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Verdict spells relief in Peterson's hometown

MODESTO, Calif. - In the city where Laci Peterson and her husband once planned to raise a family, relief greeted word that Scott Peterson had been convicted Friday of murdering his pregnant wife.

Horns tooted, people clapped and Amy Tran, looking up from her lunch of Mexican food, uttered a loud "Yes!" as excitement replaced fears echoed by many that the former fertilizer salesman would walk free.

"He acted like a guilty person," said Tran, an expectant mother who works at a mortgage company. "If you love somebody, you're not going to sell their personal belongings," referring to how Peterson sold some of his wife's jewelry after she disappeared.

It didn't take long for the curious to return to the suspected scene of the crime - the couple's modest ranch house that became a shrine of flowers, candles and stuffed animals in the weeks after an eight-month pregnant Laci Peterson vanished on Christmas Eve two years ago.

Wade Travis, a neighbor, kneeled on the brick path leading to the front door of the Covena Avenue house and prayed.

"It blows me away that someone could feel it's their right to take a life," he said. "I prayed for the family for closure and to help in their healing."

As the crowd grew, police strung yellow crime scene tape around the home and began directing traffic, a reminder of the days when the unsolved mystery held friends, neighbors and strangers in its spell for months. People still managed to crawl beneath the tape to leave flowers.........