Original subtitles

[somber music]

* *

- Hey, Shareen.

- Hi, Scott. How are you?

- I should tell you this in advance.

I'm looking at the clock here. It's 1:18.

It's supposed to be a 1:30 lockup,

so we may only get 12 minutes.

- OK.

- I'm not sure what they'll do.

- I have a few questions for you today.

After the world basically heard your phone calls

with Amber Frey,

they came to the conclusion that you killed Laci.

How does that make you feel?

- Why didn't you tell the police right away

about Amber Frey?

[ominous music]

* *

- Police in Modesto, California, continue searching

for 27-year-old Laci Peterson.

[dramatic music]

- As the investigation into the disappearance

of Laci Peterson continues,

police are tracking her husband's movements

outside the Modesto, California, area.

- Even as the focus of the search

appears to be shifting towards Scott,

Modesto Police have still not named him as a suspect.

* *

- I'm Mike Gudgell.

I've been involved in the Peterson case

for almost two decades now.

In 2002, I was working for ABC News

as an editorial producer.

When I first arrived, a couple of days after Christmas Day,

it was quite a crowd of media surrounding the house...

police checkpoints, satellite trucks.

It was what I call a complete media feeding frenzy.

By then, we really hadn't established sources

with the police,

but we were hearing they were focused on Scott.

We heard that the Petersons

had hired a private investigator.

We understood he was talking to witnesses

who saw Laci alive after Scott left.

That might be different than what

we're hearing from the police.

- A beautiful young lady, very pregnant.

- Walking across the street.

- Walking, like, towards the park.

- The fact is, within a 30, 40-minute time,

there were five or six witnesses who saw Laci.

So we knew that the police narrative wasn't solid.

And then we heard that there had been a burglary next door.

- We had a burglary that was reported to have occurred

directly across the street from the residence in question here.

- We're outside the home of Scott and Laci Peterson's home

in Modesto, 523 Covena.

We want to show you directly across the street.

That's 516, known as the Medina home,

that had a burglary happen right around the time frame

of Laci Peterson's disappearance.

- The Medinas left December 24th at about 10:30 AM.

They returned home December 26th

at about 4:30 in the afternoon.

During the time frame while they were gone

is when Laci was reported missing.

- When the news of the burglary came out,

we assumed immediately that it would be

a big break in the case.

- Really kind of went, oh, OK, we're getting somewhere now.

This could be the best lead that we've had.

- The police were now not only trying to figure out

what happened to Laci,

but they were trying to solve the Medina burglary,

thinking that this burglary

potentially had something to do with what happened to Laci.

- The issue around the burglary is when did it happen?

On the 24th, the day Laci went missing,

a neighbor of Scott and Laci was driving home.

- I was coming home from the hand therapist

and drove by Laci's house.

And I thought, "Oh, who are those people

on the Medinas' front lawn?"

And they were right next to a van.

One door was a little open.

They turned around and looked at me,

and I felt hostility.

But I didn't think anything of it.

I thought, "Well, I don't need to be

"looking at them or waving or anything.

I'll just go on home."

- When she heard about this burglary

and then the news of Laci's disappearance,

she came forward and thought, "Oh, maybe this is important."

- Diane Jackson described the three men as dark skinned

but not African American.

- A thousand dollars for someone

that leads us to the persons responsible for the burglary.

- They had put out a reward.

On the reward flyer, they used the information

that they'd gotten from Diane Jackson.

You're looking for a van.

You're looking for three men.

- They put a senior detective from the Major Crimes Unit

on it, got an informant almost immediately.

- They've actually made two arrests in that today.

- Modesto Police arrested two suspects,

Steven Todd and Donald Pearce.

- Their cooperation level was off the charts.

- They both polygraphed.

They wanted the polygraphs released to the media

because they wanted the people in the jail to know

that they were not involved in this case.

- Steven Todd and Glen Pearce,

neither one of them is dark skinned, not African American.

But also, neither one of them

has ever been associated with a van.

They said that they used a car

and a bike to commit the burglaries.

- The informant told police that up to five people

were involved, and they didn't look into

any of the others.

- Well, I'd like to see who these additional people are

and where they came up with the idea

that additional people were involved

in the burglary itself.

I don't see anything that would suggest that.

Diane Jackson claimed that she saw a van

across the street from the Peterson house on the 24th.

She couldn't even really confirm

what the color of the van was.

And when you have that kind of discrepancy,

when it comes to even the description of the vehicle,

it calls into question the reliability of that witness.

- At this point, there is no connection.

There's no leads to indicate that they were involved

in the missing of Laci.

