00:03:25.880He is standing in the grass of East La Loma Park in Modesto, California, three blocks from his own front door.
00:03:33.560More than a thousand people are standing there with him in the dark, holding candles and photographs of a woman who has been missing for a week.
00:03:41.540They are singing. They are praying. Some of them are crying.
00:03:45.680The woman is eight months pregnant with his first child, a boy they have already named Connor.
00:03:52.540Her name is Lacey Peterson, and she is his wife.
00:03:57.160And as he tells her of the crowd in Paris,
00:25:27.660Amber receives several calls from Scott this day.
00:25:31.220That afternoon, he tells her to drive to Valley Children's Hospital in Fresno
00:25:35.000and look at a lavender bush beneath a particular street lamp.
00:25:39.680Hidden in the bush is a paper bag from Trader Joe's.
00:25:42.740Inside is a small silver box decorated with a moon and sun, a silver and amber necklace, a Nora Jones CD called Come Away With Me, and a packet of wildflower seeds.
00:25:57.360There is a note in his handwriting, quote,
00:26:00.400These seeds, as your life, are soon to bloom.
00:26:04.880In the parking lot, Amber Fry sits with all of it in her lap and cries.
00:26:09.520There is another candlelight vigil that night in East La Loma Park, 96 miles north.
00:26:17.000It is for Connor Peterson, Scott and Lacey's son, who was due to be born this very day.
00:26:24.560A little more than a week later, on February 18th, police return to the Peterson house with a warrant.
00:26:31.740They pack up several bags of evidence, and they impound Scott's pickup truck.0.57
00:26:37.140Amber Frye is ready to be done with Scott Peterson.
00:48:25.660Investigators believe he wrapped her in a tarp inside the house and dragged her out through the back door, wadding up the throw rug as he went.
00:48:33.940Police also suspect Scott mopped the floor
00:48:57.120Everyone thinks he's the perfect husband, unquote.
00:49:01.160And that is what the umbrellas are for.
00:49:03.100Detective Craig Grogan, the lead investigator, will testify that the patio umbrellas Scott loaded that morning were approximately the same height as Lacey Peterson.
00:49:13.660And that wrapped in a tarp in the bed of a truck, they would not only hide Lacey's body, but would explain what anyone saw him loading.
00:49:23.380Scott drives to the warehouse on Emerald Avenue. In his version, he spends one hour assembling a woodworking tool and sending one email.
00:49:33.100In the police version, this is the hour Lacey Peterson's body goes from the truck into the boat that no one knows Scott had.
00:49:42.360Brickini is inside the warehouse the same night, working by flashlight and the high beams of his own car.
00:49:49.200On the floor of the boat is a chunk of concrete with a steel loop set into one end.
00:49:54.700Scott tells him it's a homemade anchor and that the loop is there to tie the rope to.
01:01:17.860Directly across the street at 523 is Scott and Lacey Peterson's home.
01:01:23.800At this time, 1140 in the morning on Christmas Eve, no one has reported anyone missing.
01:01:29.960Diane Jackson does not know she is a witness to anything.
01:01:33.500She goes inside and makes her husband's lunch.
01:01:36.280On the Friday after Christmas, Diane hears that the neighbors at 516 were burglarized while they were away.
01:01:43.560She telephones the Modesto Police Department and tells them what she saw.
01:01:47.680A detective takes her statement that evening.
01:01:50.420Three men, an older van, parked on the street, doors that opened at the rear.
01:01:55.080She first thought it was white, she says, and now she thinks it might have been darker, maybe tan or brown.
01:02:01.680Three weeks later, on January 17, 2003, the Modesto Police Department asks Diane Jackson to come down to the station, and there they hypnotize her.
01:02:13.340I'm Megan Kelly, and this is MK Confidential.
