01x03 - Investigations, Appeals and Lingering Questions

[bunniefuu]

[somber music]

Most m*rder cases

are circumstantial.

You don't get a smoking g*n.

You take one of the

things, it's nothing.

Two or three, it's nothing.

But when you add them up,

it's pretty darn strong.

I never imagined that this thing

would still be percolating

20 years later.

[invigorating music]

I have questions about the case.

It's always bugged me.

I know people are really heavily

invested that Scott's guilty.

There is no evidence

of cause of death.

There is no evidence

of a crime scene.

Laci's already set the

table for Christmas brunch.

You're gonna travel 90 miles

away to test your boat?

I didn't buy it.

There isn't any evidence

that Scott Peterson

engaged in any violence

involving his wife.

If you open your

mind a little bit,

really consider

the investigation,

there are a lot of questions.

There have always been

a lot of questions.

When you know that the jury

ultimately still convicted him,

you have to ask yourself,

what's going on here?

They gave us, in my opinion,

no realistic alternate theory.

The information we were

given in that courtroom

only leads to the

decision we came up with,

which is he's guilty.

The police can't

get it this wrong.

The DA can't get it this wrong.

A jury can't get it this wrong.

The appellate process

can't get it this wrong.

The media can't

get it this wrong.

Is this the way criminal

justice works in America?

Here I am two decades later,

still trying to

solve this crime.

I'm still investigating.

I'm still looking at the

evidence, asking questions.

It's gonna be a fight for

them to accept the truth.

December 13, 2004.

People of State of California

versus Scott Peterson.

We, the jury, fix

the penalty at death.

[dramatic music]

And in a case that

became something of

a national TV

obsession, a judge today

formally sentenced

Scott Peterson.

In spite of all the

pain and passion

expressed in court today, one

person showed no emotion

Scott Peterson.

During my trial,

I was indignant.

I was so angry at the

media, because the reports

just weren't factual.

I strived not to show any

emotion in the courtroom

because I didn't wanna, you

know, see them break me.

♪

[indistinct chatter]

When Scott was

moved to death row,

we made every effort to

get up there and visit him.

For the first eight years,

we had someone there every week.

Our family has really

been the glue for Scott

and for each other

through these

these hard times.

And just fortunate

that that's the case.

He would repeatedly say he

he was living visit to visit.

It was his lifeline.

[cell door clangs]

[suspenseful music]

♪

[birds chirping]

Sitting through Scott's trial

and then spending years

combing over police reports,

reading appellate documents,

talking with lawyers,

our family had

kind of been tethered

to the legal community

for 17 years.

My kids were grown.

Ultimately, I made the

decision to go to law school.

I certainly never have felt

like I needed to become

a lawyer to help Scott.

But I think now

that I am a lawyer,

I certainly have a much

better understanding

of the case and the issues.

If Scott is granted a new trial,

we'll be able to take more

steps in the investigation.

We'll be able to call

people to court to testify.

We have an incredible

support system,

an incredible team of

people who know this case

and help our family.

And without them, we

wouldn't be where we're at.

And without Mike Gudgell,

I don't know that

our investigation

would be where it's at.

[cheering]

I thought that the

trial was going to be

the arbiter of the truth.

And I don't think

that's accurate.

Most of the journalists

covered the story

from beginning to end, I

think expected a hung jury.

I don't know anyone

who isn't terribly

conflicted by the verdict.

It was troubling for

those of us who really

knew the case intimately.

Scott was convicted, but

there was no how, where,

when, even why.

Everyone involved in the

case contributed in some way

to a sort of a conspiracy

of circumstances

that led to the verdict.

Anybody who disagrees

with the verdict,

you have a right to disagree.

But if you weren't

there, you don't know.

A lot of media coverage,

so I think the jury

pool was partly biased.

Why did he leave his wife

alone, eight months pregnant,

on Christmas Eve to

go fishing by himself?

There was a tremendous

pressure on the media

to report every day.

And as a consequence,

particularly the tabloid press

would report rumors.

Was Scott Peterson

planning to hire hit men

to k*ll his wife, Laci?

Every evening, I would sit

and watch one of the shows

and I'd wanna throw

my shoe at the TV.

Initially, I spent a

year, year and a half

covering a case from

beginning to end.

I went on to do other things,

including covering the wars

in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But it always bothered me.

[unsettling music]

I don't really even think

the case was solved.

So when I got back from

covering the two wars,

I devoted as much time as I

could to digging more into

what might have

happened to Laci.

This is 2015.

The first thing I

had to do was get

the 50,000 pages of

documents and police reports.

And then I had to go

through those documents

and find what questions or clues

were buried in those pages.

There was dozens of

different tips that came in,

and I spent years

looking into those.

But it finally came down

to the burglary

across the street.