- We solved that burglary.

Found out that it, in fact, occurred on the 26th.

- Steven Todd says that the burglary was on the 26th,

but that's according to the burglar.

He changed it.

He picked, "Oh, it happened on December 27th.

Oh, no, it was the 26th."

So it wasn't very reliable, that's for sure.

- I thought, "Well, that's quite interesting,"

because on the 26th,

there was a lot of activity on Scott and Laci's street,

and how could burglars get in and out

without anybody seeing them?

I thought it was highly improbable

that that was the truth.

- They solved that burglary really quickly.

But there's a distinction that needs to be made

between solving the burglary

and saying it didn't have anything to do

with Laci's disappearance.

I find that pretty unbelievable.

That would be an incredible coincidence.

One of the lead investigators, Jon Buehler, often told me,

there are no coincidences in murder investigations.

[suspenseful music]

- Todd and Pearce, the two that we know

burgled the house across the street.

We don't know who else was in that burglary.

We know there were others.

There was just no desire to pursue

what the evidence was telling them.

I mean, it was the evidence that they just decided

to ignore and go with theory.

- Today marking the one-month anniversary

of Laci Peterson's disappearance.

Police right now expected any moment now

to walk up to the podium and give us the very latest

on their investigation.

- The press conference of...

of all press conferences

was when they marched out Amber Frey.

- I am very sorry for Laci's family

and the...the pain that this has caused them.

- Amber changed everything.

She became the focus.

- Wow, what a development that is.

- The missing woman's apparently perfect marriage

may not have been so perfect.

that he'd been having an affair.

And we felt that if he had not been truthful about that,

that possibly there's other things

he needs to talk to us about.

- Support for Scott Peterson has wavered

since police told Laci's family.

- I would like Scott to know that I trusted him

and stood by him in the initial phases

of my sister's disappearance.

However, Scott has not been forthcoming with information

regarding my sister's disappearance,

and I'm only left to question what else he may be hiding.

- Scott had been declining

interview requests consistently.

- Now, when Amber Frey is out there,

nobody's looking for Laci.

Everybody thinks he's guilty.

So he decided, all right, I'll do a few interviews.

- Did you murder your wife?

- No, no. I did not.

And I had absolutely nothing to do with her disappearance.

- In that interview with Diane Sawyer,

Scott makes the outlandish claim that...

- I told my wife.

- He told Laci about the affair,

and she was OK with it.

- There wasn't a lot of anger?

- No.

- Do you really expect people to believe

that an 8 and 1/2 month pregnant woman

learns her husband has had an affair

and makes a peace with it?

- Well, I...yeah, you don't know.

No one knows our relationship but us.

- That was the nail in his coffin.

This is ludicrous, the idea that Laci knew about Amber.

- He came across as being disingenuous.

And in a couple of cases, just lied right out.

- Had you told anyone?

Did you tell police?

- I told the police immediately.

- When? - December 24th.

- Laci Peterson's husband admits he lied

about his extramarital affair with Amber Frey.

- When you're in a hole, stop digging.

- He shot himself in the foot so many times,

he ought to be on crutches.

- That's when the word "psychopath"

started to creep in in some of the reports.

- He did four interviews, I believe, total.

One of the interviews he did was with me.

- Well, the polygraph is another one of those things.

I'm not saying I have. I'm not saying I haven't.

- There's no winning.

You can never present the reality.

If you go out and you do an interview,

it's gonna be edited.

It's gonna be awful.

- Amber Frey claims that you called her on the 24th,

told her that you were going to Brussels.

- Yeah, this is a short newscast,

and I don't know how much of these words

you're going to use or not.

But I'm not gonna waste that by defending myself,

talking about irrelevant things.

- He looked like a narcissistic,

lying killer.

- I've had people spit on me at gas stations.

I've received death threats on the phone.

- I had someone in the front yard

claiming they were a witch,

burying things in the front lawn.

I wish I could say I was stronger,

but all that stuff did take a toll on me.

I just remembered how insane I was

going with no sleep

and worried about Conner and Laci

and what seemed like just a apathetic response

from the police department.

- Scott's behavior fit into things

that we've seen before with other murder cases...

limited cooperation level, his cool, calm demeanor

when everybody else was just frantic.

And there were too many other

circumstantial evidence items to ignore.

It started to become increasingly obvious to us

that they would be found in the bay.

[tense music]

* *

- The search in the waters

just outside the Berkeley Marina began early.

17 divers from Alameda County loaded up on boats

and swept the floor of the open water

just outside of the marina.