01:02:16.140diane jackson is not the only person on that street who reports a vehicle that does not
01:02:25.540belong there around 9 20 on christmas eve morning a city building inspector leaving 516 covina
01:02:32.720has to drive around a van to get out he remembers a white ford two doors at the back paint chipping
01:02:39.560down to gray primer and a crude wooden roof rack. Minutes later, a woman who often walks that street
01:02:46.820sees it too, though she's never seen this van before. An unusually long white utility van,
01:02:53.000no windows along the rear sides, parked in front of the same house, 516. She tells police one other
01:02:59.760thing. Between about 9.20 and 9.40 a.m., she saw Scott Peterson standing in the bed of his pickup
01:03:06.960truck in his own driveway. At least five people reported a strange van in that neighborhood
01:03:13.280around the time Lacey disappeared. Several of the sightings are on Covina at the same hour Scott is
01:03:20.120loading his truck, but Scott never mentions seeing a van. Five reports with similar descriptions,
01:03:27.380but nothing definitive. Matt Dalton spent 13 years as a prosecutor, most of it with the Los Angeles
01:03:34.700County District Attorney's Office. In January 2003, he quits and goes to work for defense
01:03:41.180attorney Mark Garagos. When Garagos takes Scott Peterson's case, Dalton moves to Modesto and
01:03:47.280begins investigating Lacey's disappearance for the defense. Garagos rents Dalton an office above the
01:03:53.460J Street Cafe, a block from the jail. No phone, no fax, no copier, no bed. Dalton sleeps on the
01:04:01.400floor until something runs across his chest in the dark. After that, he sleeps in a tent indoors.
01:04:08.880He reads more than 30,000 pages of police reports. It appears there was a van that did not belong,
01:04:15.280possibly connected to a robbery, in Lacey's neighborhood when she went missing. But can
01:04:20.800this be linked to Lacey's disappearance? Dalton goes and finds the witnesses, knocking on door
01:04:26.780after door making call after call. Six people have told the Modesto Police Department that they saw
01:04:34.500a very pregnant woman walking a golden retriever on the morning of December 24th. Dalton interviews
01:04:41.740all six. None of the six witnesses ever testifies. Garagos tells the jury in his opening statement
01:04:49.400that he will call them, but he doesn't. Dalton says he still does not know why. What the jury
01:04:56.320hears about these witnesses comes mostly through police officers being questioned by the defense.
01:05:02.100And even then, the judge tells jurors they can consider those reports only to understand what
01:05:07.660police did with them, not as proof that the sightings themselves actually happened. Homer
01:05:14.500Maldonado and his wife Helen stopped for gas at a mini mart on Miller Avenue near the corner of
01:05:20.420Covina, between about 9.50 and 10 o'clock a.m. on Christmas Eve. Pulling out, they drive west,
01:05:27.480away from the Petersons' neighborhood and toward town. A few houses past Covina, they pass a young
01:05:33.240woman. She is, in his words, very pregnant. She is walking a golden retriever and having trouble0.99
01:05:39.880controlling it. The dog is up on its back legs, front paws on her, as if it were jumping on her.
01:13:58.640So they returned on the 26th. And the reason we know that they were there on the 26th is they said they saw the media down the street when they were in the house and it was a big hoopla and they couldn't figure out what it was because they didn't know.
01:14:09.780The Modesto Police Department settles on December 26th as the date of the burglary and announces it has nothing to do with Lacey Peterson's disappearance.
01:14:20.560Ted Rollins covered the disappearance for KTVU in San Francisco, reporting live from Covina Avenue.
01:14:27.640Ted tells A&E the police timeline does not fit what he saw.
01:14:32.440The problem with that is I was standing outside that house at 5 in the morning on December 26th.
01:14:39.400And I would have gone and interviewed the burglars if they were out there
01:14:42.660because there was nobody outside the front of that house.
01:15:13.760Both men pleaded guilty to breaking into the Medina house at night on December 27th,
01:15:20.180a day after the homeowners had discovered the crime.
01:15:23.580That is three days after Lacey Peterson disappeared, and it is a version of events that puts them nowhere near Covina Avenue on Christmas Eve.
01:15:34.420Two weeks or so after Lacey Peterson disappears, a lieutenant with the California Department of Corrections named Xavier Aponte hears about an inmate at his prison who has allegedly been talking about Lacey.
