| Police contend Peterson made cement anchors November 17, 2003 Police investigators found what one detective said was evidence that multiple cement anchors had been made in Scott Peterson’s warehouse, Detective Dodge Hendee testified today. Police found what appeared to be cement powder spilled on the edge of a flat-bed trailer kept in the Modesto warehouse that Peterson used in his work as fertilizer salesman and where he stored his 14-foot aluminum fishing boat, Hendee said during Peterson’s preliminary hearing on double murder charges. There appeared to be at least five clear patches interspersed in the area where the powder was spilled, Hendee said. Investigators found a plastic one-gallon pitcher nearby. A cement anchor with a rebar loop at one end found in Scott’s boat fit into theplastic pitcher, the detective testified. “The weight apparently came from that pitcher,” Hendee said before defense attorney Mark Geragos objected to the answer. Judge Al Girolami had the response stricken from the legal record. Peterson bought his boat Dec. 9 without an anchor, Detective Al Brocchini testified earlier. But the presence of additional unaccounted-for anchors could provide prosecutors withclear physical evidence against Peterson, something the court has seen littleof so far in the preliminary hearing. Scott Peterson asked the judge to leave the courtroom before Brian Peterson’s graphic testimony on the conditions of the bodies. Laci Peterson’s family members, including her mother, stepfather, brother and sister, also were not in the courtroom for that testimony. All were present as Hendee testified to start the afternoon. During his cross examination, Geragos took aim at another piece of physical evidence in the case, a single hair found attached to a pair of pliers in the bottom of the boat. A DNA test on the hair showed it could have been Laci Peterson’s but not her husband’s, an FBI DNA expert testified earlier. Girolami ruled earlier Monday that the DNA test results would be allowed into court, but the defense is continuing to raise questions about how police handled the hair after finding it during a Dec. 27 search of the warehouse. After reporting a single strand was found in the pliers, two strands were found in an evidence envelope, Hendee said. Hendee said he thought the hair simply broke apart,but acknowledged that he never wrote that in a report. Hendee said he found a single 5- to 6-inch strand in the teeth of the needlenose pliers. The hair appeared to loop back around into the pliers again. Geragos stood next to Hendee as he sat on the witness stand and the two looked at a photo of the hair and pliers. “When you say it is looped, it does not appear to reflect that in the picture,” Geragos said. “I believe (it does), but I also saw it at the scene too,” Hendee said. The detective also testified the hair dropped easily into an evidence envelope when he opened the pliers. Under questioning by Geragos, who suggested earlier that the hair may have been transferred into the boat, Hendee said that a cadaver dog that searched the home earlier in the day was placed into the boat at the warehouse on Dec. 27. CEMENT STORIES INDEX PRELIMINARY HEARING INDEX TRIAL ALIBI-WITNESS LIST EVIDENCE-NEWS HOME INDEX LACI SCOTT WIRETAPS ATTORNEY PICTURES |
| PRELIMINARY HEARING - DAY 10 Monday - November 17, 2003 |
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| LACI & CONNER Missed by the World |
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