- Scott had given us a detailed description of how he had

gone out of the marina, and he'd gone to the north,

and he found this island, which turned out

to be Brooks Island, with a sign that said,

you're not supposed to leave your boat

and walk around on the island.

So it seemed obvious that he probably

let her go in the area right by Brooks Island

in the Berkeley Marina.

* *

- My name is Danny Lopez.

I was the officer in charge of the San Francisco

Police Department Marine Patrol.

We're retracing Scott Peterson's trip

on the 24th.

Dead ahead is the Brooks Island.

The reason that it's difficult to find somebody

in the San Francisco Bay is the visibility

is probably about this much.

This is the location that we were spending most of our time.

That's where the grid searches were done,

the side-scan sonar, the underwater searches,

cadaver dogs.

- We're continuing our search today,

and we're concentrating on...

on several different things.

We were on that water every day,

sometimes with multiple boats,

multiple water cadaver dogs,

helicopters.

The number of searches in that bay

probably was in the mid-500 range.

It's a lot of area to cover.

- It was looking for a needle in the haystack blindfolded.

One of those things that you just do it.

You have to give closure to the family.

[tense music]

- I think the way it started to affect me

and others was the fact that

it was a pregnant mother that was missing.

We keep searching till we find her.

I'll just keep carrying this on,

and my family will understand why I'm not home.

And I felt like I was looking for my sister.

[somber music]

* *

You can't help to get a personal attachment

over a period of time.

* *

- This is a good... good point of reference.

Another part of the search was to look for devices, anchors,

homemade anchors, anything that would

have kept a body submerged.

- We found two homemade anchors.

They were cylindrical.

They looked like they were formed in a large coffee can

or maybe a paint can.

It was determined that they were not connected

to the Scott Peterson investigation,

so they were thrown back into the bay.

But I thought it was odd

that we didn't put them into evidence

and examine them.

After months and months of searching

with multiple agencies, they were never recovered.

- The district attorney at the time,

he said, "Hey, if you don't bring me a body,

you don't have a filing."

- We're getting to that point where there really

wasn't anything coming in.

We were resurrecting some old tips and clearing those out,

but nothing ground shaking until we get to April.

[ominous music]

* *

- In 2003, I was a police officer

with the East Bay Regional Park District.

One day during briefing,

one of our sergeants made a comment...

"I bet she'll show up at Point Isabel."

His experience, it was that the way the tides flow

in San Francisco Bay, that more than once,

they had had bodies that had been recovered

from the area of Point Isabel.

* *

- A female adult body was discovered late this morning

by a woman walking the shoreline at Point Isabel

in the city of Richmond.

- You could see a deceased female

lying face down on the shoreline.

Her body was in terrible,

obviously very decomposed condition.

One of the things that I noticed on her body

was a strip of duct tape that was on the front of her torso.

My first reaction was, "We better notify

the Modesto Police Department."

- I remember vividly being in my car

and hearing it on the radio

that a body had been found

and that an infant body had also been found the day before.

- No word yet on whether the two bodies found in the bay

are those of Laci Peterson and her baby.

The lab results could come any time now.

* *

So frankly, we thought because

there hadn't been an announcement...

You know, it wasn't unheard of.

There was...

there's been other bodies, you know,

on the bay before.

There's some people who've driven into the bay,

and their bodies were found.

So it wasn't like it was the only possibility.

[tense music]

- The bodies hadn't been confirmed as Laci and Conner,

although it looked likely that they were.

- We put a team of guys on Scott right away.

We were gonna just watch him

until the attorney general released the DNA evidence.

We still had a wiretap on his phone,

so we could hear what he was saying, talking to his brother.

[tense music]

[suspenseful music]

- The next day, all of a sudden,

Scott started moving very early in the day.

And so the chase was on.

* *

- Yeah, see that tangle?

- I'll be right there.

- Ah, that's nice right there.

The fish, oh, yeah.

All right, look at that monster.

- I wanted to talk more about the arrest

and what that day was like for you.

- Action photo.

- It may seem odd to other people, but, like...

- Look at the camera.

And be together.

And then when I got on the road...

- I don't want a picture of me being taken and, you know,

splashed on a tabloid.

I just could imagine what the headlines were.

- Scott was very good at counter-surveillance driving.

As he would drive along at high speeds,

he would brake heavily and cut lanes.

- We were concerned that he was gonna get into a wreck

or he was gonna create a traffic collision behind him

because of his evasive moves.

- And so we made a decision that if...

if he hurt somebody, we're gonna be in trouble.

So let's arrest him.