01:30:52.220nightly i mean people have to remember we're we're almost in a return from 20 to 25 years ago
01:31:00.38020 to 25 years ago every summer there was always a trial of the century there was always some
01:31:07.380what i used to call the axis of evil of true crime which was cable shows at night the morning shows
01:31:14.160and then back then it was people magazine and if you got into that kind of axis um you were done
01:31:20.940for it was awful because before you even walked into a courtroom you were you were done that media
01:31:26.920machine would soon come for garagos by friday may 2nd 2003 garagos had now signed on as scott
01:31:35.280peterson's lawyer and walks out of the stanislaus county courthouse to face the cameras reporters
01:31:40.800immediately ask about what looks like a change of heart garagos waves it off saying i think i
01:31:47.920succumbed to the media buzz mark's telling starts with scott's mother jackie peterson scott's mom
01:31:55.880uh reached out to me and said she wanted to see me and i think came in initially at least just
01:32:02.660to try to correct the record so to speak and and make sure that i understood that she believed
01:32:08.940fervently that he was innocent i met with her and we had a long talk and i was so taken with her
01:32:13.760She asked me to go meet with him. I met with him. I was convinced of his innocence after meeting him in Modesto. I went to the Modesto Stanislaus County Jail and that I took the case.
01:32:28.120I will tell you, virtually everybody, virtually everybody, including lawyers in my office, lawyers who ended up working on the case, told me, do not take this.
01:32:38.700I was coming off of basically a seven-year streak of not losing a case.
01:32:44.020I had won back-to-back Susan McDougall on both coasts, not guilty against kind of all odds.
01:32:50.120I had had an incredible streak, and everybody said, look, if you win the case, you're a pariah, a la Johnny Cochran.
01:33:11.040He would rent himself out to mass tort lawyers and to PI lawyers because jurors would raise their hand and say, I can't be fair because Johnny Cochran is the lawyer.
01:33:31.140Mark, you are a very popular attorney.
01:33:34.140That's all going to end because Scott Peterson is the most hated man in America.
01:33:37.340And if you take this case, you're going to be the second most hated man in America.
01:33:41.040One voice, however, calls Mark with a very different perspective.
01:33:44.740My father, who was my mentor, partner and hero, he said to me, look, if you're not going to take this case because of the absolute blowback you're going to get, and he knew there would be blowback, then you should be selling oranges on the side of the freeway.
01:34:04.300If you're more concerned about your reputation, then you shouldn't be doing this.
01:34:08.400And that scene outside of the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Station, when they had arrested Scott, brought him in, and people were surrounding the sheriff's station with placards asking that he'd be hung, man or monster, and all that stuff, that kind of roiled me to the point where I said, okay, I'm going to jump in.
01:34:28.360Garagos takes the case with Scott's reputation already in tatters.
01:34:32.640Scott has just wrapped an ill-advised interview spree,
01:34:35.920which includes a train wreck sit-down with Diane Sawyer.
01:34:39.160Do you really expect people to believe0.92
01:34:41.400that an eight-and-a-half-month pregnant woman
01:36:54.260and it would happen over and over and over again and inevitably across the board every single one
01:36:59.700of them said to me i don't care what the evidence was i had an ex-boyfriend and if he was cheating
01:37:05.540on me with that uh that hussy or whatever name they would call amber fry he would have done the0.54
01:37:11.060same thing and i can see it and so there is this kind of uh just the guttural reaction where you0.53
01:37:18.500can't get past that it is just the picture of lacy sitting in the chair at the christmas party
01:37:26.500pregnant beautiful resplendent and then placed side by side with the picture of him with his
01:37:33.860arm around the masseuse therapist from fresno california who fits the archetype of many a wife
01:37:41.940and you can't get past that for a certain demographic or a certain constituency
01:37:47.620There is also the matter of Scott Peterson standing in a Modesto park on New Year's Eve at a vigil for his missing wife, three blocks from his own home, telling his lover, Amber Fry, that he is in Paris celebrating New Year's with a huge French crowd.
01:38:04.660I'm going to take a wild guess that Megyn Kelly has a real problem with that.
01:38:08.880100 he looks like a sociopath and i do wonder as you talk about you get a sense0.72
01:38:17.120sitting across from somebody do you think you'd know if you were across from a sociopath
01:38:22.080i i i think i don't know that this is something i want on my tombstone
01:38:28.640i don't think anybody has handled as many murder cases as i have and that and if i were to tack on
01:38:37.600I mean, you know, my first 13 years of my life, my father was a homicide prosecutor in the LADA's office.
01:50:23.560On the second day of the trial, one of the prosecution's opening claims
01:50:26.840that Scott killed Lacey on the evening of December 23rd
01:50:31.360and spent the next morning moving her body takes a massive hit.
