Morgan Absher
Appearances
48 Hours
Tracking a Crime
While Kaylin pieces together the timelines and breaks down the hard facts of these cases, I'll be diving into the theories and pulling at the threads that may or may not add up.
48 Hours
Tracking a Crime
These clues shine a light on stories that have been waiting, sometimes for decades, to finally be heard. So join us as we open a case and uncover the breakthroughs, the heartbreak, and the relentless pursuit of answers behind these unforgettable investigations.
48 Hours
The Mind of a Murderer
While Kaylin pieces together the timelines and breaks down the hard facts of these cases, I'll be diving into the theories and pulling at the threads that may or may not add up.
48 Hours
The Mind of a Murderer
These clues shine a light on stories that have been waiting, sometimes for decades, to finally be heard. So join us as we open a case and uncover the breakthroughs, the heartbreak, and the relentless pursuit of answers behind these unforgettable investigations.
48 Hours
The Day My Mother Never Came Home
While Kaylin pieces together the timelines and breaks down the hard facts of these cases, I'll be diving into the theories and pulling at the threads. that may or may not add up.
48 Hours
The Day My Mother Never Came Home
These clues shine a light on stories that have been waiting, sometimes for decades, to finally be heard. So join us as we open a case and uncover the breakthroughs, the heartbreak, and the relentless pursuit of answers behind these unforgettable investigations.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Sir, you're at a vigil for your missing pregnant wife. Can't you call your affair partner later?
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
It's not just this. There's a lot of comments that Scott made to Amber that she shared with police and all throughout this investigation. But there was one that really... Alarm bells went off for me when I heard this. Amber mentioned that on December 23rd, Scott had actually called her and talked about wanting to go get a vasectomy.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And as we know, December 23rd, he was at a doctor's appointment with Lacey.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
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Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
It is quite bizarre. You would assume as someone who had a wife that was missing, he'd be going above and beyond, making every call, making sure every lead was thoroughly investigated and following up and all of this. And he wasn't.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
There's even one account where he was talking to someone and was telling them, yep, I'm standing by at an airport ready to hop on a flight and go and investigate if I need to. And he was nowhere near an airport at that time.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
It wasn't just the home either. He actually ended up selling Lacey's car. Making decisions that you would make as a couple or, hey, we don't have answers yet. It's only been, I don't know, a little over a month at this point. And he decides to sell her car. What's she going to drive when she comes back? So that was really kind of goofy to me.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And it gets even weirder when, you know, later on, family and people start going into the home and they notice that Connor's nursery, something Lacey had really spent time preparing, Scott had ended up turning into a storage unit, basically.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
There was stuff everywhere. Yeah. Everywhere. And... He did end up getting a storage unit, interestingly enough. And this might be the worst one for me. In that unit, in a wastebasket, was Scott and Lacey's wedding album. Wow.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
I have no words. And you could say everyone handles traumatic, difficult, scary life events differently. But for me, if my partner was missing, that would be the last thing on my mind.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yeah. It's very apparent at this point that Scott is really just withdrawing from the investigation more and more each day. He's he's honestly seemingly to a lot of people uninterested.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And I believe Amber, you know, kind of played it off as she didn't listen to the news and things like that. So they were still able to carry on this seemingly normal relationship. But... Amber did eventually confront Scott and asked him, hey, why, you know, back in early December, December 9th, why did you tell me that your wife was dead? And Scott really did not have a reason for her.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
He he kind of just tried to, like, sweep it under the rug and move past it and say,
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yeah. And they they really stood by him, you know, despite a lot of suspicious comments and weird things coming up. I saw one comment that the day after Lacey went missing, Scott was asking if cadaver dogs were going to be used in the investigation. And, you know, at this point, it's still a missing persons case. So, yeah. And so when Amber came forward, which I completely agree, very interesting.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Stay with us because we're about to break down the details that had the entire country captivated back in 2002 and still have people actively debating to this day. Okay, here we go. Our very first episode of Clues. Our very first episode. I'm so excited. It's been a long time coming. It has been a long time coming, and I'm sitting here. I'm very nervous, you guys.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
you know, commendable, very risky for her, they were done. And at this point, there's some comments that Sharon actually went to Scott and said, where is my daughter?
