have the kitchen, then you have a room with two chairs in it, then that room in the kitchen. I don't know how far she planned to go.

She had me put the front door for her. So she asked you to put the mop bucket by the front door? Yeah, she's, you know, she was pregnant, I couldn't pick it up or anything, so I filled it up for her. And put it in a, I guess, a central place. How did it, did you move it back after or when you come home or how did it get outside? Yeah. So you put it out there? Uh huh. The dog, the cat, ran in.

Yeah, she wasn't about to lift and it was heavy. So when you left, do you remember what you were wearing? Black pants, white long-sleeve top. The kind of buttons or? No, just like a long-sleeve t-shirt kind of thing. I didn't say anything on it or... Jacket or shoes? No. No shoes? Do you notice her jacket? Her jacket was there? Or did she wear it, like if she went walking at 10 o'clock or 9.30? She just steals my stuff.

She uses your stuff? Yeah, you know, doesn't return to stuff, so I don't know. You don't know? I don't know. She could have had her or mine or something, I don't know. How about shoes? Does she have a certain kind of shoes that she walks in with? Yeah, I use a pair of white tennis shoes. Do you know, did you remember if they were there or not?

Um, Alistair and I looked for them in their normal place, which is kind of tied by her little wet bar. Um, they were not there, but we didn't look further, so they't be in the house. They weren't where they normally left. You saw mine where those were? That's where they normally keep them. Okay so then about 9 30 you left And you drove your four-door truck. And you went over to your shop. Right. What did you do over there?

I assembled my mortiser. What are mortisers? It's a woodworking tool to make tables. I think you saw it on the trailer there. It got yay big. I just got that so I assembled it. Checked my email. Sent one email. Then took the boat up and went. Who did you send the email to? To Eric Van Enis, my boss. The happy holiday email he left me a message on my phone this morning. Eric Van Enis? I spelled Enis.

I-N-N-I-S. Do you know his phone number? Did you tell him about this yet? No. Is that 5591? No, this is going to be a number in Portugal. In Portugal? That's where your boss is? Yeah. Access international email 011. Country code is 35. The number is 191-9835253.

That's his phone number. Does he have a home? Do you have that? I don't have a phone number, friend. Do you know what his email was? It's Eve and Enos. I don't know. I don't know. Does he live in Portugal?

Yeah. Speak English? Very well. Okay. Yeah. In Portugal. Speak English? Yeah. Very well. Okay. It's a melting deck. All right. Okay.

So you assembled this, what was the thing you assembled called? Called a mortiser. For mortise and tenon joints. Where'd you get that at? Ordered it online. At an eBay auction actually. Is that for home or for work? It's for my home.

I do woodwork. Yeah. You do woodwork? Yeah. Where did you get that at? I ordered it online. Is that for home or for work? It's for my home. Like woodwork? Yeah. You do a little bit of that? Okay, the facts you got, maybe you haven't got it yet. Yeah, I guess not.

I don't know. I can't remember when I picked it up. I remember that the boat was arriving in 26 and I wasn't happy about that better than that. May have been when I got back from the office. Okay, then you hooked your boat up. And you know about what time you left Modesto? Gosh, I don't know. I'd extrapolate what time I got that deal at noon. Is that right? Yeah, that was 01. Which one is it there? It has two times. Oh, okay. Which one's right? Tuesday. Time, 1254 on December 24th, five bucks, expires, okay, expires 1159 p.m. Tuesday. Okay, so you got there at one o'clock. I got there at one?

Yeah, about one. And I passed you to at least an hour and a half. Yeah. Yeah, okay, so I'm in 12, it'll be 1130 about. Yeah, it's probably longer than that. He sighs. Did you hear him sigh? He fucking sighs. When he's asked the first question, he goes, I wasn't even like that.

It was worse. It was like, ugh. Like, he's fucking, he honestly looks so bored throughout the whole entire fucking interview. Honestly, you have to go and watch the interview to really understand. We are an audio format. We will play you the clips. The quality is so-so.

We've tried our best to enhance it but you have to watch this to see the body language to see the way he presents himself because to say that scott peterson was relaxed during this hour over an hour long interview on the night that his pregnant wife is missing would be a ginormous understatement he has his hands in his pockets he's slouched back in his chair. He's drinking a coffee. He's straight up chilling. I mean, it's contempt, isn't it? Like it's if he was at school, he would be told to sit up straight. Yes, exactly. Exactly. There is something so jarring about watching him. You just want to sort of slap him around the ear. And I think one of the other things is if you watch the interview, there's a bit before the detective walks in

where Scott's just sat in the interview room on his own. And I thought that was a particularly telling part of the video because he's just sat there looking at his phone, looking around, drinking his coffee. He looks like he's waiting for a fucking bus or something. I would just feel like you might expect frantic pacing, furious texting, you know, something that looks like you're expect frantic pacing, furious texting, you know, something that looks

like you're worried about your missing wife. I feel like I look more worried when I don't know where my keys are than he looks. You do, I've seen it. About where his pregnant wife is. I just think like, wouldn't you look like you're annoyed that you're stuck in the interview room rather than on the streets screaming for Lacey? And you heard it yourself just then in the clip, the tone of the interview from Scott's answers doesn't really sound like a man whose eight and a half month pregnant wife is missing. And we're not going to examine the use of the past tense to describe Lacey or whatever, because it's simplistic and we're better than that. What we're asking is where is the urgency? Where is the panic? Where is the fear? Where's the anxiety? He so calmly answers all of the questions that Detective Bricchini is asking in painstaking

detail. He sits and gives the policeman his boss's details to prove that they were emailing that morning and he casually explains what a mortiser is. And then he replies when the detective asks him questions about fishing. Why isn't he asking why any of that matters when his wife is out there? Yeah. Let's listen to another bit of this interview. OK, then you get home. Then what door do you go in? What I would call our back door,

which is that French door where my shoes were at. You see your dog out there? Yeah. And did he still have his leash on? Mm-hmm. So I took that off obviously. What did you do with it? Put it on the picnic table. Did the French doors run along?

Yes. What did you do when you went in? Don and the cat followed me in, so I dumped out that mop water, and the cat went over to it. Where was the moth bucket? If you remember our front door, there was a little white piece of wood piece built in just in front of that.

Okay, so your dog and cat came in and went through the doors and your cat goes over to this bucket. Yeah. Was it going to drink out of it? Looked like it to me. So you just picked it up and walked it out the front door then? No, that little side door.

Okay. So it was right outside of it. And then you just set it out there? Out there. Set it there. Then what did you do? Put my clothes in the washer. Took out those rags, threw my clothes in there. Were you calling for Lacey?

Oh, yeah, of course. But she wasn't home? No. Soon she's at her mom's. You put your jeans, your blue T-shirt, anything else in there? I think that green polo was in there too, wasn't it? Yeah, I think that gray pullover was in there too, wasn't it? Yeah. Did you, did you use, some pizza from the fridge.

Put the box out. Yeah, put it on the counter like it was. A glass of milk. And jump in the shower. He had a glass of milk? No. A small one, yeah. How could he put it in a glass? Yeah. How many pizza did you have? I think just one full piece, then I'd have to buy another one. Did you take a shower?

Mm-hmm. I had to take the pizza and hit it with me, start the shower and whatever. Did you call for mom? After I got out of the shower with the clothes on. That's when I checked the messages. Were there any? Yeah. Yours?

Mine, number three. Two for me, one from Ron, her stepfather, asking for whipped cream. We came over and that's when I said, hey, where... She's calling me for whipped cream. Did you raise him? No. The one from Ron, do you know if that was before yours or after yours? It was after. Okay, so then you called over her behind? That's right.

Had they heard from her? No. Not all day. Not all day. Was that unusual or not? No. I think it was supposed to be that there at 6 or 6.30. What's Lacey's mom's name? Sharon. Sharon Rocha.

Ron Gransky. Okay. Are they together? No. You call them? Never been married, but common law marriage. That's what it's called. They've lived together for 15 years or whatever. All right.

