A Deadly Game

by Catherine Crier

  Buehler was not the only officer whose private life would come to a grinding halt when Laci went missing. Detectives followed up on countless leads that arose during the almost two-year investigation. There were calls from people saying that Laci had been taken for her unborn child; others from psychics purporting to have visions of the missing woman in various locations; and still more from tipsters anxious to report sightings of a pregnant woman fitting Laci’s description. The calls came in from all over the country.

  One fact that was ignored by the press is that the six detectives on the case were juggling thirty-four other homicides at the same time. Many of them missed holidays with their families, and in some cases their long absences created problems at home. The personal sacrifices made by Detective Grogan, District Attorney Investigator Steven Bertalotto, and prosecutors Rick DiStaso and Dave Harris— all of whom have young children—were enormous.

  Buehler arrived at Amber Frey’s residence around 1:30 P.M. to take custody of the tapes of the previous night’s conversations. Once inside, Amber told Detective Buehler that Scott preferred that she send mail to a post office box while he was overseas. Somehow, he claimed, he would be able to access the letters through his e-mail. Amber didn’t think that made sense, but she jotted down the address anyway: Scott Peterson, P.O. Box 290, 1811 H Street, Suite B5, Modesto, California.

  Later that day, Amber listened as Scott shared more stories of his supposed European adventures. Now he was in Brussels, about to take a morning jog over the quaint cobblestone streets. All the French food and wine was making him pudgy, he claimed.

  “And last night … well, this morning too, there is this fucking dog next to this hotel,” Scott said.

  “This what?”

  “This dog that just keeps barking. I want to kill it,” he snapped. The dog, of course, was McKenzie.

  He switched subjects. “I got here, like, at two o’clock this morning, but I’m going to fight the pudge.”

  “So, you’re gonna go jogging at seven o’clock in the morning?”

  “It is so cold outside,” Scott told her. “It is freezing. There’s no snow on the ground, but it … oh, it was so cold last night.”

  “So how long a distance are you going? … Are you just gonna jog around the streets, or …” Amber asked.

  “Yeah, pretty much, yeah. I don’t know. I’m just gonna run. I don’t … I kind of remember the area here,” Scott said. “I’ll jog down to the main square, which is kind of neat, with all the big churches in the background.”

  “Yeah, I don’t even really, you know—I mean, the only times I’ve re-ally seen Paris is, you know … ” Amber struggled to get the words out.

  “I’m in Brussels now,” Scott corrected her.

  “Oh, you’re … that’s right, you did the change at Brussels. You’re in Europe, though, right?” Amber queried.

  “Oh yeah,” Scott confirmed again.

  Scott attempted to explain the time difference to Amber. While she was getting ready to turn in for the night, he was already starting a new day. Where he was, he said, it was nine hours ahead of Madera.

  “Yeah, that’s just so confusing to me,” Amber giggled. “And I hope by the time, you know, by the end of this month, I’ll finally get the hang of it.”

  “And then I’ll be back. Then we won’t have to worry about it again,” Scott told her. Even now, with the investigation heating up around him, Scott was still convinced he had nothing to fear. Just as he told Amber weeks before, he thought he would be free by the close of January. Did he think detectives would simply quit when Laci’s body did not turn up, or was he convinced he had already won the game?

  “Right,” Amber agreed.

  “Okay, so you got to go to bed, huh?”

  “Yeah, I’m just jabbering now.”

  “Okay. Good night, sweetie,” Scott said. “I’ll talk to you maybe tomorrow, okay?” Amber hung up the phone knowing that Scott was only ninety miles away.

  Over the next several days, Scott’s employers confirmed the detectives’ suspicions. In a phone interview from Madrid, his boss, Eric Van Innis, said that he hadn’t seen Scott on December 14. That was the day he told Laci he had to pick up his boss in San Fran-cisco—a lie to cover his date with Amber at her Christmas formal. Van Innis told police that the last time he’d come to the United States was in January or February 2002, when he flew into San Francisco Airport from Mexico.

  Another executive from Tradecorp, Nuno Loureiro, a member of the company’s board, told police he received an e-mail from Scott on December 26, relating that his wife was missing and he was assisting law enforcement in looking for her.

  In the e-mail, Scott stated that he would “need a few days off.” Scott didn’t seem to think the case would take much time from his busy schedule.

  After receiving the message, Loureiro spoke to Scott twice by phone. Scott explained to Louriero that his wife had gone for a walk with their dog on December 24, 2002. He said that someone may have seen her in a parking lot, and mentioned that a nearby home had been burglarized. It was all very matter-of-fact.

  Loureiro agreed to cooperate with the investigation, and promised not to mention their conversation or the fact that police intended to review the company records.

  Grogan, meanwhile, was alerted to a rumor that Laci Peterson may have been involved in an affair of her own. The rumor was bolstered by a second source, a caller to the Laci Peterson tip line, who stated that the expectant mother was dating a personal trainer from her gym. A third tip came in by e-mail that same morning, also indicating that Laci had been dating another man. Grogan turned the in-formation over to Detective Bertalotto of the District Attorney’s Office and asked him to follow up. It is not unusual for such allegations to arise in a case of this sort, but no evidence was ever found to substantiate these claims.