We have two people in custody.

We do not believe

that, at this time,

that there's any connection

with the missing of Laci.

[ominous music]

The police characterized

the Medina burglary

as kind of a meth addict, and

it was a crime of opportunity.

The Airport District was

sort of a high crime area

not far from Laci

and Scott's house.

And there was a larger effort

to burglarize houses

in that neighborhood.

I would call it a

criminal network.

I suspect that more

people were involved

in the burglary than Steven

Todd and Glenn Pearce.

This is just a working theory.

I haven't been able

to prove it yet.

And that comes to the

question of smoking g*n.

But I think it's

much more complicated

than what the police believe.

Steven Todd and Glenn Pearce

admitted their involvement

with the Medina burglary,

telling the police

that the burglary

happened on December 27th.

When the police pointed out

to them that it couldn't have

happened on the 27th because

the Medinas were already home,

they changed their story

and said that the burglary

happened on the 26th.

It wasn't until much later

that people began to question

whether this burglary really

occurred on December 26.

We believe that Laci

encountered the Medina

burglary on December 24th.

At 11:40 a.m., Diane

Jackson saw three men

that were dark-skinned,

not African American,

in front of the Medina home.

So I think Steven Todd

shared information

about the Medina home

with people in the

Airport District.

It's their practice to

share targets like that.

It's possible that

three men in the van

were some of his

friends or accomplices.

So what likely happened is,

other people showed up to help.

The police have never

identified that van,

never identified the men

associated with the van.

And that van was parked

directly in front of the house

that was burglarized.

It's directly across the street

from Scott and Laci's home.

So this confrontation with

Laci could have involved

the people in the

van, not necessarily

Steven Todd and Glenn Pearce.

Steven Todd confessed almost

immediately to the burglary.

And I think that says something.

I think he was told, you're

gonna have to take the fall.

I mean, you know, there's

a confidential informant

that turned him in, so he was

gonna serve time regardless.

The burglary could have

occurred about the same time

Laci went for a walk.

It's possible that Laci

confronted the burglars

or saw the burglars,

or the burglars saw her

and were worried about whether

she would call the police.

So if you didn't k*ll

Laci, who k*lled Laci?

[ominous music]

We had a client who was innocent

but an entire world against him.

He's not capable of doing this.

And we truly believe that.

We also believe that that

the evidence backed us up on it.

To have a verdict of guilty

and then the death penalty,

no words can describe the

disappointment, the sadness.

It was a huge shock.

I thought, despite the

hatred towards Scott,

that they would actually

listen to the evidence

and they would base their

decision on the evidence

and only on the evidence.

Because I thought,

there's no evidence here.

There's no forensic

evidence, there's nothing

to tie him to the m*rder.

Our client didn't do it.

Nothing has changed since.

In fact, at this

point, years later,

there's more

exonerating evidence

that have come to light.

In my years of investigating it,

I investigated a lot of leads

and looked at all

possibilities

that Scott was involved

in a m*rder for hire,

Laci was abducted

for her unborn child.

Most of them have

been dead ends,

but a process of

elimination at this point.

And, you know, there

are a few things

that are left that

are promising.

And I think the most

important piece of information

is the van.

[tense music]

At the very beginning, police

were looking for a brown van.

And all the media was also

looking for a brown van.

A brown van could back up

a defense theory

Laci was abducted.

Numerous witnesses

reported seeing

a suspicious brown van in the

neighborhood that morning.

I noticed three people across

the street on the Medinas' lawn

and they were right

next to a van.

I always look around.

And I have never seen

a van like that before.

And so you saw the

van, coincidentally,

at the same time

you saw Laci? Or

Yes. No, no, same time.

There's some variation, but

there were three or four

witnesses who saw the same van

across from the Petersons',

next to the Medina home, on

the morning Laci disappeared.

And then I heard

about an orange van

that had burned in

the Airport District

the morning after

Laci disappeared.

Maybe that's our brown van?

Police recently took the

van to this crime lab,

examined it, and concluded

that the van was not

in any way involved

in the disappearance

of Laci Peterson.

I remember sort of, you know,

those internal instinctual

alarm bells going off that

there was something wrong

and that this sort of

feeling stuck with me.

So that's 2004.

And then fast forward

over ten years.

[suspenseful music]

Not believing everything I heard

either in the media

or the police,

I started following the leads.

I decided to look through all

the documents, 40,000 pages.

I started, on my own,

interviewing witnesses.

I went to interview

the owner of the van

where it was stolen, a

moving and rigging company.

And he told me that the

employees could take

some of the vehicles

home and he believed

it was kind of an inside job.

If it was an inside job, and

if employees were allowed

to take the van home for

the weekend or whatever,

they could have just

taken the van back

and no one would

have even known.

