Could Scott Peterson be innocent ?

I think a lot of people know who Scott Peterson is. If you have not heard about him, Scott was convicted of the murder of his 8 months pregnant wife, Laci Peterson. Laci was a short, 5 feet tall woman, with short brown hair, brown eyes and a beautiful smile. She had a bubbly personality, very friendly, social, outgoing, loved to laugh, had a lot of friends, she was a pretty young woman. She was born in Modesto, California, to Sharon Rocha, and Dennis Rocha. She fell in love with Scott Peterson in 1994. The couple married and settled in Modesto California. They got a golden retriever dog that they both loved very much.

I watched a documentary that got my attention about this case years ago. It was very interesting. I started to dig deeper into it and learned a lot about Scott and Laci. I even bought Laci’s mother book on Amazon to learn more about who Laci was. I had no doubt in my mind that Scott was guilty after watching the documentary on Amazon. Scott Peterson An American Murder Mystery, has 6 episodes that have very useful information and depicts in very detailed information, what might have happened and how the investigators came to the conclusions that Scott was guilty. When you watch the series, and how well the detectives presented their “evidences” it’s very easy to come to the conclusion that Scott is guilty, especially when Amber Fry came into the picture and presented herself as Scott’s “girlfriend”

Then the bomb dropped and everyone thought that this was it, the ultimate truth that lead to Scott being guilty. I mean, if he lied and hid his relationship with Amber, then he could lie about everything else right ? People changed their mind about him. He was a pig for cheating on his pregnant wife, he murdered his wife to be with Amber. His family in law turned on him and no longer supported him. The public was outraged and quick to throw the guilty word at him. Everyone hated him. The press was after him and Scott became a very bad man in the eyes of everyone. Who cheat on their pregnant wife, soon to give birth, and hide that they were cheating ? It’s the most disgusting thing to do.

Detective Al Brocchini also stated that he had a “feeling” about Scott on the very first day, and he admitted during cross-examination that detectives singled Scott out as the prime suspect early in the case. They were specifically searching for any evidence that would link him to Laci’s disappearance and possible murder. This is the type of premature selective focus and lack of open-minded objectivity that often results in disastrous consequences in wrongful conviction cases. I just don’t understand why detectives let themselves get carried away in such an unprofessional manner, without having conducted a throughout investigation. Because they don’t like the guy ?

In the Netflix documentary, Al Brocchini even mentioned Scott having called him by his first name and Al said that he found that weird. Why ? Maybe that’s just Scott’s friendly nature ? Does it really matter if it appears or seems weird, out of the ordinary ? Does that make him guilty ? A suspect ? The other thing that they found weird was Scott washed his clothes when he got back from boating, that day. I don’t find it weird at all ! In fact, when you live near the ocean or the beach, that is a very common thing to do, to wash your clothes to get the salt off of them ! Because it can really damage your clothes. You also have to wash out your boat and everything that touches salt water, salty air etc. He ate a slice of pizza, took a shower, that was also considered weird. No it is not. They had plans on going to Laci’s mother that evening and taking a shower on that day, which is a very normal thing to do, to me.

The prosecution’s theory was that Scott killed Laci in their home sometime between late December 23 to early morning December 24 in 2002, put her body in his truck, drove to the warehouse where his boat was and did some work for a while, transferred her body to his boat, weighted her down with homemade anchors then drove to Berkeley Marina where he dumped her body in the water.

Scott consistently maintained that he went fishing on the morning of December 24 and that his wife was home when he left, getting ready to take the dog for a walk and do some holiday shopping. When he returned later that afternoon, she was gone, and he started making his round of phone calls to everyone the couple knew. Scott said that on the morning of December 24, he and Laci watched the Martha Stewart show together before he left to go fishing. He remembered a segment with meringue in that episode, but Detective Brocchini wrote in his report that there was no mention of meringue on the show that date, when in fact, on December 24, 2002, at 9:48 A.M., Martha Stewart did discuss meringue on her show. Nonetheless, this false information supposedly demonstrated that Scott lied and was used in an affidavit seeking a wiretap on Scott’s phones. They also mentioned that the “house smelled of bleach,” as if Scott had just cleaned up a murder scene. But what was he supposed to have cleaned exactly if he strangled her in their bed like they claimed he did ?