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
no one bought it like it just it really tanked his reputation even more than it was already tanked and didn't he try to lie about the picture that came out about him and amber too oh yeah yeah yeah like one of these pictures from the holiday party he went to with amber it ended up getting sold to a tabloid from someone it was a company holiday party for i don't know it got sold and he tried to be like is that me
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yeah, so clue number one is autopsy report. At this point, all hope that they would be found safe completely vanished, as Lacey and Connor's bodies were found on April 13th and April 14th, 2003. And we have some details from this autopsy report, but it is pretty graphic, so listener discretion is advised. If you guys want to skip past this, markers will be in the description.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Please feel free to do so. According to the autopsy, Lacey's head and parts of her limbs were missing, but her cause of death was labeled as undetermined because there was no evidence of any man-made wounds. Basically, there was no way to definitively say what happened to her and Connor with 100% certainty.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Lacey's autopsy revealed that she had cracked ribs and her uterus and cervix were still intact. She was missing almost all of her internal organs, but the examiner speculated that the uterus was okay because of its location anatomically, and it was, you know, deeper in the pelvis. And this did provide some info.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
It showed that, you know, she never went into labor, no baby passed through the birth canal, and that will come up in our discussion. Yeah. The right side of Connor's body was mutilated. The medical examiner pointed out that the baby's umbilical cord appeared to be torn. It wasn't cut or clamped as you would see in normal birth practices.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
According to that same forensic pathologist, Connor was in the womb until shortly before the bodies were found. But it's unclear how he came out of her body due to the condition Lacey's body was found in. Reports also say that there was a piece of plastic around Connor's neck and that there was also tape on Lacey's lower torso.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
I'm sweating, and I don't know if that's because it's our first episode.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
The medical examiner said that he believed the plastic found around Connor was debris. There had been a storm, you know, recently and concluded that. But he did say that the duct tape was deliberately placed or appeared to be.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And something I think that is crucial to mention here is where the bodies were found. And that is near the Berkeley Marina. The same place that Scott claimed he'd been fishing on the day that Lacey disappeared. The same place he handed over that parking ticket to investigators.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yeah, I believe they found not one, not two, not three, but four cell phones in this bag. And which put all these items in a bag. It's a go bag.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
$15,000 cash. You're planning on being gone for a while. I mean, to carry that much money on your person's just... To go golfing, to bop around town, like that's an insane amount of money to carry on you. So it really, to me, to me, looks like he was ready to go at any moment.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And something that really kind of speaks to this and maybe maybe, you know, Scott's mindset here is when Lacey and Connor's bodies were discovered, he didn't even make any calls.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Oh, I think this is going to be a have your cake and eat it, too.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
That's what I saw in some of the sources.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
But I want to get into a few more of these clues. But can you give us a little bit more background on Scott's boat first?
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Which brings us to our second clue, which is two dark strands of hair that were found in a pair of pliers on Scott's boat. Initially, it was reported that only one strand of hair was found. But months later, it came out that there was actually a second strand of hair that was found in the evidence envelope. And investigators sent the strand off to the FBI for testing.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And sure enough, it came back as a match for Lacey.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
I mean, it would seemingly have to be kind of intentional for it to get caught. I shed everywhere. Like if you went and looked in my car right now, there'd be blonde hairs everywhere. But it was the fact that they were wrapped up in those pliers. And it's not odd for someone to have pliers on a boat, especially when fishing.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
You know, you could use them to take a fish off of your hook or cut a line that got tangled or whatever. It's not that. It's the fact that by his own admission, Scott said Lacey had never been on the boat. Right.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yeah. Clue number three, the cement anchors, which is a clue that is sometimes not even mentioned in documentaries or podcasts that you see on this case because it is so contested. And at first I was envisioning kind of that standard ship anchor, the nautical one. Sometimes people have as decorations in their home. But this anchor was not that. This was actually a bucket anchor.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
It basically looks like you took a small bucket and just poured cement in it. It has the same shape. It's cylindrical. It's a little wider on the top than the bottom. Sometimes you put metal rebar at the top to be able to tie a rope with it then. It's a very common way to DIY anchors if you want to save a little money and...
