Posted on 06/07/2003 5:43:07 AM PDT by runningbear
Death certificates opened for Laci Peterson and son
Posted on Sat, Jun. 07, 2003
Death certificates opened for Laci Peterson and son
By Brian Anderson and Claire Booth
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
MODESTO - The Contra Costa County Coroner's Office could not determine a cause of death for Laci Peterson, but concluded that her son was born dead.
The coroner lists Peterson's manner of death as homicide. Death certificates for the 27-year-old and the son with whom she was eight months pregnant were made public late Friday.
A judge agreed earlier in the day to allow release of the documents, but kept sealed the results of the two autopsies.
During two hours of courtroom wrangling, Stanislaus County Superior Court Judge Al Girolami told Scott Peterson's defense lawyers and the prosecutors who have charged him with the murders of his wife and child that the report will remain sealed until a preliminary hearing.
The death certificates were filed in Contra Costa County on Friday. Signed April 21, they are the official record of Laci and Conner Peterson's deaths.
The filings do not mean the remains will be released to Laci Peterson's family. A court order requires the coroner's office to retain custody of the remains until told otherwise by a judge, said coroner's spokesman Jimmy Lee.
Laci Peterson's family does not know when that will be, said family spokeswoman Kim Petersen. "It's a very tough time for them," she said Friday.
The death certificates contain the time and place of death. For Laci Peterson, the coroner's office specifies the date she was found on the Richmond shoreline, April 14.
Conner Peterson was found a day earlier. That is specified on his fetal death certificate, along with where he was found along the Richmond shoreline. Fetal death certificates have no category for a cause of death. Conner's does specify that he was born dead.
Cable news station MSNBC reported last week that a leaked portion of the autopsy reports showed that Conner was found with 11/2 loops of tape around his neck.
Legal analysts have surmised the information could be used to back a defense theory that a satanic cult played a role in Laci Peterson's disappearance and slaying.
It also was widely believed that the defense team had a hand in leaking the autopsy to bolster its case with the public, an allegation attorney Mark Geragos adamantly denied.
The autopsy had been sealed May 15 at the request of both defense attorneys and prosecutors. After last week's leak, the Stanislaus County District Attorney's Office asked that the entire report be unsealed.
Deputy district attorney David Harris told Girolami on Friday the leaked details provided a "significant slant" in favor of the defense. "We can't discuss inaccuracies or accuracies without violating the court order," he said.
Girolami said the results will not be unsealed. "I don't think that releasing the report at this time is necessary. The mere fact that someone has leaked out part of the report does not justify releasing all of it."
In other matters, Girolami told lawyers for 22 reporters that a state law does not protect calls and conversations they placed to Scott Peterson. Authorities wiretapped Peterson's phone before his arrest and alerted journalists last month that they had been taped.
Scott Peterson, 30, was arrested April 18. His wife, who was eight months pregnant, vanished Dec. 23 or 24 from her Modesto home.
Peterson could be executed if convicted;..................................
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Autopsies Kept Sealed in Laci Peterson Case
Autopsies Kept Sealed in Laci Peterson Case
Fri June 6, 2003 07:19 PM ET
By Tim Wimborne
MODESTO, Calif. (Reuters) - A judge refused on Friday to make public graphic autopsy reports for Laci Peterson and her unborn son, rebuffing press efforts to unseal key documents in a murder case that has riveted the nation.
The parents of the 27-year-old substitute teacher left the Stanislaus County courtroom when Superior Court Judge Al Girolami began discussing whether to release the autopsy, grim details of which have already surfaced in media reports.
Laci's husband, Scott Peterson, 30, who is charged with two murders and could face the death penalty if convicted, has pleaded not guilty.
During the autopsy discussion, Peterson, who has shown little emotion during the proceedings, dabbed his eyes with a tissue and appeared grim-faced, swallowing hard several times.
"This is not about adverse publicity," Peterson's attorney Mark Geragos told the court in opposing the release of the autopsies. "I'm worried about my client's life."
Geragos has argued against releasing many of the documents in the case, saying that to do so would increase the already high public hostility toward his client.
Judge Girolami said leaks to the press of some details from the coroner's reports were not a justification to release the entire document. Prosecutors in the case had withdrawn their objections to the report's release.