The prosecution continually emphasized that Scott had purchased the boat without telling anyone, supposedly as part of his secretive plot to kill Laci and dispose of her body. In their closing argument, the prosecution said, “Nobody knew about it. No one; all the friends, family, the Peterson family, Rochas (Laci’s family). Nobody knew the defendant had bought a boat. ” However, Scott, who fished as a hobby, withdrew the $1,400 to purchase the boat from his joint checking account with Laci, and he provided accurate information, including his name and address, to the seller who filed the paperwork with the DMV on December 9, 2002.

Additionally, Peggy O’Donnell and Rosemary Ruiz, who worked in the same warehouse complex as Scott, had both seen Laci at Scott’s warehouse on December 23. The boat was prominently sitting in plain sight. Detective Brocchini knew that Laci had been at the warehouse and would have seen Scott’s boat, but he admitted under oath that he removed this information from his report. Clearly, he did so because it didn’t fit with the prosecution’s assumptions of how Scott committed this crime.

As years went by, more information came out about the murder and this summer, it appeared that the innocence project took his case. I watched many documentaries about people being not guilty and the Innocence project. taking on their case. Like making a murderer, The Avery and Brendan Dassey’s case. I never thought for a minute that Avery and Dassey were guilty of the murder of Teresa Halbach, just like many other people. The documentary on Netflix was very telling. The innocence project is not known to take cases of people that are guilty. If they think that a client is guilty, they will not waste their time and resources on an individual. That really surprised me when I realized that they had taken Scott’s case. So I began reading more into the case and the circumstances of Laci’s murder and it made more sense that it was not Scott that murdered Laci.

Often when I watch a murder case, especially a murder that happened years ago, or even sometimes to this day, although it happens less often, it seems that people are charged with murders, when they are actually innocent and used as a scapegoat. I feel that sometimes, they absolutely have to have a murderer, so as to not look bad in the public eyes, and make the victim’s family feel better, but does it ? If my family member was murdered, I would certainly not want someone innocent to go to prison for, probably the rest of their lives, if they have not committed the crime. I would want justice, but not at any cost. I would want the real perpetrator to face justice for their crime, to find peace for myself. I know that sometimes, the evidence is so strong against somebody that is falsely accused of murder. Like in Scott’s case for example. He went boating on Christmas Eve. A lot of people would wonder why he went boating on a day like that instead of staying home with his pregnant wife.

Before I go further into this, I am going to give my point of view about Scott’s personality. Scott seemed to me to appear as a typical. handsome, gentle natured man. He did not strike me at all, as the kind of guy that would murder a pregnant woman. He appeared to me as being a little shy around people, quiet, calm, and kept his feelings to himself most of the time. He did not seem like the type of person that would raise his voice, get mad or show his feelings very much. A lot of men seem to be like that. My husband used to be like that. My father was like that. A lot of men grow up and end up being that type of person. Then they meet a controlling woman and take it all in and never show any kind of leadership, or share how they feel about their marriage, and these man, are unhappy and end up cheating on their wives. Does that mean that they want to kill their wives ? Absolutely not. Some snap, like Chris Watts, some endure their marriage for the sake of their kids, others go through ugly divorce, but a lot just cheat.

Scott and Laci seem to be very happy when they first met. They seem to have a really good marriage, to have everything they wanted, until Laci talked about having kids and Scott said he did not want any. Well in a marriage, that IS a big deal. You cannot have a marriage with one of the spouses wanting kids and the other, none at all. It just won’t work. You can’t force your spouse to have kids if they do not want to have kids, but you have to make it clear before you marry that person. Kids are such an important part of someone’s life. Sometimes it goes so much deeper than what we see. We see the perfect, young, good looking couple, but behind closed doors, it’s often a whole other story.

I also found it really weird that people were finding Scott weird when he said that Laci was missing. Well she disappeared. What is so weird about the word missing ? Why is he guilty, because he used a weird word for her disappearance that nobody is used to ? That makes him a murderer? I swear people focus on the strangest things… Scott called everybody he knew, even Laci’s friends to ask them if they had seen her. Someone that is guilty of murder, usually is not going to go around the whole phone book to ask people if they had seen the victim.

