| Peterson quickly turned Conner's room into storage area July 20, 2004 By Brian Anderson - CONTRA COSTA TIMES Prosecutors tried to paint Scott Peterson as a callous father-to-be, showing jurors today photos of what would have been his first child's room being used instead for storage. Months before Laci's body washed ashore, her husband had piled chairs and bedding into the nursery of his Modesto house, police detective Darren Ruskamp told jurors. A rocking chair in the room was nearly buried in sheets and pillows, he said. Laci's due date on Feb. 10, 2003 had narrowly passed when police once again decided to search the family's Covena Avenue address. They had searched the property Dec. 26 and Dec. 27 and returned to find things changed, Ruskamp said. One of the most glaring differences was the mattress propped against the windows inside the house. During cross examination, defense attorney Mark Geragos worked to tie the mattresses to a break-in that occurred at the house Jan. 19, 2003, a month before the second search on Feb. 18, 2003. Geragos also suggested the mattresses helped block out the invasive eyes of "lookyloos" and reporters. Ruskamp acknowledged the mattresses could have been placed against the windows for those reasons. He also testified that he was unaware that someone rammed a truck into the warehouse Scott used for work before police came to search in February. Items were moved from the warehouse to Scott's house after that incident, Geragos said. But the photos of the nursery could prove powerful evidence for jurors, perhaps more so if prosecutors are allowed to bring in statements Peterson made during an interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer. "The door is closed until there is someone to go in there," Peterson said of the nursery in the Jan. 28 interview, which was played last week outside the jury's presence. It was too emotionally difficult for him to even enter the room, he said. Prosecutors want to juxtapose those comments with photos showing the nursery being used for storage eight days after his wife was expected to give birth to the couple's first child. HOME INDEX LACI SCOTT AMBER EVIDENCE-NEWS ALIBI-WITNESS LIST TRIAL NEWS |
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