“You do know,” Sharon shot back. “Stop lying. For once in your life take some responsibility and tell the goddamn truth. Where is my daughter?”
“I want her home, Mom and … ”
“Shut up,” Sharon commanded. “Don’t tell me such stupid things. You tell me where she is. Where did you put her?” Sharon paused to catch her breath. “Scott, tell me where she is.”
“I’m sorry …” Scott interrupted, but Sharon continued to rail.
“And you can run away … you can go do whatever the fuck you want, but tell me where my daughter is.”
“I’m sorry,” Scott started again.
“I have every right to know where you put Laci,” Sharon insisted.
“We all have a right to know where Laci is …”
“Quit lying to me,” Sharon yelled into the receiver. “Don’t bull-shit me. You tell me where she is.”
“We all want her home.”
“Shut up,” Sharon demanded. “You are such a fucking liar. You make me sick, Scott. Where is Laci? I want to be able to bury my daughter. Now, tell me what you did with her.”
“I want her and our child home … ”
“Oh shut up. You’re disgusting. Do you know there’s not a person in this town who wants to see your face? Now you tell me where she is and then you can get the hell out of here. Tell me where she is. I want my daughter, Scott. That’s all I want from you. I don’t care what happens to you.”
Scott tried to say something, but his mother-in-law continued to rage. “Mom, we all want her back.”
“Oh God, you are disgusting,” Sharon retorted, then turned to Ron. “Do you have anything to say to him?” She handed Ron the phone.
“If you’ve got anything left in you, Scott, you better tell us where she is,” Ron commanded.
“I wish I knew, Ron. We all want her back,” Scott repeated.
“No,” Ron fumed. “The police have … the police are gonna be seeing you before long, Scott. And your world is crumbling.”
“My world is done without Laci and my child,” Scott said. “We all want her back. And I’m sorry that you guys feel I had something to do with this. But the only important thing is getting her back.”
“Scott, I don’t know how you can just … I don’t know how you can do this, just keep saying … we’ve seen pictures,” Ron said. “We’ve seen other things, so, you’re in trouble. We want her back.”
“We all want her back,” Scott said again. “There’s no question to that. We’re, we need to find her and Conner.”
Sharon shouted in the background: “I know, well same thing, I want her back, too. I want her back, too.”
“I’ve had enough of this,” Grantski fumed. “I don’t want to talk to you any more. You tell us where Laci is.” Ron angrily hung up.
Consider this—how would you, an innocent person, react to such a hysterical accusation from the parents of your wife? Would you quietly protest your innocence, or join Sharon in tears? Would you remain calm and deliberative, as Scott did? Whenever a guest on my program tried to argue that everyone reacts differently to grief and loss, I wondered, then shall we eliminate all the great works of literature that illuminate the contours of universal human behavior? If we give up a belief in basic shared characteristics, motives, and behavior, psychology itself becomes a worthless field of study. I believe that Scott Peterson did consistently exhibit conduct of a classic sociopath. I was not surprised that he proved unable to feel Sharon’s grief, for he had none of his own.
At 4:05, Scott dialed Brent. “I don’t know why I called you,” he said, “but I just got off the phone with Mom and Ron.”
“Yeah,” Brent replied.
“I can’t lose any more of my family here, you know,” Scott told his brother-in-law.
“Hey man, you know what? They think you did it, bud. They think, ya, ya know, the police are tellin’ ’em it’s you and they’re upset … ”
“Yeah, I …” Scott agreed.
“… and ya know, I’m trying to hang in there with ya but, uh, I mean their evidence is piling up on ya Scott, and you know what, they think they got ya, they really do,” Brent said.
“I didn’t do anything, man,” Scott insisted.
“To be honest with ya …” Brent said before being interrupted a second time.
“Again, I don’t know why I’m calling ya right now, but … ” Scott explained.
“I don’t have anything to hide from you,” Brent said. “Whatever happened, happened for a reason, but I want my sister back, ya know?”
