Why did Scott Peterson kill wife Laci? Inside doomed marriage of 'happy couple' that ended in murder
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA: From college sweethearts to death row - a tragic end to a love story no one expected. Convicted murderer Scott Peterson was found guilty of killing his pregnant wife Laci Peterson and their unborn son Conner in 2002. Here's how the couple, once in love, were separated by the concupiscence of one.
Laci and Scott Peterson met when they were both attending California Polytechnic State University - she studying ornamental horticulture, he agricultural economics. Although the two had previously met at a party, they did not meet again until they were at Pacific Café in Morro Bay, a restaurant where Scott worked. Laci made the first move by giving Scott her phone number - a decision she did not know would one day cost her her life, reports In Touch Weekly.
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After the couple started hanging out together, Laci was uninterested in Scott's passions like golf and physical hurdles. On their first date, Laci got seasick after they went deep-sea fishing. Despite, the small hurdles they pushed their relationship, and soon Laci called her mom Sharon Rocha saying, "Mother, I have met the man I am going to marry. You’ve just got to get down here and meet him.” Both the pair's families approved of their relationship with Laci's brother Brent who thought Scott looked like “the perfect gentleman” who would “take care of her.” While, Scott’s brother Joe said Laci came off “polite and smiling,” which pleased their family.
Two years into their relationship in December 1996, Scott proposed, and the pair tied the knot at a hot spring on August 9, 1997. When Scott and Laci returned from their Tahitian honeymoon, the Petersons opened a burger joint The Shack in San Luis Obispo, California. However, in 2000, they sold the business and moved to Modesto to be closer to Laci's family. In May 2002 Laci became pregnant with their first child and everything was going smoothly for the couple. “They were a happy couple,” Laci’s mom claimed. “There wasn’t any reason to suspect any problems,” reported In Touch.
Things took an ugly turn, however, after Scott began an affair with massage therapist Amber Frey in November, when Laci was seven months pregnant. No one in the family knew Scott was unfaithful. Scott and Amber were photographed together at a Christmas party in December, where he allegedly told her that his pregnant wife, who was still alive at the time, had died. The tragedy occurred on Christmas Eve 2002, when Peterson's dog McKenzie was running loose in the neighborhood while Laci's Land Rover was parked in the driveway with her wallet and purse inside. Laci had mysteriously disappeared until her body and that of her unborn son, Conner, were discovered in San Francisco Bay four months later.
In 2004, Scott was found guilty of the first-degree murder of Laci Peterson, 27, and the second-degree murder of their unborn son, Conner, and was sentenced to death. In December 2021, 17 years after the evil crime he was resentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole due to jury misconduct. The California Supreme Court previously ruled that when finding Scott guilty, the jury may have been compromised by a prejudiced juror that their views on the death penalty were improper. He is currently being held at the Mule Creek State Prison east of Sacramento. A judge in San Mateo Superior Court will now decide whether Scott may be granted a second trial.