So I think very logical

that it was burned

to cover up a crime.

After that, I'm looking into

the criminal

community in Modesto,

and some of the names I'm seeing

are associated with

that burnt van.

The last person to drive it

definitely had a criminal

record, including burglary.

And a family member of

the owner of the van

was associated, a

friend of Steven Todd.

Steven Todd's wife's

sister lived in a house

right next to where the

burnt van was found.

The thing about the

Airport District,

it isn't that big of an area.

And to have a burned-out

van found near the relative

of one of the burglars

isn't anything, to me,

that would be

suspicious whatsoever.

Why now is this just coming up?

It seems interesting to me.

♪

I wanna show you the van.

So these are the six color

pictures I was able to get.

And to my knowledge,

are the only pictures

that remain out of possibly

over a hundred that were shot.

I found the three-

or four-page report

from Bryan Spitulski,

the arson investigator.

So I decided to

give him a visit.

And he looked at me and he said,

I've been waiting

ten years for someone

to come and ask

questions about this.

My name is Bryan Spitulski.

I've been a fire investigator

for almost 30 years.

In 2002, I was a

fire investigator

for Modesto City

Fire Department.

December 25th, the fire

came in for a vehicle fire

in an alleyway.

As I did my walk

around, I noticed

there was a mattress

in the back of the van

that was mostly

consumed by the fire.

And they put this round

gas can over the mattress,

I'm sure thinking that the gas

can would destroy the mattress.

But the metal gas can

actually protected this

foot-and-a-half

circle of mattress.

It was a little bit discolored,

but it wasn't burned at all.

It's kind of a grayish

off-white fabric

with rust-colored stains in it.

It looked like blood to me.

And I cut away a piece of that

fabric so we could understand,

was this just a rust color

or was this truly blood?

When we cut it away

and we stuck it

into the container that

had the luminol in it,

it went blue.

There's human

blood on that item.

♪

[birds chirping]

[car horn honking]

Between Christmas

and New Year's,

the news started to come

out about Laci missing.

When I heard that, that's

when I got on the phone

and called up my

detective and said, look,

now, you know,

we've got this van.

We've got a mattress

in the back of it.

It's similar in description

of what everybody's saying.

I think you need to

take a look at that.

[inquisitive music]

The detectives came out.

The police chief came out.

It was a really high-profile

development in the case.

The first test at the scene,

right after they found the van,

was a presumptive test.

It's a field test.

And then the next

day, a sample would be

hand-delivered to the

Department of Justice

for a more in-depth analysis.

And it was tested there,

and they couldn't detect blood.

So at that point, it seemed like

the the air left the van.

It was no longer something

that needed to be looked at.

Even though we had the

positive luminol test,

that was it. It was done.

♪

It has been in my mind

and has kept me awake

and has bothered me at night.

Why didn't this get brought up?

There's blood on a

mattress in a van

that was burned about a mile

from where Laci disappeared.

That screams "needs

further investigation."

They couldn't determine

whether it was human blood

or not, but there was human DNA.

I contacted the

defense and said,

are you aware of

these photographs?

They weren't aware of it.

But they asked for

the photos themselves

and then they asked

for further testing.

It's possible that they

could get a sequencing

and find out whose DNA

is on that mattress.

When you think about it,

it basically comes down

that there was a

crime, there's DNA.

We should probably find

out whose DNA it is.

Pretty simple.

[birds chirping]

[dog barking]

- Hello.

- Hi.

Hi. Good to see you again.

Good to see you.

Good.

Ready to work.

- All right.

[suspenseful music]

Well, I was thinking it

could just be a good idea

to kinda lay out big

picture of what we know

the evidence to be right now.

This is the evidence, starting

with some of the things

we've known for 20 years, all

the way up to new evidence

we've just obtained

in the last year

and how we worked our

way through this evidence

as kind of a family

and a team of people

trying to solve a crime.

We all know that Laci went

missing on December 24th.

The dog was found in the

neighborhood with a leash on.

Karen Servas had put

McKenzie back in the yard

no later than 10:18.

And she had closed the gate.

The neighbors across the street,

they had left the

morning of December 24th.

They returned home December 26th

to find their home

has been burglarized.

You have the neighbor,

Diane Jackson,

seeing a van and men the

morning of December 24th,

the day that Laci went missing.

So the evidence indicates

that the Medina burglary

started the morning

of December 24th.

The Medinas, who lived

across the street,

didn't leave until 10:30.

So there was a perception

that the Medina burglary

was unrelated to

what happened to Laci

because the Medinas

hadn't left yet.

So many of the

mistakes have to do

with the Karen Servas timeline.

You found the dog in the street.

Yes, I did.

And put the dog in the backyard.

That ended up being very

critical to the prosecution's

case because they needed to

establish a certain time.

