People want to know: Who is Scott Peterson?

The Modesto Bee ^ | January 23, 2003 Posted: 05:10:11 AM PST | Ty Phillips

[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

[muggs]

No, I think if anyone else is involved, it is Scott's family, maybe his father.

[BonneBlue]

He said Scott called him in the morning. He told his dad Laci was preparing for a walk.(No mention of Laci mopping floor). He was going to go fishing and they discussed their plans for Christmas eve. A little later Scotts dad said Scott called him during the day while he was fishing and they discussed their Christmas eve plans. I believe on another interview earlier in the investigation, perhaps it was on LKL, Lee Peterson did not mention any phone calls with his son on Dec 24th. It was after the disappearance he said that Scott told him Laci was mopping the floor that morning.

[muggs]

You need to change your hours so you can stay on these threads longer ha ha. I should talk!

Man, I go to sleep for a few hours and then take care of a little busineess this morning and I'm not sure I'm going to be able to catch up.

[muggs]

It seems like this story has brought out a lot of lurkers and inspired new people to sign on to FR.

[spectre]

Well, It would seem LE should have records regarding the cell phone calls?

Course, Mr. Patterson could say "I meant I called him while he was at the fishing marina, as he was hooking the boat up to the truck and of course, by then, he had access to his cell phone, yada, yada, yada"..

ALL their bases are covered.

sw

[muggs]

The credit companies figure since the bankrupt person can't go bankrupt again any time soon, the bankrupt party will not have an easy out to keep from paying the credit company back. So some credit companies actually seem to like lending to people who've had a recent bankruptcy.

Yeah, I guess that does make sense.

[Devil_Anse]

If Lee Peterson is fabricating these phone calls, especially the one supposedly made while fishing, he must be crazy. He must know that cellphone records will at least prove or disprove the story about the call made while fishing (unless there's a land line somewhere out in the Bay.) And what about the supposed call to dad in the morning, before going fishing? Isn't Lee Peterson in San Diego? So that would show up as long distance call on Scott's home phone--or if made from the cellphone, it would show up on cellphone records.

As STOCKHRSE said, they can determine through the towers used, more or less, where a person was when he made a cell call.

I just thought of this, though: What if Lee Peterson has an 800 number for his business? What if he was at the office the morning of Dec. 24th? (Lots of people worked that morning.) Wonder if the individual phone calls would be discernible on either end if Scott was calling an 800 number...

[muggs]

As for the suggestion of their having kept property safe from the bankruptcy by conveying it to their parents or whatever, they would have to really watch it if they did such a thing. That can get one in trouble with the feds.

Well, murder can get you in quite a bit of trouble too, but that probably didn't stop Scott.

[Devil_Anse]

Yeah, I can see it now: "charged with two counts of first degree murder...and one count of bankruptcy fraud." All speculation and opinion, of course--I don't even know that there ever was a bankruptcy, much less bankruptcy fraud.

It would remind me of cases where you read of someone being charged with murder, and also charged with abusing a corpse, because of whatever they did with the body.

[spectre]

There is an older couple up the street from me who went bankrupt last year. It was in the newspaper, they owed over $300,000.

They STILL have their home, which is not paid for, they have two luxury cars AND yard service, house-keeper, and trucks pull up there an average of once a month delivering new furniture. Oh, they have Sunday Brunch at the local Country Club. Cool, huh?

Everyone in the neighborhood are just "shaking their heads"...as we put the stamp on the next bill WE have to pay.

sw

[BonneBlue]

I am not entirely sure he is fabricating the phone call stories. They must know that LE has records? Trying to cover for phone calls between he and Scott on Dec 24th? In so doing he is becoming confused. Remember LE has not ruled out an accomplice or other family members. Transcripts for Greta's show last night? I would like to review what was said.

[Devil_Anse]

Maybe ego will be what solves this case.

I am thinking of a case I saw on A&E a while back. It involved a monster named Spangler who was tried for pushing his wife off a cliff--claimed it was an accident--and when they dug into that case, they found that years earlier, his prior wife had "shot their two teenaged children, then shot herself."

