Brian in Mesa

Just in case there was any doubt about who committed this double-murder...

Peterson Carrying $10,000 When Arrested
By KIM BACA, Associated Press
MODESTO, Calif. - Scott Peterson was carrying $10,000 when detectives, fearing he might try to flee the country, pulled him over about 30 miles from the Mexico border and arrested him.

Hours later, authorities would announce that DNA tests showed two bodies found on the shore near San Francisco were his pregnant wife, Laci, missing since Dec. 23, and their unborn son.

Peterson had repeatedly denied any role in his wife's disappearance, and police had avoided labeling him a suspect. But authorities say he knew he was being tracked.

Modesto Police Chief Roy Wasden sought the arrest warrant for Peterson a day before the bodies were identified because he feared Peterson might flee to Mexico, where law forbids extradition of anyone facing the death penalty. Prosecutors in Stanislaus County plan to charge Peterson, 30, with capital murder for the deaths of his 27-year-old wife and their unborn son.

Peterson, now jailed, is expected to be arraigned as early as Monday.

"Like many people who are in jail for the first time, he wants to know what's next," said Stanislaus County Sheriff's spokesman Kelly Huston.

He hasn't talked much to the guards, though he has been polite and cooperative, Huston said.

He has also been segregated from other inmates, who know he's there and "definitely have some unfavorable opinions of him," Huston said.

Peterson's attorney, Kirk McAllister, has not commented on the case or returned weekend calls to his office.

In an interview with Time magazine, Peterson's father, Lee, said "police have just bungled this investigation from day one."

"We're grieving for the baby, as Scott is for Laci," he told the magazine.

When detectives arrested him Friday, Scott Peterson's dark hair had been dyed reddish-blond and he had grown a goatee. A law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Sunday that he also had $10,000 with him.

From the start, police had focused attention on Peterson, who acknowledged that he had an affair with another woman last year but said his wife, due to give birth in February, knew about it.

They spent days searching the waters near the Berkeley Marina, where Peterson said he went fishing the day his wife disappeared, and they seized the 14-foot boat and trailer he used. The bodies were later found about three miles from the marina after a storm.

Laci Peterson's family has shied from the spotlight since the bodies were discovered.

Outside the Peterson home, a memorial to 27-year-old Laci Peterson and the boy she had already named Connor continued to grow Sunday with additions of flowers, candles and toys.

Michelle McKinney hugged her daughter and wiped away tears as she watched her 12-year-old son add a blue and gold teddy bear.

"The baby didn't get a chance to live his life and grow up," said McKinney, 33. "She didn't get a chance to enjoy her baby."

Many in this central California city of 200,000 never met Laci Peterson, a 27-year-old with the big smile and dimples, but after the months of searching and vigils that followed her disappearance, they felt they knew her.

A makeshift wooden cross covered with aluminum foil on the Peterson lawn reads: "We prayed everyday that Laci and Baby Connor would come home. Now, Laci and Baby Connor are home with the Lord."

The city has had more than its share of yellow ribbons and tragedies.

In May 2001, Modesto resident Chandra Levy, 24, disappeared in Washington, D.C., triggering speculation about her relationship with Rep. Gary Condit (news, bio, voting record). One year later, a walker found Levy's body in a Washington park, but police still have made no arrests.

Condit, a Democrat, lost his bid for re-election last year.

Modesto was also a command center after the 1999 disappearance of three women in Yosemite National Park. Five weeks later, authorities found Carole Sund, 43, her daughter, Juli, 15, and Argentina exchange student Silvina Pelosso, 16, murdered in nearby foothills. A jury convicted motel handyman Cary Stayner last year and sentenced him to death.

"Once again we're being brought together. I don't like what we're being brought together for the last three years, but we stand together," said Diana Morris, 33. "We stand together and we're behind each other."

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Ryanwb

Usually I am a firm believer in the innocent until proven guilty philosophy, but this guy is guilty as sin....sure most of the evidence is circumstancial, but he was "fishing" at the scene of the crime. This almost sounds like Fredo's death scene.

