Laci Peterson’s Disappearance
Laci, 27, was eight months pregnant when she vanished from the Modesto, Calif., home she shared with her husband, Scott, on December 24, 2002. The substitute schoolteacher was reportedly last seen by a neighbor walking their dog that day.
Scott alleged he last saw his wife at their home that same morning before he traveled 90 miles to Berkeley Marina for a day of fishing.
When he returned in the evening, he claimed their unleashed dog was in the backyard, but Laci was nowhere to be found, prompting him to call his mother-in-law to inquire about his wife’s whereabouts.
Loved ones then called police.
During the investigation, Frey came forward to police and admitted to carrying on a month-long relationship with the suspected killer. Frey alleged Scott told her he was single.
Four months later, Laci and Conner’s remains washed ashore on a San Francisco Bay beach.
Authorities arrested Scott on double murder charges.
The Scott Peterson Case Today
Geragos said the day Scott was convicted, the defense team was still receiving discovery from the state in real time.
“If you look at the trial transcripts, there’s one point where I’m telling the judge: ‘I am ineffective as a matter of law as his lawyer,’” he recalled. “They just dumped another 40,000 pages of documents. I tell them on record that I’m looking at stuff that points to his innocence. How am I supposed to investigate the case, prepare every day for 100 witnesses, when they’ve got a theory that changes at all times?”
The longtime defense attorney, whose former clients include Michael Jackson and the Menendez brothers, also pointed to a potential connected burglary across the street from Scott and Laci’s home the day she went missing, citing a call sheet filled out by a corrections officer.
“The lieutenant had taken notes and filled out a report and said, ‘I overheard an inmate talking to his brother about the burglary across the street.’ And I heard him say, ‘Shut up.’ And they started talking about Laci,” Geragos explained.
Geragos said he wanted to investigate that lead further. “Everybody who knew Laci knew that if something untoward was happening across the street, she would have gone over there. She was a pistol by all accounts.”
The defense later learned that a stolen, bloodied, burned-out van connected to the burglary was recovered in the airport district of Modesto, Calif., after Laci disappeared.
“To now find out that...there was a mattress in the back of the van, and the evidence was collected and tested, and they deep-sixed all of that until decades later is the most infuriating thing,” Geragos said.
While the Los Angeles Innocence Project has taken up Scott's case, Geragos has offered to pay for further testing on the mattress given the recent advancements in DNA technology.
Since his conviction, Scott has been denied several appeals.
His motion for a new trial, direct appeal, four requests for post-conviction DNA testing, and two motions for post-conviction discovery have all been shot down.
In April 2026, Scott’s third petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus was also denied. He withdrew a third motion for post-conviction discovery at that time.
In the latest decision, a judge rejected all 14 claims in the Writ of Habeas Corpus, including the defense’s accusations of suppressed evidence and claims of innocence, describing them as procedurally barred, lacking merit or both.
What Is Scott Peterson's Life in Prison Like Now?
Scott Peterson, who was found guilty of the murders of his wife, Laci Peterson, and their unborn son, on November 12, 2004, was at San Quentin State Prison but in 2022 was transferred to Mule Creek State Prison while his family fights for a new trial.
Scott Peterson, who was found guilty of the murders of his wife, Laci Peterson, and their unborn son, on November 12, 2004, was at San Quentin State Prison but in 2022 was transferred to Mule Creek State Prison while his family fights for a new trial.
‘Some Real Failures’
Ex-LAPD Det. Toosbuy believed there were “some real failures” in the case against Scott.
“There is no direct evidence,” she argued. “There’s circumstantial evidence, but the real problem for me is that there were investigative leads that were not pursued, and the job of an investigator is to pursue every lead regardless of where you may think the lead will take you, because the whole point of an investigation is to be as thorough as possible... to provide a case to the district attorney so they can determine whether there’s enough evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. And that was not done in this investigation.”
Toosbuy also cited the nearby burglary as grounds to reexamine the case.
“If they [the burglars] had in fact had an exchange with Laci during the commission of the burglary, that means that Scott would never have been involved in her disappearance because at that point he had already left for the marina,” she said.
Furthermore, she criticized the interrogation techniques used by detectives.
“They looked at Scott during those interrogations and figured, ‘Okay, this guy did it,’” Toosbuy claimed. “And from that moment on, everything he said and did in the room was seen through that lens of confirmation bias. And because of that, the detectives were no longer looking for the truth.”
But Geragos, Toosbury and Pixley think the truth is still out there.
“I knew then, and I know now,” Geragos said, “Scott is innocent.”
Scott Peterson: The New Evidence premieres July 16 at 9 p.m. ET on A&E.