Scott Peterson, based

on triangulation

of cell phone records

and cell phone towers,

in his own

neighborhood at 10:08.

At 10:18, the

neighbor finds the dog

running free with a muddy leash.

That's a DA timeline.

That's not the defense timeline.

She could have gone missing

at any hour that morning.

The judge bought into this

Karen Servas timeline,

the idea that Laci's

already dead by 10:18.

So the judge said, the

burglars weren't there,

so they couldn't

have been involved.

It meant the jury didn't hear

evidence about the burglary.

Years later, the

defense discovers

this bit of potential

evidence from a mailman

by the name of Graybill.

And he claims that

he delivered mail

between 10:35 and 10:55,

and what he did notice

was that McKenzie,

the dog that always barked

every time he delivered mail,

wasn't barking,

and that the gate

at the Peterson home was open.

And if the dog wasn't there

and Laci wasn't there,

that means she was

walking the dog.

And we know that several people

had seen a pregnant

woman walking.

That was the missing piece.

Laci was still home

when Karen Servas

put the dog back in the yard.

If Laci is alive after 10:30,

Laci could have encountered

the Medina burglary.

We know the timeline now

because of Russell Graybill.

We know more about the burglary.

We've spent a lot of

time trying to connect

this burglary, the mailman,

and Russell Graybill.

There's just so many tips

and so much information,

and the timeline of the

morning was so misunderstood.

These are the significant

tips that came in

to the Modesto Police

Department, a lot of which

are at issue in the filings.

There are more, but

these are the ones

that are most

commonly talked about.

As a family, we

believe the police

were putting due diligence

into following up

on the sightings of Laci.

[indistinct chatter]

They had some people

came in with tips.

Passed those on to

the police because

I wanted them to follow up,

and I thought they were

following up on them.

I found out later

when I started to read

the police discovery,

their reports,

which were given

to us before trial,

that they weren't

following up on anything.

Just a couple of things

about the tip lines.

There's been now about

340 calls that's come in.

There's been tips that the

burglars confronted Laci.

One was a former Los

Angeles reserve officer

who had seen someone being

sort of muscled into a van.

He was so disturbed by

it that he called police.

[line trills]

His name was Tom Harshman.

Hello?

Hi. Mr. Harshman?

I'm doing research

for a documentary,

and I read about

your tip that you

that you made to

the Modesto Police.

[phone ringing]

Tom Harshman calls

twice on the 28th.

Then he's so upset

by what he saw,

he actually goes to the police

so that everyone knows

he saw a pregnant woman

being shoved into a van.

I mean, there were a

lot of phantom sightings

from people and things.

But as far as that

being a specific one,

I never heard

anything like that.

No detective was assigned.

In fact, they put more

effort into discrediting

the Laci sightings, rather

than go talk to the people

who actually said they

saw Laci that day.

This is one thing

that does bother me.

If I'm living in Modesto

and Tom Harshman reports

that a pregnant lady

was physically abused

on the side of a road, if

it wasn't Laci, who was it?

So any evidence that Laci

is alive after Scott leaves,

whether it's Laci

walking the dog

or Laci encountering a burglary,

is evidence that

Scott is innocent.

There are so many

instances where

there was evidence

that didn't fit

the detective's theory

that they ignored.

Very late in Scott's

trial, a tip came in

talking about Laci

confronting the burglary.

My name is Xavier Aponte.

I was a correctional officer

at the California

Rehabilitation Center in Norco.

In January 2003, one of

the correctional officers

responsible for

monitoring inmate calls

overheard a conversation.

There were rumors on the

street that Laci Peterson

had walked up and interrupted

a burglary down the street

from her house.

[phone dialing]

I contacted the Modesto

PD's tip hotline

because somebody might

wanna follow up on it.

I did not receive any

immediate calls back.

And probably about

a week or so later,

I made a second phone

call and reiterated

what I had left the first time.

Modesto PD and the prosecution,

they'd been sitting

on that information

and didn't bother

to share it with us.

Later, we asked

for the recording.

We never got the recording.

That recording does

not exist right now.

Supposedly, the detectives

looked everywhere.

Was this something

that was deep-sixed?

The bottom line is,

this was material,

exonerating evidence that

should have been turned over

and it wasn't turned over.

The Lieutenant Aponte tip,

under further scrutiny,

as Detective Grogan

started looking into it,

his story changed slightly.

And then as Grogan

pressed him more,

he ended up recanting

this information

and saying that it really

wasn't true at all.

Aponte has recanted

everything he said.

Who's the officer that

told you about it first?

He couldn't remember.

Where's your notes

in the log where

you log in all these tapes?

Couldn't find it.

Well, where's the tape?

Don't have it.

And that was the end of that.

It was just a big malarkey.

