| ********************************* Modesto police and firefighters carried out a massive and futile search along Dry Creek on Wednesday for a woman who is eight months pregnant who disappeared Christmas Eve while walking her dog in East La Loma Park. By nightfall, there was still no sign of Laci Denise Peterson, 27, who left her home on Covena Avenue about 9:30 a.m. Tuesday.She was last seen in the park about 10 a.m. Peterson was reported missing shortly before6 p.m. Tuesday, after her husband returned home from a fishing trip to the Bay Area, police said. Police said they do not believe Peterson decided to leave without contacting her family. "That is completely out of character for her," Detective Al Brocchini said Wednesday at a press conference. By Wednesday night, police still had no clue as to Peterson's whereabouts. Her family has offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to her safe return. Before leaving Tuesday morning, Scott Peterson said his wife indicated that she planned to go grocery shopping andwalk the dog, according to police. Officers located people who said they saw her in the park about 10 a.m. Karen Servas, a neighbor, said she spotted the Petersons' golden retriever about 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, his leash attached and muddy. Servas said she returned the dog to its yard, not realizing there might be something amiss. Police said Scott Peterson tried calling his wife on his cell phone when he finished fishing but was not able to reach her. When he arrived home, he said he found her purse in the house and her sport-utility vehicle in the driveway. He started contacting neighbors and family members, and then called police, officials said. Scott Peterson and others began searching the park. The Petersons' home is only about a block and a half from a footpath leading into the park. Lt. Bruce Able said he and a half-dozen officers went into the park almost immediately, despite the darkness.The Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department provided two pilots and its helicopter to fly a search pattern up and down Dry Creek, using its giant searchlight. A heat-sensing device also was used. Able said Modesto officers worked on the case through Tuesday night, returned to the park for another search at daybreak Wednesday and followed up with the most thorough search in early afternoon, with officers walking side by side through the park. They searched from the El Vista bridge downstream to Beard Brook Park, south of Yosemite Boulevard. In all, Able said, about 30 officers were involved in the search, including six Modesto firefighters who navigated Dry Creek in an inflatable raft and using water-rescue gear. Three police officers on horseback, two on bicycles and some canine units also were involved. Police checked homeless encampments along the creek, although an officer said many of the homeless had fled, probably because of all the activity. Police as well as volunteers also fanned out through the La Loma neighborhood, checking alleys and yards. Friends, family members and neighbors taped missing-person fliers to utility poles and asked nearly everyone who walked or rode past whether they had seen Laci. The Petersons have lived in the neighborhood about two years, and friends described the missing woman as cheerful and friendly. The search involved friends like Jeff Tomlinson of Hughson. He and his wife plan to hold a baby shower for the Petersons in a couple of weeks. Tomlinson said the Petersons are expecting a boy and already have the baby's room ready. "She's a fun-loving girl," said Tomlinson. "She's always smiling and joking with you." He was among the friends choked up over the disappearance . "All our families are just getting rolling together." Laci Peterson, formerly Laci Rocha, grew up in Modesto and graduated from Downey High School in 1993. She and Scott met while students at California State Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo. She works as a substitute teacher. Peterson is described as 5-foot-1, about 140 pounds, white, with shoulder-length brown hair and brown eyes. She has dimples on both cheeks and a tattoo of a sunflower on her ankle. She was last seen wearing a long-sleeved white shirt and black pants. ++++++++++++++++++ A bloodhound was brought in to aid police in the search for Laci Peterson, the 27-year-old Modesto woman who has been missing since Tuesday. ++++++++ FBI joins inquiry into woman's disappearanceThe 3-day-old search for a missing Modesto woman ended without success Thursday just as police posted yellow crime- scene tape around her house and served a search warrant. Officers arrived with the warrant at 7:45 p.m. at Laci Denise Peterson's housein the La Loma neighborhood. FBI crime- scene investigators joined police inside the home. Authorities said the house would remain sealed through the night, and the investigation would continue today. Police said Peterson's husband, Scott, was staying with friends. Officials declined to say what they might be looking for. No arrests had been made, and no suspects had been identified. At 10 p.m., workers prepared to