Scott Peterson Wants to ‘Show People What the Truth Is’: Could He Be Innocent in Wife Laci’s Murder?

Looking back to the time right before his wife and unborn child disappeared from their Modesto, California, home on Christmas Eve nearly 22 years ago, their bodies later washing up in the SanFrancisco Bay, Scott Peterson is overcome with emotion. “Every moment is so real, is so tactile and still there. The smells and the lighting, the sound of when I said goodbye to Laci, and then my family  was  gone,” he says in his first interview in more than two decades, which is featured in the new Peacock docuseries Face to Face With Scott Peterson. “I drove away [to go fishing] expecting to come back that afternoon and have a wonderful Christmas together, and they were gone.”

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Scott says he wants justice — for them and for himself. In 2004, following a five-month trial that gripped the nation, he was convicted of murdering his eight-months-pregnant spouse, 27, and the son they planned to name Conner. Scott, whose death sentence was overturned in 2020 due to issues with jury selection and later replaced by life without parole, has long insisted he’s no killer. In recent months, his legal team — the Los Angeles Innocence Project took on his case in January — has ramped up efforts to prove that as they push for a retrial and new DNA testing. “Don’t trust me,” the 51-year-old says. “Look at the evidence.”

Controversial Theory

The fertilizer salesman was convicted without physical evidence linking him to the deaths. He believes police didn’t thoroughly investigate other leads because they early on decided to focus solely on him, especially after learning he’d been cheating on Laci with a Fresno, California, massage therapist named Amber Frey, 49. “There was a burglary across the street from our home. There [were] a lot of people involved. And I believe Laci went over there to see what was going on, and that’s when she was taken,” Scott says in the doc, sharing a theory investigators have dismissed. Though two men confessed to the neighbors’ robbery, a witness recalled seeing different men as well as a van parked outside. The day after Laci’s disappearance, a burned-out orange van was discovered a mile away.

Scott’s defense team believes the cases could be connected. They asked for DNA testing on 14 pieces of evidence, including a stained mattress found inside the vehicle. However, in May, a judge denied all their requests but one — approving testing on a piece of duct tape found on Laci’s pants, which Scott’s lawyers believe might hold DNA that implicates someone else.

Scott says he regrets not testifying during his trial. He decided to speak out now because “if I have a chance to get the reality out there,” he explains, “I have a chance to show people what the truth is.”