  As he delegated duties, Grogan’s cell phone vibrated. It was Scott, asking for the keys to his home and business, and requesting access to some business checks that he said were in the glove box of his truck. He needed to deposit those checks, he said, in order to make payroll.

  Grogan told Scott that he would make inquiries. He called Scott back about an hour later to let him know that the keys would be at the reception desk at headquarters after 1:30 P.M. He then moved quickly to get a court-approved GPS tracking system installed on Laci’s Land Rover before returning it. This would allow the police to survey Scott’s movements without him knowing it.

  Grogan called back to alert Scott that the police intended to re-lease photos of his vehicle and boat in an attempt to verify his trip to the Berkeley Marina on December 24. When Scott didn’t answer, he left a detailed voicemail. To Scott, it was all part of the game; threatening him with the pictures was just Grogan’s way of trying to get a rise out of him.

  Two hours later, Scott Peterson made the next move. Striding into the lobby of the police station, he requested to speak to Grogan. Moments later, the stocky detective greeted him with a firm handshake, and presented Scott with his wallet. In his hand, he held Scott’s keys. Given Scott’s previous concern about inventory receipts, he forestalled any challenge by reviewing each key carefully and re-turning them one by one. He did not mention that police had made copies. Grogan intended to keep the keys to Scott’s 2002 Ford pickup and the toolbox in the truck’s rear, and the remote for his car alarm.

  Scott nodded, then told Grogan that he needed to retrieve two business checks from his truck. He also asked if police had taken any checks from the business office. Grogan told him no, but explained that a number of Scott’s business records had been seized as part of the search warrant. Scott requested that Grogan find out which checks police had taken as evidence and arrange for their return.

  Grogan told him that he could not release them without a court order.

  Scott pressed the detective, telling him that it would be helpful if he could pay his employees, and instructed Grogan to do what he could to get them released.

&nbs
p; “I told Scott I felt he may have more time to contact the businesses who wrote the checks and have those checks stopped and a new check issued rather than have me stop working on the investigation of his missing wife to write court orders,” Grogan wrote. Seeming to back off a bit, Scott said, “Sure, you’re right. You should be working on the case.’”

  It was Scott’s move. If Grogan wasn’t going to give him the checks, then he wasn’t going to give the detective his debit card. In-stead, he pulled out a piece of paper that read “Chevron Parthian, Livermore, 932498575. $13.08.” He had downloaded the receipt from the Internet rather than let the detectives have his card to collect the information. Changing the subject back to his wife, Scott asked if Grogan believed that Laci was kidnapped for the baby. “Do you think when she has the baby, I’ll get half my family back?” Scott asked flatly.

  Just reading that question sends chills up my spine.

  “I told Scott that we had investigated any leads with similar themes; however, I found the probability that Laci was kidnapped for the baby to be unlikely,” Grogan logged in his daily report. “I also explained to him that we had asked all local law enforcement agencies to notify Modesto Police Department regarding any calls from hospitals about infants who are accompanied by females that do not medically appear likely to be the child’s mother.”

  Scott next asked the detective if he thought that Laci had died.

  “I told Scott that with each passing day, the likelihood that Laci would be returned unharmed diminished,” Grogan wrote. Then, at last, “Scott appeared to have tears well in his eyes,” the detective noted. But “Scott did not cry, and I did not hear him sniffing.”

  At 5:30 that afternoon, there was an apparent break in the case. Detectives George Stough and Sebron Banks went into a briefing about the burglary that occurred at 516 Covena Avenue. An anonymous tipster had informed Detective Stough that items stolen from the Medina home—and one of the men who allegedly pulled off the burglary—were at a house on Tenaya Avenue. The caller also stated that additional property taken during the heist was at a second residence on the same block.

  At 6:00 P.M., police knocked on the door of 1406 Tenaya Avenue. A woman answered, and told police she lived at the residence. Inside, officers saw several small children.

  Officer Hicks told the woman that he was following up on a burglary, and asked if he could speak with her further. She invited him in. The officers explained that they had received information that led them to believe that items stolen from a nearby house were in her residence. The woman gave police permission to search the premises, and signed a search warrant waiver.

  While the search was under way, forty-two-year-old Donald Pearce pulled into the driveway. A background check of the home’s residents prior to arriving on the scene revealed that Pearce had an outstanding traffic warrant from neighboring San Bernadino County. Officers standing in the driveway placed him under arrest.

  Pearce told the investigators that he had resided with his mother in her home on Tenaya Avenue for the past sixteen years. He was un-employed, and worked on cars in his mother’s driveway for income. He explained that he was the primary caregiver of his two young children; they lived in the main house with his mother, while he resided in a trailer in the back.

  Another man, Steven Wayne Todd, also lived in a shed in his mother’s backyard. When asked about the burglary on Covena Avenue, Pearce revealed these unreported details:

  On the morning of December 26, 2002, Steven Todd came into his trailer between the hours of six-thirty and seven o’clock. He told Pearce that he had been inside the home all night, and that there was now a safe sitting on the home’s front porch. Todd told him that he needed a vehicle to transport the heavy safe back to his shed. According to Pearce, the two men climbed into his four-door white truck, drove to 516 Covena, then used a dolly to transport the “very large, cream-colored safe” to their vehicle.