At no time have I ever

recanted my statements.

What I did say is

that his conversation

seemed to be hearsay from

the talk on the street.

The statements that I made

were true and factual.

Lieutenant Aponte

has called in a tip

connecting the burglars to Laci.

You know you've got a duty

to turn over

exonerating evidence

that tend to show

someone's innocence.

What else do we have?

Right on the heels of

the Medina burglary,

this reward was offered, I

believe, on December 31st.

Well, on that same day, a

Croton watch was pawned.

And when Laci went missing,

she was wearing a Croton watch

that she had inherited

from her grandmother.

Tell me about the Croton watch.

She inherited it, you

know, before Christmas,

not long before Christmas.

And it was kind of gaudy.

It had a bezel with

diamonds around it.

We joked about it. We

called it her rapper watch.

♪

On December 31, 2002, a

lady came in and she sold us

a 14-karat-gold Croton Watch.

Everything we loan or buy

goes to a master computer.

I was contacted by the

Modesto Police Department.

They thought maybe it was

Laci Peterson's watch.

They just came in and said

they're here to

pick up the watch,

and they took the watch.

Where is the watch?

And was that Laci's watch?

They never found it.

I knew it was missing.

But the first time I

heard that the police

knew about it being pawned

was well after I was arrested.

The police have to

provide the defense

with discovery when

they ask for it,

any exculpatory information.

The police hadn't shared

this with us at all.

And now I know why,

because they covered it up.

I think it was a

wild goose chase.

If it would have been

something of importance,

if it would have been major,

it would have been in the trial.

We can never prove it was hers.

It never amounted to anything

other than speculation.

It may have been Laci's

and it may not have been Laci's.

But the bottom line,

they interviewed

the owner of the pawn shop.

It should have been turned

over to the defense.

Never turned over

to the defense.

This really highlight

the failings

of the Modesto

Police investigation.

The sightings of Laci

were not followed up on.

The sightings of McKenzie

were not followed up on.

This burnt van certainly

was not followed up on.

This watch was not

followed up on.

Now, do you think some

things were followed up on

by the Modesto

Police, but documents

or related evidence

wasn't turned over

to the defense?

I strongly believe, based on

the sum total of the reports

and how things are

cross-referenced,

that there's a strong

possibility that

we're missing reports

on the Croton Watch.

It was confirmed we

were missing reports

on this burned van when Scott's

appellate attorney, in 2006,

requested from the

district attorney, hey,

can you send me your

whole file on this van?

Scott's defense

attorney, Mark Geragos,

initially had a few

files on this van,

but he did not have photos of

that bloodstained mattress.

People want the answer

they believed in

to continue to be the answer.

You know, people

are who we all are.

We're we're slow

to admit we're wrong.

[suspenseful music]

♪

In California, death penalty

cases just take a long time.

You know, we had 12, 15

years where nothing happened.

The bigger hope that

Scott would be exonerated

really drove what we did,

specifically his death sentence.

We didn't really know

how long it would take.

We just kept investigating.

His attorneys kept working.

We just hung on to

every shred of hope,

every, what else can we do?

And and let's do it.

News today, convicted

k*ller Scott Peterson

is officially off death row.

He was resentenced

to life in prison

without the

possibility of parole.

Judge Delucchi made an

error during jury selection.

He said, if you're

against the death penalty,

well, then you're excused.

When law in California

says, if you say,

I am against the death

penalty, the judge is supposed

to ask you questions about it.

Judge Delucchi didn't do that.

And the California Supreme

Court, for that reason,

overturned the sentence

for Scott Peterson.

I felt a sense of

relief when Scott's

death sentence was overturned.

I know the first time that I

went to go visit him in person

at Mule Creek, I'm

sitting in this big room

with all these people

and waiting for Scott

to come through the door.

And he came through the door,

unescorted and unhandcuffed.

I was just looking at him

and I actually was wondering

what was wrong with his walk.

I was like, why is

he walking funny?

And I realized later that

I had not seen him walk

with his arms

swinging for 20 years.

All rise.

Once the death penalty

was off the table,

Scott Peterson, at that

point, lost a lot of resources

that were available to him.

The problem for Scott

Peterson is that

now that he's off of death row,

he's lost state-sponsored

representation.

There is a practical

reality for all but the

the wealthiest people

in America that,

at some point

and we're certainly there,

20 years post conviction

families lose their

ability to afford the cost

of high-end attorneys.

There was clearly a need for

an organization or a team

that was financially secure,

had access to a

lot more resources.

I wasn't even remotely qualified

to take over his case.

There's a number of problems

with Scott's conviction,

but one of the things

going on in his case

was that there needed

to be some DNA testing.

And Scott's attorney

had noticed that

the newly formed Los

Angeles Innocence Project

had a DNA grant.