01:50:35.560garagos gets the state's computer expert to confirm that at 8 40 a.m on christmas eve
01:50:42.180someone logged on to the peterson's home computer using lacy's password sunflower and searched for
01:50:49.320a sunflower umbrella stand and women's clothing if that was lacy then she was alive the morning
01:50:55.120of the 24th and the timeline to stasso had given the jury in his opening could not be right the
01:51:01.520prosecution adjusts its timeline. Garagos remembers the moment this way. Rick DeStasso started this
01:51:08.660trial with the theory that the killing had taken place on the 23rd, not on the day before. I mean,
01:51:16.020on the day before, not on the day she went missing. By the time we got to closing, they
01:51:22.280abandoned that. They agreed and he argued in closing, it doesn't matter because I think we
01:51:28.220had definitively proved it. The cross-examination of the forensic expert showed that she had logged
01:51:35.560in to her computer on the morning of the 24th. Their whole search warrant affidavit that said
01:51:44.180Martha Stewart had not been on the 24th, but on the 23rd, when Scott told her that was debunked,
01:51:50.840we showed that martha stewart was on the 24th we showed that she had that lacy it was somebody
01:51:58.760had used lacy's password somebody had accessed some sunflower related which she had a a tattoo
01:52:05.080of on the morning of the 24th the dog was out with the muddy leash garagos says it was lacy who logged
01:52:13.160in the evidence establishes only that someone using her password did by closing however the
01:52:19.560prosecution is no longer committed to december 23rd as the night lacy was killed telling the jury
01:52:26.680quote it's very simple the defendant strangled or smothered lacy peterson the night of december 23rd
01:52:33.640or in the morning while she was getting dressed on the 24th i can't tell you when he did it i can't
01:52:39.800tell you if he did it at night i can't tell you if he did it in the morning i'm not going to try
01:52:44.920try to convince you of something that I cannot prove. I don't have to prove that to you. I only
01:52:49.880have to prove that he did it. The new Red Bull Dragonberry and Tropicberry Energizers, now at
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01:53:04.640Energizers, now at McDonald's. This product may not be right for you. High in caffeine. Details
01:53:09.780at mcdonalds.ca and participating Canadian restaurants excluding Quebec. On the 13th day
01:53:14.500of testimony, the state calls Detective Al Brocchini. He will spend much of the next week
01:53:19.520on the stand. While he is testifying, the jury loses one of its members. A courthouse camera
01:53:25.660catches juror number five, Justin Falconer, speaking with Lacey's brother near the security
01:53:31.360checkpoint. Judge DeLucchi looks into it and decides the conversation was harmless. But after
01:53:37.380the incident draws media attention, Falconer admits that he discussed the coverage with his
01:53:42.460girlfriend, despite the judge's orders to stay away from the news and not discuss the case.
01:53:47.860Two days later, DeLuki removes him from the jury. Falconer walks out of the courthouse and directly
01:53:53.360into the arms of reporters. They ask him the question everyone wants answered. After what
01:53:58.780he has heard so far, does he think Scott Peterson is guilty? Well, the prosecution hasn't given me
01:54:03.660any reason to believe that he is. All the prosecution witnesses have pretty much been
01:54:07.200just as good a witness for the defense as they were for the prosecution, if not in some cases
01:54:11.720better for the defense. And I haven't heard any testimony whatsoever that would lead me to believe
01:54:16.800that he was guilty. Asked how he would vote if he had to decide the case that day, Falconer says
01:54:22.060not guilty. So far, Garagos isn't doing too badly. Garagos, meanwhile, has been fighting over
01:54:28.860discovery almost from the day he took over the Peterson case, arguing that prosecutors are
01:54:34.140consistently turning over evidence late or only after repeated requests. And he is convincing
01:54:40.540the judge. I will tell you that I think in real time, not now, but in real time, I knew the facts
01:54:48.360better than anybody. I knew the discovery better than anybody. It's one of the reasons during that
01:54:53.660trial, we had not one, not two, three separate recesses. And the late, great Al DeLuki, who was
01:55:02.060the judge, had excoriated the prosecution for their discovery compliance, for not turning over
01:55:10.160discovery, for not following up on exculpatory leads. And I was bellyaching about that every
01:55:17.940single day, making motions for mistrials, the whole bit. Journalist Catherine Cryer covered1.00
01:55:24.200the trial from inside the courtroom and writes that Judge DeLucchi took to chastising prosecutors
01:55:29.560in open court about discovery issues. But while Garagos may be scoring points,