“I do, too. I want Laci back and my baby, Conner,” Scott said.
“It’s going to be over, they got a lot of things and they don’t even tell us half of what they got,” Brent said.
“I …”
“Ninety-nine point nine percent, they think it’s you. That’s my guess, you know what I mean?” Brent asked.
“What’s that?”
“That’s my guess and I think, ah, I’m not much in contact like my mom is in contact, so she might know different things,” Brent explained.
“I mean, there’s nothin’ to know. That’s uh—God,” Scott said. “All right, again, I don’t know why I’m callin’. I’m just so upset by it.”
“But, I definitely want to keep in touch with you so, you know,” Brent said. “I’m not being judgmental. I don’t know anything right now. Ya know? I’m lost. I don’t know what the hell happened and I’m not going to judge you for doing it until you know, they can say anything they want to try to talk me into it, but I’m keeping an open mind,” Brent paused. “I don’t know what my mom said. She still pissed?”
“It’s so hard to talk to her. She thinks I did something to Laci … it’s …” Scott laughed nervously as he spoke.
“Ya, she thinks you did, Scott.”
“I know,” Scott agreed.
“She didn’t think you did until a couple of days ago, til this article came out and she met with police,” Brent said.
“Gosh, I can’t… ”
“She was standing by you, you heard her in the media,” Brent continued. “She was supportin’ ya one hundred percent. Then, all of a sudden, she took a ninety-degree turn, cause they got some stuff on ya man, let me tell ya… .
“They got a lot of forensic stuff, so I don’t know,” Brent said. “I don’t know the details on it, but … ”
“There’s nothing to have,” Scott said again. “Okay, again, I don’t know why I called, I just, uh …”
“Hang in there, ya know, let’s get through it. Let’s get my sister home, okay?”
I doubt that Brent was being truly candid with Scott. His suspicions, like Sharon’s, were mounting rapidly. Yet, he seemed determined to keep the lines of communication open, hoping that Scott might slip up and reveal something to him about Laci.
Scott’s next call was from Kim McGregor, who lived three houses away from the Petersons on Covena Avenue. The thirty-year-old woman became friendly with Scott through her volunteer efforts at the Command Center at the Red Lion. Since Laci’s disappearance, she had been taking care of the Petersons’ dog.
“Is everything okay?” Kim asked.
“Na, nothing, nothin’s right,” Scott said. “But thank you for taking care of McKenzie.”
Kim agreed to keep McKenzie while Scott headed to the Bay area to distribute fliers, and then down to L.A. to open a volunteer center there. He told her he would probably be gone about a week.
When the two hung up, Kim dialed the Modesto police. Her call was transferred to Detective Buehler. The two had met earlier that year, when Buehler had worked on a stalking threat leveled against Kim. Now she alerted Buehler that Scott was preparing to leave town. She also reported that Scott didn’t sound “like he normally did,” that he sounded slightly depressed, and Kim wasn’t sure if his change in demeanor was significant.
Sharon Rocha also called the police to alert them to a conversation she had with her friend Terri Western, the re
al estate agent. Scott, she said, had approached Western at the Red Lion Hotel on January 14 and asked about selling his house.
When the police followed up, they learned that Scott had broached the subject when he and Western were alone at the command center. She saw that Scott appeared to be crying, so she walked over to give him a hug. Scott told Western that he needed to sell the Covena Avenue house, explaining that he didn’t want Laci to come home to the same environment and “this house.” Western admitted the statement was strange, but she paid little attention until she learned about the girl from Fresno the following day.
Western said that another friend, Judy McKinney, had a similar encounter. McKinney recounted that several days earlier she had brought in an article from the San Jose Mercury News that quoted one of Scott’s former college professors as calling Scott “kind of smart.” McKinney showed the article to Scott, in Terri Western’s presence.
“Kind of smart?” Scott reportedly commented as he skimmed the article. “I’m real smart.”
