Killer Dads

by Mary Papenfuss

  Rocha: I’m thinking that’s when I asked him, “Where do you think she is?”

  Distaso: And did he say?

  Rocha: No.

  When they returned to the house, Rocha testified, she walked over to give Scott “a hug because I felt that, you know, we were all upset, and I knew his family wasn’t here and we’d always been close so I wanted to console him—and myself, for that matter. And as I walked up to him I was never able to do that because he kept kind of angling, like, away from me so that we never had eye contact. I wanted to ask him some questions,” she added. “And finally I did. I asked him what Laci was doing, or what her plans were for the day. And he told me that she had planned on going to the store, and then coming home to make gingerbread and walking the dog. I asked where he had been. He told me that he had been fishing.”

  Figure 13.7. Laci and mom, Sharon Rocha, show off mother-daughter grins. Many considered the two women best friends. Presented in evidence at Scott Peterson’s murder trial.

  As the days wound on, Rocha testified, she would try to schedule times to get together with Scott to discuss the situation, and he “would always cancel, and I felt that he was trying to avoid being alone with me. And, of course, that made me a little suspicious.” Soon after, she learned of Scott’s affair with Amber Frey. She finally got Scott on the phone, and returned to the day her daughter vanished. A tape of the recorded conversation bares Sharon’s frustration in trying to pin Scott down on details:

  Rocha: How come you didn’t notice when you walked in the door that she hadn’t been baking or the lights were off or anything?

  Peterson: ’Cause I was late and I was rushing.

  Rocha: I mean, surely, McKenzie came up to you when you walked in the back gate with his leash on.

  Peterson: Yeah . . . I took it off of him and I didn’t—it didn’t even register.

  Rocha: It didn’t register that Laci wasn’t in the house when you walked in—it was a dark house, didn’t smell like she’d been cooking, everything was cleaned up and neat and tidy—and nothing even registered to you?

  Peterson: No I, ah, grabbed a piece of pizza out of the fridge and jumped into the shower immediately and when I got out then I looked at the messages. I assumed she was over, you know, at your place.

  Rocha: I mean we’ve never even had this conversation all this time.

  Peterson: True. I know. And it wasn’t until you asked about the McKenzie thing—he had his leash on.

  Rocha: I didn’t mention it—you told me he had his leash.

  Peterson: Right, well you asked about McKenzie if he was in the yard.

  Rocha: No you told me he was.

  Peterson: Okay, I mean, either way.

  The day Laci disappeared, Ron Grantski innocently pointed out Scott’s alibi contradictions as he stood with police officers outside Laci and Scott’s home, trying not to interfere, but staying close by so he could help if needed. When he spotted Scott on the Petersons’ lawn, Grantski greeted him with small talk, trying to diffuse some of the tension of the situation. “We were standing out in the front under a tree, and I was talking with a couple officers and Scott came walking up. And I said, ‘Hi, Scott. How was your golf today?’” Grantski testified. “He said, ‘No, I didn’t play golf, I went fishing. And I, being the smart behind I am, I said, ‘Well, what time did you go fishing?’ He said, ‘Oh, about 9:30.’ I said: ‘9:30? That’s when I come home from fishing, that’s not when I go.’ And he turned around and walked away. I was just kidding, but I felt bad that I had said that,” he added, worried that he may have made Scott appear suspicious in front of the police.

  But investigators were already suspicious of Scott, largely because of his mercurial golf and fishing alibis. And they were quickly concerned about Laci when they found her purse—cell phone, credit cards, and wallet inside—still hanging from a hook in her closet where she usually left it. They also noted that Scott had already washed the clothes that he had worn that day. But Scott’s first colossal blunder was not thinking through his fishing alibi carefully. He looked stunned, like a deer caught in headlights, when a police officer on the scene pressed him for a minor detail: What was he fishing for? He appeared to be completely stumped when Officer Matthew Spurlock posed the question—and marched out the house furious with himself and muttering under his breath.

  Spurlock: I asked Mr. Peterson if, if he could tell me roughly what time he went fishing. He really didn’t give me a responsive time. Just kind of shuffled off the question, didn’t really answer.