2023, Scott Peterson's

appellate attorneys

reached out to the Los

Angeles Innocence Project

in the hopes that they

would take on the case.

When the Innocence

Project takes a case,

it sends a message.

When the Innocence

Project gets involved,

they only get involved if they

believe they can win a case.

This appears to be

the beginning stages.

The Los Angeles

Innocence Project

has filed a motion

asking for, I believe,

17 items to be DNA tested.

A couple of those

items are associated

with the Medina burglary,

a burned van that

was found about a

mile from Laci's home

the day after she went missing.

And 11 of those items

were recovered either with

or near Laci and

Conner's bodies.

We've got this other

narrative going on

that has been going

on since that week,

a burglary across the

street that happened

around the same time

that she was supposed

to go out for that walk.

They wanna find out if

a van that was found

torched near the Modesto Airport

is connected to the burglary.

Inside, investigators

discovered a mattress

with stains confirmed

to be blood.

The Innocence Project

wants to conduct

new DNA tests on those samples.

Could it be Laci

Peterson's blood?

[inquisitive music]

I think with the filing

of these motions,

the public has a much

better view of what happened

when Laci went missing.

A lot of this

information wasn't public

until these filings.

I think there's enough evidence

that it's probable that

that someone else may

have committed the crime.

The Peterson family

credits Mike Gudgell,

a journalist who used

to work for ABC News,

with tracking down new evidence.

I'd been doubted by my

friends and family for years.

Having it validated

was an important moment

and sort of the arc of

my commitment to this.

Ultimately is about injustice,

and not just for

Scott for Laci too.

And the Los Angeles Innocence

Project efforts are important.

They have substance and they

need to be taken seriously.

It is clear that they believe

that the Medina burglary

had a connection to Laci

Peterson's disappearance.

They're not necessarily

stating that the individuals

who were convicted

of the burglary

are the ones who

committed the crime,

but that there's a

larger web of individuals

who may have been the ones

involved in her disappearance.

It's a little overwhelming

to look at the evidence

in this case and realize

how solvable this crime is.

To have an innocence

organization take his case,

I think, really speaks to the

fact that Scott is innocent.

It would be impossible

for me to acknowledge

and thank everyone that is

responsible for bringing

this case to the successful

conclusion that it did.

But there are

Well, if there was any doubt,

I would be shouting it.

I would be making

noise about it.

But nothing has changed

in these 20 years since

that makes me have any doubt

that we got the right guy.

If you can imagine a family

that's pretty tore up

and they probably have

this nagging belief

that their daughter,

stepdaughter or what have you,

is dead

Anybody that has a thought that

there's a claim of innocence

on Scott's part doesn't

know the case as well

as those of us

that worked it did.

Peterson's new legal team

believes he may be innocent.

This is how our criminal

justice system works,

to be sure that we have the

right person in custody.

The LA Innocence Project

taking up this fight

at this time, not

totally unexpected.

This isn't nothing new.

I mean, this has

been talked about.

This is I don't

have a reaction.

I believe this is bullshit.

There is absolutely

no reasonable doubt.

None. He did it.

Jury got it right.

If there was any doubt,

I would be shouting it.

I would be making

noise about it.

I have no doubt about

Scott's involvement

and the fact that he

was the k*ller in it,

because there's just too much

circumstantial

evidence to ignore.

From the beginning of

this investigation,

Scott was the focus

for Al Brocchini and I.

There was blood on the duvet.

It turned out to be his blood.

In the end of the bed,

it looked like

something laid there.

So this could have

been a situation where

maybe he strangled

or smothered Laci

on the end of the bed there.

She scratched him

during the struggle

and then that blood

got on the comforter.

Scott did run to the neighbors,

but the first neighbor

he ran to, he told them,

I've been golfing all day.

Have you seen Laci?

Then he changed it to fishing.

We knew he'd been fishing.

There was saltwater in the boat.

But his fishing rod was more

of a freshwater fishing rod.

And the lure packages

hadn't even been opened.

And so that made us a

little bit more suspicious

of what he was up to.

The timeline suggests

that there were witnesses

that saw Laci on the

morning of the 24th

after Scott left for

his fishing trip.

Anybody that said they saw Laci

walking the dog got interviewed.

Eyewitness testimony

is very subjective.

It would be very

easy for a witness

to wanna be helpful,

to claim later

that they saw Laci, when

actually they didn't,

it was a mistaken

identity thing.

Or, more sinister,

people who wanted to get

involved in this because

it was high profile,

it was in the news, and

everything like that.

And we had a few things

like that that popped up.

But in addition to that,

as the case unfolded,

there was information

from her doctor

that she wasn't really in

any condition to make a walk.