Many sociopaths have above-average intelligence, and they often expect to be recognized for it. Their belief in their own “special” status helps feed their conviction that normal social mores do not apply to them. Such individuals can be relatively insightful about others. They are generally adept at reading what their targets “need,” and then morphing into a personality they feel will generate the best results.
Scott Peterson was skilled at projecting myriad personalities. With Laci, he was steadfast, gentle, and hardworking; with Amber he was successful, worldly, and romantic. He seemed to be particularly anxious that people should perceive him as bright—asking Shawn Sibley whether Amber was intelligent, and buying phony diplomas to showcase on his wall. But the height of arrogance was reached when he took on California law enforcement.
Scott had fooled so many people for so long; he was convinced he could win this game as well.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
JANUARY 21, 2003
As the press worked feverishly to identify the “woman from Fresno,” police pressed forward. Detective Al Brocchini again reviewed tapes of the Martha Stewart Living shows that aired in Modesto on December 23 and 24.
Scott had told Brocchini that he took a shower on Christmas Eve morning, poured himself a bowl of cereal, and then joined Laci to watch her “favorite show.” Scott recalled that Martha was baking something using meringue. Brocchini wanted to see for himself at what time, if at all, Martha had referred to meringue. Having seen plenty of cases in which a suspect drew events from a previous day to create an alibi, he was eager to view the December 23 show first. Sure enough, forty minutes into the hour-long program, Martha and a guest, Bill Yasis, whipped up chocolate pastry layered in meringue.
Brocchini replaced the cassette with Stewart’s Christmas Eve broadcast. This time, Martha spent the first segment baking lemon butter cookies, and during the second half-hour prepared cioppino, a kind of fish stew. The detective did not catch any mention of meringue during the Christmas Eve show, and stated as much in his report.
Martha had, in fact, mentioned meringue during the Christmas Eve show—at 9:48 A.M. Pacific Standard Time. For Brocchini and the district attorney alike, this would prove an embarrassing oversight. Ironically, the discovery eventually led the prosecution to determine that Scott did not leave the house at 9:30, as he had claimed, but rather after 9:48—thus narrowing the window of time when Laci dis-appeared.
Detective Grogan was sitting in the Rochas’ living room, speaking with Sharon and Ron about a statement the family was preparing in response to the Enquirer article, when Scott Peterson’s face popped up on the TV screen. Amazed, the group watched Scott’s first television interview since his wife’s disappearance. During the segment, on the local station KTVU, Scott called the Modesto Bee’s story about his alleged affair and a recent life insurance policy on Laci “a bunch of lies.”
However, Scott did not deny his involvement in Laci’s disappearance.
That afternoon, Laci’s family members held a press conference. A tearful Sharon Rocha called on Scott to “tell everything he knows.” Her statement prompted a flurry of calls to Scott’s cell phone, mostly from reporters looking for his response.
Scott just erased the messages.
Under Grogan’s direction, search teams kept exploring the various bodies of water in the region. After probing nearby reservoirs, they were left with a list that included the Delta Mendota Canal, the San Lois Reservoir and O’Neil Forebay, and the San Francisco Bay.
Police also searched the Squaw Leap/Millerton Lake area, where Scott and Amber had picnicked with Ayiana in December. The rugged terrain and steep inclines led officers to conclude that it would have been too difficult to dispose of a body in Squaw Leap, but Millerton Lake was a more plausible locale, and they made a note to check it at a later time.
Brocchini and Buehler toured the area with Amber. They were curious to see whether she would reveal any additional calls from Scott since the one in early January. But Amber didn’t mention any of the recent unrecorded conversations, and the detectives never revealed that they had intercepted them. Her failure to report the calls had detectives concerned, and internal police reports indicate that they had not ruled her out as a suspect or accomplice in Laci’s disappearance.