  Distaso: What happened next?

  Spurlock: I asked Mr. Peterson what kind of fishing he was doing, what kind of fish he was fishing for today. And at that point there was a pause. He hesitated in answering me. He had this blank look on his face for a second or so, his eyes shifted a little bit and he kind of mumbled some stuff, but again blew off my question, didn’t really give me an answer. I then asked Mr. Peterson if he could maybe describe what he was using as far as bait or lure, and again I got the same type of response: kind of the blank stare, shifting-of-the-eye kind of thing. And then something clicked, and he said, “I was using a silver lure,” and he gave me a hand gesture of about seven to eight inches in length.

  Distaso: And did you, did you ask him anything else?

  Spurlock: I did. He was wearing some clothing that was pretty light, and I knew it was cold outside. And I asked him if these were the clothes, which he was wearing when he went fishing, and he stated no, that he had changed. Assuming he changed, I thought, well, maybe he just put his clothes in the clothes hamper. So I asked him, “Did you place your clothes in the clothes hamper?” And he stated, “No, I washed them.”

  Spurlock: I loosely followed him at a distance, went to the front door. As he was stepping out of the front door and onto that sidewalk area, I heard what sounded like a cuss word, and, if you want, I can say it in court.

  Distaso: Go ahead.

  Spurlock: Sounded like the word “fuck,” and it came through what sounded like gritted teeth.

  Police Officer Derrick Letsinger witnessed the same behavior. As Peterson was “leaving through the front door, I could see out, and Mr. Peterson threw his flashlight down on the ground,” Letsinger testified. “And then I heard something under his breath, like a curse word.”

  Peterson’s ultimate nemesis would be short, black-haired Allen Brocchini, a persistent, no-nonsense Modesto detective with a body like a truck and face like a pugilist. He was called into the case almost immediately because it was quickly determined to be a “suspicious missing person” situation. He finished his Christmas Eve dinner with his family and headed over to Covena Avenue, and walked through the Peterson house one more time with Scott. Like Spurlock, he spotted the dirty rags on top of the washing machine, and inside, a pair of blue jeans, a blue t-shirt, and a green pullover, already washed but still wet. Scott explained that he had taken out the dirty rags that the cleaning woman had placed in the machine, and instead washed his clothes because they were wet from fishing.

  Brocchini then walked with Scott to the driveway, where Laci’s Land Rover and Scott’s pickup were parked. Brocchini noticed a cell phone plugged into a dashboard charger of Laci’s car, and spotted a toolbox, two large tarps, and a number of large patio umbrellas in the bed of the pickup, along with up to 100 feet of orange nylon rope. When police returned the day after Christmas with a search warrant, the rope had vanished, and the blue tarp was discovered in a tool shed on the property, under a lawn mower leaking gas. There was also a gun in the glove compartment of Scott’s truck. He told the detective he had two guns, but that one had been stolen. There was a Big 5 Sporting Goods bag inside the truck with two new fishing lures still in their packaging and a fishing pole with a receipt dated four days before Laci disappeared—and in the back seat, a dry camouflage jacket that Scott said he had worn in the boat, Brocchini testified. A pair of pliers with a strand of black hair would later be found on Scott’s boat.

  Close to mid
night, Brocchini accompanied Scott to the police department for an interview to, he explained, “go over what we had been talking about.” Scott was “calm, cool, relaxed,” the detective testified. Brocchini said he was already “suspicious of a lot of things,” but that he tried to keep their interaction “friendly.” Brocchini videotaped Peterson as he answered basic questions about his whereabouts that day.

  Figure 13.8. This police evidence photo shows needle-nosed pliers holding two black hairs that were found in Scott’s boat, which police believe Peterson used to transport Laci’s body to the bay. Presented in evidence at Scott Peterson’s murder trial.

