| Scott Peterson's lawyer strives to throw doubt on phone evidence By Harriet Ryan -Court TV August 26, 2004 Scott Peterson's defense attorney tried to undermine damaging phone evidence Thursday with a painstaking cross-examination of the investigator who supervised police wiretaps on the double-murder suspect's lines. In a dry, often tedious cross-examination involving dozens of complex phone records, lawyer Mark Geragos implied that the investigator had overlooked evidence that Peterson quickly pursued a potential sighting of his missing wife in Washington. Testifying for prosecutors Wednesday, investigator Steven Jacobson of the Stanislaus County Drug Enforcement Unit told jurors records indicate Peterson waited 13 hours before calling authorities in Longview, Wash., and another four days before contacting the investigating detective. At the time, Peterson told his family and friends he was in close touch with authorities and was eager to find out if the woman spotted in a convenience store was his wife. Prosecutors argue that he had no real interest in the tip because he knew his 27-year-old spouse, Laci, was already dead. Geragos confronted Jacobson with two calls Peterson placed within an hour of the first news reports about the tip. The first call on Jan. 30, 2003, was to his lawyer, and three minutes later, he phoned directory assistance. The wiretap did not capture the call, but Geragos suggested Peterson asked to be connected to the Longview Police Department. He noted that the next day, Peterson used directory assistance to request the agency's number. That call was recorded by the wiretap. Jacobson said it was impossible for him to find out who Peterson had called on the 30th. Prosecutors are slated to question Jacobson further Monday. They are likely to focus on the content of the first wiretapped call to Longview. In it, he does not say anything indicating prior conversations with the police there. "My name is Scott Peterson. Um ... my wife Laci is missing and I think you're the police department that's looking at tapes of her in this grocery store, is that correct?" he asked a switchboard operator in the Jan. 31 call. The 10-minute window Geragos also focused on tests Jacobson did to determine Scott Peterson's location when he checked his cellphone voice mail on Dec. 24, 2002, the morning his wife went missing. The 81-second call has become a key battleground in Peterson's capital trial. Prosecutors contend the location of cellphone towers that handled the call make it highly unlikely that anyone other than Peterson could have killed the 27-year-old mother-to-be. An AT&T employee testified earlier this week that Peterson checked his voice mail messages at 10:08 a.m. and said that the cell towers he was connected to switched midway during the calls. Jacobson testified Wednesday that he was able to recreate that tower switch by placing a call as he drove from the couple's home to Peterson's fertilizer business. The first tower served the area near the home and the second the area near his warehouse. Prosecutors Rick Distaso and Dave Harris maintain the call pinpoints the moment Peterson departed his home with his wife's body. He told police he left his wife alive and mopping the kitchen floor between 9:30 and 9:45 a.m. She had plans to walk the dog, he said. At 10:18 a.m., the Petersons' next-door neighbor, Karen Servas, found their golden retriever in front of her driveway with its leash dragging. If the voice mail call tracks Peterson's departure from the house, it would leave just 10 minutes for Laci, who was eight months' pregnant and had difficulty moving quickly, to finish the floor, change into different clothes, leash the dog, leave the house, and be abducted, and for the dog to then run back to the house. Questioned Thursday by the defense, Jacobson acknowledged that his tests failed to recreate the call exactly. He borrowed a phone with the same network as Peterson's and then called someone who timed the call. Geragos noted that Jacobson was not calling the phone's voice mail, as Peterson did, but a third party. "I did not do a voice mail retrieval, no," Jacobson admitted. When she testified, AT&T representative Mary Anderson said calls to voice mail had slightly different characteristics than calls to a third party and that Peterson's tower records showed "anomalies" when he checked his voice mail. Sometimes when he checked a message, the call connected to towers in the next town rather than to those closest to his location. A return to Peterson's online activity Jurors also heard further testimony from a police computer expert whose turn on the stand earlier this month was interrupted because of problems with evidence and the testimony of Peterson's mistress, Amber Frey. Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department Detective Lydell Wall previously detailed Web sites Peterson visited the weekend prosecutors say he decided to murder his wife. Those sites included maps of the San Francisco Bay, tidal charts and fishing guides. Laci Peterson's remains and that of the son she was carrying washed up on the bay shore, the same body of water her husband fished the day she went missing. Geragos noted that Peterson clicked on the sites in rapid succession and asked if Wall was able to tell whether his client pored over the information or simply clicked on it for a second before visiting another page. Wall said there was no way for him to tell. Some jurors appeared restless at the slow pace of the cross-examinations. Some put heir notebooks down and stared around the courtroom. Laci Peterson's mother, Sharon Rocha, and stepfather, Ron Grantski, left the courtroom at a midmorning break and did not return. At one point late in the afternoon, police investigators also left, leaving the portion of the gallery reserved for the victim's supporters empty. Peterson, 31, is charged with two counts of murder and could face the death penalty if convicted. HOME INDEX LACI SCOTT AMBER TRIAL ALIBI-WITNESS LIST WIRETAPS EVIDENCE-NEWS AUTOPSY DOGS |
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| LACI & CONNER "My prayers go out to Laci and Conner and the family. She was a beautiful woman." PAM YOUNG - LOUISIANA - GUESTBOOK |
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| Steve Jacobsob |