Scott Peterson told police he was heading out to the golf course for a quick round with his father and brother when he was pulled over and arrested for the murder of his wife Laci back in 2003 just three days after authorities discovered her body.
A search of the car he was in at the time turned up everything but golf clubs, and left police convinced that he had been trying to flee before he could be thrown behind bars.
Investigators found six pairs of shoes and enough socks and underwear for weeks, along with over $300 of recently purchased camping equipment from REI including a tent and a water purifier.
There were also 15 laminated missing flyers for his wife Laci that had never been passed out or put on display.
The contents of that car can be seen in evidence photos taken by the Modesto Police Department, which will be featured this Thursday on the ABC News special ‘Truth and Lies: The Murder of Laci Peterson’ airing at 9pm on the network.
Scott Peterson was picked up by police on April 18, 2003 and taken in for the death of his wife Laci, 27, and their unborn son Conner (Scott above after being taken into police custody)
Three of the four cell phones that were found in the car along with pills on the passenger seat
Police found over $15,000 in cash in the car and on Scott’s person after searching his car
There was also a gun in the car, which was a Mercedes Benz that was registered to Scott’s mother Jacqueline
Scott had 15 laminated missing slyers featuring Laci’s face that had not been distributed or displayed in his car
There were a number of credit cards registered to Scott and his company along with an ID belonging to his half-brother John
Some of the $350 worh of newly purchased camping gear and Viagra tablets Scott had in the car
Police had been tailing Scott for some time before he pulled over and they were anle to pick him up in a parking lot where he claimed to be meeting his father and half-brother John for a round of golf at Torrey Pines in La Jolla.
At the time he was in possession of three cell phones, $15,000 in cash, 200 sleeping pills, his brother John’s ID, a dagger and a gun.
Scott, who was 30 at the time, also had a map to the workplace of his mistress and approximately 10 Viagra tablets.
In addition to the large amount of clothing in the car there were also credit cards belonging to his mother and sister.
Prior to being stopped Scott was also leading police on a fast and furious chase that could have very well turned fatal.
‘He was driving 80 miles an hour on a freeway and he would slam his breaks on, pull over,’ said lead investigator Allen Brocchini.
‘It got to the point where we had a helicopter, lost him … either he’s going to kill somebody or one of these agents that are trying to follow him are going to get killed or kill somebody.’
Three days prior his wife’s body had washed ashore shortly after the body of a fetus in the area where he said he had been fishing at the time they went missing (Laci above in her last photo)
Scott had a photo of himself and his wife smiling together in the car
There were packed bags full of toiletries as well as a number of binders and computer from Scott’s company
Multiple pairs of pants where in the car, just part of the large wardrobe Scott was travelling with at the time of his arrest
A diving mask and snorkel, binoculars, a small ax and net were found in Scott’s haul
Two switch blades, packages of replacement blades and a cigar cutter from the car
A close look at the Viagra and camping gear that Scott had been carrying with him, including a water purifier
Brocchini said that he knew that the department needed to find Scott quick given the fact that the bodies of Laci and the couple’s unborn son Conner turned up not too far from the spot where he claimed to have been fishing on Christmas Eve when Laci went missing.
‘First thing he says is, “Tell me it wasn’t Laci and Conner,”‘ said Brocchini.
‘I mean, you know, he already knew but I mean, that’s how he was.’
Scott said after his arrest that he was only driving erratically because he though the media was following him and not investigators.
As for the contents of the car he said it was because he was avoiding Modesto and spending his time with family and friends in San Diego.
‘The guy had like, I don’t know, $14,000, $15,000, cash, he had his brother’s ID,’ said Brocchini.
‘Hiking boots and… a shovel and [a] fishing pole.’
The car he was driving in meanwhile was registered to his mother Jacqueline.
Conner’s body was discovered first, almost four months after his mother went missing when it washed up on the shoreline just north of Berkley in April of the following year.
There was a nylon rope around the fetus’ neck and a large cut on the body.
One day later, Laci’s body washed ashore a mile away with tape wrapped around her torso.
Both bodies were too decomposed to determine cause of death, which created a big hurdle given the lack of forensic evidence in the case.
The two had also not yet been identified at the time Scott was arrested, and only a few days later did lab results confirm that it was Lacey and Conner who had washed ashore.
‘I suspected Scott when I first met him,’ said Jon Buehler, the former detective who headed up the case with Brocchini.