What a scum bag this guy was, he had a very beautiful wife...not to mention pregnant. I hope this dude burns.

Brian in Mesa

I totally agree. Nice Godfather reference BTW.

The guy has a beautiful wife carrying their first child and he's not only out cheating on her...he ends up killing her (and Connor).

Whatever he gets will not be enough for the likes of him.

I wish they could tie him to some chum and toss him into shark-infested waters.

I wish the guy had just seperated from his wife or went for a divorce. She (and their child) sure deserved a better life.

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DbaxJ

I agree with you all, she deserved better than this, but thankfully someone saw fit for her corpse to find its way to shore, and not be devoured by some sea creature, so there would be positive proof that she not only was dead, but allows for some closure for her family!

Hmmmm.. lets see.. do you think he did it? WHen arrested, he was carrying 10K in cash, he had a full beard and a different hair color... oh yeah, and the day that his wife "possibly" was found dead on the shoreline, he is going golfing.... he must have been real toe up! BASTARD!

Ryanwb

Any he was golfing Torrey Pines...how did he get a tee time? I was turned away from that place faster than a woman at the Masters

I read the police had 24/7 observation on the guy. He would flip the cops off and laugh at them...this isn't what a mourning husband would do.

Brian in Mesa

Check this out...freaky.

Case of another 'Laci' languishes in obscurity

Torso of missing pregnant mom was found in S.F. Bay last year

Kelly St. John, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, April 21, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback

URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...4/21/OTHER.TMP

A vibrant young woman -- pregnant in her third trimester with a baby boy -- vanishes. Police suspect foul play. Doubts swirl around the man she loves, whom police don't rule out as a suspect.

Finally, the grim discovery: A woman's remains are pulled from San Francisco Bay.

The saga of Laci Peterson captivated America's attention. The 27-year-old Modesto mother-to-be was reported missing on Christmas Eve and became the subject of daily news reports capped by the arrest Friday of her husband, Scott Peterson.

But it is also the story of 24-year-old Evelyn Hernandez of San Francisco, who vanished last May 1 with her 5-year-old son, a week before she was to deliver a baby boy. Her torso was found in the bay three months later and identified, while her son remains missing. No arrests have been made.

Hernandez's case barely registered in the community and in Bay Area television news shows and newspapers, while the eyes of the nation seemed to be fixed on the search for Laci Peterson.

There are many, sometimes subtle, reasons why some cases become major news stories -- while the vast majority languish in obscurity, according to law enforcement officials, relatives of the missing, journalists and citizens.

Peterson seemed to be the all-American girl next door, the most innocent of victims. She also has a vocal family advocating on her behalf, and the financial and public relations help of a well-connected crime victims group in Modesto, the Sund/Carrington Memorial Reward Foundation, formed during the search for the Yosemite murder victims in 1999.

"This girl (Laci), she's white, they have money, and there is a family behind her," said Twiggy Damy, a friend of Hernandez, a single mother who moved to San Francisco from El Salvador when she was 14. "Who cares about Evelyn?

"The first time I heard Laci's case, I got flashbacks from Evelyn, because it is the same case," Damy said. "That's very hard to see, why one gets more attention than the other."

VALUE OF PUBLICITY

Families of crime victims say the media spotlight keeps pressure on police to work quickly to solve the case, while police say publicity helps them enlist the help of citizens whose tips might lead to the recovery of a body, an arrest, or the safe return of a missing person.

"Our greatest hope would have been for someone to say, yes, I saw her here, with this person," said San Francisco police inspector Holly Pera, who took on Hernandez's case when it became a suspected homicide.

Police at first thought Hernandez may have gone away to have her baby on her own, and didn't hold their first news conference until more than a month after she vanished, when the homicide unit took over the case.

"It's hard to turn back the clock and get what we could have gotten if we had major publicity from the get-go," Pera said.

It is rare for a pregnant woman to vanish. But Peterson's case likely received extra media attention from the start because she was from the same town as another well-known missing person and homicide victim -- Chandra Levy, the Washington, D.C., intern who had an affair with then-Rep. Gary Condit.

