Scott Peterson had been having a months-long affair and the woman he was dating had no idea he was married. Then, she decided to come clean.
A loving partner would raise hell if their spouse went missing. They would try their best to find out what happened but Scott Peterson, a California businessman, was the opposite of a loving partner to his eight-months-pregnant wife Laci Peterson. She went missing on Christmas eve in 2002 and wasn't found until months later. Her body was found in April 2003 in the San Francisco Bay, according to People.
After Laci went missing, Scott claimed that his wife was murdered when she went to walk their dog after he left for a solo fishing trip on Christmas Eve morning. However, later on December 24, a neighbor found their dog wearing a leash but wandering outside their Modesto, California home, according to Rolling Stones. Scott told the police that before heading out to the boat, he went to his nearby warehouse to send emails. Then he was fishing for 90 minutes before returning home to find an empty house. He claimed that he assumed Laci went to her mother's house. He called Laci's mother later looking for his wife, he claimed. Half an hour after the call, Laci's stepfather called 911.
Laci, who had been pregnant then, had already thought of a name, Conner, for her unborn son, who also perished. The highly publicized case had been splashed across TV channels 17 years ago as the search for Laci went on. The missing pieces of the case eventually fell into place when one woman called the police in Modesto, California in late December 2002 to tell them that Scott had been having an affair with her, according to People.
Amber Frey revealed that she was unaware during their months-long affair that he was married and was about to have a child. The brave woman decided she must do the right thing and worked with prosecutors to expose Scott after she realized that his wife was missing. She taped her phone calls with him and testified against him during the trial.
"Looking at Scott from less than 20 feet away, it was hard to believe that he could actually murder his wife," juror John Guinasso said in a new TV docuseries, as quoted by People. "He didn’t look like that type, physically. He was well-groomed; he looked like your everyday businessman."
John then revealed the moment Scott started seeming like the guy who did it. "The Amber Frey tapes exposed him not telling the truth on several occasions. He’s romancing another woman and then hiding out in parking lots, not even looking for his wife," he added.
The juror also said that the fact that Scott started renting porn on his cable TV service, which could have been easily found by his "conservative" wife showed that "he knew she wasn’t coming back."
Now 47, Scott was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder in the 2002 death of wife Laci and their unborn son, Conner by a Redwood City jury in 2004. He was sentenced to death row in 2005 but his capital punishment has been overturned recently, which is causing fresh pain to Laci's family. "The family is in pain again," said a source close to Laci's family to People. "It’s not even so much that’s he’s getting off death row for the time being, but now there will be another trial and they’re going to have to sit through it and possibly testify."
While his guilty verdict remains, the California Supreme Court did acknowledge that there were mistakes with jury selection by the trial judge. "Peterson contends his trial was flawed for multiple reasons, beginning with the unusual amount of pretrial publicity that surrounded the case," the court said in its ruling. "We reject Peterson’s claim that he received an unfair trial as to guilt and thus affirm his convictions for murder."
However, the ruling further read that the judge back then had made "a series of clear and significant errors in jury selection that, under long-standing United States Supreme Court precedent, undermined Peterson’s right to an impartial jury at the penalty phase."
With this fresh ruling, Laci's family is processing this new information. "The old wounds are being reopened yet again," said the family source. "There is no end to the pain that Scott Peterson has put this family through."
References:
https://people.com/crime/scott-peterson-juror-recalls-the-exact-moment-he-knew-scott-was-guilty/
