2024-08-16 00:00:02
Nearly 20 years later, the case of Laci and Scott Peterson is back in the spotlight thanks to a new Netflix docuseries, “American Murder: Laci Peterson.”
Scott Peterson was convicted of the murders of his wife and their unborn child, whom they planned to name Conner, in 2004. He pleaded not guilty and has maintained his innocence since.
The case received widespread media attention as authorities searched for Laci Peterson for months — and as details of Scott Peterson’s extramarital affair surfaced during the search.
Skye Borgman, the series’ director, tells TODAY.com that from the moment she started talking about doing a documentary about the case, she wanted it to be focused on Laci Peterson.
“It’s always really important to me to put the victim forward, and Laci Peterson, I think, has been overshadowed many times by Scott Peterson and what’s going on with him,” Borgman says. “And I just really wanted to make sure that that we did our job and put Laci forward, and put Conner forward as well.”
The possibility of the series started to come together once her team started revisiting the case, including looking into possible participants and researching the story, Borgman says.
“It just started becoming clearer and clearer that this was a really relevant story to tell, even though it happened 20 years ago,” she says.
Borgman, who has directed documentary phenomenons like “Abducted in Plain Sight” and “Girl in the Picture,” said one of the largest obstacles of tackling the Peterson case was figuring out what had become urban legend over the past two decades, and what had actually happened.
“The biggest challenge, really, was just challenging those memories and those expectations and those ideas of what we think we know,” Borgman says. “Scott was convicted 20 years ago. Laci disappeared 22 years ago.”
“I think it has gotten a little bit like that telephone game, right? Somebody says something, and then it grows, and then it grows, and then it grows, and then the facts just start to get a little bit muddied,” she adds. “So I wanted to go back and tell the story from a fact-based perspective.”
The three-episode series features interviews with Laci Peterson’s friends and family, Scott Peterson’s family, plus investigators, attorneys and journalists who covered the case at the time.
One person is missing from the series: Scott Peterson.
Borgman says her team was in contact with him in prison, but he declined to sit for an interview.
“I don’t think our series is missing anything by not speaking to Scott,” she says. “I mean, our main focus was Laci, and we wanted to keep it that way.”
A separate documentary about Scott Peterson, “Face to Face with Scott Peterson,” is set to premiere on Aug. 20 on Peacock, which features his first interview in 20 years.
Borgman says she has only seen the trailer for the Peacock series, and says its focus appears to be more about Scott Peterson’s potential innocence in the case.
“It seems that their perspective is very different from our perspective, and that he’s claiming that he’s innocent and that’s the story that they’re telling,” she says. “Really, our story really is much more Laci-centric, and really is about the investigation at the time, what was happening, and Scott’s behavior at the time … we talked to people from most sides.”
Borgman says the case is part of American history, and she thinks there is value in bringing up an older case when intimate partner violence still affects a large percentage of women. The National Institute of Health estimates “as many as one in four women and one in nine men are victims of domestic violence.”
“This is a very American story. We’re talking to audiences that may not have heard about Laci Peterson before and bringing up this issue, that is clear in all three episodes, of intimate partner violence, and it’s a big, big issue for women,” she says.
Borgman points to a “shocking” statistic: Pregnant are more likely to be murdered than to die of obstetric causes.
“So I think that is worthwhile, to put these stories out there in a way that younger audiences are seeing them — people who maybe have never heard of Laci Peterson before, or who have forgotten about what exactly happened with Laci.”
Borgman reiterates that the team behind the doc worked to ensure that viewers would feel like they knew Laci Peterson by the end of the third episode.
“It was really important to us, and it was really important to her family, to have Laci be present, and to have Laci be the forefront of the story,” Borgman says.
Here’s what to know about the true story of Laci Peterson’s death, and Scott Peterson’s conviction.
What happened to Laci Peterson?
Laci Peterson was eight months pregnant when she was last seen in her home in Modesto, California, on Christmas Eve in 2002. Scott Peterson told his wife’s friends and family, and later investigators, that he had been out fishing in the Berkeley Marina that day, and returned home to find their dog on a leash in their backyard, with no sign of his wife inside their residence.
Law enforcement began searching for Laci Peterson, and Scott Peterson cooperated with authorities as they began an investigation into her disappearance. He also spoke with several media outlets as weeks ticked by, with no sign of Laci Peterson.
The case quickly engulfed into a media sensation in January 2003, as details of Scott Peterson’s affair became public. Amber Frey, a massage therapist from Fresno, California, told reporters she had been dating Scott Peterson, and had no idea he had a wife or was expecting a family, according to NBC Bay Area.
In April 2003, the bodies of Laci and Conner Peterson washed ashore in the San Francisco Bay, four months after she disappeared.
Scott Peterson was arrested in San Diego days after their bodies were discovered, and he was later charged with two counts of murder. He pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Scott Peterson’s trial began in June 2004, and following the five-month trial, jurors convicted him of first-degree murder in the death of Laci Peterson, and second-degree murder in the death of his son.
The same jury that convicted him recommended he be sentenced to the death penalty, and a judge sentenced him to death in 2005.
The California Supreme Court overturned his sentence in 2020, writing in a ruling that a “series of clear and significant errors in jury selection” undermined his right to an impartial jury during his trial.
Scott Peterson was later resentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 2021 after Stanislaus County District Attorney Birgit Fladager announced she would not retry the penalty phase of the trial, according to NBC News.
The California Supreme Court did not overturn his conviction in the ruling, and he was later denied a request for a new trial in 2022.
Scott Peterson is currently serving his sentence at Mule Creek State Prison, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and he still maintains he was innocent in the crime.
His case was taken up by the Los Angeles Innocence Project earlier this year, and his attorneys have argued in court that several pieces of evidence were suppressed during his trial, and that new materials should be presented in court to prove his case.
A judge ruled in May that only one piece of evidence — a piece of duct tape found on Laci Peterson’s pants — should undergo new DNA testing, according to NBC News.
“American Murder: Laci Peterson” premieres on Netflix on Aug. 14, and “Face to Face with Scott Peterson” is set to air on Peacock on Aug. 20. (Peacock is owned by NBCUniversal, the parent company of TODAY.)