One of the working theories

is that Laci Peterson came out

of this house right

here, 523 Covina,

and there was a

burglary in progress

right across the street.

When it comes to the theory

of Laci being abducted

by the burglars,

people saw vans in

the neighborhood.

They saw women walking

dogs in the neighborhood.

But nobody saw Laci being

abducted, making noise,

screaming, confronting somebody,

having an argument

in the street.

Todd and Pearce,

they alibied out.

We went to, where

were you on Christmas?

Well, they were eating

dinner with Mom and Grandma.

It was investigated thoroughly.

It's rare that a guy

who's doing burglaries

to source a narcotics

habit is gonna

turn into a violent

offender and abduct a girl

and keep her hostage.

And you have to remember

that a lot of property

was recovered from the burglary,

and of all this property that

was inventoried and photoed

and examined, there was not

one piece of property there

that belonged to Laci.

That's why, to me, the

thought of the burglars

being responsible

for her disappearance

is pretty much fantasy.

We had the the

Berkeley receipt.

On that day, we

have the timestamp.

We know that it's

from that marina.

They just gave everyone, you

know, a way to implicate you.

Half of America knew where

this man was on Christmas Eve.

If someone else

committed this crime,

where they would

deposit the bodies

is in the San Francisco Bay.

If you want to assure that

you aren't gonna be convicted

and Scott Peterson will be.

If the burglars were

gonna frame Scott,

they're not gonna weight

the body down and hide it.

You're gonna want it to come up.

Wouldn't they just put her

body right on the beach?

They don't have a boat.

They don't have a truck

that can pull a boat.

They have no way

to get to the bay.

I guess it's possible,

just like anything else is.

But it's also possible

that Jennifer Lopez

is gonna call me after

she leaves Ben Affleck

and wanna have a date.

The Modesto Police

Department did

a phenomenal job in this case.

I feel pretty confident

about the case

that was put together by our

team and especially the way

it was presented to the

jury by the prosecution.

And can they do it

again if they have to?

I believe so.

Now we've got this blood

that needs to be tested,

and my attitude on that

is, test that evidence.

And then you're

gonna be able to show

that it doesn't come

back to anything

to do with Laci or Scott.

If we had the wrong

guy in prison,

we would wanna know about it.

Even 20 years after

the conviction,

you still have the

detectives trying to justify

or prove their case.

The Los Angeles

Innocence Project

only takes cases for defendants

who have a credible

claim of innocence.

The orange van may

be the smoking g*n,

but no one can tell.

We all have to wait

for the DNA testing.

Convicted m*rder*r

Scott Peterson

is in front of a judge today.

The next big hearing

is on May 29th.

And this is a crucial

hearing because the court's

gonna be deciding on a

number of DNA testings.

And we're hoping that the

court approves, if not all,

at least most of them.

Today's hearing could

be the most crucial

in the attempt to try

and earn a new trial.

If Laci Peterson's DNA

is on that mattress,

that's gonna exonerate

Scott Peterson.

[suspenseful music]

♪

A judge ruling is

expected today.

A huge decision

here for this judge

to try to determine

whether there can be

new DNA testing done on

these pieces of evidence.

A no to DNA testing

could be a dagger

to the LAIP's argument,

but a yes to the testing

could be a huge step forward

in asking for a new trial.

Convicted m*rder*r

Scott Peterson

appeared virtually in a

Northern California courtroom

as a judge denied nearly

all DNA testing requests.

The judge mostly rejected

Scott Peterson's request

to test about 15 pieces of

evidence, except for one.

Peterson will be allowed to

test a piece of duct tape

that was found on his wife's

body after it washed ashore.

Most people, including me,

expected that the DNA testing

requests would be granted.

Paula Mitchell, in her

argument before the court,

said, in all the years

that I've been asking

for DNA testing,

I've never had this

kind of resistance.

That, in itself, speaks

volumes, if you ask me.

The DNA on the duct tape on

the pants are gonna be tested.

If someone else's

DNA is on duct tape

that's adhered to Laci's body,

that indicates someone

else is culpable.

That doesn't get

Scott a new trial.

That releases Scott.

It's the initial stages.

This is not the end of it.

It's just the beginning.

And at least we've got one win.

They still have their

discovery motion

that they can argue

that can bring

additional information to light.

Even if you think the

person is a monster,

under our constitution,

he or she is entitled

to a fair trial,

something Scott

Peterson never got.

Criminal defense is

inherently unfair,

simply because the state

has all the resources.

I think most people

think that the courts

will get it right.

But the problem is, when the

courts don't get it right,

it is incredibly hard to fix.

I don't think you

can honestly say,

in looking at this case, even

if you have questions about it,

that this jury got it wrong.

The jury basically mirrors

what most people in

this country believe

who have looked into this case,

and that is that

Scott Peterson did it.

