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 ...
Ahhhhh....now I see. He was sitting around the house at 9:00 in the morning on Christmas Eve and his wife was out walking the dog when he suddenly thunk to himself, "Golly. The marina is only 2 1/2 hours away. I think I'll just sit there fishing until my wife gets done walking the dog."
A picture is starting to come into focus, looking at the other material, your idea of financial problems is really making sence. I read somewhere else today that they had filed for backrupcy two years ago. Sorry don't remember the source. Looks like NE is really digging in on this one, if their facts are correct, and they have been so far, I see no problem with this.
Had not heard about the fatal this morning, to bad. Will notify about the bundle that you seen along the highway tonight.
A reporter from KTVU said last night that Scott refused to press charges. The reporter was in Modesto. KTVU said tonite that the Peterson family will hold a press conference tomorrow.
True, it was also Scott's choice to move, and I'm only speculating that he was forced (or more accurately, emotionally manipulated). How could she "force" him? By making his life miserable until he gave in! But hell, maybe he wanted to sell the restaurant and move to Modesto. It's just that I've lived in Morro Bay, I've lived in San Luis Obispo, I've lived in San Diego, and I've spent plenty of time in the Valley (including Modesto) from the time I was a kid, and I know where I'd rather live and work!
And yes, though this is supposed to be about the Laci mystery and not about "projecting personal issues," I really and truly have seen more than one marriage and family broken by one person's insistence on living near family over all other priorities. Bad choices all around and on both sides, true. But again:
... what I'm driving at that is PERTINENT to this thread is motive.
I maintain that the breadwinner who must move close to in-laws and take a job he/she doesn't like in a town he/she finds a let-down, in order to satisfy the other partner's emotional needs, is making the bulk of sacrifices and may come to resent the whole situation. In Scott's case, immature and self-centered womanizer that he was, that combined with the possible threat of divorce and extreme child support costs to him for the next 18 years minimum, boil down to motive for murder.
To: RGSpincich
Can you put me on the Laci's ping list?
Thanks.
443 posted on 01/23/2003 9:51 PM EST by LuvMyNick
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And sw ... con men can be smooth ... but maybe because I'm feeling old and jaded or have always had a suspicious mind, but sheesh ... even when I was young and stupider (than I am now, I hope), there's no way in hell that I'd have NOT KNOWN that a guy I was seriously dating was married. Unless I didn't want to know. I trust my husband because I know him. Didn't trust some other men in my life for the same reason -- I knew them!!! Same thing with Laci ... five years, even "only" two years ... but my take on this guy is that he's been cheating on her since before they were married. That's the MO of those types. I still think down deep, she knew.
I'm finding out more every day about the two, looking at a motive its going to be hard to pick one perticular thing, usually motive is hard to prove, but in this case sp had so much going on that even I could prove motive, thats a long way from where this case was in the first week.
The same people who are telling the NE this info, are the same ones that have revealed all the other info about the original girlfriend.
Mr. Peterson speaks to Scott twice a day, and STILL hasn't asked Scott about "the other woman".
Finances. Says that they were into fiancial difficulties, filed a bankrupcy, and now owe as much as $100,000 on top of $25,000 Golf Club membership.
Scott has contacted "other woman" without knowing she had contacted police. Scott didn't know she was taping Scotts conversations and gave them to the cops. (Scott told her he was calling from Europe.)
Scott still a suspect.
sw
BUT they do have audio tapes of Scott and the "other woman" and those MUST have been played to Laci's parents.
sw
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