Grogan asked Sharon if Scott ever mentioned that he missed Laci. Sitting back in her chair, Sharon was thoughtful. “No,” she replied. Scott never appeared genuinely upset. For the most part he appeared “nonchalant,” unflappable. He answered most questions with a simple yes or no. He never elaborated when asked directly about events leading up to Laci’s disappearance. When speaking about Laci, Scott had stock responses—insisting that they had to make sure Laci’s picture was “out there,” for instance, on the argument that someone was bound to call with information that would help locate Laci.
Sharon told Grogan that recently she’d received several messages from Scott’s mother, Jackie. At first she had been reluctant to return the calls, worried that the conversation wouldn’t go well if Jackie wanted her to support Scott. Eventually, though, Sharon had chosen to speak with her. Jackie told Sharon that Scott’s family was praying for Laci’s safe return. She offered her assistance, saying she thought it was “horrible” that police had shown Sharon the photos of Scott with another woman. Sharon believed that what police had done was appropriate, but said nothing.
When Jackie tried to excuse her son’s affair, blaming it on a one-night stand or the fact that Scott had been “drunk or something,” Sharon pointed to the fact that Scott had kept in touch with Amber after Laci disappeared. Jackie insisted that everything seemed normal between Scott and Laci at a baby shower everyone attended around Thanksgiving. At the shower Laci said that she was having trouble sleeping, and suggested that she and Scott get separate beds. Still, Laci didn’t seem angry at Scott when she made the comment, Jackie recalled.
Jackie’s remark didn’t seem particularly significant to Sharon. She had heard Laci complain about difficulty sleeping because of the pregnancy, and heard her worry that she was keeping Scott awake at night. Laci told her mom that she’d offered to sleep on the couch, but Scott would not allow it.
Later in the week, Sharon contacted Grogan to alert him to an e-mail she had received from Scott in response to her request that he return Laci’s belongings.
Mom,
1 have never taken the opportunity to apologize to either Ron or yourself for lying to you about my infidelity to Laci. I am truly sorry that I was not forthcoming with you immediately. I know that both our goals is to find Laci and Conner, I am hoping together we can do more than separate.
I understand you are organizing a search this coming weekend, and you know that we are trying to put together a national search day this Sunday (I have attached a rough draft of the press release). I am wondering if you want to keep the two separate or try to combine them? … I am hoping that any search is one that directs people’s efforts towards finding her safely, targeting medical institutions, houses and the like, the only possible end to this is them back in our arms… .
For all of us, and more important for Laci we need to find her and bring her back where she belongs, among us, we can do this if we can communicate and work together.
Scott
Attached to the e-mail was a flyer promoting a “National Search for Laci Day, Sunday, February 9, 2:00 P.M.” It listed two phone numbers, one for the Modesto Police Department and a second for a “non-police tip line.” This was the first Sharon heard about the private number, and she worried that calls might bypass police and go directly to Scott.
Grogan also met with Amy Rocha at headquarters to try to settle the question of Laci’s jewelry. The detective was still trying to determine if any pieces were missing. Scott had initially told police that Laci was wearing a necklace, a wristwatch, earrings, and possibly a blue sapphire and diamond ring when he left her on Christmas Eve morning. In a follow-up conversation with Grogan on December 30, Scott described the items as diamond earrings, a diamond solitaire necklace, and one of two diamond-encrusted watches that Laci owned.
After meeting with members of Laci’s family and a jewelry sales consultant, however, the police concluded that the gold-anddiamond watch and necklace Laci typically wore were the same items they had found in Laci’s jewelry box. The only items that remained unaccounted for were the diamond earrings and one diamond-and-gold Croton watch that no one had seen her wear.
Amy told Grogan that Laci had recently tried using eBay to sell a Mickey Mouse watch with diamonds encircling the face. While the missing Croton watch had been videotaped for the eBay ad, the watch hadn’t been sold there. Moreover, the videotape revealed that the watch was not running at the time, and there was no evidence that Laci had replaced the battery. Why would she be wearing a watch that wasn’t working? Amy had no idea where the Croton watch might be.
At Grogan’s request, Amy once again described Scott and Laci’s visit to Salon Salon on December 23. The detective was especially interested in Laci’s attire. Amy recalled that Laci was dressed in a cream-colored scarf with tassels and a black pea coat. Beneath the coat, she wore an off-white blouse with black flowers and a pair of beige slacks. Her shoes were black slip-on Mary Janes from Nine West. Other salon employees remembered the details of Laci’s clothing differently, but as anyone who’s examined many witnesses knows, this is not unusual. As much credence as eyewitness testimony is usually given, studies have demonstrated that it is not al-ways reliable. If you place one person on each of four corners at an intersection and ask each of them to describe the same acci-dent, you’re likely to get four distinctly different stories. Recollection is not always reliable and police must account for this in any investigation.
Grogan also contacted local TV reporter Gloria Gomez of Channel 13 News, asking to view the raw footage of her interview with Scott at his home on January 29. Gomez agreed on the condition that they let her cameraman film them watching the video—allowing her to get her own news story out of the event.