The judge, however, refused to authorize a gag order on lawyers in the case and authorized the Contra Costa County coroner to prepare and release death certificates for Laci and her unborn son, that might list a cause of death.
Officials have not publicly stated how they believe Laci Peterson died, and have released few details of the case they have against Peterson.
WASHED ASHORE
The two decaying corpses washed out of San Francisco Bay in April, prompting Peterson's arrest. Coroners worked for weeks on the bodies, saying the advanced state of decomposition made their job especially difficult.
A law enforcement official told Reuters on Friday that plastic was wrapped in the area of the neck of the unborn baby when it was found along the Contra Costa high-tide shoreline, but said it could well have been from trash rather than a clue to the murder.
"There is a lot of junk in the sea, maybe that's what it is," the official said.
San Francisco television station KTVU quoted law enforcement sources on Friday as saying Laci Peterson may have been drugged with a so-called date rape drug to weaken her before being strangled........
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Media Won't Hear Scott Peterson Wiretaps
Media Won't Hear Scott Peterson Wiretaps
Judge Rejects Reporters' Requests to Hear Wiretaps of Husband in Laci Peterson Murder Case
The Associated Press
MODESTO, Calif. June 6 —
The judge in the Laci Peterson murder case on Friday rejected requests by reporters to listen to wiretaps of phone calls they made to Scott Peterson.
Attorneys representing 22 reporters had asked to review to tapes of their calls to Peterson so they could determine if they might be barred from becoming evidence.
The lawyers said those conversations were protected under the California Shield Law, which protects reporters from turning over unpublished work. They claimed the wiretaps are the same as journalists' notes.
But Stanislaus County Superior Court Judge Al Girolami said he did not think journalists were entitled to any privilege protecting their phone calls. He did, however, delay for 10 days the release of the tapes.
Girolami's ruling came during the first hour of a hearing in which he also set a June 19 date to rule on defense motions regarding wiretaps of Peterson's calls. The judge was also expected to begin considering a prosecution motion to unseal results of an autopsy on the bodies of Laci Peterson and her unborn son, Conner.
Scott Peterson's lawyers want the judge to dismiss the prosecutors assigned to the case and to toss out the results of two wiretaps that monitored thousands of Peterson's calls after the disappearance of his pregnant wife, Laci.
During the court-approved wiretaps, the first of which began two weeks after Laci Peterson vanished when investigators thought they had exhausted normal evidence-gathering techniques, police logged 3,858 phone calls made to her husband, according to court papers.
Some of those conversations will be questioned by defense lawyers, who claim police eavesdropped on protected conversations between Scott Peterson and his lawyer.
Girolami will also consider issuing a gag order to prevent evidence leaks in the case and he may decide whether to release autopsy results of Laci Peterson and her unborn son. Prosecutors have said they support some form of a gag order, while defense lawyer Mark Geragos said in court paper that he opposes any effort to curtail discussions about the case.
Peterson, 30, has pleaded innocent to two counts of murder for ....................
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Judge keeps documents sealed in Peterson case
Judge keeps documents sealed in Peterson case
BEE STAFF REPORTS
Published: June 6, 2003, 12:49:07 PM PDT
A judge kept under wraps many documents and other evidence in the Peterson double-murder case Friday. During a discussion of autopsy reports, defendant Scott Peterson - who is charged with killing his pregnant wife, Laci, and their unborn son, Conner - dabbed his eyes with a handkerchief.
Stanislaus County Superior Court Judge Al Girolami:
Kept sealed autopsy reports on both bodies.
Ordered the Contra Costa County coronor’s office to issue death certificates.
Kept sealed wiretap recordings. He allowed prosecutors and defense attorneys to get copies of the tapes, but temporarily prohibited the handing over of calls between Peterson and journalists. Prosecutors also are not allowed to hear calls between Peterson and his defense team.
Delayed a decision on a potential gag order preventing principals ...................
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(Excerpt) Read more at bayarea.com ...
I sure did miss something. I don't know weather to believe it or not. All I know is if Scott could have done what he did to Laci , I think he is capable of anything.
I got so caught up with doing it that I asked her if I dared go public with the URL....ya know how people can diss others...she said go for it and I did. I only did it for those around the fora I've been posting at since 1997 that might not get to see the people, evidence etc.
When Laci went missing I figured I'd catch some vidcaps for everyone on this case too.