Well, that's her stepdad. But common law marriage. She called him Ron. That's what you're asking. So you guys were supposed to be there. You were supposed to go to dinner there tonight at 630 or last night at 630? Right. Okay, so you told Sharon or did you talk to Ron?

Talked to, um, talked to Monica and Sharon. And what was the place it was there? Don't we know? I had to listen to this hour-plus interview like three, four times during the course of this research. And the first time, first couple of times I watched it on normal speed. And then after that, I had to watch it on like 1.5 because Detective Albrechini is going so slowly. He leaves huge pauses. And if you watch it and listen to it, you can really see that he isn't scared to hold the silence. And in my old job, where I spend a lot of time interviewing people,

one of the key things you're taught during that process in the training is silence is golden. Don't be afraid of it. Because when you're silent, the other person that you're interviewing will usually fill it and may give away something that they don't plan to. It's like a classic tactic. And I have no doubt that this is exactly what Bricchini is trying to do. I actually saw some really weird analysis from people being like why is Brichini being so friendly to him? Why is he going so slowly? Why does he look like this lumbering police officer? I'm not saying Brichini

does everything right in this investigation but you have to understand that I don't think that's what he's doing. I think he's already very suspicious of Scott and he's trying to gauge a reaction from this man 100% and I think he's trying to see why every time he's quiet Scott doesn't interrupt him he doesn't ask where any of the questions Bikini is asking him are relevant right now he doesn't say what are you doing to find my wife Lacey and Scott doesn't pipe in with ideas he doesn't give them theories on where they should look or who else they should talk to or who else they should call. Scott's just happy to calmly sit there and give more and more detailed answers about the mundane nonsense about his day. I mean, it is just mind boggling to listen to that clip because he's talking about the cat,

the mop bucket, the soap in the washing machine the pizza common law marriage like it just goes on and on and on and he volunteers unnecessary information when it's not required like when broccini is like are they married talking about um lacy's mum and her stepdad he'd just be like no why is it oh well you know they've been together so long so it's like a common law like why why are you doing To me, it's really quite indicative of deception, I would say. So, get this. The Ontario Liberals elected Bonnie Crombie as their new leader. Bonnie who?

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Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On The Media. To listen, subscribe to On The Media wherever you get your podcasts. It's pretty mind-numbing stuff, but Scott's fine. And for over an hour, he just sits there, answers everything, sipping his coffee, no sign of frustration or anything like that. No inkling that he feels like the police are wasting his time or their time in the investigation. And when you're watching it, you do get the feeling that Scott knows that Bricchini is suspicious of him. It's like he thinks that if he's amped up and

tries to get out of there in a hurry, it will make him look guilty. That's what I think. I think he's amped up and tries to get out of there in a hurry, it'll make him look guilty. That's what I think. I think he's overly cooperating. 100%. And that's what Brichini says about him later. I think, I really think that Scott thinks if he's just like, let me out of here, I need to get out, I need to get out. That's what's going to make them suspicious. But I really think it's the opposite. Scott obviously thinks that by being amiable and cooperative and helpful and friendly, he's making a good impression and showing that he has nothing to hide.

But if I was innocent, I'm not sure I'd be that bothered about what the police thought of me. I would probably be screaming and shouting about my wife. There's also one point in this interview where Bruchini says that Scott's call to Lacey wasn't made at 2.15. And Scott immediately gets his phone out of his pocket to call his home voicemail to prove that it was indeed made at 2.15. So that call that he makes about the fruit basket. And if you remember the fruit basket call, he also starts it by saying, hi, it's 2.15, which like, fine, maybe some people do that, maybe people don't. But he's very, very perturbed when Brichini says that that call was made much later.

He doesn't ask why any of that matters right now. He doesn't brush past it. And also, he knows exactly what time it was made. If something so catastrophic happened that I came home and my pregnant wife was missing, I wouldn't remember what time I made that call. And I wouldn't even think about what relevance that had to that day. I would just be thinking I came home at 4.30 and she was gone. But no, Scott gets his phone out, calls his home phone, and then passes the phone to Brocchini so that he can listen

to the voicemails that were left on the Petersons' home phone. And I'm not even kidding you, there is no point us playing that clip here because it's just three minutes of silence. It's just three minutes with Brocchini sat there with the phone to his ear and the entire time scott just sits there looking at him waiting and you know it's that look of like you know when you're right and you know you have proof that you're right he sort of sat there like yeah okay good got it i told you and it's just it's shocking because nothing happens during that time he just sits there watches him as a detective listens to the voicemail I'd be tearing my face off because I'd be like are you fucking kidding me why aren't you out there looking for my wife

but Scott's silence really points to for me at least the fact that he's far more concerned with proving his innocence and establishing an alibi for himself than least, the fact that he's far more concerned with proving his innocence and establishing an alibi for himself than finding Lacey at that point. Just to eliminate you as a suspect, you'd be willing to take... Would you be willing to take a polygraph? They're accurate, right? Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's not that they can be used against you, but yeah, I believe they're accurate. No, I'm, certainly not.

Wouldn't be now, it'd be, you know, in a day or two, then we'd even about it, but. No, it's just like the next step in this thing. Sure. step in this thing. Really what's left is the flyers, the canvas tomorrow, the media coverage. What concerns me the most is the fact that your dog came home with a leash on. That bothers me. Another question? Yeah. What concerns me most is doing anything I can to further progress. I appreciate that.

And I don't want you to hold it against me. I mean, sometimes I hate asking. You've got to do it. But I do. I really do have to do it. And I mean, I understand. I'm glad you have a strong support system. Yeah.

And I'll give you my numbers and my cards, but there's not more, a lot more we can do right now other than canvas. But we can do a lot. . . Okay. Do you have any questions? No, I mean, I've asked you a couple times what to do.

So I have the answers to that. What are you going to do? So, yeah, there's, you know, all we can do now is make people aware of the problem, the situation, and hope that if somebody saw something, they would know something. I have a question I have at that point about resources available. You saw my mother-in-law tonight. You saw some of my wife's friends, my son, for counseling, that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. Can you give us the numbers or I just heard some other things? No, no, I can give you those numbers. I just don't know, I mean, you're probably not going to get any answers today.

Yeah, no, no, I mean, but... Yeah. It's Christmas. I mean, it's Christmas. Yeah, of course. And there's no need to qualify it. Today. We finally see in the next days. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I'll give you those numbers. I'm willing. That's my number, my cell phone number, and I'll get you the number to the services.

Now, where do you want to go? Oh, physically, Back to my home. Give me one second. Hopefully they're done when you're there. Bikini is so obviously suspicious of Scott, and as well he should be. After all, he is the husband and they usually do it. But his questions are mild. They're not particularly accusatory. And he explains why he has to ask Scott about these things. He's not openly questioning him like a suspect. He's very like

good cop, good cop. So Scott's answers by the same token are incredibly interesting because to me, he sounds like a suspect when he's replying. He has very short answers, doesn't offer up any additional information. He doesn't speculate. He doesn't have any ideas, theories, anything about what could have happened to his wife or where she might be. So he'll answer questions about literally everything else under the sun in mind-numbing detail, apart from where his wife might be. He has no idea, no clue, no thoughts, no suggestions, no urgency.

It's really surprising. And again, it makes him sound more like someone who is protecting themselves as opposed to someone who is trying to find their missing wife and unborn child. And look, before all the Scott defenders jump down our throat, as opposed to someone who is trying to find their missing wife an unborn child. And look, before all the Scott defenders jump down our throat, I'm not saying that we should judge a person's guilt wholly on their behaviour. That would be wrong and stupid and reductive. And something we've spoken out about many times.