Gomez told police that she conducted the twenty-five-minute interview with Scott in his living room. His only stipulation was that the program not air before six o’clock that evening, but he gave no reason for the request. Reporters from several other media outlets also sat down with Scott that day and they all had had to agree to the same stipulation.
In addition, Scott advised Gomez that the network could run no “teases” or “promos” before the interview. The reporter was surprised that Scott knew so much TV lingo. A final condition was that Gomez and the cameraman remove their shoes before entering Scott’s house—yet another instance of Scott’s inappropriate concern for his possessions, like his reaction to a possible scratch on his truck or his dining room table, when police searched the premises weeks before.
Once the two of them were inside the living room, Scott asked for a preview of every question Gomez would ask on-camera. She told him some of them, but not all.
At headquarters, police reviewed the raw video. While talking about his unborn son, they noticed, Scott simply referred to Conner simply as “baby,” never referring to him as “his” or “ours.” He declined to elaborate, saying only that “it was entirely too difficult to speak about.”
“Do you go into the baby’s room?” Gomez asked.
“No, that door’s closed,” Scott replied.
“How long will it remain closed?”
“Until there’s a little guy in there …” Scott’s voice broke and he seemed to choke back tears as he spoke.
In his amazing performances, for Sawyer, Gomez, and others, Scott repeatedly demonstrated his belief that the public and press could be duped. Scott’s cracking voice and ability to cry on cue be-came more apparent once the police wiretaps revealed how swiftly he was able to turn them on and off.
Gomez called Scott the following day to clarify some issues. Scott refused to expand on his answers, and simply said “no comment” when asked if he had put his house up for sale or had traded in the Land Rover.
Later, I rebroadcast portions of Gomez’s interview with Scott on Catherine Crier Live. The footage showed Scott’s cell phone ringing during the taping. Instead of answering the call—which could have been someone with information about Laci—he
jumped up, turned it off, and then told Gomez “they could pick up” where they left off. That was an ah-hah moment for me—an unconscious signal that Scott knew Laci was not coming home. This observation was picked up quickly by other talk shows, and Scott’s reaction be-came an element of the prosecution’s trial presentation.
Meanwhile, officers continued their search efforts in the San Francisco Bay. Investigators had discovered what appeared to be a red paint transfer on the right, or starboard, side of Scott’s boat. Red paint was also found on a black plastic fishing pole holder on the same side, as well as on bolts that protruded through the outside of the boat. Samples were collected to compare with red navigational buoys in the bay, which “would provide an area for both cover and to tie off the boat and avoid flipping it when putting the body over the side.” However, a match was never made.
Search teams used cadaver dogs to identify which areas of the bay to scan with sonar devices, but investigators worried that the grid searches would prove fruitless if the current were moving the body along the bottom of the bay. Police contacted Dr. Ralph Cheng from the U.S. Geological Survey for help in determining whether and where currents would carry weighted objects, such as a body, in San Francisco Bay. Dr. Cheng, a hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, met with Detective Phil Owen in mid-February. Owen gave Dr. Cheng the necessary details: Laci weighed 153 pounds at the time of her disappearance, and had possibly been weighted by four anchors totaling thirty-two pounds. She may also have been wrapped in chicken wire and some type of plastic wrap. Dr. Cheng concluded that Laci’s body could be somewhere in the waters off the southern or eastern areas of Angel Island.
Laci’s family also organized searches that month. Although more than 350 people turned out to assist the family in their search of the San Joaquin Valley that first Saturday, the numbers diminished in the two subsequent searches.
Still desperate to locate her daughter, Sharon Rocha phoned Scott several days before Laci’s expected due date of February 10 and left the following message:
“Scott, this is Sharon. I’m calling you to ask you to please either call Ron and I or call Brent or call the police department anonymously, disguise your voice, whatever you have to do, but please call and let us know where Laci is,” Sharon said in the voice mail. “We need her home immediately, Scott. Please, I know you loved her once, please don’t leave her out there. The baby’s due date is Monday, we want to have her home, Scott. You loved her once. I think you still do. So please don’t leave her out there all alone. Call us and let us know where she is, please.”
Scott phoned her back.
“I lied to you about having an affair,” Scott told Sharon. “That’s right. But I don’t know anything.”
“I think you do. I think you’re still lying. We need to have her home, Scott. Like I said, you loved her once.”
“I loved her. I love my son. I love her. I want them home.”
“I’m having a hard time believing any of that ’cause you’re not showing it.”
“She is my joy and my happiness.”
“Then why did you kill her?” Sharon asked.
“I did not hurt her.”
“Maybe you didn’t hurt her, but you did kill her.”
“I did not,” Scott insisted.
“Well, you know what? You’re the one that’s gonna live with this. You’re the one who’s gonna burn in hell for doing this and lying to everybody. So, if you have any compassion, any soul at all, for any redemption at all, Scott, you’ve got to tell us where she is. Don’t leave her out there all by herself.”
On February 10, Laci’s family and friends held a sunset candle-light vigil at East La Loma Park to mark her due date with remembrance and prayer. Three days later, Scott’s family held a press conference in San Diego to announce that they were contacting hospitals and clinics around the country in the hope that Laci might arrive to give birth. Once again, Scott was conspicuously absent from both events.