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
and not buy an actual one yeah and there's even videos that walk you through it on youtube so not not that odd and i did find a report that said that scott went out and bought cement not long before lacy disappeared and buying cement in itself is not suspicious I mean, I use similar cement anchors for my stands at my podcast studio.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yeah. When investigators went to check out Scott's boat, they found that inside of the boat there was a homemade concrete anchor that he had made. But as they're looking around his warehouse where he keeps this boat and made the anchor, there's concrete dust everywhere. It's all over the boat. The floor leading out of the warehouse onto the sidewalk outside.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
They actually even ended up finding some concrete in his home. Wow. And in a boat cover for the boat that was then found in the shed later. Covered in gas, but... We're not going to go there.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Most of this concrete dust was nearby where Scott said he had made the anchor. But investigators noticed that there's also four indentations of where it looks like additional anchors could have been made. I mean, there's dust everywhere, which is kind of messy for making one anchor. But there's also no dust in four other spots.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
So imagine you're making a pastry or putting cinnamon on the top of a coffee.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
You put a stencil there, powder your sugar where you pick up the stencil. There's no powdered sugar.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
That's kind of what investigators thought they were seeing in Scott's warehouse.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yeah. And we do have the pictures.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
I know, what are we going to end up calling this family?
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
I mean, the fact that there was this dust everywhere to make just one anchor, kind of odd. Right. But Scott also told police that he used only part of a 90-pound bag of concrete to make this single anchor that was found on his boat. But there was way too much concrete missing for only one anchor to have been made. Right. So then where is the rest of the concrete?
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
So Scott claimed that he used the rest of the concrete to pave his driveway. And this is really where the point of contention is for this piece of evidence. A witness for the prosecution testified that the concrete in the driveway did not match the material used for the anchor. But a witness for the defense testified that they were a match. I believe Scott's one of Scott's lawyers even said, like,
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
oh it's it is a match but there was gravel on the driveway and it got mixed in and so it's hard to determine but conflicting and again why it's it's contested a little bit
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Please do, because I have not come up with anything for my two Hot Takes people. I'm like, I go back and forth. I'm like, the Hot Takians? Hot Takians. What are we over there, you guys? Yeah, what would that be?
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
So the prosecution said that Scott definitely made four anchors. And because that they were missing, these anchors could have been used to tie down Lacey's body to on her wrists and to on her ankle. Got it. And now this is where if you turn to Reddit a little bit and get into the subreddit for this case that you will see a lot of people question, like, how did the hair get in the pliers?
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And a lot of people speculate that when Scott was attaching these anchors to Lacey, he might have actually put one of these cement anchors around her neck. And as he was twisting whatever wire or material he used to attach it, that is how the hair then got twisted up in these pliers.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
So let's just say there were five anchors in total. Why would you need that many for a quick fishing trip? What are the chances that multiple anchors would go missing? Anchors are, you know, made with a specific purpose. If you're going to DIY these things, you're making them to use fishing again and again to keep your boat in place when you're casting out your line.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And once you're done, you reel it back in. But something investigators noted here is there was no rope found on Scott's boat.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
well also because yeah you don't one you don't leave anchors down there and then just like boat away but also they have to be attached to your boat somehow to hold it in place right and there was actually an expert witness that took the stand and implied that the one anchor that was found on scott's boat wouldn't have even been enough to hold that boat in place in that bay with the currents and right everything i mean it's the ocean and i remember reading that the anchors were about eight
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
I was very surprised when I saw the picture.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yeah. So what are we going to be here?
