Nearly 22 years after Scott Peterson was convicted of murdering his pregnant wife, his legal team says newly uncovered material could undermine one of the nation’s most scrutinized homicide cases.
Attorneys with the Los Angeles Innocence Project argue that investigative failures and untested leads warrant a new trial for the 53-year-old, who is serving life without parole.
A retired Los Angeles Police Department detective who reviewed the case said standard missing-person protocols were not followed in the initial investigation. She contended that failing to pursue every lead deprived Peterson of a fair trial and that a new proceeding is the appropriate remedy.
The victim’s mother rejected the claims, stating there is no new evidence and dismissing the assertions outright.
Prosecutors maintain Peterson killed his wife, who was eight months pregnant, on Christmas Eve 2002 and disposed of her body in San Francisco Bay. The remains of the 27-year-old and her unborn son later washed ashore.
A two-part documentary outlines 15 accounts of people who said they saw the victim walking her dog on the morning of Dec. 24, after Peterson said he had left for a fishing trip. The retired detective said those sightings were never fully investigated.
She said confirming such witness accounts could have excluded Peterson as a suspect if they placed the victim in the neighborhood after his departure. Prosecutors have long characterized the sightings as unreliable or inconsistent.
A defense attorney featured in the documentary said police largely disregarded the varying accounts and that Peterson’s trial lawyers did not call the witnesses to testify.
Peterson’s attorneys also point to a burglary across the street from the couple’s home on the morning of the disappearance. A burned van with a stained mattress was found nearby on Christmas Day.
The legal team argues the victim may have interrupted the burglary and been abducted, and that only a small portion of the mattress was tested for DNA. Prior testing did not identify her DNA on the sampled material.
The two men convicted in the burglary denied involvement in the disappearance and were never charged in her death. Prosecutors say the burglary occurred after she vanished and was unrelated.
The documentary also revisits the prosecution’s theory that Peterson used a recently purchased boat to discard the body. Defense attorneys say handwritten notes suggest the victim knew about the vessel and was buying equipment for it.
Separately, a hydrodynamic analysis commissioned by the innocence project places the likely entry point of the remains miles from where Peterson said he fished, conflicting with earlier testimony based on wind data.
In April, a Superior Court judge denied Peterson’s latest petition to overturn the conviction. The county district attorney called the filing a repackaging of previously rejected arguments.
Peterson’s attorneys intend to appeal to a higher California court. The retired detective said the recent findings raise compelling questions about what was and was not done during the original investigation.
