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“I Believe This is Bullshit": Authorities React to Scott Peterson's Burglary Theory Defense
Scott Peterson's legal team may believe a neighborhood burglary could be the cause of Laci Peterson's death, but the detectives who spent months investigating the case have rejected the theory.
Scott Peterson’s family and attorneys may believe his pregnant wife, Laci, could have been killed in a botched burglary, but the investigators who helped put him behind bars for murder don’t.
“I believe this is bullshit,” former Modesto Police detective Al Brocchini said in Peacock’s Face to Face with Scott Peterson, which explores the burglary theory and provides commentary from Scott himself for the first time in over 20 years.
Here's how authorities in the docuseries responded to Scott's defenders' claims.
When did Laci Peterson disappear?
Laci disappeared on Christmas Eve 2002, when she was eight months pregnant. Scott told investigators he had been out fishing in the cold waters of the San Francisco Bay and returned home later that afternoon to find the couple’s dog — still with its leash on — in the backyard and no sign of Laci.
One of the couple’s neighbors reported seeing the dog running through the neighborhood around 10:18 a.m. that morning and said they put it into their fence.
A massive search effort was launched to find Laci, but suspicion soon turned to Scott himself after detectives learned he’d been having an extramarital affair with massage therapist Amber Frey.
When the bodies of Laci and the couple’s unborn son Conner washed up along the shores of the San Francisco Bay in April 2003, not far from where Scott said he had been fishing, detectives moved in to make an arrest.
Although no DNA evidence ever linked him to the crime and the bodies were too decomposed to determine a cause of death, Scott was convicted in 2004 of first-degree murder in the death of his wife and second-degree murder for the death of his unborn son.
What is the Medina Burglary Theory?
More than two decades after Laci’s death, Face to Face with Scott Peterson presents another theory about how Laci could have met her grim fate. The theory, known as the Medina Burglary Theory, centers around a home burglary that occurred at the Medina residence across the street from Laci and Scott around the time Laci disappeared.
Although investigators have placed the timing of the burglary on Dec. 26 — two days after Laci disappeared — Scott’s legal team, led by the Los Angeles Innocence Project, and his biggest supporters believe there’s evidence, including witness accounts, to suggest it may have occurred two days earlier.
“The burglary could have occurred about the same time Laci went for a walk,” investigative journalist Mike Gudgell explained in the limited series. “It’s possible that Laci confronted the burglars, or saw the burglars, or the burglars saw her and were worried about whether she would call the police. So either one of those scenarios could have triggered a panic that led to her abduction.”
They point to a burned-out orange van found Dec. 25 about a mile from where Laci disappeared.
Fire investigator Bryan Spitulski reported finding a mattress with what looked like blood in the back of the van. Although a piece of fabric from the mattress initially tested positive for the presence of human blood in the field, the Department of Justice would later conclude after a more thorough analysis that no blood was found.
Despite their conclusions, questions continue to swirl about the van and whose DNA might be inside, especially after several witnesses reported seeing a brown van outside the Medina home on Dec. 24.
Detectives respond to the Scott Peterson Medina Burglary Theory
While Scott’s defense team and his biggest supporters, including sister-in-law Janey Peterson, feel the burglary theory is a viable explanation for what may have happened to Laci that fateful morning, those who spent months investigating the case do not.
“This recent evidence that they’ve discovered about the burned-out van doesn’t really concern me,” former Modesto Police Detective John Buehler said. “First time I ever heard of that was just in the last few weeks when the L.A. Innocence Project took up this case.”
Scott’s legal team fought to have evidence from the van tested for DNA as part of their efforts to re-examine the case, but a judge denied the request in May, ruling that only a piece of duct tape found on Laci’s pant leg would undergo further testing.
Buehler told Face to Face with Scott Peterson that he didn’t oppose testing the evidence linked to the van, but also didn’t believe it would change the outcome of the case.
“My feeling is, hey, test that evidence and then you’re going to be able to show that it doesn’t come back to anything to do with Laci or Scott,” he said. “Anybody that has a thought that there’s a claim of innocence on Scott’s part doesn’t know the case as well as those of us that worked it did.”
For Buehler, the most damaging evidence against Scott was the discovery of the bodies on the shore of the San Francisco Bay.
“The things that are probably most convincing for me is where the bodies were found, when they were found, and the conditions they were found,” he said. “Because the body was submerged for so long, and because of the way the limbs were separated from it, it was obvious that it was placed in the water, weighted, and held down.”
Detectives believe Scott used hand-made anchors to weigh Laci’s body down before tossing it overboard from a secret boat he had bought just weeks earlier.
Buehler said that if Laci been abducted by burglars, who later tried to frame Scott as some have suggested, they wouldn’t have weighed the body down because they would have wanted it to be discovered.
“Wouldn’t they just put her body right on the beach?” he asked.
He also pointed to comments Scott allegedly made to others during Laci’s pregnancy that suggested “he didn’t really want to be a father.”
According to Buehler, when one of Scott’s friends asked if he was excited about the pregnancy, Scott replied “Well, I was kind of hoping for infertility.”
Brocchini also said authorities found blood on the couple’s duvet, which was later determined to be Scott’s, and there was an indention on the bed that looked like something had been lying there. He added that when Scott first reported Laci missing to a neighbor, he claimed he had been out golfing all day, not fishing.
“There is absolutely no reasonable doubt that Scott murdered Laci and his child, Conner, none,” he said. “He did it. Jury got it right.”
As for the burglary theory, Brocchini said the two men linked to the robbery, Steven Todd and Glenn Pearce, both had alibis for the time of the murder.
“It was investigated thoroughly,” he said.
Buehler added that witness testimony can be notoriously unreliable.
“It would be very easy for a witness to want to be helpful, to claim later that they saw Laci when actually they didn’t, it was a mistaken identity thing or more sinister, people who wanted to get involved in this because it was high profile,” he said.
They are both convinced the right man is behind bars for the crime.
“It’s just too much circumstantial evidence to ignore,” Buehler said.
Scott’s family, however, has vowed to continue to fight for the case to be re-examined.
“Our biggest hope is that we not only are able to free Scott, but ultimately find out what did happen to Laci and Conner,” Janey said. “We need both and Laci deserves both.”
Watch Face to Face with Scott Peterson, streaming exclusively on Peacock. The series will also air on Oxygen on Monday, November 25 at 8/7c.