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
I went wedding dress shopping recently oh my gosh it was a lot yeah I was very overwhelmed you went to like a really nice place right yeah I went to Kleinfeld's um I was like a fan of say yes to the dress but like I didn't know how intense it was going to be and it was still an enjoyable experience but like you definitely feel the pressure there yeah did you feel pressured to pick something while you were there I might have been peer pressured into a dress
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
You have a professional, a trained diver knowing exactly where an item he lost is and he couldn't find it right away. Like it took four different subsequent dives to go back and get it. Then you're not going to find those little anchors. No. And like being from Minnesota and spending a lot of time out on the lake. I've dropped cell phones.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
I've dropped sunglasses and they sunglasses go off my face right in front of me. I see them sift down through the water. I know where they land. Yeah, I can't find them. They're gone. They're gone. Yeah, absolutely. So it does make sense that despite having this device and technology that he wouldn't be able to find these anchors.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And again, in my mind, as I said, like leave no trace. Why would Scott want to make anchors again and again and again? You make your own anchors to save money and DIY them.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
But on that initial seized computer that they found, the browser history also showed someone conducting searches on December 8th for boat ramps on the Pacific Ocean and then examining nautical charts, currents and maps for the Berkeley Marina site. And San Francisco Bay, including the area around Brooks Island.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
If we're looking at what Scott even said on Christmas Eve, going fishing was a game time decision. Right. He said it was a last minute. The weather was too bad for golf. Seemingly easy pastime. You're going to go out on the ocean. Yeah. But he was searching these things back on December 8th.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
He sure was. So there were a bunch of different visits to fishing-related websites, and he was looking up sturgeon and striped bass. And based on what Scott said, he said he was trolling, using bait dragged behind the boat to catch these fish, and he was using lures.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Well, they actually had a witness take the stand of a fishing expert and said that the time of day would be wrong for that type of those types of fish. Yeah. The area was wrong. And you can't even troll for that kind of fish. It's like against the fishing rules.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
He was researching. He seemingly should have known. But I mean, from the lures being wrong, those sturgeon like live bait, it just it didn't add up based on expert testimony.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Not very long and something that is literally just coming to my mind now. There's no mention that he ever caught a fish. No, I don't.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Which the expert did say wrong time. Yeah. I believe the expert said if he wanted to catch a fish, he should have been coming back. from the marina at around 10, not going there at 10. It just didn't make sense. And especially for someone that was familiar with boats and fishing. Yeah. It just was not adding up.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
I went down the rabbit hole on this section specifically. And this is something that comes up quite a bit in court documents. First and foremost, my question was, how is this legal? It was. Investigators went by the book. They got a warrant to do this.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And it did allow police to place surveillance outside the Petersons' home and add these GPS tracking devices to Scott's vehicles, which included a series of cars and trucks that he rented for a few days at a time because his truck had been impounded.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yes. So we do have data that places Scott at the marina at least three different times in rented vehicles. First, on January 5th, he drove there in a gray Subaru, spent just five to ten minutes there. Then on January 6th, he returned to the marina in a red Honda, again, only spending a few minutes there. And on January 9th, he drove there in a white pickup truck.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Somewhere around this time, police had realized that Scott figured it out. Their cover was blown. So they seized these GPS trackers. But he did go back in Lacey's Land Rover. And that vehicle, because of the technology it had, they were able to get the data from the manufacturer.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Honestly, I went to like Anthropologie after and their dresses are like just beautiful and affordable and it's fine. It'll be a journey. You guys will see it when the day does come.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And it placed Scott there again. And he went back a fifth time in a Dodge pickup truck.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Didn't tow a boat up. Wasn't trying to go fishing again. And again, you guys, we have to think about the distance that he was driving. Five hours round trip. For just a few minutes. So based on the data that investigators were able to gather, it was looking really suspicious. And in 2004, when Scott was on trial, this GPS technology had not been used in California's court system yet.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