Investigators were so committed to the idea that Scott had harmed Laci that they failed to consider conflicting evidence, and didn’t seriously pursue the possible connection between Laci’s disappearance and the burglary of the house across the street from the Petersons at the time of Laci disappeared. Several witnesses saw someone fitting Laci’s description (pretty, pregnant lady with dark hair walking a dog) after Scott had left, including neighbors, a bread truck driver, and strangers who called their sighting into the tip line. More than ten witnesses reported seeing someone fitting Laci’s description, down to the breed of dog. Neighbor Diane Jackson reported a daytime burglary that occurred at the Medina home across from the Peterson home at around 11:40 a.m. on December 24. The neighbors whose home was burglarized left town at 10:30 a.m. on the 24th, and returned in the afternoon of the 26th. Steven Todd and Glenn Pearce were later arrested for this burglary.

They confessed but claimed it occurred on December 26 before the homeowners returned. When police were asked if the burglary could be involved in Laci’s disappearance, they told the press that the burglary occurred on December 26, simply accepting without question what the burglars said. But this doesn’t make any sense. By the 26th, news crews were outside the Peterson house constantly, day and night, making it impossible for a strange van to pull up and commit a brazen burglary across the street loading items including a large safe into a van parked outside without being seen.

So Laci, on the day of her disappearance, had taken the dog for a walk in a nearby park where there usually were a lot of people. A few hours later, the dog was found wandering the area with just its leash on. That doesn’t make any sense that Scott would create this whole thing of sending the dog outside with just its leash on, to make it appear as if Laci has had something happen to her. It does scream that something DID happen to her while she was on her walk. It screams sudden abduction. A weird white van was spotted not far from Laci’s house with people vandalizing that home. It sounds as if she might have confronted the people about it and was abducted to remain silent. Laci did not seem like the kind of person that would see something and stay quiet about it. She was a very small woman, easy to abduct. What I would blame Scott for, is to have let his pregnant wife go alone on a walk, especially on Christmas Eve.

The fact that everyone, especially the detective found weird that Laci left her purse and phone at the house, goes to show that she wasn’t planning on going for a long walk. I myself walk a lot and I certainly don’t bring my purse when I go for a walk! I walk a lot especially late in the evening and it would be very foolish of me to bring my purse with me. That’s just asking for trouble. I sometimes bring my phone but not all the time. When I walk, I don’t walk to be encumbered by superficial accessories that I really don’t need. So no, that was not strange at all.

Scott also provided everything he could for the detectives. Everything they asked of him. Someone who is guilty would certainly not be so open to that, would probably get annoyed at the many demands, request from the police. This whole case has been so weird. But in the end, after watching everything i could on it, I think that Scott might not be guilty after all. Yes he cheated on his wife, that doesn’t make him a murdered. It doesn’t make him a very nice person at all, but so many men and women cheat. I feel like Scott was not very happy with his marriage in the end.

He should’ve just left Laci, but maybe, because she was pregnant he felt like he had an obligation to stay with her. He seem to care a lot about what people think of him. But after 20 years, still claiming that he is innocent, I think I’m starting to believe him too. The Innocence Project asked for a piece of evidence, a piece of duct tape to be DNA analyzed and we will see what the results are. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was found innocent. The sad thing about these people being innocent, after a lifetime of guilty verdict, is all the years they have missed on the outside, that they will never get back. It’s very sad what happened to Laci and her unborn child. I found the whole thing very sad.

Scott is far from being a perfect person, but i don’t think he killed his pregnant wife. I hope that justice will be done and they will find and put the right people in prison for what happened to Laci. I hope that real justice will be done and the right people will pay for what they did. Fortunately incidents like this, thanks to DNA, tend to happen a lot less now. But it still does happens unfortunately and it’s very sad for the people wrongfully put in prison and their victims who don’t get true justice.

The California Supreme Court upheld Peterson’s conviction but overturned his death sentence in 2020, due to improper dismissal of some jurors, over their disagreement with the death penalty. Before he was re-sentenced in 2021 to life without parole, Laci Peterson’s mother, sister and brother addressed the court California for the murder of his pregnant wife Laci and unborn son Connor. Scott is currently attempting to obtain a new trial based on newly discovered evidence that his lawyers claim points to his innocence.

What are your thoughts ?