Erased: Missing Women, Murdered Wives

Marilee Strong

with Mark Powelson

Q
Erased

Missing Women, Murdered Wives

Erased

Marilee Strong

with Mark Powelson

Q
Erased

Missing Women, Murdered Wives

Copyright  2008 by Marilee Strong. All rights reserved.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Strong, Marilee.

Erased : missing women, murdered wives / Marilee Strong, with Mark Powelson.—1st ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-7879-9639-0 (cloth)

1. Uxoricide—United States—Case studies. 2. Pregnant women—Crimes against—United

States—Case studies. 3. Murderers—United States—Psychology. I. Powelson, Mark. II. Title.

HV6542.S77 2008

364.152’3—dc22

2007041054

Printed in the United States of America

first edition

HB Printing

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Q
Contents

Acknowledgments

vii

Introduction: A Crime Without a Name

1

Part One: Eraser Killing: The History and Psychology of

a New Criminal Profile

15

1
Out of the Shadows

17

2
The Dark Triad

30

3
The Real American Tragedy

49

Part Two: Getting Away with Murder

67

4
The Lady-Killer

69

5
Disappearing Acts

84

6
Hiding in Plain Sight

108

7
Pregnant and Vulnerable: When a Child Is Seen as a

Threat

137

Part Three: A Psychological Autopsy of

a Classic Eraser Killing

173

8
A Watery Grave

175

9
Keeping Secrets

190

10
Too Good to Be True

207

11
Seeds of a Plan

223

12
A Collision Course

247

13
Sex, Lies, and Audiotape

268

Conclusion: Fixing a Broken System

287

Bibliographical Sources

309

About the Authors

325

Index

327

v

To all the women still missing, may they yet be found,

and to the living victims who seek justice in their name

Q
Acknowledgments

I could not have written this book without the love, support, advice,

and assistance of Mark Powelson, who constantly challenged me to

go deeper than I thought I could go. His help in shaping the central

idea of this book was invaluable, as were his magnificent research

abilities and editing skills. He is a true partner in every sense of the

word.

My friend and agent, Amy Rennert, set me on the path that led

to this book. Her unwavering belief and support carried me through

the darkest days of a long and arduous journey, and I owe her more

than I can ever say. In the increasingly commercial world of book

publishing, her commitment to ideas and her willingness to go the

distance for her writers are both remarkable and rare.

My editor, Alan Rinzler, embraced the concept I envisioned for

this book from our very first conversation and pushed me to take it

even further. Every writer should be so lucky to have the opportunity

to work with such a gifted and enthusiastic editor.

I am indebted to countless people who generously shared their

time and insights with me during the reporting of this book, including

Jim Anderson, Ron Arias, Anne Bird, Martin Blinder, Lisa Borok,

Howard Breuer, Jacquelyn Campbell, Paula Canny, Michael Cardoza,

Jason Dearen, Candice DeLong, Thomas DiBiase, Stacy Finz, Victoria

Frye, Ann Goetting, Stan Goldman, Gloria Gomez, Gary Greene, Jim

Hammer, Jodi Hernandez, Miriam Hernandez, Daniel Horowitz,

Dean Johnson, Mark Klaas, Dennis Mahon, James Murphy, Alan

Peacock, Delroy Paulhus, Dan Saunders, Garin Sinclair, Stan and

Denise Smart, Chuck Smith, Kevin Smith, Vince Sturla, Robert

Talbot, Diana Walsh, Janelle Wang, Neil Websdale, Chris Weicher,

and Irwin Zalkin.

I am also grateful to the following people for the access and

assistance they provided to me during the legal proceedings in

the Scott Peterson case: Peter Shaplen, Judy Lucier, Carol Hurst,

v i i

v i i i

A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

Jenne Carnevale, Mike Orange, Doug Ridenour, Kelly Huston, Tom

Letras, and, most especially, the Honorable Alfred A. Delucchi, an

extraordinary human being and a judge of incomparable intelligence,

patience, fairness, and compassion.

Q
I kiss’d thee ere I kill’d thee.

—William Shakespeare,
Othello

Erased

Introduction

A Crime Without a Name

Q Thelongroadthatledtothisbookbeganforme

with the disappearance of Laci Peterson. From the first bewildering

reports that a young pregnant woman had vanished from her home

on Christmas Eve 2002 in a town in California’s Central Valley, I

sensed that something greater and even more disturbing was at play

than an already overwhelming individual tragedy, although at the

time I could not identify exactly what that was. The initial reports

seemed to point to a stranger abduction, but the facts as they began

to unfold did not cleanly fit the pattern that such a crime normally

leaves behind.

