True Crime Campfire - Perfect Mask: The Murder of Laci Peterson, Part 2

Episode Date: September 11, 2020

In part 1, we told you about the disappearance of Laci Peterson, a bright and vibrant young woman who was due any day to give birth to her first child, a son she’d already named Connor. In the days and weeks following Laci’s disappearance, the whole world began to turn its attention to her handsome salesman husband Scott—first because, well, you always suspect the husband, and he didn’t seem to be behaving like a grieving man—and then because of the explosive revelation that Scott had been cheating on Laci with a young massage therapist named Amber Frey. Slowly, Scott’s double life was brought to light, and the intricate web of lies he’d woven began to unravel, thread by thread. When we left you at the end of part 1, Laci’s and Connor’s bodies had washed up on the beach near the spot where Scott had been “fishing” on the day of the disappearance, and Scott had been arrested after a high speed chase. But Scott maintained his innocence, as he still does today. And we were all about to get a look at his defense. Sources:A Deadly Game by Catherine CrierBlood Brother by Anne BirdWitness for the Prosecution of Scott Peterson by Amber FreyA&E's docuseries "The Murder of Laci Peterson"Investigation Discovery's "Truth and Lies: The Murder of Laci Peterson"Follow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfireFacebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail]: https://shop.spreadshirt.com/true-crime-campfire/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. In part one, we told you about the disappearance of Lacey Peterson, a bright and vibrant young woman who was due any day to give birth to her first child, a son she'd already named Connor. In the days and weeks following Lacey's disappearance, the whole world began to turn its attention to her handsome salesman husband, Scott. First, because, well, you always suspect the husband, and he didn't seem to be behaving like a grieving man.

And then, because of the explosive revelation that Scott had been cheating on Lacey with a young massage therapist named Amber Fry. Slowly, Scott's double life was brought to light, and the intricate web of lies he'd woven began to unravel, thread by thread. When we left you at the end of Part 1, Lacey's and Conner's bodies had washed up on the beach near the spot where Scott had been fishing on the day of the disappearance, and Scott had been arrested after a high-speed chase. But Scott maintained his innocence, as he still does today, and we were all about to get a look at his defense.

Join us now for Part 2 of Perfect Mask, the murder of Lacey Peterson. So, campers, Scott Peterson was now in custody, after very likely attempting to outrun the police and flee to Mexico. Oh, and I want to add a couple of creepy little details to the discussion we had last week about what they found in Scott's car when they arrested him. So, as I'm sure you remember, they found camping gear, like 15 grand in cash, four cell phones, one of Sister Ann Bird's credit cards, one of his mom's credit cards, Mexican currency, his brother's ID, a ton of different types of clothing for all different occasions, all kinds of stuff that just telegraphs, I am making a run for it. But in addition to all that stuff, Scott also had a significant quantity of sleeping pills, and Viagra. Coupled with the duct tape, rope, and directions to Amber Fry's workplace,

this paints an unsettling picture. Doesn't prove anything, of course, there could be innocent reasons for all of that but yeah you know Whitney I can't think of a single innocent reason for having any of those things if I saw a bag of that stuff on someone's person anyone's person I would tackle them just on principle okay well beware guys who need Viagra because Katie'll take you down it's like it's a combination of the yeah yeah I guess I guess any one of those things I can't I can't think of a reason to have all of those things at once yeah it's creepy as hell And some people have suggested that this might indicate that Scott was thinking about abducting Amber and taking her with him to Mexico. Now, I don't know how I feel about this.

It's interesting. It's certainly possible and even more plausible, in my opinion, that he might have thought about it, but not really intended deep down to do it. But, and we will get into this more later, I don't think he was really that hung up on Amber. I certainly don't think she was the motive for Lacey's murder. I think Connor was the motive for Lacey's murder. Amber was the diversion of the moment, and she was his current source of narcissists supply, if we want to get all psychomological about this. But ultimately, Scott was going to move on from Amber. I mean, remember, he was never faithful to the women in his life, so how much could they possibly mean to him, any one of them?

What Scott cared about was Scott. So was he planning to kidnap Amber? Eh, maybe. But I kind of doubt he would have gone through with that. It's still super creepy that he had all that stuff, though. I'm not going to lie. So, okay, Scott was arrested and charged with the first-degree murder of his wife Lacey and the second-degree murder of unborn baby Connor.

First-degree murder means premeditation, and the prosecutors filed the charge with special circumstances, which in California meant the death penalty was on the table. Now, Scott had retained a local attorney named Kirk McAllister during the investigation, but soon he was given a windfall from whatever patron saint protects fertilizer salesman accused of killing their wives, in the person of rock star defense attorney, Mark Garigos. Garigos agreed to take on Scott's case pro bono, pro boner, more like, which means for free. At the time, Garagos was one of the most highly regarded defense attorneys in the country.

Before Scott, he was probably best known for defending Michael Jackson against charges of child sexual abuse and Winona Ryder for shoplifting charges. You remember when Winona went on that shoplifting jag, y'all? Stole like a bunch of $300 socks from Blumies or Neiman's or someplace. that was so bizarre. And the main takeaway from it for me was just the fact that $300 socks are a thing that exists, which just, what the hell are they made of? Unicorn hair? No, no, no. They're just diamond-encrusted. Very uncomfortable, but as you might know, beauty is pain. I really wouldn't be surprised if that shit existed, diamond-encrusted socks.

I'm sure it does. Good God. Anywho, I agree that Garragos is good at what he does. And no doubt he's an intelligent guy, but I personally think he's a guzbucket, and I'll tell you why. Partly because of his obvious drive to get his name in the media, which I'm convinced is why he took on Scott's case. And partly because of this. During the trial, Garagos went on TV and said that the media attention surrounding the case reminded him of the, quote, Jim Crow South and the lynchings. I'm sorry, what? What the, okay, yeah, Mark, it's really so hard for a well-to-do attractive white. man to get a fair shake in the criminal justice system.

Jesus. What a despicable comparison. It's just gross, and he should be ashamed of himself for saying it. Okay. So Garagos blazed onto the scene, and right away, he made the bold statement that they were going to prove Scott, stone cold innocent. Not just innocent, stone cold innocent. See, every time I think of that, I just want cold stone creamery again.

It's everything always about ice cream with me. That should be part of the drinking game is anytime I bring up one ice cream. Yeah, and then I'm going to come in with a needless personal fact, which is what I get from Coldstone, is strawberry ice cream with cookie dough. Damn, that sounds good. It's so fucking good. Anyway, two drinks, campers. Garagos is nothing, if not media sad. And he quickly said about trying to address the fact that public opinion was strongly against Scott.

One of the first things he did was request a change of venue, which was totally understandable. The media attention on the case was at a fever pitch. There was a billboard in Modesto advertising a radio show and inviting listeners to call in to vote, man or monster, to describe Scott. Wow. We're not going to deny for a second that Scott was having to vote. pounded by the media pretty much from day one. And some of the tactics they used were pretty absurd. Like this one shock jock DJ who posted up outside Scott and Lacey's house one day and yelled at Scott through a megaphone,

did you kill your wife, Scott? Where's Lacey? For God's sake, shut up. You're not helping by turning things into a circus, you jackass. Like wait until they're behind bars. to start bullying them. Exactly. Is that so hard? On a related note, San Quentin has not returned any of my calls regarding my offer to shove Scott into a locker and scream, did you kill your wife, Scott? Add him for hours. I will follow up with them this week. It's funny how we didn't

hear back from them. I know, right? So the judge granted the request, unsurprisingly, and moved the trial 90 miles away to Redwood City. And this is interesting. There was a lot of of pretrial back and forth, as there always is in big cases. And at one point, Geregos, ever the showman, did a little experiment to try and sway public opinion. He bought a boat about the same size and shape as Scots, and he loaded up a dummy the same weight as Lacey, wrapped it up in a tarp, went out on the water, and tried to dump the dummy over the side. And every time he did it, the boat capsized. So obviously the argument was, look, this is impossible. Scott couldn't have dumped Lacey like this. So when the prosecution got wind of this, they were like,

all righty, you did an experiment, cool, cool, cool, let's do it again. But this time, let's use Scott's actual boat. And funnily enough, when they said this, Garagos immediately backed off. No, no, no, that's okay. We're good, we're good, we're good. mind. Never mind. Never mind. I don't know about you campers, but this clearly suggests to me that they knew it would backfire on them if they did a more scientific version of this experiment. Yeah. Garrikos was like, you mean my inflatable raft experiment wasn't good enough?