Precisely, precisely. But it's also not a factor that can simply be ignored as totally unimportant. And yes, not everyone reacts in the same way when they are under stress. Again, like Hannah said, that's something we've banged on about on this podcast for years. But the fact that Scott has no questions, no thoughts, no theories, no urgency, and seemingly no interest in what the police's plan is to find Lacey, to me is really, really hard to just sweep away. I'm not saying he should be sat there crying and hysterical. Being stoic and being calm and being focused is absolutely like a reasonable response he could have. But the fact that he is so disinterested is the thing that's surprising to me. And if you're going to make the point that

maybe he is just more of a stoic person, well, that notion becomes quite hard to stand by later, but I put a pin in it for now. During this interview, the police ask Scott if he would do a polygraph, to which he agrees. But the next day, Christmas Day, just 30 minutes before the polygraph was scheduled to take place, Scott called to council, saying that his dad had told him not to do it can you imagine being a polygraph technician and you get a call on Christmas Eve being like sorry Bob I know it's Christmas but we need you at the station tomorrow

I would be fucked off but then he doesn't have to go and it gets cancelled hooray Merry Christmas one and all and to be fair to Scott because we won't be accused of being heavy-handed on this show I wouldn't take a polygraph either. No, I wouldn't fucking take a polygraph. So we're not going to examine Scott's decision on that.

What did strike us as a little bit more odd was the fact that two days after his wife and his child had gone missing, Scott Peterson already had a lawyer. Again, what that means is that he's taking proactive steps to protect himself while taking no obvious proactive steps to find Lacey. I completely understand why he gets a lawyer, why he gets one so quickly. Again, where are you finding a lawyer on Christmas Day? I don't know. But he does it and that would be, I feel, less indicative of him probably having something to do with it

if he was also being as proactive in finding his wife, which he doesn't seem to be doing. And I'll give you examples. Scott flatly refused to do any press conferences or media interviews to plead for tips and information, appealing to anyone holding Lacey to let her come home. Everyone does that. It's like the standard thing.

He's the husband. Like, if she wasn't married, I understand her family doing it, but he is the husband. And she was pregnant. She was eight and a half months pregnant. Like, there couldn't be a better narrative than the husband going on TV and begging for his wife's safe return. Again, I'm not asking for you to go on the media and cry and sob

and all of that shenanigans, but he doesn't do it. Lacey's family did it. He left it all to them. And perhaps you could argue that that sort of thing isn't everyone's style, but surely in such an unimaginably nightmare situation, you would do anything and everything to find your wife, including something you don't really want to do like appear on TV. But if anyone questioned Scott's behaviour openly, Sharon and Ron, Lacey's parents, defended him 100%. Sharon even said that if people knew how much Scott loved her daughter, they wouldn't suggest such things. And despite Scott's camera shyness, by this point the media was well and truly all over this case.

It was at this time in the early noughties that news channels were starting to switch to the 24-hour rolling news model that we're all so used to today. So they needed stories. And this one was perfect. 26-year-old Lacey was beautiful. We'll post a picture of her, obviously, on our social media. You can find her on Google. She's absolutely stunning. She has a perfect smile, adorable dimples, just like this ideal kind of all-American wife and mother-to-be. How could this pregnant woman, who seemingly had it all, with her perfect house in one of the nicest neighbourhoods in Modesto and her handsome husband, have vanished like this? And at Christmas, no less.

And so, over the coming months and years, the case of Lacey Peterson would dominate the headlines across the US like a celebrity story. And in classic celebrity style, the scandals began. On the 30th of December 2002, six days after Lacey vanished, there was a seismic shift in the case. A 27-year-old woman called Amber Fry

called the police, claiming to be Scott Peterson's girlfriend. Al Brichini couldn't believe his ears. But boy, did she have a story to tell. In October 2002, Scott Peterson was in Fresno for work. So that's two months before Lacey goes missing. During this trip, he hit on a woman at the hotel bar. He was asking her about her favourite sex position. Yeah. Yeah. Who does that? Scott Peters. That's quite a stupid question. I know people talk to

people in bars in the States, but it just, I can't. So this poor woman was called Sean Sibley. And she thought that Scott was cute, but she had a fiancé and she wasn't interested in a hook-up. But she told Scott that she did have a friend that he might quite like. That would be friendship over for me. Like, oh, this guy approached me in the bar and asked me if I like it doggy style or not, but you can have him. But it works.

So on the 20th of November, while Lacey was at home, more than seven months pregnant, Scott Peterson turned up at Amber Frye's door for a blind date. He clearly liked the look of tall, blonde Amber. And that night they hit the town. They went for dinner, they did karaoke, they danced and eventually they went back to Scott Peterson's hotel room that he had already set up with Champagne and Roses. Confident. Confident in his chirpsing abilities, evidently. And also a woman he'd never seen before. But I think he was probably like, whatever the situation is, I'm probably going to have sex tonight. And also, if you don't, Paul, no one knows. This is true. This is true. So Scott told Amber that he was single and looking for a relationship. And Amber was smitten.

And who can blame her? Scott would take her out to new and exciting places. He'd call her every day. He'd even pick her two-year-old daughter up from school. He'd send her dozens of roses and even turn up with groceries to cook for her and her child. The three of them even went Christmas tree shopping together. It was everything that Amber wanted.

And as they set up and decorated the tree, Amber asked Scott if he had any kids of his own and if he'd ever been married or close to being married. Which, like, isn't that first date material? The older you get, the more baggage people have. And the thing is, they're not that old. He's like 31. Even still.

But still, that's a standard question I feel like you would ask as adults at that point. Now, I'm not trying to criticise Amber here by saying, why is she bringing this up after they've already known each other for a little bit of time. I'm just saying that it does point, in my opinion, to a relationship that was moving extremely quickly. Like they're getting a Christmas tree and decorating it together at her house and she doesn't know if he's ever been married or has any kids. And it also points to, in Amber, a woman who clearly wanted to make it work with this guy. But I'm not judging her again. Like he's attractive, he's charming, he's successful,

he comes across as stable. He's doing everything that she wants. He's presenting himself very much as the guy that she wants. So obviously she wants to make it work. And I think that maybe she was even scared to ask these questions any sooner for fear of what she might have heard. I understand when you're a woman and you've got a kid that you would be very concerned about that scaring people away. And then you're like, oh my God, there's this man who isn't worried that I have a kid that isn't his. So fucking batten down the hatches, lads. We're digging in. But Amber needn't have worried about her kid in this situation.

Scott said he'd never been married and that he didn't have any children. But it didn't matter that she had a child. He just didn't want any kids of his own. He didn't mind other people's children at all. And as she was being swept off her feet, unbeknownst to Amber, a friend of hers had recognised the name Scott Peterson, whilst Amber had been gushing about her new man and how wonderful he was. And just to be clear, this person recognises the name Scott Peterson

before Lacey goes missing because he meets her two months before Lacey goes missing. This friend is just like, I think I know a Scott Peterson who's an agricultural salesman. It's not like he's seen him on the news. But this friend was extremely sure that the Scott Peterson they knew was definitely 100% married. So maybe it was just a weird coincidence. Obviously, it was not. Bingo. On the 8th of December, this friend told Sean Sibley, the woman from the hotel bar, who in turn called Scott and confronted him about the fact that he was in fact married. And during this

conversation, according to Sean, Scott sobbed and cried and begged Sean to be allowed to tell Amber the news himself. So the next day, Scott went to Amber's house and told her that he had been married before, but that he had, quote, lost his wife. Oh, my God. And that this was his first holidays without her. So, just to be clear, this is happening on the 9th of December. That is two weeks before Lacey Peterson vanishes. That he is telling his girlfriend, Amber Fry, that he lost his wife and that this is his first holidays without her. Amber would later say that when Scott told her this,

he also said that it was too painful to talk about. So she just assumed that when he said, lost his wife, he meant that his wife had died. Anyone would assume that. That's what you mean when you say that. That's what that sentence means. Yeah, like lost her where? Like a fucking dog?

Yeah, I left her at the hypermark. Yeah. But why would Scott say this? Why would he say lost his wife? Why not say that he separated or divorced? Lost her. It's so vague and it's such like odd phraseology. Why does he kill Lacey in this lie?

