Laci Peterson

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Laci Peterson
Born	May 4, 1975 Modesto, California, United States
Died	c.2002, aged 27
Spouse	Scott Peterson (1997-her death)
Children	Conner Latham Peterson (unborn)
Parents	Dennis Rocha and Sharon Anderson

Laci Peterson, born Laci Denise Rocha (May 4, 1975– circa 2003),^[1] was the subject of a highly-discussed missing-person case after she went missing while eight months pregnant with her first child. Laci was last seen alive on December 23, 2002. Her husband, Scott Peterson, was convicted of her murder and is currently on death row at San Quentin Prison.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Disappearance 3 Aftermath 4 See also 5 Notes

[edit] Biography

Laci Denise Rocha was born in Modesto, California. Her parents, Dennis Robert Rocha and Sharon Ruth Anderson, met in high school and married shortly after graduation.^[2] Their first child, Brent Rocha, was born in 1971. Laci was the couple's second child, born in 1975. Her parents separated after Laci's first birthday. Dennis later remarried and had another daughter, Amy. Laci grew up on her family's dairy farm in Escalon, CA,^[1] and she was a cheerleader in junior high and high school. After graduating from Thomas Downey High School, Laci attended California Polytechnic State University. At Cal Poly, Laci Rocha majored in ornamental horticulture. She hoped someday to open a specialty plant shop. She lived with boyfriend Kent Gain, but the couple later broke up. While at Cal Poly, Laci met Scott Peterson at a small restaurant in Morro Bay called Pacific Cafe. In December 1996, they were engaged, and they married on August 9, 1997, a few months before Laci's graduation. For the first two years or so of their marriage, they delayed trying to have children, but in December 2000, they decided to try for a pregnancy. It took longer than expected, and it was later reported that Scott said, when asked about how he felt about the pregnancy, he "hoped for infertility." Sharon Rocha stated in her book that she did not think Laci knew about this. On the verge of scheduling fertility tests, Laci and Scott Peterson conceived naturally in mid-2002. The baby boy was due on February 10, 2003, and the couple had planned to name their son Conner Latham Peterson. Laci was looking forward to motherhood, and she also kept a diary throughout her pregnancy.^{[3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]}

[edit] Disappearance

Apart from her husband, the last people known to have spoken to Laci before her disappearance were her half-sister, Amy Rocha, who cut Scott's hair the evening of December 23, 2002, at Salon Salon while she and Laci waited, and her mother, Sharon Rocha, who talked to her by telephone shortly thereafter, around 8:30pm the same evening. Shortly after 10:00 am the following morning, a neighbor found the family dog, a golden retriever named McKenzie, running loose in the neighborhood, wearing a collar and a muddy leash. The neighbor then returned McKenzie to the yard. Laci's 1996 Land Rover Discovery SE sport utility vehicle was in the driveway, and her Louis Vuitton purse, containing her keys and cell phone, was hanging in the bedroom closet.

When Scott Peterson returned home from either fishing or golfing that evening, Laci was not there. He washed his clothes, ate some cold pizza, took time to clean up the kitchen, and took a shower. At that point (roughly 5:15 pm), he called Sharon Rocha to ask if Laci was with her. When she replied that she wasn't, Scott said, "Laci's missing." Sharon would later say that she knew in her heart something horrible had happened to her daughter. Scott stated that when he left, Laci was watching an episode of Martha Stewart, and planned to walk the couple's dog, McKenzie, in nearby East La Loma Park.

Her parents called the police at 6 pm. A search of the park and surrounding areas immediately ensued. It was highly out of character for Laci to leave without a word.^{[citation needed]} Police, family members, and neighbors searched widely on foot, in all-terrain vehicles, patrol cars, and sport utility vehicles, with helicopters equipped with search lights and heat sensors, and with water rescue units, search dogs, and horseback teams.^[13] Law enforcement agencies from several counties became involved. Police suspected foul play, doubting that Laci would vanish on Christmas Eve without contacting anyone. At a press conference, detective Al Brocchini said, "That is completely out of character for her."^[14]

A $25,000 reward was offered, later increased to $250,000, and finally to $500,000 for any information leading to her safe return. Posters, blue on yellow ribbons, and fliers circulated, and the LaciPeterson.com website was launched. Friends, family, and volunteers set up a command center at nearby Red Lion Hotel to record developments and to circulate information, and over 1,000 volunteers signed up to distribute information and to help search for Laci.^[15] Critics alleged that this was another example of missing white woman syndrome, and that other cases of similar caliber (primarily that of Evelyn Hernandez) were being ignored by the media and the community.^[16][17]

On April 13, 2003, a couple walking their dog discovered the decomposing but well-preserved body of a late-term male fetus on the San Francisco Bay shore in Richmond's Point Isabel Regional Shoreline park^[18], north of Berkeley. One day later, the body of a recently-pregnant woman, wearing cream-colored maternity pants and a maternity bra, washed to shore one mile away from where the baby's body was found. The woman's cause of death was impossible to discern; due to decomposition, the body was decapitated, the forearms were missing, the right foot gone, and the left leg from the knee down was missing. Later reports from the medical examiner revealed that there were injuries, two cracked ribs, that happened at or about the time of death. DNA tests verified that they were the bodies of Laci Peterson and her son. Mother and fetus had not been separated by coffin birth, as had been speculated. Rather, Laci's upper torso had been emptied of internal organs and allowed for the fetus to pass through a perforation in the top of the decomposing uterus.

