What happened to Laci Peterson and her unborn baby, Conner?
According to a San Mateo County jury, Laci was murdered by her husband, Scott Peterson, and dumped into the San Francisco Bay in 2002.
The Los Angeles Innocence Project, some of Peterson’s family members, and skeptical private investigators, however, are not convinced that the right man is behind bars.
The Scott Peterson murder case will be presented in court, once again, on Tuesday in Redwood City. Peterson, 51, is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. He is slated to appear via a livestream video feed from Mule Creek State Prison.
The Los Angeles Innocence Project told KTLA’s sister station, KRON4, that it is reviving Peterson’s murder case to probe “his claim of actual innocence.” In the courtroom Tuesday, LAIP attorneys are expected to present motions, exhibits, and new evidence to San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Elizabeth M. Hill.
Laci was eight months pregnant when she vanished from her Modesto neighborhood. LAIP will ask the judge to order the Modesto Police Department and Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office to hand over records on the Peterson murder investigation.
Within over 1,000 pages of court documents filed in January by LAIP, a torched orange van is one of the biggest new pieces of evidence. A 1989 Chevrolet van was found in flames on the morning of Dec. 25, 2002, at 612 Thrasher Avenue in Modesto, according to a declaration written by fire investigator Bryan Spitulski. At the time, he worked for the Modesto Fire Department.
Laci, 27, disappeared on Dec. 24, 2002. Her husband told investigators that he went fishing alone in the San Francisco Bay on Christmas Eve, and when he returned home at 523 Covena Avenue, she was gone.
Laci and Conner’s decomposed bodies washed up on shore in April 2003. Modesto is about 90 miles east of the San Francisco Bay.
The Petersons’ home is about one mile away from where the orange van was found burning. Spitulski said the area was “notorious for vehicle thefts and fires.” Spitulski said he concluded that the van was intentionally ignited. “This vehicle fire appeared to be unusual in that the vehicle had not been stripped for parts,” he wrote. “The possible motivation for this vehicle fire was the disposal of evidence of a crime.”
Photographs shot by the fire investigator show a burned mattress with suspected blood stains inside the van.
The van was registered to Terry Borden, the owner of a company named Borden’s Moving and Rigging, according to Spitulski. When he went to the company to talk to the van’s owner, he noticed several sketchy-looking men were “hanging around the compound. I recall there being dogs on chains, and it was just all around an intimidating place,” Spitulski wrote.
When the fire investigator talked to Borden, Borden said the van did not have a mattress before it was stolen from the compound.
After Spitulski arrived at a tow yard to re-examine the van, he discovered that there were “red-brown stains on the unburnt portion of the mattress. At this point, the search for Laci Peterson was at the forefront of everyone’s minds, and discovering these stains in this burnt van found within hours of her disappearance was shocking,” the fire investigator wrote.
The arson case was handed over to the Modesto Police Department and a Department of Justice lab for blood testing. Spitulski believes the van evidence was mishandled and not adequately reviewed.
“I have been deeply troubled about what I viewed to be an insufficient investigation into the possibility of this vehicle fire being related in some way to the disappearance of Laci,” he wrote.
Additional evidence submitted in court by the LAIP dives into “the Medina Burglary.” Attorneys representing Peterson said the Medina family’s house, located directly across the street from the Peterson family’s house in the La Loma neighborhood, was burglarized by a group of thieves on Dec. 24, 2002.
A lengthy declaration written by journalist Mike Gudgell was also filed by the Innocence Project to support its case. The journalist said he’s dug into the case with a skeptical eye for years, and he is convinced that Peterson is not guilty.
“My investigation revealed that there were a number of people involved in planned burglaries in the La Loma neighborhood around the Christmas holiday in 2002,” Gudgell wrote.
The journalist said he found a witness who spotted a suspicious van parked in front of the Medinas’ home with three men standing around it. Police determined that the Medina burglary occurred on December 26. Gudgell said that the December 26 timeline was implausible, considering that the street was flanked with news crews covering Laci’s disappearance.
Peterson’s attorneys say the burglars could have kidnapped and killed Laci.
Peterson has maintained his innocence for over two decades. The inmate contacted the Innocence Project last summer and requested for its attorneys to take his case.
In November of 2023, he wrote a letter from prison that was later filed in court by LAIP.
Peterson wrote, “I believe this additional information will assist in determining what happened to my family and prove that I am innocent and had nothing to do with these horrible crimes that were committed against my wife and son. In 2004, I was wrongfully convicted of murdering my wife, Laci, … and our unborn son, Conner. I have discovered that critical exculpatory evidence was ignored, overlooked, or never investigated at all, and in other instances was suppressed at the time of my trial.”
Laci’s family expressed zero doubt over Peterson’s guilt during his December 2021 re-sentencing hearing.
Laci’s mother, Sharon Rocha, said in 2021, “Laci’s dead, Scott, because she loved you and trusted you. Your evil, selfish act ended two beautiful souls. You just didn’t want them anymore. You didn’t want a baby, nor the responsibility of being a father. You were afraid of being looked on as a failure. It’s unbelievable that you thought you’d get away with it.”
Rocha continued, “On Dec. 8 … you researched boat launch ramps in the San Francisco Bay. On Dec. 9 you bought the boat … the boat you used to dump Laci’s body in the bay. You dumped her body in the bay like a piece of garbage. No matter what happens in the future, there are two things that will never change: Laci and Conner will always be dead; and you will always be their murderer.”