This child summer camp canoe didn't recreate the crime exactly prosecution? What are you talking about? God, I, guys, I love when lawyers get theatrical. It, either makes them look brilliant, or makes me laugh for like 300 hours. I'll let the campers decide, which it was in this case. The trial began on June 1st. For the duration, trial watchers lined up to watch, and the crowds were crazy. Several jurors have said that early on, they knew this was going to be an emotionally trying experience. By and large, these people didn't want to convict this young husband and father to be.

one juror said, Scott reminded me of my son. Yeah, and to me, this really belies Scott's assertion that public opinion and media attention prevented him from getting a fair shake. Now, before we get into specifics, we're only going to hit some highlights of the trial. Obviously, the prosecution did call witnesses to testify on most of what we shared with you on part one. But we obviously don't have time to rehash all that here, and I doubt you would want us to. So if you need to refresh your memory about anything, you can. always re-listen to part one. For now, we're going to hit the high points in terms of expert witnesses,

stuff like that. Okay, let's get into opening statements. Prosecutor Rick Dostazzo went first. He told the jury Scott was unhappy in his life, unhappy being a husband. He didn't want to be a father, and he convinced himself that murder was the only way out. He told them, stay focused on the web of lies, that the lies proved Scott's guilt. And he said, this is a common sense case. This was the prosecution's tack throughout the trial. It's a circumstantial case, and they were up front about that. And it is a circumstantial case, but it's a strong one, the strongest I think I've ever seen, in fact. And I love Dostazzo's line about this being a common sense case, because that's exactly what it is. That's what a

circumstantial case is. And I think this really gets at the heart of what frustrates me about the debate that surrounds this case. We got to remember that the standard of proof in a murder trial is not guilt beyond any doubt. It's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. In just about any case that's ever gone to trial, you can find details that don't fit. But the standard isn't, there's absolute proof and there's zero that might hint at another possibility. You're almost never going to meet that standard. You're not going to have video proof of the murder, plus a confession from the killer, plus a dozen eyewitnesses who all tell the same story. So we look at all the evidence, all the puzzle pieces and we put it all together and we say okay what's the reasonable conclusion and in my opinion

and obviously the juries the leaps in logic and common sense that have to happen to make anybody other than scott peterson the guilty party in this case are just way too large but we're getting ahead of ourselves so back to opening statements distazo also did something in his opening that he would come to regret he showed a tape of scott's interrogation where scott said that he and lacey were watching Martha Stewart on the morning of December 24th. Scott had said Martha was making moraine cookies on the show that day. Dastazzo said this couldn't be true because they didn't make marine cookies on that episode. When it was Mark Garago's turn, he pointed out the lack of forensic and physical evidence,

then he took on the public's impressions of Scott. He admitted the affair with Amber saying, he's a cad, but it doesn't make him a murderer. Then he scored a major point for the defense by playing a recording of the Martha Stewart show from that day. Lo and behold, meringue cookies. Whomp. So this embarrassed the prosecution, obviously, and made the cops look incompetent right out of the gate. So 10 points to Slytherin. And then he said, we're going to prove that Scott Peterson is stone, cold, innocent.

You can tell he really wanted people to make that into a T-shirt. Like, get a better catchphrase, my guy. He really did. He claimed they had proof that Lacey was alive at the time the prosecution said she was dead, alive at the time Scott was at the bay. Bold claims. Would he live up to them? Well, we're going to find out. So, of course, in any trial, the burden of proof is on the prosecution. The defense doesn't actually have to prove anything, despite the fact that this is exactly what Garagos had just promised to do. The prosecution has to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Again, not beyond any doubt, beyond a reasonable doubt.

The prosecution called Ron Gransky, Lacey's stepdad first. He testified that he didn't know about the boat Scott had bought on December 9th, nor did anyone else in the family. This was hugely out of character for Scott and Lacey. They liked to talk about their purchases, especially major ones like a boat. He also testified that Scott had told him he'd been golfing on the day Lacey went missing, not fishing in the San Francisco Bay, as Scott had told the police. This reinforced what we said in part one, that Scott had originally intended to keep the trip to the bay a secret, but when he realized that people would probably have seen him in

Berkeley Marina, he changed his story on the fly. When Detective Al Bracchini took the stand, he told the jury that Scott had bought the boat for $1,400 on the 9th, two weeks before Lacey's disappearance. Bracchini also revealed these little factoids to the jury. 1. Scott was surfing the internet for info on tide patterns and currents in the San Francisco Bay a day or two before he bought the boat. Evidence of premeditation? Mm-hmm.

Seems like it. Two, the pliers and Scott's boat with the two black hairs twisted up in them. The hair was forensically consistent with the hair from Lacey's hairbrush. This is significant for two reasons. According to Lacey's family, she didn't know about the boat, so why would the hair be there? Also, the hair was twisted up in the pliers, not lying on top of them. Something had to happen to get those hairs all tangled up in there. It wasn't from casual contact. Lacey's just hanging out in the boat.

Could they have gotten like that when Scott was using the pliers to help attach a homemade anchor to Lacey's body? The hairs couldn't be tested for DNA in the usual way because they didn't have a full. bulb on either hair. So the state had done a mitochondrial DNA test on them using DNA from Lacey's mom, Sharon. Now, this is not very precise as DNA tests go, but the lab could not exclude Lacey as the donor and said that roughly one in 112 people in the Modesto area might be a match. Interestingly, Scott was excluded as the donor. During Garagos's cross-examination of Burkini, he challenged the idea that Lacey didn't know about the boat. There was a lady who worked in the same complex where Scott's warehouse was,

and she claimed that Lacey was there and used the bathroom two days before she disappeared. Now, if that was the case, Geregose seemed to imply she might have seen the boat. So Garagos may have scored some points here with the jury when he asked the detective, did you leave this out of your report? Burkini said, yes. And clearly, the allegation here was that he was trying to hide this witness's statement. Burkini's explanation was simple, that one of the other detectives included it in his notes. They were both taking notes and putting them together into a master

narrative, which was the other detectives. He said it wasn't an attempt to hide anything, and in fact this info was in the other detective's report. But the implication Garagos was making was clear. Now, whether Brickini was trying to keep this witness's info out of the report, I don't know, but obviously here it was popping up at the trial, so if he was trying to conceal it, he failed. Other implication here was that if Lacey had visited the warehouse, her hair could have ended up in those pliers that way, just from being in the area, maybe climbing up into the boat to look at it. To which I say, please, I mean, again, like you said, the hairs were not just laying there. They were all up in there, so I just don't buy that for a second.

And by the way, even if she was at Scott's work and used the bathroom, that doesn't mean she saw the boat, or even if she did that she knew it was Scots. This was a business warehouse, not a personal storage space for Scott. And Burkini testified that there was a ton of stuff stacked around in that warehouse, and you could barely get into the bathroom. Lacey would have had to squeeze past a bunch of clutter to get there, climb over boxes, and her condition, almost nine months pregnant, having already stopped her daily walks because she was so tired and her back hurt so bad, doubtful.

