How Scott Peterson guilty of killing pregnant wife could be INNOCENT as witnesses claim she was alive on ‘day of murder’

ON CHRISTMAS Eve 2002, 27-year-old Laci Peterson vanished from her home in Modesto, California, while eight months pregnant.

Her husband Scott told police he had last seen her that morning when he left the house to go fishing.

When he returned that evening, the house was empty, apart from their dog in the yard.

At 6pm, when there was still no sign of Laci, he called police.

The disappearance sparked a huge search from friends, family and locals Peterson appeared unusually calm and nonchalant instantly sparking suspicion among police.

But it wasn’t until a woman named Amber Frey came forward that he became a prime suspect.

Amber, who worked as a massage therapist, informed detectives she had met Peterson on 20 November 2002 and they had begun a romantic relationship.

She said that he had told her he was a widower and that coming Christmas would be his first without his wife leading police to believe he had already been plotting to kill her.

On 13 April, 2003, two people out walking their dog found the body of a male foetus on a tidal flat of the San Francisco Bay.

The following day, a jogger spotted a human torso about a mile away.

DNA tests confirmed the bodies were Laci and her unborn son, Conner.

Laci’s body was severely decomposed, and missing its head, arms, lower legs, and internal organs.

Scott was arrested and charged with two counts of murder.

At his trial in 2004, prosecutors claimed Peterson had had killed his wife because he was having an affair with Amber Frey and claimed that on the night of 23 December, 2002, he strangled Laci in her sleep and dumped her in the water at San Francisco Bay in the early hours of Christmas Eve.

He was convicted of the first-degree murder of Laci and the second-degree murder of their unborn son and is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

But more than 20 years later, the LA Innocence Project – a nonprofit legal advocacy organisation – took on Peterson’s case saying it had new evidence that supported his claims of innocence and listing several factors suggesting he did not get a fair trial.

The key points are:

• Vital evidence destroyed by police

• Multiple witnesses who said they saw Laci after her supposed death but were ignored

• New biometric and tidal science suggesting that Laci died much later than 24 December and that her body would not have ended up where it was found if it had been dumped where Scott was fishing.

• A lack of any forensic evidence

In the three-part TV documentary, Scott Peterson: The New Evidence, attorney Chris Pixley goes back over the case, detailing the anomalies and irregularities with which both he and the LAIP say, proves that his conviction was not viable and that he was wrongfully prosecuted.

“If you ask people about this case, they’ll just tell you that Scott did it,” says Chris.

“But what if everything we knew was just wrong?

“Firstly, the LAIP argues that new foetal biometric science suggests that Laci Peterson didn’t die on 24 December and that she may not have died for many days or even weeks later.

“If they’re right, it means that Scott Peterson is innocent.

“Secondly, new computational hydrodynamic modelling suggests that if Laci Peterson’s body had been placed in the bay in the location where Scott was fishing, her body and Conner’s body would not have been recovered where they were.”

Chris described that new science has been a ‘game changer’ in the case.

He adds, “They are also challenging the integrity of the criminal investigation, arguing that not only did the Modesto police not investigate the many witnesses that came forward with sightings of Laci on the morning of December 24th, they also destroyed evidence in the case.

“The state’s theory is that Scott murdered his wife, wrapped her body in blue tarpaulin, loaded it into the back of his truck and covered it with some umbrellas.

“Then he drove to his warehouse, put the body into his fishing boat, drove that on its trailer to Berkeley Marina and dumped the body into the water.

“What is the likelihood that you’re going to be able to move the body multiple times, all without leaving any forensic evidence of Laci behind?

“None of her DNA, her hair, her blood, her bodily fluids, wound up anywhere on the cover or in the boat.

“Another part of the prosecution’s theory is that he didn’t just clean up one crime scene, but four.

“After Laci Peterson was reported missing, one of the first investigators to come to the Peterson home was Detective Brocchini.”

Chris also says that he has become interested in how cooperative Peterson was.

“He agreed to searches of his home, of his place of business, the warehouse where he worked and handed over his phone,” he explains.

“Not only did Brocchini focus on Scott Peterson from day one, but he did some highly unusual things in his investigation.

“One of them is that the notes he took on 24 and 25 December went missing.

“He testified in court that he had destroyed them. Why?”

Scott’s demeanour in a filmed police interview, sitting with his hands in his pockets, answering questions that might be considered to be nonchalant, added to suspicion about him.

“The state argued that the portions of that tape they showed suggested that this was not a grieving husband who was concerned at the disappearance of his wife, but instead that it was a man who lacked any emotion,” says Chris.

“But they rolled out very limited pieces of Scott’s on-camera interview so that his answers and responses just seemed out of line with the gravity of the circumstances.

“They are leaving out important facts about the number of hours that this man spent answering questions before he actually went on camera.

“Peterson reports that on the day of Laci’s disappearance, he was interrogated four separate times and it was only the fourth time, at the station, on camera, that the rest of us have been able to see.

“He was peppered with questions to the point of exhaustion.”

Chris says that further evidence about a Christmas gift could point to Peterson’s innocence.

“About two weeks before Laci went missing, Scott purchased a 14-foot aluminium fishing boat,” he says.

“The prosecution state that he bought it with the express purpose of murdering his wife and using it to deposit her body.

“But he says he was taking the boat out to test it, because he had purchased it for his father-in-law as a Christmas gift.

“The prosecution, throughout the trial, argued that the purchase of the boat was not known to Laci.

“But in 2024, the LAIP found handwritten notes that were in the Peterson’s home that were not turned over to the defence.

“The notes have the phone numbers of local marine supply stores written on them.

