The tragic true story behind “American Murder

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27 years old Laci Petersoneight months pregnant with a boy named Conner, was last seen in her home on December 24, 2002… and never alive again. What began as a missing person case quickly captured the nation's attention as increasingly grim details of the case emerged. The overwhelming public interest in the case was certainly not surprising. Laci Peterson was not just another victim. She was a bright young woman with a beautiful smile, and she was painfully close to becoming a mother for the first time. Monsters kill, but a monster who has what it takes to murder a young woman And her unborn child is a far more sinister, more terrible being than the word murder defined only briefly. But the name Scott PetersonLaci's husband, would. This interest has never really waned in the years since, and with his latest true crime miniseries American Murder: Laci Peterson, Netflix is ​​once again devoting itself to the infamous crime and its consequencesa deep insight that includes interviews with detectives, lawyers, jurors, Amber FreyScott's lover and, in a rare interview, Laci's mother, Sharon Rocha.

Netflix's “American Murder: Laci Peterson” has a purpose

American Murder: Laci Peterson director Skye Borgmanwho has previously worked successfully with Netflix on true crime projects, had a specific goal in mind for her latest project: to divert the spotlight from Scott and his beliefs and put it back on Laciand said, “I think Laci Peterson has often been overshadowed by Scott Peterson.” Of course, Laci's story begins long before she was even in the spotlight. Born Laci Denise Rocha on May 4, 1975, Laci met Scott in 1995 at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where they were both students. Two years later, the two were married and planned to start a family in Modesto. In 2002, Laci learned she was pregnant with a son, Conner, and that their life as a family had just begun. Then came December 24, 2002. Scott had left for fishing and Laci was walking their dog. Later that same day, the dog was found by a neighbor, but Laci was nowhere to be found. Scott had returned home and assumed Laci had gone to her mother's house. Laci's stepfather was convinced something was wrong and reported Laci missing.

In cases like this, spouses are usually at the top of the suspect list, and Scott was no exception. What was strange, however, was that Scott did little to indicate that he should be removed from the list.. According to Rolling Stone, Scott flatly refused to take a lie detector test, showed no interest in the progress of the investigation, and acted visibly distant from the entire situation. Then things started to look even worse for Scott. First came the revelation that Scott had taken out a $250,000 life insurance policy on Laci, which is incriminating enough on its own. But then came the revelation that Scott was having an affair with 27-year-old single mother Amber Frey, which Amber herself made public after seeing Scott on the news. Not only did she admit to the affair, but she also said that when they met, he told her he was unmarried, and that days before Laci's disappearance, he mentioned he was a widower. It should be noted that Amber participated in the affair. American Murder: Laci Petersonagreed to an interview and shared voice recordings of her conversations with Scott after she realized he had lied to her. News of the affair not only turned the public against Scott, but also those who had firmly believed in his absence, including the Rocha family. When an interview with Diane Sawyer on Good morning America was Scott's attempt to silence his critics, it failed spectacularlymost clearly through Scott’s reference to Laci in the Past.

“American Murder: Laci Peterson” describes a specific timeline of events

On April 13, 2003, the remains of Conner Peterson were found on a beach in San Francisco Bay, and Laci was found nearby the next day. The discoveries were horrifying: Conner was found separated from his mother, with plastic bandages around his neck, while Laci's torso, missing his head and limbs, was barely recognizable as a body, as it was badly decomposed. After DNA tests proved their identities, police arrested Scottand found him about 30 miles from the Mexican border, with dyed blond hair and now a beard, in a car with ropes, knives, four cell phones, camping equipment and, as detective Al Brocchinianother participant in American Murder: Laci Petersonsays: “The guy had, I don’t know, $14,000, $15,000 in cash, he had his brother’s ID, hiking boots and… a shovel and [a] Angels.”

The trial against Scott Peterson began in June 2004, shortly after Dean Cain played Scott in the Lifetime movie The Perfect Husband: The Story of Laci Petersonanother example of the circus that surrounded the crime. Because the investigation was so intense in Modesto, where the crime took place, Scott's attorney successfully requested that the trial be moved to Redwood City. The move did not change the outcome, with Jurors convicted Scott of first-degree murder of Laci and second-degree murder of Connerwhereupon the judge sentenced him to death in 2005. The verdict benefited greatly from the help of Amber Frey, who worked with police days after Laci's disappearance to extract and record as much information as possible from Scott, resulting in a whopping 29 hours of phone conversations, per Rolling Stone. The conviction was overturned in 2020 after the California Supreme Court ruled that a “series of clear and serious errors in jury selection” meant the jury was not entirely impartial. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 2021, and a request for a retrial in 2022 was denied.

Where “American Murder: Laci Peterson” ends, “Face to Face With Scott Peterson” begins

American Murder: Laci Peterson manages to bring the focus back to Laci by interviewing not only the people involved in the case, but also those who can tell the story about Laci herself: family, longtime friends and Sharon Rocha, her mother, who, according to Borgman, “wanted to talk about Laci's soul and the dragonflies that Laci loved. How Laci is still with them and how Conner – Laci's unborn son – is still with them.” As a result, Scott Peterson – who was contacted by Borgman but declined an interview (according to Today) – is largely absent from the series. Yet even now, Scott Peterson seems unable to relinquish the spotlight to Laci, with a competing documentary, Face to face with Scott Peterson appeared on Peacock days after the publication of American Murder: Laci Peterson.

The latter part describes the Laci Peterson case in more detail, while the former part focuses on Scott's efforts to make amends. Face to face with Scott Peterson deals with alternative theories about Laci's disappearance and death, including a burglary that occurred across the street the same day, and witnesses who claim to have seen Laci alive and well with the dog after Scott began his journey. Scott defends himself while being interviewed for the documentary and laments the injustices that have happened to him.

For the cynics among us, it is difficult not to make the connection between Scott's willingness to speak in a documentary that is essentially an argument for his exonerationcoupled with the involvement of the Los Angeles Innocence Project, whose efforts to assist Scott in his pursuit of DNA evidence that could lead to his release. The difference between the two is whether they are facts or speculation, and as Variety points out in its excellent comparison of the two, the so-called facts that Face to face brings up all the things that his legal team could have brought up in Scott's defense at the time of the first trial, and that was not done. Ultimately, it is American Murder: Laci Peterson it's not just about the truth, but also about compassion and love for two lives taken by a monster among monsters, and it ends with this beautiful dedication: “For Laci and Conner and those who left in time, and those who didn't.”

American Murder: Laci Peterson can be streamed on Netflix in the US

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