Scott Peterson’s 2004 conviction for the murder of his pregnant wife, Laci, and their unborn son captivated the nation. Twenty years later, as the Los Angeles Innocence Project works to exonerate him, the case is revisited in two competing documentaries.
Between the two, Peacock’s Face to Face with Scott Peterson (released on August 20) and Netflix’s American Murder: Laci Peterson (Aug. 14), it is a six-hour overlapping coverage of the case.
But there are two distinct stories: The first is Scott’s take — as he gives his first on-camera interview, from prison, in more than 20 years and attempts to cast doubt on his conviction. The latter is anchored by Laci’s family, featuring a rare interview with her mother, Sharon Rocha, as well as her closest friends and a woman she never met: Amber Frey. Frey was dating Scott in the months leading up to Laci’s murder, unaware that he was married, and her testimony is credited with securing his conviction.
As for the similarities between the two projects, there are many. The docuseries feature many of the same people, including the two former lead investigators (former Modesto Police detectives Jon Buehler and Al Brocchini), several jurors, two of Scott’s family members (Janey Peterson and Susan Caudillo), and journalists who covered the case. There are many of the same photos and home videos in both projects, and both series consist of three episodes each.
What happened to Laci?
On Christmas Eve 2002, the 27-year-old, who was eight months pregnant, disappeared. The search attracted national attention. Scott, who had recently purchased a boat and was fishing 90 miles from home that day in San Francisco Bay, became a suspect.
Frey turned herself in to police and agreed to secretly record her phone conversations with Scott (over 29 hours of audio). Scott called her from Laci’s candlelight vigil, pretending to be in Europe.
In April, Laci’s badly decomposed body—and that of their unborn child, Conner—washed up near where Scott was fishing, and he was arrested shortly thereafter. In November 2004, Scott was convicted of two counts of murder. His death sentence was overturned in 2020, and he was re-sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
In 2024, the LA Innocence Project, a nonprofit legal advocacy group, took up his case and arranged for new DNA testing to be performed on a piece of duct tape found on Laci’s body.
What stands out in Face to face with Scott Peterson?
Hearing Scott speak is the most compelling reason to watch the Peacock series. When Laci was missing, the fertilizer salesman gave only a handful of interviews, including one with Diane Sawyer in 2003 in which he claimed that Laci knew he was having an affair and was OK with it. No one has heard his side of the story in his own words in years, especially amid the new developments in the case.
That said, Scott, who is in Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, California, isn’t being pushed too hard by documentary filmmaker Shareen Anderson.
These are the main points:
-
He denied killing Laci and claimed they had a great relationship.
-
He claimed that he was only with Frey for sex (“I’m a total asshole for having sex outside of my marriage”) and that she “tried to make it a relationship afterward.”
-
He called the prosecution’s argument that he killed Laci because he didn’t want to get married and become a father “insulting” and “disgusting.”
-
He said he heard former Detective Brocchini say on the first day of the case, “It’s the husband,” and he believes Modesto police ignored other tips and failed to properly investigate the case.
-
He suspects that the perpetrators of the burglary across the street kidnapped and murdered Laci.
-
He denied he was planning to flee the country when he was arrested in San Diego with $10,000 in cash, his brother’s driver’s license, a handgun, multiple cellphones, a shovel and camping gear. Scott, who also dyed his hair, said he was visiting family.
-
When he heard his guilty verdict, he had “no idea it was coming.” He had no feeling in his body and his vision was blurred.
-
He regrets not letting his lawyer lose time before the trial, which would give the defense more time to prepare. He thought he would be released and found it a “nightmare to be stuck in jail.”
-
Peterson, who was criticized for his lack of emotion following Laci’s disappearance and during the trial, cried at the end of his interview.
Scott’s attorneys also enter the picture. His sister-in-law, Janey Peterson (who is married to Scott’s half-brother, Joe), earned her law degree after Scott’s conviction and has pushed the case forward, alleging that police ignored potential evidence, including tipsters who claimed they saw Laci walking her dog, McKenzie, after police confirmed her death. Scott’s sister, Susan Caudillo, also appears in the document.
