The Laci Peterson Case: What Happened and Where Scott Peterson's Case Stands Now

Laci Peterson, eight months pregnant with her son Conner, disappeared from her Modesto, California home on Christmas Eve 2002. Her husband, Scott Peterson, was convicted in 2004 of murdering them both and sentenced to death. As of June 2026, that murder conviction still stands: his death sentence was overturned in 2020 and replaced with life without parole in 2021, and his recent bid for a new trial, backed by the Los Angeles Innocence Project, was rejected by a California judge in April 2026, a ruling his lawyers are now appealing.

What happened

On December 24, 2002, Laci Peterson was 27 years old and roughly eight months pregnant. She and Scott had decorated for the holidays and were expecting their first child, a boy they had already named Conner. Scott told police he left that morning to go fishing alone at the Berkeley Marina, about 90 miles from their home. When he returned that evening, he said, Laci was gone.

Laci’s family reported her missing. Volunteers and law enforcement launched one of the most intensive searches the region had seen, with her image appearing on flyers and national news within days. For nearly four months, the question of what had happened to a heavily pregnant woman who vanished on Christmas Eve gripped the country.

The answer came in April 2003. The remains of a full-term male infant washed ashore on the eastern edge of San Francisco Bay on April 13. A day later, the partial remains of an adult woman were found nearby. DNA confirmed they were Conner and Laci. The bodies had surfaced only a few miles from where Scott Peterson said he had been fishing alone the morning his wife disappeared.

Who Laci Peterson was

Before she became a name in headlines, Laci Denise Rocha was a daughter, a sister, and a substitute teacher known for her warmth and her bright presence. She grew up in Modesto, studied ornamental horticulture at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, and met Scott Peterson while both were students. They married in 1997.

Friends and family described a woman who loved to entertain, kept an immaculate home, and was openly thrilled about becoming a mother. The pregnancy was wanted and celebrated; the nursery was nearly ready. Conner, the son she never got to hold, is remembered alongside her, not as a footnote but as a second victim with his own name and his own short, stolen future.

Laci’s mother, Sharon Rocha, became one of the most enduring public voices in the case. Her grief, and her insistence that her daughter and grandson not be reduced to a legal abstraction, shaped how many people came to understand what was lost. The Rocha family’s perspective remains central to this story.

Timeline of key events

• August 1997: Laci Rocha and Scott Peterson marry.
• December 24, 2002: Laci, about eight months pregnant, is reported missing from Modesto. Scott says he was fishing at the Berkeley Marina.
• Late December 2002 – early 2003: A massive search unfolds; the case dominates national coverage.
• January 2003: Amber Frey, a Fresno massage therapist, comes forward to say she had been in a relationship with Scott, who she says told her he was unmarried. She begins cooperating with investigators.
• April 13–14, 2003: The remains of baby Conner and then Laci are found along San Francisco Bay, near the marina.
• April 18, 2003: Scott Peterson is arrested in La Jolla, near the Mexican border, with dyed hair, a large amount of cash, and camping gear.
• 2004: The trial is moved to Redwood City in San Mateo County on a change of venue, after intense pretrial publicity in Stanislaus County.
• November 2004: A jury convicts Scott of first-degree murder in Laci’s death and second-degree murder in Conner’s.
• December 2004 / March 2005: The jury recommends death; the judge formally sentences Scott to death.
• August 2020: The California Supreme Court overturns the death sentence.
• 2021: Scott is resentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
• January 2024: The Los Angeles Innocence Project takes up his case and seeks new DNA testing.
• April 2026: A judge declines to review the new-evidence claims; the defense announces an appeal.

The investigation and key evidence

The case against Scott Peterson was circumstantial. No one witnessed the killing, and no murder weapon was ever recovered. Prosecutors instead built their case on a convergence of details that, taken together, they argued pointed to one conclusion.

The geography was the centerpiece. Scott’s stated alibi placed him at the Berkeley Marina the morning Laci vanished. Months later, the bodies of Laci and Conner washed ashore in the same stretch of San Francisco Bay. To prosecutors, the overlap between his self-reported location and where the victims surfaced was the most damning fact in the case.

Investigators also pointed to behavior and forensic-adjacent evidence. Cellphone records and his account of his movements were scrutinized for inconsistencies. Financial activity drew attention, including steps that the state framed as consistent with a man preparing to leave his old life behind. The affair with Amber Frey, revealed while Laci was still missing, supplied a motive narrative; recorded calls in which Scott misrepresented his circumstances were played for the jury. At the time of his arrest near the Mexican border, he had changed his appearance and was carrying cash and survival gear, which the prosecution presented as evidence of flight.