  The case looked far worse for Scott when Amber, who learned of the news reports about Laci and Scott, called the Modesto police tip line to tell detectives about their affair. Police began recording Scott’s conversations with her. In one of the conversations, he tells her that his wife is missing, and warns her to “protect” herself from “the media.” Frey, who knew what had happened by that point, acts stunned to hear the news about Laci from Scott, and accuses him of “lying about lying,” and demands an explanation, which he says he can’t give yet. “You deserve so much better,” says Scott. “There’s no question you deserve so much better.” Frey responds: “Yeah and I deserve to understand an explanation of why you told me you lost your wife and this was the first holidays you’d spend without her. That was December 9 you told me this, and now all of sudden your wife’s missing? Are you kidding me?” She says in another conversation: “Isn’t is so ironic that she goes missing before the first holidays? Are you following me, Scott?” He admits, “That sounds pretty sinister.” She also confronts him about referring to her daughter, Ayiana, as the “only child” in his life. “But you had a child on the way that whole time in that conversation,” she adds. Scott responds, “I understand your confusion, definitely.”

  When Brocchini later parked near a vigil for Laci, Scott walked over to his car to thank him for discussing the case on America’s Most Wanted and for answering the tip line. “You got some explaining to do,” Brocchini responded. Scott told him: “You don’t know. I just stop on the side of the road and break down for no apparent reason.” Brocchini said he wasn’t acting like “somebody that missed is his pregnant wife.” When Brocchini was asked in court what Scott’s demeanor was at that point, the detective answered: “Emotionless, matter of fact. Calm.”

  Months later, in mid-April, a couple walking their dog discovered the body of a late-term male fetus among a wash of seaweed and garbage on the shore of San Francisco Bay at a Richmond Point park north of Berkeley. A day later, the torso of a recently pregnant woman washed ashore a mile away from where the baby’s body was found. The body was missing the head, the forearms, the right foot and lower left leg. Two cracked ribs apparently occurred at the time of death. The bodies were identified as Conner and Laci. Because of the state of Laci’s body it was impossible to determine cause of death.

  Five days after the first body was found, Scott Peterson was arrested in La Jolla near the Mexican border. He was carrying his mother’s driver’s license, $15,000 in cash, camping equipment, four cell phones, a gun, and a map to Amber Frey’s home. He was sporting a new goatee, and his hair and beard were suddenly blond, though he insisted the color change was caused by swimming in a chlorinated pool.

  The jury convicted Peterson after two days of deliberation and sentenced him to death in the penalty phase of the trial. The prosecution made a case that Peterson had likely smothered or strangled Laci the morning she disappeared or the night before, and he transported her body to San Francisco Bay wrapped in a tarp, and tossed her overboard, weighted down with missing cement anchors of the five that investigators believe he made at his shop. After months, rope used to lash her to an anchor likely ate through her neck and limbs, finally allowing her torso to float free.

  Figure 13.9. This is how Scott appeared when he was picked up by police near the Mexican border with camping supplies, $15,000 in cash, and blond hair. He insisted his hair changed color because he had been in a chlorinated pool. Presented in evidence at Scott Peterson’s murder trial.

  During the victim impact statement of the penalty phase of the trial, Laci’s mom described long days lying in bed, so depressed by the murder of her daughter that she couldn’t face the day. “I miss her. I wanted to know my grandson. I wanted Laci to be a mother. I wanted to hear her called ‘Mom,’” said Rocha. She said she still sometimes reached for the phone, thinking it was her daughter. “There’s been several times, but I remember the first time it happened I was on my way outside. I already locked the door. I heard the phone ring and then I unlocked the door and went back in. I, I was thinking it was Laci. I hadn’t heard from her in a long time,” said Rocha. “And then I realized it wasn’t. It will never be her. I remember another time walking into the house. I opened the door and walked into the entryway and I had to stop, and she turned around and said, ‘Hi, Mom.’ It was as though she was right there. I saw her. A lot of times I think when I have a question about something that’s been going on, I’ll just ask her and she’ll tell me. But I can’t. Laci didn’t deserve to die.”

