Murder in the Family

By Amanda Bower

It's hard to imagine a more hellish crime than a man's murdering his young wife and their unborn son. But that's what California law-enforcement authorities believe Scott Peterson did. On Christmas Eve, his wife Laci, a mother-to-be with an infectious smile, disappeared from their home in Modesto. Last Monday, California police announced that the decomposed bodies of a petite woman and full-term male fetus had washed up on a shoreline some 90 miles northwest. Four days later, officials identified the victims as Laci and her child and arrested Scott for their murder. "The waiting this week has been horrific," said Kim Petersen, a spokeswoman for the dead woman's family. "I don't know if relief is the right word. They have answers." No doubt they also have painful questions. What happened? What darkness lurked beneath the happy surface of Laci and Scott's marriage?

Laci Peterson, a substitute schoolteacher, was 27 years old and eight months pregnant when she disappeared. The baby already had a name, Conner, and a blue nursery decorated with a nautical theme. Scott told police that his wife left the couple's three-bedroom home to walk the dog, while he drove to the Berkeley Marina for a fishing trip. In the early days of the search for Laci, her family described Scott, 30, a fertilizer salesman, as a loving husband and model son-in-law, and remained loyal even when Modesto police began searching his house, boat and car and saying in early January that he was cooperating only to "some degree."

The family unity was shattered when a Fresno massage therapist, Amber Frey, contacted police and told them Scott had been her lover; he had told her he wasn't married when they met about a month before Laci's disappearance. Police also revealed that Scott had taken out a $250,000 insurance policy on his wife when she became pregnant. "I'm only left to question what else he may be hiding," said Laci's brother Brent Rocha. "Because we have so many questions that he has not answered, I am no longer supporting him." The estrangement deepened when Scott sold Laci's Land Rover and considered selling their house.

Baby Conner's body was found first, by a couple walking their dog near the Richmond shoreline, less than five miles from the marina where Scott said he'd gone fishing on Christmas Eve. The infant corpse was "pretty bad," said a Richmond police official. "You would have to look closely to see that it had human features." Laci's remains, discovered by another dog walker the next morning, were partial and mostly skeletal. The state of the bodies posed a challenge to forensic scientists, who managed to extract DNA from Laci's tibia, or shinbone, and her baby's femur, or thighbone. They compared it with DNA in cheek swabs from Laci's parents and a blood smear from Scott, which authorities said was obtained under a search warrant.

Authorities declined to comment on reports that Laci's body was headless (ruling out identification by dental records) and missing limbs (no fingerprints), but the California department of justice DNA lab says it did not receive any tooth samples. Ronald Singer, president-elect of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, says the lack of a head would not automatically mean it was removed by a killer. "Through the natural decomposition process, the head can become severed from the body," he says. "Or she may have been tethered in some way around the neck, with cement blocks or chains, to keep her underwater." It is also unclear how Conner's body became separated from Laci's, but one possibility is "coffin birth," the expulsion of the fetus during the decomposition of the mother.

While analysts were working through the night to make a DNA match, Modesto police-department detectives were tracking the whereabouts of Scott, who had dyed his hair lighter, had grown a goatee and was in San Diego, where his parents live. Concerned that Scott might flee across the border to Mexico, officials arrested him even before the tests were completed. Last weekend Scott's lawyer stuck a NO MEDIA sign on his door and did not return phone calls. He'll need to do plenty of talking once his client stands trial for capital murder. --With reporting by Laura A. Locke/San Francisco

With reporting by Laura A. Locke/San Francisco