The Double Life of Scott Peterson: Justice For Laci and Conner — Ep. 5 | MK Confidential

The Megyn Kelly Show

This episode of MK Confidential examines the Scott Peterson trial from verdict to ongoing appeals, focusing on pivotal moments like the jury

Key takeaways

• The jury's decision was heavily influenced by the prosecution's geographic argument linking Scott Peterson to the locations where Laci and Conner's bodies were found.
• Juror misconduct, including unauthorized research and threats, led to multiple re-starts of deliberations and raised concerns about trial fairness.

Main topics

• Scott Peterson murder trial
• Jury deliberation process and misconduct

Notable quotes

The only man... that we know without any doubt that was in the exact location where Lacey and Connor's bodies washed ashore at the exact time that they went missing is sitting right there.

Rochelle came in the room and Rochelle was just like piss and vinegar. She comes in and she's like, hey, he killed the little man. He's guilty. Let's just get this done with.

Conclusion

Twenty-three years after the trial, Scott Peterson remains incarcerated with two murder

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) The jury in the Scott Peterson case has been deliberating for four days, and they want to see the boat. On Monday, November 8, 2004, a bailiff knocks on the deliberation room door and leads 12 jurors down a passageway into an underground garage beneath the Redwood City Courthouse. Scott's 14-foot aluminum fishing boat, which was introduced as evidence, has been stored down there for the length of the trial. Judge Alfred DeLucchi. comes to in a suit instead of his robes. Scott Peterson walks down in his suit, unshackled. Juror number one asks the judge for permission to come aboard the boat. DeLucchi says yes, but reminds the juror the boat is on a trailer and not on a cruise in San Francisco Bay. The foreman climbs in behind juror number one, and the two of them start shifting their weight from side to side, seeing how much it would take to tip it. Speaker 1 (0:56) Scott's attorney, Mark Garagos, objects that they're running an out-of-court experiment, and Judge DeLucchi puts a stop to it. Garagos moves for a mistrial, which the judge denies. Juror number one is Greg Baratlas, an engineer for the Power Company who coaches youth football on weekends. Five months of testimony have told him Scott Peterson is a man who puts coasters under everything. He is meticulous with his equipment. What Greg notices, sitting in the boat, is a pair of pliers going rusty and standing water in the boat. Greg thinks this does not fit. It's as if the boat was never going to be a long-term hobby, but only purchased for one purpose. Speaker 1 (1:43) Four days later, 12 jurors convict Scott Peterson of two murders. But they are not the same 12 people who went down to that underground garage. Two of the jurors standing around that boat leave the case, including the foreman who climbed in behind Baratlas. The two alternate jurors who replaced them never see the boat. Their arrival forces the jury to wipe away its work and start deliberations over twice in two days. Within hours of the second restart, they take their first vote, and it is unanimous. Guilty. I'm Megyn Kelly, and this is MK Confidential. Speaker 1 (2:29) Everyone's talking about weight loss injections because the results can be so dramatic. They work by lowering blood sugar and reducing appetite. But what if you're looking to lose weight but are not interested in painful weekly injections, especially when you hear about some of those intense side effects? This is why doctors created a weight loss supplement called Lean, and the results could be remarkable. Lean says the studied ingredients in their product have been shown to lower your blood sugar Speaker 1 (2:55) burn fat by converting it into energy, and to curb your appetite and cravings so that you are not as hungry. But listen, lean is not for the casual dieter with only a few pounds to lose. The doctors at Brickhouse Nutrition created lean for frustrated dieters with 10 or more pounds to lose. You could get started with 20% off and free rush shipping, adding lean to your healthy diet and exercise plan. Visit TakeLean.com. and enter Kelly for your discount. That's promo code Kelly at TakeLean.com. Speaker 1 (3:28) On November 1st, 2004, prosecutor Rick DeStasso stands up to deliver to the jury his closing argument. He starts with the part of the case the prosecution cannot answer. He cannot tell the jury exactly how Lacey Peterson died. He cannot tell them exactly when. But he says they do know where Scott Peterson was on Christmas Eve and where Lacey and Connor were found four months later. DeStasso puts an aerial photograph. of San Francisco Bay in front of the jury and starts pointing. Quote, the defendant went fishing right here off of Brooks Island, or he said he went fishing. That's where he took his boat that day. Four months later, Lacey Peterson washed ashore right here at Point Isabel near Brooks Island. Connor Peterson washed ashore right here at the Richmond shoreline in that marshy area. Speaker 1 (4:22) The only man, he continued, or only person that we know without any doubt that was in the exact location where Lacey and Connor's bodies washed ashore at the exact time that they went missing is sitting right there. The connection was devastating. Garagos predicted it would be early on before he was even hired. Jurors writing about the verdict later cited it as absolutely critical to their decision. Scott was there and so were the bodies. DeStasso tells the jury that strangling or smothering can leave very little physical evidence behind. But the state does not have to prove the precise manner of death to prove that Lacey was murdered and that Scott killed her. DeStasso tells them the affair with Amber Fry is not the motive. The motive, he says, is what was about to change Scott Peterson's life, his son. Speaker 1 (5:19) D'Estasso continues, the reason that he killed Lacey Peterson was Connor Peterson was on the way. Then D'Estasso puts another photograph on the screen. It's Lacey, seven months pregnant, smiling, beautiful, radiant, sitting by herself on a wicker chair in a red pantsuit at a Christmas party. That photograph was taken the same night her husband and father of her baby was 96 miles away at another Christmas party with his girlfriend, Amber Fry. Lacey had no idea what was coming, D'Estasso says. The next day, Garagos begins his closing remarks by having Scott face the jury and then asking, do you all hate him? Because apparently that's what the sum total of what we heard yesterday was. He continues, we heard four hours of this guy's the biggest jerk that ever walked the face of the earth. This guy's the biggest liar who ever walked the face of the earth. You should hate him. Speaker 1 (6:25) You should hate him. You should hate him. Garagos tells the jury that the Modesto police settled on Scott within an hour of pulling up to his house and then went looking for evidence to fit. He says he's not asking anybody to make his client husband of the year. At one point, Garagos calls his own client a 14-karat gold asshole for cheating on his wife. But being a terrible husband, Garagos argues, is not proof of murder. He says the state still cannot tell you, the jury, exactly how Lacey was killed, when she was killed, or even where, which he says undercuts their entire case. Speaker 1 (7:06) On November 3rd, the lawyers are finished. The case goes to the jury. Twelve people walk into the deliberation room and close the door. Two will leave and be replaced before the verdict. The first is Francis Gorman, juror number seven, an auditor for the local gas and electric company who lives in Foster City. During the five-month trial, Judge DeLucchi had repeatedly warned the jurors not to investigate the case on their own. Gorman did, anyway. She went home, got on her computer, and looked up something she had heard about in court. Frances explained what happened. I did check something that I had a knee-jerk reaction about, and it confirmed my thinking about whether something that I heard was correct or not. Another juror reports Gorman to the court. She is called into the judge's chambers, comes back out, and then is called in again. The second time... Speaker 1 (8:04) She does not return to the jury room. A bailiff comes for her notebooks. Downstairs, the alternates have been sitting, waiting for five months with laptops and stacks of DVDs, knowing they may never be called. Alternate number two is a single mother of four from Palo Alto. Her hair is dyed such a vivid red that reporters have been calling her strawberry shortcake. She has not spent a single minute in the deliberation room. Judge DeLucchi brings