haul a pair of vehicles from the Peterson home. Authorities said Laci Peterson's Land Roversport utility vehicle and her husband's Ford F150 pickup would be examined elsewhere. Thursday, police brought in a bloodhound that led authorities away from Dry Creek, which is where investigators theorized that Peterson disappeared some time between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. the day before Christmas. In other developments: Police expanded the size and scope of the search, adding more personnel and taking in neighborhoods next to Dry Creek Regional Park. A police officer interviewing people along the park's Peggy Mensinger Trail, and elsewhere around the park, reported that he spoke with a woman whosaid she heard screams about 10:15 a.m. Christmas Eve. She lives on the park's border. Over the course of an hour, police went in and out of a home near the Peterson house. The reward fund went up to $125,000. Laci Peterson's family put up the first $25,000, and family and friends added $75,000 on Thursday. The Modesto- based Carole Sund Carrington Memorial Reward Foundation contributed $25,000. Scott Peterson is the last person to report seeing his wife for certain. It was about 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, according to police, and he said he was going on a fishing trip to the Bay Area, and his wife was headed to East La Loma Park with McKenzie, an 8-year-old golden retriever. A neighbor found the dog, with leash attached, wandering at 10:30 a.m., and put the dog in the Peterson yard, not realizing that something might have been amiss. Thursday, Police Chief Roy Wasden said the leash was muddy, as if it had been dragged for some distance. Hound veers from creek Family members and area residents reported that Laci Peterson took daily walks. Under her normal routine, she would go a short distance from her home to a dirt path that leads to East La Loma Park, one of several parks that make up Dry Creek Regional Park. But at 5 p.m. when officers released the bloodhound in front of the Peterson home, the dog did not go to the dirt path. Instead, the hound led police to houses around the corner, then south to Yosemite Boulevard and eventually to Santa Rosa Avenue near E.& J. Gallo Winery. Contra Costa County sheriff's deputies, who supplied the bloodhound, concluded the search when the dog began nosing around some Dumpsters. Police searched with flashlights and climbed in, but it was not known what, if anything, they found. Thursday's search effort involved more than 50 police officers. Eight mounted officers from the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department joined their counterparts from the Modesto Police Department. The Police Department used five of its own dogs. A helicopter flew over the creek. Family members and friends of the missing woman plastered the city with more fliers appealing for information. "We just want my sister home safe," Peterson's sister, 21-year-old Amy Rocha, said early Thursday while posting fliers along Scenic Drive. The first fliers went up Christmas Day. The family did not open gifts, relatives said. "Christmas is over for us," said Brent Rocha, Peterson's brother. "We all feel empty and want our sister returned." Family members and volunteers came in from around California. The family had been using the Peterson home as a headquarters for the volunteer effort. Thursday afternoon, organizers moved the operation to the Red Lion Hotel on Sisk Road to give the family privacy and to offer a centralized location with more phone lines, said Rene Tomlinson, a friend of the family. Sharon Rocha, Laci Peterson's mother, said her son-in-law was "overwhelmed by the support of the community. "Other family members said Scott Peterson did not want to speak with reporters. The Police Department set up a command post of its own at East La Loma Park. The search continued until after dark Thursday. Early in the day, teams of officers performed a grid-pattern search in and along Dry Creek, spacing themselves evenly and slowly while walking across fields and paths, and through small orchards and through the water, in the hope of finding clues. Police said earlier in the investigation that people reported seeing someone believed to be Peterson in the park about 10 a.m. Tuesday. Walter Collinge, an avid bicyclist, said he often saw Peterson walking along the path. He skipped his bike ride Tuesday. "I wish I had been down there then. Maybe I could have prevented something from happening." The park seemed to have less than a normal-sized crowd Thursday, and the people there expressed concern. "The only reason I came down to the park to jog today was I figured it was safer than normal with all the police here searching," said Becky Ballantyne, a Turlock resident who jogs on her lunch breaks from her Modesto job. "But after this, I'm not going to jog here again until I hear something different." HOME INDEX LACI SCOTT TRIAL ALIBI-WITNESS LIST AMBER PRELIMINARY HEARING MISSING-INDEX EVIDENCE & NEWS |
| PRAYERS FOR LACI and CONNER |
| HOW IT BEGAN...........Dec 24, 2002 |
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