There is no evidence

of manner of death.

There is no evidence

of cause of death.

There is no evidence of

a crime scene anywhere.

There isn't any evidence

that Scott Peterson

engaged in any violence

involving his wife.

When you know that the jury

ultimately learned all of that

and still convicted him,

you have to ask yourself,

what's going on here?

And that's where, I believe,

the media plays a

significant role.

We've been following what

appears to be movement

in the Laci Peterson case.

All of us were so saturated

with media attention

surrounding this case,

all virtually one-sided,

all against Scott Peterson,

that I believe it

became almost impossible

to make a rational decision.

When ratings speak,

when people realize that

there's a voracious

appetite for a story,

they're going to just rev it up.

And the more the

media revved it up,

the more obsession there was.

A Fox News alert.

A major development in the

case of Scott Peterson.

He was dubbed the Most

Hated Man in America,

convicted of murdering

his wife, Laci.

For the first time

in many years,

we're hearing from the

family of Laci Peterson.

This story was a huge

cottage industry.

"The National Enquirer"

never had it so good.

The families of both

Laci and Scott Peterson

watching in court this week.

People think that there's

some conspiracy as to

what we see in the

mainstream media.

Well, here's what we see.

We see what people want to see

because that's how

they make money.

Friends and family of this

young woman, Laci Peterson.

Careers were made on it.

Within months, I

was working at CNN

and had been a national

reporter since.

In Modesto, Ted Rowlands,

KTVU Channel 2 News.

Nancy Grace was a

reoccurring guest.

Her career absolutely exploded.

A lot of lives were changed

because of the death of

Laci and Conner Peterson.

A baby boy, umbilical

cord still attached.

There was a lot of hatred.

There was a lot of

pretrial coverage

and a conviction in the media.

But otherwise, as

far as evidence,

at least I didn't

see any evidence.

Twenty years later, you have

two very compelling stories,

circumstantial as they may be.

If you think Scott

Peterson is guilty,

yeah, there's a ton of

evidence on your side.

If you think Scott

Peterson is not guilty,

there's some compelling

evidence on your side.

The problem is, there's

no black and white,

here's why we think he

did it or didn't do it.

There's nothing concrete.

And that's what the

LA Innocence Project,

I guess, is after.

Journalism is all

about finding the truth

and holding our public

servants accountable.

At some point, law enforcement

has to engage in this.

It has to open their

minds a little further.

If they go to another

trial, I'm not gonna like it

because it's gonna disrupt

a lot of people's lives.

And the big thing for

me is what it does

to Sharon, Amy, Brent.

When they got the verdict,

they were probably

on the attitude that,

oh, this is all done

and we can resume our lives.

But no, it doesn't

work that way.

People never come to

terms with something

like a m*rder in their family.

There's no such

thing as closure.

It's something that haunts

you and you live with

for the rest of your life.

It's been 22 years

since Laci went missing.

So really, this tragedy is

it's been part of our

lives for a very long time.

My kids grew up with it.

My nieces and nephews

grew up with it.

We've lived with this

injustice droning

in the background of life.

Our biggest hope

is that we not only

are able to free Scott,

but ultimately find out

what did happen to

Laci and Conner.

We need both.

And Laci deserves both.

Her name is Laci Peterson,

and she has disappeared

without a trace.

Are you in any way connected

to Laci's disappearance?

I had nothing to do with

Laci's disappearance.

- Somebody has Laci.

- Authorities are baffled.

A brown van could back up

a defense theory

Laci was abducted.

$1,000 for someone that

leads us to the persons

responsible for the burglary.

We were shocked to find out that

he'd been having an affair.

I'm only left to question

what else he may be hiding.

A female adult body was

discovered late this morning

by a woman walking

the shoreline.

m*rder suspect Scott Peterson

had $10,000 in cash

when he was arrested

near the Mexican border.

A crowd of 250 taunted

and heckled him,

calling him a m*rder*r.

Peterson has been

found guilty of first-

and second-degree m*rder.

[cheering]

Whoo-hoo! That's

it! I'm happy!

The judge in Scott

Peterson's m*rder trial

sentenced him,

calling him cruel,

uncaring, and heartless.

Scott got what he deserved.

Key questions remain unanswered

and have left some wondering,

will we ever get to the truth?

[somber music]

♪

Every moment is so real, is

so tactile and still there.

And the smells and the

lighting and the sound

of when I say goodbye to Laci,

I mean, my family was gone.

I drove away, expecting to

come back that afternoon

and have our wonderful

Christmas together

after we both had, you

know, fun mornings.

And no, they were gone.

And it's still

very, very present.

But there are certainly

times that I become a wreck.

Excuse me.

You know, I try not

to be too emotional

when I'm out here in the

day room of the prison.