They ended up charging him with three more murders for that earlier one.

They felt they had the evidence in the cliff murder case, but they needed to find out more about the so-called "murder-suicide" case. So they interviewed him, with his consent. The man made a comment about how the police should interview and study serial killers. The police replied, "Yeah, sure--but that wouldn't be you. You're not a serial killer. If you had done that one, it would have been just a mass murder." Well, believe it or not, it seems this Spangler must have felt that they dissed him--and he began to talk more candidly about what really had happened to his prior wife and two children. Ba da bing! (As another poster astutely said earlier.)

Then there was the Unabomber. He enjoyed getting away with something for about 18 years. Then suddenly this rude guy (or guys) comes along and upstages him by spectacularly annihilating a whole building full of people in Oklahoma City. I think the Unabomber was feeling upstaged. Next thing we know, he's writing stuff to major newspapers.

Ego!

[muggs]

Has anyone written a book about Spangler ? I might like to find out more about the case. I don't know why I become so obsessed with murder stories.

[spectre]

Fox news just reported that the Life Insurance Policy was taken out on Laci SHORTLY after she became pregnant...hummm?

Laci family press conference is scheduled for 5:30pm EASTERN Time. They will read a statement and answer questions.

A member of the Peterson family will also be there for damage control, if necessary..

Be back then..sw

[spectre]

Ping for news conference info..

[Devil_Anse]

Not that I know of, I just saw it on one of the true crime shows. Believe me, this one will make you sick.

All that is in this post is based on my memory of a show I saw on TV. It is my opinion and I have no personal knowledge of the facts.

You know how he managed to kill his first wife easily? It was around Christmas, and he asked her to come downstairs to their furnished basement. He asked her to sit down at a desk there, a desk that had a typewriter on it. (It was in the 70's.) Then he told her he had an early Christmas surprise for her, and told her to close her eyes. She did, whereupon he aimed a gun at her temple and blew her brains out. He then typed out a suicide note, and signed it with the first three letters of her name, or her initials or something. He left the note in the typewriter in front of her body. The note included an "explanation" of "why she shot her two teenaged children."

Then he went upstairs and shot the girl, who was asleep. Then he went to the boy's room. The boy wasn't asleep so he shot him, but the boy moved and didn't die from it, so the man grabbed him, fought with him, and strangled him, leaving him lying half-off the end of the bed, head down.

The explanation was accepted and he remained free and was not charged with anything! The second wife "fell off a cliff" while they were hiking, in about 1991.

[PleaseNoMore]

Muggs, the banks that I deal with extend credit to a lot of people immediately after their bankruptcy(s). As a matter of fact I have just closed a mtg for a man that has filed chapters 7 AND 13 over the years. So it is possible. Not the best interest rates so I am wondering if that is not the reason for the Peterson's two refi's?????? The first one to get back on track and the second to lower their rate after paying on time for a year or so.

[STOCKHRSE]

"can they track a 800# call to the tower..."
Yes I THINK because the call itself may be toll free but the minutes of use are still calculated against your allowed max under your particular plan...so they have to track the signal... and the do that from the tower.IMHO

[Rusty Roberts]

Now as I remember, I cannot state absolutely, he made it sound like it was while he was fishing, but if there is a transcript maybe it can be checked? It might be that he said something to the effect, "while he was gone that day fishing, he called me and we talked...."

[Rusty Roberts]

Yes, the call is traceable, I have an 800 number, and you will be able to trace all incoming and outgoing calls to that number: time called in or out, number dialed in our out and length of call. I get a huge printout every month for my business that I need to verify all are actual business calls. They could get warrants for his cell phone and the lanline at the marina , which I'm pretty sure they have just to cover all bases.

Remember, this bankruptcy thing, I need some real verification. I'm going slow on this because RG did a quick search through some databases he had available and could not find any records for them, so until that is truly verified, we ought to go slow on that. Both their families would be aware of that, none are commenting on it, which I find interesting.