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Laci Denise Rocha, better known now as Laci Peterson, was born on May 4, 1975, in Modesto, California. She had one older brother named Brent, born four years before her.
Laci’s parents divorced when she was very young. They owned a dairy farm in Escalon, California. Laci worked when she visited her father on the weekends and enjoyed gardening with her mother.
Although her mother remarried when Laci was two years old, she still maintained a very close relationship with her father.
Laci was a cheerleader and softball player at Thomas Downey High School. She attended California Polytechnic (Cal Poly) State University, majoring in horticulture, the branch of plant agriculture dealing with hardened crops, where she met her future partner Scott Peterson in 1994.
Scott was an excellent student and golfer. He graduated from the University of San Diego High School. He spent a semester at Arizona State University before deciding to return home and attend Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo before transferring to Cal Poly. Laci and Scott got married on August 9, 1997, three years after she graduated.
Soon after their wedding, the couple opened a sports bar called The Shack in June 1998, earning enough profit to move to Modesto, to officially start a family. Scott then found a job selling fertilizer and Laci became a substitute teacher. They purchased a three-bedroom home together in October 2000.
Some of Laci’s favorite hobbies were cooking, entertaining, and watching her favorite TV show, Martha Stewart.
In early 2002, Laci found out she was pregnant. The Petersons were expecting their first son named Conner, on February 10, 2003.
On December 24, Christmas Eve, 2002, Laci officially was reported missing by her husband and stepfather. The last known people to have spoken to Laci before she disappeared were her mother and husband. Sharon says she last spoke to Laci on the phone on Christmas Eve, hours before she was reported missing.
Scott later told the police he last saw his wife that morning at 9:30 AM. He was leaving to go fishing at Berkeley Marina in the boat he had just made to test on the waters, about 90 miles away from their home. He said Laci was watching Martha Stewart and preparing to walk the family dog, McKenzie, to a park in their neighborhood when he was leaving in the morning.
Scott returned home at around 2:15 PM, noticing Laci’s car was in the driveway but the house was empty. He found McKenzie in the backyard with his leash still on, which he found odd. He reported her missing to police around 6:00 PM.
The following day the search for Laci officially began. Over 900 of Laci’s family, friends, and neighbors searched the surrounding area.
That morning Karen Servas, Laci’s neighbor, said she found McKenzie, alone outside the house and returned the dog to Peterson’s backyard at around 10:30 AM on the 24th.
On January 24, 2003, Amber Frey, a massage therapist, told reporters she was dating Scott, and their affair went public after she found out he was a prime suspect in the case. She believed he was single when they first met, two months earlier. She claimed that Scott told her on December 9 this would be his first Christmas without his wife who died earlier that year.
The remains of a fetus, identified as Conner Peterson, were found on the San Francisco Bay on April 13, 2003. Just a day later on April 14, Laci Peterson’s body was found a mile away from where Conner’s remains were discovered.
The bodies were found just a few miles from where Scott had gone fishing on December 24.
Just a few days later on April 18, Scott was arrested in La Jolla, California under the suspicion that he murdered his wife and unborn child. He had about $15,000 in his car, as some detectives suspect he was fleeing to Mexico. On April 2, Scott Peterson pleaded not guilty.
On November 12, 2004, Scott was found guilty of first-degree murder for Laci’s death and second-degree murder for Conner’s death. About a year later the judge sentenced Scott to death and he was sent to San Quentin State Prison.
To this day, Scott is currently at Mule Creek State Prison, serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. He is also involved with the Innocence Project, which has helped free more than 50 innocent people from prison.
The Los Angeles Innocence Project filed a nearly 400-page petition arguing that Scott Peterson was innocent of the crime he was blamed for. The petition claims Peterson was denied a fair trial due to suppressed evidence, flawed police work, and media bias. The filing asks the California Court of Appeals to overturn Peterson’s conviction and grant further relief. There is currently no new trial that is going to occur, however, Scott’s case is being looked into.
