The miniseries follows the case of Peterson, a 27-year-old woman who was pregnant when she disappeared from her home in 2002. Her husband’s conviction, infidelity and a trial that is still ongoing.
The production is based on the case of Peterson, who was eight months pregnant with her first child when she disappeared from her home on Christmas Eve 2002. The story quickly spread through the media, making Peterson a household name as her family and friends desperately searched for her.
When her remains were finally found, police began building a case against her husband, Scott Peterson, who continues to maintain his innocence to this day.
Two decades after Scott’s conviction, the three-part Netflix series revisits Peterson’s disappearance, investigation and trial through news clips, interrogation footage and courtroom cameras. The series includes interviews with detectives, attorneys and jurors, as well as Amber Frey , the woman Peterson was in a relationship with during his wife’s disappearance.
In a rare interview, Laci’s mother, Sharon Rocha , speaks in depth for the first time since her daughter’s death.
All three episodes of American Murder: Laci Peterson are now available on Netflix’s streaming platform. As they progress, they delve into the details of Laci’s murder and why the Innocence Project in Los Angeles is now involved in Scott’s case.
What happened to Laci Peterson?
Laci Peterson was 27 years old and eight months pregnant. She was last seen at her home in Modesto, California, on December 24, 2002. Her husband, Scott Peterson, said he had been fishing at the Berkley Marina that day and returned home to find their dog on a leash in the backyard, with no sign of Laci anywhere.
Family, friends and law enforcement began searching for Laci. Scott Peterson cooperated with authorities during the investigation, which became a media frenzy after details of his affair became public.
The husband was dating Amber Frey, a massage therapist who lived in Fresno, who revealed that they were in a relationship. “Scott told me he wasn’t married,” she told a room full of reporters, according to NBC Bay Area . “We were in a romantic relationship.”
Prosecutors revealed that Peterson told his mistress that he had “lost” his wife and would be spending his first Christmas alone, even though Laci was still very much alive at the time of that conversation.
In April 2003, four months after her disappearance, the bodies of Laci Peterson and her unborn son, Conner, washed up in San Francisco Bay. After reviewing the full autopsy and coroner’s photographs, ABC News reported on the condition of Laci’s and her unborn baby’s bodies.
Scott Peterson’s conviction
Federal and local authorities arrested Scott Peterson near a golf course in La Jolla, San Diego, on April 18, 2003, according to the Los Angeles Times , just days after the bodies of Laci and Conner were found in San Francisco Bay.
The newspaper reported that Modesto police, the California Highway Patrol and federal agents had been monitoring Peterson for months through “wiretaps, vehicle tracking devices and direct surveillance.” The husband pleaded not guilty to the two murder charges at his arraignment.
The trial began in June 2004 and lasted five months. Jurors ultimately indicted Scott on first-degree murder charges for the death of Laci Peterson and second-degree murder for the death of her son. The jury recommended the death penalty, and a judge convicted him in 2005, describing the killings as “cruel, indifferent, heartless and callous,” according to NBC News .
After spending more than 15 years on death row, the California Supreme Court overturned Scott Peterson’s sentence in 2020, declaring that there had been “a series of clear and significant errors in jury selection” that ran counter to U.S. Supreme Court precedent.
The decision was based on the trial court’s «erroneously disregarding» numerous potential jurors who indicated their opposition to the death penalty in written questionnaires, despite assurances that these views would not interfere with their ability to follow the law.
A year later, Scott was again sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for Laci’s death. A judge sentenced him to 15 years to life in prison for the baby’s death.
In recent years, Peterson’s team pushed for a new trial, which a judge denied in 2022. They accused one juror, a woman named Richelle Nice , of withholding details of her personal life because she did not disclose that she was a victim of domestic violence and that she had sought a restraining order in 2000 out of fear that her boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend would harm her unborn baby, according to NBC News.
Meanwhile, Peterson’s attorneys argued that Laci was killed during a robbery.
How the case stands today
Scott Peterson is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole at Mule Creek State Prison and has maintained his claim of innocence for the past 22 years. He gave his first interview in more than two decades for Peacock ’s upcoming documentary , Face to Face with Scott Peterson , airing August 20. Series director Shareen Anderson led the conversation.
“Why should we listen to your side of the story?” he is asked in the trailer. “Because I didn’t kill my family,” he replies.
American Murder director Skye Borgman told Us Weekly that Scott did not want to be featured in the Netflix documentary. “We reached out to him and had a couple of conversations with him in jail. Ultimately he decided not to be in our documentary.” Borgman added that Scott’s lack of involvement is fine because the docuseries “did get his family’s perspective and we wanted it to be from Laci’s perspective.”
Why is the Innocence Project involved in the Scott Peterson case?
The Los Angeles Innocence Project, a nonprofit dedicated to exonerating the wrongfully convicted, announced earlier this year that it would take on Peterson’s case. “The Los Angeles Innocence Project (LAIP) represents Scott Peterson and is investigating his claim of actual innocence,” a spokesperson for the organization said in a statement at the time.
Scott’s new attorneys from the Innocence Project hope to retry his case by seeking new DNA evidence from samples using advanced technology that has improved since his original conviction. The only new DNA evidence the court obtained is a single piece of duct tape found on Laci Peterson’s pants during the autopsy, according to NBC Bay Area.