  ———

  Scott Peterson’s murder of his pregnant wife was exceptionally coldhearted. In my search for “types” of killer dads (or, in Scott’s case, killer dads-to-be)—from murderous stepfathers to family annihilators driven either by rage or a twisted devotion to their loved ones to furious fathers who kill their children to punish wives who have left them—Peterson’s crime stood alone as chillingly emotionless. He showed no signs of anger with Laci that anyone could see; in fact, he seemed at times too-perfectly patient or tolerant in his relationship, beyond the norm of engaging in even minor conflicts or arguments married couples typically experience. And he wasn’t suddenly, unexpectedly swept off his feet by a lover so captivating that he had to possess after getting his wife out of the picture. He didn’t spot Amber Frey across a crowded room and become smitten. He discovered her as part of a determined hunt for “another soul mate” just months before his wife was due to give birth to his son. His prime motivation seemed to be that he had grown bored with his life and was in the mood for a change. He wanted his wife “lost,” and he set out to make it a reality. “Divorce is always an option,” Laci’s heartsick mom said in her victim impact statement. He dodged divorce court, alimony, and child support—and at the same time won “poor Scott” sympathy for his tragic “loss.” When Amber heard from her friend Shawn that Scott might, in fact, be a married man, he broke down in tears to confess that he had lost his wife, eliciting tenderhearted sympathy from Amber and turning Laci’s disappearance into a kind of macabre pick-up line to solidify his relationship with his lover.

  Even for a murderer (and far more so for an innocent man), Scott’s repeated lengthy, fawning, jocular phone conversations with Amber Frey while cadaver dogs were searching for his wife’s body and police cars were parked outside his door are stupefying. He called Amber nearly 200 times after Laci vanished, and most of the conversations were recorded because Amber was secretly cooperating with police. He appeared to be an attentive, thoughtful, empathetic lover—with Amber just as he had been in wooing Laci years earlier. Scott said the right things, made all the right sounds, had all the moves, but apparently had no real heart. Even after Amber tells him she knows that police are searching for Laci, he begs her to let him come to her home—or to a house on California’s Lake Arrowhead—to see her. “I just never felt such a strong desire as I do,” he says, sniffling. “I think it would be good for us.” Frey defers, telling him at one point that she feels like a magnet “to wolves in sheep’s clothing.” He promises to “explain everything” at some point in the future.

  With a man like Scott Peterson, the “observer is confronted with a convincing mask of sanity” . . . complete with “verbal and facial expressions, tones of voice, and all the other signs we have come to regard as implying conviction and emotion and the normal experiencing of li
fe as we know it ourselves and as we assume it to be in others,” wrote Hervey Cleckley in his 1941 book The Mask of Sanity, which is still today a kind of bible on psychopathic or sociopathic personalities.3 “Only very slowly and by a complex estimation or judgment based on multitudinous small impressions does the conviction come upon us that . . . we are dealing not with a complete man at all but with something that suggests a subtly constructed reflex machine which can mimic the human personality perfectly. We know that reality, in the sense of a full, healthy experiencing of life, is not there.”

  Peterson’s crime is similar to only a handful of other killer-father cases, most notably the crimes of Jeffrey MacDonald and Neil Entwistle. All three insist they’re innocent.

  MacDonald claimed a murderous band of Charles Mason–like hippies stormed his North Carolina home in Fort Bragg in 1970 and brutally bludgeoned and stabbed his pregnant wife, Collette, and two young daughters to death. Collette and the younger daughter, two-year-old Kristen, were stabbed with a knife and an ice pick more than 37 times. MacDonald suffered relatively minor injuries while “fighting for his life,” he testified in court. The handsome, athletic Green Beret surgeon was sentenced to life in prison. The gripping case of the man-with-everything turned murderer is detailed in author Joe McGinness’s book Fatal Vision. But the killer’s cause was recently taken up by Errol Morris, whose book A Wilderness of Error: The Trials of Jeffrey Macdonald, argues that he’s innocent, attacks the case against him, and points to Helena Stoeckley, a troubled drug user who at various times confessed to the crime, then claimed to have no memory of it (and no evidence was found to charge her). McGinness has convincingly refuted each point in Morris’s book, and has noted that falling into MacDonald’s sway is part of the power of the charismatic psychopath that MacDonald is. The killer dad’s latest appeal was shot down, and McGinness has published a short new digital book, Final Vision, updating the case 42 years after the murders.4