[sirens wailing]

- We were stopped at the entrance to Torrey Pines.

[camera clicks]

- When Scott got out of the car, he was...

he was Scott.

There was no protest.

"You got the wrong guy.

"Why am I in cuffs?

"What are you doing?

Why aren't you guys looking for the killer?"

[camera clicks]

- He dyed his hair to a different color,

grown a goatee,

which further disguised him slightly

so maybe he wouldn't be noticed.

- Searched his car.

He had cell phones.

He had Viagra.

He had everything you need

from going to a gala

to a camping trip.

He could dig a gold mine.

Most people don't drive around with $10,000 cash

and their brother's driver's license.

- And some people had said

that maybe he was fleeing to Mexico.

He could easily go anywhere he wanted and fit in.

- I don't understand that at all,

because I just want to be clear.

I was never running from the police.

I was always in contact with them.

I'd answer most of their calls.

There were times that I was very frustrated,

that I would not take their calls.

- I found out he was arrested about 2:00.

It was...

it was just... we were just in shock.

We were in...we were in absolute shock.

So we had to make arrangements and travel to Modesto

and attend his arraignment.

[tense music]

- Police in California said today that murder suspect

Scott Peterson had $10,000 in cash when he was arrested

near the Mexican border.

- He had some cash in his car.

His brother, John, was gonna buy Scott's truck from him,

so he gave Scott the cash

to buy Scott out of his truck.

And Scott was still carrying that cash

at the point that he was arrested.

- He had changed his appearance.

Police feared he might be preparing to flee to Mexico.

- That's a narrative we still battle to this day.

Scott was spending a lot of time with family in San Diego.

I live in San Diego.

His parents lived in San Diego.

And San Diego borders Mexico.

So when Scott was arrested, the national headline was

"Scott was arrested 30 miles from the Mexican border."

The bodies had been found five days before,

but we still had not heard a positive identification.

Then I want to say within a couple of hours of that

was the press conference.

- There is no question in our minds

that the unidentified female

is Laci Peterson.

The unidentified fetus

is the biological child

of Laci and Scott Peterson.

- [sniffles]

- We were not notified.

We heard it like everyone else.

And we were crushed.

All of the fear that we had in Laci being missing

and the pins and needles that... you know, and the ups and downs

that we went through for the past four months

had really...

now, it's hit rock bottom.

[somber music]

* *

- After Scott was arrested,

we started driving back from San Diego to Modesto.

[somber music]

* *

When Scott received this news,

I just recall Scott making kind of like a sniffling noise,

and that was it.

There wasn't any hysterics, no screams.

"No, it can't be!"

No theatrics, nothing like that.

- He bowed his head and pushed out a tear.

He was quiet. He didn't say nothing.

* *

15 miles later, when we stopped,

he ate a double double, you know, from In-N-Out,

and a shake and a fries

and gobbled it all down just like nothing,

just like we're just coming home from fishing.

- The police report says that Scott had a tear

coming down his face.

He'd been in custody for hours at this point,

and he's...he's going to county jail.

The perception and the way it's presented is

it's as though Scott was told his wife and son were dead

and he ordered a cheeseburger five minutes later.

[ominous music]

- Well, now we can move forward.

And now justice can be done.

- Soon after Laci went missing, I made a promise to her

that if she has been harmed, we will seek justice

for her and Conner and make sure that that person

responsible for their...

for their deaths will be punished.

[tense music]

- What became a fight to find Laci

then became a fight to save Scott's life.

* *

- Shortly after midnight,

when investigators escorted Scott Peterson

to the Stanislaus County Jail,

a crowd of 250 taunted and heckled him,

calling him a murderer.

- I just hope he gets the same death that he gave his family.

- Call the case of The People versus Scott Lee Peterson.

- Under tight security, Scott Peterson,

wearing chains on his wrists and ankles,

was walked into a packed Modesto courtroom today.

- Once Scott was arraigned,

we were looking for an attorney,

and my parents had watched "The Larry King Show"

for the last several months.

That's really where we first met Mark Geragos.

- This case is intriguing, if for nothing else,

is that the more there's a lynch mob mentality out there

for him, the more that it's intriguing.

- They hired him.

He was media savvy.

He seemed like he had a good team.

- I just wanted to say that we're happy that Mark is

in place as Scott's attorney,

and we do look forward to proving his innocence.

- I'm Lara Yeretsian,

and I'm a criminal defense attorney of over two decades.

We got the case in 2003.

I was a young attorney.

This case was on a whole new level.

- 27-year-old mom-to-be, eight months pregnant.