To me, it sounds like a fantasy he has, right? He just wants shot of that part of his life. And I also think to Scott, being a widower is a lot more sympathetic and soulful than being a divorcee 100 that's what i think it is is because if someone dies there's nothing you can do about that and it's not your fault yeah if you're divorced you know takes you to tango exactly like it's uh i 100 understand why he would say that. Yeah. But it also... And from the perspective of his personality type, not that it's a reasonable thing to do.

No, exactly. But also from him getting rid of Lacey in this lie. I mean, there's two ways. Either he knows he's going to dump Amber so it doesn't matter anyway. Or he's like, well, I'm never going to have to explain Lacey because I'm going to kill her. I strongly suspect that it is a combination of the two. it anyway. Or he's like, well, I'm never gonna have to explain Lacey because I'm gonna kill her.

I strongly suspect that it is a combination of the two. Because we'll come on to talk about the relationship between him and Amber a lot. And I also want to make it clear at this point, before people are sort of well-actuallying me in the audience, him and Amber only see each other a handful of times. This isn't this sort of like a romance where they see each other daily or every weekend. It's not this sort of fully fledged physical affair romance where they see each other daily or every weekend it's not this sort of fully fledged physical affair they only see each other a few times but it goes on all the way through to February right and Lacey goes missing bang in the middle of that so I just want to make it clear they only see each other a few times but they talk on the phone all the fucking time like every day Scott calls her so coming back to the statement about him losing his wife,

a lot of people also point to this statement by Scott as proof of premeditation, because he says it two weeks before Lacey goes missing. And it certainly looks bad. But something that looks even weirder for me was that just before Scott had gone over to break this massive news to his girlfriend, amidst all the panic one would assume he must have been feeling because he's been caught out

by Sean Sibley. He's having to go over to Amber and explain that he did indeed have a wife. But Scott, during this time, found himself the time to buy his aluminium boat. Literally, Sean calls him and tells him. Then he Googles boats, and then he goes to Amber's house to tell her the next day. And during this time, he also carried out some pretty serious fishing research, which again, maybe that's how he unwinds. I don't know. But internet searches made from the Peterson home that day that Sean confronted him included things like boat, plus plus ramp plus San Francisco Bay, Berkeley Marina, Pacific nautical charts, velocity maps for currents in San Francisco Bay,

and current maps for Brooks Island, a small island in the bay. This all points to a very detailed fishing trip plan that Scott's coming up with. You know, two weeks before his wife goes missing and two weeks before he went on a fishing trip that he says later was a spur of the moment decision made on the day. And again, it's very interesting that he sat there doing all of this while he's over a barrel with Amber. So after Scott's revelations to Amber about his quote unquote lost wife, Amber was deeply moved by this heartbreaking story. And she asked Scott if he was sure that he was ready for a relationship with her.

It's so manipulative. And he said that he was. He assured her that he was. And he proved it. On the 14th of December, Scott turned up at Amber's house with three dozen red roses and a bottle of champagne. And then he took her out to a party. Meanwhile, back in Modesto, Lacey Peterson went to a Christmas party on her own. Knowing that he wouldn't be able to keep making excuses to see Amber over the holidays,

that night Scott told his girlfriend that he was going away until the new year. First, he was off to Maine to be with his family, and then he was heading to Europe for a bit. He's so glam. Any particular part of Europe? Oh, he goes on to tell you all about that later. Interesting. Scott called Amber on the 23rd of December,

so Christmas Eve, saying that he had been duck hunting with his dad. But he wasn't duck hunting with his dad in Maine. He was actually in Modesto planning a trip to his wife's sister's hair salon for a trim. Over the next two days, Amber said that she didn't hear from Scott at all. This would have been Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, the day that he was fishing in San Francisco Bay, and the next day that he was looking for his missing pregnant wife. But on the 26th of December,

Amber thought that she would call him. She thought that he was flying to Paris for his little Euro trip. And she was planning on just, like, leaving him a nice little voicemail, a nice romantic little voicemail for him to listen to when he landed. So she was shocked when he picked up the phone. And when she asked him where he was and why he wasn't on a plane to Paris, Scott said that he was actually in New York, and that his plane had been delayed, and that the airline had given him some money so that he could get a massage and a sandwich. And he does

this whole show of how annoyed he is that his plane's been delayed and all of this. And I'm sure that a massage and a sandwich would have been exactly what Scott Peterson wanted at that point. Because of course, on the 26th of December, he was in fact up to his neck in a police investigation for his missing wife. And I bring up this incident because there are so many like this, but this particular one shows you just how easily Scott Peterson lies. I think what happened is Amber caught him and Scott had forgotten that he had told her he was going to be on a plane. And he answers the phone and then he realises he made a mistake and he has to lie on the spot he lies so easily his lies are so detailed and they just roll right off the tongue for him

and he stays so calm in all of these situations despite being in the middle of a massive fucking manhunt looking for Lacey in which he probably also knows that the police are looking right at him but even Amber was starting to get suspicious now. So she asked a police officer friend of hers to look into Scott. And again, this is crazy. Unbelievably, Amber Fry hadn't seen any of the news about Lacey and Scott on TV. So she had no idea who he really was. And also remember, he's not going on any of the cameras.

He's not allowing any pictures of him to be taken. So she hasn't seen his face plastered about anywhere. So she calls her friend and this police officer looks into it for her. But he doesn't have to look very hard, obviously. Because on the 29th of December, her officer friend called Amber and gave her the number for the Modesto Police Department and told her to call them immediately. And Burkini sensed an opportunity was afoot. Amber had come straight to them. Scott had no idea that she knew

anything. He really has so much contempt for Amber. When we listen to the calls between him and Amber that take place, spoilers, you can really tell he thinks she's stupid. He is a man who thinks that he's smarter than everybody, but he really, really thinks that she is thick as shit. I think he thinks everyone is thick as shit. Investigators asked Amber to secretly start taping all of her phone conversations with Scott, the unsuspecting Scott.

And as they were setting up Amber's phone with the recorder, Scott actually called her. They're literally standing there and then the phone pops up with Scott calling her. And he didn't stop. On the 31st of December, Lacey's friends and family held an emotional candlelight vigil for her in Modesto. Scott was there, but keeping quite low key. He didn't take the stage with his parents or Lacey's family to talk about her and pray for her safe return. He stayed in the crowd and the media are all over him. They constantly take pictures of

him and these pictures ended up being splashed across the front pages of every newspaper the next morning including the awkward photographs of him laughing at the vigil. And sure his defenders will say that this proves nothing. They're one-off snapshots of the night and not indicative of his feeling towards Lacey at all. A lot of people nervously laugh and sure, you're right. But when you listen to the call that Scott made to Amber Fry from the exact same vigil, that exact same night, Well, the whole here is just a guy who struggles to show his emotions. He's shy, he's stoic, he's struggling to know how to cope and act, blah, blah, blah, blah. That whole idea falls a bit flat once you listen to this.

Hello? Baby? Yes? Amber. Can you hear me? Yeah. You can? Yeah, hey. Oh my goodness. That's a quiet place. Pretty good, huh? That's really good. Oh my gosh. It's like been all this crazy static and stuff. I'm like, ugh? Yes? Amber?

Oh. Oh, it's starting to stop. Amber? I'm right here. Amber, are you there? Yes. Amber? I can hear you.

Hey. Yes. Okay, there you are. I'm talking. Okay, I'm like, stay still or something. I know. I got to make it work. How was your New Year's?

What's that? How was your New Year's? What's that? How was your New Year's? It's good. I just went to the bar now, so I came out of the alley. Quiet alley. Isn't that nice? Yeah, it is. I could hear you. Very good. It's pretty awesome. Fireworks there. The Eiffel Tower.

There's a lot of people all playing their rock songs. Uh-huh. It's very funny. Well that's good. I'm glad you guys decided to go out. Oh definitely. I can never remember your friend's name. I know Jeff but you always say it all at once. And then we have Tuxquaw, a friend of ours. Oh he's there too? Tuxquaw, yeah. Good. So you're making your first real name? Yeah.

So you're making your first real name? Yeah. So you're making your first real name? Yeah. So you're making your first real name? Yeah. So you're making your first real name? Yeah.