But I will say prosecutors did really establish its reliability and proved that this GPS data wasn't just random tower pings or, you know, it added up. It was factual evidence. And they did the legwork before this was admitted into the case.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yeah. And I will say the judge did a seemingly fair job. From my perspective, there was a lot of evidence that wasn't admitted into this trial. So yeah, it did seem like this was a reliable, valid source of information.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yeah, this GPS data kind of showed this obsession with returning to the marina, and it put him right at the location where Lacey and Connor's bodies were later discovered. Now, I've always heard that criminals go back to the scene of a crime, but I was curious about why this actually happened, so I did a little bit of research.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
There's a book called Profiling Violent Crimes, an Investigative Tool by Ronald M. Holmes and Stephen T. Holmes. And Chapter 5 digs into this in a lot more detail. But basically, there's a few reasons why people would go back to the scene of a crime. First, to relive the crime. Being in that location helps evoke memories and brings them back to that experience.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Next, to ensure there's no remaining evidence or that things haven't moved or been physically exposed. And finally, to interact with law enforcement. Some criminals derive satisfaction from
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yeah. I mean, per some investigators reports, Scott was even saying, like, you're wasting time looking at the marina.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Exactly. Yeah. To me, it really seems like Scott wasn't this worried husband searching for his wife. It goes back to he knew where they were and he was making sure that they didn't surface.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
So that brings us to where we are today. We are now two decades since his initial conviction. And to this day, Scott Peterson maintains his innocence. And there's an ongoing debate with Scott's legal team pushing for a new trial. Plus, the L.A. Innocence Project has even taken up the case for Scott and are trying to get him freed. Kaylin, can you talk a little bit more about the L.A.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Innocence Project, L.A.I.P., and how they came to get in contact with Scott? And this is different than the Innocence Project, right?
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
don't don't feel bad if you have some boxes sitting there after a year of living in your place like me are you speaking from experience it's fine that's fine you know we're starting a new podcast i don't have time to unpack after a year no i know it's hard it really is it's it's the the packing is stressful the unpacking oh i'll pack all day just take forever i will pack all day yeah i need someone to help me i'd rather put it in the box than out of the box i don't know mentally why we do that but it is a thing
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And I'm really curious what evidence they're trying to include in this. What do they think they have that is going to prove he's innocent?
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yeah, I will say this is something the subreddit has really picked apart. There's a post recently where someone went to the very same intersection near their home and took a picture of someone across walking their dog. It's really hard to make out details, identifying details. And they did live by a really popular park.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
So there could have been other pregnant women walking their dogs around the same time. And something that's important to note here is during the initial trial, Scott's team didn't call any of these witnesses to testify. Right. Right. Something to note.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
I mean, I wouldn't want to be so close to all the spectacle.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
If you look at videos, I mean, the lawn was covered.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
No one's going to see me over in this house.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And what's interesting about the van is a lot of people were speculating that it could have been linked to a cult. I believe there was interesting. Yeah, there was like some report that came out where a woman had reported that she had been assaulted and taken into a van. So there was some speculation that maybe it was tied to this cult. Strange.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
But I didn't see much about it going further than that.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Let's do it. Today we are opening up the case file for the murder of Lacey Peterson. But before we get into this case, let's talk a little bit about who Lacey was. Lacey Rocha was born on May 4th, 1975 in Modesto, California. During all of my research for this episode, it was clear that Lacey was just a spark of light.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
There's a lot of speculation, too, about why pawn jewelry. One account I saw, I think the jewelry that they did pawn around the 10th to the 14th was only worth like $250. And Scott had just bought a boat for thousands of dollars. In cash. In cash shortly before. So there was a lot of speculation about motive. Why were they doing this?