- As the investigation into the disappearance of Laci Peterson

continues, police are... - Though neither the victim

nor the accused was famous before,

the Peterson case has now taken on celebrity status.

- I'd handled a number of cases,

but nothing that came close to the magnitude of this case.

The interest was so intense in this case.

I just remember walking with Mark Geragos

towards the courthouse.

People would come up to us with questions.

And it wasn't just the media.

- Mark, can we get a quick word with ya?

- Right now? How about after? - OK.

- People would even ask for Mark's autograph.

I mean, he had become a celebrity.

- Thank you very much.

I'll see you guys on Thursday.

- Come on. Come on, be human beings right now.

- There was a lot of anger, palpable anger,

towards Scott Peterson.

[suspenseful music]

And everybody had an opinion about this case.

Every single person I knew had an opinion.

And I can tell you,

every single person believed that he was guilty.

* *

- Michael Cardoza.

Top defense attorney in the area,

who was in the courtroom today.

- I'm Michael Cardoza.

I've been a criminal defense attorney for over 45 years.

And at that time, I was doing some legal commentary

on "The Larry King Show."

Here's what this case boils down to, Larry.

There are three things.

The defense team came to me and asked me

if I would do a mock cross-examination

of Scott Peterson.

I went into jail. I walked in.

I sat down. They brought Scott in.

And I began my cross-examination.

I cannot tell you how and what happened,

but you can imagine, you know, what questions were asked.

And they made a decision he wasn't going to testify.

- I hope he goes to prison for the rest of his life.

- I'm just glad that the animal got caught.

- What you have to remember is you're putting a man up there

who was hated by America.

And then you witnessed the previous interviews

and how poorly he did there.

- You know what?

It's a positive to allow us to go on to search for Laci.

- Why would you expect he's gonna do a 180

and come across convincing

the jury that he didn't do it?

I think if you put Scott Peterson on the stand,

he would have been eaten alive.

* *

- Opening statements begin today in the double-murder

trial of Scott Peterson.

- Scott Peterson's case is a character evidence case

and nothing else.

But the smoke and mirrors to it

is the suggestion that there's a great deal

of circumstantial evidence. There isn't.

There's an affair, and there's the location of the bodies.

That's the entire case.

- People don't wrap themselves in duct tape

and then go jump in the San Francisco Bay

in the middle of winter.

- The state knew the problems with their case.

They didn't know how he did it, when he did it,

but they knew that he was a liar, a cheater.

And they relied on that.

- All of these things were impossible.

If those things were impossible,

then this man murdered Laci Peterson.

- They just didn't have anything of substance.

So we felt very good and very confident.

- If the court wants to talk about prejudicial publicity,

having poster-sized pictures of him labeled as a monster

in chains, I don't think is...

is somehow conducive to getting a fair trial.

- My first impression was that the Geragos team

was very professional

and were prepared for this.

- Mark Geragos comes out

in his opening statement and says,

"Yes, he's a cheater.

Yes, he's a 14-carat A-hole,

but he's not a killer."

- Now, on the prosecuting attorney side,

I didn't feel that way.

I thought that they were bumbling it.

- Scott Peterson's tone and demeanor

following Laci's disappearance are being called into question.

This after prosecutors played a taped police interview

with him describing what he did

the day Laci disappeared.

- Day one, there was a mistake made.

Scott says that the morning of Laci's disappearance...

- The prosecution claims that Martha Stewart

wasn't talking about meringue that morning,

that they say this is evidence he was lying.

- Geragos brings it in.

He says, "Let's roll the tape," and you see it.

- Ooh, you want to make little meringues?

- Oh, that would be nice.

- The prosecution got it wrong.

And this happens at the jump of the trial.

- Did you check these windows? - Yeah.

- You don't commit a violent crime

without getting your hands dirty.

The police executed

more than 10 search warrants on the home

and his place of business.

- Officers began a search of the couple's home

late last night.

- After they found pretty much zero physical evidence

in the house or in the truck or in the boat,

the theory had to become that this was a soft kill.

- A soft kill is a murder that doesn't involve a weapon,

that doesn't leave behind essentially

obvious forensic evidence.

- The coroner has yet to determine the cause of death.

- Unless there is a pretty good cause of death in the torso,

they're stuck.

- How was this person killed?

We don't know.

And throughout the trial, we never found out.

- Even a soft kill leaves behind some sort of trail.

If he kills her

and is dragging her around to his workshop

and then to the San Francisco Bay,

how did he pull that off?

- It's what you say when you have absolutely no evidence

that there was a crime that occurred in this home.