01:55:35.680there are facts that will prove insurmountable for him let me ask you the my the things that
01:55:42.980convinced me he did it um the tapes with amber are bad for sure correct i accept your i accept
01:55:50.920that there is an explanation for them there is a version of him doing that stuff with amber that
01:55:55.340doesn't have scott as a murderer however the fact that he bought that boat after the affair began
01:56:01.800he did not tell anybody that he bought that boat he went out fishing on christmas eve
01:56:08.960went out fishing on christmas eve i feel like he places himself at the scene wait let i didn't
01:56:15.820interrupt you he places himself at the scene where the bodies wash up and on top of that
01:56:23.400Lacey's body washes up without her head, her arms, or the lower legs. And he clearly, the killer,
01:56:32.500clearly weighted the body down in an effort to keep it at the bottom of the sea. And sure enough,
01:56:37.640they found what looked like the molds for four concrete anchors. His boat had some concrete
01:56:43.940remnants on the inside of it, and it matched the little picture that the detectives found on that
01:56:50.160boat perfectly and yet those anchors were never found and to me that is absolutely devastating
01:56:56.640for scott peterson okay so like i said i feel like i'm in the gym number one what was your
01:57:03.780first point because the that was the one where you you he bought this boat after the affair began
01:57:09.180and didn't tell anybody didn't know about right um during the trial they put on the lead detective
01:57:14.940Al Brocchini, guess what? And mind you, I had spent one week doing mitochondrial in California
01:57:22.120at the time. This shows you how long ago this was. Mitochondrial DNA was not admissible in
01:57:27.440California. In order to have the prosecution be able to introduce mitochondrial DNA, which is
01:57:34.540DNA that is linked to the maternal lineage. And they had a hair and they wanted to show that the
01:57:41.140hair was in the boat. So, aha, Lacey was in the boat. Lacey didn't know about the boat. Your1.00
01:57:46.240kind of aha moment. Well, guess what happened during the cross-examination of Al Brocchini?
01:57:51.580I had, they didn't realize Al Brocchini had whited out a paragraph in his report. I had him
01:57:59.660produce the original report. What he had whited out was Al Brocchini himself had interviewed
01:58:06.700a witness at the warehouse who saw lacy in the boat actually saw her in the boat he had whited
01:58:13.920it out so i spent a week contesting mitochondrial dna so that we could get it admitted when all
01:58:22.260along modesto pd knew that she was in the boat and they had a witness who was at the warehouse
01:58:27.660stop there because what mark just said leaves out an important part of what happened
01:58:33.180The witness is a woman named Peggy O'Donnell, who runs a business a few doors down from Scott
01:58:38.140in the same warehouse complex. Peggy tells police that Lacey had come by the warehouse complex
01:58:44.260and asked to use her bathroom a few days before she disappeared. This happens on either December
01:58:50.24020th or December 23rd. Peggy isn't sure which date. If true, that places Lacey at the warehouse
01:58:57.600complex, not in Scott's boat. But Garagos is right about one important part of this.
01:59:04.960Burkini had removed witness information about Peggy O'Donnell from his report.
01:59:10.780One sentence has been removed. It is about O'Donnell's claim that Lacey visited the
01:59:16.400warehouse complex on either December 20th or December 23rd and asked to use O'Donnell's
01:59:22.980bathroom. On cross-examination, Garagos produces a page of Brokini's notes, which include a line
01:59:30.060that reads, quote, Lacey used restroom on 12-23, Peggy, end quote. Garagos then asks the detective,
01:59:39.660can you tell me how that particular piece of information got excised out of your police
01:59:44.340report? I excised it, Brokini answers. You did it? Yes, I did. The reaction in the courtroom
01:59:52.160is immediate. Garagos asks the judge whether they might stop for the weekend and let that exchange
01:59:58.200sit with the jury for three days. But Burkini has an explanation, and after the weekend,
02:00:04.900the jury hears it. Prosecutors ask him about the missing sentence, and Burkini says the information
02:00:10.700had not disappeared from the case, that another detective named Dennis Holmes included Peggy's
02:00:17.260account in his report from that day, and that unlike Brickini, Holmes had interviewed Peggy
02:00:23.300O'Donnell directly. In 2024, Brickini explained his reasoning to Netflix and conceded the optics
02:00:30.600in court. What happened was on this one day, after I dictated, turn it in, now we all sit down
02:00:36.800together and I tell all the detectives what I heard. And Detective Dennis Holmes, he said,
02:00:42.840whoa, I interviewed Peggy. So he could testify to what Peggy said. Mine was through the grapevine.