It’s not just family. Former ABC News investigative reporter Mike Gudgell has been looking into the case for years, trying to connect the burglary across the street — and a burned-out van found a mile from Peterson’s home. (Earlier this year, a judge ruled that DNA testing on the mattress found in the van could not be performed.)
What stands out American Murder: Laci Peterson?
The Netflix docuseries doesn’t feel like a compelling three-hour argument for why Scott should go free. Instead, in the Skye Borgman-directed project, which is dedicated to “Laci and Conner and the ones who left on time and the ones who didn’t,” Sharon Rocha attempts to humanize her daughter, Laci.
Rocha, along with Laci’s friends, share stories of a carefree young woman who talked nonstop and loved to socialize. They claim she was “love bombed” by Scott with exaggerated gestures when they met, such as a trip to Mexico.
The couple married young, while they were both still in college. Laci was “made to be a mother,” they claimed, but Scott decided he didn’t want children. He eventually changed his mind, but it was a struggle for her to conceive. Once she was pregnant, she wrote in her diary that Scott didn’t show excitement when the baby moved, “but I know he really did.”
In the run-up to her disappearance, Scott—who was cheating on her with Frey—was away a lot, so Laci didn’t have her annual Christmas party. When her friends last saw her, the expectant mother was “down.” She had been “sick” and had been fainting.
Scott’s doc painted a picture of a flawed police investigation. In this series, Detectives Buehler and Brocchini revisit the case that resulted in a conviction.
In the months leading up to the murder, Scott posed as a single man on work trips. He told Frey that his wife had died before she actually did. He secretly bought a boat and stored it in his warehouse. Scott scoured the tides of San Francisco Bay, made anchors out of cement, and bought (in advance) a fishing license for Christmas Eve. Although there were reservoirs near Modesto, he drove 90 miles to the Berkeley Marina. On the way home, he left his wife a loving voice mail. When he got home and Laci wasn’t there, he washed his clothes, showered, ate pizza, emptied a mop bucket, and drank a glass of milk before calling Rocha to say he thought her daughter was “missing.”
As the search for Laci continued, from Christmas through April, investigators say he refused to take a polygraph test. He sold Laci’s car, explored selling their house and converted the children’s bedroom into a storage unit. He called Frey frequently while Laci was still missing, claiming he was traveling and talking about how much he wanted to be with her.
Viewers learn that he continued to call her even after he knew she had gone to the police. Scott’s phone was tapped and it turns out that after listening to a voicemail from Rocha about another body that had turned up that wasn’t Laci’s, he said, “Whew.”
His truck was followed, and he drove to the Berkeley Marina to watch police search for the bodies. Laci’s hair was on tongs found on Scott’s boat. After Laci and Conner’s bodies were found, Scott, with his bleached hair, a packed car, the cash and four or five cell phones, made it appear as if he was planning to flee. They also noted that the burglary across the street that is the centerpiece of Scott’s appeal was solved and unrelated. They said they followed up on thousands of tips — and some just weren’t solid.
Another highlight is Frey, who gets a chance to set the record straight in a new interview. She made it clear: “I was not a mistress,” as she was branded amid the media frenzy over the affair. Scott lied to her, too.
It was also revealed that Frey, whose life was turned upside down, met with Rocha and Laci’s friends, who were grateful for what she did to help Laci’s case. Frey’s attorney, Gloria Allred, also appeared to speak to the importance of her testimony, which helped the prosecution.
While Scott’s statements in the Peacock documentary are a selling point, so is Rocha’s new interview in this documentary.
After 20 years of living with and coming to terms with this tragedy, she admits that she didn’t always fully trust Scott, despite welcoming him into her family. She tells how, while people may bring up the case again now, it was never over for her. She shares the resilience she showed all those years ago during the search for her daughter and when she showed up every day for Scott’s murder trial.
“He’s ruined a lot of lives,” Rocha said. “I’m not going to say he’s ruined our lives. He’s disrupted our lives. But I wouldn’t give him credit for ruining our lives.”
Face to Face with Scott Peterson is now streaming on Peacock and American Murder: Laci Peterson is on Netflix.