On February 18, police served a second search warrant covering Scott’s home and vehicle, along with a storage locker he had rented in the Fresno area since vacating the warehouse on Emerald Avenue. In the warrant applications police cited a number of reasons for the additional searches, and described at length Scott’s “suspicious” behavior:
Scott’s response to being shown a faxed copy of a photo of him and Amber in early January, “Is that supposed to be me?”
Scott’s claim that he had purchased one ninety-pound bag of cement from Home Depot to make one anchor and had thrown the rest away in a garbage pail at his home. A subsequent examination of that trash pail failed to produce any evidence of loose cement. (He told Brent Rocha that the balance of the concrete was used in his driveway but told Brocchini it was used in the backyard.)
Scott’s five trips to the Berkeley Marina in rented or borrowed vehicles, including one right after police left a message indicating they knew Laci’s body was in the bay.
The whistle police believe he emitted upon learning in a voice mail from Sharon Rocha that the police had recovered an anchor—and not a body—during a search of the bay.
Scott’s claim that he had used the gun police recovered from the glove box in his pickup on a hunting trip he took with his dad in November 2002. Police learned that the gun was registered to Lee Peterson, but Lee was not aware that Scott was in possession of the weapon, nor did he see Scott carrying it during their hunting trip.
Lee told police he had spoken to his son on Christmas Eve during the time period that Scott was driving from the Berkeley Marina to his residence, yet Scott did not mention that he owned a boat or that he had been fishing.
The affidavit also listed a number of the suspicious items police had collected during prior searches: the master bedroom duvet cover, with its apparent blood spots; the blood spots in Scott’s truck; the blue tarp, umbrellas, and chicken wire from Scott’s truck; Laci’s jewelry; the vacuum cleaner and bag; the boat cover; and a pair of white tennis shoes from Laci’s closet. Tests determined that the blood in the truck and on the duvet cover was human. Later in the month, forensic analysis would confirm that it was Scott’s.
The twenty-page document also chronicled the contradictory statements Scott made in the early stages of the investigation—in particular, his claim to Detective Grogan on December 25 that he re-turned home at around 4:45 P.M. the day before, dumped the wash water from the blue bucket, took a shower, and washed his clothes before he noticed McKenzie in the backyard with his leash on. Yet in an earlier interview with Brocchini he had said that he noticed the dog immediately, and that McKenzie and their cat had run ahead of him into the house. He then quickly dumped the bucket before they tipped it over or drank from it.
The document also cited what appeared to be circular cement rings that corresponded in circumference to a plastic form containing water and cement residue found at the warehouse. It contained the conclusions from the bloodhound searches—that Laci had been transported by vehicle from her home, and then from Scott’s ware-house along the route he had taken toward the Berkeley Marina. De-tails of Scott’s statements to Amber Frey, and his attempts to conceal that relationship, were also noted.
On February 18, the detectives met Scott Peterson on his driveway. Scott wanted to know how long the searches were going to take. “At least one day,” Grogan told him. Scott led the police through the back gate and into the home via the French doors. Pointing to two packed duffel bags on the floor, he explained that he needed several articles of clothing contained inside, and asked if he could take the bags with him. The police would have to search them first, he was told. Inside one, officers found a bottle of wine and a prescription bottle of Viagra, purchased from an Internet site called First Online Pharmacy. The label on the bottle indicated that the prescription was originally filled in July 2002, and had since been refilled several times.
Later, during a phone call, Grogan asked Scott about the Viagra.
“The prescription you had. Do you
wanna tell me what that’s all about?”
“Ah, what prescription?” Scott asked.
“The Viagra?”
“No. Personal deal,” Scott replied.
Grogan apologized that the discovery of Viagra was leaked to the press.
“That doesn’t bother me, don’t worry about it,” Scott replied. “Pretty small shit compared to where my family is, so I don’t care.”
Detectives also searched Scott’s wallet. They found assorted credit cards and five-hundred-dollar bills. In one of the duffel bags, they discovered a white envelope containing $1,081 in cash. Another clear plastic sandwich bag was stuffed with $1,000 in cash.
“I looked at Scott’s left and right hands,” Grogan noted. “I saw he was not wearing a wedding band, but he had one ring in his property [in a duffel bag] that looked like a man’s wedding band.”
During the search, Grogan took the opportunity to quiz Scott about a variety of matters. Was Scott still operating out of the ware-house on Emerald Avenue? Scott said he still had two crates of product, a forklift, and a fax machine there, but the rest of his things were in his new warehouse facility in Fresno.
“Where’s McKenzie?”
Scott told him the dog was in San Diego with his brother Joe and Joe’s wife, Janey, who had been serving as Scott’s public relations counselor in recent weeks.
“Do you have a storage locker?” Grogan asked.
He said he did and described its location to the detective. It was only then that Grogan revealed that the search warrant covered the locker, too.
“If the storage locker is in the warrant, then why did you ask me?” Scott asked.
“To see if you would tell me the truth,” Grogan replied calmly.
A Deadly Game Page 33