  Pearce described how Todd had shoved the safe into the front seat and closed the passenger door, then climbed in the rear passenger side, leaving the dolly on the grass near the curb. The two drove back to their place on Tenaya, and then carried the safe, which Pearce said weighed about 250 pounds, to Todd’s shed. The safe was so heavy that at one point they dropped it, and wound up rolling it to the front door of Todd’s room. Todd retrieved a sledgehammer and other prying tools, and pounded on the safe’s dial until it caved in and the door popped open. Inside there were two blue money bags, a box of jewelry, and a Tech 9 handgun, accompanied by a “very large magazine and bullets.” Pearce told Todd he would get rid of the gun. A second gun was also among the stolen goods.

  The two men sifted through the jewelry, then looked inside the blue money bags. They were empty, Pearce claimed. Susan Medina had told police they contained $50,000 in cash, but Pearce said that the jewelry and the handgun were the only items of value inside the safe. The pieces included a woman’s gold and emerald ring, a jade and gold ring, a woman’s diamond wedding set, ruby earrings, and miscellaneous rings and necklaces containing precious gems.

  When police located Todd, he admitted to committing the burglary—he said he was on a bicycle at the time—but told police he had nothing to do with “the woman.” When officers asked him to clarify, he said he was referring to “the missing woman with the baby.”

  Todd was no stranger to the arresting officers; he had been booked on similar charges in the past. He claimed that he had sold most of the jewelry and one of the handguns to a relative of a friend, and gave the rest of the pieces away to female friends. As for the tools stolen from the shed, he sold them at a swap meet that past Saturday. During a later interview with cops, Pearce admitted to selling the second gun for two hundred dollars.

  Both men were booked into the Stanislaus County Jail. The detectives never believed that Todd and Pearce had any involvement with Laci’s disappearance. After the two men submitted to polygraphs later in the day, the police issued a press release stating that the burglary and Laci’s disappearance were in no way connected. Todd later pleaded guilty to one burglary charge and received an eight-year sentence; Pearce pleaded no contest to a lesser charge and got 180 days.

  The police were still receiving reports from the Red Lion Hotel. Sergeant Ed Steele, the police liaison assigned to Laci Peterson’s family, recalled that on the night of December 30, 2002, around 7:30 or 8:00 P.M., Scott Peterson had returned to the hotel, sat down in a chair, and began sobbing. Several of Laci’s friends noticed his out-burst and jumped up to comfort him. Scott’s “crying jag” lasted for about thirty minutes. He then got up and helped himself to food donated by the local restaurants for the search teams.

  “Sergeant Steele advised that Scott had no apparent loss of appetite and based on his breakdown earlier, he found it odd that he was able to eat within such a short time,” Grogan recorded.

  Grogan’s next move was to leave Scott a voicemail message, telling him that the Land Rover was ready to be picked up. He didn’t say that he intended to ask Scott for DNA samples, or that he would present evidence of his affair with Amber Frey.

  “All of the information that I had provided Scott Peterson was true,” Grogan noted in his report. “However, I did plan to return the vehicle with a tracking device installed in it, and I also planned to serve a search warrant completed by Detective Al Brocchini for blood, cheek cell samples, hair sample, and full body photographs.”

  Scott called Grogan back and said he would swing by headquarters in about half an hour to pick up the Land Rover. “Hey, um, I heard about the robbery—did we—get any leads out of those guys?” Scott asked.

  “Well, we got all the burglars in custody and, ah, we’re working on clearing those guys out now, but they just appear to be just a bunch of burglars,” Grogan stated.

  “Yeah?”

  “I mean there’s nothing … they’re with us now and we’re working on that angle of it, but it’s not like, you know, any of them have been arrested for some heinous thing in th
e past or something.”

  “Yeah, I just hope they saw something.” Scott told the detective.

  A little while later, Scott arrived at the Detective Division with his father. Grogan met the men in the lobby and gave Scott the keys to his wife’s SUV. He then asked if he could show him something. Scott consented. He and Lee started walking toward the interview room in the Investigative Services Building. Grogan motioned for Lee Peterson to remain behind, advising that he wanted to meet with Scott alone.

  “You’re free to leave, and you don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to,” Grogan advised Scott as they entered the small, well-lit room. Most of what happened next has never been reported in the press.

  Scott sat down. He watched as the detective produced a photo-copy of a fax the police had received—it was the photo of Scott and Amber posing at the Christmas formal that Amber’s mother had sent over the night before.

  Grogan had other, better photographs of Scott and Amber in his possession, but decided not to produce them. Instead, he simply said that police had received “a copy of one faxed photograph” sent in anonymously. Looking directly at Scott, he slid the grainy black-and-white fax across the table. “Can you explain this?”

  “Is that supposed to be me?” Scott asked impassively.

  “It looks like you.”

  Scott insisted that the man in the picture was not him, nor did he recognize the woman. Was this another stalling tactic? Why else would he deny this, when police would surely be able to confirm it?