Peterson Murder: Trial, Overturned Sentence, and Innocence Project

Scott Peterson was convicted in November 2004 of first-degree murder in the death of his pregnant wife, Laci Peterson, and second-degree murder in the death of their unborn son, Conner. He was originally sentenced to death, but the California Supreme Court threw out that sentence in 2020, and he is now serving life without the possibility of parole at Mule Creek State Prison. The Scott Peterson murder case is again in the news because the Los Angeles Innocence Project took on his claim of actual innocence in January 2024; every legal challenge it has brought so far has been denied.

Laci Peterson’s Disappearance

Laci Peterson was eight months pregnant when she was reported missing on Christmas Eve 2002 from the couple’s home in Modesto, California. Scott told police he had spent the morning fishing at the Berkeley Marina in the San Francisco Bay and returned to find her gone.¹ By March 2003 Modesto police had reclassified the investigation as a homicide.²

On April 13, 2003, the decomposed body of a fetus washed ashore in the San Francisco Bay. The next day a woman’s remains, missing the head and limbs, were found nearby. Both were located near Point Isabel in Richmond, only a few miles from where Scott said he had gone fishing.² DNA testing confirmed on April 18 that they were Laci and Conner.³

Police arrested Scott Peterson that same day near San Diego. He had dyed his hair, grown a goatee, and was carrying roughly $15,000 in cash, several cell phones, and his brother’s identification.⁴ He was arraigned on April 21, 2003, and pleaded not guilty.³

The Trial and the Evidence

Because saturation media coverage in Modesto made an impartial jury unrealistic, the trial was moved from Stanislaus County to San Mateo County. Proceedings opened in Redwood City on June 1, 2004.⁴

Prosecutors had no murder weapon, no confirmed cause of death, and no eyewitness. Their case was circumstantial, built on Peterson’s behavior, his lies, and his apparent motive. The central witness was Amber Frey, a massage therapist who began a relationship with Peterson on November 20, 2002, about a month before Laci disappeared. Peterson never told her he was married or expecting a child.⁵ Prosecutors argued he killed Laci because he did not want to become a father and wanted to continue seeing Frey.⁶

Recorded phone calls between Peterson and Frey were among the most damaging evidence. In one, Peterson claimed he was in Paris on New Year’s Eve while he was actually in Modesto near a vigil for his missing wife.⁴ On December 23, the day prosecutors placed the murder, Peterson had suggested to Frey that they meet with a doctor about a vasectomy.⁶ Weeks before Laci disappeared, on the same day he bought his fishing boat, Peterson told Frey it would be his “first holiday without her.”⁷

Physical and digital evidence filled in around Frey’s testimony. Peterson had run computer searches for boat ramps and ocean currents. A strand of hair on pliers in his boat was linked by mitochondrial DNA testing to Laci’s maternal line. Concrete debris in his boat cover matched a homemade anchor and his workshop, and traces of blood were recovered from the home and truck.⁸⁷

Defense attorney Mark Geragos argued that Modesto police had tunnel vision. He pointed to a burglary across the street from the Peterson home on or near the day Laci vanished and suggested she had interrupted it and been killed. Two men, Steven Todd and Donald Pearce, were later arrested for that burglary, but police said they were “eliminated as suspects” in Laci’s disappearance, with a detective stating there was no connection.⁹ The defense also produced witnesses who said they had seen Laci walking in the neighborhood after Scott left, and pushed back on any financial motive.

On November 12, 2004, the jury returned guilty verdicts on first-degree murder for Laci, second-degree murder for Conner, and a special circumstance of multiple murder. On December 13, 2004, jurors recommended death. Judge Alfred Delucchi imposed the death sentence on March 16, 2005.⁵

Why the Death Sentence Was Overturned

On August 24, 2020, the California Supreme Court unanimously upheld Peterson’s murder convictions but threw out his death sentence. Writing for the court, Justice Leondra Kruger found that the trial judge had made “clear and significant errors in jury selection” during the penalty phase.¹⁰

The error involved prospective jurors who expressed personal opposition to the death penalty. More than a dozen had also indicated on their questionnaires that they would be willing to impose a death sentence in some cases. Under U.S. Supreme Court precedent, jurors like these can be dismissed for cause only if their views would “substantially impair” their ability to follow the law. The trial court dismissed them based only on their written answers, without any oral questioning to make that determination. Justice Kruger also faulted prosecutors for not objecting at the time.¹¹

On December 8, 2021, Superior Court Judge Anne-Christine Massullo resentenced Peterson to life in prison without the possibility of parole.¹²

The Innocence Project Effort

In January 2024, the Los Angeles Innocence Project announced that it was representing Peterson and investigating his claim of actual innocence.¹³ The LAIP is a Central and Southern California organization, separate from the New York–based Innocence Project.¹⁴ Its director, Paula Mitchell, said she had identified “deficiencies” in the original discovery, including items referenced in police reports that were never turned over to the defense.¹⁵

The New Evidence Claims

The LAIP has advanced several theories:

New scientific studies, it argues, place the deaths of Laci and Conner four to twelve days after Laci disappeared, a window in which Peterson could not have been responsible. Trial expert Dr. Greggory DeVore had testified they died on December 23 or 24.¹⁶
Three-dimensional modeling, according to the LAIP, points to the bodies being placed in the water near the Albany Bulb rather than south of Brooks Island, contradicting the prosecution’s hydrologist.¹⁶
The LAIP has renewed the burglary theory, alleging the prosecution suppressed evidence about the burglary’s timeline and that Modesto police destroyed videotaped interviews with the burglary suspects shortly after Peterson was arraigned.¹⁶

Former Modesto detective Al Brocchini has responded that the burglary was “investigated thoroughly” and that both Todd and Pearce had alibis for the time Laci disappeared.¹⁷

What the Courts Have Ruled

The LAIP’s filings have moved on several tracks, and none has succeeded.

In January 2024, the LAIP requested DNA testing or retesting of 14 items. On May 29, 2024, a San Mateo County judge approved testing for only one, a piece of duct tape recovered from Laci’s clothing during autopsy, and denied the other 13 requests.¹⁸ Testing was completed and results submitted under seal.¹⁹

The LAIP also filed more than 600 post-conviction discovery demands in January 2024. After hearings that July, Judge Elizabeth Hill granted about 45 items and denied the rest in an October 2024 order.¹⁹ An April 2025 appellate petition seeking a new trial, running nearly 400 pages and including a 140-page declaration from Peterson himself, was largely rejected later that year.¹⁴

The biggest ruling came on April 27, 2026, when Judge Hill denied Peterson’s August 2025 habeas corpus petition in a 116-page order that rejected all 14 claims as “procedurally barred, meritless, or both.” She found that much of the supposed new evidence was “neither new, admissible nor material,” and that Peterson had “not alleged facts sufficient to bring any of the procedurally barred claims within an exception for fundamental miscarriage of justice or actual innocence.”²⁰⁷

Judge Hill characterized several of the defense’s suppression claims as “recycled arguments” already rejected by higher courts. An unsealed 2004 trial transcript showed the defense had known about and had access to evidence it later accused prosecutors of hiding, including a tip about an alternative suspect and a pawn ticket for a Croton watch. She twice admonished the defense team for potential violations of the duty of candor, writing that the petition “treads unsettlingly close to the bounds of permissible advocacy.”⁷ The LAIP has said it will appeal.¹⁶

The Pending Juror Misconduct Challenge

A separate claim is still alive before the California Supreme Court. It concerns juror Richelle Nice, who answered “No” during jury selection when asked whether she had ever been a victim of a crime, despite a prior restraining order and a domestic violence incident. A lower court ruled in 2022 that Nice’s answers were false but “unintentional” and had not prejudiced Peterson.¹⁶ That ruling is under review.²⁰

Where Peterson Is Now

Peterson, 53, is serving life without parole at Mule Creek State Prison, where he was transferred from San Quentin in 2022. In March 2025 he was attacked by a fellow inmate while playing pickleball on a recreation path. Prison staff used chemical agents and batons to break up the fight, and both men sustained minor injuries.²¹ None of his legal challenges to the underlying murder convictions has succeeded.

A Note on the Other Peterson Murder Case

Searches for “Peterson murder” often pull up a separate case: novelist Michael Peterson of Durham, North Carolina, who was convicted in 2003 of killing his wife, Kathleen. That case is unrelated to Scott Peterson. Michael Peterson won a new trial after a state blood spatter analyst’s testimony was discredited, entered an Alford plea to voluntary manslaughter in 2017, and was released based on time already served.²²

1
KCRA. Timeline of the Scott Peterson Case
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NBC Bay Area. Scott Peterson Murder Case Timeline
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ABC7 News. Laci Peterson Scott Murder Trial
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CBS News. Scott Peterson New Evidence
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CNN. Scott Peterson Laci Peterson Case
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CNN. Peterson Trial Coverage
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Stanislaus County District Attorney. Press Release, Peterson Case
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California Supreme Court. People v. Peterson, S132449
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San Francisco Chronicle. Two Suspects Cleared in Modesto Case
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New York Times. Scott Peterson Death Sentence Overturned
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Death Penalty Information Center. California Supreme Court Overturns Scott Peterson’s Death Sentence
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ABC News. Scott Peterson Resentenced to Life Without Parole
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ABC7 News. Scott Peterson Los Angeles Innocence Project Status Hearing
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Modesto Bee. Scott Peterson Case
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CNN. Scott Peterson Los Angeles Innocence Project
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Los Angeles Innocence Project. LAIP Plans to Appeal Ruling in Peterson Case
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Oxygen. Authorities React to Scott Peterson’s Burglary Theory Defense
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ABC News. Judge Largely Denies Scott Peterson DNA Testing Request
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Stanislaus County District Attorney. Press Release, Peterson Case
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ABC7 News. Scott Peterson Murder Case, Innocence Project Plans Appeal
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KTVU. Scott Peterson Attacked in Mule Creek Prison
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WRAL. Michael Peterson Plea Deal