(NewsNation) — Photos from inside the home of Scott Peterson provide a window into the life of the Calfornia man before he was convicted of killing his wife and unborn child two decades ago.
NewsNation correspondent Laura Ingle covered the case extensively and joined “Banfield” on Friday night with photos from inside the Modesto home, as well as photos of Peterson in prison.
The photos hang in a sort of “war room” in the home of Janey Peterson, Scott’s sister-in-law.
“(She) has really been leading the charge trying to fight for a new trial to tell anybody who will listen to her that she believes, and the family believes, he is innocent,” Ingle said.
One of the photos is of a bed, the place where one former police detective told Ingle he believes the crime might have occurred. There was no blood inside the home — save for a few specks of Scott’s at the foot of the bed — and no signs that his wife, Laci, had been stabbed or shot.
Laci disappeared Christmas Eve 2002, and her body was found four months later on the shoreline of the San Francisco Bay. The discovery was made near where Scott Peterson told police he had been fishing the day Laci went missing.
“Last year I talked to now retired detective Al Brocchini … and he said, ‘I think that Lacey was sitting on the end of that bed’ where you see that white duvet, and that Scott Peterson somehow strangled her,” Ingle said. “This was a soft kill.”
Prosecutors relied heavily on circumstantial evidence at the trial, including that Peterson had multiple cellphones on him, as well as $15,000 in cash and his brother’s ID. He’d also dyed his hair blond and had a girlfriend, allegedly telling her his wife had died before she even disappeared.
Peterson was sentenced to death, but the California Supreme Court overruled that in 2020. Prosecutors opted for life without parole at resentencing.
Now, the Los Angeles Innocence Project is taking up the case, arguing police failed to investigate other evidence, including a burglary that occurred across the street from the Peterson home the same day Laci disappeared. Police maintain the break-in happened after her disappearance.
When he was on death row, Peterson was incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison. Ingle obtained another photo from Janey Peterson showing her brother-in-law while on a video conference call with family.
It appears as though he is in a home with a couch and a window with trees in the background.
“It’s actually a superimposed photo that the prison used just to give a different background, so it didn’t look so stark when family members are talking to their loved ones who are incarcerated,” Ingle said. “All that we’ve seen for the most part from Scott Peterson are the various mug shots through the years, but now we see him having a moment with his family.”
Peterson has since been moved to Mule Creek State Prison.