‘Didn’t mean he did it, but I was a little bit thrown off by his calm, cool demeanor and his lack of questioning … he wasn’t, “Will you call me back? Can I have one of your cards? What are you guys doing now?”‘
As for the contents of Scott’s car, Buehler said: ‘This guy is like James Bond without the secret agent mission.’
The premiere episode of the A&E docuseries ‘The Murder of Laci Peterson’ recounted the final moments between Scott and his wife, as well as his last phone call to his wife on Christmas Eve back in 2002.
‘Hey beautiful, I just left a message at home. Uh, it’s 2:15 I’m leaving Berkeley I won’t be able to get to Vella Farms to get that basket for papa I was hoping you would get this message and go on out there,’ Scott said in the never-before-heard audio from Laci’s voice mail.
He then told his eight-months pregnant wife: ‘I’ll see you in a bit sweetie. Love ya, bye.’
The day had started off much like any other according to Scott, who almost 14 years later recapped that day from death row.
‘I don’t know what time we got up, probably Laci got up and went in the shower, she had some cereal for breakfast,’ explained Scott, speaking from the San Quentin State Prison.
‘Eats right when she wakes up otherwise she gets sick because she’s pregnant.’
He went on to say: ‘I laid in bed a little longer and got up at eight o’clock probably or so. We were watching her favorite show Martha Stewart. She was gonna finish cleaning up, she was mopping the kitchen floor and then she was going to take the dog for a walk.’
Scott then started laughing to himself as he recalls his plan for the day, saying: ‘Just decided it seems too cold to play golf at the club so I just decided, you know, to go fishing.’
He left Laci shortly after 10am and never saw her again, and had an alibi for all times after that, heading first to his warehouse and then driving two hours to Berkeley for an hour of fishing before returning home.
Scott did not catch any fish that day, but a receipt proved he was in Berkeley at the dock.
It was while returning home at 2:15pm that he made his last call to Laci, and when he got home he still did not think anything was amiss at around 5pm on Christmas Eve.
‘The only unusual things were the leash [on the dog] and the door being unlocked. I assumed she was at her moms,’ said Scott, who was speaking with his sister-in-law Janey in a prison phone call for the A&E series.
‘Put my clothes in the washer grabbed some pizza from the fridge. Got milk and after I get out of the shower and put clothes on I call Sharon.’
That was at 5:17pm, and 30 minutes later Laci’s stepfather called 911 to report that they were concerned something might have happened to the 27-year-old, who was eight-months pregnant.
That was the first time Scott has spoken publicly about the case since 2004, when he was convicted of first-degree murder for the death of Laci as well as second-degree murder for the death of Conner Peterson, his unborn son.
‘I wasn’t the last one to see Laci that day. There were so many witnesses that saw her walking in the neighborhood after I left,’ Scott said in the interview.
That claim was supported by over 11 witnesses, who say they spotted Laci out walking her dog after the time in which the prosecution later argued she had gone missing.
Prosecutors successfully argued however that Laci was killed some time between the evening of December 23 and the following morning during Scott’s murder trial.
‘There was no biological evidence, no forensic evidence, that pointed to the guilt of Scott Peterson whatsoever,’ argued a member of Scott’s legal team.
Scott went even further, stating: ‘The police failed to find my family.’
The trial began in the summer of 2004 and Scott was sentenced to death by lethal injection in March of the following year.
An appeal of that decision was filed by his legal counsel soon after and is still pending after over a decade.
Scott recalled the moment he heard the verdict being read to Janey, saying: ‘It was just like this amazing, horrible, physical reaction that I had. I couldn’t feel my feet on the floor. I couldn’t feel the chair I was sitting in. My vision was even a little blurry.’
He went on to state: ‘And I just had this weird sensation that I was falling forward — and forward and down and there was going to be no end to this falling forward and down, like there was no floor to land on.
‘I, I was staggered by it. I had no idea it was coming.’
The only forensic evidence that was found by police was a single strand of hair in a pair of pliers on his boat, which Scott had been on in the hours before he returned home to report his wife missing to police.
Witnesses claimed however that he spoke of his wife in the past tense and questioned his jovial and joking nature during the proceedings, where hecould often be seen smiling and joking with his team.
Scott’s decision to dye his hair blond in the weeks before his wife’s body was found also perplexed many, who questioned how bereaved he really was for the missing woman.
The defense argued however that Laci’s death was likely connected to a burglary that occurred across the street from the house she shared with Scott.