What Scott Peterson's recent court win could mean for his yearslong quest for freedom
Fox News contributor and former Washington, D.C., homicide detective Ted Williams does not believe that convicted murderer Scott Peterson's recent win to re-examine discovery in his case will lead to his release from prison.
On Monday, a California judge granted Peterson — who was convicted and sentenced to life in 2004 for killing Laci Peterson, his 27-year-old pregnant wife, and their unborn son in 2002 — the right to a post-conviction discovery period, which is required under state law for defendants convicted of serious felonies who have received sentences of 15 years or more.
"They’ve got the right man," Williams said simply when asked about his thoughts on the decision. "Scott Peterson murdered his wife Lacy and his son Conner."
Williams further added his belief, after covering Peterson's trial 20 years ago, that Peterson "wanted to free himself of both so that he could carry on a relationship with Amber Frey."
Fry was the woman Peterson was secretly seeing behind Laci's back while they were married. After her disappearance, he tried to continue their relationship.
Laci was seven-and-a-half months pregnant at the time she disappeared from her and Peterson's Modesto home Christmas Eve in 1994. Four months later, in April 2003, a pedestrian found her unborn son's decomposed body in the San Francisco Bay.
Authorities later located Laci's decomposed body in the Bay, coincidentally a few miles from where Peterson said he had gone on a solo fishing trip on Dec. 24, 2002.
Peterson said he had come home to an empty house and reported Laci missing the next day.
Following Laci's disappearance and prior to his arrest, Peterson bleached his hair and was caught carrying his brother's passport in San Diego, where police believed he may have been trying to flee to Mexico.
The Los Angeles Innocent Project, which seeks to defend the wrongly accused and wrongly imprisoned, took up the Peterson case in January. The LA Innocence Project appears to be hinging its case on evidence that it wants tested for DNA, police reports, audio recordings, video recordings and other materials that Peterson's attorneys believe will exonerate him.
"Mr. Peterson’s been waiting for 20 years for police reports and audio recordings and video recordings that should have been provided," Paula Mitchell, executive director of The Innocence Project, said during a March court hearing, according to the Los Angeles Times. "We are eager to get our investigation underway."
Peterson's attorneys have linked a burglary involving two suspects that occurred sometime between Dec. 24, 2002 — the day Laci vanished — and Dec. 26, 2002, at a house near the Peterson home to Laci's disappearance. Investigators, however, say one of the burglars admitted the burglary happened on Dec. 26.
"There was a burglary across the street from our home," Peterson told filmmakers for a Peacock series called "Face-to-Face with Scott Peterson," via video call from Mule Creek State Prison. "And I believe that Laci went over there to see what was going on, and that's when she was taken."
The burglary was not mentioned at Peterson's trial in 2004.
The LA Innocence Project is also pointing to a van that was set on fire on Dec. 25, 2002, in Modesto, a day before the burglary may have taken place.
Still, Williams does not believe that this information "will allow Peterson to get out of prison," he said.
"You find the things that Peterson himself did certainly leads one to believe that no two burglars would have killed Lacy and her son in Modesto . . . and then took her to San Francisco Bay, where Scott Peterson was fishing, and then dumped her in the Bay," Williams said. "It defies logic. I don’t think they will ever prove that happened."
Peterson, now 51, was initially sentenced to death nearly 17 years ago and was ordered Wednesday to serve the remainder of his life in prison after the Supreme Court overruled his death sentence in August 2020 amid allegations of juror misconduct. Laci's family members were allowed to give statements on her behalf.
Prosecutors have said Peterson murdered Laci and dumped her body in the San Francisco Bay from his fishing boat on Christmas Eve. Her body and the fetus of her unborn son washed ashore in April 2003. In his 2004 trial, prosecutors also pointed to Scott Peterson's affair with massage therapist Amber Frey, who testified that she had not known that he was married.
Fox News' Christina Coulter contributed to this report.