Trained as a journalist in the South Bronx in the 1980s, I was well

acquainted with violent crime in all its terrible manifestations. More

recently I had become painfully familiar with the often-unending

horror of stranger abduction while covering a string of child kidnap-pings in the San Francisco Bay Area. Although it’s no guarantee of

a positive outcome—none of the missing little girls I wrote about

has ever been found— I saw how aggressive reporting was essential

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E R A S E D

to keep police and the public focused on these cases to provide any

hope of a resolution to the mystery of their disappearances.

I also learned how much the ability to solve this kind of crime

depends on rapid police response and the complete cooperation of

those closest to the victim—especially whoever was the last to see

the missing person. For the detectives on such cases, the clock begins

ticking from the moment the person vanishes, as the chances of

recovering the victim alive fall dramatically after the first twenty-four

to forty-eight hours. I could see firsthand how, as more and more time

passed, feelings of helplessness, self-blame, and intractable grief take

an immeasurable toll on the family of the missing, just as frustration

and irresolution eat away at the detectives searching in vain for their

loved ones.

When the trail grows cold—when the hundreds or thousands

of tips, leads, sightings, interviews, and alibi checks all come up

dry— the case remains officially open. But, in a sense, a curtain is

drawn around an ongoing tragedy.

In this type of crime, where a beloved family member has disap-peared and no hint of evidence remains, someone has been able to

commit what is, in effect, personal terrorism against everyone who

knew and loved the missing person, and has literally gotten away

with murder. By leaving no trace and no trail, no usable evidence

or clues, the murderer faces fewer personal consequences than the

average citizen might face from a minor traffic violation. There is

no arrest, no hearing, no trial, no justice, and no answers. There is no

body to recover, no funeral, no burial, no headstone.

Whereas most of the public is cognizant only of the few weeks or

months when the search for a missing person is at its zenith, those

who have been close to these crimes have seen the unresolved grief,

the wrenching apart of families, the pained expressions on the faces

of investigators. These cases are never formally closed, but they fall

into a horrible state of limbo where hope is squeezed beyond human

endurance.

Q

When I first heard about the disappearance of Laci Peterson and

the allegations that someone had abducted a pregnant woman as she

walked her large and protective dog in a heavily utilized city park, my

instincts as a reporter told me that something was off. Within a week

Introduction

3

of her disappearance, I began reporting on the story, making the first

of many trips to her hometown of Modesto, walking where she was

said to have walked that day, visiting the places and people that were

pivotal to understanding this crime. I would go on to follow the case

through to its resolution, attending every day of the nearly yearlong

trial of her husband, Scott, for the double murder of his wife and

unborn son. I was driven, like so many millions of other people,

by compassion for this vital young expectant mother but also by a

growing sense that a larger story was still unrecognized.

As is now well known, the kidnapping scenario advanced by

Scott Peterson was simply an elaborate ruse—a complete fabrication

in a profoundly Machiavellian plot. The ugly truth that emerged

at trial was that Laci had been murdered by her own husband,

a seemingly normal, well-functioning man—a young man with a

college education and an apparently good upbringing, who held a

job and managed the responsibilities of adult life, and who had

no criminal background whatsoever. The murder occurred without

warning, without any prior history of abuse in the marriage.

Furthermore, this ‘‘normal’’ young man took the extraordinary

risks involved in ‘‘staging’’ a phony crime, to use the technical term

that forensic investigators use when a crime or crime scene is made

to seem like something other than what it was, and disposing of his

dead wife’s body in broad daylight ninety miles away in the middle

of San Francisco Bay. He was then able to maintain utter calm and

put on an at least quasi-believable demeanor as he told lie after lie to

conceal the truth from his wife’s concerned family as well as his own,

dozens of friends, a girlfriend who had no idea she was a married

man’s mistress, an array of very shrewd police investigators, and,

much to Scott’s surprise, an ever-increasing media contingent.

What puzzled so many people who attempted to analyze the

Peterson story was that Scott did not fit the well-known profile of

a wife-killer. Usually domestic homicides are preceded by years of

physical abuse, incidents known to family and friends and often

documented by police. I had some familiarity in this area as well,

having worked the crisis hotline at a shelter for battered women

and at a legal clinic assisting women in obtaining restraining orders

against their abusers. I had heard enough stories from victims who

had faced every imaginable kind of abuse to see that the marriage

of Scott and Laci Peterson did not fit this particular pattern, even

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