A Deadly Game (10 page)

Not everyone had the same impression. Laci's sister-in-law, Rosemarie Rocha, told police about a conversation in the summer of 2001 regarding children and pregnancy. "I was kind of hoping for infertility," Scott told her. Although he seemed "uncomfortable" and "hesitant" around children, Rocha was heartened by the fact that Scott attended some of Laci's medical appointments after the pregnancy was announced.

Around the time Laci discovered her pregnancy, Scott commented to Sharon that he had just turned thirty, and here he was becoming a father the same year. He thought he was having "a midlife crisis." Sharon took it as a joke. Maybe it wasn't.

Police subpoenaed Laci's medical records as part of the investigation. Laci's first visit to the HERA obstetrics group in Modesto was for an annual exam in June 2001. Medical records show that she had stopped using oral contraceptives in December 2000. "At this time, she is planning to get pregnant at the end of this year," the office report noted. At the time of her initial appointment, the report noted Laci's height and weight as 5' 1" and 125 pounds.

According to records I obtained in my investigation, Laci's pregnancy was normal. There were several notations about her excessive weight gain, and she was advised to watch her diet and increase her level of exercise. On November 6 and again on November 8, Laci called the doctor's office. "She said she was experiencing shortness of breath after a twenty minute walk and was concerned. She was advised to eat first and take the walks later in the day," the record stated.

Laci was described as a social drinker, yet she apparently stopped drinking once she became pregnant. She had no known enemies, did not use illicit drugs, and had no history of mental illness. A police check showed that Laci had never been the victim of a violent crime. However, friends revealed that her high school sweetheart had "pushed her" once during an argument-and when the police examined the relationship further, it was apparently more violent than Laci ever admitted. Early in the investigation, Brent Rocha would tell police about this troubled relationship and ask them to investigate. In a twist of irony, that boyfriend, William "Kent" Gain, later attempted to murder another girlfriend. By the time Laci disappeared he was incarcerated in a Washington State Prison, serving a fifteen-year prison term for the crime. Gain would later send heartfelt missives to a Laci Peterson tribute website, professing grief and love for his former girlfriend. Even today, he reportedly keeps pictures of Laci posted in his cell.

Laci Peterson, then, had already endured one encounter with domestic violence. Yet, as the Department of Justice's missing person report pointed out, even though "persons close to her believed under normal circumstances she would have physically resisted an assault . . . her advanced stage of pregnancy and resultant limitations would have likely hampered any attempt to defend herself."

In November, Laci began attending a maternity yoga class, which met Mondays at noon. People in the neighborhood told investigators that they saw her walking her dog during that period, but as the pregnancy advanced, Laci complained of exhaustion. Relatives told police that she even used a wheelchair while visiting Disneyland with Scott's parents and half sister, Anne Bird, although Bird would later say this chair was just a gag to please Laci.

In our interview, Anne told me that Laci looked radiant during that trip. She was excited about having the baby and talked a lot about how much she loved her mother, Sharon. Anne first met Laci in March 1998, about seven months after the wedding. She liked her immediately. Laci filled up the room, loved being the center of attention, and rarely let anyone else get a word in edgewise. Like Laci's other girlfriends, Anne agreed that Laci did boss Scott around. And, like those women, Anne wished she had a husband like Scott, who did everything his wife told him with a smile.

Anne also attended Laci's baby shower, along with nearly fifty other women. At one point, she recalled, Laci was stifling laughter over a close friend of Jackie's who turned up in go-go boots. Anne recognized the woman from several pictures hanging in Jackie's house. "Weird people," she mouthed to Anne, as her sister-in-law tried to keep a straight face.

By the time the due date approached, Scott and Laci were spending money quite freely. They went all-out decorating the inside of their home, splurging on new furnishings, especially in the nursery. From the outside, however, the house looked unkempt and in need of repairs.

Scott still played golf regularly, and when his parents ponied up the $23,000 admission fee on December 1, he joined the Del Rio Country Club. (The $390 monthly dues were Scott's responsibility.)