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And I think something that I saw come up quite a bit is Scott had a lot of debt.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
yeah you were saying hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt and it was from his business from the business which it was a fertilizer business of you know of a parent company i'm not sure the exact details of that but i think something important to note here too is that there was a 250 000 life insurance policy on lacy
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And some people say this was taken out when they found out she was pregnant, but it was actually about a year and a half before that's the date we have on the policy. So I want to be clear about that. But one part of this that I do really want to touch on before we wrap things up is a part of this case that keeps coming back. And Scott really uses as his I'm innocent piece of evidence.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
I actually found a really great article from SFGate where some of her friends were interviewed, and I love this quote from them. Quote, she didn't care what you thought of her. She was just happy to be where she is and who she is. Just so sure of herself. I love that. Just a happy-go-lucky gal. In 1994, Lacey met a fellow student named Scott Peterson at a party in San Luis Obispo, California.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
comes up a lot and it's a piece of evidence that the trial judge actually did not admit in evidence it is a reenactment that scott's defense team made where they took a boat out they went out into the bay same bay and tried to dump a 150 pound dummy off the side of this boat However, this boat was not the same boat as Scott's. The motor was in different place.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
The seats were higher and in different spots. There was plywood planking over some of the openings where the judge was like, I'm not sure if there's something in there.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
The judge on that initial trial pointed out that the defense team member who was in the reenactment video wore a weight belt. He was standing on a portion of the boat that altered the center of gravity. And it appeared the boat was taking on water even before he went to put this dummy overboard.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
But it's not the same boat. It's not the same boat. And there's other podcasts and other things I've listened to that they bring up this boat as this big piece of evidence as to why maybe Scott didn't do this.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
He would have fallen in. The boat would have capsized. However, this trial judge says to the defense team, like, basically, hey, not trying to tell you how to how to do your your case here, guys, but this is not the same boat. I'm not admitting this, but I will let you use Scott's boat. You can have it from evidence, take it back out into the bay, find similar conditions, and replicate it.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
They passed. They never brought it up again.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
They brought it up. In Scott's appeal, they basically said that one of the judge's conditions, which was having a member of the prosecution present, violated his rights or it wouldn't make it fair. And that's where they're mentioning it again. Yeah. Current day. But.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
him and his team were given the opportunity to reenact it with the boat with similar conditions to show that it was physically impossible without a question you are innocent because you could not have done this yeah and they passed you know they passed and i don't know why if if i was trying to prove my innocence and i said i didn't do that and it's impossible i
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
I would have taken that boat from evidence. But they didn't. They ended up passing. Yeah.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
I know. I'm going to be honest, too. I think it's probably pretty clear at this point to tell where I'm at in this case. I do think Scott did it. After reading... the 103-page Supreme Court appeal document and their decision. I think it's, to me, it feels pretty indisputable. But before I got into this case, I honestly didn't know. I kind of leaned towards Scott being innocent.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
But nothing came of that initial meeting until she ran into him again at a restaurant where he worked as a waiter. She was so smitten with him, and in a bold move, Lacey actually gave Scott her phone number.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
It was the pliers for me. Yeah. Finding her hair wrapped up in the pliers. I find it really hard to think it's from any other reason but using those as a way to tie weights to her. I think by his own admission and him saying like she was never on the boat.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
That kind of sealed it for me. But what was it for you?
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yeah. I want to see it all. I mean, where are the holes for you guys in this case? Are there, are there clues we didn't touch on that? You're like, that's what convinced me. Definitely. I really, really want to see it. And yeah, It's a tough one, but it's hard to argue with all of this put together. Yeah, I agree.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
It does. It compounds. And you pull one thing out, it might not add up. But again, when you put all of this together and all of the behavior he exhibited after... Absolutely. But to wrap us up, Lacey's story is one of unimaginable loss, but her legacy is one of undeniable impact. There's a law that was passed by the U.S.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Congress called the Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004, also known as Lacey and Connors Law. This law recognizes any unborn child as a separate legal victim if they're injured or killed during the commission of certain federal violent crimes, even in instances where the perpetrator may not know the woman was pregnant.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
