| Taped phone calls catch Scott Peterson in numerous lies to family, friends By Harriet Ryan - Court TV August 26, 2004 Scott Peterson showed scant interest in a tip that his missing wife had been spotted in Washington, waiting almost 13 hours before calling authorities for more information and chuckling to himself when his mother suggested he fly there to follow the lead, according to phone calls played Wednesday at his capital trial. The more than 30 calls captured by a police wire tap in the month after his wife, Laci, disappeared show Peterson deceiving his parents, mother-in-law, mistress and friends about his whereabouts and activities. In conversations about the tip in Longview, Wash., for example, he repeatedly and falsely told his parents, friends and mistress he was in constant contact with authorities investigating the sighting. "I just talked to the Longview police again and they're still they said they have 50 hours of [surveillance] tape to look at," Peterson told his mother, Jackie, the day after he learned of the details of the sighting from a reporter. "The detective seems real nice up there," he added. In reality, Peterson had never talked to the investigating officer. When he finally contacted a detective three days later, the officer had already determined the woman was not the vanished mother-to-be. About the same time, his mother left him a voice mail in which she said, "Are you wanting to hop on a plane and go to Longview, Washington? I am." Jackie Peterson then recommended he stay with a friend in the area. The wiretap picked up Peterson's response — a low, but clearly audible laugh that the transcriber of the wire tap wrote as, "Ha Ha Ha." The transcription angered Peterson's attorney, Mark Geragos, who called it "editorializing." "It's just not there," he said of the "Ha Ha Ha," as jurors stared up from their transcripts. Judge Alfred Delucchi told jurors to rely on their ears, not the transcript. Prosecutors are expected to argue that Peterson brushed off the tip because he already knew that his 27-year-old wife was dead. He reported her missing on Dec. 24, 2002. Prosecutors claim he murdered her the night before and dumped her body in the San Francisco Bay. The tapes played for jurors were culled from almost 3,000 calls Peterson made or received between Jan. 11 and Feb. 4, 2003, Steven Jacobson, the wire tap supervisor from the Stanislaus County Drug Enforcement Unit, testified. LIES ON LOCATION Under careful questioning by prosecutor Rick Distaso, Jacobson highlighted several calls made on Jan. 11. On that day, it was widely reported in the media that police searching the bay floor were closing in on an object that they believed was a body. Records from Peterson's cell phone indicate he was near the bay and later just south of it. But he told the people he phoned he was hundreds of miles away in the Central Valley. "Where are you?" his mother asked about 10:48 a.m. "West Fresno," he replied. He was at the Berkeley Marina, a three hours' drive away. Two hours later, he called his mother-in-law, Sharon Rocha, who asked, "Where are you headed now?' "Well, I'm actually in Bakersfield now," he told her. Cell records show he was in Gilroy, 218 miles from Bakersfield. He later told his father he was in Bakersfield and two friends he was in the town of Buttonwood. His father, Lee, and mother sat directly behind the defense table as the tapes played. Peterson sat between his lawyers, paging along with the transcripts and occasionally glancing up at a projection screen. Distaso used a map to show the distances between the locations Peterson purported to be calling from and his actual location as indicated by cell tower data. MYSTERIOUS WHISTLE Perhaps the most intriguing recording from Jan. 11 was a short tape in which Peterson checked a voice mail from his mother-in-law, Sharon Rocha. In the call, a gleeful Rocha told her son-in-law she had just learned the object was a boat anchor, not her daughter. "Of course, we knew it wasn't Laci, but I just wanted you to know, um " she said. As her voice trailed off, Peterson gave a low whistle. Prosecutors have suggested he was expressing relief that her body remained hidden, but the defense is likely to argue he was only relieved that hope for his wife's safe return remained. The calls also gave jurors a window into Peterson's mindset while his wife was missing. He told a friend, Guy Miligi, that he had finally gotten around to opening the Christmas present his wife, Laci, had left wrapped under their tree. It was a woodworking tool, he said. "I lost it for a couple hours. It was the weird," he said. At other times, however, he seemed very detached from the search for his wife. In the four days before he learned the woman sighted in Washington was not his wife, Peterson seemed preoccupied with other things. He chatted extensively with his mistress, Amber Frey, talked to an employee at length about business deals and even planned a boozy outing to the beach with his sister-in-law. "Okay, we'll come haul you out of the bar," Janey Peterson told him on Feb. 2, 2003. LOOKING TO SELL The conversations also included three in which Peterson discusses with his friend Brian Argain, who is a realtor, the possibility of selling his home. "I'd like to put it on the market right now," Peterson said. He asked Argain to keep the request quiet and told him it would be too "freaky" to live there after his wife's disappearance. "I mean, there's no way if Laci comes back that we're going to stay there," he told Argain during a Jan. 22 call. The realtor agreed to look into a sale. "Can I sell it furnished?" Peterson asked. In a subsequent call, Argain told Peterson it would be difficult to sell the house without Laci Peterson's signature. After a moment, Peterson asked, "Hey, what about renting it." PARTNERS IN CRIME? During a cross-examination that is to continue Thursday morning, Geragos focused on court papers Jacobson filed to get permission for the wire taps. Those papers included suggestions by Jacobson that Peterson might have co-conspirators. "I believed that more than one person could have been involved in this case," Jacobson conceded. Geragos quizzed him about suspicions he and other officers had about Frey. The investigator acknowledged that detectives thought she had carried on secret talks with Peterson after agreeing to tape calls with him for police. "I was very suspicious of her cooperation," he said. But, he added, those doubts were not borne out. "As I look back on it now law enforcement was mistaken," Jacobson said. "We were operating under not a valid concern." During his two-day cross-examination of Frey earlier this week, Geragos asked her repeatedly if she had hidden calls from police or knew authorities suspected she had. She denied both. Peterson, 31, could face the death penalty if convicted of two counts of murder. HOME INDEX LACI SCOTT TRIAL ALIBI-WITNESS LIST AMBER WIRETAPS |
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| LACI & CONNER PRAY FOR JUSTICE |