But it made the cops look bad, which was the point. It seemed to support Garagos' narrative of a rush to judgment, a tunnel vision homing in on Scott to the exclusion of any other theories, which, by the way, is what defense attorneys almost always say. This is by no means an argument unique to the Scott Peterson trial. It's a very common tool in the arsenal, and sometimes it's true. In this case, I do not believe it is. For a while there, it looked bad for the prosecution. Not so much because their evidence was bad, but because, in contrast to Garagos' emotional, flashy presentation, distazzo's case up to that point had been logical, kind of lackluster, and, as many described it, boring.

Now, may I pause to say, by the way, for God's sake, you know, not everything is supposed to be entertaining and fun, and if we can't get serious and concentrate during a frickin' murder case, then I genuinely fear for us as a species. Are we seriously at the point where we can't pay attention to some boring stuff to help get to the truth in a murder. I freaking hope not. It just grow the fuck up, people.

Geez. Yeah, law and order SVU ain't a documentary, y'all. Yeah. The minutia of a case is very often boring. I could stand in front of a jury and tell them that the giant purple people eater framed my client, but that doesn't make it true. Now, if I had fingerprint analysis and DNA evidence that put that one-eyed, one-horn bastard at the scene, that's a different story.

But that kind of testimony is. isn't sexy. But it all started to shift when the prosecution called their star witness Amber Fry. And at that point, anybody who was bored before, most definitely one bored anymore. We already heard most of Amber's explosive story in part one, and she told it to the jury with obvious emotion. I mean, I think she'd really been in love with this guy, and it was devastating to her when she found out that he was not who he claimed to be.

Scott had first told her he wasn't married, of course, then admitted on December 9th that he had been married before but had, quote, lost his wife and that this would be his first Christmas without her. December 9th, by the way, was the day Scott bought the boat. She told the jury about her first date with Scott, the champagne and strawberries and roses. She told them about the Christmas party they'd been to, and the prosecutor showed them pictures of Amber and Scott from that night. Amber looked beautiful in a red dress, and Scott had his arms around her. They were standing in front of a Christmas tree. De Stazzo juxtaposed this with a picture of Lacey, pregnant, and alone at a holiday party on the same night. And most importantly, the jury heard those unbelievable recordings of the

phone calls between Amber and Scott. In one, Scott said, you know, I always call you to tell you you you're special, but I need a bigger, better word than a special to describe you. This, again, is while his pregnant wife is missing. He's trying to woo a girl using hallmark card stings. Mm-hmm. The most earth-shattering call, of course, was the one from New Year's Eve, where Scott told Amber he was at the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Oh, the fireworks are amazing. This crowd is huge. The jury listened to Scott talk about all the fun he and his fictional buddy Pascal were having in Paris, all while he was really at a candlelight vigil for Lacey, avoiding the cameras as usual. I actually remember that day of trial. I was

watching as much of it as I could on court TV or whatever it was. And that recording just dropped on that jury like a bomb. I mean, people's mouths were hanging open. It was nuclear. Because, I mean, most of us just cannot imagine an innocent person behaving this way, romancing his new girlfriend while his pregnant wife is missing and her due date is approaching. Most people just could not and would not ever behave that way. Now, does this by itself prove Scott's guilt? No. But it's an especially intriguing piece of the puzzle. And you know, people always want to say in this case, just because he was a cheater doesn't mean he's a killer. Just because he's a liar

doesn't mean he's a killer. Well, of course not. Although funny how often those things do go together in these cases, right? But again, you start to put all the pieces together and you think, seriously, what innocent person would behave this way? And I think the picture starts to become very, very clear.

The jury heard the call where Scott finally admitted that he was married and that his wife was missing. They heard Amber confront him about the awful big coincidence of Lacey going missing two weeks after he told her he lost her. They heard Scott say, well, there are different kinds of loss, Amber. And they heard him tell Amber that Lacey knew all about her and she was fine about it, something all Lacey's loved ones and friends says with absolute nonsense.

Garagos's cross-examination of Amber was pretty brief. Very wisely, he didn't go after her. All he did was get her to say that Scott had never confessed to Lacey's murder, and that he hadn't said the words, I love you to her. Amber said, not in those words, but she reiterated that Scott had been talking about a future with her and her daughter. This wasn't a fling. When the prosecution called the medical examiner, whose name, oddly enough, was Dr. Brian Peterson. No relation, obviously.

The jury learned more than they ever wanted to know about the state of Lacey's and Connors remains. Now, content warning here, y'all, because this stuff is going to get pretty graphic. And I wish I could tell you exactly how much to fast forward. I would say err on the side of caution if you really, really don't want to hear this. I would say maybe about a minute, probably. I'm sorry if I'm wrong. It's hard to predict. So the Emmy testified that Lacey's head, forearms, one foot, and the lower portion of one leg were missing when she was found.

Now, she had been weighted down, said Dr. Peterson. These are the weakest links in the body. So as the body decomposed and the weights held it down, parts of the body had detached. and floated away. Lacey's chest cavity was empty. The only organ left was the uterus and it was uncut. The body also showed no evidence of a vaginal birth. Now, Campers, this next part is crucial. In contrast to Lacey's extremely decomposed state, Conner was totally intact, nearly perfect. According to Dr. Peterson, this is because he was protected by Lacey's womb until right before he was found. This is a phenomenon called coffinbirth, where the gases produced by decomposition

push the fetus out of some opening in the body. So when did Connor die? At the same time Lacey did, according to Dr. Peterson. Now, he based this in part on Lacey's ultrasound data, which told him the age of the fetus at the time of death. Now, hold on to this because when we get to the defense's argument in a few minutes, it's going to be really important. There was too much decomposition and marine activity to be sure how Lacey had died, but Dr. Peterson noted that she had two broken ribs, which occurred anti-mortem, meaning at a point very close in time to her death. Put this together with that person-sized indentation that Detective Bracchini had noticed on the bed on the day she went missing, and the two small spots of Scott's blood on the Duvain near

that divot. Scott had small cuts on his fingers and knuckles on the day Lacey disappeared that he claimed he got working in his warehouse. The prosecution's theory was that Scott most likely either strangled or smothered lazy on the bed and she would have gotten the broken ribs because he would have been straddling her on top of her in some way and she probably scratched at his hands or possibly the scratches were caused by the sharp screwback earrings that she liked to wear he then dragged her from the bed wrapped her up in a tarp and loaded her into his truck concealed among those big patio umbrellas that police found in there he then drove her to the warehouse loaded up the boat weighted her down with the homemade anchors and dumped her in the ocean.

Garrigo's cross-exam of Dr. Peterson pretty much consisted of asking him, is there any proof that she was strangled? Dr. Peterson said no. Another prosecution win came courtesy of a guy named Harvey Kempel, a relative by marriage of the Rocha family. Harvey was one of the more memorable witnesses at the trial, both for what I'm about to tell you, and for a comment he made about Scott's reaction to burning the chicken at a family barbecue on the 4th of July. He said, Scott was more upset about burning the damn chicken than finding Lacey. More importantly, though, Kemple was the second person after Scott's stepfather-in-law, Ron Gransky,

to hear Scott say he'd been golfing the day Lacey went missing. Remember from part one, Scott initially told Ron that he'd been at the golf course all day on December 24th. Then when police started questioning him, he changed his story to fishing, realizing no doubt that people had likely seen him. him at the marina and would recognize his truck and boat. When Kempel told his wife Gwen what was Scott doing fishing on Christmas Eve, she said, he told me he was golfing. Then they discovered he'd told their daughter a third story that he'd been at work all day. Scott, for God's sake, my dude, you are bad at this. Harvey Kempel also had a couple other little compelling tidbits to share. One day Scott had left the command center where volunteers were organizing to help

search for Lacey. Scott said he was going to go hang missing person flyers. Harvey Kempel decided to follow him in his truck. He followed Scott to a nearby mall where Scott apparently just sat in his car for an hour. He didn't hang any flyers at all. Another time, Kempel followed Scott from the search command center to the country club, where Scott played a round of golf instead of searching for his wife. A couple of other little details. Bloodhound dogs had tracked Lacey's scent at the marina where Scott had in fishing on the day she was missing. The investigators had also found one of the homemade anchor in Scott's boat, but evidence on the work table suggested that there were three others, and those were nowhere to be found. Also missing was a huge bag of concrete mix Scott had bought shortly before

the murder, and couldn't account for now. After 19 weeks, the state rested. Now, of course, we didn't go over all the state's witnesses, obviously, just the highlights. Okay, defense is turn now. Their strategy, of course, was to argue that the police rushed to judgment, and they promised to prove Scott's innocent, not just raise reasonable doubt. It quickly became clear, though, that there were no teeth to this. Garagos' strategy seemed to be to throw everything they could think of at the wall to see what stuck, to try to create reasonable doubt. One big point of contention was Conner's fetal age. The defense argued that Connor's fetal age was older than in December 24th, and that he might have been born alive.