[edit] Aftermath

From the start, Scott Peterson was reluctant to talk to the press; at one point, he stormed out of a family press conference when reporters asked if the police considered him a suspect. Laci's brother, Brent Rocha, defended Scott, claiming that Scott was too distraught to make public statements about Laci, and adding that that did not mean he was involved in her disappearance. "No way," Rocha said. "Absolutely not." Laci's family maintained Scott's innocence,^[19] and volunteers said that he joined their efforts at the command center every day.

It was later revealed that Scott Peterson had had numerous extramarital affairs, one of which Laci knew about, but the most recent with a massage therapist named Amber Frey, a single mother from nearby Fresno. The affair began after Scott met a woman, Shawn Sibley, at a trade convention where he represented his company, TradeCorp, and told her he was single and "looking." He joked that he should put "horn-dog" on his name-tag to help him meet women. Though Sibley was attached, she thought Peterson would be a good match for Frey, a friend of hers. She set them up on a blind-date in mid-November 2002. Frey informed police of her relationship with Peterson shortly after seeing news of Laci's disappearance on TV, and agreed to record their phone calls. She informed them that, a few weeks before Laci's disappearance, on December 9, Peterson had told her that he was a widower and that these would be his first holidays without her.

Scott Peterson was arrested on April 18, 2003 in La Jolla, California in the parking lot of a golf course, where he claimed to be meeting his father and brother for a game of golf. At the time of his arrest, Peterson was carrying $15,000 in cash, had four cell phones, camping equipment, a gun, a map to Frey's workplace that had been printed the day before, Viagra, and his brother's driver's license.^[20] His hair and goatee had been dyed blonde. The police took this as an indication that Peterson had planned to flee, possibly to Mexico.

During Scott Peteron's trial, audio recordings^[21] of Peterson and Amber Frey's telephone conversations were played, and the transcripts were publicized. The recordings revealed that in the days after Laci went missing, Peterson continued to call Amber on a regular, almost insistent basis. In one of the calls recorded, Peterson claimed to be celebrating New Year's Eve in Paris, at the Eiffel Tower, with friends named Pierre and Pascqual. He said the crowd was "huge." He called Amber "sweetie" and sounded happy, even excited. In reality he was at Laci's New Year's Eve candlelight vigil.

The death of Laci and her son led to the United States Congress passing the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which is widely known as Laci and Conner's Law. On April 1, 2004, Sharon Rocha (Laci's mother) and her common-law husband Ron Grantski were in attendance at the White House when President George W. Bush signed the bill into law.^[22]

In late 2005, a Stanislaus County judge ruled that Peterson was not entitled to collect on his late wife's $250,000 life insurance policy, having been convicted of her murder. Under California state law, criminals may not profit from insurance policies. On December 19, 2005, the money was given to Laci's mother, Sharon, as the executor of Laci's estate.^[23][24]

In 2006, Laci's mother, Sharon, wrote For Laci : A Mother's Story of Love, Loss, and Justice a biography and memoir about the life and death of her daughter. All proceeds are used to fund the Laci and Conner Search and Rescue Fund, which Sharon Rocha had founded.

Many observers^[who?] have drawn parallels between the murder of Evelyn Hernandez and that of Laci Peterson, as both were murdered late into their pregnancy, their mutilated torsos lacked heads, and parts of their limbs were both found in the San Francisco Bay.^{[citation needed]} Scott Peterson's attorney, Mark Geragos, suggested at one point that the two pregnant women could have been murdered by a ritualistic Satanic cult, pointing out the way both women's bodies were decomposed and the location where both bodies were found.^{[citation needed]}

On September 20, 2006, Former Congressman William E. Dannemeyer sent a letter to Attorney General Bill Lockyer pointing out that both Laci and Evelyn disappeared on satanic holy days, and that they both ended up in the San Francisco Bay with their hands, feet, and heads missing.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] See also

• Scott Peterson
• Domestic violence
• Jessie Davis, similar missing-person case
• Lori Hacking, similar missing-person/murder case
• Evelyn Hernandez, possibly connected similar missing-person/murder case^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Notes

• Rocha, Sharon (2006). For Laci. Crown Publishing Group.