Scott Peterson: His Pregnant Wife Vanished on Christmas Eve. Months Later, She and Their Son Were Found in the Bay.

 

Scott Peterson: His Pregnant Wife Vanished on Christmas Eve. Months Later, She and Their Son Were Found in the Bay.

On December 24, 2002, Laci Peterson disappeared from her home in Modesto, California. She was eight months pregnant with a son she and her husband, Scott Peterson, had already named Conner.

Peterson told investigators he had spent the day fishing alone on San Francisco Bay.

As the search for Laci became national news, another part of Peterson’s life surfaced. He had been having an affair with Amber Frey, who later cooperated with investigators and secretly recorded their conversations.

Months later, the remains of Laci and Conner washed ashore near the area where Peterson said he had been fishing.

Peterson was arrested shortly afterward. In 2004, a jury convicted him of first-degree murder for killing Laci and second-degree murder for killing Conner.

His original death sentence was overturned in 2020 because of errors in jury selection, but his murder convictions were not overturned. He was resentenced in 2021 to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Peterson continues to maintain his innocence, and his case remains the subject of ongoing legal challenges.

But Laci Peterson was more than one half of a notorious true-crime story.

She was 27 years old. She was preparing to become a mother.

She and Conner should have come home.