Adding intrigue as the Laci Peterson story unfolded were revelations about Scott Peterson that seemed to come almost weekly -- from his admission to an extramarital affair, to revelations that he had purchased a life insurance policy on his wife, to his selling her car and attempting to sell the house, to his hesitancy to speak to the media.

To Be Cont ...

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Brian in Mesa

story conitnued...

ENDEARING PERSONALITY

In Modesto, regular folks say that what has made Laci's story tug on their heartstrings is Laci herself -- a beautiful, warm and likable young woman who seemed to have it all.

"She was a happy-go-lucky lady. In a way, I feel like I wish I would have known her," said Lee Benites, a genial grandfather who cuts hair at his downtown salon, the Razor's Edge. "And a lot of it is because it was Christmas time, and she was going to have a baby."

"It's heart-wrenching to think that somebody could do something like that to a woman who is expecting a baby, especially if it was (Scott Peterson)," said Mary Lou Hambrick of Louisville, Ky., as she played with her grandchildren at a park while visiting family in Modesto.

Hambrick said she was riveted by Laci Peterson's case from the start. And that's not just because her 29-year-old daughter, Erin, lives in Modesto and looks a bit like Laci, she said.

"She just looks like a warm, beautiful daughter," Hambrick said. "You see nothing but a big smile."

But advocates for other missing adults say that while they don't begrudge the attention Laci Peterson has received, they are devastated by the disparity.

About 200,000 adults are reported missing in the United States each year. The state attorney general's office reports that 35,142 adults were reported missing in California in 2001, some 4,346 of them under suspicious or unknown circumstances. Most have received scant attention.

While Evelyn Hernandez's story eerily mirrors Peterson's case, the disparity in media coverage also has been striking.

Even before the dramatic arrest of Scott Peterson on Friday, The Chronicle had written 32 stories since Laci Peterson was reported missing Dec. 24 -- four of them on the front page. It published four about Evelyn Hernandez, none on the front page.

HERNANDEZ'S STORY

Laci Peterson often topped the newscasts of national cable news channels during a four-month investigation, while Evelyn Hernandez received scant coverage from Bay Area television stations -- even on the day her remains were found.

Described by friends as a devoted mother to her son Alex, Hernandez was a legal immigrant who had worked as a vocational nurse and in jobs at Costco and the Clift Hotel. She was reported missing by her baby's father, a 36-year-old married man named Herman Aguilera, Pera said.

Authorities had already suspected that Hernandez and her son Alex met with foul play when her wallet was found in South San Francisco, two blocks from where Aguilera worked at a limousine company, Pera said. Then, in late July, a portion of her torso -- still clad in maternity clothes -- washed up on the Embarcadero.

When her death was confirmed by DNA tests just after Labor Day, her small circle of friends and a sister who lives in the East Bay planned a memorial service in San Francisco that drew 100 people. It was the same small community that had circulated flyers when she disappeared.

Damy said friends and family tried repeatedly to get Hernandez's case featured on "America's Most Wanted" but were rejected because no warrant had been issued for a suspect. But, Damy said, the show did a story on Laci Peterson although no suspects had been named in that case either.

Hernandez's friends and family are convinced that subtle factors -- from Hernandez's status as a Salvadoran immigrant to the fact that she was involved with a married man -- figured in the news media giving little notice to her case.

"It's embarrassing," said Pera, the San Francisco police inspector. "We've pushed and asked for and received as much as we possibly could. But we don't make the decision about what gets covered and what doesn't."

E-mail Kelly St. John at kstjohn@sfchronicle.com.

©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback

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FischerKing

Probably had a T-Time with Orenthal. Apparently there is a golf-crazed serial killer on the loose because the most logical way to catch him is by golfing as much as possible...

I just hope for the safety of our citizen's that the Police Departments get the funding for golf equipment soon - we must stop crime!

Shawn

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you win, you are still retarded..."

"I can't trust a woman who would marry me." ~ AzCards21

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AZCB34

I know things seem to point at the hubby and all but does anyone find it strange that he was arrested yet no proof of the allegations made it to the public as is normally the case? I mean I know he is being charged so there must be some serious evidence against him. I also know the records have been sealed thus far but usually things are still leaked.