But if they were being fair about it,

they'd also have to acknowledge, "By the way,

"given the state and condition of the bodies

"when we finally found them, there's no evidence

that it was a soft kill."

[upbeat music]

- Tonight, day nine of Scott Peterson's murder trial,

and his attorney, Mark Geragos,

grills police on the stand.

- Detective Al Brocchini was the first investigator

on the scene the day Laci Peterson was reported missing.

- He was pretty hard on me.

You know, Geragos was.

I was the bad guy.

Every mistake I made, he turned it into a whole day

of talking about it.

- Detective Brocchini was a little forgetful

from time to time.

In cross-examination, the defense already

questioning his motives.

- I testified that nobody knew Scott had a boat.

- He says Laci knew he had a boat, but we can't ask her.

- Brocchini felt like it will strengthen his case

if he makes it look like Laci

didn't even know about the boat.

She didn't even know.

That hugely backfired on him.

Geragos scored the most points when Brocchini took the stand

because Brocchini had redacted a piece of his report.

- We interviewed everybody in all those shops

near the warehouse,

and I interviewed a man

that said Laci used the bathroom of a lady

that owned a shop on the 23rd,

the day before Laci was actually missing.

So when I got my report back, I deleted that line.

Geragos, he's like, "What happened?

Who took that line out of your police report?"

And I said, "I did."

Ah.

That's a big moment.

I...I eliminated some exculpatory evidence

from my police report.

I can't reply.

I can't say, "Well, it's in Holmes's report.

He's got it all in there."

- All it takes, one juror to say,

"I don't believe that detective.

He had an agenda."

- Legal analysts say they've heard nothing yet

that they think would convince a jury to convict Peterson.

- We believed that there was no way they were gonna

be able to show this case, prove it,

because the jury is gonna see that this was nonsensical.

It made no sense.

- It felt to me like the Modesto Police Department

had basically put their sights on Scott Peterson

and that they put all their eggs in one basket.

- Geragos was able to just seed

each one of these state witnesses

with reasonable doubt.

- The analytical research studying micro-expressions

of people's faces.

- It was unbelievable

how Mark Geragos took over that courtroom.

The defense was winning.

- We've set the bar extremely high.

And that's to prove that Scott is not only factually innocent,

but to figure out exactly who it is

did this horrible thing to Scott's wife

and to Scott's son.

- By its nature, a defense attorney's job

is not to prove anything.

It's simply to demonstrate that this package

with the bow on top

that the state is trying to create for you,

it...it...it doesn't exist.

It's not real.

But Mark Geragos's statements said,

"We're not just going to plant reasonable doubt.

"We're going to prove that Scott Peterson

is stone-cold innocent."

Those were the words.

- The actual perpetrator is still out there.

We plan on finding that person.

- Experts say, normally,

a defense attorney wouldn't make promises to a jury,

but defense attorney Mark Geragos made several.

- That's what sticks with the jury.

But the problem is, he overpromised

and under-delivered.

- Mark Geragos is great on cross-examination,

and he's tripping the police up in a lot of little details.

The reality is that those little details

may not add up to a not guilty verdict.

- If you had a graph in terms of the strength of the defense

and the persuasiveness of the cross-examination,

it wanes over time.

- Tonight, Scott Peterson's former lover,

Amber Frey, finally takes the stand

at his double-murder trial.

- There was a major shift in this case

when Amber Frey appeared.

- Jurors heard Amber Frey accuse Scott Peterson

of planning the murder of his pregnant wife.

- It wasn't what she testified to.

It was that through her testimony and in her testimony,

we heard all of those tapes.

- The prosecution did something I'd never seen before or since.

They had printed out the transcripts

of every single phone call.

It was so compelling

not to just hear it,

but to be able to make notes on it.

And you could see the jurors making notes.

You know, here's where he said, "I lost my wife."

Here's the date. Here's this call.

Here's this call.

- The Amber tapes were clearly

one of the worst pieces of evidence in the case.

It showed a side of him that was comfortably lying.

- If you could have heard this testimony today,

the credibility of Scott Peterson is now on the line.

- The defense made a decision not to bring up

any of these dog-walking eyewitnesses

that thought they saw Laci.

- The prosecution and law enforcement

had done a beautiful job

of trying to discredit these people.

They made these people think that what they were saying

was not accurate.

Some of them thought, "Are we going crazy?

Is it possible that it wasn't her?"

And guess what happens to that witness?

That becomes a weak witness for the defense.

- Had anybody put witnesses on the stand that would support

the claim that Laci was walking the dog,

that would have made a lot of difference.