The couple enjoyed entertaining. Their friends knew Laci to be a gourmet cook. According to her friends, Laci put a great deal of effort into her appearance. Spa treatments, manicures, and pedicures were part of her normal routine. She also loved shopping, and was described as a clotheshorse. She used the Internet to search for Christmas presents, and scoped out the local malls on a regular basis. While she loved finding a bargain, she didn't hesitate to pay full price if she wanted a particular item.

Laci kept a running list of new objects the couple had agreed to buy for their home. Her long-range goals included having more children and buying a larger house and new vehicle-even as she planned to remain a stay-at-home mom. During one conversation with Sharon, Scott joked that they might have to pitch a tent in his mother-in-law's driveway if their spending habits were not restrained.

Two days before her disappearance, Laci's brother Brent phoned from his home in Elk Grove to find out about the couple's plans for Christmas. He asked if he could bring their grandfather, Robert Rocha, down from his nursing home in Sacramento on Christmas morning. Laci readily agreed. After her 10:30 brunch, everyone could open presents. She and Scott would purchase a fruit basket or something similar for their grandfather.

In hindsight, it all seems like a charade: Scott spent so much time and money decorating Conner's room, taking Laci's ring in to the

jeweler for Christmas, rushing over to feel his baby kick, despite telling others that he was "hoping for infertility."

But on December 23, 2002, Scott seemed to be planning nothing more than a quiet holiday entertaining family and enjoying his wife's company.

CHAPTER FOUR

SEARCHES

Over the next three days, police conducted a number of searches of Scott's house, warehouse, and boat. They initiated grid searches by air, and bloodhound searches on the ground. And their work yielded valuable clues, only some of which the jury | heard about during the trial. The following pages are based on the complete record of those searches, along with unpublished conversations between police and Scott Peterson.

By December 26, 2002, Scott's office on Emerald Street was under surveillance. No one could enter the business until the pending search warrant had been served. "I felt that if evidence was present at the Emerald Avenue location, evidence destruction at that location could be completed without witnesses in the remote and mostly unoccupied industrial area in the late evening and early morning hours," Detective Craig Grogan reported.

Members of the Modesto Fire Department were combing the Tuolumne River area of Dry Creek Park, and a neighborhood canvas was underway, with officers going from house to house looking for individuals who may have seen anything out of the ordinary.

As per Grogan's instruction, police also compiled a list of potential suspects, focusing on prior offenders and known sex offenders in the area. He told Officer Tom Rhea to highlight any transients with violent backgrounds.

Just before ten, Detective Grogan received a call. An officer in the field had just interviewed a woman who claimed to have seen a female in the early morning hours of December 24, dressed in black pants and white shirt. She said the woman was pregnant and walking a dog.

Another tip came in from a woman named Diana Campos, a 46-year-old custodian at Stanislaus County Hospital. At 10:45 A.M., while on a smoking break outside the hospital, Campos said she had seen three people and a dog together in the park, heading west. She watched the three as they walked roughly the distance of a football field. The dog, a golden retriever, was barking incessantly, and the female was tugging on the lead as if trying to calm him. One of the men, who had what Campos described as a "beanie cap" atop his head, shouted, "Shut the fucking dog up."

Campos watched them as she puffed on her cigarette but did not sense any serious conflict among the individuals. In fact, she thought nothing of the sighting until December 26, when she saw a flyer describing Laci Peterson.

"When I looked at the flyer, I said to myself, 'I know the girl.'" She insisted that the woman she had seen in Moose Park was Laci Peterson, and told Detective Owen that she would not have called the police unless she was sure. Yet, Campos backpedaled slightly a few minutes later, saying only that she was "pretty sure." "I am real good with faces," she told the detective.

Campos described the woman as wearing a white top and sweatpants, with dark shoulder-length hair; she appeared to be six or seven months pregnant. The golden retriever was medium in size, with brownish red fur, but Campos could not recall the color of its leash. She described both men as in their thirties, 5'7", with medium builds. One wore a beanie-style cap, dirty clothes, a dark shirt and blue jeans. The second man had short brown hair and was dressed in jeans and a torn denim jacket. Campos said she was about fifty feet away from the group.