02:00:51.820And so I deleted that sentence because it was in his report. Could look wrong to the jury. It could
02:00:58.540look wrong to the, you know, roaches. Burkini's explanation does not end the argument. Garagos
02:01:04.300still sees the missing sentence as part of a larger pattern. Evidence, he says, was mishandled,
02:01:09.500minimized or disclosed too late but when i pressed him on what that evidence actually proved
02:01:15.700the argument quickly moved back to the boat he whited it out because another detective
02:01:21.680put it in his report and had interviewed this person that's how we found it and he whited it
02:01:27.020out so it wouldn't be wouldn't get to the defense but it was in the public record because another
02:01:31.880cop put it in his report that's how we found that's how we found it he had yes so i mean
02:01:36.420How is it nefarious for Brocchini to have taken it out when he understood his report was hearsay, but he had the actual cop who had interviewed the woman because he was doing it in an affidavit.
02:01:46.420He was doing it in the affidavit to be presented to the judge.
02:05:43.200No, my theory is that wherever they were, they were washed up into that area by the storm.
02:05:50.820The jury never sees Garagos' boat demonstration.
02:05:54.820Instead, prosecutors call a commercial fisherman and ask whether a 153-pound fish weighted with four 10-pound weights could be pushed over the side of a 14-foot aluminum boat without capsizing it.
02:06:08.240Without hesitation, his answer is yes.
02:06:12.820Juror John Guinasso later called the fisherman the star witness of the trial.
02:06:18.860Then Garagos catches Burkini in another error.
02:06:22.680Burkini tells the jury about a tip from Miguel Espadilla, one of Scott's former college classmates.
02:06:29.120Miguel had said that years earlier, in 1995, Scott had talked hypothetically about how someone might dispose of a body.
02:06:38.240cover the head, weight the body down, and put it in salt water,
02:06:43.000where the water and marine life would eventually destroy the evidence.
02:06:46.780From the witness stand, Burkini adds another detail.
02:06:50.700He says Scott had talked about wrapping the head in duct tape.
02:06:54.640That matters because there was duct tape on Lacey Peterson's remains when she came ashore.
02:07:00.480Garagos goes back to the original tip report.
02:12:12.240Dr. March's date depended on an assumption.
02:12:15.740He had assumed Lacey took a pregnancy test on June 9th, 2002, because she had not announced her pregnancy at a friend's baby shower the day before that.0.81
02:12:27.220His reasoning out loud on the stand is that women talk.
02:12:32.160Of course, sometimes they don't talk about things like their own pregnancy
02:12:35.940at another woman's baby shower where one's friend is supposed to be the center of attention.
02:12:41.740He concedes he has done no testing himself
02:12:44.320and that the state's expert, Dr. Gregory DeVore, is better qualified to read the ultrasound.
02:12:51.140Dr. DeVore estimated that Conner died on either December 23rd or 24th,
02:12:56.140with a few days' margin of error on either side.
02:12:58.840He mapped the measurements from Lacey's first and second trimester ultrasounds forward,
02:13:04.720and then compared them to Conner's size when he was found.
02:13:08.500Garagos attacked his methodology on cross,
02:13:11.080but for prosecutors, DeVore's testimony is enormously important.
02:13:16.000The state had already called forensic anthropologist Dr. Allison Galloway.
02:13:21.240Based on measurements of Conner's remains,
02:13:23.380she could only put his age at somewhere between 33 and 38 weeks in the womb,
02:13:29.180too broad to pinpoint a particular date of death.
02:13:33.220DeVore gives them a calculation that points directly at the day Lacey disappeared.
02:16:43.440That's not what the pathologist testified.
02:16:46.900The prosecution witness was that the body was not underwater, that the condition of the body, and I was at the autopsy, and without getting grotesque, I will tell you that there is no way that body was underwater.
02:17:00.540and no scientist nor no prosecution witness ever said that that body was held underwater.
02:17:07.560It could not have been held underwater because of the condition that the body was in.
02:17:35.840So us bi-coastal elites may not go fishing on Christmas Eve.
