“I have a chance to show people what the truth is, and if they are willing to accept it, maybe that takes a little hurt off my family,” Peterson said on his reason for speaking out. “That would be the biggest thing that I can accomplish right now.”
Convicted murderer Scott Peterson is speaking out for the first time in two decades in Peacock’s three-part Face to Face With Scott Peterson.
Peterson has continued to insist that he did not kill his 27-year-old wife Laci Peterson, who was eight-months pregnant when she disappeared on December 24, 2002.
His wife’s body was found on April 14, 2003, and within a few days, Peterson was arrested, charged, and thrown in country jail. The following year, he was found guilty of the first-degree murder of Laci and he was sentenced to death row for her murder and the murder of their unborn son, Conner.
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He was then resentenced to life in prison in 2021 and his case has since remained closed, despite his bids for a new trial that have consistently been rejected.
In the documentary, Peterson did not hold back from using it as an opportunity to share his side of the story, including the affair he was having with Amber Frey, as he was interviewed from prison by director Shareen Anderson.
“If I have a chance to get the reality out there. I have a chance to show people what the truth is, and if they are willing to accept it, maybe that takes a little hurt off my family,” Peterson said on his reason for speaking out. “That would be the biggest thing that I can accomplish right now.”
As he continued to maintain his innocence, he asked the audience not to trust him, but to “look at the evidence” instead.
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The docuseries began with Peterson sharing his side of what happened the night Laci went missing.
“When I got home, I started to call her friends and they hadn’t spoken to her. They didn’t know where she was and as the hours progressed it was like, ‘Oh my God, she’s out somewhere that we know of,'” he recalled. “So it was anxiety and panic.”
“I just thought Laci’s with her friends or she’s at her mom’s house, which would not be uncommon. Then when I found out Laci wasn’t at her mother’s house, I started to get concerned,” he said. “I know there is this narrative that I wasn’t concerned. But there were so many times where I was on the edge and just trying to hang on. I was surprised to read that in their reports, and it is all falsely reported about my mood.”
Peterson also insisted the police didn’t trust his side from the night they entered the house.
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“When [former detective of Modesto PD Al] Brocchini took a walk around the house, I don’t think they knew I was near them. One of them said, ‘Oh yeah, we know what is going on here. It’s the husband.’ Then they realized I was there,” he claimed. “Brocchini’s questions weren’t questions. They were accusations. He had made up his mind before he had even arrived at our home.”
Brocchini — who was also interviewed in the docuseries — described Peterson’s behavior as “nonchalant” and that Peterson’s lack of concern in the first few hours of Laci being missing was a red flag.
“It’s so hard to explain what was going on. It was so out of any experience anyone could ever have to have,” Peterson said of his behavior. “I was trying to keep it together, trying to get the search started, and trying to deal with the police. There was no time to fall apart — I couldn’t have that happen.”
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Finding out that Peterson was having an affair came as a shock to the police. His affair with Frey began one month before Laci’s disappearance. Frey was the one that got in contact with police when she saw coverage of Laci in the news.
“That really surprised me,” former Modesto Police Det. Jon Buehler, who worked the case with Brocchini, said in the show, “‘Now things are starting to take shape,'” he remembered thinking.
“They said that you killed Laci because you didn’t want to be married and you didn’t want to be a father,” the director told Peterson.
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“That’s so offensive, so disgusting,” Peterson said. “I certainly regret cheating on Laci, absolutely.”
He said the reasoning for his affair stemmed from him being “childish, lacking self esteem,” and being “selfish” while “traveling somewhere, being lonely that night because I wasn’t at home, and someone makes you feel good because they want to have sex with you.”
As for why Peterson continued to stay in contact with Frey after Laci went missing, he said he wanted police to remain focused on finding Laci.
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“The search for Laci would stop as soon as the public and police know I was having sex with another woman,” he said.
“Stay in contact with Amber, I thought,” he told Shareen, “and she wouldn’t get into the picture, complicate it, ruin the search.”
“It simply wasn’t [a relationship],” Peterson insisted. “That’s a misconception and I was absolutely wrong. It is a horrible truth. There are thoughts that haunt me. It’s devastating. I feel such shame and guilt that me having sex with Amber Frey did all that. That they didn’t look for [Laci] alive.”
What Scott Thinks Happened to Laci
In the doc, Peterson and neighbors point out there was a string of robberies before her disappearance. While two men were apprehended, they only admitted to stealing and not having anything to do with Laci going missing.
“You know, there was a burglary across the street from our home. There were a lot of people in that burglary. And I believe that Laci went over there to see what was going on. And that’s when she was taken,” said Scott, sharing his theory on what happened.
“At the volunteer center, people were coming in and some wanted to go search while some came in with tips. I passed it on to the police because I wanted them to follow up and I thought they were following up on it. I found out later that they weren’t following up on anything,” he then claimed.
His defends also brought up a burned van found near the neighborhood — which the Los Angeles Innocence Project previously said they hope to test a blood-stained mattress found inside for Laci’s blood.
“I wasn’t the last one to see Laci that day. There are so many credible witnesses who saw her walking in our neighborhood,” Scott also said of the investigation. “I recently learned that in one of the reports, a person came down to talk to the police and they were told, ‘No, you are wrong. You didn’t see her.’ They just dismissed him without looking into it. That’s devastating to learn that kind of stuff.”
Face to Face With Scott Peterson is streaming on Peacock.