So you're making your first real name? Yeah. So you're making your first real name? Yeah. So you're making your first real name? Yeah. So you're making your first real name? Yeah. So you're making your first real name? And then we have Pasquale, a friend of ours. Uh-huh. Oh, he's there too? Pasquale, yeah. Good. Did you make any of your resolutions?

What was that? Should be. Should be? What should my new resolution be? Oh, I don't know. That was my question. Oh, I didn't think of that. I'll tell if it's something good.

Yeah, you'll have to tell if it's something good. So where are you headed? Well, did you get my message? No. Did you leave him? Yeah, I left you a message because I was like, well, I hope you at least get that. But I was going to, or the San Francisco thing didn't work out. So I'm probably most likely going to go later to Sean's.

Are you there? Hello? Hello? Are you there? Hello? Hello, are you there? Doesn't sound very stoical or catatonic to me. Doesn't sound like a man who's not in touch with his emotions. He's literally standing at a candlelight vigil for his missing eight-and-a-half-month pregnant wife six days after she went missing,

and he's making that call to Amber Fry. If he had nothing to do with anything, how can he bring himself to have this conversation? People can compartmentalize, sure, but when you pair this with everything else we've talked about, I just don't know how people sweep this under the rug and keep saying, keep making excuses for him and saying that his behaviour doesn't matter, that it isn't indicative of anything. This call is so jarring. And he called Amber again at midnight California time to wish her a happy new year. And that call lasted over an hour. Not a man who's putting a whole lot of time into looking for his wife.

It doesn't seem so, does it? No. That's the thing. If people are going to say, you know, how can we say he wasn't proactively looking for her? There are only so many hours in the day, and I would probably think that quite a lot of those would be being used on looking for your wife. So as the days and weeks passed, the police struggled for new leads.

A lot of people accused them of not having looked at any other suspects apart from Scott. But again, that's just not true. The police looked into all the recent parolees in the area, particularly those who had any sort of sexually motivated crimes in their past. They also looked into, very carefully, Lacey's stepdad, Ron, and her brother, Lee, was actually a major suspect for a considerable amount of time at the start of this investigation. And they also looked into a whole range of other people who had known Lacey.

But the police found nothing on any of them. And so yes, Scott was their main suspect by this point. But think about it. Up until now, he's calling Amber regularly, still happily chatting away to her like her boyfriend. And he had also completely filled Connor's nursery with junk. Even though the due date wasn't until February. It's only January. Like, if you fill a room like that with office chairs and mattresses like he does,

and there's pictures of this, he says that he put all of that stuff in there to stop the media looking through the window. There's a blind. We should fucking close the blind. Why do you need to put a bunch of junk in there? Again, people will say that it's just behaviour, it doesn't prove anything. But to bring yourself to fill your unborn baby's nursery

that was beautifully laid out, very sickeningly ironically with a fucking nautical theme with junk you really are telling me and this is my opinion that you don't think that that baby is coming home anytime soon yeah and also on the 8th of january 2003 so two weeks after his wife went missing, Scott Peterson decided to treat himself because he added the Playboy channel to his cable situation. And five days later, he added the 10 Ecstasy package, a more hardcore pornography channel.

Again, different people are different. I wonder how you could be a horny at a time like this. This is the thing that I really want to hammer home about this sort of behaviour and personality analysis. If it was one thing, then we would probably be sitting here making the argument that you can't put much stock in it. But it's just a lot of things. It's a lot of things. You know? It is a lot of things. You're right. And his defenders, I know, will jump up and scream that

he's just a poor little sex addict. And, you know, this was his way to cope. I don't know. Maybe, maybe. But even if that is true, you can look at porn on your laptop. He's got a laptop. He's got several laptops. He's got a fucking work office with a computer there. You can look at porn on your laptop. He's got a laptop. He's got several laptops. He's got a fucking work office with a computer there. You can look at porn on your phone. This is 2002, 2003. The thing to me about him adding it to the cable channel list on his home TV, it really seems to indicate to me that he's not very concerned that Lacey's going to walk through the door the next day

after having been missing for weeks and be like, what the fuck? Him adding it to his home TV kind of tells me that he doesn't think she's ever coming home. And it's pretty quick to have given up on her after two weeks if you didn't do it. And if that's not enough, it was after this that the visits to the bay began. On the 5th of January, the police followed Scott in a rental car to the Berkeley Marina. He drove the 180-mile round trip to do nothing but just stare at the bay from the pier

for about five minutes. He literally drives all the way there, looks at the bay for five minutes and then drives all the way home. What? He really works hard, not smart, this boy, if he's looking for Lacey. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now,

exclusively on Wondery Plus. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life.

I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me, and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy.

You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. You don't believe in ghosts? I get it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada,

as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favourite podcasts. You're right, because the next day he did the exact same thing. He drove all the way there, looked at the water for two minutes, and then went home again. And we know that this happened because the police put a GPS tracker on him and they also followed him. And they were also there and they could see him. And later that night, he called Amber Fry

and confessed that his wife had been missing since Christmas Eve. Amber obviously knows this already, but she does a very good job of playing dumb and shocked. But we're staying in the world. OK. But she does a very good job of playing dumb and shocked. I don't want to do this over the phone. I want to tell you this. I want to be there in person to tell you this. But I'm sure it's why Sockie called you. What? I'm sure it's why Sockie called me. Why?

Why would Sockie? What are you talking about? It's the worst thing. Sorry, Amber. I'll just tell you. Okay. You haven't been watching the news, obviously. No.

I have not been traveling during the last couple weeks. I've lied to you that I've been traveling. Okay. The girl I got married to, her name is Lacey. Mm-hmm. She disappeared just before Christmas. Mm-hmm. For the past two weeks, I've been in Modesto with her family and mine,

searching for her. Okay. She just disappeared. And no one knows. Okay, now. Where she's been. Scott. And I can't tell you more because I need you to be protected from the media.

And I honor. Okay. Okay, they are amazing. Scott. Yeah. Are you. And I honor. Okay. Okay, they are amazing. Scott, are you listening? I am. You came to me earlier in December and told me that you had lost your wife. What was that about? She's alive.

What? She's alive. Where? She's alive. Where? She's alive? Where? In the desktop. Now, I know this is the hardest I want to tell you first. Here's the thing. You need to protect yourself from the media. Okay.

Okay, if you haven't been watching the news at all, or you haven't, the media has been telling everyone that I had something to do with her disappearance. So the past two weeks I've been hunted by the media. And I just don't want you to be involved in this to protect yourself. I know that I, you know, I'm destroyed, and I hope so much that this doesn't hurt you. How could it not affect me? It does.

How can you possibly think that this would not affect me? It does. How can you possibly think that this would not affect me? Yeah, but I know it does. But I know I had... I've just been towing up the last two weeks wanting to tell you, and I'm so weak that I haven't and I just hope that... I had to call you to tell you that. You never answered my question, Scott. You know, I can't say any more. I think I deserve... You deserve so much better There's no question you deserve so much better

Yeah, and I deserve to understand an explanation Of why you told me you'd lost your wife And this was the first holidays you'd spend without her That was December 9th You told me this And now all of a sudden your wife's missing Are you kidding me? Did you hear me?

I did. I think an explanation would be a start. I know. You absolutely deserve an explanation. Yes, I do. I do.

And I want to give you one. I'm listening. I can't know. I mean, you don't understand. I don't understand the situation. Then why don't you put me in on the situation and make me understand? I can't know. I'm so sorry for what? Why? It's to protect all of us. To protect all of who? Everyone involved. So where is she? That's what we are trying to find out. It's a nationwide search. I mean, it's a half a million dollar reward for information leading to her safe return. Okay, so again, you never answer my question. Why did you tell me it would be the first holidays without her?

I can't. See, I can't explain anymore now. I'm so sorry. You should be still angry at me. I hope you are. Yeah, isn't that what you told me before? Oh, I wish, you know, it would be so much easier if you'd just hate me and not want to talk to me. And, of course, the person I am, of course, I'm going to say, you know, you told me you lost your wife.