There's actually an article I found where Lacey's mom, Sharon, recalled her calling her after this meeting and saying she's met the man she's going to marry. And her mom asked if they had even gone out yet. And Lacey replied, not yet, but we will. Like she just she knew she had a feeling she wanted what she wanted and she was going to make it happen.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Everything we read about Lacey in preparation for this episode shows that she was this deeply caring person who, without a doubt, would have made an amazing mother. And to me, it really shows what a remarkable person she was, because even after her death, Lacey was not only able to advocate for her own child, but for so many others.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And that's something that will continue to matter long after headlines fade. One thing that is really important for us to mention before we close this case file is that according to a 2022 Harvard study, the leading cause of death for pregnant women in the U.S. is homicide. There are way, way too many women out there who share Lacey's fate.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
So if you are going through something similar, please know that there are resources available and we are going to make sure that they are linked in the show notes for this episode.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
That is all we have for this episode of Clues. We really hope you enjoyed unraveling this case with us. And we're going to open another case file next week. And we want to hear from you. As we said, your thoughts, your theories. Did you dive down the Reddit rabbit hole like I did? We want to hear it all. Your feedback is crucial.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
We want to make sure we are doing these cases justice and making a show that you guys enjoy. It's really what's going to make this community so special.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And if you're hungry for even more content, we've got you covered. Join our CrimeHouse Plus community on Apple Podcasts.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
For their first date, Scott took Lacey on a deep sea fishing trip. But apparently things didn't go as planned because Lacey ended up getting seasick. Eventually, Scott proposed in December of 1996 and they got married in 1997. Lacey was an absolutely gorgeous bride.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
In 2000, they moved 200 miles north to Modesto, California, so that they could be closer to Lacey's family and really start building their life together. Lacey loved being a wife. She loved watching Martha Stewart, cooking, and everything that really went into being a homemaker. But what she really wanted was to be a mother. By some accounts, Scott did not want to be a father.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Or at the very least, it seemed like he couldn't really make up his mind and went back and forth quite a bit. But in May 2002, Lacey got pregnant. And by that point, Scott was seemingly getting on board. He was attending Lamaze classes with her, going to doctor's appointments, all of the things you would expect a loving, supportive partner to do.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Hi, welcome to Clues, where we sneak past the crime scene tape to explore the key evidence behind some of the most gripping true crime cases.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
But in late 2002, when Lacey was around eight months pregnant, things took a dark turn.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Yeah, and it wasn't like he just told one person he went and played golf. He actually told four different people that he played golf that day. But his alibi quickly shifted.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And just so everyone is aware, and again, look at social media if you're more of a visual person, or YouTube for the picture, Berkeley is over 80 miles away from Modesto. And traffic patterns may have changed, maybe highways, roadways even changed.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
But when I plugged the two locations into Google Maps and searched what traffic would look like on Christmas Eve of this year, it shows that the drive is around two and a half hours. We're talking about a five-hour round trip. And given that he pulled the parking ticket at 12.54 p.m. and then left a voicemail for Lacey at 2.15 saying he was headed back, it doesn't give you a lot of time to fish.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And we also have to consider he was pulling his boat behind his vehicle. And from my experience hauling, you know, with a trailer, you do even have to drive a little more cautious, a little slower. Yeah.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And I'm your internet sleuth, Morgan Absher. I'll be diving into the theories and pulling out the threads of these cases that seemingly add up or don't.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Not long, especially considering Scott was by himself. Yeah, right. Like it usually is so much nicer if you're working with another person as you're the one backing the boat down the launch and someone then catches it. But he was doing all of this by himself, too, which really adds to the complexity of this.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
It is so interesting to me how it went that fast. Like, he gets home, washes his clothes, which I don't know about you, but I find that kind of weird. You get home and right away you're just washing one outfit.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Unless it was really grimy from the boat, but... No, and it didn't seem like he started calling his mother-in-law right away. You know, he walked in to his gate, saw that his dog was loose, running around with a leash on, but didn't start getting worried initially.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
Ate some food. Ate some food. Really blase, chill. Yeah. No, no, no worries. But it is interesting that on that phone call, he goes to Lacey is missing. It's not immediately.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
And this is where I need to interrupt you a little bit. Yeah. So remember how earlier it was mentioned that on December 14th, just 10 days before Lacey's disappearance, that she had gone to a Christmas party without Scott? He was on a business trip. He couldn't make it. Well, it turns out that Scott did go to a Christmas party that night on the 14th, but it wasn't with Lacey.
Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
MURDERED: Laci Peterson
It was actually with a woman named Amber Fry, who also happened to be Scott's mistress. And not only did Amber have no idea that Scott was married at the time of Lacey's disappearance, He also had allegedly told Amber that his wife was dead. From an article I found, quote, And during this time, too, Scott,