Over the course of the investigation there would be several more reports like these, but no time line was ever established. While Scott's defense lawyer, Mark Geragos, promised to produce these folks at

trial, he never did. He was able to inject some of the information during cross-examination of police officers, but during his case in chief, none of these people took the stand.

Around noon, Detective Al Brocchini began tracking Scott's alibi. When he spoke with the Berkeley Marina Harbormaster, Ray Foresberg, the man was adamant: It had not rained at the marina on December 24. This information directly contradicted the story Scott had told Brocchini only twenty-four hours before, and prompted the men to secure a search warrant.

After hearing Foresberg's report, Brocchini went straight to police headquarters, where he and Detective Grogan completed search warrant applications for 523 Covena Avenue and 1027 Emerald Avenue. On the surface, these two officers seemed cut from the same cloth: short and stocky, each of them sporting the business suit of a plainclothes detective. Yet there were critical differences between the two. Brocchini, his dark hair cut in a military style, had a well-defined chin, broad facial features, and frameless eyeglasses; he was quicker to react, and to confront or challenge a witness. Grogan, whose brown hair was tinged with red, sported a thick mustache and bright observant eyes; the more seasoned of the two, he was much more low-key. Early in the investigation, Scott would accuse Brocchini of trying to "trick" him. Grogan was much more likely to assume the "good cop" role, and it was he who proved better able to engage Scott in the cat-and-mouse game they would play in the coming days.

Applications in hand, the two investigators hurried to the courthouse to obtain a judge's approval for the searches. As they arrived, Grogan's cell phone rang. A detective posted outside Scott's warehouse was calling to let him know that a man driving a bronze Ford F150 had pulled up, wanting to retrieve a computer from the office.

The man, whom the police turned away, was Scott Peterson. The officer told him to contact Grogan or Brocchini for more information.

At 3:10, Judge Nancy Ashley signed the warrants, clearing the way for the search. Before Brocchini could get out of the room, his phone rang as well. It was Scott, asking why a warrant was necessary.

The detective explained that it was just a precaution, reminding Scott that he'd reneged on his agreement to take a polygraph just moments before it was scheduled. Scott suggested that the detectives meet him at headquarters for the 3:30 press briefing; they could discuss the search then.

Moments later, the officers were standing in the hallway outside the press room. Then Scott called again, changing the rules. He'd left the news conference early, he said; now he wanted the men to come to his house. Before they could leave, Laci's stepfather approached. Grantski said that his son-in-law had just gotten up and walked out of the press conference, obviously angry at reporter's questions about his behavior.

At four o'clock, the officers edged their vehicle around a line of media satellite trucks and pulled up to the Peterson house. Dozens of journalists had staked out the home, waiting for updates on the case. The media was there at Scott's disposal, but he had no intention of using them to find Laci. In fact, he was clearly avoiding them.

Cordoned behind Modesto Police Department sawhorses, the reporters all missed what happened next. The jury was never allowed to hear what Scott and the officers discussed that afternoon-including a telling conversation with Jackie Peterson, Scott's antics over the search warrant for 523 Covena, and the full details of the bloodhound searches conducted at his home and warehouse.

Through a window, the detectives could see Scott sitting alone at the dining room table, calmly perusing a newspaper. They knocked, and without rising Scott yelled "Come in." He invited them to join him at the long wood table.

Scott had gone to the warehouse, he said, to get a photograph of Laci off his office computer for a flyer he was preparing. He was perturbed that he wasn't told about the lockdown of his office or the pending search, and reiterated that he would have given permission if the detectives had simply asked. Just thirty-six hours into the investigation, Scott was already displaying his arrogance, trying to seize the upper hand and setting up confrontations with the very people who were there to help find Laci. He was telegraphing a message: This is my territory-I'm in charge here.