You sat there in front of me and cried and broke down. I sat there and held your hand, Scott, and comforted you. And you were lying to me. Again, you're lying to me about lying. I lied to you about traveling, you're lying to me about lying. I lied to you about traveling, yeah. That's among everything else. That's just an added.

So there you have it. Proof that Scott Peterson told Amber Frye two weeks before Lacey vanished that he'd lost his wife, and it would be his first holidays without her. Because I know we already told you guys that, but I think some people ignore this call and say it's just Amber Fry saying that he told her that. But I'm so glad she confronts him with this in this recorded call because he doesn't say, I never told you that.

He's agreeing with it, so he did do it. And also, as Amber says, when Scott lied to her about this he cried and he sobbed he broke down all after he'd just been at home buying a boat and googling tidal current trends in the San Francisco Bay. So he's very non-stoic when he's lying to Amber about his lost wife two weeks before she went missing but doesn't have many emotions after she actually does go missing. Now, I'm not saying he had to show all of these emotions after Lacey went missing for me to believe him. We know that that's nonsense. A lot of people condemn Scott for not being visibly upset enough in public

when Lacey vanished. But, like, that's just not that important to me. I don't think you can standardise grief responses. As we've said many times, everybody reacts differently. But when his defenders say that Scott's just stoic and the kind of man who keeps his emotions to himself, which again would be a totally reasonable, realistic response for an innocent person to have in such a situation,

his secret gushing calls to Amber after Lacey goes missing and all that sobbing he did to her over his lost wife while Lacey was still alive and at home, really jar with this narrative that his coldness is just how he copes with stress or that that's just the naturally the kind of person he is. I think that's, as I said, it's not one thing. It's many things. And also it is indisputable proof that he lies. Oh, he lies all the time. And he's really good at it. And I think that although, yes, his defenders will say that you can't find someone guilty on their behaviour, blah, blah, blah, grief, etc., it is important that he is a liar.

It is very important he's a liar. And they'll say, well, a liar doesn't make you a killer. It doesn't. But this, again, would be to pretend this is all the evidence there is against Scott. Exactly. Which I implore you, wait till the end of next week before you make your mind up.

Exactly. We are working through it, guys. There is so much here. So let's carry on. The next day, the 7th of December, Scott again went to San Francisco Bay with another rental car. He would later say that these trips to the bay were on the days that police were checking the San Francisco Bay for bodies. The police were 100% convinced that that's where they were going to find Lacey. So they were constantly looking there. And he said that he just wanted to be

there in case they found something. But he was there for mere minutes every time. And he never told the police that he was coming. And he never asked the police about their progress or their plans or anything. If you want to know what the police are doing, if you want to know if they found anything, why wouldn't you just ask them? You're the husband, you're allowed to do that. Why would you go on these sort of clandestine, weird, minutes-long visits to the bay that's a 180-mile round trip for you? So I don't know. Can you blame the investigators for remaining focused on Scott? In any case, as we said, hold your horse feathers until next week. It's at this point in our story that Scott Peterson moved out of his Modesto home and started to live with his half sister Anne in San Francisco.

He said he was hounded out by the media. I saw that, yeah. Fair enough. Like, I do think that probably was the case. They were basically camped out on history. Anne's husband wasn't particularly keen. He'd always found Scott to be a bit weird, and it got a bit worse.

For example, Anne's husband thought that Scott seemed weirdly fine. He'd drink wine with them, hang out, never really seemed to be all that concerned with looking for Lacey or even theorising about where she might be and what might have happened to her. And they also noticed that Scott hit on their child's 20-something-year-old babysitter. I wonder if he cracked out his line that always works. Anne's husband says that the only time that Scott ever seemed agitated was when he would obsessively stare at the bay. He'd start screaming about why the police were looking there and wasting their time. For a man who had no theories about where Lacey could be,

why was he so upset when they were searching the bay? And if he is a man who deals with stress via stoicism, why is he screaming at all? And maybe some people could say in a very kind light that he's like, the police, you've looked there again and again and again. Why are you still wasting time looking there? But again, he doesn't ever confront the police with this. He doesn't ever say to them, maybe you should try here. What about this? What else are you looking at? He just sort of screams about it in his half sister's house. And also, if he really thinks they're not going to find anything at the bay,

why does he keep driving there for literally hours? So it's clear, like we said, the police were fixated with that location, with San Francisco Bay, because of Scott, their main suspect. But they needed to find Lacey, or get Scott to reveal something to Amber on her secret calls. Frustratingly for investigators, however, this line of inquiry, this sort of route into Scott, would soon come to an end because, towards the end of January 2003, they got some bad news. The National Enquirer had found out about Amber Fry.

Up until this point, the police have kept her completely under wraps. They've played a blinder, really. They really have. They managed to get, like, almost a month of these secret recordings. And the National Enquirer had even managed to get a bunch of pictures of Amber and Scott together. Things like pictures at a Christmas party that they'd gone to together where he's wearing a Santa hat and looking like a really fucking scummy scumbag and she sat on his lap. And fuck me, was it a scoop. This story was the only thing that everyone

cared about at the time and now there was a secret mistress. And I don't like that word. I don't want to call Amber a mistress because she didn't know. She didn't know. She didn't know. She thinks he's her boyfriend. So of course the National Enquirer were like to the police, we are going to run this story. We're just giving you a heads up. Which I'm even surprised they did that. So police knew that the Amber story couldn't come out like this, especially to Lacey's parents. So on the 24th of January, 2003, they put Amber Fry front and center in a dramatic press conference. Okay, first of all, I met Scott Peterson, November 20th, 2002. I was introduced to him. I was told he was unmarried.

Scott told me he was not married. We did have a romantic relationship. When I discovered he was involved in the Lucy Peterson disappearance case, I immediately contacted the Modesto Police Department. Although I could have sold or sold the photos of Scott and I to tabloids, I knew this was not the right thing to do. For fear of jeopardizing the case or the police investigation, I will not comment further. I am very sorry for Lacey's family

and the pain that this has caused them. And I pray for her safe return as well. I would appreciate to my friends and acquaintances to refrain from talking about me to the media for profit or recognition. I am a single mother of a 23 month old child and I ask to respect my privacy. Thank you. Up until this revelation, Lacey's family had been on Scott's side, and their public support was the only thing that had stopped Scott falling deeper into a megapit of suspicion. But after the Amber affair comes out, that support was so gone. And it was gone

from elsewhere as well. Even Anne, Scott's own half-sister, asked him to move out. And I just want to make it clear. I think a lot of people point to this and be like, look, Lacey's family were on his side until the Amber revelation came out. Like they only turned on him because they found out he was cheating on their daughter. But like, remember, Scott lies and he's incredibly manipulative. Whether you think he killed Lacey or not, he's incredibly manipulative. He's very good at putting on a front. So obviously they thought that he was a good son-in-law because he would have acted like the perfect son-in-law whenever they were around. And we will go on to discover that Lacey and Scott had had many problems in their marriage before Amber came along.

But Lacey never told her family anything. Because people are embarrassed. People don't want to. Some people are very private. They don't want to even tell their family that their husband is a piece of shit. Like, she kept these things to herself. Yeah, man. I know so many people who do that.