“Although Amber Frey is taking steps to cooperate with authorities, she remains secretive with previous conversations she has had with Scott Peterson,” Jacobson, the officer in charge of the wiretaps, wrote in a report. “She informed us early on that she wanted to co-operate in this investigation, even stating she was tape recording her calls with Peterson. Yet, the evidence based on the intercepts has led us to believe that Amber Frey still has a desire to have Scott Peterson in her life and that she may even lie or conspire with him to with-hold evidence.”
Unsure of her allegiances, police scheduled Amber for a poly-graph on January 21. They also decided to examine her alibi closely. She had told police that she worked with a client at American Body Works on the morning of December 23, then spent the rest of the day and following morning with her daughter. When a neighbor had stopped by her home around 2:30 P.M. on Christmas Eve and asked why she was still wearing pajamas, Amber responded that she was off that day. Later that afternoon, Amber took her daughter to visit with her mother, and that evening she accompanied her friend Richard Byrd, the Fresno police officer, to a holiday party.
In the days that followed, police carefully investigated Amber’s story and concluded that she wasn’t involved in the suspected homicide. Still, they insisted that she take a polygraph.
During this same period, Amber told police about a conversation she had with Scott in early December.
“Scott told Amber that his friend Jeff was attempting to change his employment situation so he could travel less and have a relation-ship with a girl he met,” Buehler wrote. Scott said he was concerned about the same thing. He was working too much, he told Amber, and wanted to do something about it.
By the end of January, he promised, he’d be able to spend more time with her.
“Scott asked Amber if she would trust in his abilities to make decisions and if he contacted her regarding a big decision (to possibly relocate) if she would trust in his judgment,” the detective continued. “He told her he felt her style, along with her daughter, would fit in well with his life, and they could explore this in more detail near the end of January, as things would settle down for him at that time.”
In a later phone conversation, Scott told Amber that Laci’s entire family believed he had killed Laci. Amber responded that his refusal to tell the truth about other things—such as their affair—had only hurt his case. He’d done nothing to prove his innocence, she told him.
“There’s nothing I can do,” Scott countered.
Amber replied that he could start by “cooperating with authori-ties,” that he should “take the polygraph.”
Scott insisted he’d been the only one telling the truth.
“You’re lying again.”
Scott then agreed to a polygraph, on the condition that Amber accompany him. When she told him she’d meet him the following day, although Scott immediately backed off, telling her that he would take it in a few weeks.
The wiretaps on the suspect’s cell phones continued to offer insights into Scott’s situation. According to a transcript of one voice mail, Jackie Peterson offered some motherly advice.
“I wanted to talk to you about something,” Jackie said, “I would [think] that you should deny, deny, deny. I was told that years ago by an attorney, and I think you should talk to Kirk and do that … I had to do that at the time. I’m sorry, but that’s what I had to do and I re-ally feel that that’s right. Um, that you must deny these things, not to the press, not to anybody, but to your family. Because … it will be talked about and it could leak and it’s not good if there is any truth to your [unintelligible]. I’m not saying there is …”
It is not known whether any attorney actually said that to Jackie Peterson, but as investigator Steven Jacobson commented about this transcript, “It appears by this message and by his very own words [that] Scott Peterson is following these instructions.” To Jacobson, the message also reflected badly on Jackie: “I also believe by his mother not being specific by mentioning the affair alone, but by using the term ’deny anything,’ his mother and father know more about what really happened to Laci.”
Jackie’s instructions would never be played for the jury, but I discussed them several times on my program. While in public Jackie al-ways insisted on Scott’s innocence, behind the scenes she was desperate to keep him quiet. From the second day of the investigation, Scott’s parents were advising him not to take a polygraph. In all the recorded conversations among the three, Lee and Jackie were never heard to encourage him to participate in press conferences; nor did they ever ask him if he had anything to do with Laci’s disappearance. To the contrary, the three were more likely to denigrate the cops, or debate whether Scott was in “good shape” legally. Only when the Amber story broke did Jackie agree that it was time for Scott to make a media push. In hindsight, this seemed more for her son’s benefit than that of his missing wife.
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