She was a very beautiful woman and I cannot fathom why he wouldn't have simply left her. Sometimes it really makes you wonder what was going through someone's mind when they make the choice they make. I mean, if he wanted out that bad, he could have simply vanished himself.

Also makes you wonder, assuming he actually did do it, is why he was sticking around to begin with? Sure he is under surveillance but there are ways of beating that. As the noose got tighter and tighter he should have run, like the coward that he is. Unless he is so arrogant to believe he simply would never be caught.....

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FischerKing

I think that was the point - he even paid out of pocket for his own investigation into her whereabouts. He showed up in various locations handing out flyers, etc. He was trying to play it off in a much more convincing way, then he had to go and get OJ on the whole thing and play a game of golf...

Shawn

__________________


"Arguing on the internet is like running in the special olympics... Even if
you win, you are still retarded..."

"I can't trust a woman who would marry me." ~ AzCards21

"I don't care what you believe, keep your religion out of my peanut butter!" ~ Assface

justAndy

of COURSE it's big news when upper class white people disappear. It's sad but true - there's a lot of subtle, unconscious racism still in this country. We're getting better, but it's just gonna take time...

Ryanwb

Yeah, I hate people who are intolerant of others

http://www.arizonasportsfans.com/vb/...&threadid=7900

sorry you set yourself up for that one.

justAndy

...

Brian in Mesa

Deliberations Begin in Peterson Trial

Thu Nov 4, 7:28 AM ET
By BRIAN SKOLOFF, Associated Press Writer

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. - Jurors in the Scott Peterson murder case began deliberating whether the former fertilizer salesman killed his pregnant wife, and will remain sequestered until they can decide between a conviction based on largely circumstantial evidence or an acquittal that accepts the defense's theory of a possible frame-up.

The panel, which has sat through more than five months of testimony, met for more than four hours Wednesday before retiring for the day. They were to continue deliberations Thursday morning.

Judge Alfred A. Delucchi sent the panelists into the jury room after about 45 minutes of instructions. Delucchi plans to keep the jury sequestered until it reaches a verdict.

Prosecutors claim Peterson strangled or smothered his wife, Laci, on Dec. 23 or 24, 2002, then dumped her weighted body into San Francisco Bay. Her badly decomposed remains and those of the fetus were discovered four months later, not far from where Peterson claims to have been fishing alone the day she vanished.

Defense lawyers claim someone else abducted and killed the Modesto woman, then placed the bodies in the water.

The jury as has two choices should it decide to convict — first-degree murder, carrying a possible death sentence or life without parole, and second-degree murder, carrying two sentences of 15 years to life.

"First-degree murder you need two things, expressed malice and intent to kill and premeditation," Delucchi told jurors. "Then you also have second-degree murder," a lesser charge the judge added after finding there was ample evidence to support a case that did not involve prior planning.

The trial began with jury selection in March, and opening statements were in June.

Prosecutors argued in their final remarks to jurors Wednesday that it is "ridiculous" to think someone would frame the former fertilizer salesman by hiding the bodies in the bay, hoping they would one day be discovered, as defense lawyers suggested.

"You can't base a reasonable doubt on an unreasonable interpretation of the evidence," prosecutor Rick Distaso said in his rebuttal to the defense closing argument. "It's just not reasonable that anyone put that body in the bay to frame him. If it's not reasonable, you must reject it."

Defense lawyer Mark Geragos has conceded all along that Peterson, who was having an affair at the time Laci vanished, is a liar and a cheat. But he said he shouldn't be convicted of murder.

"You're not supposed to just decide this case on whether or not you like Scott Peterson," Geragos told jurors.

In their closing arguments, prosecutors made their case for premeditation, contending each bit of evidence is like a piece of a puzzle that when put together points to murder. Geragos countered that with so many missing pieces, such as the lack of a murder weapon, cause or time of death and real motive, jurors must decide there is too much reasonable doubt to convict.

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thirty-two

I hope they find this scumbag guilty. Abosolute trash.

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