The theory was, of course, that if Conner's fetal age was older than the day Lacey went missing, then Scott couldn't have killed her. This would support the idea that Lacey had been abducted and held somewhere until she gave birth. This is just insane to me, given the condition of his body compared to hers, and we'll get into that a little bit more in a minute, but they gave it the old college try, and boy, did it blow up in their faces. And in a moment, I'm sure he still relives in his night.

nightmares, Garagos called fertility expert Dr. Charles March to the stand. Dr. March testified that in his opinion, Connor Peterson had died on December 29th at the earliest. Five days after the prosecution said she was killed, which supports the idea that she was abducted. Now, when Connor's body was found on April 13th, he had some tape wound very loosely around his neck. The prosecution contended that this was just ocean debris, which is everywhere in the bay that had loosely wound itself around Connor as he floated to shore. And this kind of thing happens all the time with bodies that wash up from the ocean. But Garagos, bless his heart, argued that this tape could have been the weapon that killed him after he was born alive

as part of some kind of satanic ritual, perhaps. Yeah, we're not making this up. One of the theories put forth by Scott's supporters is that Lacey was abducted and murdered by a satanic cult. Okay. So next up was the prosecution's cross-examination of Dr. March. They asked him, okay, how did you come up with this date, December 29th? Dr. March said, oh, I used the date of conception. He'd used June 9th as the date Lacey learned she was pregnant because she'd announced it to a friend that day. So Dr. March took this as the significant date for his calculation.

He backed that date up two weeks to get the conception date. Convincing? As the prosecutor continued questioning Dr. March, he was forced to admit that there was nothing scientific whatsoever about this calculation. Nothing in the medical records to verify this date of conception. Worse for the defense, March started getting really flustered and defensive. He finally said, you need to cut me some slack. look this isn't an exact science i'm doing the best i can it was bad for the defense disastrous in fact

yeah it was cringeworthy whichever side it happens to it just always kills me to see them just get hosed by their own witness you know it's oof ouch and it's a ridiculous line of thinking to me in the first place because what is the implication here that somebody kidnapped lacey held her somewhere until she gave birth, killed her and dumped her, then held on to Connor for a longer period of time before killing him, something like that would have to have happened because of the huge difference in the decomposition. So they can't have both been dumped at the same time if Connor's body is barely decomposed and Lacey's is heavily so, right? And if they dumped them separately, forgetting the question of why they would let Lacey give birth, kill and dump her, but keep Connor only to kill him later,

then why would he and Lacey wash up so close to each other? And why would they wash up right around where Scott had been out in his boat on the day she went missing? Come on, people. And I've heard some of the supporters say, well, maybe the people that did it were watching the news. And they knew that Scott was probably going to be the prime suspect and that he was saying he was out on the back. That, come on, for the love of God. So they're multitasking. They are keeping control of a hysterical pregnant woman.

They're experienced enough to help her give birth, and they're watching the news. And they, for some reason, strangle the baby with a piece of tape. Yeah. What? Why? Oh, it just doesn't make a damn bit of sense. Okay. Let's say this, you need a baby for some kind of satanic spell.

Let's just say that's true. I suppose that's the theory there that they want, oh, for God's sakes. Wouldn't it be easier? Now, hear me out. FBI, I know you're listening. To just, like, snatch a baby that had already been, like, birth? Right. Like, then you'd only have to kill one person.

Mm-hmm. And a baby, I don't have one, but I've met plenty. They are much easier to control than a hysterical woman. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So that theory is so fucking crazy that it's probably the plot of Liam Neeson's next movie, taken eight, the takening. Now, this next bit is something we didn't get into in part one, but it's an essential element for Scott's supporters, and we're going to tell you about it now.

So Garagos never want to admit defeat now turned his focus to a burglary that had happened right across the street from the Peterson House, according to Garagos on December 24th, the day Lacey went missing. One of the big theories among Scott's supporters is that Lacey must have been walking the dog and seen this burglary in private. progress at her neighbor's house, so she, again, at eight and a half months pregnant, confronted the burglars, and they responded by abducting and killing her. The dog ran home, still dragging his leash, where Scott found him wandering in the yard later that day. Okay, so the burglary was discovered a few days after Lacey's disappearance when the owners of the house came back from a trip. Compelling, right? Here's the thing, though. The police actually solved that burglary case really quickly. They got an anonymous tip on where to find the stolen property, and they

quickly identified the two men who robbed the house, recovered the stuff and everything. And the problem with Garigot's theory is that the burglary didn't take place on the day Lacey went missing. It took place two days later on December 26th. And the two burglars had rock-solid alibis for the day of Lacey's disappearance. Now, Scott, supporters argue with this, saying that there was media everywhere on their street on the 26th, so why would burglars rob the place on that day, etc. But the media weren't there all the time, so this holds very little water with me. Garigos called the officer who solved the burglary to the stand and challenged the date, but it didn't work out. He wasn't able to shake the officer's testimony or successfully refute that the burglary had happened on the 26th.

Plus, these dudes were known to the police. They were thieves, not killers. They both agreed to polygraphs, they both denied involvement, and very quickly the detectives ruled them out. And the thing is, burglars hardly ever murder anyone. It's even rarer for them to abduct and murder someone. If the burglars did kill Lacey, how was this supposed to have gone down? They saw her walking by, realized she might be able to identify them. So they grabbed her and tossed her into their car and took her somewhere and killed her?

Okay, I mean, that might happen, although it seems like it would be better to just drag her into the house you're robbing and kill her there. It would be vanishingly rare for this to happen in the first place. But let's say these are very unusual burglars, and it did happen this way. Why would the burglars dump her body at sea? How'd they do it? Did one of them have a boat? And why would they feel the need to dump her far, far out to sea, instead of just dumping her by the side of the road somewhere? Or, as you said, just killing her in the house they were robbing and leaving her there. Isn't dumping the body a lot more understandable for someone who is intimately acquainted with Lacey and would therefore be a prime suspect in her disappearance?

someone like that is likely to want Lacey to disappear and never be found. Then, he or she or they can say maybe she ran off to start a new life. Or who knows what happened? The burglars in this scenario don't have the need for that. Yeah, and if you can think about so many of the spouse murders that have happened over the years, and believe me, I've read about loads and loads so frequently, you know, the husband or whatever that kills the wife will dump that body somewhere and hope it's never going to be found so that they can say, oh, she must have run off with a lover.

Happens all the time. So this would be a stranger homicide. They'd be more likely to take the quickest, easiest route possible to disposing of Lacey's body, putting her in a dumpster or an alley or out in the woods or just dumping her off a bridge into a river or better at just leaving her where she fell. Not loading her into a boat and taking her out to sea. But let's say that these are very unusual burglars, and one of them owns a boat, and they for some reason decide they do want to take her way out to see to dispose of her, what are the odds that they would dump her in the same area where her husband, a chronic liar who was cheating on her at the time of her murder, who had said he didn't want the baby she was carrying, who had told his mistress that he'd lost his wife, and this would be his first Christmas without her, happened to be, quote, unquote, fishing on the day she disappeared. Now, doesn't that just start to edge past the boundary? of rational belief.