It's a labor of love...just something I can do to help, since I couldn't personally search or anything. Now I need how to learn how to change my DW website over to it's own webpage on my computer, so I have enough room on the webtvplus for the Laci case.
Is there any program I can use to make that kind of change that would be easy for a novice?
Thanks for the kind word's....
Anyway, she was caught with GHB (in TX) when LE came to her door and ended up shooting and killing her son on a tip about drugs in the house.
So how can you buy it over the net? I was thinking (not sure here) that the writer had made her own and had the ingredients in the house. She was charged with some things, I don't remember the outcome of all of this stuff. But she said she had used it for sleep before it went illegal and still had some around.
It is just as possible for Laci (or Scott) to follow links on the internet as you or I. How did you hear about GHB? The way I heard about it was on the internet.
I personally have followed links to a large number of things I would have had no knowledge of without the internet.
Laci was an educated, intelligent woman. I doubt that she spent the last few months of her pregnancy watching daytime TV and reading Mother's Magazine.
Same with Scott. It is perfectly possible to look things up on the internet without actually buying them.
Pharmacist spouse and working for physicians.
Pharmacist spouse and working for physicians.
I recognize that you firmly believe this, but I fail to understand how these people will "disappear".
The defense is free to call them as witnesses, and if Law Enforcement is so foolish as to intimidate them into not testifying about observations contrary to LE theory of the crime they are setting themselves up for reversal and some severe penalties.
While it is is perfectly proper for LE to attempt to discredit witnesses, it is well outside the bounds to have them disappear.
Also Dec 30th another bloodhound brought into the investigatiom believes she left by vehicle not by foot.
1. I can state with absolute certainty that we have no knowledge whatsoever of the beliefs of the bloodhound. The absolute best we can do is to know the beliefs of the dog handler, based on his inferences from the behavior of the dog.
As we saw in the Westerfield case dog handlers can be wrong.
2. It is also perfectly possible for Laci to have left the house under her own power in the morning and to have been dragged to a vehicle in the afternoon.
Yes, it is entirely possible, even probable that Scott did it, but the hard evidence seems pretty thin at this point. Arguments based on "knowledge" of a dog's thoughts just don't cut it. I doubt that LE can even place the time of death within a two week period.
If LE had strong evidence of the time of death or that Laci couldn't possibly have walked the dog on the 24th they would have arrested Scott long ago. Why take the chance of looking like a bunch of Bozos if he somehow gave them the slip?
Their theory of the crime doesn't involve any other conspitators, so they weren't waiting for him to lead them to someone else. The way I read this is that LE has very strong beliefs that Scott is the culprit, but the physical evidence they have is very weak.
An immedicate search of East La Loma Park and surrounding areas was launched by police and,within hours, many others. They utilized foot searchers,all terrain vehicles, patrol cars, sport utility vehicles, helicopters and search lights,heat sensors, water recue units,CANINES and equestian teams.
Based on actual results in the Chandra Levy case, the fact that they searched with all these methods and didn't find anything means very little.
That bit of info came from here:
A source who has seen the 25-page autopsy report and does not work for either the defense or the prosecution told Fox News that the body of the 8-months-pregnant woman was missing the head and neck, and both arms are cut off at the elbows.
The right leg is severed at the knee; the left foot is missing; the heart, lungs and other internal organs are gone and there is a hole in the upper abdomen above the belly button that may be a knife wound, said the source, who asked not to be identified.
The womb, however, is intact -- suggesting that the nearly full-term baby was not cut out of Laci’s body but was expelled naturally after she was killed.
New Details
My personal opinion is the source probably turned information about the (cervix) being intack, to the (womb) being intack.
Think about it. In order to be expelled naturally after Laci was killed the cervix would have to have dilated. I don't think this happened. I believe that as the water warmed up, gasses built up in Laci and the baby was expelled through the deteriorating uterus.
If those bones we saw were actually Laci's there was no way the uterus was intack.
Never trust a source who doesn't want to be identified.
Winesses who finally realize that their 15 minutes is over routinely disappear, on their own volition, from public view. The other side has nothing to do with it. I'm sure that is what MM meant and that was my meaning in an earlier post, as well. After witnesses get exposed to evidence that contradicts them, their factual certainty sometimes wanes to the point that they are not even called to the stand. I think that will happen in this case.
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