02:17:41.180But if you're a fisherman and so was Scott, Scott wanted to be Scott was there.
02:17:46.580He's he wanted to be started that desire on the day he murdered his wife, really wanted to get out there.
02:17:52.760We'll get to whether the body was underwater in one minute.
02:17:56.440But first, a response to Garogos' theory of the case.
02:18:00.760You and I both know that burglars who get spotted by a neighborhood pregnant lady are not known for,0.98
02:18:08.940let's abduct the pregnant lady, let's kill the pregnant lady, let's hold the body in wait,0.96
02:18:13.160and then we'll dump it in the bay when we find out that the husband took the boat out.1.00
02:18:16.800They leave. If they're going to do anything to the eyewitness, they're going to hurt her and move on.
02:18:20.620Like the notion that these guys came to rob, got spotted by the pregnant lady, captured the pregnant lady, held the pregnant lady, did something with the pregnant lady, then killed the pregnant lady, then held the bodies and made sure the bodies would wash up.
02:18:33.440As opposed to the guy who was married to the pregnant lady who is the most likely to kill her on the face of the earth.
02:18:40.860That is when a woman is most vulnerable to domestic violence when she's pregnant with a baby who's having an affair, who's already told the affair partner that his wife has been lost, that he's lost his wife, who's bought a boat without telegraphing it to the family,
02:18:55.900who goes out, tells a neighbor he was golfing, tells other people he was fishing, produces the
02:19:01.320receipt that he actually was at the bay where the bodies would ultimately wind up, and magically has
02:19:05.900four anchors that he produced that we can't find, and this body has been held down underwater by
02:19:10.840something heavy. The two scenarios, it's so clear if you're not representing Scott Peterson.
02:19:17.280The forensic pathologist who examined Lacey's body did testify that it had been in the water
02:19:23.460for, quote, months. His name is Dr. Brian Peterson, no relation to the defendant. Dr. Peterson also
02:19:30.040testifies that there were no tool marks on Lacey's joints. Dr. Galloway, the forensic anthropologist,
02:19:38.160examined Lacey's body as well. She offers a more specific timeline in court, three to six months
02:19:44.700in the water. Galloway found barnacles on one of Lacey's exposed bones. Galloway testifies that1.00
02:19:52.980decomposition alone could explain how Lacey's limbs separated from her body. She found no
02:19:59.360evidence to the contrary. According to Catherine Cryer, the medical examiner who performed Lacey's
02:20:05.420sealed autopsy suggests the limbs were either cut with surgical precision or they were weighted down
02:20:12.780and pulled apart by the currents of the bay. Prosecutor Dave Harris asks pathologist Dr.
02:20:19.560Peterson about the weights directly on the stand. Dr. Peterson says either natural decomposition
02:20:25.900or weights on the limbs could explain how Lacey's body came apart. Her remains were consistent
02:20:32.480with both explanations. Finally, Dr. Peterson confirms that Lacey's body showed no evidence
02:20:39.320of a vaginal birth. There was a rip in her abdominal wall big enough that Connor's body
02:20:44.860could have passed through. This can happen when a mother dies, as gases build up and eventually0.99
02:20:51.000burst through her body in what is known as a coffin birth. No cause of death for Lacey Peterson
02:20:58.000is ever firmly established. Despite the Garagos charm and lovable swagger about this case,
02:21:05.800he does have one big regret, and I asked him about it. Okay, let me ask you this. At this point in
02:21:11.860time because there is still a contingent trying to find a way to get scott peterson a new trial
02:21:17.440if if he got one and you were to handle it what would you do differently well number one the
02:21:26.040biggest mistake i made is it wasn't televised if it had been televised then we wouldn't have
02:21:32.460the urban legends of what the case involved the the people who weren't in the courtroom
02:21:39.500would tell you that this case fell apart during the entire time.
02:21:46.320What didn't fall apart was the hatred, the animus,
02:21:51.420and this idea that he was a bad, bad man that needed to be punished.
02:32:16.400And instead of the judge, this is one of the angriest I've ever gotten with a superior court judge, instead of bringing in the juror who was threatening the foreperson, who was both a doctor and a lawyer, which is why I wanted the guy.
02:32:32.500I wanted somebody who was both analytical and smart.
02:32:37.640And instead of doing that, the judge removed the foreperson, removed him from the deliberations.