It sure as hell does for me. All right. So after six days of testimony, Mark Garragos rested. People couldn't believe it. He never called the eyewitnesses he talked about in his opening statement, the people who supposedly saw Lacey

after the prosecution said she'd been murdered. He never proved anything about burglars or Satan worshipers. His case had been a whole big old nothing burger, pretty much. Stone Cold innocent? More like lukewarm guilty. Now it was time for closing arguments. Prosecutor Dastazzo drew together all the threads of circumstantial evidence and reminded the jury that this case was about common sense,

about putting together all these little pieces of the puzzle together and finding the big picture. Garagos's closing was basically, blah, blah, blah, blah, rest of judgment, blah, blah, blah, blah, tunnel vision, blah, blah, blah, Scott's a cheater, but he's not a killer, and on and on and on. He pointed out that there was no smoking gun. We didn't even know how Lacey died. There was reasonable doubt here, he said.

Scotch be acquitted. Case went to the jury. It was dramatic, a capital case. Stuff got heated a few times. They lost two jurors who had to be replaced with alternates. In one case, because a juror messed up and said something to Lacey's brother, Brent, out in the hallway. And the other, because the foreman asked to be removed. He was the lone holdout for not in case.

guilty. And he felt the other jurors were hostile to him. He sounds like a massive drama queen. He really does. He also claimed other jurors had threatened him. But everyone denied this vehemently. Actually, if I remember rightly, he claimed that every single one of the other jurors had threatened him, physically threatened him, which seems highly unlikely to me. So once they resolved all that, it took the jury several days to render its verdict. guilty thank god unsurprisingly scott took the news without apparent emotion as did his mom jackie his dad lee didn't show up that day later scott was sentenced to death and transported to death row at san quentin where he quickly began accumulating loads of female groupies just like that asshole chris watts

yeah they call him scottie so haughty sorry i'm i'm sure some of you just threw up i apologize for not warning you to get a bucket. Oh, and by the way, keep that bucket handy. In 2005, Lacey's mom Sharon had to go to court against Ashat to fight him for Lacey's life insurance money because, oh yeah, we didn't mention this, did we? Scott had a $250,000 policy on her, and he didn't want to give it up, even from prison. So Sharon had to fight it out with him in court, and of course she won, thank God. As you probably know, his death sentence was recently overturned, so he will be getting a new sentencing hearing pretty soon. This doesn't mean his conviction was overturned, just that they're going to resent him. The prosecution can go for the death penalty again if they choose, and they may well

get it. I suspect he'll get life without parole, which is fine by me. More chances for me to give him me nicknames and talk shit on the internet. Okay. Now let's talk about Scott's appeal, and the main theories put forth by his supporters. Some of this stuff came up briefly at the trial. Some didn't. Let's start with our personal favorite. The satanic cult theory. We're going to get into this, but I will say this first.

If satanic panic is the best you can do, your case is in some trouble. Here is where this theory originated. One afternoon, a sexual assault counselor called the Modesto Police. She said she'd counseled a confidential victim of sexual assault two weeks earlier. The woman claimed she'd been lured into a brown van, a Chevy or Ford, she wasn't sure, by her ex-girlfriend. There were two men and two women in the van, according to this woman. She said they took turns sexually assaulting her and then performed a, quote, satanic ritual. The woman told the counselor that this group hung out a lot in local parks and that they were currently living at a reservoir in the area.

The counselor said that the woman had told her that during the satanic ritual, the group mentioned a Christmas day death that she'd read about in the paper. And I remember Lacey went missing on Christmas Eve. Now, we need to take a minute here to establish some background. We're not saying that there have never been murders motivated by Satan worship. There have been. Sure. But as the FBI's extensive nationwide satanic panic investigation in the 80s and 90s found, these murders are almost always the product of a single. person. Not always, always, but almost always. Anyway, the idea of the murderous satanic cult is,

by and large, a myth. We're not saying it's totally impossible that it could happen, just that it's very unlikely. Yeah, I feel the need to reiterate, Satanists are not around every dark corner waiting to snatch up a strange pregnant woman and her baby anyway. They usually target people they know. But that's what this counselor said she'd heard from this anonymous sexual assault victim. Once this info got out to the press after Scott was arrested, the Modesto PD basically had to race Mark Garagos and his team to get control of this van. Modesto PD sent officers to this reservoir, the counselor mentioned, to look for a brown van, and they did find one, and it was occupied by three women and one man.

They said they'd been camping at the reservoir for three weeks, and they readily agreed to a search of their van, which turned out to be infested with mice, so that was fun, I'm sure. But anyway, the police found nothing of relevance to Lacey's case in the van, The people who had been living in it never reclaimed it, and the police department decided to sell it for scrap. Mark Garagos bought it. Now, trial watchers thought that this must mean he had a real lead, but nothing ever materialized from this. Garagos never even showed the van to the jury. I can only assume he painted a sweet dragon on the side and turned the back into a hippie den.

Now it's his mystery machine, and he and his little second chair legal team are solving mysteries all over town. Oh, God, I want that. And the answer to every mystery is, satanic cult. And neither the police nor Scott's defense were ever able to corroborate the woman's story about a satanic assault. Okay, next theory. The torso of another missing pregnant woman turned up dead in the bay not long before Lacey did. Her name was Madeline Hernandez. She was also pregnant at the time of her murder.

She disappeared six months before Lacey. And until her body was identified, Lacey's family thought it would turn out to be her. Hernandez's baby's body was never found From what I've been able to find out about this case It sounds like the most likely explanation Is that her unborn baby's father killed her He had motive He was married and he didn't want a baby with his mistress

He didn't want to pay child support He didn't want his wife to find out he'd gotten another woman pregnant He was initially cooperative with police But then got real defensive and lawyered up His only alibi is his wife With whom he has other children And who might have reason to lie he and the victim had a stormy relationship people have been trying to get her to leave him

and of course statistically the overwhelming likelihood is that it's him especially given that the number one cause of death in pregnant women is murder by the baby's father okay now back to the burglary theory this didn't come up at trial because garagos didn't get wind of it until late in the trial and he didn't have time to investigate it but there's this dude named Xavier Aponte now at the time Lacey went missing Aponte was a jay in Modesto. And supposedly, according to a tip, Aponte called into police, there exists a recording between an inmate at this jail and his brother on the outside. Aponte said they talked about committing a burglary and a woman witnessing them. And then the guy on the outside, the brother,

allegedly said, what are we going to do about Lacey? And right as he said that, his brother said, shut up, don't talk about that right now. That's the claim. Now, you'd think this would be pretty explosive, but the tape was allegedly lost at some point between the trial and now. Nobody seems to have this recording, so we can't listen to it. And Scott's appeals team has tried to get Aponte to talk

to them about it, but apparently he doesn't want to talk about it now. The Aponte tip is kind of like a game of telephone, as Court TV's Beth Karris pointed out in one of the TV shows about the case. It's a third-hand piece of information, and it contradicts the significant amount of evidence that the

burglary happened on the 26. Now, there was a huge reward offered at the time Lacey was missing, and people do this all the time when rewards are offered. There will always be false accusations, false tips, even false confessions. If this happened, are you seriously telling me that no one who knew these two guys knew about it, and none of them came forward for that reward? It was half a million dollars, y'all. I considered diming out my own brother for half a million dollars, I'm not going to lie. Not to mention the fact that, as we said, it's incredibly rare for burglars to rebuttal. react to being observed or caught in this way, the typical reaction, the overwhelming majority

of the time is they just book it, they just flee. So I suspect that the reason why Aponte has continually rebuffed Scott's appeals team is that he made this shit up in the first place and he doesn't want to admit it now. And by the way, even if he didn't, even if this recording existed, they didn't say they killed her. Right. They just said some woman saw us committing a burglary and then allegedly the brother said, what are we going to do about Lacey, which I would think you could easily mishear. It could have been Stacey or who knows. You know what I mean? And that might be partly why he's not coming forward too, because he listened to it again and realized that they were saying Stacey or Macy or Lord knows, you know, but if he really wanted to

help, you would think that he would help and want to get an innocent guy out of prison. But he has said, no, I don't want to talk about it. Next up is the gate theory, or what we like to call Gate Gate. The background on this is that between 1015 and 10.20 a.m. on the day. of Lacey's disappearance, a neighbor found the dog McKenzie dragging his leash. The neighbor put him back in the Peterson's yard and closed the gate.

