The lead investigator in Laci Peterson's murder tried to give the circumstantial case against her husband more weight Monday by suggesting that as many as 82 pounds of the fertilizer salesman's cement are missing and may have been used to sink his pregnant wife's body to the San Francisco Bay floor. Modesto police detective Craig Grogan said Scott Peterson, in an interview 10 days after his wife's Dec. 24, 2002, disappearance, admitted to purchasing "something like" 60 to 90 pounds of cement at Home Depot. Police who searched his property could only account for eight pounds of that material: a single, homemade concrete anchor. "Did he tell you what he did with the bag when he was done making the anchor?" Chief Deputy District Attorney Birgit Fladager asked Grogan. "I think he said he took it home and threw it in his trash," the detective replied. Peterson's statement to Grogan was different from an explanation he offered his brother-in-law a little over a week later. He told Brent Rocha he used some of the concrete mix to patch his driveway. A cement expert contradicted that account last week. Grogan said cement debris scattered around a flatbed trailer in Peterson's warehouse also appeared at odds with the mixing and molding of one relatively small weight. The detective told jurors in Peterson's capital trial that based on his own familiarity with making concrete, "it seemed like a tremendous mess for making one, eight-pound anchor." In a Dec. 30 phone call secretly recorded by the detective and played for jurors, Grogan pressed Peterson about when he made the anchor. Peterson said it was the week before his wife's disappearance. "Thursday, Friday, Saturday, maybe somewhere in there," Peterson said. The cement is one of many mysteries in the case. Even after Grogan's testimony Monday, numerous unanswered questions remain, including when Peterson bought the bag and how large it was. Prosecutors have not produced a receipt. Grogan implied that, based on a comment by Peterson, the cement mix was purchased after he bought a boat on Dec. 9. The sale did not include an anchor, and Peterson told the detective that he decided to make his own weight after reasoning that it was smarter to spend $3 on a bag of cement than $30 on an anchor. Grogan's interviews with Peterson were limited because, by Dec. 30, Peterson had retained a lawyer. On Jan. 3, Peterson came to the police department to pick up his wife's Land Rover, and Grogan briefly questioned him about the cement. Police secretly videotaped the conversation, but an audio recorder malfunctioned so jurors could only see the exchange and not hear it. Grogan said he asked Peterson what size the bag of cement was, and the tape showed the detective holding his hands far apart as if carrying something heavy. "I'm asking if it's a 60-pound or 90-pound bag, and the only answer I got out of him was, 'It was something like that,'" Grogan testified. Further complicating the issue is the June testimony of Peterson's employee, Eric Olson. He told jurors he saw a "partial bag" of cement in Peterson's warehouse in November, and the defense is likely to argue that Peterson made the anchor from what was left in that bag rather than purchasing a new one. Not 'normal behavior' Although the detective, who headed the four-month investigation resulting in Peterson's arrest, is not the final prosecution witness, his testimony — which may stretch into next week — is the culmination of the state's 157 witnesses and a preview of prosecutors' closing argument. Grogan's testimony incorporated the previous accounts from the victim's family, the defendant and other officers as well as revealing several new pieces of information. He testified, for example, that Peterson offered police two different theories of what had happened to his wife. Less than 24 hours after her disappearance, he told Grogan he thought a vagrant had probably attacked her for the flashy jewelry she had recently inherited from her grandmother. Grogan said Peterson claimed his wife was wearing the gaudy baubles the last time he saw her and said he believed "that she went into the park and a transient had robbed her for her jewelry and taken her." A little over a week later, he told Grogan that he thought his wife was abducted by someone who wanted a baby. "Do you think when she has the baby, I'll get half my family back?" Grogan quoted a tearful Peterson as asking him Jan. 2. During Peterson's four-month trial, the defense has contended that both are plausible theories for Laci Peterson's murder. The lion's share of the jewelry Laci Peterson had inherited was found in her bedroom, along with her wedding band, but a pair of screwback diamond earrings and a diamond-encrusted Croton watch were never recovered. Grogan led jurors through a day-by-day recitation of the investigation, beginning with his first encounter with Peterson at a Christmas Day press conference at the police department. He said his suspicions grew after interviewing him for about three hours and conferring with other officers. Peterson, he noted, was the closest person to her, the last to see her alive and the first to report her missing. In addition, he said, he had no witnesses for his alibi, a Christmas Eve morning fishing trip to the bay that was outside his "normal behavior." "I decided based on what I knew so far that I needed to try to eliminate Scott Peterson, and because of that I completed a search warrant for his house, the vehicles and his warehouse," Grogan said. The detective said he thought Peterson's washing of his fishing clothes and the presence of mops and a bucket outside the house might indicate an attempt to clean up a murder. In the end, no forensic evidence of a killing was found in the couple's home. 'Is that supposed to be me?' He said he repeatedly asked Peterson if he was having an affair, but he insisted he was not, even after the detective confronted him Jan. 3 with a photocopy of a snapshot of him embracing his mistress in front of a Christmas tree. On the videotape screened for jurors, Grogan slid the picture in front of Peterson as he sat in a police interview room. On the tape, Peterson stares down at the poor-quality image, wrinkles his brow and then shakes his head. "He said, 'Is that supposed to be me?'" Grogan testified. He said Peterson said the woman looked like a college acquaintance, but again denied he was having an affair. Peterson, dressed in a navy suit, sat quietly at the defense table as Grogan recounted the exchange. Laci Peterson's mother, Sharon Rocha, sat across the courtroom in the front row of the gallery. Rocha and the victim's stepfather, Ron Grantski, did not attend court last week to avoid graphic autopsy photos and Peterson's parents, with whom they have clashed. Also testifying Monday morning were two detectives summoned to the bay, where Laci Peterson's remains and those of the son she planned to name Conner washed ashore. Judge Alfred Delucchi told jurors Monday afternoon that the prosecution expects to wrap up its case by the end of next week. Peterson's lawyers are expected to put on a brief defense before the case goes to the jury. DETECTIVE GROGAN INDEX CEMENT INDEX HOME INDEX LACI SCOTT TRIAL ALIBI-WITNESS LIST WIRETAPS |
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| LACI & CONNER "Such a beautiful woman...Such a tragic loss. God Bless! You two will Forever be in Our Thoughts." KENNETH & APRIL * KENTUCKY * GUESTBOOK |
| Lead Detective hints at 82 pounds of missing cement September 21, 2004 |
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