So I'm not surprised at all that Lacey's parents thought that Scott was a great guy. Everybody did. Defenders of Scott will say that this sort of thing is what made the public so emotional when it comes to this case, and that this is the information that damned Scott, not any real evidence. A love rat does not make a murderer. This is the thing you will hear again and again and again with this case, that Amber Fry was the nail in the coffin for Scott Peterson and that it was this rage that everybody felt towards him that put him in prison and

nothing else. I disagree. And sure, this information made a lot of people really angry with Scott Peterson. I just don't think that this and this alone is what sent him down. Spoilers. And also, I don't really believe that his affair, his lies and his behaviour tell us nothing about him. It actually tells us a lot about his personality, something that would be absolutely ridiculous to ignore. People constantly go on about his behaviour doesn't mean anything. Since when in any crime does a killer or does a person's personality

have no impact on the type of crimes that they commit? Exactly. It's always a part of the puzzle. But again, those who think Scott Peterson is innocent say, oh, well now, look, this whole about Amber Frye is out. It makes sense. The reason he was acting so weirdly, not wanting to go on camera or show his face to the media or make appeals for Lacey's return, was because he was hiding a secret girlfriend, not a murdered wife. And I'm sure that this was the reason. But does that not tell you a lot about his fucking priorities and his instinct of self-preservation

and also his total disregard for his pregnant wife's safety or well-being like okay say he's got a secret girlfriend and then his wife goes missing and it's nothing to do with him would you really be like i can't make any attempts to proactively look for my wife using the media in case my secret girlfriend finds out about it my secret girlfriend who i'm still calling every single day by the way like look at his prioritization. That will tell you what you need to know. Or that will tell you something. It should tell you something. So once the Amber Frye revelation was out in the open, Scott couldn't just hide in the background anymore.

And he didn't need to. Amber now knows. Well, she knew before, but he now knows she knows. So he gave an interview to Diane Sawyer. Former beauty queen Diane Sawyer. Oh, and still a babe. Still a babe. So let's listen to some of this interview, shall we? I think everybody sitting at home wants the answer to the same question. Did you murder your wife? No, no, I just thought, and I had absolutely nothing to do with her disappearance.

And you used the word murder, and yeah, that is a possibility. It's not one we're ready to accept, and it creeps in my mind late at night and early in the morning. And during the day, all we can think about is the right resolutions to find her well. But as you know, increasingly, in the public, suspicion has turned on you. Yes, definitely. Did you ever hit her? Did you ever injure her? No, no. My God, no. Violence towards women is unapproachable.

It is the most disgusting act to me. And I know that suspicion has turned to me. It's me one because I'm her husband and that's a natural thing and I've heard all the statistics on all the news shows about that being you know someone that a husband, ex-husband, a boyfriend that is statistically one who would be responsible for her disappearance. And I'm sorry, I forgot your question. Did you ever hit her? Did you ever injure her? No, no, never.

I answered your question because of the suspicion that it's been turned to me and it turned to me because of the inappropriate romantic that I had with Amber Frye. Oh my god he's using that voice you use when you call in sick to work but you're not really sick. It's like I'm just so sad i'm so so sad i really want to come in i just don't think i can just i could work from home for a bit though fuck off fuck off scott right let's listen to another bit amber fry came forward i'm glad she did you are definitely why appropriate thing to do. It really shows what a person of character she is,

and it allows us to get back looking for Lacey. Did you tell her that you were not married? I did. I did. And then when Lacey disappeared, I called her. Admittedly, it wasn't immediately. It was a couple of days after Lacey's disappearance. I telephoned her and told her the truth. The truth?

That I was married, that Lacey disappeared. She didn't know about it at that point. And then she contacted the police. Lies. Amber Fry found out about Lacey from the news and she found out about Scott from her police officer friend, not from Scott. Scott never ever told her this. Were you in love with her? No. Was this the first time? Are there others out there? No. There's no one else who can come forward? No. I owe a tremendous apology to everyone.

Had you told anyone? Did you tell police? I told the police immediately. When? That was the first night we were together. The police, I spent with the police. You told them about her? Yeah, from December 24th on. More lies.

Scott had multiple affairs during his and Lacey's five-year marriage. This is something we'll go on to talk about more next week. But yes, he cheated on her multiple times and Lacey knew about it, but she didn't tell anybody else. And he absolutely did not tell the police about Amber Fry on the night of the 24th. I watched that fucking interview four times. In fact, let's listen to a little clip from that initial police interview on Christmas Eve,

shall we? You guys have any problems? Marriage problems? Everything's good? You've been married four years? Yeah. Four or five. You have a table? Yeah. Of course, I am.

You can't be thinking. I guess it's fine if you get married in 97. So you're married in 97? I believe so. So there you go. When he's asked outright if they have any problems in their marriage, Scott Peterson says no. But he doesn't even know how long they were married.

He says four years and then Detective Brichini is like, isn't it five if you got married on this? And then he's like, oh yeah, four and a half, four, five years. Are you fucking kidding me? And I don't know. Unless Scott Peterson thinks that cheating on his wife multiple times isn't a problem he says there they had no problems in their marriage he certainly didn't tell them about amber he does lie about very easily provable things and this just again it's because he thinks he

can hoodwink everyone yeah did your wife find out about it i told told my wife. When? Early December. It was not a positive obviously, you know, inappropriate, but it was not something that we weren't dealing with. A lot of arguing? No, no. No, I can't say that even she was okay with the idea. But it wasn't anything that would break us apart. There wasn't a lot of anger? No.

Do you really expect people to believe that an eight-and-a-half-month pregnant woman learns her husband has had an affair and is saintly and casual about it, accommodating, makes a peace about it? Accommodating? Makes a peace with it? Well, yeah, you don't know. No one knows our relationship but us. And that's... At peace with it. Not happy about it. Why did you tell her?

It was the right thing. Because, again, you know that people sitting at home have imagined that either you were in love with someone else, therefore you decided to get rid of this entanglement, namely your wife and your child, or there was just an angry confrontation. Neither of those was the case. It's that simple.

He insisted all was well between him and Lacey. Tell me about the state of your marriage. What kind of marriage was it? God, I mean, the first word that comes to mind is, you know, glorious. I mean, we took care of each other very well. She was amazing. She is amazing. Lacey was okay with the affair. Who would believe that?

That is like the worst bit of the interview where he's just like, yeah, I told her and she was fine. She was okay. We were okay. It wasn't going to break us. What? It's like he's so used to lying and being believed that he can't even comprehend what makes sense and what doesn't anymore. No, he just lies about the most easily provable things and just thinks that he can charm

his way out of it. It's mind-boggling. The entire interview is cringe-ville and he just sort of smiles awkwardly all the way through. I do think that he is arrogant enough to believe that he is in control of the whole situation. It's very reminiscent of Sweaty Nance, Prince Andrew's interview with the BBC. I really think he thinks that he's in control. And it does seem like he's gone through his whole life being able to do whatever he wanted, exactly like Prince Andrew, who still has stuffed animals on his bed. Very similarly to Chris Watts and Casey Anthony, Scott had incredibly enabling parents.

This case and Scott Peterson himself reminds me so much of Chris Watts and Casey Anthony. The lies, the lies, the glibness, and, like you said, the parents. All three of these people's mothers, so Casey's mum, Chris's mum, Scott's mum, they constantly make excuses for their children their entire lives. Go back and listen to our episodes on Chris and Casey if you don't believe us.

It really is the central focus of those people's development. Scott's parents, Jackie and Lee, went on the Barbara Walters show after Amber came out publicly about her relationship with Scott, and this is what they had to say on national television. So when you heard that he was seeing another woman, what did you think? It was surprising, it was disappointing, but it's certainly not anything that's extraordinary.

Well, if you thought the marriage was so good, were you not shocked? Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah, we were shocked. We were shocked. We were unhappy. I mean, that's the reality of life. Men have affairs.

Women have affairs. When their wives are eight and a half months pregnant? Probably more so. That's mostly when men do, we've learned. I had no idea. So is it your feeling, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but that Lacey was pregnant and Scott needed another woman for, I don't know, sex or what? What do you think? I think it's that simple, Barbara. I really do.

It certainly doesn't give motive for murder. I honestly, firstly, I was unaware that Barbara Walters had some sort of like investigative talk show. When did that happen? And how did it pass me by? I mean, it was in like, fucking years ago. So who knows if she's still kicking about and doing that. But it really is just so shocking. They're just like more men cheat on their pregnant wives than not. We've done the research and we found out that this is actually completely statistically normal.