02:32:45.320After seven days, there was a verdict within eight hours.
02:32:49.860What the jurors actually told Judge DeLucchi was placed under seal.
02:32:54.420However, Jackson's statements to the judge were later unsealed in court records.
02:32:59.980The transcript reveals that he told the judge he had lost his ability to remain fair and impartial.
02:33:05.800Quote, my individual ability to do that has been compromised to a degree that I would never know personally whether or not I was giving the community's verdict, the popular verdict or the expected verdict.
02:33:18.460He told the judge, as Garagos said, that hostile remarks made to him by other jurors made him feel unsafe.
02:33:26.540Alternate juror number three is brought in to replace the foreman.
02:33:30.420His name is Dennis Lear, a retired United Airlines mechanic.
02:33:34.480For the second time in two days, the jury wipes away its work and starts over.
02:34:54.500When Garagos says this case was decided in the court of public opinion long before the verdict came in, this is the moment to which he points.
02:35:02.440When Scott was found guilty, that courthouse was ringed by over 1,500 people.
02:35:10.060And there was a front page photo of a woman holding an infant child saying in the headline on whatever it was, San Mateo News,
02:35:19.960this is better than the birth of my son when he was convicted with the giant guilty.
02:35:25.160So it was an enormous prejudgment rate that we just could not get over.
02:35:30.700Before the verdict is read, Greg Baratlas takes a moment,
02:35:34.940steps outside, and looks across the courthouse plaza.
02:35:38.640He estimates it's more than a thousand people there.
02:35:42.460Inside, Scott Peterson takes his seat at the defense table.
02:35:45.940He has lost so much weight since the trial began that his suit hangs loosely on him.
02:35:52.500At one o'clock California time, the clerk stands to read the verdict.
02:35:57.280We the jury in the above-entitled cause find the defendant, Scott Lee Peterson, guilty of the crime of murder of Lacey Denise Peterson.
02:36:04.800We the jury in the above-entitled cause find the defendant, Scott Lee Peterson, guilty of the crime of murder of baby Common Peterson.
02:50:09.600Scott's legal team wants to retest material from the mattress found inside the van that was discovered burning in a Modesto alley the morning after Lacey disappeared.
02:50:19.920The state lab tested material from that mattress at the time and found no blood.
02:50:26.020In 2019, a private lab examined some of the fabric and reported trace amounts of what might be male DNA, undermining unsupported claims that the mattress might be stained with Lacey Peterson's blood.
02:50:40.700The judge grants part of this request and denies part of it, too.
02:50:45.080She does not allow the defense to retest the mattress.
02:50:48.340Finding this van, which was orange, by the way, has no link to this crime.
02:50:54.120She does permit the defense access to certain reports about the van,
02:50:58.020like the 911 call reporting the van fire and any fingerprints recovered,
02:51:02.700because a convicted felon has the right to review materials
02:51:06.580they would have been entitled to see at the time of their trial.
02:51:10.000She also allows some new DNA testing on a bit of duct tape found on Lacey's clothing.
02:51:16.800The defense is hoping for DNA that will match that of the burglars,
02:51:21.040arguing that touch DNA analysis has advanced considerably since 2004.
02:51:26.480Because the tape was found on Lacey's pants and appears to be in testable condition,
02:51:32.120the judge will allow another bite at this apple.
02:51:34.820The Innocence Project also wants the court to consider 14 different arguments,
02:51:41.280mostly involving evidence they say prosecutors destroyed or never gave to the defense.
02:51:46.740In April of this year, a San Mateo County judge rejects all of those arguments and declines to hold a hearing on any of them.
02:51:54.920The Innocence Project says it will appeal that ruling, along with the judge's earlier refusal to grant Scott a new trial over juror number seven, a.k.a. Rochelle Neese, and her juror questionnaire.
02:52:07.640Though he's not Scott Peterson's appellate lawyer, Mark Garagos fully supports a new trial.
02:52:12.920Wow. There's just too much here. And the idea at this point that there was such willful kind of suppression of evidence.
02:52:22.180I always say the same thing. If you're beyond what you referenced as the prosecutorial duty, if you truly believed in your conviction as a prosecutor, which also is your duty, you have to have an abiding conviction of that, which mirrors the jury.
02:52:37.780Why are you fighting so hard against, you know, just putting these things to rest?