Fifteen minutes later, the mailman shows up and he claims the gate was open. Now, Scott supporters claimed this proves he's innocent, that Lacey must have still been alive that morning and opened the gate after the neighbor closed it.

Um, what? I'm sorry, but I feel like there are a concern. estimate of about 116 other explanations for this than, this must mean Lacey was alive. Yeah. What if the gate had a bad latch? What if the neighbor didn't quite close it right?

What if the mailman was just wrong? Eye witness testimony is garbage, y'all. So that's very plausible. And most importantly, if Lacey opened the gate, why was McKenzie still wearing his leash? when Scott got home. Why wouldn't she take his leash off? Yeah, people talk about this gate thing, like it's just the most explosive piece of evidence

since the flipping bloody glove at the OJ trial, and I just do not see it. No, there's like, there's so many other explanations, y'all. Then there are the witnesses who supposedly saw Lacey walking the dog that day. There were 11 of them. But y'all, neither the police nor Scott's defense team could ever establish a timeline with any of these people, mainly because most of those sightings occurred after the neighbor found McKenzie.

Yeah, so what did she go to the pound and get a different dog who looked like McKinsey? I mean, we know McKinsey was home, so it just didn't make sense. And may we once again remind you how incredibly unreliable eyewitness testimony is? You show 10 people the same thing. You're going to get 10 different descriptions. Some of them will be way different. Memory is just weird as hell. So the fact that some people think they saw Lacey in this little window of time that would have proved Choo is still alive, that just doesn't cut it for me.

Now, we have some computer stuff. Scott had messed around on the computer on the morning Lacey went missing. He sent an email to his boss, and he searched for how to assemble a tool. Remember how he told the police he'd spent time assembling a tool in the warehouse before he went fishing? I guess the theory here is that he really knew. must have done that since he searched for instructions on the internet that morning. I mean, even if he did, that doesn't mean he didn't kill Lacey. I wouldn't stop to assemble a tool before dumping my wife's dead body at sea, but I'm not

a cold-blooded monster like Scott Peterson is. And it hardly needs to be said that just because the man looked up assembly instructions that morning does not mean he actually put the thing together that day. Spending time on the internet that morning would be a way for Scott to make it appear that everything was normal. Everything was fine. It was just an ordinary day. And he was just getting a few little internet searches in before he went fishing or golfing or whatever the hell it is he was planning on saying he did. There was also an internet search on a site where Lacey liked to shop on that same morning. Supporters pointed this to show he's innocent. Seriously? Like Whitney just

said, Scott is a manipulator. You don't think this was part of the premeditation to make people think exactly what these people are thinking, please. Yeah, the bottom line here is that Scott did not expect this level of scrutiny on him and on Lacey's disappearance. He didn't expect a case to get so big, so public. He wasn't ready for it. This is why he had to dodge cameras to try to keep Amber from finding out any of this was going on. It's why he told her a few days before he killed Lacey that he'd be away for a few weeks over the holidays and wouldn't be able to see her for a little while. He figured he'd need a little time for all this to blow over and then he could do what he wanted with whoever he wanted.

This really shows a lack of empathy on his part. It never occurred to this lizard-brained fuckface that a missing pregnant woman would be national news. It didn't occur to him that her mother would do anything to find her going on television, begging for answers. It didn't occur to him that the spotlight would be right on him for the duration of the investigation. Scott is a pathetic weakling who prayed on women because it was the only way he could

validate his narcissism. Mm-hmm. I think on the night of the 23rd or the early morning hours of the 24th, Lacey was probably getting ready for bed. Remember, she was found in just a bra and a pair of comfy maternity pants. She may have been undressing, getting ready to brush her teeth and come to bed, something like that. And for whatever reason, Scott chose that night. He knew Connor was due any time now, any day. He knew once that baby was born, he was trapped.

Because Scott cares about his golden boy image. Remember, he didn't like his sister. Mr. Ann teasing him about it, because to him it's serious business. He has to be the good guy, T.M. And you can't be the good guy if you abandon your wife and newborn baby and right off into the sunset with a blonde massage therapist called Amber. Scott didn't want to be Lacey's husband anymore. He never wanted to be a dad in the first place. Lacey had become surplus to requirements. I don't even think he hated her. I doubt he had many feelings about her at all. She was just dead weight to him. So I think at some point that night, Scott came

up behind Lacey as she was getting ready for bed. And I wonder, was she floss in her teeth? Did she catch his eye in the mirror and turn around to ask him what was wrong? Did she see it in his eyes? I can't even imagine what Lacey went through that night. What it would be like to have the person you love most, the person that you've trusted with your life, suddenly squeezing it out of you. My personal opinion is that he probably strangled her, because this is a little dark, but we're weird people over here at TCC. My husband and I actually did a little experiment to help get ready for this episode. I had him act out smothering me with a pillow and then strangling me. And while he was pretending to strangle me, my instinct was immediately to start clawing at his hands. And if I'd really been

trying, I would have made scratches in exactly the places where Scott had them that next day. With the pillow, it was a little different. It landed in a little different place. But however it happened, we believe with all our hearts that it did, and that Scott Peterson is a little bit of a little exactly where he belongs. Connor would be 17 now, by the way. And I'll leave you with this and get ready because it's going to hurt. At Scott's sentencing, Lacey's mom Sharon, an amazing woman who displayed a lot of grace throughout this whole thing and whose pain was like a raw nerve every time you saw her,

gave a victim impact statement. She talked about how much Lacey had wanted to be a mother. She looked right at Scott and said she wanted to be a mother. Scott had no visible reaction. And then she said that at Lacey's funeral, they had put Conner's body in the casket with hers so she could hold him forever. But then Sharon remembered that Lacey had no arms to hold him with. I don't get choked up much. I've seen a lot of murder cases, and I'm pretty used to looking at them a little more clinically by now.

But that wrecks me every time. Scott, you're guilty as hot-buttered sin, my dude. And you're also trash, and I hope you're miserable every day of the rest of your life. Kick rocks. So those of you listening through your podcasting apps probably don't know that for our Patreon subscribers, most of the time lately we've been giving them a little extra treat. Because Katie and I always chat for a little while right after the show, just about any and everything and kind of rehash the show and joke around and act like idiots and stuff.

And normally we just share that with our Patreon subscribers. We call it TCC Unplugged. Right? But today, because it's our anniversary, because this is a special episode, we're letting everybody get a peek. In addition to all the other great perks our patrons get, this one is, you know, one more, and it's fun. All right, so it's post-show time, Kato. Okay. Did I make you cry with the corner thing? I was afraid I might. Do you need to I was about to cry? I was okay. I read over that part. I practiced it 15 times because I was afraid I was going to cry, and I did cry like the first

10. I think I'll cry about it later. It's... Right. Schedule some time to cry about it later. Yeah, that's exactly what I do. That's what I do, campers, is I do have scheduled time. I make myself cry at certain times. Yeah. We said we were weird people, didn't we? So one thing I thought it might be interesting to talk about is that Garagos had a little spot of bother recently. Did you notice that? Oh, my God. Have you seen the thing about Garragos? Yeah. Yeah. So he's a...

what do they call him? It was like a not, like, basically he's like guilty but not guilty. Like, they're not going to charge him. Of course not. So the guy that, oh, he is also another celebrity lawyer. Yeah, I forget who it is, but it, yeah, it's like another, like rock star lawyer. He and Garagos decided to go to Nike, you know, the billion dollar company Nike, and say, We are going to tell the press all about you paying a bunch of college kids, specifically basketball players, not just like random college kids, all these like college basketball stars and their family's money if you don't pay us. Yeah, like technically it was like, hire us for $25 million to quote unquote investigate something or other or we'll tell. It's essentially as extortion. Yeah.