I know. Jesus fucking. You kind of keep waiting for Scott's's dad to be like i mean not me though but he doesn't no he's like men do this women do this people do this and i'm like wow and they're saying this in public like enabled is not even enabled it doesn't even come close doesn't even come close because it's just the tip of the iceberg scott's entire life his mum called him her golden boy again very similar to chris watts and very similar to the casey anthony situation at home if you remember they were willing to fucking throw george casey's dad under the bus to get her off like enabling enabling enabling and we're not going to get

into a huge amount of detail about scott's, but there is a lot of information out there about them. Basically, his mum had like multiple children with different men and then put them all up for adoption. Like that's where Anne, his half sister, comes from. She sort of finds them much later in life. When she meets Lee, Scott's dad, he already has a son that lives with him from another marriage and then they have Scott together. She manages to basically orchestrate a situation where that boy gets sent away that son gets sent away and they just live like the three of them and Scott is like the perfect golden boy who can do no wrong maybe people think I'm being harsh towards his parents but I don't think so I really think that

particularly Jackie is very much at the root of a lot of this. And there's actually an interview with Anne, the half-sister, on Oprah's podcast, which you can go and listen to, which is quite eye-opening because she spills a lot of beans on her biological mother. So basically, Scott is absolutely the favourite. And according to some family members, apparently Jackie, Scott's mum, absolutely resented Lacey. She was far too much of a perfectionist and also Jackie thought that Lacey was too controlling. I was watching last night for reasons that will become clear next year. I was watching The Great about Catherine the Great. It's got Nick Holt in it. And it is by no means

historically accurate at all. Nicholas Holt, who plays the Emperor of Russia, he keeps his mum in a glass box, even though she's dead, so he can look at her and he wears her jewellery and stuff. He's like, someone really should write something about a chap's relationship with his mother. It just moves on because it's in the 1600s or something. Brilliant. Even earlier, sorry, 1400s.

I mean, it's a tricky relationship. It's a tricky one. And Jackie sits at the far end of that tricky spectrum because she absolutely hated, according to family members, Lacey, because Lacey had moved her son to Modesto to be closer to her family. Because Lacey grew up in Modesto. That's her hometown. That's where her parents and her friends are. I think, and maybe this is old-fashioned of me, I think if you are pushing the baby out, you get to decide where it lives. Yes, and you get to decide where your support network is.

Yes. And she probably fucking hated Jackie and didn't want her anywhere near the kid. In my opinion, what you need to know is that Lee and Jackie seemingly very much enabled Scott continuously. And again, there's just so much more to this that we can't get into because we would literally have to become a Scott Peterson podcast, which I would rather throw myself in front of a fucking bus. But when you raise your child, as they seem to have done, and as Chris Watt's mum did, and as Casey's mum did, with no consequences for their actions, then you instill

in them this belief that they are the most important person on the planet, and you reap what you sow. And you end up with a narcissist who thinks that their desires and their wants are more important than anything or anyone else. There is no doubt, in my opinion, that Scott Peterson displays clear narcissistic and psychopathic tendencies. Whether you think he's a killer or not, I think this is irrefutable. He's glib, the shallowness, the lying, the manipulation, a total lack of empathy, recklessness, low neuroses, etc, etc. I could go on and on. This case to me, like I said, is very similar to Chris Watts and to Casey Anthony.

And like we said in both of those episodes that we did, I think that these enabled golden children were so used to putting on this sort of facade, right? They had been so used to always presenting this image of polished perfection that even when the most awful things are happening, they just smile, they're polite, they keep calm and they carry on. Because if you remember when we did the Casey Anthony case, we were like, why doesn't Casey just give everybody the show that they want? Why doesn't she just cry and sob and stop people asking why she's being so cold but I think it's because we said in that episode she's so used to putting a smile on her face and keeping calm and carrying on and I think that's what's going on here and I also think that Scott Peterson doesn't feel confident that he can sob and cry in front of the whole world and pull

it off so he goes for the stoic look but he thinks Amber's stupid confident that he can sob and cry in front of the whole world and pull it off. So he goes for the stoic look. But he thinks Amber's stupid enough that he can sob and cry to her, which is why he does it. So anyway, I think it's pretty obvious by now that I think that Scott Peterson did indeed kill his wife. So let's talk motive. Why kill Lacey? A lot of people say that Scott killed Lacey to be with Amber. We don't buy this one. I don't think that he gave a single shit about Amber, actually. He enjoyed the excitement of affairs. That's why he had so many of them. He likes the thrill of a new relationship. And you can see that from the way he love bombed her. He clearly just wants to be adored. He went out of his way to give Amber exactly what she wanted. He presented himself as

her dream man, who would look after her and her child and still give her this exciting romance. He did all of that, not because he wanted to, but because it served him. He didn't actually feel that way. He knew exactly what a woman like Amber, a young woman with a two-year-old child, wanted to hear and see and feel. And he gave it to her so he could feel the rush of being adored. That feeds someone like Scott Peterson. And you will have his defenders saying that he had been unfaithful many times before

and he'd never killed Lacey before, so why is he killing her now? Yeah, that's one of the most interesting arguments that his defenders make. Well, he had so many affairs, so Amber's not special. Why would he kill so many affairs. So Amber's not special. Why would he kill Lacey for her? It's so obvious.

I know. It's because Lacey had never been pregnant before. In this case, Amber is not the key thing. She could have been anyone. She could have been anyone, yeah. The key thing in this case is the pregnancy. That is absolutely key to this murder. A baby would mean that Lacey would have had far more expectations of Scott.

He'd have to be around more. He couldn't just swan off on his many work trips to try pick up women in hotel bars with sex chat. He'd be trapped. And Scott Peterson, very much like Chris Watts, wanted a clean start, a fresh do-over. He didn't want to be tied down. He didn't want the griminess of an ex-wife.

Remember, he's a golden boy. He'd rather be a widower with a murdered wife than one with an ex-wife and a child he'd have to pay for for the rest of his life. And I don't think, like Hannah said, he was in it for a new life with Amber. Because his supporters will say, why would he kill his wife to get out of a pregnancy

and then hook up with a woman with a two-year-old child? That's like a big point that everybody hammers on about. If he didn't want a kid, why is he hooking up with Amber and in love with Amber because she's already got a child? It's so obvious. He's not planning on sticking around with Amber and her kid. He doesn't give a fuck about Amber and believe me, he gave even less of a fuck about her child. Amber was a fling and people will be like, then why'd you keep going on about it? Why'd you keep pulling up the calls?

Because it was still serving a purpose for him. It was feeding his ego. Amber was absolutely nothing to him. He'd have kept up the act as long as it benefited him, sexually, emotionally, whatever. Then he'd have fucked off to the next woman, and the next, and the next. And when he did that,

he would not have to think twice about Amber's kid. And to make the point that the repercussions of him having a biological child with his wife would be in some way comparable to him hooking up with a woman who already had a child with somebody else is ludicrous. They are just not even in the same stratosphere of similarity. But for now, let's get back to the investigation. Let's leave personality analysis behind us. At this stage in our story, it's been months since Lacey had vanished and there was still no body.

Police were still confident that Lacey was in the San Francisco Bay because they strongly suspected that Scott had dumped her there the day that he went fishing. But without the body, the prosecutor was refusing to move forward with any charges. So they had to find Lacey and Connor to stand any chance of finding justice. Then, on the 14th of April 2003, a couple walking along the Point Isabel regional shoreline of the San Francisco Bay found the body of a late-term foetus lying on the shore. The next day, a dog walker found a badly decomposed female torso about a mile down the beach. And detectives couldn't believe it. So that's it, guys. We're going to stop there. And detectives couldn't believe it. And put your gavels away until then. Yeah. You only have half the story. This is the penultimate episode.

As we said, the second part will be coming out next week, a couple of days before Christmas. So, yeah, we'll see you then. Next week, we will be taking shorthand off as we will the next week. But we'll be back with everything, red-handed, shorthand, all that good stuff, under the duvet for all of the patrons. We'll be back in January. But do not forget to listen to part two of Scott Peterson next week. Now, before we let you go, I know there's been a lot of information to take in. We do want to let you know about some very exciting news

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When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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