Scott Peterson's Lawyers Say They Have Evidence 'Proving' His Innocence of Pregnant Wife Laci's Murder

The Los Angeles Innocence Project has filed a petition in court presenting new evidence and witness statements they claim prove Scott Peterson did not kill his wife Laci Peterson and their unborn son, Conner.

“Had the jury heard this evidence, it is highly likely they would not have reached a guilty verdict,” the LAIP said in a statement on Monday, April 21.

On Friday, April 18, lawyers with the LAIP filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus with the California Court of Appeal seeking to overturn Scott’s 2004 conviction for the 2002 murders.

Scott, 52, has maintained his innocence since he was arrested in April 2003 after Laci and Conner’s badly decomposed bodies were found in San Francisco Bay.

Convicted of two counts of first-degree murder, Scott was sentenced to death row in 2005. That sentence was overturned in 2020. He remains in custody at the Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, Calif., while he fights for his freedom.

He and his lawyers are confident that his conviction will be overturned based on new evidence they claim “undermines the prosecution’s entire circumstantial case against Petitioner, and shows that the jury relied on false evidence, including false scientific evidence, to convict him,” the statement says.

Much of the new evidence the attorneys claim they have centers around a December 2002 burglary of a Modesto home across the street from the house where Scott and Laci lived. Scott’s attorneys had previously argued that Laci was killed after she witnessed two men breaking into their neighbor’s house while she was walking their dog, and that Scott was on a fishing trip by himself the morning she vanished.

New evidence the LAIP claims it has includes a witness who allegedly “overheard a conversation among the burglars about Laci seeing and confronting them,” according to the petition. “This evidence exonerates Scott Peterson because it shows Laci was alive when he left home on December 24, since the burglary took place.”

They claim to have new evidence about a van they believe belonged to the burglars that was set ablaze near the Petersons’ home — and they believe Laci was actually killed in the van, according to the petition.

The jury did not hear about a mattress in the back of the van with apparent bloodstains on it, and the LAIP said in its statement, that “new evidence showing the prosecution suppressed evidence of the police investigation into that van fire at the time of trial.”

Authorities believe Scott dumped Laci and Conner’s body when he went fishing the day she vanished. The LAIP claims that new evidence allegedly shows that the bodies of Laci and Conner “could not have migrated from the area where Peterson went fishing to where they were recovered,” which jurors heard about in his trial.

“Rather, their bodies were most likely placed in the waters off the Albany Bulb, a peninsula that is accessible by car and foot,” states the LAIP.

The petition challenges the prosecution’s original claim that Peterson secretly bought the boat by purportedly providing evidence that Laci and Scott bought the boat together, the LAIP claims.

The LAIP assumed lead counsel in this case in November 2023.

Laci’s family has remained steadfast in their belief that Peterson killed Laci and Conner.

In May 2024, Peterson and the LAIP won a narrow legal victory in their bid to clear his name when a judge ruled that a piece of duct tape found on Laci’s pants could be re-tested, according to NBC News.

Calling the case against Peterson “entirely circumstantial,” the petition says that “no direct, physical or forensic evidence was found supporting any part of the prosecution’s theory, or otherwise implicating Petitioner.”