Officers scour more locations (For missing pregnant Modesto woman)

Modesto Bee ^ | 12/28/02 | Ty Phillips

[hoosierskypilot]

Investigators expanded their hunt for clues Friday to a warehouse used by the Modesto man whose pregnant wife has been missing since Christmas Eve.

Also, police and FBI crime-scene analysts spent a second day working inside the La Loma neighborhood home that belongs to the missing woman, Laci Peterson, 27, and her husband, Scott, 30.

The warehouse, which Peterson uses in his work as an agricultural salesman, is on North Emerald Avenue near Kansas Avenue in Modesto. Police sealed the warehouse as well as the Peterson home.

In other developments:

Modesto and Berkeley police went to a marina on San Francisco Bay to investigate Peterson's claim that he was fishing at the time his wife disappeared. No details were available about what detectives might have found out.

"At this point, he is not a suspect," Detective Doug Ridenour said. Police said they had no evidence of foul play in the disappearance.

Police expanded their search zone to take in Tuolumne River Regional Park as well as Dry Creek Regional Park, and urged farmers and ranchers in the area to scour their orchards and fields for anything "out of character."

Ridenour said investigators were looking for evidence in two computers and two vehicles seized Thursday night from the Peterson home.

Neighbors told about their home being burglarized across the street from the Peterson home some time around Christmas.

Susan Medina said she and her husband, Rudy, were gone from Christmas Eve until about 5 p.m. Thursday, and discovered then that someone had broken in and stolen a safe holding $50,000 worth of jewelry. Police have been going in and out of the house the past two days.

The missing-person case has drawn intense media attention. Friday, Police Chief Roy Wasden discussed the case on "Good Morning America."

According to police, Peterson said he last saw his wife at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday when he left with his aluminum fishing boat for a trip out of Berkeley, and she headed to East La Loma Park with their dog.

Police said Peterson told detectives that he tried to call his wife after he was done fishing, but was unable to reach her. He reported her missing shortly before 6 p.m. after returning home, authorities said.

Thursday, Peterson left a news conference shortly after it began at the Police Department, apparently upset that reporters were asking questions about the fishing trip.

He did not appear with other family members at either of two press conferences Friday.

"(Scott) is totally distraught, and he's really tired right now," said Lee Peterson, Scott's father. "It weighs on him that not only his wife and baby are gone, but that he's under suspicion."

At one of the Friday news conferences, as a reporter questioned police about Peterson's fishing trip, Lee Peterson stood and said that his son had provided detectives with a launch receipt that verified his trip. Later, Peterson also said his son had turned over a receipt from a Bay Area gas station.

"There's no possibility that he would be involved," said Jacqueline Peterson, Scott Peterson's mother. "They were like honeymooners even after being married five years. They doted on each other. We all wanted to be like them."

[hoosierskypilot]

There's a lot of crack addicts and street dregs around the area. (Oooops! Sorry. The PC term for bums in CA is "homeless." That sounds sooooo much better.)

[Auntie Mame]

Because of some posts on another thread about this a few days ago, I would hope the police check the woman's doctor's office staff. Has anyone quit recently? How long have the staff been working for the doctor? How long has the doctor been in practice? Does she have an unusual blood type?

There are strange things that go on in this world.

This is all very sad. Hope many are praying for this woman.

[EggsAckley]

There's a lot of crack addicts and street dregs around the area

The article says that they lived on Covena Street. I was born and raised one block over, and even now that's still a pretty nice area. You are right however, there ARE a lot of scumoids up the road, at Yosemite Blvd. But she wasn't up there, I believe. This really gives me the creeps.

[homeschool mama]

Continued prayers heavenward...

[xJones]

The police are really investigating the husband. His warehouse, two computers and cars, etc., after they checked out his fishing story. This does not sound good.

[JCG]

Anybody seen Gary Condit in the neighborhood?

America's Fifth Column ... watch Steve Emerson/PBS documentary JIHAD! In America
New Link: Download 8 Mb zip file here (60 minute video)

Who is Steve Emerson?

[hoosierskypilot]

What astounds me is that we have allowed ourselves to be surrounded by these crack-addicted, AIDS infested vermin, all in the name of political correctness. We're forced to lived in veritable fortresses because we don't want to hurt the feelings of people who, by rights, should be in prison.

[hoosierskypilot]

The police are really investigating the husband..

That's standard procedure. They investigate the husband as a first lead. It doesn't mean they necessarily suspect the husband.

[EggsAckley]

When I was a kid in the 50's, we were allowed to ride our bikes everywhere in that neighborhood.
Going to Yosemite Blvd. was no big deal, visits to Woolworth's were frequent. Today, I make sure my doors are locked when driving that block. All the signs have Arabic or some such thing, and there's a huge shelter that lets the derelicts wander all around.
I miss the town I grew up in......*sigh*

[hoosierskypilot]

I miss the town I grew up in..

Ditto for America. When I lived in Durham, NC, there were maybe 12 people in the entire county. And nobody worried about crime. Now there's 312,000 people there and crime is rampant.

I don't think it's mere coincidence that America began to flush itself down the toilet around the time we started moving God/Jesus Christ out of govt, education, media, and law.

[Arthalion]

My sister and her family live on Covena a dozen houses down from the missing woman, so I know what you mean about "dregs". It's a wonderful neighborhood with great people and beautiful homes, but the "bum problem" from the nearby shelter has been getting worse over the past few years. Just a few weeks ago my brother-in-law walked into his OWN BACK YARD to discover a bum moving into his toolshed. The guy went his own way QUICKLY when my BIL walked out cussing and loading his shotgun, but it still makes them (and me) worry about the safetly of my neices and nephews.

That said, I have a hunch that she's dead and that the bums had nothing to do with it. I know this park area VERY well, and used to go through it every day while walking from the La Loma area home I grew up in to Downey High. It is well known that the banks along the cut that Dry Creek sits in are VERY unstable after a hard rain, like the ones we just had, and that sections of the cliff collapse into the creek every winter. In many areas we're talking about a 10 to 20 foot vertical drop into waters that would have been ice cold and fast flowing, with steep banks on both sides. What's worse, small sections of the cliffside crumble so often that it's nearly impossible to tell a new collapse from an old one.

Again, it's just a hunch, but when I learned where she disappeared, and that the dog had come home wet and muddy (the park is almost entirely grassed over by either lawns or native grasses), a bank collapse was the first thing that entered my mind. I pray to God that my hunch is wrong, but I do remember something similar happening 10 or 15 years ago. 3 people walked over to the cliff to look at the high flowing creek below, and were plunged in when a 20 foot by 5 foot section of the cliff disintegrated beneath them. They were fit, healthy, and therefore able to pull themselves out of the water. I don't know that an 8 1/2 month pregnant woman would be so lucky.

[Thinkin' Gal]

Again, it's just a hunch, but when I learned where she disappeared, and that the dog had come home wet and muddy (the park is almost entirely grassed over by either lawns or native grasses), a bank collapse was the first thing that entered my mind. I pray to God that my hunch is wrong, but I do remember something similar happening 10 or 15 years ago. 3 people walked over to the cliff to look at the high flowing creek below, and were plunged in when a 20 foot by 5 foot section of the cliff disintegrated beneath them. They were fit, healthy, and therefore able to pull themselves out of the water. I don't know that an 8 1/2 month pregnant woman would be so lucky.

Bump for a reasonable (albeit tragic) theory that does not involve murder.

[fatrat]

exactly what i have been thinking. Lots of similarities here. Young, pregnant, female, in the park, we know a congressman who lives nearby and congress is not in session right now.

[Objective Reality]

Does Gary Condit have an alibi?