Trama

The 2002 disappearance of 27 year-old, pregnant Laci Peterson ignites a national media firestorm when her handsome young husband, Scott, becomes the prime suspect.

This episode is about the death of Laci Peterson. This case would become one of the biggest news stories of that era and inspired the novel "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn and the 2014 movie of the same name.

In 1995, 21-year-old Cal Poly student Laci La Rocha meets 23-year-old Scott Peterson in a restaurant. Too years later, they are married and living in Modesto, California, near Laci's family. She's a teacher and he is in fertilizer sales.

In late 2000, Laci tells Scott she is ready to have a baby. It takes until May 2002 until she becomes pregnant. Friends and family see how happy Laci is, and Scott pretends that he is, but secretly he wishes he had the carefree life of a bachelor. He feels better when he's traveling for his job and cheats regularly on his wife.

At a business conference in late November, 2002, Scott is at bar hitting on a young woman. She says she's engaged, but she could set him up with her friend, a massage therapist named Amber. Frey. Amber and Scott meet and begin a relationship that night.

Over the next two weeks, Scott spends as much time with Amber as possible, hiding his extramarital affair from Laci. He has never told Amber that he's married. When a female friend of Amber's discovers that Scott's married, the friend tells Scott he has to tell Amber or she will.

On December 6th, Scott tells Amber that he was married but he "lost his wife." Amber assumes this means his wife is dead. Two days later, Scott's computer indicates he browsed the web about currents in the San Francisco Bay. At this point, Laci is nearly eight months pregnant. She tells her family they have chosen the name Conner.

On December 14th, Laci and Scott had been invited to a holiday party in Modesto. Scott, however, tells Laci that he has to work and instead attends a different party in Fresno with Amber. Laci attends the first party alone.

In an interview a People Magazine reporter speculates that Scott knew that he couldn't keep up with his lies and was backed into a corner.

On the evening of December 23rd, Laci talks to her mother on the phone to make plans for the next day. No one has ever heard from her since.

On Christmas Eve day, Scott drives to San Francisco Bay towing a boat. At 10:30am, a neighbor finds Laci's dog running around the neighborhood. She sees Laci's car in the driveway but, when no one answers her knock, she leaves the dog secure in the backyard.

Around 4-5pm that day, Scott arrives home. He eats some pizza, washes the clothes he was wearing but not the clothes waiting to be washed next to the washing machine, and takes a shower. He then calls Laci's parents to ask if Laci is there. When they say she's not, Scott said, "He's missing."

Laci's stepfather promptly calls the police to report Laci missing. When they question Scott, the police notice that Scott is vague and slightly hostile in his responses. His alibi is that he said he was on his boat during the time Laci went missing. Because she was so pregnant and because they believed her family when they indicated Laci would not leave on Christmas Eve willingly, the police conduct thorough searches of the area right away, not waiting the customary 24 hours when someone is reported missing.

The community of Modesto helps police with the search, but Laci is not found. The police discover that Scott has a warehouse in the area leased to him so that he could store work product; when they search the warehouse, they find a boat and traces of concrete weights.

The story goes from local to national news within weeks. Scott's behavior is odd; he seems uninterested in the case. But the police don't have enough evidence to arrest him yet.

On December 30th, 2002, Amber Frey, who had seen the news story, calls police to indicate that she has been dating Scott Peterson for over a month and that he told her his wife was lost in early December. She agrees to record her conversations with Scott and to pretend that she doesn't know anything about Laci.

The city of Modesto holds a candlelight vigil in support of Laci and her family. During the vigil, Scott is standing at the very back of the area, wearing a baseball cap and talking on his cell phone. He calls Amber that night and lies to her, telling her he is in Paris, and not at the candlelight vigil for his missing, pregnant wife.

The story continues to grow, and speculation about Scott's role in the murder escalates. At the same time, he's still calling Amber, who is trying to record incriminating evidence for the police.

January 4th, 2003, investigators search shorelines around San Francisco Bay but find no evidence of Laci. Two days later, Scott calls Amber and tells her that his wife is Laci Peterson, the missing woman. Amber tries to get Scott to confess or incriminate himself overly, but he doesn't. He does confirm that he had told Amber in early December that he had lost his wife.

The police bring Scott in for additional questioning. They tell him that he is a suspect and show him that they have photos of him and Amber together. However, despite intense pressure from the community, the police do not arrest Scott.

Up until late January, Laci's family had been defending Scott to the police and to the media. But on January 24th, Amber Fry gives a press conference where she reveals she was Scott's mistress. At this point, Laci's family stops supporting Scott and instead see him as guilty.

The pressure is building on Scott. He sells Laci's car and puts their house up for sale. The La Rocha family is pressing him to tell them where Laci is. Yet, there is no arrest because no body has been found. Scott spends most of his time in San Diego, over four hundred miles from Modesto.

On April 13th, nearly four months after Laci vanished, the body of her unborn son Conner washes to shore and is discovered by walkers. The next day, partial human remains wash up in an area not far away. Although the body's head, hands, and feet are missing, the lab confirms this was Laci and Connor.

The police issue an arrest warrant for Scott, who has been living in San Diego with his parents. When the police apprehend Scott, he has a new hair color, and he has camping equipment, several thousand dollars in cash, and his brother's driver's license in his car. They also find a map to Amber Frey's house and a knife.

The police are not able determine how Laci died; they suspect Scott strangled her. He then transported her body to his truck, in turn transferring her body into his boat. He drove to the Berkeley marina, set off into the bay, and weighs down Laci's body with the concrete anchors before dumping her overboard.

During the trial, reporters indicate that Scott shoes very little emotion. According to one, the tension in the courtroom is palpable. The jury deliberates for seven days. On November 12th, 2004, after a trial that lasts nine months and cost $4.1 million, Scott is found guilty first degree murder of Laci and second degree murder of her unborn son, Conner. He is sentenced to death.

Scott is on death row, condemned to a small cell, with a small photo of him and Laci taped to his wall. A juror reports that he would executive Scott if no one else wanted to, because he knows how much pain Scott caused so many people.

Amber Frey is a single mother of two and still a massage therapist. She no longer wants to be known as the woman who dated the most hated man in America.

After this trial, Congress passes the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, also known as Laci and Connor's law.