Scott Peterson has broken his silence from prison 21 years after his wife and unborn son were killed in a Christmas Eve tragedy – doubling down on a theory that she was abducted by strangers who burgled a neighboring home.
The expectant father was convicted of killing his college sweetheart Laci, who was eight months pregnant at the time with their first child, a son they planned to name Conner. He has always maintained his innocence.
In a new Peacock documentary, Face to Face with Scott Peterson, the now 51-year-old has spoken publicly for the first time since his 2003 arrest, maintaining his long-held belief that a group of burglars are responsible for his wife’s death.
‘There was a burglary across the street from our home. There was a lot of people involved,’ he told interviewer Shareen Anderson over video call.
‘And I believe Laci went over there to see what was going on, and that’s when she was taken.’
Two men were arrested and plead guilty to the crime, but detectives on the case ruled out any link to Laci, believing the duo burgled the home two days after she vanished, on December 26.
Peterson, his family, and a contingent of his supporters have long argued police were too quick to rule out the burglars’ involvement in Laci’s disappearance.
One witness – who police have consistently said lacked credibility because details of her recollection varied – said she saw three men at the burgled home who did not match the physical appearances of the two men later convicted of the crime, Steven Todd and Donald Pearce.
She also said she saw a van parked out the front. Police said she initially thought the van was white, but later said it may have been tan or brown.
Peterson and his supporters argue that van could hold the key to Laci’s death.
‘Todd and Pearce, the two that we know burgled the house across the street,’ Peterson said.
‘We don’t know who else was in that burglary. We know there were others.
‘There was no desire to pursue the evidence that was in front of them. It was the evidence they just decided to ignore.’
Peterson is allowed to give 15-minute video phone calls from Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, California, where he is serving a life sentence – which makes up the basis for the new bombshell documentary.
He was quizzed about parts of the investigation and case against him – including his final voicemail to Laci, his affair with Amber Frey, and the newly-bought boat that he used to dump his wife’s body in the water after murdering her.
Peterson was trawling for fish in the San Francisco Bay when his wife went missing 90 miles away on the morning of December 24, 2002.
Peterson called Laci at 2:15pm on the day she went missing, leaving her a gushy voicemail saying he would ‘see her soon’ as he came home from the marina.
Detectives have always theorized that it was ‘staged’ to make things seem normal.
But Peterson said: ‘That was common with us, she would call me cutie, I’d call her beautiful. We loved one another, we enjoyed one another. We were great friends.
‘They [detectives] thought it was too sweet of a message for a married couple? They have really sad marriages if they think that. Frankly I feel bad for them.’
When asked why he bought the new boat on December 9, Peterson claimed it was for him and his father-in-law Ron Grantski to use.
Specifically, he said it would be a way for his unborn son to bond with his family.
Speaking from prison, Peterson said: ‘I wanted him [Ron] to have a relationship with Conner.
‘And part of that would be fishing because Ron really enjoyed it. It was something to bring us together as well.’
Conner is the name Peterson and Laci had planned to call their son – whose full-term remains were found on the shoreline of the Bay alongside Laci’s body weeks after she vanished.
As the investigation continued, Peterson said he believed detectives had already pinned him as guilty.
‘They had this assumption,’ he said. ‘They came into our house not to look for Laci but to look for evidence against me.
‘They did a search of the house, they found absolutely no forensic evidence against me, no blood, no struggle, and yet, they continued to focus on me.’
In the bombshell documentary, Peterson rebuked the theory that he killed Laci because he didn’t want to be a father, or fit into the domestic role of a husband.
Peterson said in the clip: ‘That’s so offensive, so disgusting. It’s absolutely not true.’
And speaking on his infidelity, Peterson admitted two decades later that he ‘regrets’ his extramarital affair with Amber Frey, and that the consequences of those actions ‘haunt’ him to this day.
‘I didn’t tell people because I wanted the search to continue,’ he said.
But Peterson rebukes any suggestion that he had a relationship with Ms Frey, insisting it was ‘just sex’ to him.
‘I understand why she tried to turn it into a relationship after the fact… made claims it was something more. But it simply wasn’t.
‘That’s a massive misconception I think,’ he said.
‘It’s a horrible truth. These are the thoughts that haunt me. It’s devastating actually such shame and guilt at me having had sex with Amber Frey caused all that, that they didn’t look for her alive.’
He said: ‘I certainly regret cheating on Laci. It was childish, lack of self-esteem, selfish… traveling somewhere, being lonely that night because I wasn’t at home…someone makes you feel good cause they want to have sex with you.
‘That’s what it was to me.’
But Peterson kept up his affair with Amber, despite Laci being dead for weeks.
He revealed that he kept up the relationship with her because he believed if she went to the police, it would make him seem more guilty.
‘Staying in contact with Amber I thought… she would ruin the search,’ he said.
‘The search for Laci is going to stop as soon as the police or public know I was having sex with another woman. The knowledge of her [Amber] was a time bomb.’
On April 13, 2003, the body of a full-term male infant washed up on the shoreline of the San Francisco Bay.
One day later, the body of a recently pregnant woman washed up one mile away. The body was missing the head and arms. DNA testing confirmed it was Laci Peterson.
A pathologist confirmed that the fetus had died in utero.
Scott Peterson was arrested on April 18, 2003. He went to trial, and on November 12, 2004, the jury convicted him of two counts of murder.
The first was first-degree murder with special circumstances for killing Laci, and second-degree murder for killing the fetus she carried.
Scott was given a death sentence – but this was overturned in 2020, and he was re-sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.