“A handwriting expert that the LAIP used and one I went to, both believe that it is Laci’s writing.

“That means that she was not only aware of the boat, but that she participated in the purchase of accessories for it.

“Prosecution has a theory that Laci Peterson was calling marine supply stores to buy items of a nautical theme that she had for Conner’s nursery room.

“But these are not notes where she wanted to buy some small rubber ducks.

“She’s pricing an anchor, and that’s not something that you’re going to hang over the baby’s crib.”

Nearly four months after Laci disappeared, her torso and the foetus of her son were washed ashore.

“The state presented testimony at Scott Peterson’s trial through a Doctor Cheng, who was a tidal expert,” Chris says.

“He said that for the bodies to have washed up on the Richmond shoreline, the most likely launch point would have been exactly where Scott Peterson was fishing.

“But new science is challenging the viability of that narrative.

“Doctor Feagin, the LAIP’s expert, has done something called computational hydrodynamic modelling using the Delft 3-D modelling system.

“He ran various simulations, including trajectory and wind simulations, and concluded that the bodies were likely to have been put in the water at Albany Bulb.”

Karen Servas, a neighbour of the Peterson’s, said that she found their dog alone outside their home at 10.18am on Christmas Eve and returned him to the Peterson’s back yard.

“This is a timeline case and the state established their entire timeline on the basis of the testimony of one person, Karen Servas,” says Chris.

“But was her testimony as critical as prosecutors made it out to be?

“At trial, her testimony was presented on the premise that Laci Peterson had already been murdered by the morning of December 24th, and therefore didn’t take her dog, McKenzie, out for her normal morning walk.

“The state never addressed how McKenzie got a leash on in the first place, why she was out in the front yard, or any alternative timeline that would have involved Laci preparing to go for a walk and being called back into the house.

“Possibility exists that because Karen Servas didn’t knock on the door and give the dog back to Laci, that she was alive and well and inside the house.”

Chris says Karen was not the only eyewitness that morning.

“Central to the LAIP’s case is that there were 15 eyewitnesses who said they saw Laci walking her dog that morning, after Scott had already left for the San Francisco Bay,” he explains.

“These people came forward immediately but according to the LAIP, most of their statements were never followed up by the Modesto Police.”

“Another cause for concern, which the police discounted, is that the Peterson’s neighbours, the Medina’s, who left home to stay with their family in LA on 24 December, found their home had been burgled when they returned at 4.20pm on 26 December.

“Two other neighbours reported to police that they believed that on 23 December, their homes were being cased by burglars,” says Chris.

“A man had knocked on their doors with some story about a missing dog, which they didn’t believe and thought was suspicious.

“So, maybe they were trying to figure out who’s going to be around for the holidays and who’s not.”

There were also seven witnesses who said they saw a suspicious van in the area before Laci was murdered.

The thieves – Steven Wayne Todd and Donald Glenn Pearce – were soon caught and admitted to the robbery which included a safe.

“The police say the burglary occurred between four and six thirty on the morning of 26 December,” says Chris.

“The problem with that story is that when Laci Peterson went missing, it immediately became huge news.

“There were television crews and vans up and down the street by the 26th and none of them saw a heavy safe being hauled out of the Medina’s house into the street.

“If, instead, the burglary occurred the same day Laci went missing, that means there’s an entirely plausible explanation for her disappearance that has nothing to do with Scott Peterson.

“Laci was a member of the neighbourhood watch and she was known as being very vigilant.”

Chris argues that there is an alternative timeline on Christmas Eve.

He says: “An alternative timeline is that on 24 December, the thieves turned up in their van to burgle the Medina’s house across the street from the Peterson’s and Laci went out to confront them and they took possession of her.

“The van was found burning on Christmas Day, after an arson attack at the airport district of Modesto a mile and a half away.

“It was investigated and ultimately closed without being connected in any way to the Peterson case.

“The defence never received any information about the van being set alight.

“That came out only years after Scott was convicted.

“In the back of that van was a mattress.

“And while the mattress and the van burned, parts of that mattress remained intact and appeared to have blood on it.

“The state says that in testing the mattress, they determined it was not blood.

“But to this day, there is no consensus about whether or not this was, in fact, a blood stained mattress.

“Throughout the petition, the LAIP is claiming that the Modesto Police Department and the Stanislaus County DA’s office destroyed and suppressed evidence related to the burglary and the van fire to keep Peterson’s defence team from having it.

“At the trial, the state’s expert, Doctor DeVore, testified that Conner Peterson died around 24 December, the day Laci went missing.

“He was relying upon studies from 1984 to determine Conner Peterson’s gestational age at the time of death.

“Doctor Doubilet, the LA Innocence Project’s expert, used more recent studies and was able to identify Conner’s likely date of death as sometime between December 28th and as late as January of 2003.

“That range completely contradicts the state’s timeline.”

On 27 April, 2026, the Superior Court of California, county of San Mateo, denied the LAIP’s petition for habeas corpus – a legal procedure to determine whether the imprisonment of a convicted person is legal.

“The judge’s decision was that the new evidence presented was inadmissible.

“We’re talking about new scientific evidence, science that did not exist 24 years ago.

“This is a case that demands review. It’s not closed.

“The LAIP will appeal to the California Supreme Court, and if they have to, they can take it all the way to the federal appeals courts, which of course includes the U.S. Supreme Court.”

No members of law enforcement involved in the Laci Peterson investigation or the Medina burglary investigation agreed to requests for an interview for the documentary.

Scott Peterson: The New Evidence can be seen on Crime+Investigation this Sunday