REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — Laci Peterson’s mother stood in the jury box of a Redwood City courtroom Wednesday, looked her son-in-law in the eyes and said, “Scott, 19 years ago today, you were in the midst of planning Laci’s murder.”
Scott Peterson, seated next to his attorney and wearing a red jail jumpsuit and shackles, looked back at Sharon Rocha.
“Yeah, you can bat your eyes, but that’s the truth,” Rocha said.
She, along with Laci’s brother and sister, addressed Scott Peterson before he was resentenced to life without the possibility of parole for Laci’s murder. He also was sentenced to 15 years to life for the murder of Conner, with whom Laci was eight months pregnant when she disappeared on Christmas Eve 2002.
As Peterson walked into the courtroom, he looked at the assembled members of his family. They were seated together in one part of the courtroom; Laci’s family was seated together in the jury box.
Peterson’s 2004 death sentence was overturned by the California Supreme Court last year due to errors made by the judge in the jury selection process.
Sharon Rocha, along with the Stanislaus County district attorney’s office, made the decision not to again pursue the death penalty against Peterson because she did not want to endure another trial.
But she said no matter what happens moving forward, “Laci and Conner will always be dead and you will always be their murderer.”
Peterson is seeking a new trial
Scott Peterson has maintained his innocence and is seeking a new trial based on allegations that a juror in his original trial lied on a jury questionnaire. A hearing on the matter will be held in late February, and the judge’s decision of whether to overturn Peterson’s conviction is expected in spring.
Sharon Rocha said she misses her daughter and grieves for her every single day. She misses her humor, her laughter and her companionship.
“I have dreams about her and sometimes I wake up and cry because they are so realistic and I know that I will never see her again,” she said.
She said she often envisions what Conner would be like if he had lived.
Sharon Rocha pictures him with dark hair and eyes like his mother’s, and about 6 feet tall. She said he would be a good person, honest, reliable and smart.
“Now think about this Scott, he would have been 18 years old now,” Sharon Rocha said. “Ten months ago, you would have been free of child support” if he had divorced Laci.
Some evidence presented at the trial was addressed during the hearing as it related to a report done by the probation department for the sentencing.
Much of the prosecution’s case was based on an extramarital affair Peterson was having with a woman named Amber Frey, which was discovered by a mutual friend weeks before Laci disappeared and prosecutors say was motivation for the murders.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Dave Harris on Wednesday talked about some of that evidence, like Peterson’s comments to Frey about losing his wife before Laci went missing and Peterson’s behavior afterward, like adding adult-content programming to his cable package, calling Frey during a vigil for Laci, and phone tap records that recorded him laughing when his mother left him a message about a sighting of Laci in Washington.
Dave Harris brought up some of that evidence, he said, to demonstrate Peterson’s pattern of lying during the investigation and throughout the trial, which he said persists today because he made a statement outlined in a probation report that he feels loss for Laci and Conner but not remorse.
“That particular statement (is) a continuation of the pattern of lies the defendant told through the investigation,” Dave Harris said, asking that the court not give any credence to Peterson’s statements about loss.
Outside court after the hearing, Peterson’s sister-in-law Janey Peterson told a group of reporters, “They put this strictly on my brother-in-law because he was having an affair.”
She said that during Wednesday’s hearing, “You did not hear one detail about how this crime occurred. You heard details about my brother-in-law’s infidelity and my brother-in-law ordering pornography on cable.”
“There is not forensic evidence. There is no timeline to this crime. Scott Peterson is innocent,” Janey Peterson added.
Defense attorney Pat Harris said after the hearing that Scott Peterson was prepared to give a statement but the judge wouldn’t allow it. “One of the things that really upsets him is this concept that he did not want to have a child, and he wanted to talk a little bit about that and the fact that he would never, ever harm Laci (and) Conner. I think he wanted to talk about the fact that they went to great lengths to have a child.”
Harris also mentioned a burglary that took place in the neighborhood around the same time and said law enforcement and prosecutors never thoroughly looked into a possible connection.
Pat Harris said during the hearing that Scott Peterson had no violent history and that most people spoke “glowingly” of him. Friends interviewed after the disappearance said, “He doted on Laci.”
Pat Harris acknowledged Peterson lied to people about his extramarital affair. And, he said, after that was made public, the perceptions of Peterson changed. “When she (Frey) comes on the scene, it changes. Attitudes changed. ... He quickly became the most hated man in America.”
Laci’s family members initially defended Scott as a good husband, but when they learned of the affair, their suspicions grew and they eventually had no doubt of Peterson’s guilt.
“Your evil, self-centered, unforgivable, selfish act ended two beautiful souls,” Sharon Rocha said to Peterson on Wednesday.
Peterson, who like everyone else in court wore a face mask, did not show visible emotion during the hearing but did shift in his seat when Sharon Rocha was called up to speak.
Laci’s sister, Amy Rocha, said in court that she was cheated out of the special relationship shared by sisters and her opportunity to be an aunt to Conner. In a voice that wavered at times, Amy Rocha said the holidays are forever changed; each Christmas Eve she lives a nightmare.
“The sociopathic actions of Scott Peterson and disregard for Laci and Conner’s lives warrant the most severe punishment,” Laci’s brother, Brent Rocha, said during his statement. He also struggled at times to speak.
Brent Rocha remembered his sister as the life the party; she had an infectious smile and loved to laugh. “She was a vibrant young woman who was living life to the fullest as any young 27-year-old expectant mother would,” he said.
Sharon Rocha talked about the dinner she and her late companion, Ron Grantski, had with Laci and Scott on Dec. 15, 2002, which she has thought about over and over again during the past 19 years.
She said she thinks about how Scott Peterson chuckled when she asked him how his drive back was from the San Francisco Bay Area the day before. She later learned he’d actually been in Fresno visiting Frey.
And she thinks about sitting on the couch with Laci later that evening, resting her hand on her belly, hopeful to feel Conner move.
Sharon Rocha said her daughter looked at her and said, “’Scott doesn’t want to do that, he doesn’t want to feel the baby move.’ And then she said, ‘But he’ll come around one day.’ I could see the hurt in her eyes and that just broke my heart.”
“I’ve thought about, all the while we were there that evening, you were already planning her murder,” Sharon Rocha said. “I never did feel Conner move and that evening was the last time I ever saw my daughter alive.”
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