Posted on 01/23/2003 5:21:46 AM PST by runningbear
People want to know: Who is Scott Peterson?
People want to know: Who is Scott Peterson?
January 23, 2003 Posted: 05:10:11 AM PST
By TY PHILLIPS
BEE STAFF WRITER
His cell phone rings incessantly. TV camera crews capture his every move. Curious people drive, slowly, by his home every few minutes.
For Scott Peterson, privacy is a thing of the past. He has become perhaps the most recognizable man in Modesto.
"I feel badly for him," said Brian Argain, a friend of Scott and Laci Peterson's. "I can't even imagine being in Scott's shoes. Everybody has a theory on what happened to Laci, but nobody really knows. It's all very sad."
Laci, Scott's wife, was reported missing on Christmas Eve. The story has been a nightly fixture on many national TV news programs. Internet forums and talk shows brim with wild speculation about what happened to the pregnant woman.
Early on, family and friends described the couple's relationship as perfect. Most pledged unwavering support. Then cracks began to appear.
Last week, police detectives told
Laci's side of the family that her husband had an affair and during the summer took out a $250,000 life insurance policy on his 27-year-old wife, according to family members.
The family felt betrayed, and they distanced themselves from Scott. Many of Laci's friends also left his side. Others remain loyal to a man whom they consider a good friend.
"We're all looking for the truth," Argain said. "I'm going to support Scott no matter what the rumors are. It doesn't affect my friendship with him. Just because he may have had an affair doesn't mean he has anything to do with her disappearance."
Still, his recent behavior has many people -- including some who know him -- asking the same question:
Who is Scott Peterson?
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He was born Oct. 24, 1971, at Sharp Hospital in San Diego. His mother, Jacqueline, described him as a healthy, happy baby. The youngest of Lee and Jacqueline Peterson's seven children, Scott enjoyed no shortage of attention growing up.
As Lee raised his five sons, he instilled in them his passions for golfing, fishing and hunting. Scott quickly took to hunting and fishing as a young boy; golf was another story.
"When he was about 6 or 7 years old, we'd all go golfing together," Jacqueline said in an interview last week. "He would put his fishing pole in his bag because the course we often went to was on the San Diego River. By the second hole, he'd stop golfing and start fishing. We'd pass by him every so often, and he usually fished until we were done golfing."
The family, especially the Peterson boys, often took fishing trips to the mountains. Scott eventually convinced his father to buy a fishing boat.
As Scott got older, his parents enticed him to go golfing with them by letting him drive the cart. Over time, he began to excel at the sport.
He made the golf team at University of San Diego High School, playing alongside Phil Mickelson, who is now a touring professional.
"Lee told him once if he ever played a round of scratch golf, he'd buy him a Ferrari," Jacqueline said. "Lee never thought it would happen, but Scott was doing that before he got out of high school. We did get him a car, but it was a used Peugeot sedan. We thought it would be safer."
Scott had no living grandparents. So, while he was in high school, he befriended an elderly woman who had no grandchildren and visited her on Sundays after church, Jacqueline said.
"The school he went to encouraged community service," she said. "One day, he told us he was bringing his grandmother to Grandparents Day at the school. I asked where he got a grandmother. He told me he'd had one for a while.
"I went and met her the following Sunday. She just kept saying what a great kid he was, and how nice it was that he visited an old lady and brightened her day."
While Scott was in high school, his parents received two letters from people whose cars had broken down on the road, Jacqueline said. Scott had stopped to help them get going.
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Scott graduated from high school in 1990. He briefly attended Arizona State University on a partial golf scholarship, but he moved back with his parents, who had bought a house in Morro Bay.
He moved out about six months later, telling them that he was too old to be living at home. He began working three jobs to put himself through
Cuesta College and California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.
While he was a waiter at
Pacific Cafe, Scott met Laci Rocha, an upbeat young woman with a beautiful smile. Laci's neighbor worked at the cafe, and Laci ended up there from time to time, sometimes having brief conversations with Scott over a counter as she ordered coffee.
One day, Laci wrote her phone number on a piece of paper, handing it to her neighbor to give to Scott. Thinking his friend was playing a mean trick on him, Scott crumpled the paper and threw it in the garbage. After being convinced it was no joke, he retrieved the number from the trash and called her soon.