The defense countered that circumstantial threads are not proof, that no physical evidence directly tied Scott to a killing, and that an unknown intruder could have been responsible. That theory, an outside abduction, would later become the focus of post-conviction efforts.

The trial and verdict

Because of saturation coverage in and around Modesto, the trial was moved on a change of venue to Redwood City, in San Mateo County. The proceeding ran roughly six months in 2004 and was followed nationally, drawing comparisons to other heavily televised California cases.

In November 2004, the jury returned its verdict: guilty of first-degree murder for Laci and second-degree murder for Conner. The split reflected the legal theory of the case under California’s then-existing law regarding the killing of a fetus. The jury subsequently recommended a death sentence, and the court imposed it. For more than fifteen years, Scott Peterson sat on California’s death row at San Quentin.

The conviction placed the case in the same cultural conversation as other prosecutions that turned on circumstantial evidence and public fascination, including the later Chris Watts case, in which a husband was found responsible for killing his pregnant wife and their children. But each case is distinct, and the Peterson verdict rested on its own record.

The death sentence, resentencing, and the Innocence Project challenge

In August 2020, the California Supreme Court overturned Scott Peterson’s death sentence. The court found that the trial judge had made significant errors during jury selection, improperly dismissing potential jurors who expressed general opposition to the death penalty without adequately determining whether they could still follow the law. Critically, the court left the underlying murder convictions intact. It was the punishment, not the finding of guilt, that the ruling disturbed.

In 2021, after further review of juror-related issues, Scott Peterson was resentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He remains incarcerated under that sentence.

In January 2024, the Los Angeles Innocence Project announced it had taken on his case and filed motions seeking new DNA testing and additional discovery. In May 2024, a judge granted limited relief, ordering new DNA testing on a single item, a piece of duct tape found on Laci’s pants, while declining broader requests. The organization continued investigating, focusing in part on a burglary reported across the street from the Peterson home around the time Laci disappeared and on witness statements it argued pointed away from Scott.

In 2025, the Los Angeles Innocence Project pressed a habeas corpus petition asserting innocence and claiming the jury had relied on flawed evidence. It is important to be precise about what this is: a post-conviction challenge, not an exoneration. No court has cleared Scott Peterson, and the murder convictions remain in force.

Where things stand now

On April 27, 2026, a San Mateo County Superior Court judge denied the habeas petition in its entirety — rejecting all of its claims as procedurally barred, meritless, or both, and finding nothing new, admissible, or material in the evidence presented. In practical terms, the court held that the legal rules governing late-stage petitions prevented it from reaching the substance of the new claims, and that the claims it did consider did not warrant relief.

The Los Angeles Innocence Project said it strongly disagreed with the ruling and announced plans to appeal to a higher court. As of June 1, 2026, that appeal is the live question in the case.

So the current status is straightforward, even if the path was long. Scott Peterson stands convicted of murdering Laci and Conner. He is serving life without parole. His death sentence is gone, his guilt has not been overturned, and his most recent attempt to win a new trial was rejected, with an appeal pending. Nothing in the 2026 ruling exonerated him.

Frequently asked questions

Is Scott Peterson still in prison? Yes. He is serving a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. His 2004 murder convictions remain in effect.

Wasn’t Scott Peterson sentenced to death? He was, in 2004. The California Supreme Court overturned that death sentence in 2020 over jury-selection errors, and he was resentenced to life without parole in 2021. The murder convictions themselves were never overturned.

What is the Los Angeles Innocence Project doing in this case? Since January 2024, the organization has pursued new DNA testing and filed a habeas petition arguing Scott Peterson is innocent. A judge rejected the petition’s claims in April 2026. The group is appealing. This is a post-conviction challenge, not a finding of innocence.

Was Scott Peterson ever exonerated? No. No court has exonerated him. He remains convicted of both murders.

Why was the trial held in Redwood City instead of Modesto? The trial was moved on a change of venue to Redwood City, in San Mateo County, because pretrial publicity in the Modesto area was considered too intense for an impartial jury.

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Laci Peterson and her son Conner were taken on the eve of a holiday meant for family. Whatever future rulings hold, they are the heart of this case: a young mother and the baby she was waiting to meet. Their names belong at the center of the story, not at its edges.

Sources

• Judge grants new DNA testing on only 1 item in Scott Peterson case — NBC News
• Los Angeles Innocence Project plans appeal after new evidence rejected by judge — ABC7 News
• LA Innocence Project takes up Scott Peterson’s case — CBS Los Angeles
• Statement on Developments in the Scott Peterson Case in California — Innocence Project
• Judge refuses to review Scott Peterson’s claim of innocence — KRON4