- If somebody actually really saw Laci,

then, yes, that would be important.

- Didn't happen.

And...and I think that people second guessed

Mark Geragos specifically for that decision.

- The judge believed that the burglary and Laci's

disappearance were unrelated and wouldn't allow

any evidence in the trial.

- Everyone discounted the burglary

because they believed that it happened

after Laci's disappearance.

- It meant the jury didn't hear evidence about the burglary.

- Without the Medina burglary being admitted into evidence,

there's no other alternate theory that can explain

Laci Peterson's disappearance.

- Part of the problem was they wanted to get the trial over

as soon as possible so he would be exonerated

and continue with his life.

And I think that was a mistake because I really don't think

the defense had enough time to really understand the case

to defend it properly.

And, gosh, I look back on that now,

and I wonder if that was the right decision.

We had the evidence of my innocence.

It was a nightmare being stuck in county jail.

And I kind of wonder, gosh, if I...

If I had been more prudent or patient or whatever,

maybe things would've been different.

- The Scott Peterson murder trial may go to the jury today.

- This man murdered Laci Peterson.

- The prosecutor, in his closing argument,

says, look at this as a jigsaw puzzle.

You need to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

Is it a coincidence that Scott Peterson

was looking at tide charts?

Is it a coincidence that Scott Peterson

told Amber Frey he lost his wife

the same month that she died?

Is it a coincidence that there was cement found,

anchor circles in his warehouse?

All these things add up to murder.

- The prosecution came with this very deliberate argument

that it's open and shut.

This is a man who was staring down the barrel

of domesticity with his wife and this child on the way,

that he wanted nothing to do with any of that.

The facts are borne out in the extramarital relationship

he's having and the things that he is saying to his mistress.

- In his closing argument, defense attorney Mark Geragos

told jurors that prosecutors wanted them to hate Peterson,

but that was not reason enough to convict him.

- It's hard to be critical, but I was uncomfortable

when the defense rested.

- You must not be biased against the defendant

because he has been arrested for this offense,

charged with a crime, or brought to trial.

- After being instructed by the judge for nearly an hour,

the six men and six women of the jury

will now decide Scott Peterson's fate.

- We went through things that were key points to each person.

- We did take polls to find out

what people were concerned about

and what we needed answers to.

Are we ready to make a decision,

or are there other things that need to be answered?

What questions do we have?

- That's why our deliberation took the time it did

because everybody had questions

and different opinions of things.

- I was counting on a jury that would come back

with an acquittal

because I thought, there's no evidence here.

There's no forensic evidence.

There's nothing to tie him to the murder.

- Everything in this case you can look at

from a different lens.

Take one piece of evidence and look at it

from the state's side.

And then you take that exact same fact

and look at it from Scott Peterson's side.

And you can make an argument

of those components of this case.

- 116 people waited to get the chance at witnessing

the verdict being read.

- The decision coming after more than 40 hours

of deliberations.

- Across the country, millions of Americans

familiar with the faces of this unfolding drama

could only listen to its final moments.

* *

- We walked back into the courtroom.

* *

I just remember I was really, really...

I was perspiring.

I mean, I was...

I could feel my heart pounding.

- One of the toughest moments for any lawyer

is the moment right before

the jury foreman

reads the verdict.

It almost feels like your heart is gonna stop.

- A crowd outside the Redwood City Courthouse

waited in tense silence for the verdict.

- We find the defendant, Scott Lee Peterson,

guilty of the crime of murder.

[cheering]

- There were cheers, too, in Modesto,

Laci Peterson's hometown.

[cheering]

Inside the courtroom, even the judge

seemed to choke with emotion.

Laci Peterson's family sobbed.

But Scott Peterson showed no obvious reaction.

- I looked at my dad, and he had a shocked look on his face.

I had a shocked look.

I couldn't even cry.

I was just, like, stunned.

- A lot of people are not fooled by...

by what went on here.

This is just a travesty.

- When the clerk read the verdict,

I just remember thinking that...

that I'd just missed the word "not."

She must have just said "not guilty."

I missed it.

And you could hear a crowd

outside the courthouse erupt.

- Oh, we got him. That's it.

I'm happy. Thank God!

Thank God!

- I don't know how else to describe it

other than absolute shock.

- Our family's going to make it.

We're stronger because of this.

And Scott got what he deserved.

- I don't think that Amber Frey was...was the issue.

I think that this...

this had been planned before Amber Frey

even got in the picture.

I've had people after the trial come up to me and say,

"Was he really guilty?"

And I go, are you serious?

I would find somebody that was innocent guilty?