So that's classic, Garigos. I don't care who you are, but going up against a billion-dollar conglomeration. Yeah, I'm sure they have a few lawyers of their own. Yeah. Who has in the past been charged with, like, literally having child slaves. Jesus, really? In third world countries. Nike's one of the bad ones.

They have, like, child-employed sweatshops. I don't think they do any more. They probably still don't own any Nike products. That's messed up. Yeah. But anyway, I thought everybody would be interested to know about that because he really is a scuzz bucket. That's why we don't feel bad about making fun of him. That Jim Crow thing was enough for me.

It's like, okay, just fuck you. That's disgusting. Yeah. That's disgusting. Yeah, compare a well-to-do white guy, you know, to black men who were lynched for racist reasons. Just knew. What? How does anybody think that kind of thing is okay to say? Like, did that not, that didn't pass through any filter in your mind that might have flagged it as like a seriously messed up thing to say? Well, obviously not. I don't think, I don't think attorneys like Garagos have filters like that because probably not.

They literally just throw plate after plate at the wall and it's like, what's going to stick to here? And everybody really expected great things. And it, you know, people talk about, oh, Scott didn't get a fair trial. Well, first of all, Mark Garagos is one of the most highly regarded defense attorneys in the country and one of the most expensive, too. And he got that for free. So don't tell me he didn't get a fair trial. Now, there have been a couple of things that have popped up with the jury, and this is something we didn't get into in the episode. Because I'm really, to me, there's a huge difference between there might have been some stuff wrong with the trial, and this guy's factually innocent. I'm interested in whether he did it or not. I'm a lot less interested in the piddly little details of the trial.

I do think it's important, obviously, to hold our justice system to a high standard. But again, he had one of the best defense attorneys in the country. Even if he did screw the pooch at it, he's a good lawyer, you know? I think the reason he screwed the pooch is because there was nothing there. The man was obviously guilty. Right. And there's also a difference between, like, questionable jury behavior and prosecutorial, like, misconduct. Yeah, and what it was specifically is there was this one juror, I think her name was Rochelle

nice or something like that, but I don't, I'm not sure if I'm remember. bring that right. But she had like bright pink hair and everybody called her strawberry short cake and you could tell she like hated Scott's freaking guts. Like she came out as one of the people to speak after the verdict, you know, and you could just see it. Like she would definitely be comfortable, you know, bullying him verbally with us. But apparently I think she was the one that they're alleging lied during voir dire about whether she had any experience personally with domestic abuse, which I think is a weird question anyway, because there's no evidence that Lacey suffered any domestic abuse at the hands of Scott.

That's one of the things that's so creepy about this case is that he wore the mask right, I think literally right up until the moment he killed her, she thought he was a great husband. It's creepy. Yeah, it's super creepy. And honestly, that is less of a concern to me than literally anything else. Yeah, like if the prosecution intentionally tried to hide, you know, like in the mainline murders case where there was, there for sure was like some prosecutorial misconduct. Right. And this is like she didn't tell the truth about something like deeply personal and humiliating that was going to be part of public record. No. That's fine. Like as a as a former, you know, I mean, I've survived domestic abuse. I don't like talking about it, you know. No. No one does. Like in detail. I wouldn't want to, in a case this public. I don't know.

No, I'm on her side. She can come on the show. Come on the show. Strawberry Shortcake and help us verbally abuse Scott Peterson. Anyway, so she, that's one of the elements of his appeal, along with all this other horseshit that we talk to about. And I seriously, I don't want to offend anybody. I really don't. But Lord have mercy, like, what I said earlier, like, just the leaps in logic that you would have to take to imagine that all of the, like, they, what I hate is that people seem to cherry pick these little details, like, oh, the gate was open.

Or, you know, there was another pregnant woman that washed up who went missing six months earlier and all this stuff like okay i get that like you can have those things now do you want to look at this mountain of sort of really strong circumstantial evidence on the other side and just use some common sense come on me well and especially with the gate it's like maybe the neighbor remembered wrong maybe she closed the gate after the postman came maybe maybe the gate didn't shut right as many gates don't maybe the mailman was remembering a different day yeah lord have mercy and that's the thing is especially with eyewitness testimony on something as unremarkable as seeing your neighbor walking a dog yeah like that's not like an armed robbery all like i could know i could be confused

about who i saw at the gym today sure because it's so mundane it's something that you're doing all the time and also she wouldn't walk in the dog that's the thing i think that's a really important piece of evidence that everybody like her OBGYN her yoga teacher her neighbors all said she had not been walking the dog for weeks because of her back pain and she was getting tired so the doctor said stopped the walks and she had stopped the walks she went to walking McKenzie it's not like she was known to be rebellious and wanted to go walk no she didn't want to walk because she was exhausted all the time she's about to pop yeah so anyway and i just i really i just hate that people seem to cherry pick these little things and you those of you who listened to season one you'll remember this that the prosecutor

in that case, talked about the case against Bradfield and Smith as, like, if you imagine a scale and every little thing, every little piece of circumstantial evidence is like a pebble and you're putting those pebbles on the scale. And after a while, you've just got a giant flipping pile of pebbles. It's no one thing. You know, of course it doesn't prove he killed her that he was a liar. You know, it doesn't. But like, you know, when you add it all up. especially of the things he's lying about and also i just want to point out that right now as you were saying like right before you said that i had written down bring up the mainline murders scale like comparison we do this shit all the time it's freaky man and we're like

very skeptical about you know anything remotely woo-woo related but we like have some kind of weird psychic bond or something and this is constantly doing this shit from the beginning our friendship. This is not just like, oh, we talk to each other all the time. It's weird. It's spooky. But, yeah. Very spooky. And, yeah, because, like, just because somebody is a liar doesn't mean that they killed somebody, but think about the things he lied about. Yeah, exactly, the specific lies. Like, oh, I lost my wife. That's the craziest fucking, like, every time he said, oh, I lost my wife. Well, it doesn't mean she died.

Yeah, but that's the impression that, oddly enough, everybody you said that to got. So. And that's such a gaslighty thing to say, well, there are many types of loss, Amber. That's so fucking condescending. Shut up, Scott. I really, you know, I always hesitate to, like, quote unquote diagnose anybody because obviously I'm not at all qualified, but I really think he's a covert narcissist. I've been reading up on covert narcissist and, man, he just fits it to a T. So if you don't know what a covert narcissist is, you should look it up.

