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 ...
Amy had some Christmas fruit basket which she had to pick up the next day. So Scott offered to pick up the fruit basket for her. I think Amy got a call during the day on the 24th, from whoever had the fruit basket, complaining that it still hadn't been picked up.
No, I don't think this particular thing about the tee time was any sort of pointed lie to an in-law. There's something funny about the whole thing. Why would he lie to Amy about picking up the fruit basket, when he knew darn well she could call him on it next time she saw him? (Unless maybe he KNEW that, contrary to everyone's belief, he WASN'T going to be having dinner at the Rochas' on Christmas Eve.)
I am not saying he is innocent, but there is no hard evidence of guilt
Exactly! None that we know of, at any rate!
The parking ticket thingie, I think I heard it had a time of about 1:00 p.m., or 1:30 p.m. Do you know that they've said that only 5 people used that parking lot that day? B/C it was Christmas Eve, and the water was choppy, and no one was going out, apparently.
I still think there's room for the possibility that Scott had already gotten rid of Laci during the night, and that he simply drove to Berkeley so he could say he'd been there, and get the time-stamped parking ticket. It came from a machine. You just put in a 5-dollar bill. No parking attendant involved. Perhaps Scott dumped Laci in the bay during the night. Maybe he threw her weighted, wrapped body off a bridge. Who knows? Then maybe he decided to go back there to "fish" the next day--actually to reassure himself that the weights had worked, and that she wasn't just floating around in the bay in plain sight.
But now, when you say there's an innocent explanation for all his weird after-the-fact behavior, I don't know. His selling of her car almost immediately? Hard to explain. I've got clothes of my mother's that no one here can wear, and she died a natural death two years ago! His asking a realtor--only about one or two weeks after she disappeared, mind you--about how he might sell the house? And he directed this question to the realtor while AT THE SEARCH CENTER!! Guilty of extremely bad taste, at the very least!
He absolutely shunned the camera for about the first week or two. Kept the hat pulled down over his eyes; he was never filmed without the ball cap, not once, during the time b/f it became known to him that Amber had connected with the police. He was clearly hiding from Amber when being filmed on TV. Even shaved the sides of his head. You couldn't see ANY of his hair in the shots of him back then, thanks to the cap and the shaving of the sides of his head.
If he's been selling Laci's jewelry all along, that will certainly be very telling. And at least one person has been quoted as saying, "Scott would tell us he was going out to put up missing person fliers, then we found out he was actually going to play golf." Wish I'd saved those articles.
Scott refused to sit with any of the family at the New Year's Eve candlelight vigil, and was photographed looking like he was at a frat keg party. That's how big a grin he had. It was obvious that he'd been exchanging jokes with someone nearby. That was only one week after Laci disappeared.
We will soon know if it's true that Scott kept calling Amber right through the whole early missing persons alarm and beginning search. I have heard that he did, and furthermore that, since Amber wasn't supposed to know he was married, Scott was just his usual self with her; not a single mention of his missing wife. Just things as usual.
He's been caught in so many lies, Kim VRWC's has been able to make a website about them all! And we're still counting.
So, we'll see. We don't have the hard evidence yet, but it begins to look like we will see some before this is over.
I didn't see the vigil at which SP sat apart from family and was grinning like he had listened to a joke. I hope the prosecutors are reading some of this stuff here.
The talking head lawyers on Greta are sounding more and more for the defense. And I am tired of the polls too indicating that MG is having an effect with all his theories.
I have heard on TV and seen remarks here on the threads, that there were some 3900+ phone calls taped (received or placed from SP's house) in a span of one month, wasn't it? Some 130 calls per day. Of those 3900+ calls, how many were to Amber? Have you heard a number?
Oh one other tidbit I heard I think on Hannity who had that loud mouth Joe Tacapina and I forget gal lawyer's name ( she wasn't allowed 2 words anyway) but the gossip is that Amber is reported to have been pregnant by Scott..new twist here. Don't know the source but the host of the show and the others who have heard the tip through the grapevine don't like it. I think they may think this scoop is coming from the scumbag that wants to print the pics of Amber...give us the naked truth so to speak....:-O
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