Everyone who knew them then said they quickly fell in love. When Sharon Rocha came to Morro Bay to meet Scott, the mother and daughter each were greeted by a dozen roses at their dinner table at Pacific Cafe.
A few weeks later, Scott brought Laci to San Diego to meet his brothers and sisters, and they noticed how their brother could not stop smiling.
"The moment he was with Laci, they just beamed at each other," Jacqueline said. "No one else ever made my son smile like that. They did everything right."
After graduation, the couple opened a popular eatery called The Shack, a place near the Cal Poly campus where students came for hamburgers and sandwiches. The restaurant, a converted bakery, featured barrels of peanuts and numerous televisions showing sports.
The business quickly became a success. The couple sold The Shack two years later after deciding to move to Modesto to start a family and be closer to Laci's parents.
They rented a home for a while before buying a fixer-upper on Covena Avenue in the La Loma neighborhood. Scott is a salesman for a specialty fertilizer company.
After several years of trying, Laci became pregnant last summer. She was so excited when she found out that she began calling family and friends at 7 a.m. after taking a pregnancy test.
As the holiday season progressed, the Petersons held several parties at their home. Guests walking in noticed that the house no longer resembled the place that the Petersons had purchased.
"Scott remodeled the entire house, doing woodwork, tile, plumbing, a little bit of everything," said Guy Miligi, a friend of the Petersons'. "I know he put a lot of hours into making that baby room just right. He was real excited about having his first child. He talked about that all the time."
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On Dec. 23, Laci and her mother spoke by telephone. The call ended about 8:30 p.m. Scott told police he last saw his wife the next morning as he left for a fishing trip out of the Berkeley Marina, and was unable to find her when he returned home that evening.
Early on, police obtained a search warrant for the couple's home and vehicles and his warehouse. Police said they gathered evidence during those searches, but have not elaborated.
When they released pictures of Scott's truck and boat several weeks ago, police said they had been unable to corroborate his story. Police have said he is cooperating with investigators "to some degree."
Scott has not been named a suspect in his wife's disappearance; Police Chief Roy Wasden said Wednesday that detectives have not been able to eliminate Scott from the investigation.
Initially, Scott refused nearly every media request for interviews, saying that he preferred to keep the focus on his wife and not himself. He broke his silence roughly at about the same time that reports surfaced about the affair and life insurance policy.
Since he began talking with the media last week, Scott mostly has given one- and two-sentence comments, mostly about his plans to keep searching for his wife and child. He has ended most interviews quickly and abruptly.
He has not issued a direct denial of allegations of the affair. During a brief interview Friday with a Bay Area TV station, Scott called The Bee's report "a bunch of lies."
That same day, the Rocha family issued a statement asking Scott to tell police everything he knows, imploring him to prove that he has nothing to hide.
That weekend, as national media trucks inundated the area around the Modesto Police Department, Scott headed to Southern California to help with a one-day event to raise awareness of his wife's disappearance
(Excerpt) Read more at modestobee.com ...
And I don't know why people have trouble with the NE (sure, some of their stories are from kooksville, but not all). It's revealed information over the years that other papers are just too lazy to look for--or maybe I should say don't want to pay for, because the NE will pay to get the story.
Thanks for posting this.
That's always the most dangerous time for a woman in a failing relationship. She decides to go, he finds out, wham. (Not saying that happened here, just general speculation.)
Please don't crucify me if I'm wrong but I was under the impression that he then commuted to college.
Not that it has a d*** thing to do with the analysis of this mystery.
Please return to the real world.
Your post suggests that we may have millions of potential horror stories about to develop.
With all due respect, I make a distinction between making thoughtful judgements and being judgemental.
And I don't want to accuse you of insincerity, but I think you know what I meant.
I was speaking for myself.
Who rattled your cage?
We saw your weather up in MO! Nice of you all to send it down OUR way! Just keep the drip on those faucets.
Websleuths is a great little website, I slink over there more than a few times a day myself. I was confused because there is another one that is spelled weBBsleuths, with two b's...but they charge to post.
sw
I think we're getting close to the end of this investigation...:~)
sw
The guy returned from the college where he had a partial scholarship. My guess is he was homesick. Is their an appropriate penalty for not cleaving to your scholarship?
Iconoclast, you should change your name to Bombast.
finfreak
Thank you. I shall it take under advisement.
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