It's really fascinating. It's really different than like what you imagine the stereotypical personality of a narcissist to be. And by the way, Chris Watts, so, so, so. so similar to Scott Peterson. The whole case, their relationship dynamic, Chris Watts and Shanan and Scott and Lacey, like eerily similar. And even Scott's mother and Chris Watts's mother seemed to be really similar. It's freaky, man. It gives me goosebumps just thinking about how similar those dynamics are. And I absolutely believe that if Connor had been born,

like if Connor had come early, he would have killed Connor too. I have no doubt of that whatsoever. No doubt. And Campers actually, because Whitney and I have been on a kick lately of watching YouTube, series on Killers. If you get a chance, there's a really great series done by JCS Psychology. Oh my God. It's such a good channel. Yeah. On Chris Watts, there's a three-part series, and I couldn't finish it because it made me too angry. Whitney finished it, though, and she said it's fantastic. But I watched two and a half. And some of his behavior from like the police body cams on the day that Shannon was reported missing, it's a really fascinating series. And speaking of, and we might cover Chris Watts at some point even though it's a really sad story but it's also just

incredibly interesting and the way the investigation unfolded is really interesting but we're talking about how similar they were and the only difference that I can really pick out is that Chris confessed and Scott right I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if Scott had convinced himself he was innocent by now but I think that the difference there is that in Scott's case he had that incredible need to be the golden boy and I think that that was a big part of the motive for the murder and I think it's what's completely preventing him from like ever confessing or even admitting to himself that he did it

same with Jeffrey McDonald the Green Beret doctor who killed his wife and kids like I think he's probably convinced himself he didn't do it by now too but Chris Watts on the other hand I think that he confessed to get approval yes and to redeem he's working on his redemption narrative now because he's like found Jesus and all this supposedly in prison and I mean you can see he paints himself into a corner because Chris Swatz failed his polygraph yeah whereas Scott didn't agree to take one yeah and then Chris immediately starts trickle-true thing yeah totally yeah well it was shenan she she killed

the kids and then I got so angry I killed her yep and then he was like and then they were like well, what about this, this and this? Why did you do this? And then he realized, I think he was, he was fucked. And you can see he's almost, when he confesses to his dad, you can see him leaning into his dad like, am I going to get approval from this conversation? Yeah. And I think both of their families, you know, fucked him up royally. And I actually have a little detail about Jackie that you guys might like. I don't want to put this in, you know, the regular episode because I wanted to focus more on Scott. But this is just a nightmare. So Jackie, is a little bit of a shit show. I'm sorry. That's true. And I'm sure that she and Lee went through hell.

And I'm not, you know, I'm not saying it's their fault that their son turned out to be a murderer. But like, according to Scott's sister Anne anyway. Okay. So first of all, according to Anne, Jackie has a interesting relationship with the truth and Anne says she remembers several different versions of Jackie's childhood that Jackie told different people so her father was legitimately murdered but she would tell the story completely differently to different people and like add different details

which is always a red flag and also shortly after Ann Bird first met Jackie I remember Anne was the daughter that Jackie gave up for a adoption. So Jackie actually reached out to her. It wasn't the other way around. And Jackie said that she wanted to reconnect, you know, with the kids that she'd given up for adoption. And shortly after that, Anne learned that Jackie needed a lung transplant. And Jackie talked about how much she needed it and how hard it was to find a donor who matched with her. And she would just bring this up all the time. And Anne, after a while, got this strong sense that Jackie had sought her out,

not so much because she wanted to reconnect with her, but because she needed a donor. Now, that's Anne's opinion. Okay? We don't know if it's true, but yikes. And Ann Bird, I've come to respect a lot. I mean, her book, Blood Brother, is absolutely riveting. And I've read four different books on this case,

and it's my favorite, hands down. It's the most interesting of all of them. So I think her perception is probably pretty accurate. Well, yeah, she's by far. closest to it too. And she's able to, because she didn't grow up in the house, she's able to kind of remove herself from that dynamic and like look at it from the outside, which I think is a valuable perspective. Absolutely. She has a theory that Scott drowned Lacey in the pool. That's how she thinks it happened. Interesting. Because they had a pool in their backyard. And Lacey used to get in the

pool every night and float because her back hurt so badly. Oh, poor baby. So she would get in the pool and just kind of float because it would take the pressure off of her lower back. So her theory is that Scott drowned her. But I don't know, because she was wearing maternity pants when she was found. So, like, would he dress her? I don't think so. I mean, he could have taken her out there and, like, just forced her head under

the water or something. We have no way of knowing because her lungs weren't there when her body was found. So they can't check, like, for chlorinated water or whatever. But the reason why Ann thinks this is because Anne was hosting Scott at her and her husband's house during a lot of the investigation. And she said that he just became really fixated on cleaning their pool. like weirdly fixate like he went and cleaned that pool like a million times and she's like why you keep cleaning the pool like how dirty could it be but he was like fixated on it and so that's why she started getting suspicious like well maybe he killed her in there maybe he's trying to make sure there's no evidence in there so i mean i i kind of think he smothered her i think so too with the evidence of his blood on the duvet yeah and the scratches on his hands and everything and because he wouldn't care about the divot lazy would that's that's another thing is that like he wouldn't have he wouldn't have cleaned that he wouldn't have straightened it out no probably not

probably not I hate him so bad Whitney oh man me too yeah he's definitely one of the worst one of the worst offenders that I think I've ever studied and I'm telling you right now like I mean obviously I'm not an expert but I have been into true crime for 20 plus years and my particular area of interest is spousal murders just like this one and this is a classic case, okay? So whenever people say, oh, you know, you have to consider other scenarios like, okay, we can but I am telling you, this man fits

the profile to a T of the kind of people who do this. And this case is just classic. And if you just want to compare it with Chris Watts, it's exactly I mean, we could put graphs next to each other or like bullet points of, I just smack

my mic. See, this is unedited. You guys are getting the unplugged. The unplugged version. So if you just put them right next to each other, you know, you've got golden boy of the family, golden boy of the family, handsome, handsome, you know, living above their means financially, living above their means financially, mistress, mistress, expecting a baby, expecting a baby. Lacey and Shanan have a lot in common, I think. Yes. They both have, they were both kind of like, quote, I don't want to say annoying. I don't think they were annoying. I just think they were. They both kind of ordered their husbands around a little bit. Yes. And that's another, that's another thing with a covert in our story. They would let you do. They would invite their partner to do that because they're all about getting the NARC supply. They're all about getting approval and being exactly who you want them to be.

And you have the adversarial position between the mother-in-law and the wife. It's so similar. It's bonkers, y'all. You study that Chris Watts case and you will see exactly what I'm talking about. So for the people that are still like, yeah, you might be innocent. Y'all, I'm the most superstitious person on the planet because I have OCD. and it just, I can't say stuff like this because of my OCD. But I would bet my life on it.

And I would never say that. Oh, my God. Like, I would bet the lives of my cats that this man is guilty. That is how certain I am. And she would never say that. Oh, my God, no. I literally couldn't get it out of my mouth. That's how sure I am.

Okay? So if you disagree, campers, you can message us, but know that it will be me messaging you back and I won't be nice. Because I can't do it. I really can't. Because Whitney won't do it. I can't. I did live streams about this already in the true crime group that I'm in, like a year or two ago.

I did a five hour all told. It was one three hour and one two hour live stream. My favorite. And people just watched it and watched it and watched it. I have this one friend who, like, every time somebody is like, Scott might be, she's like, go watch this right now. Just go watch it. And, you know, even then when people were like, you know, you did this huge live stream, you and Katie should cover it on the show. I was like, no, I can't stand to argue with people about it because I'm, that's how sure I am.

I just don't want to argue. And I don't want to argue with you campers. I don't. No, of course. And God bless you seriously for having an open mind. And I mean that. Like, I'm not being sarcastic when I say, good for you that you want to hold our justice system to a high standard and everything. And I agree with that.

Like, I think we should examine all this stuff. I'm just saying the dude is guilty, man. Whether there was some things wrong with the trial or not and that that's as may be, I don't know. I haven't looked into that in any great detail because my interest is in whether he did the crime. And he fucking did. Okay. And all you need to know about those campers is that Whitney hates talking about the court procedures. It bores me.

Like, I love it. I love that so much. We don't talk about it that much because it is so detailed. And the fact that we went into so much detail is an testament to how hard Whitney thinks this dude is guilty. I know, like, the fact that I was willing to do that. Like, okay, I'm going to go to the trial for you because I want you to understand. In fairness to Whitney, there is not that much room for roasting during, like, when we're talking about the court case. Because it's like, how much can we really make fun of these people?

We can't. Anywho. I hope we've convinced. I know with the live stream I did back in the day, I turned a few people. I know I did. so maybe we've turned some people have so anyway so that was a wild one right campers you know we'll have another one for you next week but for now

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