I would never do that.

- We just said a man was guilty of killing

his wife and unborn child.

That's a terrible thing.

What's there to cheer about?

Nobody on that jury wanted to find Scott Peterson guilty

just for the sake of finding him guilty

or because of public opinion.

My decision

was nothing more than what I found

based on evidence and testimony.

- Seeing what we saw, I'm a mother of four.

Goddamn, that was his son.

He'll never come clean.

He'll never admit it.

He'll go to his grave with it, and then he'll go to hell,

straight to hell and rot.

- Peterson has been found guilty

of first and second-degree murder.

Now, Scott Peterson is eligible for the death penalty.

[tense music]

- The jury finds him guilty.

And then the question is, what's the penalty?

Do you get life in prison?

Do you get the death penalty?

- We're gonna have to ask this jury,

who thinks that he murdered his wife and unborn son,

to not take his life.

- Hi, everyone. First up on the docket,

while you were eating your Thanksgiving turkey at home,

Scott Peterson was eating his behind bars,

waiting for the penalty phase of his trial to begin.

- Witnesses reminded the jury the emotional toll

a death verdict would have on Scott's parents.

The defense is hoping for an ounce of sympathy

peppered with lingering doubt.

- This afternoon, customers gathered at the bar

to watch the jury's penalty decision on TV.

[applause]

- After calling him cruel, uncaring, and heartless,

the judge in Scott Peterson's murder trial

sentenced him to death for killing his wife,

Laci, and their unborn child.

- This is a box of letters and cards

that was sent to our family, mostly from 2003 to 2004.

"You must be in so much pain seeing

"your child going through this.

"Your grief has to be beyond words.

"You have lost a daughter-in-law and a grandson.

"And your son is facing challenges

"like he has never known.

"I cannot even comprehend the pain you have to bear.

"Hold on to each other with all that you have.

Your strength will pull you through."

"Dear Lee and Jackie,

"I realize that this case did not involve

"just one family but two.

"I'm the mother of a seven-year-old boy,

"and if I were in your situation,

I would have stood by my son, as you did yours."

Getting letters like this really,

really did make the difference

and make us feel like we weren't alone.

We...we thought the whole world thought Scott was guilty,

but even to fill up

just a few boxes of letters at that time

really made a big difference.

"Tonight, my heart is filled with deep sadness.

"After watching so long to see Scott go home with his family,

"your son did not get a fair trial,

and there is no city in the USA where he could."

- Not long after his conviction,

as the dust settled,

everyone started to realize,

this doesn't feel like this is right.

This doesn't feel like it was a powerful, compelling case.

[tense music]

- There have always been a lot of questions

about how, when, where, and why.

They were never answered in the trial itself.

- We depend upon the police to turn over every stone

and to examine every clue.

If they don't do that,

if they disregard every piece of evidence

that doesn't fit their theory,

then their conclusions are gonna be tainted

and likely wrong.

- The Modesto Police Department were absolutely

laser-focused on Scott

because they thought he did it.

- There are a slew of eyewitnesses

who saw Laci Peterson walking her dog

in and around the neighborhood.

- There's probably 12 to 13 people that never had

a face-to-face interview with a detective

while Laci was missing.

- I have forever been bothered by the fact

that the jury didn't hear about those witnesses.

- I've always believed that the burglary

had something to do with it.

- I think the police decided very early on

that Scott was guilty.

And I think because of it, they didn't effectively investigate

the Medina burglary.

- The prosecution position was at the time

that the burglary didn't even happen on the day

of Laci's disappearance.

If that burglary happened

when Laci was around and still alive,

it could not have been a coincidence.

- I don't think the police looked

at the burglary enough to understand the tie-ins

to Laci's disappearance.

- There's so much reasonable doubt,

we're still talking about it now.

- There are so many instances where there is evidence

that didn't fit the detective's theory.

They just assumed she was dead.

Well, what if they talked to these people,

and they found out where she was

and they learned information from them

which could have brought her home?

- Here we are 20 years later trying to piece this together.

I don't know that we ever felt like we could look up and...

and see that light at the end of the tunnel.

But to have the Los Angeles Innocence Project

come on board and file motions

that are being actively litigated,

I think it gives us great hope.

- You know, the Los Angeles Innocence Project believes

that there is a case here.

This isn't about one side winning or losing.

This is about justice.

This is about the fairness of a trial.

An innocent man has been in jail for 20 years now.

And where is the justice in that?

Somebody has to fight for him.

People have fought for him for years.

And now we've got a new group fighting for him.

[ominous music]

* *